The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. Human Disposition, Talent, and Upbringing in the Light of Spiritual Science

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! When spiritual science sets itself the task, with regard to the general goals of humanity, of penetrating the spiritual world that lies beyond our sensory world—the world we perceive with our senses and can comprehend with the intellect bound to our brain— then this spiritual science seeks to draw strength and confidence for human life from the spiritual world in which humanity’s very origin lies. And in doing so, it seeks to uplift the individual through an understanding of what lies at the very root of things.

[ 2 ] We approach the spiritual world in an entirely different way when we do not merely seek the sources of spiritual life in general—not just for the sake of our own understanding—but when we are, so to speak, concerned with the redemption of the spirit, the real spirit behind material existence, and when our task in relation to this real spirit may be, so to speak, to help it achieve a breakthrough through the physical-material realm. How often do we find ourselves facing the human being in the making—the human being whom we see, from early childhood onward, having to work the spirit out, so to speak, from the hidden depths of his being, the spirit that takes more and more possession of the physical limbs and the spiritual-soul capacities bound to the body as an external instrument. When, as educators, we are dealing with this real spirit that rests within the mystery of the human being itself and that is to be brought forth, we are engaged in a search for the spirit in an even higher sense than in the mere knowledge we seek, so to speak, as a fulfillment of our soul’s longing.

[ 3 ] Today, the spiritual researcher finds himself in a unique position when he seeks to observe the developing human being—this developing human being who gradually reveals his or her innate dispositions and abilities and who demands that we devote ourselves to his or her education. The spiritual researcher is therefore in a special position with regard to the developing human being because, in the face of this real life of the spirit, he must immediately point to one of the great facts of spiritual science, which today by no means enjoys the particular favor of the educated world. This fact should become apparent to the attentive observer of life when he sees how, from the very first moment of human existence, the spiritual lies, as it were, in the deep layers of the human being, and how it then unfolds day by day, week by week, year by year, in such a way that he must literally see this process of emergence in the increasingly defined features of the face, the gestures, the movements of the individual limbs, and the abilities that lie dormant deep within the human being. Here we look at what is working its way to the surface from hidden depths within the developing human being, and we must ask ourselves: Where are we to seek the origin of these predispositions, these abilities that are slowly emerging there? — And with regard to this search, people of our time are by no means inclined to approach those facts to which spiritual research must point. We have pointed out this fact on various occasions—today it is to be used merely as a foundation for our actual consideration. On a higher level, this fact is a repetition of another fact that has not been known for very long in the development of humanity.

[ 4 ] I have pointed this out many times before—oh, human memory is generally very short in this regard—that in the 17th century, not only laypeople but also learned naturalists were convinced that matter, such as mud, could spontaneously generate animals, fish, and the like, without any seed of life having been introduced into this mud—spontaneously. It was a tremendous turning point for the natural sciences when, in the 17th century—just think, as late as the 17th century!—the great naturalist Francesco Redi first put forward the principle that opened up new, global perspectives for scientific understanding: Life can only come from life. — “If you believe,” he said, “that living beings can arise from river mud, then you have not examined the matter closely; otherwise, you would have found that the source of life lies in the germ, and that this germ merely draws in matter in order to manifest itself.” — The fate of truths is often similar to that of Francesco Redi. He narrowly escaped the fate of Giordano Bruno, for he, too, was regarded as a heretic. Today, we can range from the most radical Haeckelians to Haeckel’s opponents: within certain limits, the principle “Life can only arise from life” is universally accepted. It is taken for granted. Such is the fate of great truths. At first they are regarded as heresies; then, after some time, as self-evident truths. People then cannot comprehend how anyone could ever have believed otherwise.

[ 5 ] The task of the humanities today is to advance this idea to a higher level. It is simply an inaccurate observation to say that what struggles to come into being as something mysterious within the developing human being—and finds ever more definite expression in gestures and facial features—stems merely from the inherited traits of the father and mother and so on. From a scientific standpoint, this cannot be explained by these inherited traits any more than the emergence of the earthworm from the matter of river silt can be assumed to occur without an earthworm germ. Here, spiritual science demonstrates today that, for human life, what enters into existence at birth as the essence of the human being must be traced back to another, entirely soul-based existence, in which its spiritual-soul seed lies. And just as the earthworm seed draws upon external physical substance to grow, so too does this spiritual-soul seed in the human being draw solely upon the qualities and powers of the parents and ancestors to develop with their help.

[ 6 ] We must trace the spiritual-soul aspects back to spiritual-soul origins. We must trace the soul elements present in human beings back to a soul seed, just as—in further development—we must trace the spiritual elements back to a spiritual seed. And by accepting this, we are led to the fact of repeated earthly lives, which today not only irritates so many people but is also perceived by many as a daydream or fantasy, as something utterly abhorrent. The concept of repeated earthly lives tells us that the life we are living now—in which our abilities and characteristics unfold—is a repetition of earlier earthly lives and the foundation for later lives. The stages of life in which we are clothed in a physical body are alternated with other forms of existence so that what we have absorbed in this present life—what we have experienced in the school of life—may be carried over into spiritual life; and then, once this has been accomplished, re-enter a new physical existence, in which a life seed once again draws from the substance what it needs in terms of qualities and abilities to live itself into a body.

[ 7 ] We can therefore say: We are taking a spiritual-scientific perspective when we see human beings emerging from the mysterious foundations of their existence toward a spiritual-soul core that unfolds in accordance with their past lives and develops in their present existence by drawing upon the inherited characteristics of their father, mother, and ancestors. This is yet another truth that will gradually take root in human education. Today, of course, heretics are no longer burned at the stake, but it is still said that those who assert such things know nothing of exact science, whereas it is precisely the [research of spiritual science] that is based on the most exact of sciences. They are condemned in the same way that people are condemned today. But the truth of reincarnation will take root, and to all people of sound judgment it will no longer seem crazy, but rather self-evident.

[ 8 ] Thus, from what emerges in the child as nascent abilities, we must look back to what the human being has acquired in earlier earthly lives and is expressing in this life. When one considers contemporary science, one must say that a certain lack of clarity prevails everywhere, in all fields. Science believes it need only point to what originates from the father and mother, from grandparents, and so on—what has been inherited—and is satisfied when it can show that the characteristics manifesting themselves here or there were also present, in one way or another, in the father or grandfather.

[ 9 ] Let us consider the overall relationships of what crystallizes from the center of the human being, brought over from a previous existence; let us consider the relationship of this core to inherited characteristics. When we consider all the qualities and talents that a person brings into life, we can discern two facts in the human soul that are lawfully interconnected. The first is what appears in a person in terms of both soul qualities and abilities—the majority of these qualities and abilities are, in a certain sense, independent of one another, so that one does not depend on the other. This is demonstrated by the simple fact that someone can be very musical yet have not the slightest aptitude for mathematics or any other branch of science. One ability can shine in our soul without us being able to say that other abilities are necessarily present as well. In this respect, the individual abilities are independent of one another. But the same is also true of [soul] qualities. A certain arrogance can coexist in a person alongside other quite likable qualities of the soul. And again, this arrogance is not dependent on the other qualities. This is one aspect to consider when we seek to gain insight into the life of the human soul.

[ 10 ] The second fact is that the abilities and qualities a person possesses in his soul are held together by a certain center, which we call the “I,” and that they are either in harmony or in disharmony with one another. All of these, which interact through the “I,” are, in a sense, independent of one another and work together because a person possesses a distinct core of being within himself. If we keep these two facts in mind, we can, through careful observation of life, gain a clear understanding of how qualities and abilities are passed down from parents and ancestors to their children and descendants. There, the individual characteristics and abilities truly appear almost as if they were passing from the ancestors to the descendants. On the one hand, we see that if a boy is arrogant, he has inherited this arrogance from his mother; another is musical, and we find the same predisposition in his father or mother. However, the way in which he processes these traits, the way he brings them into harmony, we see clearly depends on the core of his own being. And the more closely, the more precisely we observe this human life, the more the nature of this dependence becomes apparent to us. We understand this best when we say: A person inherits individual traits—arrogance, humility, a compassionate heart, and so on—from their ancestors, as well as their talents; but the way in which they integrate these traits within their soul leads back to their previous existence, to the core of their spiritual and soul nature, along with everything that their soul has attained in that previous existence. We can then describe the situation much more precisely when we observe this unique interplay with inherited predispositions. I would also like to note, when speaking of the laws of heredity, that these are laws which spiritual science does not investigate in the same sense as physical and chemical laws. Therefore, I ask you to bear in mind that it is not a valid objection when someone says of a law of spiritual science: “Yes, but if one looks into life, it becomes apparent that heredity does not occur in the way described here.”—But we must treat these laws in the same way that physical laws are treated. For example, physics teaches that the path traced by a thrown stone is a parabola; the stone falls in a parabola. But air resistance causes the path of the thrown stone not to be an exact parabola. If someone then comes along and says that the path of the thrown stone does not form a parabola, that is not correct. The law of physics still applies, and we can only gain an understanding of the stone’s trajectory by accepting a general law. And if someone says, “Yes, but the stone veered off to the side—a gust of wind blew it away,” the presence of the wind does not contradict the law of physics as such. The laws of spiritual science must also be understood in this sense; they may be modified by circumstances, but they still hold true in such a way that we can understand the processes only through these laws, if we know them. Let us now consider the human being in terms of his characteristics by dividing the human soul itself, in a sense, into two realms, which can indeed be clearly distinguished from one another in human life. Wherever you look in human life, you will find, clearly distinguished everywhere, one realm that can be described as the realm of human interests—toward which a person’s attention, sympathy, and antipathy, as well as their emotions, drives, and passions, are directed; this realm of the volitional and emotional nature is the first realm. The other is the realm that can be called the intellectual, the rational—that is, the way in which a person forms concepts, whether they are rich or poor in concepts and images, whether these are flexible, whether the person can form symbols or is devoid of imagination, and whether they possess the intellectual elements for one realm or the other. These two realms must first be distinguished in the developing human being. With the same precision with which we derive physical laws through careful observation of life, we can discover laws for these two areas that reveal the connection between ancestors and descendants.

[ 11 ] Here we see that everything pertaining to the realm of interests, emotions, sympathy and antipathy, passions—that is, the instinctual aspects of human nature—can always be traced back to paternal inheritance, whereas that which pertains to the development of the elements of the intellect and reason is attributable to maternal inheritance. Such laws emerge from careful observation of life. It is, of course, not possible to go into the hundreds of cases that could easily be cited from a sound observation of life. One can only point out that life everywhere confirms that the intellectual and imaginative aspects come from the maternal side, while the temperamental element—that is, our level of interest, whether we are lively, nonchalant, or apathetic—comes more from the paternal side.

[ 12 ] I cannot go into general, confirmatory considerations at this time, but can only illustrate what has been said with examples for now. One need only point to a prominent example: Goethe, who so beautifully characterized himself in these words:

From my father I got my build,
A serious approach to life,
From my dear mother, her cheerful nature
And a love of storytelling.

[ 13 ] We can find this in hundreds of instances when we observe world history or life itself. And because careful observation of life confirms these words everywhere, they make life seem so full of light.

[ 14 ] However, we are still approaching the subject far too abstractly when we consider life only in general terms. I said that, in general, the intellectual element can be traced back to maternal inheritance. But it is not that simple; rather, as traits are passed down, they undergo a transformation—they metamorphose. Spiritual science is not yet taken seriously today; otherwise, people would already be able to see how greatly it can enrich the external natural sciences. Observing how one natural force is transformed into another—for example, heat into electricity—is instructive enough in itself; but this method of observation is applied [to other fields as well] through spiritual science, which asserts that, for example, in the field of heredity, one can only make headway if one takes the transformation of characteristics into account.

[ 15 ] And this shows how maternal and paternal traits combine when they are passed down to the children. We see how maternal traits, as they are passed down, tend to be passed on primarily to the sons. When we consider the mother’s soul qualities, we can say: These soul qualities tend primarily to pass on to the sons, but they tend to transform in the process. — What constitutes the mother’s fundamental [soul] character may be something the mother is unable to develop into specific abilities because she lacks the necessary organs. After all, one needs the corresponding predispositions for this. While the mother must remain within the innermost circle with her soul stirrings, we see how, in the sons, the mother’s predispositions, as it were, step up a level and penetrate into the physical realm, so that the same predispositions reappear in the son. And the son then shows us, through the abilities with which he can act in the world, what was predisposed in the mother’s soul. The mother possesses it as a soul disposition; the son, however, is able to channel it into his physical organs in order to carry it out into the world and present it to the world in the form of achievements. We see the mother’s soul qualities transformed right down into the physical realm in her sons.

[ 16 ] We thus have the following statement: The mother’s psychological qualities tend to permeate her sons’ physical organs and, in turn, to manifest themselves in the powers of the soul associated with those organs. All it takes is a healthy look at life and the general development of humanity to find this confirmed. We can again look to Goethe or to other figures, such as Hebbel. This peculiar natural dramatist, Hebbel—who was never able to get along with his father—had a great poetic gift; he reveals this talent to us in such a way that he inherited the simple, primitive predisposition for it from his mother, who was merely a simple mason’s wife. This can be traced in his diary entries. And this talent manifests itself in him in such a way that his mother’s soul nature has been transformed into an organ predisposition, has descended into the son’s physical constitution, where it reveals itself in this manner.

[ 17 ] What is remarkable, however, is that careful observation of life reveals the opposite tendency with regard to the father’s characteristics, which have become more deeply rooted in the physical realm and are more firmly anchored in the whole personality, including the physical constitution. Whatever qualities the father possesses tend to rise a level in the daughter and appear in her soul as transformed into spiritual-soul qualities. As a result, what is sober and pedantic in the father appears endearing in the daughter’s soul.

[ 18 ] I would like to briefly give an example of how this relationship manifested itself in Goethe. One can point out that, in fact, the elderly Mrs. Rat possessed the art of storytelling in her soul; she possessed all the agility and imaginative talent, and we see how this particular kind of talent came to life in her among her circle of friends. We see how, in her son, this kind of talent was realized to the highest degree in his innate constitution, so that it led to world-changing events. On the other hand, we see the father, the elderly Rat Goethe. Anyone who, like me, has devoted well over thirty years to Goethe and all that pertains to him will not be superficially misunderstood if he characteristically says that Goethe is right when he writes: “From my father I have inherited my stature, the serious conduct of life.” — The son inherits this fundamental character trait from his father without alteration.

[ 19 ] The elderly Goethe is a thoroughly sober, alert, honest man—one who, within certain limits, even possesses greatness—but a man who, I would say, because of his entire manner and the way he comes across as a personality, cannot find his way in life or accomplish anything of real substance; he fails to attain a proper position on the Frankfurt Council; he remains stuck halfway. His character traits even affect his physical abilities. Let us now imagine these traits translated into the realm of the soul: How would they manifest in our souls—this stopping halfway, this never reaching completion? It might appear in the soul as though, on the one hand, it has a need to join others, yet is never willing to make up its mind and repeatedly shrinks from making a decision. Here we have, as psychological traits, what confronts us in the Goethe Council as intellectual sobriety. But we can also see this sobriety transformed into a soulful quality, into sentimentality. It is easy to find where—translated into the realm of the soul—the outward characteristics of the old Councilor Goethe live on: in Goethe’s sister Cornelia, who, however, died young. In her we see all these soul qualities as a transformation of the characteristics of the old Councilor Goethe. And now we also understand why Goethe—who inherited his father’s outward traits but received from his mother what truly mattered to him, the foundation of his greatness—could not quite get along with his father, and how the two repelled one another. In his sister, however, these traits—transformed into kindness, passion, and a touch of vanity—had such an effect that she became a dear companion to him, in whom [his father’s traits], transformed into spiritual qualities, stood by his side. The entire way in which Goethe’s life in his parents’ home is presented to us shows how it is precisely the abilities linked to active physical faculties that are passed down from the father to the daughter.

[ 20 ] One could also point out that it is not only the father but the entire paternal lineage that comes into play, and likewise, on the other side, the maternal lineage. We see how, in Goethe, the sunny imagination and the mystical disposition of his maternal ancestors are repeated—transformed into higher faculties. And in the nature of his sister, whom Goethe held in such high esteem and of whom he had to admit that she fundamentally lacked faith, hope, and love—for she was a troubled soul who also withered away at an early age—we see the influence of his paternal ancestors. But here we must conceive of these qualities, which were at work in his sister, as having been transformed from the physical to the spiritual realm. We know, after all, that one of Goethe’s uncles turned out to be a good-for-nothing. He was the sort of person of whom one must say that he lacked a sound mind and was therefore incapable of achieving anything. The entire dilettantish nature of this ancestral line—which attained a certain greatness only in Goethe’s father—we see transformed into the spiritual realm in the troubled nature of Goethe’s sister.

[ 21 ] If one wished, one could find mothers throughout history who pass on what they carry in their souls to the physical constitution of their sons. That is why mothers are so often portrayed—so that we may understand their sons. Similarly, in the Fourth Book of Maccabees, the mother of the seven slain sons is portrayed precisely in her unique state of mind, which manifests in her sons as a disposition that has descended a level and taken on a physical form. In assessing this fact, one must refer to laws just as one would when seeking to investigate the dynamic force of a gust of wind. And it often becomes apparent that a son’s gifts, in all their intimacy, can be traced back to the unique nature of his mother’s inner struggles. Perhaps there are few cases as interesting as the relationship that the soul of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer’s mother—through her character and her tragic fate—had to the entire style of her son’s poetry. And when we picture in our mind’s eye just how deeply Conrad Ferdinand Meyer was bound to his mother’s personality, we see in his wonderfully refined, yet entirely unobtrusive religiosity, in his tender way of facing life, and in his full comprehension of tragic situations, what remains of his mother’s soul.

[ 22 ] One could cite hundreds of great minds from history and intellectual life, as well as people we know in our ordinary daily lives, and would find this law confirmed everywhere. One can therefore say that what constitutes the father tends to manifest in the daughter’s soul, and what constitutes the mother’s soul tends to manifest in the sons’ physical constitution. A light is shed on numerous aspects of life when we survey this law; and much becomes understandable to us regarding the connections and motivations of various people.

[ 23 ] What, then, does spiritual research tell us about heredity? It tells us that it would be a mistake to look solely for inherited traits in human beings. Rather, in addition to all inherited characteristics, we must go back to the central, spiritual-soul core of the human being, which comes over from previous lives and incorporates the characteristics it encounters, just as the earthworm embryo incorporates the external substance, absorbs this substance into itself, and grows according to its own nature. Thus, we see in the human core of being that which is drawn—as if by magnetic forces—into a family where the father and other ancestors possess the qualities suited to this soul core, so that the soul, through the appropriate blending of these qualities and their transformation, can express what its own inner essence is. A soul that has acquired in previous lives the ability—let us say, for example, to achieve something poetic, for which it needs the gift of imagination—feels drawn to a mother who possesses the gift of storytelling—the gift of thinking in images and transforming these images with a light agility of the soul. But when this ability is inherited from mother to son, there is a tendency to carry these qualities down into the physical realm, and the spiritual-soul core must blend what it finds there with the soul’s predispositions. The father’s character traits, however, are carried up into the soul—into the souls of his daughters—where they are transformed; but when they appear directly in his sons, they remain unchanged.

[ 24 ] We must simply look at more complex circumstances if we are to explain the connection between how the true core of the human being is drawn to the qualities of certain individuals who then become its parents, and how this core then blends those qualities and brings them into harmony so that it can live out its own essence within them. Spiritual science, however, does not merely observe what has been blended and transformed from the qualities and predispositions of the ancestors; it also directs our gaze toward the spiritual core of being, which we see entering into existence and which we must trace back to earlier forms of existence in which it acquired what enables it to blend those qualities and predispositions that it can receive through the line of inheritance.

[ 25 ] Now, one might say that spiritual science is incredibly easy to refute; one need only bring up the most commonplace, trivial concepts to refute it with remarkable ease. I myself pointed out in an afterword to the short treatise *Theosophy and Christianity* how easily certain representations of theosophy can be refuted if one insists on proceeding from the prejudices of the present day. One could add even more examples of such easy refutability to those given there. Theosophy must point to human individuality in contrast to what is regarded as hereditary traits. It must say: Sound human reason takes the same interest in every single human individuality—in every spiritual and soul core of a human being—as it does in the species, in an animal species. — We show the same interest in every single human being as we do, for example, in the lion species. We take the same interest in human individuality as we do in an animal species. One need only misunderstand this statement—or, if it is written down, fail to read it carefully—to refute it with remarkable ease.

[ 26 ] Someone might come along and say: But what exactly are these spiritual researchers claiming? They don’t seem to realize that one can just as easily write the biography of a dog or a cat—with all their individual characteristics—as one can of a human being; one can list all the differences between individual animals in that case as well. — It is incredibly easy to cite such an argument against spiritual science. But spiritual science has never claimed that this cannot be done. I myself was in a school class where a teacher tried to write the biography of a steel pen nib. Everything can be transposed. But one thing can be said: the interest we show in a single cat and so on is not the same interest as that which we show toward a fellow human being. The interest we show in a single individual of an animal species can even be greater than that which we have for a single human being. But it is a different kind of interest, not the same; it springs from different spiritual roots. Spiritual science demands that concepts be defined precisely. If one fails to do so, then one is open to the kinds of objections that can be heard on the street. In the case of human beings, we are dealing with a spiritual-soul core, and spiritual science traces this not merely back to parents and ancestors, but states: It draws the qualities of these parents to itself, just as an earthworm embryo draws in the substance it needs for its growth. Now one might ask spiritual science: Is there anything—drawn specifically from the course of human life—that proves such a spiritual-soul core actually exists? Based on the observation of an individual human life, it will be difficult to distinguish between what constitutes the outer shells and what constitutes the core of the being. With regard to the individual human being, we take the position that the interplay between the sheaths and the core of the being unfolds gradually. We cannot easily distinguish this in the individual, but when we turn our gaze to a larger, broader perspective—to humanity in general—we see the distinctive fact that human beings differ greatly from one another in terms of their development. Let us assume that this statement from spiritual science is correct. Then, for example, a human being may have an essential core that dates back to a previous life in which that person acquired a strong sense of individuality. Such an essential core will have great difficulty overcoming the resistance posed by inherited traits. It will have great difficulty shaping these traits in such a way that they correspond to its spiritual capacities. It takes a strong core of the being a long time to integrate the abilities derived from heredity and shape them in a flexible manner. In contrast, a spiritual core of the being that has acquired few abilities of its own will easily adapt to the characteristics inherited from its ancestors.

[ 27 ] This means that people who are stronger individuals—those with a robust inner core, who carry over a wealth of experience from a previous life—are only slowly able to overcome the resistance stemming from heredity. And here we recall the fact that great minds, in particular, are not so-called child prodigies, but are often mistaken by teachers for the opposite. Let us just recall Alexander von Humboldt, who was considered stupid in his youth. It simply took a long time for the core of his being to bring forth the abilities that lay dormant within him. A rich core of being had come over into him, and it took a long time for him to reshape the traits of heredity in accordance with the content of his soul. Through this soul content, which worked for a long time on the traits of heredity, something comes into being that can bring about great things in humanity. In contrast, when we look at souls who, so to speak, bring little with them from previous lives—they will quickly find their way into their new physical forms and will easily develop the characteristics of heredity. These are the child prodigies who seem to be the most talented in the first years of life, but then very soon cease to be so.

[ 28 ] Let us assume that the spiritual core of a being must work its way through what is presented to it from the outside. All it takes is a clear, accurate observation of life to recognize that it is precisely the physical characteristics that are based on heredity. We can ascertain the form of heredity from the shapes of the fingers. In contrast, the more the qualities in question are rooted within the soul, the less what lies as a seed within the soul can be explained by the external overcoming of inherited characteristics. This is why what belongs to the subjective realm of the soul—talents for music, mathematics, and so on—manifests in the earliest years, as the numerous cases of child prodigies demonstrate. In contrast, talents whose development requires overcoming more inherited traits will emerge later. In short, everything we encounter through careful observation of life proves that in human beings, a core essence emerges from all that seeks to envelop us as inherited characteristics. In fact, when we observe people closely, we can see how the greatest individualities very slowly overcome the resistance of the outer human nature of the will. We will not examine these facts in greater detail today, but one can see this among the greatest individualities.

[ 29 ] I would just like to mention Goethe once more. In him, if we truly understand him in all his greatness, we can see how, as the elderly Goethe, he stands before us at the very height of life, at the height of art and wisdom; we can see that he spent his entire life carving out his individuality against the resistant shells that confined him. And only the short-sighted could say [of Goethe’s late works]: Goethe has grown old. — Today, when judging great personalities, we can observe a tendency to exaggerate their youth and downplay their old age. We can even hear people say that the works of old age are stale, lackluster things, while those of youth are fresh. A book is being published today in which the true poets, the true individuals, are presented to readers through their early works.

[ 30 ] People don’t really stop to consider that it may be precisely because of one’s own peculiarities that one is better able to understand youth. One would do better to go along with the individuality in question rather than assume that it has become more foolish with age. This already happened to Goethe during his own lifetime. People read the first part of his *Faust* and said: There is a bubbling youthful energy in it; but what Goethe wrote in his old age is such that one simply has to be indulgent toward the aging man. — But anyone who, based on this understanding, considers what Goethe portrays will say: There, in the first part of *Faust*, Goethe’s full individuality has not yet emerged; we see how he is still working his way through it, and we see how this strong individuality—which has been shaping itself throughout his entire life—is fighting its way through the resistance of its outer layers. That is why Goethe says of the critics of his *Faust*:

There they praise Faust,
And whatever else
Rages in my writings,
In their favor;
The old Mick and Mack,
That pleases them greatly;
It means that the rabble,
Wish it weren’t so anymore!

[ 31 ] Anyone familiar with the development of human nature knows that the stronger an individual’s personality is, the longer it takes to fully develop.

[ 32 ] Here we can already see a difference between what constitutes the innermost core of being—whose origin we must seek elsewhere entirely—and what constitutes the outer shell, which is attached to this core. We see this difference particularly clearly when we consider the relationship between parents and children. Throughout their entire life, human beings are engaged in a process of development. This development consists of an ascending and a descending phase. The former encompasses the period up to the thirtieth, fortieth, and fiftieth years, during which the core of being works from within, so that the pain and suffering it endures become life experience and find expression in the physical body, in facial expressions, and in gestures. At these stages of life, we always see the inner core of the being working on the outer shells and ultimately shaping them plastically, so that we can say that, as the ascending phase progresses, the human being becomes more and more like his or her inner core. If we consider a person in their fortieth year and observe their physiognomy—which they have been shaping for forty years—we can say: Here, the outer form resembles the inner being more closely than in their twentieth year, when that inner essence was still contained within, was still merely a potential, and was striving to emerge from the inside out. Thus, in terms of their own being, human beings in their physical bodies are more like themselves in later life than in earlier life; at the age of forty, they are therefore more like themselves than at the age of twenty. This explains an important fact of life, which in turn seems significant for many aspects of external reality. What is this fact, and why does such a difference exist [between the various stages of life]?

[ 33 ] To the observer of life, there is a difference between children of younger parents and those born later in the marriage. Only those who are not observers of life fail to notice this difference. The core essence of a child who has entered the lives of a young couple will encounter little resistance within its outer layers, because the parents have not yet fully integrated their physical selves. There, the individuality will be able to shape its outer layers even more; it does not yet find in them such a malleable formation of the characteristics that are passed down through the hereditary line. Therefore, we can say that children conceived by parents who are still young are better able to shape the whole human being from their own individuality. Children born later in a marriage are those whose own core nature is weaker and who are therefore drawn to very specific traits that the father or mother has imprinted. Thus, we see that children born later generally bear more of the father and mother in themselves than those born earlier, for by then the characteristics that enter into heredity have already become pronounced in the parents’ bodies. Here we see how the parents’ work on themselves manifests in various ways in their children. Strong individualities, who resemble their parents less, are the children born in the early days of a young marriage. Less strong individualities, who resemble their parents more, are those born to older married couples.

[ 34 ] Anthroposophy sheds light on such facts just as the natural sciences shed light on natural facts. And once we have this law, we have the means to influence people educationally, so to speak, in a practical, everyday way. Then we develop a very specific mindset. Anyone who, as an educator of children, adopts this attitude stemming from the spiritual sciences always tells themselves: What has come into being through birth and is increasingly revealing itself—you must regard this as a sacred mystery to be solved; it is something that emerges from past lives. To do this, you must turn your gaze to the lineage from which these characteristics are derived. — From this arises, for the educator’s perspective, that harmony of will and ability, that sense of responsibility toward the developing human being as a sacred mystery to be solved. When we take in such wisdom, which places us in this way before the pupil, then that sense of seriousness takes root within us—a seriousness that, without theorizing, finds the educational tact needed to truly solve the riddle in each specific case. From this sense of tact emerges, in each individual case, what we must do to nurture the child’s disposition in the right way. We then take our leave of the pedagogical clichés so popular today.

[ 35 ] What phrase do we hear more often today than this one: “You must educate the individuality of the human being.” Individually, not in a formulaic way [you must educate], and certainly do nothing that would contradict individuality. But anyone who approaches life as a true observer of life asks themselves: What exactly is this—individual education? This term remains nothing more than a cliché as long as one does not know how the essence of a person relates to what envelops it. That is why what is said about individual education is mere rhetoric. In most cases, we are unable to make much of it. We must educate in accordance with the demands of practical life as they arise. We must realize that we cannot get by with this phrase at all, but that we must say: We must educate based on what is innate. Above all, we are called upon to give people what makes them useful members of human society. They must be able to do what is required within certain circles of people, what their time and circumstances demand of them. — The phrase “individuality” must not undermine this requirement. Anyone who sees how spiritual science grasps the connection between the human being and the entire world is by no means powerless in the face of life’s demands. It may be necessary, for example, for a son who possesses this or that quality to assume this or that position in life; family circumstances demand it. Anyone who truly understands the laws governing things knows that human beings are not so one-sided that one can say they are useful only for this or that. One makes them useful human beings by developing more than just one side. People are more multifaceted than is usually assumed. And whoever truly looks beyond the combination of inherited traits to the spiritual-soul core of their being is able to connect the various extraordinarily instructive processes with what presents itself as a real process to the eye of the spiritual researcher. When one seeks what constitutes the pupil’s individuality, the practical demands of life themselves give rise to the necessity of viewing individuality differently than it is usually viewed in a clichéd manner. It must be said that those who allow themselves to be enriched by the insights of spiritual science acquire—as if flowing into their entire disposition—a subtle sense of tact, along with not only a sense of responsibility but also all the skills they need to do the right thing at the right moment. It is quite remarkable that whenever one meets such conditions, one knows what to do at the right moment. To give an example: A child [was entrusted to me for upbringing] who was deemed to lack all talent because he had developed in a peculiar way up to the age of eleven, so that people said, “Nothing will come of him, that rascal; he hasn’t even learned to read and write properly!” When this child was entrusted to me and I began to exert a certain influence on him, I was able to say: “All of this is merely a deceptive appearance.”—The only difficulty was breaking through the outer shell to reveal the child’s inner essence. The inner core of his being had to be uncovered. Twenty years have passed since that time, and it has become clear that things were just as I had said. In a short time, it was possible to help the spiritual core of his being break through and prove what has been said here.

[ 36 ] Thus, observing the developing human being shows how necessary it is not merely to focus on the outer, physical body, but to look beyond it to the spiritual realm, which lies behind the sensory world everywhere and which we can perceive if we acquire the ability to do so. For our understanding in this direction as well, it is important that we acquire the concepts and ideas found in spiritual science.

[ 37 ] It is significant for practical life that we believe in the spirit and seek it behind physical matter; this becomes clear to us when we stand before the developing human being and, in the process of education, must solve the real mystery of how the spirit pours itself into physical matter. The purpose of spiritual science is not merely to speak theoretically about the three concepts of body, soul, and spirit, but to enrich practical life in such a way that a direct result can be achieved through proper education.

[ 38 ] When we view human beings in this way, and by contributing to their development through education, the human soul becomes imbued with that lofty truth regarding humanity’s mission in its earthly existence. Then we sense something of the fact that, although we humans are fully immersed in the physical-sensory world, we are called to bring into this physical-sensory world that which we can create out of the spirit. Based on this insight, we can say: We are surrounded by physical-sensory phenomena; but behind them stands the active spirit. In the developing human being, the physical human being meets us in undefined talents and an undefined physiognomy, but within him is also the spirit, which must struggle its way through physical matter and which we must help to emerge from the realm of the mysterious into existence in the physical world. Wherever we look at our practical task in life, human beings are called upon to imprint the spirit upon matter. Everywhere, the words in which we may summarize today’s reflection prove true—even the spirit struggling to come into being shows us the truth that can be expressed in these words:

It presses upon the human senses
From the mysterious depths of the world
The rich abundance of matter.
It flows into human souls
From the heights of the world, full of meaning
The clarifying light of the spirit.
They meet within the human being
To form a wisdom-filled reality.