The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. Schiller and Fichte’s “Barbarians”

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! Every winter, I have had the privilege of giving a series of lectures on the subject of the humanities in various European cities, including here in Munich. It stems from what I believe to be a justified sentiment that the lectures I am privileged to deliver this winter should, beginning this evening, take as their starting point what is so close to our hearts at this time, in these fateful days. Today’s introductory lecture will address the impulses that these days stir within our hearts and souls. Do we not have the feeling that, in this time of trial we are facing, fundamentally no word can be spoken that is not accompanied by an intense feeling directed toward those regions in the East and West where today—not through words but through deeds—powerful judgments are being inscribed into the course of human development? One could see how, since the days of August, a mighty breath of spirit has stirred that which lives in the deepest impulses of the German people; one could see how, from the depths of souls in our time, a spirit of sacrifice, selflessness, and devotion sprang forth, and how an infinite sense of love flowed through the hearts. All of this gave rise to a unified sense of feeling such as we have not witnessed in a very long time. Now, it is not my place in these reflections to transgress Bismarck’s warning, issued in 1870 to those whom fate had left behind on the battlefields, that above all they must not anticipate events with words and reflections until decisive action has taken place. I will not concern myself with what lies in the impulses of the day, but rather with what runs through these impulses of the day and what, in particular, can and must occupy the spiritual researcher—albeit in complete harmony with the sentiment that has gripped everyone.

[ 2 ] Ladies and gentlemen! In recent times, there has been much talk of heredity in schools of thought that are more or less influenced by materialism. By this concept of heredity, people essentially mean something quite external to the spiritual contemplation of things and beings: the survival of the characteristics of preceding beings in subsequent ones. I do not intend to analyze the nature of this concept of heredity today; but I would like to draw attention to how something similar to this heredity—albeit on a lower level—exists throughout the entire course of humanity’s spiritual development, and particularly in the life of a people, as a kind of spiritual heredity—though more comprehensive and universal than what is usually referred to as such.

[ 3 ] What is it that binds the souls of a people together, that which can kindle a fire in the souls of a people, just as it is now flowing through the spiritual veins of the people? One might say: It flows down like a real, tangible stream, like a stream [from] the spiritual world; within this stream live the impulses of a people’s finest guiding spirits, their finest guiding geniuses. For the spiritual researcher, it is not merely in the sense of the Greek myth that the geniuses from the spiritual world—who have long since passed away—play a part in the actions of present-day human beings; rather, it is a reality for the spiritual researcher that the forces which were united with a people through its leading geniuses remain with that people, live on within that people, and that one may speak in a real sense of the fact that out in the fields to the east and west, the same forces live on—the same forces that lived in the people’s greatest guiding spirits live on in those who must step onto the stage of events with their blood and soul.

[ 4 ] Let us single out two of these leadership geniuses today. “By their fruits you shall know them,” says a weighty saying; by the fruits one can also recognize what is contained in the deepest forces of the national soul, and these fruits—these highest fruits—that grow out of the roots and trunk of the national soul are the deeds of a nation’s leading geniuses. Therefore, one can say: The forces that we can also perceive in spirits such as those we shall single out today from the culture of Central Europe—in Schiller and Fichte—blow across our fields in the east and west.

[ 5 ] And let us begin our reflection with a moment that is particularly apt for bringing these two great minds closer to our own sensibilities. Truly, not to evoke sentimental feelings, I would like to begin with the final moments of Schiller and Fichte—those moments when they passed through the gates of death—but because I believe that the symbolic and symptomatically significant aspects of these geniuses are, in fact, characteristically expressed at the moment of their death.

[ 6 ] Here we turn to Schiller. It is, after all, remarkable that figures like Schiller have grown so dear to our hearts that literature provides us, to our deep satisfaction, with the means to observe even the most intimate aspects of these geniuses’ personal lives. And so, through the accounts of the younger Voß, Schiller’s friend, we can virtually step right up to Schiller’s sickbed and deathbed and allow ourselves to be moved by the fact that, in this very spirit, the victory of the soul over the outwardly physical has found its expression.

[ 7 ] We can follow the last days of this genius; we can see how his body was clearly doomed to death and sustained itself only by the immense power of his soul. Then we accompany him into the deathbed room, see how, in the hour of death, his spirit is focused on the highest things, see how he has his youngest child brought to him, how he takes the child and looks deep into its eyes, how he returns the child and turns away. We can sense—as the younger Voß hints—what thoughts might have been running through his heart: how much more he, as a father, could and should have been to this child. And it is truly no sentimental sentiment to say: this looking into the child’s eyes feels like a symbolic looking into the eyes of the German people. When one allows Schiller’s entire personality to take hold, one says to oneself: He must have passed through the gates of death with the feeling of how much more was still to blossom from the seeds he had sown in the cultural field of the German people. That is why, with deep interest in the development of German culture, we look directly to the living Schiller—the Schiller who is still alive today—to that Schiller from whom radiate the forces that can still be at work in our souls today.

[ 8 ] A similar moment is the moment of death in Fichte—in Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the great German philosopher; one might even say, the most dynamic philosopher who has ever graced the history of philosophy. When the German people had suffered the deepest humiliation, Johann Gottlieb Fichte addressed them with the most inspiring words in his “Addresses to the German Nation,” and when the time drew near for the German people to seek liberation from that humiliation, Fichte took the deepest personal interest—an interest that encompassed his entire being—and we sense this interest most keenly when we look back on his final days. His wife was a nurse. She brought hospital fever home with her. She recovered, but passed it on to the philosopher himself. And now we see him: a kind of victim of the war in his final days and hours. The philosopher who had found the most powerful words to characterize the strength of the human soul, the philosopher who, in his “Addresses to the German Nation,” sought—as he himself always said—to understand and proclaim the German essence from the “roots of the impulses of life”—where did his thoughts dwell in his final hours? Oh, it is very characteristic: In the feverish delirium of his final hours, he—Johann Gottlieb Fichte—felt his soul on the battlefields, at the crossing of the Rhine, which was taking place at that very moment under Blücher. His thoughts were absorbed in the feverish fantasy of participating in the war. When his son approached his sickbed and handed him some medicine, Fichte expressed that he could not have experienced anything more satisfying than this resurgence of his people. He pushed the medicine away and said, “I know that I am recovering.” Those were his final moments. A philosopher, distinguished guests—one might say, bearing in mind the saying: “By their fruits you shall know them.”

[ 9 ] What Schiller and Fichte can be to their people expresses what still lives in this people today—that for which this people struggles and bleeds. That which truly exists in the world manifests itself externally in the most varied stages of transformation; but what lives in the instincts of the people, in the subconscious stirrings of the souls of the members of this people, can be recognized by its fruits, where it finds expression at its highest peak.

[ 10 ] It was during a time of profound hardship that Fichte delivered his “Addresses to the German Nation” to his downtrodden people. Right at the beginning, he raised three questions—three questions that, one might say, have only limited significance today. The first question is this: Is there, in truth and in reality, a German nation, and is its existence in danger? With regard to the last part of that question, however, the same question can still be asked today. The second question is this: Is it worth the effort to devise ways for this German nation to continue to exist? Well, I think one need only look to Schiller and Fichte and their kindred spirits to find that the nineteenth century, through its development of German culture, has answered this question with facts. And the third question that Fichte raises is this: What means are suitable for helping the German people achieve a future befitting them? We should focus today in particular on what Fichte regarded as the sources from which he spoke to his people at that time about these means—the sources that preoccupied him as he sought to hint at the essence of Germanness, as he put it.

[ 11 ] One must admit: What he said back then about Germany, what he identified as the means for the development of this German identity, did not take shape in the nineteenth century, and today we must think differently about these matters than Fichte did—differently about the significance of a people’s language than Fichte did at the time, and differently about the effectiveness of precisely the kind of educational method Fichte advocated, for in this he saw the means to secure the German people’s future. That is not what matters; what matters is the spiritual seeds from which Fichte spoke his powerful words back then; for it is from these spiritual seeds that the German people still draw their vitality today.

[ 12 ] And I do not believe I am saying anything unjustified when I state that, in particular, what I have often discussed from this vantage point as “spiritual science” may be traced back precisely to Johann Gottlieb Fichte; for even though what he said in his time sounds different from the findings of spiritual science today: From the same spiritual seeds sprang Fichte’s philosophy in Fichte’s time, and, as I believe, spiritual science in our time. This can be demonstrated in detail. For those among the esteemed audience who have heard much over the past years about spiritual science as discussed from this place, it will be immediately clear what I wish to briefly and generally convey regarding spiritual science.

[ 13 ] What, then, is the essence of spiritual science? With regard to the pursuit of spiritual results, it consists in the fact that spiritual science—unlike the other sciences, the external sciences—does not focus merely on what presents itself to the external senses and becomes clear to the intellect when it devotes itself to the external world, or on what springs up in the soul when it remains passive toward things; rather, it focuses on that what can only be recognized and experienced in the soul when the soul—let me use this term from Johann Gottlieb Fichte—delves into the deepest roots of its life impulses, when it actively strives to recognize from within, when it does not merely allow the world to flow into itself, but, by summoning the deepest forces lying within the soul, attempts to embrace the world in its innermost core.

[ 14 ] And so—one might say, without any presumption toward conventional science—spiritual science is a kind of science that depends on the inner courage of the soul, on inner activity, on grasping the world through action. And here we may say: In all the impulses of German cultural development—as is particularly evident in thinkers such as Fichte and Schiller—in all these impulses of German cultural development, it lies latent or is more or less explicitly suggested that human beings find knowledge of the world by seeking knowledge of the soul in their innermost being. We need only recall what confronts us so epigrammatically in Goethe’s *Faust*, in the scene where Faust encounters the Spirit and addresses him:

Sublime Spirit, you gave me, gave me everything,
That I asked for. You did not in vain
Turn your face toward me in the fire.
You gave me magnificent nature as my kingdom,
The power to feel it, to enjoy it. You do not
do you merely allow me to gaze coldly as a visitor,
but you grant me to look into its deep bosom,
as into the bosom of a friend.
You lead the procession of the living
past me, and teach me to know my brothers
in the quiet bush, in air and water.

[ 15 ] And then, after it is implied how the Spirit—the Spirit that lives and works in all things—reveals the mysteries of nature to him, Faust points out how this insight is connected to a living understanding of one’s own soul.

And when the storm roars and creaks in the forest,
The giant spruce, crashing down, sweeps through
Neighboring branches and trunks, crushing them as it falls,
And the hill thunders with a dull, hollow roar at its fall,
Then you lead me to the safe cave, show me
Myself, and within my own breast
Secret, profound wonders unfold.

[ 16 ] The one—and this is more or less the essence of the entire spiritual cultural development of Central Europe—the one who, in the depths of his soul, is able to recognize himself as a spiritual being, does not allow himself to be confined by the limits of knowledge, for he knows: Wherever he may go, the spiritual essence of his soul goes with him. And everywhere he will find the spiritual essence. And so there arises—I can only hint at this today — from this spiritual science, which lives in the activity of the soul, an understanding of the human being—that human being who undergoes his temporal existence in the body between birth and death, yet belongs to eternity; who enters physical existence through birth and, passing through the gate of death, steps back out into the spiritual world to experience his further destiny there. And spiritual science does not speak of the nature of the soul merely in a theoretical sense; rather, active, cognitive spiritual science brings to life that which lives within the human being as an eternal being; it brings this to life by showing that one can look from the bodyless spirit toward that which lies within human physicality between birth and death.

[ 17 ] Spiritual science aims not merely to provide theories, but to expand spiritual experience. And so it comes to the conclusion that it is possible for those who apply the spiritual scientific method to their own soul to experience the moment that a human being experiences in the natural course of life when passing through the gate of death: to look upon what the body and physical laws are from the perspective of the being that exists outside the body. Looking back upon the physical and experiencing oneself in the spiritual realm as a genuine inner experience—this is one of the foundations of spiritual scientific knowledge.

[ 18 ] Now let us turn to Fichte, specifically to something he stated right at the beginning of his “Addresses to the German Nation.” And from what he said there, one can see what he meant by what he often emphasized: deriving human wisdom from the innermost “roots of the impulses of life.” Fichte wants—I must say this so that his words become understandable—to illustrate how he would feel if someone were to approach him and say: “Oh, what you’re telling us about a special kind of education—that’s what this is all about—and about a rejuvenation of the nation—that can’t make any real impression on us; for all of this stands in such stark contrast to what we have experienced so far that we lack the capacity to have any confidence in something so entirely different.” And then Fichte says, as it were in response: Anyone who speaks in this way strikes him as a person whom he now characterizes in the following manner. Fichte says:

Die Zeit

[ 19 ] — he means his time —

seems to me like a shadow standing over his corpse—from which an army of diseases has just driven him out—wailing and unable to tear his gaze away from the shell he once loved so dearly, and desperately trying every means to get back into the dwelling of the plagues. True, the life-giving breezes of the other world, into which the departed has entered, have already embraced her and surround her with [a warm breath of love]; true, they greet her [already joyfully secret] voices of the sisters and welcome her; though it is already stirring and expanding [within her] in all directions to develop the more magnificent form into which she is to grow, but she still has no sense of these [breezes] or no hearing for these voices; or, if she did, she is consumed by grief over her loss, believing [through which] she has lost herself.

[ 20 ] Fichte dismisses one objection and characterizes the person who thus wishes to look back at the old—which stands in opposition to the new—as akin to the spiritual researcher who arrives at the certainty: When the soul has passed through the gate of death, it stands as a truly observing being facing its corpse and regards it as an external object.

[ 21 ] Well, ladies and gentlemen, I do not believe that anyone can doubt that Fichte could have arrived at such a *symbolum* only because the seeds of spiritual science were already alive within him, just as they could be alive in the energetic philosopher of his time. And was it not Fichte who, time and again, at every opportunity, tried to make clear how all phenomena of the external senses are rooted in the spiritual?

[ 22 ] Only a few characteristic words from his powerful “Addresses to the German Nation” will be mentioned here:

She beholds time, eternity, and infinity

[ 23 ] —and he means his philosophy —

in their origin from the emergence and manifestation of that One, which is in itself utterly invisible and can only be grasped—truly grasped—in its very invisibility. (...]

Any persistent existence that does not appear to be spiritual life

[ 24 ] — says Fichte —

is merely an empty shadow cast by vision, mediated in many ways by nothingness; in contrast to this, and through the recognition of it as a nothingness mediated in many ways, vision itself is to rise to the recognition of its own nothingness and to the acknowledgment of the invisible as the only truth.

[ 25 ] In a sense, one grasps Fichte at the very core of the “root of his life’s impulses” when one hears such words from him, and when did such words come to him? They came to him back then, when he wanted to speak about the essence of Germanness, as he coined the term. But what is it to him that this essence expresses? It is that which does not lead to a philosophy of death, nor to a philosophy of matter, nor to a philosophy of external sensuality or sensory observation, but rather leads to the knowledge of that world in which the eternal in the human soul is rooted, just as it is in the universally cosmic eternal. And drawing upon the energy of his being, from the deepest “roots of the life forces,” Fichte sought to grasp, in its cosmic significance, that which gives human beings the inner assurance of their eternal existence. Fichte opposes everything that can be sensually perceived in its highest forms—everything that confronts human beings in the external sun and planets and in other external entities—and he sets against it what he believes he knows to be the essence of the self rooted in the human being, the eternal self that passes through birth and death.

[ 26 ] And in his writing, which he was compelled to compose because of the charge of atheism, he spoke in a wondrous way about this powerful awareness of the eternal nature of the human soul. He addresses, as it were, what is external reality, and sets in contrast to this external reality the spiritual, which is to be grasped in the innermost being of the human person. It is like an address to what passes before us as the sun and the planets, to which Fichte says:

You are changeable, not I. All your transformations are merely a spectacle for me, and I will always hover unscathed above the ruins of your forms. The fact that the forces are already at work to destroy the inner sphere of my activity—[which I call my body]—does not unsettle me; this body belongs to You and is transitory like everything that belongs to You, but this body is not Me. I myself will hover above its ruins, and its dissolution will be my spectacle. That the forces are already at work which will destroy my outer sphere—[which has only now begun to take shape in the next points;]—which will destroy you, all you shining suns, and the thousand times thousand celestial bodies [that revolve around you], cannot surprise me; you [are, by your very birth,] doomed to death. But [when, among the millions of suns shining above my head, the most recently born have long since exhausted their last spark of light,] then I will still be, unharmed and unchanged, the same as I am now; and when [from your ruins, new solar systems will have coalesced as many times as there are of you all—you suns shining above my head—and the] youngest among them all [will have long since exhausted its] last spark of light, then I will still be, unharmed and unchanged, the same as I am today.

[ 27 ] Ladies and gentlemen, these are words about which one may already say—as a researcher of the spirit is entitled to do— one might assert that Fichte’s soul sought a body among the Central European people in order to find, through this corporeality, the language to speak of the eternity of the human self and of its triumph over the external sensory world. Everything that Fichte—one might say, drawing precisely from this consciousness—also incorporated into his “Addresses to the German Nation” as its deepest inner forces—all of that, for Fichte, is fundamentally always the basis for answering another question, the question that might be characterized as: How does a human being find what he is meant to be in the highest sense of the word? And there we stand, one might say, faced with the peculiarity of how German culture actually seeks to conceive of this human existence.

[ 28 ] Fichte, with powerful words, pointed out how it is, in essence, inherent in the nature of Germanness to transcend Germanness precisely through Germanness, to represent humanity in its universality, and to seek out in the human soul that which is sublime above all nationality, above all limitations of space and time. Therefore, one can say: the Englishman is English, the Frenchman is French; but one cannot say the same of the German—at least not if one wishes to grasp the essence of his Germanness through the spirit of geniuses such as Fichte and Schiller. The Englishman is English, the Frenchman is French, but deep down the German has this awareness: How do I become German? And this “German-ness” always stands before him like an ideal toward which he seeks to draw closer, which he first must become. And when he believes he has grasped what lies in the innermost stirrings of human life—that is, to become such—then it is precisely through his German-ness that he rises above narrow nationalism.

[ 29 ] A characteristic statement in this regard is Fichte's remark:

The principle according to which they

[ 30 ] — he is referring to German philosophy —

must conclude this: what has been presented to her—that which is spiritual and free [and believes in this spirituality]—and the eternal development of this spirituality through freedom demands that, wherever it may be born and whatever language it may speak, it is of our kind, it belongs to us, and it will turn toward us.

[ 31 ] One may well believe that it is justified in our day to point specifically to this ideal of becoming German, at a time when the term “German barbarism” has emerged from all directions of the compass and when, as it seems and as we shall show shortly, the judgments passed on Germanness today are based on nothing other than the inevitable misunderstanding that arises when there is no sense of what, for example, Schiller and Fichte understood to be the essence of their people.

[ 32 ] Let us now turn our attention away from Fichte and toward Schiller! One could, of course, cite many examples from Schiller; one could delve into this or that one of his poems or writings! But to grasp what connects him to Fichte—and what, in turn, ties him to the essence of German culture—one must point to a work by Schiller that, unfortunately, receives very little recognition; yet when properly appreciated, it reveals how this striving to become German—which for Schiller is identical to becoming human—found expression in Schiller. And this work is the one in which Schiller expresses himself in a thoroughly human, rather than philosophical, manner: the “Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man.” What does he seek to present to his fellow human beings in these letters?

[ 33 ] Oh, Schiller is deeply convinced that the outward person standing before us, who passes through birth and death, is merely the outer shell of the human being, and that it must be humanity’s aspiration to seek the higher human being within the human being. Schiller seeks it in his own way, in accordance with the characteristics of his own time, but he seeks it in a distinctive manner. On the one hand, he tells himself: Out there is the sensory world, the sensory forces that act upon human beings. Schiller summarizes everything that is thus brought about in human beings under the concept of external natural necessity, even within human beings. Can a human being truly be human if he is subject to this natural necessity, he asks. No, is the answer; then he is a slave to this natural necessity. There is something else as well: there is the rigid concept of reason; can a person—if he devotes himself to everything that can be understood as theory, to everything that reason can conceive—truly be human in the fullest sense? No, says Schiller, for then the person is under the compulsion of the necessity of reason and is its slave. How does one, as it were, liberate the true human being from within oneself? One liberates him when one comes to perceive what reason dictates to us in the same way that we perceive the loveliness of a sensory impression—when one perceives what constitutes higher spirituality with the same rich, loving intensity with which one can lovingly perceive through the senses whatever makes a pleasant impression on them. Schiller seeks to elevate what is sensual into the sphere of spirituality, and to grasp what is spiritual with the freshness and vitality of the senses. Then, in this middle state, the human being becomes free. When this idea is merely hinted at, it cannot immediately make the same impression as it does when the human soul is fully immersed in it. This is a thought that seeks to answer the question of what path of development a person should embark upon if they wish to transcend themselves, if they wish to liberate the human being hidden within them, and if they wish to attain a higher understanding of reality.

[ 34 ] One might say: Such thoughts arose at the pinnacle of human culture. And how does Schiller now seek to weave his thoughts together with all that he perceives as the essence of his people? In our own day, the words have often been quoted—beautiful words they are—in which Schiller, as it were, perceives the essence of the German people as that which he himself seeks to fathom as the highest form of humanity in his Aesthetic Letters.

The

[ 35 ] — says Schiller —,

which shapes and controls the mind,
must ultimately take dominion, for
at the end of time, if the
world has a plan, if human
life has any meaning at all, ultimately
morality and reason must prevail,
the raw force of form must yield
and the slowest people will catch up to all
the swift and fleeting ones.
[...]
The highest destiny is reserved for him,
and just as he finds himself in the midst of
the peoples of Europe,
so he is the core of humanity,
while they are the blossom and the leaf.
He is chosen by the World Spirit, while
in the struggle of time
he works on the eternal edifice of human development
to preserve what time brings,
therefore he has thus far appropriated what is foreign
and preserved it within himself.
Everything of value that arose in other times
and among other peoples—which came into being
and faded away over time—he has preserved;
it remains his own: the treasures of
centuries.
Not to shine for a moment and
play its part, but to win the great
process of time. Every people
has its day in history, yet
the day of the German is the harvest of
all of time.

[ 36 ] And so, when we look specifically at these two geniuses, Fichte and Schiller, we may say that the German people’s deepest quest and striving is directed toward seeking and fathoming what is most universally human—the higher self within the human being, as spiritual science would put it—and toward discovering how one can live one’s life in harmony with it. Thus they stand there—one might say in the dawn of a development for which we seek the sun—that development capable of creating a culture which, whatever it may undertake outwardly, whatever outward flowering it may seek to achieve, seeks in that outward form only a body for a soul—for that soul which we can best characterize precisely by looking to geniuses such as Schiller and Fichte.

[ 37 ] One might now ask: Did something of Schiller and Fichte live on among their people after these geniuses had departed from the physical world? Is it disputable that the spirit, which reached its full expression in Schiller and Fichte—like a flower or a mountain peak—continues to advance even in the plains of German intellectual life?

[ 38 ] Well, ladies and gentlemen, I was reluctant to speak on this question if it meant I would in any way have to invoke my own German judgment. That could very easily be taken as a kind of self-aggrandizement, as a kind of self-deception. Let us therefore choose another approach to characterize the extent to which the belief may be justified that, in the course of intellectual culture from Fichte and Schiller down to our own time, something of Fichte and Schiller—and of all the geniuses related to them, above all Goethe—has lived on, if indeed anything of it has. Let us not focus here on what Germans might think about this survival of the spiritual in Fichte, Schiller, and Goethe; let us first turn to a man who did not think or write in German, but who stood at the pinnacle of nineteenth-century cultural development: Emerson.

[ 39 ] What I wish to present as an opinion on what lived on from the souls of Schiller, Fichte, and Goethe should be quoted in words originally written in English by the English-speaking American Emerson. He—that is, not a German, but an English-speaking American—says:

There is one quality in particular that Goethe shares with his entire nation, and which makes him an exceptional figure in the eyes of both French and English audiences: that everything about him is based solely on inner truth. In England and America, talent is respected, but people are satisfied only when it works for or against a party in accordance with their own convictions. In France, people are delighted simply to see brilliant ideas, no matter where they lead. In all these countries, however, gifted men write to the best of their ability. If what they present stimulates the discerning reader and contains nothing that offends good taste, it is considered sufficient. So many columns, so many hours spent pleasantly and usefully.

[ 40 ] He goes on to say:

The German mind possesses neither the French vivacity nor the English penchant for practicality, nor, finally, the American spirit of adventure; what it does possess, however, is a certain integrity that never stops at the outward appearance of things, but always returns to the central question: “Where is this leading?” The German public demands that a writer rise above things and simply speak about them: Intellectual activity is present, all right—but what is its purpose? What is the man’s opinion? Where does it come from? — Where does he get all these thoughts?

[ 41 ] Elsewhere, he says:

The English [...] see only the individual; they do not know how to view humanity as a whole according to higher laws.

Germans think for Europe.

The English do not appreciate the depth of the German spirit.

[ 42 ] And now another of Emerson's observations on this German character:

For this reason

[ 43 ] —he says—

The terms of distinction commonly used in high-level conversation are all of German origin. Whereas the English and French—who are celebrated for their acumen and erudition—view their studies and their standpoint with a certain superficiality, and their personal character bears only a shallow connection to what they have grasped, and the way they express themselves is not deeply connected; Goethe, the head and heart of the German nation, speaks not because he has talent, but because truth concentrates its rays in his soul and shines forth from it. He is wise to the highest degree, even if his wisdom is often veiled by his talent. As excellent as what he says is, he has something in mind that is even better. [...] He possesses that awe-inspiring independence that springs from communion with the truth.

[ 44 ] This, esteemed audience, is the judgment of a nineteenth-century English-language writer—one of the greatest—on those whom we today call the German “barbarians.” What might be characterized as arrogance or something else—if it could be taken out of context from German judgments alone—must be understood differently when it comes from such a source.

[ 45 ] But now, distinguished guests, is such a judgment heard only at those heights of humanity where Emerson stands, and do others perhaps generally hold a different view? Here we may point to a very recent judgment, setting it, as it were, alongside that judgment on Germanness. Those who do not have the time or opportunity to read Miss Wylie’s book *Eight Years in Germany* can also consult the very fine excerpts that Hofmiller has compiled from it and find [in them] important statements from that book, thereby gaining an overview of an English-language assessment of the German character, written just a few months before the outbreak of the war. But when and how was it written? Not written the way many write today, speaking of the German “barbarians,” but written in such a way that the author first spent eight years in Germany, got to know everything, and delved deeply into the nature she wished to describe. It was then—after she had visited hospitals, schools, medical institutions, and other facilities—that she wrote in English about the German character:

We read a lot [...] about the new Germany and its new spirit. But there is no new Germany and no new spirit. What exists is the matured work of generations, that which has always been. Dazzled by the sudden splendor of Germany’s prosperity, we are inclined to forget that, except in terms of prosperity, it has rarely occupied anything other than one of the very foremost places among the nations. In religion and philosophy, Germany shone at a time when everything around it was dark; in literature, it provided an epoch-making impetus; in music, it has always dominated [...].

German literature, German religion, and German philosophy are to us

[ 46 ] — the English —

Books sealed with seven seals. What we do know is how many dreadnoughts Germany possesses and by how much its trade has increased. What really matters is not the dreadnought itself, but the mind of its builder and the courage and talent of its commander. What really matters is not the increase in sales, but the human qualities that brought it about. Forty years ago, Germany was fighting for its very existence, and it is still fighting for it today. It is completely wrong to believe that Germany has already reached its peak. It is waging a quiet but determined struggle against powerful rivals whose power and experience were gained generations ago. [...]

At every border and across the water, Germany’s adversaries—both commercial and political—lie in wait, eagerly anticipating the moment when Germany shows even the slightest sign of weakness so they can pounce and bring it down. Germany knows this [as well] all too well.

[ 47 ] Many court rulings, ladies and gentlemen, are read today—but where are they read? Well, in newspapers, including English newspapers. It was not long ago—in 1912, to be precise—that a number of scholars in Manchester gave lectures on the German character, German politics, German history, the German educational system, the German economy, and German literature. In the preface to the book—which has also been translated into German and is titled *Germany in the Nineteenth Century*, published by Herford—we are given an indication of why these lectures were delivered. They were delivered—so we are told—to provide members of the press with a reasonably accurate understanding of the German character.

[ 48 ] Let us cite just a few isolated instances of English-spoken words—spoken by Herford in England—regarding the German character:

On the whole and in the grand scheme of things, there is no question that the establishment of the German Empire has been conducive to world peace. This statement will seem strange to those who know nothing but the events of the present and for whom history is nothing more than an ever-changing, dazzling movie. But history should be something more than that. It is fitting that the light of the past should shine upon the chaotic turmoil of the present, and in that higher light, things that appear offensive will take on a natural appearance. For when we look to the past, we find that our ancestors regarded France with far greater fear than even the wildest rabble-rousers today fear Germany. And our ancestors’ fear had good reason. [...]

To sum it all up, it can be shown that the founding of the German Empire was a boon for Europe and therefore also for Great Britain. For the events of the years 1866–1871 put an end, once and for all, to the possibility of waging wars of plunder against the hitherto unprotected heart of Europe, thereby eliminating a temptation to war that had so often led France astray in earlier centuries; they enabled the German people to develop their political capabilities, which had hitherto been stunted, and they helped to establish, on a secure foundation, a new European system that has maintained peace for forty years. This blessing stemmed from the fact that German unity achieved in one fell swoop what Great Britain, despite all its expenditure of blood and money, had never been able to accomplish—namely, securing the balance of power so decisively that a major war became the most dangerous of all ventures.

[ 49 ] In 1912, these words were spoken in English in England, addressed to members of the press so that they might gain a better understanding of the German character. I leave it up to each individual to decide what these members of the press learned from these lectures. When these lectures were published, a man whose name you may have come across recently wrote a preface to them. In this preface, written by Lord Haldane, the following words appear:

The source of the stream of his

[ 50 ] —Germany’s —

intellectual and political life lies in the Reformation. At the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, a movement unique in world history began to take shape in a way that has been as uninterrupted as it has been distinctive ever since. Since the days of ancient Greece, the world has not witnessed such a spectacle of the closest fusion of the life of the statesman with that of the thinker. The spirit of present-day Germany is, to a high degree, concrete and practical.

[ 51 ] And further:

Only the influence of true knowledge can dispel the clouds of mistrust and free us from the burden of having to arm ourselves against attacks that, in reality, none of us intends to launch.

[ 52 ] Ladies and gentlemen, in this book there is something else that is most, most remarkable—something truly unique. It is something that was also spoken in English in Manchester in 1912: “No German words are more deeply imbued with the essence of national ethics than those that denote these things: true, thorough, faithful.”

[ 53 ] I do not wish to present this as something that springs solely from the German soul, but we have heard it from across the Channel: “true, thorough, faithful” are words that, more than any others, are “imbued with the essence of national ethics.”

[ 54 ] Well, let us—without, of course, engaging in day-to-day politics or speaking unduly about current events—relate what we are experiencing today directly to these words. After all, it has been rightly pointed out many times in recent weeks how the current events of the war have their origins in southeastern Europe, and how Austria’s mission—so to speak—regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina and extending down into the Balkans is linked to these events of the war.

[ 55 ] Ladies and gentlemen, I lived in Austria during the period marked by the aftermath of Austria’s withdrawal from this mission. To those who lived in Austria at that time and tried to make sense of the course of events in the 1880s, a phrase often rang in their ears—one coined by Bismarck with wit and great humor, yet expressing, one might say, something tied to fate. “There are autumn crocuses in Austria,” he said. Autumn crocuses! The Austrian Liberals, in fact, had a leader named [Eduard] Herbst. He was a great, important man. These Liberals, under Herbst’s leadership, had opposed what Bismarck regarded as demanded by the times and their spirit: Austria’s advance toward the East. That is why Bismarck called them “autumn crocuses.” Now, one need not cite human judgments everywhere, for they arise very easily from feelings and passions stemming from sympathies and antipathies; but history is, in fact, the true teacher of things.

[ 56 ] What, after all, led Austria to those events that are so closely connected to what is happening today—to everything that is happening today? All of this can be traced back to its very beginning, namely to the mission entrusted to Austria at the Congress of Berlin: to advance into the Balkans. Who, then, was it at the Congress of Berlin who, against Russia’s intentions, advocated for this Austrian mission? It was British policy. Above all, those who represented British policy at the time were the ones who entrusted Austria with this mission. This placed Germany in a difficult position vis-à-vis Russia.

[ 57 ] Everything that happened thereafter, up to the assassination of the Archduke, is merely the consequence of what was imposed on Austria at the Congress of Berlin, for those who look back at history with a clear perspective. Today, Germany and Austria must take the stage in the great arena of events to fulfill what England entrusted to Austria at that time, and England is among the adversaries of Germany and Austria.

[ 58 ] This, ladies and gentlemen, is the consequence of history. When one speaks of loyalty, there is also a loyalty to what one has once done. One simply cannot help but take these words seriously when one is characterized by the English side as follows: “No words are so deeply imbued with the ‘essence of national ethics’ as those that describe these things: ‘true, thorough, faithful’—one cannot help but take these words seriously, and one might ask: Is it true to one’s inner convictions to act in 1914 against what one had set in motion decades earlier? Is it thorough, and above all, is it faithful? Such questions may be raised today.

[ 59 ] And when one brings all of this to mind, well then, one must ask: Can one really, in all seriousness, discern from what has happened in the very recent days how the German spirit—as it is connected to its great geniuses—must relate to today’s events? One truly cannot—no matter how many analyses are made of the most recent events—one cannot discern it from these events alone. One must discern it from what was at work in the deeper forces of Europe and what ultimately led to today’s events. But something was at work in these forces of Europe—that is, what lived on from Fichte, Schiller, Goethe, and the others within the German people and the peoples of Central Europe.

[ 60 ] Herman Grimm, a man I would always like to call Goethe’s successor, attempted—from the depths of his soul—to express in beautiful, artistic words what he had absorbed from the great German era, which had become a worldview. And these words of Herman Grimm—which express a feeling, not a judgment, and may therefore be drawn from the German essence itself—in contrast to the cited judgments of non-Germans—are cited as testimony to how the seeds of the spiritual way of thinking of Fichte, Schiller, and Goethe have blossomed within people. How beautifully this was expressed in Herman Grimm’s words, which he wrote in his book on Homer:

The solidarity of all people’s moral convictions is today the church that unites us all. We are searching more passionately than ever for a visible expression of this community. All truly serious aspirations of the masses have only this one goal. The division among nations no longer exists here. We feel that no national distinction prevails when it comes to the ethical worldview. We would all sacrifice ourselves for our fatherland; but we are far from bringing about or hastening the moment when this could be achieved through war. The assurance that maintaining peace is our [all] most sacred wish is no lie. “Peace on earth and goodwill toward men” permeates us.

[ 61 ] As Herman Grimm wrote in 1895—he had been dead since 1901—and then, like a glimpse into the spiritual world, Herman Grimm’s words:

To recognize humanity as a totality, to submit to it as if it were an invisible court of justice enthroned in the clouds, before which one is not permitted to stand; to regard this as a misfortune; and to seek to conform their inner conflicts to its judicial proceedings. With anxious earnestness, they seek justice here. How hard today’s French people strive to portray the war against Germany they are planning as a moral imperative, the recognition of which they demand from other nations—indeed, from the Germans themselves.

[ 62 ] Anyone familiar with the German spirit knows that these words spring from the very core of the German people, that they were truly no lie in the spirit of the German people. But the Germans have never subscribed to an opinion different from the one expressed by Herman Grimm in 1895:

How hard today’s French are trying to portray the war against Germany they are planning as a moral imperative, the recognition of which they demand from other nations—and even from the Germans themselves.

[ 63 ] Ladies and gentlemen, compared to what one might know if one were to look at the driving forces of Europe with a vision strengthened by the essence that reached its highest flowering in Schiller, Fichte, and Goethe—to look at these forces is to realize that the answer to what has recently resounded once again from across the Rhine must truly be given in an entirely different way: Who wanted this war, if not those who wish to provide the answer to this question themselves? I believe that, in light of the deeper forces at work in European life, it can certainly be said—if one wishes to proceed with a certain degree of external sophistry—that this or that party did not want the war. One might say, perhaps: None of them wanted it—this can be proven through sophistry. But one can ask a different question, for the correctness of the answer depends on the correct formulation of the question. Who would have been able to avoid the war? And there can be only one answer to that: Only the St. Petersburg government would have been able to avoid the war. Yet this, too, need not be demonstrated by recent events or by Blue and Yellow Books; it can be demonstrated by the active forces at work within European political life over the past few decades. And I will attempt—in a way that may seem somewhat unusual—to draw attention to how one can identify the issue that has manifested itself today in this terrible war as competing effective forces.

[ 64 ] Let us suppose that someone had taken it upon himself to observe how provocative press reports were coming from Russia this spring, and how these indicated a certain mood that was growing increasingly intense as the spring progressed. That same person would then have followed the events of July—the last days of July—and would have tried to speak with some well-meaning Russian friends who see the better sides of the Russian people and who would like to overlook what was happening there as a genuine intent directed against peace. What could such a person, who had proceeded in this way, have said today—that is, this summer? He might characterize our summer this year something like this: He could describe how a kind of press campaign gradually began in St. Petersburg, through which German policy was attacked. These attacks escalated into strong demands that Germany exert pressure on Austria in matters where Germany could not readily challenge Austrian law. One could not go along with this; for if one were to alienate oneself from Austria from within Germany, one would inevitably fall into dependence on Russia within Germany. Would such dependence have been bearable? One might have believed so earlier, telling oneself that one had no conflicting interests with Russia; one could even ask Russian friends who would explain this or that to one, and one could not contradict them. However, the course of events regarding all of this shows—when one considers what is happening in Russia—that even Germany’s complete submission to Russia cannot protect us against our desire to avoid conflict with Russia. These words can be used to characterize what was taking place between the center and the east of Europe; they apply to our situation today.

[ 65 ] But now I have done something unusual; I have altered the words just a little, for I did not create these words myself, nor did I adapt them to our current situation; they are adapted from words that Bismarck spoke in the German Reichstag in 1888. Bismarck said in 1888:

[...] how a sort of press campaign gradually began in St. Petersburg, through which German policy was attacked and I personally was suspected of ulterior motives. Over the course of the following year, up until 1879, these attacks escalated into strong demands that we exert pressure on Austria in matters where we could not simply challenge Austrian law. I could not go along with this; for if we alienated Austria, we would—unless we wished to be completely isolated in Europe—necessarily fall into dependence on Russia. Would such dependence have been tolerable? I had previously believed it might be, telling myself: We have no conflicting interests at all; there is absolutely no reason why Russia should ever sever its friendship with us. At the very least, I had not outright contradicted my Russian colleagues who had explained this to me. The events surrounding the Congress disappointed me; they showed me that even a complete subordination of our policy (for a certain time) to Russia’s would not protect us from entering into conflict with Russia against our will and against our best efforts.

[ 66 ] Well, distinguished guests, I believe that if one can apply exactly the same words to 1914—words that were so succinctly used by Germany’s greatest statesman in 1888—then this provides extraordinary evidence of the combustible elements that have always been present; the fact that one must look beyond merely the most recent events to understand what is at stake in this war is proven by this. And is it only those people who are absorbed in a certain spirituality—is it only they—who say that “peace on earth and goodwill toward men” is inherent to the German character? I said that anyone who looks into the German nature cannot perceive this as a lie. But anyone who wishes to believe that such a sentiment existed only within the spiritual heights on which Herman Grimm stood should look to the words with which Bismarck, at that time in the same session of the Reichstag in 1888, characterized his stance toward that German sentiment which Herman Grimm expressed when he said: “Peace on earth and goodwill toward men.” That is what is rooted in the deepest recesses of our souls.

[ 67 ] Bismarck spoke some remarkable words back then; he said something to the effect of: “In a system like the one we have, one does not wage wars of aggression.” And he concludes his line of reasoning along these lines by saying: “Suppose I were to stand before you—this was in the Reichstag—and explain to you that it would be better for us to attack, and ask you to approve such-and-such a number of millions of marks; would you have enough confidence in me to approve it?” Bismarck said, “I hope not.”

[ 68 ] One must look to the moods and the forces at work within the soul if one wishes to recognize the truth, the reality, in this regard. Admittedly, Bismarck recognized the truth; he knew that, because he himself had advocated at the Congress of Berlin for England’s demands on Austria regarding the Balkans, he had provoked Russia’s opposition to Germany, but he also knew that he had done everything possible to mitigate that opposition—so much so, as he himself said, that he could have believed he might have received the highest Russian order for his services to Russia at that time, had he not already possessed it. But that was precisely Bismarck’s constant aim: to postpone as long as possible the threat looming from the East.

[ 69 ] These are just a few examples, distinguished guests, of what history reveals—what history reveals to those who delve into the fundamentals that can provide real answers as to who wanted this war.

[ 70 ] Well, ladies and gentlemen, in German intellectual life—as embodied by such geniuses as Fichte, Schiller, and Goethe—there is much, much that can, in a sense, give us a clue as to how to understand what we now so often encounter as a characteristic of those referred to as German “barbarians.” One might then find many very peculiar examples.

[ 71 ] There is a European spirit that has also made a great impression in Germany. He once spoke about this in one of his writings, in which he expressed himself in particular about his inclination toward the spiritual life and mysticism; he spoke of what he owed to the three greatest mystics, whom he names, and as the third of these he identifies a German spirit, Novalis; he speaks of Novalis and what he meant to him. Novalis, he says, is like a spirit who leads us up to heights that are the true heights of humanity. It is, in essence, a very, very beautiful and intimate characterization of the German spirit by Novalis. If an angel—he says—or a genius were to descend from the cosmos to Earth and wish to experience here what is actually of particular importance to the cosmos—one might show him everything Shakespeare wrote, what transpires between Hamlet and Ophelia and others—that may be very important for Earth, he says, but even if it is important for Earth: Something that is also important for a genius descending to Earth from another planet to learn something special here—for him, it need not be important. This characterizer cites many other things that would be unimportant to one who descended from the cosmos to Earth. But what lives in Novalis’s soul—that which, as is absolutely clear to anyone who knows Novalis, is drawn from the deepest depths of the German national spirit—this characterizer describes with beautiful words; he says:

But if he needed further proof, [she] would count him among those whose works border on silence.

[ 72 ] Because what can be spoken does not express the deepest essence of human nature, he finds in Novalis:

She would open the gates of the realm where some loved her for her own sake, without concerning themselves with the small [gestures] of their bodies. [Together they would ascend to the lonely highlands, where consciousness rises to a higher level] and where all those [filled] with restlessness about themselves attentively survey the immense ring that links the phenomenal world with our [higher] worlds. They would go with him to the boundaries of humanity; for at the point where man seems to end, he probably [only] begins [and his most essential and inexhaustible parts lie solely in] the invisible, where he must be constantly on his guard. Only at these heights are there thoughts that the soul can approve of, and ideas [that resemble it and are as] commanding [as the soul itself]. There, humanity has reigned for a moment, and these dimly lit peaks are perhaps the only lights that herald the earth in the spiritual realm: their reflection truly bears the color of our soul. We sense that the passions of the mind and the body would resemble the tolling of bells in the eyes of an alien reason; but the people of whom I speak have, through their works, emerged from the small village of passions and have spoken words that are of value even to those who do not belong to the earthly community.

[ 73 ] Such words are found in Novalis by the one who characterized him. The one who spoke of Novalis, who once characterized the German spirit in Novalis as itself still providing experiences for the genius who descended from cosmic heights—that is Maurice Maeterlinck.

[ 74 ] Ladies and gentlemen, I have nothing further to add to what Maurice Maeterlinck said today or to what I have cited, but I would like to say that, speaking from a truly German soul, Novalis uttered a wonderfully beautiful statement. “The only true temple,” says Novalis, “is the human body. In it lies a form that is uniquely heavenly. To touch the human body is to touch heaven.” So says Novalis at a point that may perhaps be tangible.

[ 75 ] It is the same thing Goethe says: “What would all the suns be, all those that traverse the sky; what would all that splendor be, all those stars that shine, if all of that did not once shine in the human eye, pour into human hearts, and allow a human soul to delight in it with admiration?”

[ 76 ] This is what those who spoke like Goethe and Novalis felt—they sensed, from a spiritual perspective, that there is a supreme work of art, a work of art higher than all human works of art: the human form, the work of art created by the gods. However, only those like Goethe will speak of the human form—those who know the world to be permeated by spiritual beings and who see in the human being the greatest work of divine art. This is perhaps worth recalling at a time when the Germans are accused of particular “barbarism” because it is said that a few cannonballs also fell on the Cathedral of Reims. Now, I know for certain—having seen this cathedral in 1906—that I am in no way inferior to anyone in my admiration for this work of art; however, I have also gained the impression that it is fragile, so that it will not be long before it is damaged by natural causes, but with some judgments, it depends not only on how one approaches that judgment—how one perceives something—but also on whether one makes that judgment at all or not.

[ 77 ] This raises the question: Against the backdrop of our fateful events—where, in countless instances, challenged by fate, the divine work of art, the human form, must be destroyed—oh, then the judgment may be passed that a human work of art, too, may be fired upon. I know there is only one objection; someone might say: The cathedral exists only once, while human beings exist so many times over. I’ll let others argue about what constitutes “barbarism” in this context, but I believe that anyone who understands the way of thinking of Goethe, Schiller, Fichte will not dispute that this judgment—that there are so many people and only one cathedral, and therefore the cathedral must be spared even if the people are shot—is, in truth, the crudest form of “barbarism.” There is a very specific character that can be described as the character of the German spirit.

[ 78 ] And I believe it is already evident from what I could only hint at—that this German essence is intimately, intimately connected to humanity’s search for spirituality, for the invisible, and that this quest—which has found expression in the German leadership geniuses—is fundamentally connected, however unconsciously, to what those who, in these fateful days, must make the sacrifices required for the further development of humanity feel—that they must defend it as something most sacred, not merely as something personal. And no one will be able to object, once they engage with the essence of Central Europe as expressed in such geniuses as we have cited; no one will be able to doubt that this Central Europe is a body for a soul that harbors an invisible power within itself—an invisible power that must possess an impulsiveness toward something higher, palpable in its very nature.

[ 79 ] And it is precisely when one views things in this way that one can feel—whatever may come: one may feel trust, strength, and confidence when, once again, the German world is faced with the question: To be or not to be. The German spirit is capable of giving not a Hamlet-like answer, but a Faust-like one: “Whoever strives with all their might, we can redeem.” One becomes more German all the time. When Germany has grown old, it can become young again. Goethe makes the elixir of youth one of the symbols in his “Faust.”

[ 80 ] And when he speaks of Goethe, not a single German—but rather the English-speaking Emerson, referring to what Goethe had become—uttered these words:

The world is young; the great men of the past call out to us with a friendly voice. We must write sacred texts to connect the earthly and heavenly worlds. The secret of genius is not to tolerate a lie remaining for us, to turn [everything of which we are aware] into truth, to inspire certainty and trust in books and in people, and to honor every truth—at the beginning, at the end, and for all eternity—by making it a guiding principle for our actions.

[ 81 ] So says Emerson regarding Goethe, whom he describes as the head and the substance of the nation. And one can bear in mind the words of the “American Englishman” that it may well be the mission of the people of Goethe, Schiller, and Fichte to do something of what Emerson alludes to: “We must write sacred books to reconnect heaven and the earthly world. The secret of genius is not to tolerate a lie remaining for us.”

[ 82 ] As for how this relates to today’s lecture, I’ll leave that up to you to judge. But I believe I have at least stammeringly hinted at one thing in this lecture: what the “great men of the past” have made us feel about the essence of Central Europe, about this culture, which, in Schiller’s words, is the heart of Europe—the rest is merely leaves and blossoms.

[ 83 ] Emerson says: “They call out to us with a friendly voice.” We wanted to listen to these friendly voices, because perhaps they can be of use in our present time. Tomorrow we will discuss how one might arrive at what can inspire our present moment by truly hearing the vitality of these spirits. Today, by way of introduction, I wanted to point out not so much what was contained in my words, but rather what radiates from certain German geniuses and can flow into our hearts as comfort, hope, confidence, and as a source of strength in our spiritual and physical lives for the present. For if one feels vividly what flows over from the spirits whose essence lives on in the German national spirit, what flows over can coalesce in the soul into hope, into confidence, but also into something that can be perceived as the deepest truth in Central Europe.

[ 84 ] And it is peculiar that, drawing from the same spirit that inspired Goethe, Schiller, and Fichte, the German-minded Schleiermacher sought to shape his words on the connection between all human striving and the invisible—and that he, too, was led, one might say, to hint at the deepest essence of the German spirit by pointing to the invisible aspect of that German spirit. And this invisible realm, this reality to be grasped in the spirit—which Fichte so forcefully invoked to offer encouragement during times when the German people were downcast—still resonates with us today in just the right way, even if not in times of humiliation, but in times when we are experiencing something supreme and wondrous, we can point precisely to what the German people have always strived for as their most precious possession. Today, as if speaking from the very soul of this German people and for our own comfort, we can say with Schleiermacher—speaking with him, still expressing our feelings today in the midst of Europe, in the heart of Europe: “Germany is still here, and its invisible power remains undiminished.” And today we may add, after all that has developed out of German strength, that there is good reason to hope: This invisible strength of the German people is not only undiminished today; it is also indestructible for the foreseeable future.