The Rudolf Steiner Archive

5. The Rejuvenating Power of the German National Soul

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! Every year I have had the privilege of speaking here in this city on topics related to the spiritual sciences. Our friends here in the spiritual science movement felt that this should continue even during these fateful days. It will now seem understandable that these days of ours require a very special kind of contemplation, even for those dedicated to spiritual science. For all our sensations, all our feelings, are intimately united with what is unfolding in the East and West during these fateful days. We must, after all, look on with deep sympathy toward those who faithfully fulfill the duty that the times demand of them, who stand up with body, blood, and soul for that which has so profoundly shaped the course of European—and indeed, all human—development. In all our thoughts, in all our reflections, there must inevitably be woven in that which connects us to the great stage where, at present, decisions are not made and judgments are not passed in words, concepts, and ideas, but where decisions are made and judgments are passed through deeds, through life, through blood, and through death.

[ 2 ] What I would like to consider with you this evening, my esteemed audience, is connected to the great events of our time in such a way that a question arises—as it were, arising directly from these events themselves: What impulses, what forces, what powers in the course of human development have led—or could have led—to the situation where the bearers of Central European culture, the bearers of Central European spiritual life, are now, as it were, enclosed on all sides within a mighty, expanded fortress, forced to defend themselves on all sides; indeed, not only must they defend themselves, but they are also burdened from all sides with all manner of insults, even abuse. Perhaps it is precisely spiritual-scientific concepts—perhaps it is feelings that arise from spiritual-scientific sensibility—that are suited to characterizing, at least in broad strokes, the larger contexts that, in the unfolding of the world up to our time, have led to our fateful events.

[ 3 ] Among the things that the materialistic age particularly mocked—as I noted when I attempted to describe them in my book *Theosophy*—was the idea, the concept, of the national soul. For the spiritual scientist, this national soul is not merely an abstract, empty concept, nor merely an abstract summary of the characteristics of any given people. This national soul is a living, real entity.

[ 4 ] For spiritual science—as has often been emphasized here—the concept of reality, including the concept of personal and individual reality, does not end with the visible. Everywhere behind the visible, the invisible reigns. When we approach nature from the perspective of spiritual science, we find, behind what nature reveals to us externally, spiritual essences that are effective not merely for a superstitious, traditional worldview, but for genuine, spiritual-scientific research. Behind all that we ourselves are, behind all that develops within us between birth and death, reigns that eternal, imperishable Self, which, however, presents itself to human beings in forms and essences that they do not take into account in everyday life. The supersensible Self reigns within us, passing from life to life on Earth through births and deaths. And in all historical development, real, personal, individual beings reign invisibly, supersensibly, yet as real as the external beings of the animal and plant worlds. It is of such real, reigning spiritual beings that the spiritual researcher speaks when he speaks of the national soul. And based on his insights, he attempts to grasp the essence of these national souls; he attempts to penetrate into the very nature of these national souls in order to gain, through this penetration, an understanding of how the national souls are at work within the peoples, in the feelings and impulses of the peoples, and how, through this activity of the national souls, the peoples relate to one another.

[ 5 ] I would like to begin by merely hinting at something—which, if explained in detail, would take us far too far afield—namely, how the spiritual researcher comes to speak of such higher spiritual beings also in the sense of national souls. In our material life, we relate to the things of the external world—to the things of the mineral, animal, and plant kingdoms; we observe what is spread out around us within the scope of these kingdoms; we form concepts and thoughts about them and take them into ourselves. We know that our soul-being dwells within us, and when we form thoughts, conceptions, and ideas, these thoughts, conceptions, and ideas relate to beings outside of us.

[ 6 ] What we are able to draw out of these beings, we assimilate, as it were; we then carry this within us from the mineral, animal, and plant worlds that surround our senses. From the world that lies beneath us as human beings, we form conceptions, thoughts, and ideas. Spiritual research shows us—I can only hint at this today with a comparison; those in the audience who have heard me speak here often know that this is not merely a comparison, but the result of spiritual research—spiritual research shows us how we, as human souls, relate to external reality. Thus, a spiritual world exists above us in the invisible realm; and just as the things of the mineral, animal, and plant worlds are to us, so are we ourselves, as souls, to a spiritual world. We can say, by way of comparison: Just as the things of the sensory world become thoughts for us, so do we become thoughts, so do we become concepts and ideas for the spiritual world. And among the beings closest to us in the spiritual world is the national soul. And just as we humans can relate to the outer world in such a way that we simply surrender ourselves to it through our senses—as it were, giving it little thought and scarcely rising into an ideal realm—so too can the national soul relate to the individual members of a nation in such a way that it, as it were, lives itself out entirely within the individual members, that it is wholly and completely [with its impulses of will]—and with the national soul, it is the impulses of will that matter—that it expresses itself entirely within the individuals, that this national soul rarely rises into a spiritual realm, but rather submerges itself and leads a life within the individuals of the nation themselves. Such national souls, viewed from the perspective of spiritual science, we find more among the Western nations of Europe. There we find that the national souls hardly rise into a spiritual realm; on the contrary, we find that they intervene in a domineering, tyrannical, and dogmatic manner in the individual soul life of the members of the Western European peoples.

[ 7 ] Another possibility is conceivable and is indeed inherent in the character of national souls. This can be compared to a person who is more of a dreamer, who has little awareness or appreciation for the external world; when things pass him by, as it were, unnoticed, and he lives more in his own imagination. The Russian national soul can be compared to this attitude of the individual human soul toward external things. It hovers, as it were, nebulously over the individual members of the people; it does not penetrate into the individual personalities of the people; it pays little attention to them; it stands in only a loose connection with them.

[ 8 ] Then there are people—and in the history of Central Europe’s development we have a representative example of this type—who, on the one hand, lovingly perceive the external world with all their senses, yet does not become attached to this external world; rather, he develops a full, ideal, spiritual-psychic life, and with this spiritual-psychic life he immerses himself in what the senses around him present and reveal; in the most eminent sense, Goethe is a representative of this type of spirit. Goethe, whose mode of thinking a prominent psychologist of his time called “concrete thinking,” because this remarkable, unique soul of Goethe’s connects lovingly through the senses with everything outside himself, while at the same time rising so powerfully to ideas. Schiller, in a conversation he had with Goethe, could not quite understand this, so that Goethe had to assert that he saw his ideas with his eyes. So highly developed were in him the ideal realm, the spiritual-soul life, and, in turn, the sensory-external life. A national soul that can be compared to this disposition of the individual human soul is the German national soul. The German national soul, which has proven itself as such through the centuries and millennia of German development in Central Europe.

[ 9 ] This German national soul appears to us, on the one hand, as familiar and intimately engaged with individual human existence. On the other hand, we see how it was able to withdraw into the spiritual realms to open up new sources of spiritual life there, only to then descend once more to the individual human beings within the German people. A national soul that lives simultaneously in the spiritual and in the individual, which—even in the course of time—appears to us as if it were descending among the people; [it appears as if it were descending rhythmically]; we perceive it in the decisions in which the ancestors asserted themselves as opponents of Roman development. We see how this national soul, even back then in Central Europe, filled the individual human beings, how it imbued them with strength so that they could oppose, in a very specific way, that which was encroaching upon them as Roman culture. We then see how this national soul withdraws, then bursts forth again, submerges into the individual personalities, and even brings forth a pinnacle during the time of Walter von der Vogelweide and [Wolfram von Eschenbach]. We see how, later on, when Germany was being torn apart from the left and the right, from the north and the south, during the Thirty Years’ War, this national soul gathered strength in the unseen, only to re-emerge into the individuals at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries during a golden age of German spiritual development.

[ 10 ] When we consider history in its rhythmic course, it reveals to us something like an alternation between the immersion of the national soul into individual personalities and its return to the spiritual realm. And it is from this return to the spiritual realm that the rejuvenating forces of German development spring.

[ 11 ] If we consider this fundamental trait—on the one hand, this sense of familiarity, and on the other, this soaring spirit—of the German national soul, we come to understand how, within the development of German culture, that which is produced as the highest achievement, that which rises to the very pinnacles of art and intellectual life, is nevertheless rooted in the simplest impulses, in the primal essence of the national soul; how it has always been unthinkable in Germany that Germany’s high culture would not also be folk culture.

[ 12 ] And so, especially in these fateful times—not to stir up sentimental feelings in your hearts, but to hint at what the rejuvenating forces of the German national soul are currently expressing, and how Germany’s high culture has emerged—I would like to, as it were, invoke two figures in their final moments, their moments of death, and characterize them somewhat.

[ 13 ] How deeply did what Schiller could be to his people take root in German hearts and minds? What was at work within Schiller’s own mind? The rejuvenating forces of the German national spirit! He knew he was connected to these deeper forces of the German national spirit. Through one of his friends, Heinrich Voß—the son of the Homer translator Voß—we are, as it were, led into Schiller’s deathbed chamber and come to know Schiller’s final days and final moments. There we come to know him—this Schiller—who, in his final days, had, so to speak, already died physically, yet who, mustering all his spiritual strength, remained engaged with his surroundings. There we can see how the spirit reigned over the body that had grown frail—a body that, upon autopsy, revealed a withered heart, yet within which a warm glow still burned. We see that this frail body was sustained solely by the powerful spiritual forces that dwelt within it.

[ 14 ] We are told how difficult Schiller’s final moments were. It is moving to see how, even in those last moments, he still struggled to say this or that—things he believed he still had to convey to those around him so that they might be passed on to posterity. We are told how Schiller had his last, his youngest child brought to his bedside, how he gazed into the child’s eyes for a long, long time. How he then turned toward the wall. And the young Voß recounts that he believed—and he was certainly justified in believing so—that Schiller looked at his child as if to say: Yes, it would be necessary for me to be your father a little longer, for I still have so much to tell you.

[ 15 ] And one may say: The entire German people can imagine it as if the feelings directed toward the child in those final moments had been directed toward the entire German people themselves; as if the German people must feel what Schiller still had to say to them. For in Schiller, the German people can feel how he was sustained in everything by the rejuvenating forces of the German national spirit.

[ 16 ] Let us reflect on the words that have been frequently cited in recent times—words that Schiller uttered, so to speak, as a legacy, and from which it is clear how deeply he felt connected to the German people. These words did not come to light until long after his death. But they show us how Schiller himself felt sustained by the forces of the German national spirit.

He who shapes and masters the spirit,
must ultimately reign, for
at the end of time, unless the
world has a plan, if human
life has any meaning at all, then finally
morality and reason must triumph,
the brute force of form must yield
and the slowest people will catch up with all
the swift and flighty ones.
[...]
To him

[ 17 ] — the German —

is destined for the highest,
and just as he stands in the midst of
the peoples of Europe,
so he is the core of humanity,
while they are the blossom and the leaf.

He has been chosen by the World Spirit, while
in the struggle of time
to work on the eternal edifice of human culture
to preserve what time brings,
therefore he has so far assimilated what is foreign
and preserved it within himself.
Everything of value that arose in other eras
and among other peoples—which, over time
came into being and faded away—he has preserved;
it remains his own: the treasures of
centuries.
Not to shine in the 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 Germans is the harvest of
all of time.

[ 18 ] Schiller thus felt connected to the power of the German national spirit.

[ 19 ] Now let us turn our attention to another German—a German who has risen high, one might say, into the philosophical realms that so often seem so cold; let us turn to Johann Gottlieb Fichte. But to that Fichte who, during Germany’s darkest hour—when Germany was being crushed from the West—attempted, as he himself put it, to deliver his “Addresses to the German Nation” from the innermost “root of the life forces” of his people. He, the philosopher who perhaps presented to humanity the ideas most vigorously imbued with human will, he who coined the sharpest ideas—he knew himself to be connected at the same time to all the primal sources of the German people, and it was out of this awareness that he delivered his “Addresses to the German Nation” at that time. But he also felt connected to everything that, emerging from the German people, determined Germany’s destiny. And once again, this becomes evident to us—we can view it entirely without sentimentality—it is symbolically evident in his final moments.

[ 20 ] Fichte often pondered whether he should go to war himself. Then he told himself that he had to make a difference through the power of his mind. His wife worked as a nurse in a military hospital in Berlin. She brought hospital fever home with her. She recovered, but Fichte contracted the fever. And in his final moments—and this was strangely characteristic of this seemingly abstract and yet at the same time most down-to-earth philosopher—in his final days, as his crystal-clear, vibrant thoughts gave way to feverish fantasies, in those fantasies he found himself out there with the German armies, at Blücher’s crossing of the Rhine; there he faithfully took part in the battles; there he felt himself in the thick of the battle. Thus, even in the feverish fantasies of the dying philosopher, the most profound German philosophy still flowed into an intimate communion with the deeds of his people. His son handed him some medicine. He pushed it away with his hand and said—letting his thoughts wander from the most human of philosophies to the way he felt on the battlefields—“I don’t need any medicine, for I feel that I will recover.” He recovered—only to die.

[ 21 ] Such examples, my esteemed audience, show us how the forces of the German national soul were at work wherever the individual souls belonging to this people blaze the trail they must recognize as the most humane—the one leading to the highest goods of humanity.

[ 22 ] And everywhere it becomes evident how this German national soul does not rule tyrannically over the individual, how it does not instill some collective, dogmatic worldview into people’s souls; how it is experienced within each individual soul, how the individual soul perceives it as a force of its own. And yet, the highest manifestations of the supersensory spiritual life are brought into these individual souls. And time and again, we see anew how the individual soul is moved by all that it has to accomplish on earth, by what the national soul brings down from the spiritual heights.

[ 23 ] How this Central European people once embraced Christianity! In such a way that it was felt as the most personal of impulses. We read the retellings of the Gospel stories [in the *Heliand*, the work of the Saxon monk]; we read them there as something that sprang directly from the most personal spiritual life, yet was nonetheless the revelation of the Most High.

[ 24 ] And we move on. We see how, later on, the individual German soul is moved; so deeply moved by what encompasses the entire soul of the people that, in German mysticism of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, this German soul perceives God in such a way that this God lives directly within everything the individual can will, feel, and love—that which the individual soul feels directly within itself as the eternally living. How resonant are the words spoken by Meister Eckhart: “If you love God, then you may do as you please, [for then you desire only the Eternal and the One, which God also desires. I do not ask God to give Himself; I ask Him to purify me, and then He will flow into me of His own accord. God is a pure good in Himself and therefore wishes to dwell nowhere but in a pure soul, into which He may pour Himself completely. When the soul is so pure that it sees right through itself, then it need not seek God in any form, but rather sees Him within itself and enjoys all creatures in God and God in all creatures; and whatever it does, it does in God, and] God does it in you.” That is, to engage in intimate dialogue not only with what one is as an individual human being, but also with what, as the soul of the people, whispers and breathes through all the minds of the people.

[ 25 ] And think of Angelus Silesius, who lived in the seventeenth century. How does this sense of empathy between the individual human soul and the collective soul of the people come to life in his work? As we read there—I’ll cite just one saying—Silesius, the “Cherubic Wanderer,” composed countless such sayings.

I die, yet I do not live. God Himself dies within me, and whatever I am to live, He also lives forever and ever.

[ 26 ] This means feeling at one with that which weaves and flows through the world as Spirit. It also means carrying within oneself a consciousness of immortality of the highest order. What is it like when a person feels connected in the depths of their soul to the divine source of existence, so that they say: “I die, yet I do not live. God Himself dies within me.” There is the certainty that God does not die; but that it is God who passes through death with me. There I feel so united with God that my immortality is thereby assured. There you see the peculiarity of how intimately the national soul lives with the individual national spirit.

[ 27 ] When we examine the human soul from a spiritual-scientific perspective—not by making abstract classifications, but by observing this soul in a truly scientific manner (which modern science does not do, but which the science of the future will certainly do)—we see that we can distinguish three soul components, three expressions of the soul. Just as one can distinguish the various shades of color in the spectrum, so too can and must one, in a thoroughly scientific manner, distinguish within the human soul the soul of sensation, the soul of understanding or emotion, and the soul of consciousness. And within all of these reigns, first and foremost, that which is called the human “I,” the human being’s true self. Just as light reigns in the reddish-yellow, greenish, and blue-violet parts of the rainbow, so the power of the self—the human “I”—reigns through the feeling soul, the intellectual or emotional soul, and the conscious soul.

[ 28 ] Now, what is peculiar—if one wishes to understand the peoples of Europe from a spiritual-scientific perspective—is that it becomes apparent that the national soul of, for example, the Italian people relates to individual human beings in such a way that the national soul there stimulates the soul of feeling and acts through it. In the case of the French people, the national soul acts through the intellectual or emotional soul. In the case of the British people, the national soul acts through the conscious soul. In the case of the Russian people, the national soul hovers above the soul forces, leaving them, as it were, in an [anarchic] state. The German national soul directly stimulates the “I.” It does not express itself through a particular part of the soul, but by seizing the whole soul; hence its rejuvenating power. Hence the possibility that the German is thus seized by the power of his national soul. [At a certain time, it lovingly embraced what was offered in Italy, France, and England, but always rejuvenating it, elevating it within itself to an independent existence.] How lovingly did the German spirit, in its own time, embrace what was offered to humanity in Eckhart and Tauler; yet how did it rejuvenate it by stimulating the entire “I” across the entire spectrum; how did it elevate it to the most independent, most personal and inner existence. How, with its ever-rejuvenating power—the power of the national soul that grips the “I”—was the German people, in the present, able to present as the highest representative of humanity that which encompasses the whole human being? No other people could have produced a work of poetry like *Faust*, because no other people is so deeply moved in its immediate “I” by the national soul, through all the elements of the soul’s spectrum. But this is also why this German essence is so little understood and so misunderstood on all sides.

[ 29 ] When we look toward the West, we must observe how everything that springs most deeply from the German soul—that which, entirely undogmatically, is always present there to inspire striving—is reduced to coarseness through language; how it is often misunderstood and rejected, either on an emotional level or critically. One might say: The very best that the Central European national soul instills in the people of Central Europe is, in the West—even when an attempt is made to understand it—“understood” in such a way that precisely what is immediately invigorating is lost. And this extends even to the way figures are perceived.

[ 30 ] One can learn a great deal about the distinctive character of European cultures by considering how so much in the West is understood through the spiritual essence of the Western European people. Herman Grimm, the art historian, once rightly said [regarding a book on Goethe by the Englishman Lewes]: There was once a certain Mr. Lewes in England who wrote a book about a man born in Frankfurt in August 1749 and who died in Weimar in March 1832, to whom Mr. Lewes attributes [“Werther,” “Clavigo,” and so on]—fates that we know Goethe actually experienced. He also attributes to him the authorship of Goethe’s works. But everything he describes about this man is connected only by chance to the one who was born in 1749 and died in 1832. For that which connects Goethe’s creative work with the life of the Central European national soul has, in essence, not been conveyed in the slightest to the book that Mr. Lewes has written about a certain Goethe—who, however, is not in reality the creator of *Faust* for the Central European. The outward appearance, the coarse aspects—that through which the other becomes visible—can be grasped. But that which lives in the national soul, enlivening the individual soul, is lost; it cannot be seen. Perhaps Herman Grimm expressed this a little too radically. But it reveals what is at stake.

[ 31 ] And so we must also conclude that there is indeed something in the way the French soul understands the German soul that proves to us that the French national soul is such that it immerses itself in the intellectual soul—determining it and, in a sense, directly tyrannizing it—so that the national soul thinks within the individual and permeates the individual’s impulses of will. Whereas the German national soul becomes the confidante of the individual human being.

[ 32 ] And now, if we turn our gaze eastward, toward the Russian people. In Russia, there has been much engagement with Kant, Hegel, and Belinsky. But all of this reveals a very specific peculiarity: the ideas of Central Europe take on a strangely ghostly quality in the East. They are not perceived and experienced as soul-uplifting sensations, but rather as ghosts of thought, ghosts of concepts; as that which lives in the collective consciousness of the people, which transcends the individual.

[ 33 ] By this I am expressing a body of knowledge that is just as rigorous as the physical, chemical, and biological truths. Although it is more difficult to speak about these things, because physical, chemical, and biological truths leave people indifferent, whereas the truths presented here are connected to human destiny and nature. But we live in a time when the human soul must rise above that which impairs the human [gap in the text], and we live in a time when such things must be spoken, when we must gain an understanding of the impulses that are sweeping through the world and that have brought about what is now here.

[ 34 ] It is rightly often said that the two Central European ethnic groups have been encircled in recent decades, as if the Central European states had been clamped shut with iron clamps. For the spiritual researcher, however, this encirclement began much earlier. And the external—one might say materialistic—encirclement, whose chief architect was Edward VII, is the final [representative] of an ancient encirclement that began in the year 860 A.D. These connections must be taken into account. When, in 860, the Normans stood before Paris on one side and, on the other side, the Varangians came down [before Novgorod and Kyiv] and threatened Constantinople—when they then pushed their way into the Slavic territory through Russia as far as Kyiv and Constantinople, while on the other side Norman forces pushed their way [into the Romance-speaking region], we see a sort of coiling serpent in Central Europe. Those who remained Central Europeans were to be enclosed, encircled. And in the West, we see the peoples moving inward and permeated by a national soul, pushing their way into the Romanic element—which then, from south to northwest, becomes the very substance of the national soul—so that thought becomes dogmatic, so that on this side everything must be taken dogmatically, so that we see how that which is immediately human—that which arises from the familiar interaction of the human soul with the national soul—is absorbed dogmatically in the West by the intellectual soul, which is permeated by traditional Romanism. [This is how Central Europe becomes isolated. This must be taken dogmatically. If the world is not viewed in this way, the national soul, permeated by the old Romanism, will not be individualized.]

[ 35 ] On the other hand, in the East, we see how a national soul emerges as the Varangians—who are related to the Normans—merge with the Slavs, becoming intermingled with the Slavs racially and with the Byzantines religiously. And we see that what arises there remains, in terms of racial individuality, as something suspended on high—[something that never becomes familiar to them]—that never descends, whereas the human soul stands in such a way that it either submits or throws itself to the ground. Thus, in the East, one is confronted with that which directly asserts the racial element. In the West, one is confronted with what is an ancient and renewed sentiment that dogmatizes the individual. You see that this is the only way to understand what human souls bring forth.

[ 36 ] In the center, we see that which is, as it were, encircled and enclosed on all sides—that which constantly seeks to bring forth anew and to offer upon the altar of human development whatever may emerge from the intimate connections between individual souls and the collective soul of the people.

[ 37 ] Thus we witness the curious phenomenon that even to this day—even in our pain-filled days—what emerges in Central Europe is indeed observed by the West, but in that observation it is bound to be misunderstood, because it is measured not against human experience but against the West’s own dogma; by that which tyrannically commands the national soul from the intellectual soul, as it were. We witness very characteristic phenomena in this regard. For instance, outwardly one is willing to acknowledge that the Germans have achieved a great deal, that they have attained a high culture in thought, in philosophy, in poetry, and in other branches of art; but then, when a man has absorbed some of these things and has even, in his own way, quite ingeniously transposed them into the realm of Western popular culture—as Henri Bergson did—when such a man offers a witty overview of these things, it is still German thought interpreted through a French lens, German thought transposed into the manner peculiar to the West. And now he feels compelled—we had to read around Christmas how he spoke about this at the so-called [Academy of Moral and Political Sciences]; we had to read how he attempts to characterize the German essence. And this German essence appears in his account as if it sought to embody itself solely in cannons and rifles—in what the silly chatter calls “German militarism”; that militarism to which Germany was forced, not of its own accord, but by those who surrounded it. One would like to ask such a man what he actually expected Germany to set against its enemies other than shotguns and cannons. Did he perhaps imagine that the armies of Germany would recite Novalis, Schiller, or Goethe?

[ 38 ] The question is: What does the Central European have to defend? What he has to defend becomes clear when we consider what the German national spirit means to the individual German. But such considerations will only become important once they can capture the imagination of reasonable people around the world within a somewhat broader context and find an echo there. Today, logic is not exactly what is being whispered around the world. We have even had to hear that a demonstration on the German side was met with the response from both the left and the right in Europe: “We did not want this war.” — “You did not want it.” Yes, viewed logically; that is quite correct, viewed logically. One can believe it. It is just as true as when a group of people surrounds another person’s house. He sees that he is trapped inside his house. He goes out and beats up those who are surrounding him. And they then say: “We didn’t want the fight.” The logic is exactly the same in both cases. Today, logic does not whisper through what is called the “interaction of nations”—a term particularly promoted by the newspapers. One sees it confirmed everywhere by facts: in the West, what the German national soul tells the individual German can indeed be grasped—it can be heard—but it cannot take effect for the reasons just cited.

[ 39 ] We are witnessing peculiar phenomena. This power of the German national soul—in enlightened minds, in minds that seek to engage with it—has indeed come to light to some extent. It is not exactly pleasant, so to speak, to speak characteristically about the Central European people right in the midst of them. And so I shall choose a different approach. I would like to raise the question: Has this German essence, as it is now misunderstood, truly always been misunderstood even outside German territories? There is a man who certainly ranks among the most significant thinkers of the nineteenth century. And I would like to read to you a passage from a book about Goethe, whom he himself regards as the embodiment of the German essence [Emerson]. He says—a man who lives far away from Central Europe—he says about Goethe:

One [quality] in particular, which Goethe shares with his entire nation, makes him a remarkable figure in the eyes of both French and English audiences.

[ 40 ] — there is mention of a [quality] that Goethe shares with the entire nation —

that everything he does 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 convictions. In France, people are delighted simply to encounter brilliant ideas, no matter where they lead. In all these countries, however, talented 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. The German mind possesses neither the French vivacity nor the English understanding, which is honed for practical matters, nor, finally, the American spirit of adventure; yet what it does possess is a certain probity 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 his mind. Intellectual vivacity is present—very well: What does it stand for? What is the man’s opinion? Where does it come from? Where does he get all these thoughts?

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

The Germans think for Europe.

The English do not fathom the depth of the German genius.

[ 41 ] [We see that the rejuvenating force of the German national spirit has not always been misunderstood.]

For this reason, the terms used to make distinctions in high-level conversation are all of German origin. While the English and French—who are renowned for their acumen and erudition—view their studies and their perspectives with a certain superficiality, and their personal character bears only a shallow connection to what they have grasped and the way they express themselves—there is not a very deep connection; Goethe, the head and the essence 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. How excellent is what he says; yet he has something in mind that is even better. [...] He possesses that awe-inspiring independence that springs from communion with the truth.

[ 42 ] Thus, one could already sense what the German could achieve in his engagement with the truth—that is, in his engagement with the soul of his people—wherever one was willing to feel it.

[ 43 ] Now, one might say: That was a long time ago. And people have said so. The Germans have changed since then. Instead of writing poetry, they have been making cannons. Well, to address this as well, let us quote here the words of another man who, in his own way, must have captured—we will see why in a moment—what constitutes the German national character as it is perceived in the West.

The source of the stream of his

[ 44 ] — Germany —

The roots of both intellectual and political life lie 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 between the life of the statesman and that of the thinker. The spirit of today’s Germany is highly concrete and practical.

[ 45 ] And elsewhere, the same man says:

Only the influence of true knowledge can dispel the clouds of mistrust and free us from the burden of having to defend ourselves against attacks that, in reality, no one [among] us intends to make.

[ 46 ] Who said that? Well, Lord Haldane said it. You may recall some of the other things he said a few months ago! Not long ago—in fact, just a few months before this war broke out—some Englishmen gave lectures in Manchester intended to enlighten English journalists about the German character. From the newspapers that are now being published, one can see what fruits that has borne, what good it has done. But we will see shortly what was said in Manchester—that is, in England—about the German character.

Woods

[ 47 ] — the Englishman's —

This essay was the precursor to Wolf’s even more epoch-making research on Homer; and the Greek ideals of art and life became, for Goethe and Schiller in Weimar—just as, in Herder’s case, the ideals of [primordial] song—the instruments on which the German spirit soared into a music that was new and yet, at its very core, its own.

[ 48 ] Some strange words follow:

The spirit of science was undoubtedly familiar to the highly privileged elite among Descartes’ and Newton’s compatriots; but the passionate drive for knowledge was taught to modern Europe—if at all—primarily by thousands of German researchers.

[ 49 ] Spoken in Manchester to enlighten English journalists; that's why they're so enlightened now!

Imagination, emotion, and will asserted their right to be heard alongside reason—or even beyond it—and under their transformative pressure, the universe became deeper, vaster, and more wondrous. The irrational was recognized as a source of enlightenment; wisdom was drawn from the child and the flower; science, philosophy, and poetry drew closer together. Here in England, this revival of the imagination gave rise to noble poetry, but left the sciences and philosophy almost untouched. One of the keys to understanding the entire period is the fact that, while in England and France the poetic, philosophical, and scientific movements flowed largely in separate channels, in Germany they touched one another or merged completely. Wordsworth sang and Bentham calculated; Hegel, however, captured the genius of poetry in the web of his logic; and the thought that discovers and explains, and the imagination that brings forth the new, worked together in fruitful harmony in the genius of Goethe.

In *Faust*, at the end of his eventful life, we see a foreshadowing of today’s Germany—the Germany of restless, bold ambition and action—and we can understand all the better why the [great] citizen of the world—in whose eyes the state and national identity were subordinate and sometimes harmful ideals—nevertheless asserts his unassailable position as the greatest poet of the German Empire alongside Bismarck, his creator.

[ 50 ] And now for something quite strange. The following was also said shortly before the outbreak of the war during the same lecture series in Manchester:

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 for history to cast the light of the past upon the chaotic turmoil of the present, and in that higher light, things that appear harmful will take on a natural perspective. For when we look to the past, we find that our ancestors viewed France with far greater fear than even the most vociferous agitators today fear Germany. And our forefathers’ fear was well-founded.

[ 51 ] So says an Englishman!

To sum it all up, it can be shown that the founding of the German Empire was a benefit for Europe—and therefore also for Great Britain. For the events of 1866–1871 put an end, once and for all, to the possibility of waging wars of aggression against the hitherto unprotected heart of Europe, thereby removing a temptation to wage war

[ 52 ] — though he was wrong about that —,

which had so often led France astray in earlier centuries;

[ 53 ] — that wasn't said in Berlin or Hanover; it was all said in Manchester —

They enabled the German people to develop their political capabilities, which had been stunted until then, and they helped 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.

[ 54 ] That was said in Manchester, a year before the war. The matter speaks for itself; we hardly need to add anything.

[ 55 ] So we see that people have, at times, known what role the Central European people have to play in the overall culture of humanity. Indeed, at times they have even known it quite, quite thoroughly. Here is an example of just how thoroughly they knew it. There was a certain man, also over there in the West, [who is even closer to us] than the others we have just spoken of; a certain man whom the world calls a mystic. This man has undoubtedly written very profound works. On one occasion, he spoke about the source of the deepest thoughts of his soul, and in doing so, he cited three phenomena of world history. The third is the German poet Novalis. With Novalis, when we hear his poetry, we immediately have the feeling that the rejuvenating power of the national soul speaks intimately to his soul, so that it can express what the national soul is saying to him. Now, what does this man feel when it comes to Novalis? He says:

[ 56 ] What people on Earth describe, what poets say—a Sophocles, a Shakespeare—what these Desdemonas, Ophelias, Hamlets, and so on experience—it all takes place among human beings. But if a spirit from another plane were to descend to Earth, could that spirit from another plane find something on Earth that would also interest him—him, the spirit who is not of this Earth?

[ 57 ] And the man now believes that what the German poet Novalis expressed might also interest a spirit who, as a genius, descends from another plane. He believes that Novalis touched upon mysteries of the human soul—mysteries before which the soul must often remain silent, because it can find the right words to express these mysteries—these supernatural mysteries of life—only in life’s moments of solemn reverence. So says the man. And let us engrave these words deeply into our souls, for they are beautiful—these words he speaks in response to what he has experienced in Novalis. He says:

Only at these heights are there memories capable of shaping the soul, and ideas that resemble it and are as commanding as the soul itself. There, humanity reigned for a moment, and these dimly lit peaks are perhaps the only lights that announce the Earth to the realm of the spirit

[ 58 ] — and, says the man, Novalis lit many of those lights. And he goes on to say —,

but in her works, the people mentioned

[ 59 ] —including Novalis —

They came out of the little village of passions and said things that are valuable even to those who are not part of the earthly community.

[ 60 ] This is how one speaks of one of the most German of Germans, of Novalis. A man speaks this way, and we might assume that this man, who evidently loves the spiritual, would instruct all those who now speak of the German “barbarians” with the words: “For these words, which I have just read aloud, are also from the man from whom I will now read something else:”

In truth, it is difficult to listen to one’s soul and hear its faint, childlike voice amid the senseless clamor that surrounds it.

[ 61 ] Yes, one could certainly say that, amid the useless loudmouths who are now speaking of Germany’s “barbarism,” words like those of this man are hard to hear. But who said all this? Maurice Maeterlinck. Well, you know how much Maeterlinck himself has joined the ranks of the useless loudmouths in recent months. We need not add anything further on that point either.

[ 62 ] But then, when we hear such voices, we say to ourselves: They are precisely proof that what wells up from the German national soul into the individual German souls is already permeating across the borders, but it cannot take effect. Nor can it truly take effect where it appears ghostlike. I have shown that it appears ghostlike in the East. Indeed, if one asks: What is it that even those people in the East who speak of Western European culture perceive in this contribution of the German national soul to German culture itself? One often hears something like the words I would now like to read to you. When Herman Grimm rightly speaks, as I have cited, of Mr. Lewes’s so-called Goethe, we notice a coarsening in this Mr. Lewes; but how that which one wishes to absorb but cannot becomes ghostly as it moves toward the East is shown to us by words that Mereschkowski spoke about Goethe. He says:

When Goethe speaks [of the] French Revolution, he suddenly bends down to the ground, just as a giant might be crushed by an evil spell and shrivel up into a dwarf; from a Hellenic demigod, he becomes a German citizen and—may the shadow of the Olympian be merciful to me—a German philistine, “Mr. von Goethe,” Privy Councilor to the Duke of Weimar, and the respectable son of a respectable Frankfurt shopkeeper.

[ 63 ] This is how Mereschkowski speaks of the poet of *Faust*. Nor should one be deceived by the words about Goethe that appear in the concluding sentence of the same work by Mereschkowski. If one reads what precedes this—which is entirely imbued with this spirit—one sees that he cannot bring himself to rise to Goethe’s level, that he views him only as a specter. And much more of this sort could be cited. But of course, when one of the leading minds of the East, speaking of Chekhov, must say of Mereschkowski himself:

No era, no peoples—as if, in the midst of eternity, there were only the end of the nineteenth century, and in the world, only Russia. Infinitely keen-eyed and attuned to everything Russian and contemporary, he is almost blind and deaf to the foreign and the past. He saw Russia more clearly than anyone else, but overlooked Europe, overlooked the world.

[ 64 ] It is understandable—indeed, one must find it understandable—that Central Europe is currently nothing more than a specter to the East, one that is elevated into the national soul hovering above the individual. There is not enough time to substantiate this in detail, but it could be substantiated. On the other hand, it can truly be said that what might be called “the rejuvenating force of the German national soul” not only gives us insight into the distinctive character of the German national soul in the past, but also provides us with strength, faith, and hope for the German national soul in the future.

[ 65 ] However, Germans view Goethe somewhat differently than others do. And to illustrate this, I would like to cite a remark that Herman Grimm himself made about Goethe. This remark was made in lectures on Goethe—lectures that speak differently from the way Herman Grimm himself dismissed Lewes in the manner I have indicated. In them, Herman Grimm perceives Goethe as a confidant of the German people themselves; but also as an impulse, as a force that works within German culture and will continue to do so, just as cosmic changes must otherwise affect the Earth in terms of physical conditions. Herman Grimm says of Goethe:

Goethe had as profound an impact on Germany’s intellectual life as a mighty natural phenomenon would have had on the physical world. Our coal deposits tell of times of tropical heat, when palm trees grew here. Our caves, as they are uncovered, bear witness to ice ages when reindeer were native to this land. Over immense spans of time, momentous upheavals took place on German soil, which in its present state so strongly gives the impression of eternal immutability. The comparison can thus be drawn that Goethe influenced Germany’s intellectual atmosphere much like a telluric event that raised our average temperature by that many degrees. Were something similar to occur, a different vegetation, a different system of agriculture, and thus a new foundation for our entire existence would emerge.

[ 66 ] This is how Herman Grimm perceives Goethe within German intellectual life. Herman Grimm believes that, through Goethe, a different intellectual landscape, a different intellectual climate, will gradually emerge.

[ 67 ] This very same Herman Grimm spoke—in a way that brought out the entire uniqueness of the German character—about how the German national soul worked within German culture to arrive at perspectives that seek the universal human within the particular national spirit. Thus, Herman Grimm demonstrated the rejuvenating powers of the German national soul through his own attitude toward the course of the world spirit at the end of the nineteenth century. For it was in 1895 that these beautiful words were spoken, words that express the sentiment of a German who felt at one with the ever-evolving and ever-present German national soul. Herman Grimm said:

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 but this one goal. The division among nations no longer exists here. We feel that no national differences prevail when it comes to the ethical worldview.

[ 68 ] Herman Grimm goes on to say:

We would all sacrifice ourselves for our homeland,

[ 69 ] — he says, and then come the meaningful words —

But we are far from longing for or bringing about the moment when this could happen through war. The assurance that maintaining peace is our most sacred desire is no lie. “Peace on earth and goodwill toward men” fills our hearts.

[ 70 ] But the fact that Herman Grimm had a keen insight into his time, that he was no dreamer, and that he was able to grasp reality under the guidance of the German national spirit is attested to by what he goes on to say:

Humanity as a whole recognizes itself as subject to an invisible court of justice, enthroned as if in the clouds; they regard it as a misfortune not to be allowed to stand before it, and they seek to align their internal disputes with its judicial proceedings. With anxious endeavor, they seek justice here. How hard the French of today strive to present 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.

[ 71 ] As you can see, Herman Grimm had a clear understanding of how things stood back in 1895. Those who are accustomed to viewing things in this way will not be swayed by cries of, “Who wanted the war?”

[ 72 ] To add to the hundreds and hundreds of testimonies I could present to you, here is one more. A person who is not particularly fond of the German character writes the following words:

As for me [now], I have not a moment’s doubt that a conflict between the Germanic and Slavic worlds is imminent, that it will be sparked either [by] the East—specifically Turkey—or by the ethnic strife in Austria, perhaps by both, and that Russia will assume leadership on one side in this conflict. This power is already preparing for this eventuality; the Russian nationalist press is railing vehemently against Germany. [...] The German press is already sounding its warnings. A long time has passed since Russia regrouped after the Crimean War, and, it seems, it is now deemed expedient in St. Petersburg to take up the Eastern Question once again.

[ 73 ] Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these words were not spoken a few months before the war. They were written in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War. Even those who saw things clearly never realized that one day the peoples who had pushed their way into the heart of Europe would be enclosed, as if in a fortress, by those who misunderstood and failed to understand them on all sides.

[ 74 ] It is curious when, in response to such words, one tries to argue that the Germans wanted this war. In the few moments I have left for this lecture, I would like to present something to you—in a way that perhaps says quite a bit about this notion that “the Germans wanted this war”—which may sound quite convincing to anyone willing to see clearly.

[ 75 ] Let us suppose that someone had observed what was happening in the weeks leading up to the outbreak of the war—in the spring of 1914, when the press was casting a shadow over the political horizon—and wanted to express that; what would he have had to say in 1914, after the events that had taken place? He would have had to say something like the following:

[ 76 ] [One could see how a press campaign gradually began in St. Petersburg, how strong pressure was exerted on Austria—pressure which, had it been accepted, would have resulted in Austria and Germany becoming dependent on Russia. And yet one could not have contradicted our Russian friends if they had said that there was no reason for a war between Russia and Germany.]

[ 77 ] Isn’t it true that in 1914—say, in July—this could very well have been said, and one could have related it to the immediate events of the present? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have not read to you anything that was said in July 1914, but rather—albeit with some modifications—the words that [Bismarck spoke on February 6, 1888, in the Reichstag] in support of the military bill. And now I will read his own words, so that you can see that I have not altered the words themselves, but only adjusted the time frame slightly:

[...] 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 no reason whatsoever why Russia should ever sever its friendship with us. At 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 aspirations.

[ 78 ] However, if things are as they have been portrayed, if the national spirit in the West and in the East must relate in this way to the power of the German national spirit, then it becomes impossible to believe that Central Europe wanted this war in 1914. For decades, one has been able to see clearly how everything was done to ultimately bring about the events of today.

[ 79 ] It was not only the discerning Herman Grimm who spoke of the desire for peace in Central Europe. It is also worth recalling that such sentiments were expressed not only by those who, like Herman Grimm—a man whose ethical standards were at the forefront of his time—were in touch with the German national spirit, but also by those who were politically inspired by that same spirit.

[ 80 ] In 1888, Bismarck again made a statement in Berlin that made it clear he had no intention of going to war. Bismarck said:

One does not launch an attack with the formidable military machine that we are training the German Army to be. If I were to stand before you today and tell you—if the circumstances were different from what I am convinced they are: We are under a significant threat from France and Russia; it is foreseeable that we will be attacked; based on my conviction as a diplomat and on military intelligence regarding this matter, I believe it is more beneficial for us to use the enemy’s advance as a pretext for a defensive strike, to strike immediately; a war of aggression is more advantageous for us to wage, and I therefore ask the Reichstag for a credit of one billion or half a billion to wage war against our two neighbors today. Yes, gentlemen, I do not know whether you would have the confidence in me to grant me this. I hope not!

[ 81 ] Ladies and gentlemen, the time will come when, through our feelings—not only through what the intellect perceives, but also through our feelings—we will begin to sense the true causes of this war and the driving forces that led to it. We will sense something of the will that converged against Central Europe in order to stifle the German national spirit—which seeks eternal renewal—in the very elements of its life.

[ 82 ] The way the storm is brewing is revealed by the insights one can gain by surveying the workings and interplay of the European national souls over the past few decades. Can’t the following be said: If one were to delve into the stirrings and interplay of the German national soul as it was in the times before this war broke out, couldn’t one arrive at the following thoughts? Allow me to read this to you as well. You will see right away that I also have a certain idea in mind:

German literature, German religion, and German philosophy are a complete mystery to us. What we do know is how many dreadnoughts Germany possesses and by how much its trade has increased. What is truly important is not the dreadnought, but the mind of its builder and the courage and talent of its commander. What is truly important 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 continues to do so 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 established 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 [all too] well.

[ 83 ] [This is what Mrs. Wylie wrote in her book *Eight Years in Germany*, which was published about two years before the war. It is quite good when people like this try to immerse themselves in the German national character.]

[ 84 ] Such, then, are the things that are stirred up like an echo wherever one tries to understand what the German seeks to gain in an intimate dialogue with the soul of his people. And what was it that the German has always sought to find in this dialogue with the soul of his people? It was always that which was meant to enable the individual human being—the individual human soul, the individual human spirit—to find the path to the spiritual heights of the world, where the source and origin of all things lie, where the source and origin of the eternal part of the human soul itself also lie.

[ 85 ] Spiritual science, precisely because it draws from its own sources, must believe in the rejuvenating forces of the German national soul; believe because it is aware that, time and again throughout world history, this German national soul has ascended to spiritual heights and descended to the human selves in order to impart to them the truth of their eternity. Spiritual science has its roots and its source in German idealism, and we can demonstrate that spiritual science is closely connected to this German idealism.

[ 86 ] What does spiritual science say—not in an abstract way, but in a concrete way—about the future of the human soul? That within this body lives an imperishable self that passes through births and deaths time and again; that once spiritual initiation has been attained, once spiritual knowledge and spiritual reality have been attained through research, the soul is perceived outside the body; that it looks back upon this body as upon an external object, thus foreshadowing what the human soul experiences once it has passed through the gate of death. Spiritual science does not merely speak in general terms about the human soul being eternal, but does so in a way that clearly points to what, after death, looks back upon what was lived in the body. Spiritual science describes this in very concrete terms. And it is only today that it can do so.

[ 87 ] And true spiritual science, as we in Central Europe consider it to be, is aware that it owes its power to conduct research solely to the connection between the German national soul and the German philosopher. If today someone who professes to follow spiritual science were to use a comparison—in the true sense of the word—for something that has passed and must find its future, if anyone, as a faithful adherent of spiritual science, were to say: “I believe something entirely new must be introduced into humanity, something against which many prejudices still stand today; but these prejudices strike me as [the soul of the corpse] appears when it looks back upon this corpse after death.”

[ 88 ] One might think that only a spiritual researcher could make such a comparison, because it is only now that spiritual research is beginning to confirm that this is indeed what the soul does after passing through death. I will present such a comparison to you:

Time seems to me like a shadow standing over its corpse—from which an army of diseases has just driven it out—lamenting and unable to tear its gaze away from the shell it once loved so dearly, 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 soul has entered, have already taken her in and surround her with a warm breath of love; true, the [joyfully secret] voices of her sisters already greet her and welcome her; and indeed, something 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 hearing for these voices, or, even if she did, she is consumed by grief over her loss, through which she believes she has lost herself as well.

[ 89 ] People today truly believe that only a philosopher of the mind could speak this way. It was Fichte who spoke this way in his “Addresses to the German Nation,” addressing what he wished to replace the old German education with—a new form of education—as if it were a corpse.

[ 90 ] Thus, what one can aspire to today has its roots in the seeds that German idealism sought in its alliance with the German national soul—in these rejuvenating forces of the German national soul.

[ 91 ] And if we are to have confidence that spiritual science can truly unfold as a new fruit on the tree of German development, we need only look to what can be regarded as the true essence of the German national soul—the rejuvenating force of the German national soul. The true essence of the German national soul is precisely this ever-rejuvenating force.

[ 92 ] And when we look back today at those fateful events, we perceive them as a twilight. But we look into the future and want to understand that from this twilight a horizon warmed and illuminated by the sun must rise; that the German national soul will have the strength to rejuvenate, anew, the German essence, the German striving. And whatever is ever undertaken against this German essence, against these German aspirations, it will not be able to rob it of the breath of life, because what exists as the highest life within the German essence are the ever-rejuvenating forces of the German national soul. Just as it has produced so many shoots in German culture, so too must it produce new fruits. That is our hope, and it is not something vague—it is something well-founded! We look hopefully toward the horizon, which will reveal to us, precisely as one of the fruits of German development, a spiritual-scientific worldview that will flow through all hearts and souls and unite spirit and physicality. When people come to see the spiritual as a reality, when they come to know how the spiritual passes through the gate of death, when they come to regard the spiritual in the same way that science today regards the external physical forces—when they come to know that nothing is lost—then they will know that the countless spiritual parts now passing through the gate of death from young bodies cannot be lost. These soul-members of human beings, which could have continued to sustain the body here on Earth for decades to come, will not only be perceived in the future in that abstract sense as something eternal—as is possible according to ancient knowledge—but they will be perceived as something that lives on, something that those who, following the duties of their time, have passed through the gate of death or suffering have incorporated into the spiritual stream of existence.

[ 93 ] And when times of peace return from this twilight of war, those who have borne the finest fruits of the German spirit will feel a deep connection—especially with all that is brought by those who had to pass through the gates of death.

[ 94 ] To summarize what I have attempted to explain to you today, it may be said: Yes, this German spirit has not yet fulfilled its mission in the earthly world. It is connected to the rejuvenating power of the German national soul. And if one looks at the true essence of the German national soul, then one knows: The driving forces are there; the invisible forces of German life remain unchanged among us. And to all those who speak today of Germany’s weakness or of the weakening or destruction of the German essence, the one who objectively recognizes what the rejuvenating power of the German national soul whispers to individual Germans—it is precisely this one who proclaims to the world the meaning he perceives from the workings of the German national soul:

The German spirit has not yet accomplished
What it is meant to achieve in the course of the world.
It lives with hope amid worries about the future,
It hopes for future deeds full of life; —
In the depths of its being, it feels powerfully
Something hidden that is yet to take effect as it matures.
How can the desire for its end,
In the enemy’s power, without understanding, come to life:
As long as life reveals itself to it,
Which sustains it creatively at the roots of its being?