The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. The Driving Forces of the German Spirit

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! For a number of years now, I have had the privilege of giving lectures on the humanities in this city every winter. Even in these fateful times, our friends in the humanities movement have asked that I deliver this lecture today. It will now seem understandable that in this time, when events so momentous, yet also so painful events are unfolding—a time in which something of immeasurable significance is unfolding for European and world history—that I wish to link such reflections to what moves us all, to that which is being defended by those who stand in the East and West and who must, through blood and death, stand up for what the great duty of the times demands. In such a time, the word, too, must be directed toward where emotions and feelings lead—toward where blood and death defend the great treasures of Central Europe, toward where momentous decisions must be made. And so let my words today be devoted to a reflection on what must be defended in our present time—that which is so attacked, reviled, and slandered from all sides in this age of ours. I shall first touch only briefly upon that which, I would call the fundamental principle and the fundamental aspiration of spiritual science, in order then to show how this fundamental aspiration, this innermost impulse of spiritual science—which seeks to be a driving force penetrating the spiritual cultural movement of the present and extending into the future—how these spiritual-scientific impulses are firmly anchored precisely in the sustaining forces of the German spirit. And then I shall shed some light on the way in which Germany’s enemies today denigrate, misunderstand, and the like this German spirit, this German essence, this Germanness in both East and West.

[ 2 ] I have often pointed out here how spiritual science seeks to be the true successor to the scientific worldview, yet is at the same time the opposite pole of that scientific worldview, in that it seeks to approach the realms of spiritual life with a truly scientific character. For the spiritual-scientific worldview, the spirit is not merely something to be grasped abstractly in concepts, ideas, and representations; rather, for spiritual science, the spirit is that which reigns in a world that lies beyond our sensory world—a world that contains the foundations and driving forces for everything that our sensory world and life, including historical development, present to us, and which unfolds within the sensory world. As I said, I can only touch on this briefly today and must refer you to the text itself.

[ 3 ] Spiritual science prepares the human soul—if the person is willing to do so— so that a realization—a genuine experience of this spiritual realm—may take place, one that is not bound to the forces of the body, not bound to the senses, and not bound, like the ordinary mind, to the brain; rather, spiritual science prepares the soul for a body-free realization through what has already been mentioned here on several occasions: meditation and the concentration of thought life. You will find a more detailed description in my books *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* or in the second part of the book *The Secret Science* or in the book *Theosophy*. These books describe the paths that lead people, through inner activity and inner experience, to free the soul-spirit from its bondage to the body, so that the soul may dwell in the life, the weaving, the reign, and the workings of the spiritual world. What still appears to many people today as fantasy or absurdity is precisely what spiritual science is meant to integrate into contemporary culture. It is understandable that people say: Spiritual science contradicts everything that the five senses perceive.

[ 4 ] It is understandable that people who speak this way regard spiritual science as a fantasy or a flight of fancy. But people once regarded the Copernican worldview as mere daydreaming and fantasy as well—a worldview that, as it was said, was supposed to contradict the five senses and their observations. Just as people’s ways of thinking have adapted to accept the Copernican worldview, so too will people’s ways of thinking come to find ever greater spiritual fulfillment, a necessary spiritual experience, and necessary spiritual harmony in the acceptance of spiritual science, which shows how the soul can truly penetrate, through body-free cognition, into a spiritual world—a spiritual world that is not merely a sum of concepts and ideas, but something entirely concrete, a real spiritual world, a living spiritual world. Thus, as a spiritual researcher, one looks upon something that is bound to come, just as Copernicanism once entered the course of human development.

[ 5 ] If one truly takes this view of the living spirit and of the relationship of the human soul to it to heart, and then looks at what has been taking shape over many centuries in the entire development of the German people and the German essence in particular, one may say: All the forces that the German essence has brought to bear over the course of many centuries are aimed at ultimately converging in this spiritual science. There is nothing that spiritual science cannot find as a seed of itself in what the German spirit has strived for over the centuries. Let me first present just one characteristic example from more recent times.

[ 6 ] The German spirit—which, for example, in the second half of the eighteenth century, when Lessing and Herder entered the realm of this German spirit—could not be satisfied with a spirit that was merely an abstraction, merely a sum of ideas. Herder, the great pioneer of German intellectual life, once exclaimed to Voltaire—who understood the mind only as an abstraction—that “ideas can only ever [produce ideas].”

[ 7 ] What mattered to Herder was that human beings, just as they find their way in their souls to live in the sensory world through their eyes and ears, can also, through inner development, experience a truly vibrant, dynamic, and living spiritual world. And Herder did not want history to be understood in such a way that one could say: “History is governed by ideas”; rather, for him, history was such that within historical events, real spiritual entities are at work, to which human beings can look up as to entities of a supersensible world, just as they look down into the realms below them at the sensory beings of the three natural kingdoms. And so convinced was Herder—the great predecessor, indeed, one might even say Goethe’s teacher, that true spiritual science leads to a real spirit and that humanity is striving to find such a spiritual science, that he himself, Herder, expressed it in beautiful words: [“The human race will not perish until all this has come to pass! Until the genius of enlightenment has permeated the earth!”]

[ 8 ] By “enlightenment,” he means that insight which the German spirit has always sought—one that does not arise through the external senses and the intellect, but through the inner experience of the soul, and which takes one further than is the case in everyday life. In his own way, Herder picked up where the German mystic left off centuries earlier, standing there at the dawn of the modern era. At the very moment when Angelus Silesius speaks through his images, in which he offers guidance on the soul’s path into a spiritual world. In one of his images, he declares: “It is not I who live and die, but within me reigns the divine spirit—it is born within me, it lives and dies within me.”

[ 9 ] The German soul has always sought such a connection with the living Spirit. And this connection between the soul and the active Spirit was sought so intimately that, for Angelus Silesius, even the idea of immortality follows directly from inner spiritual knowledge—the inner spiritual life. For in being aware that “the eternal God reigns within me,” he also knew that this eternal God is present in my soul at the moment of death—there, where the eternal God cannot die. Since what lives in the soul is simultaneously experienced by God, the idea of immortality is thus experienced from the spiritual realm. For Angelus Silesius, the idea of immortality—the merging into a spiritual world—is a lived experience.

[ 10 ] As the soul becomes aware of the God who reigns within it, it knows that God cannot die within one, and that death leads into the spiritual world.

[ 11 ] And let us think of the great mystic at the dawn of the modern era of German intellectual life, Jakob Böhme. I would like to cite Jakob Böhme—not to preach a false, symbolic activism, but to point out that the life of the senses is only truly understood when a person grasps that which is not only alive between birth and death, but also that which passes through the gate of death. It was clear to him that a person must penetrate the mysteries of death during their lifetime; that their powers are kindled when they know what calls them to a new life in the moment of dying; and that these powers must already be recognized in this life. This is the meaning of Jakob Böhme’s wonderful saying:

Whoever does not die before he dies;
He will perish when he dies.

[ 12 ] When such words resound from German intellectual life, one senses how the living, sustaining forces of the spirit reign through the finest souls of German development. For it is the sustaining power of the German spirit through which the soul, in its highest striving, knows itself to be inwardly and vitally connected to the spirit—and it is the spirit itself within her that enables her to experience what she can do as the highest good. The soul feels sustained by the concrete Spirit, not merely by ideas and concepts, which are abstractions of the human intellect and reason and do not vividly represent the Spirit that truly reigns in life. This Spirit therefore develops its sustaining power for the entirety of German intellectual life.

[ 13 ] And when we look to our greatest intellectual figures, one can say that we see how this sustaining force of the German spirit works in their hearts and souls, and how they demonstrate this sustaining force of the German spirit everywhere in their lives, intellectual pursuits, and creative work.

[ 14 ] Truly, not to evoke sentimental feelings in you, esteemed audience, but to show how the sustaining power of the German spirit works its way into the very fabric of life in the finest German minds, let us take two great minds as the starting point for today’s reflection. And let us consider these two intellectual giants precisely at the moment of their deaths; Schiller shall be the first.

[ 15 ] Through a friend—the son of the Homer translator Voß, the so-called “younger Voß”—we can gain a glimpse into Schiller’s final days, right into the room where he died. There we see how Schiller, as his final weeks draw near—one might say he is already walking about as if he were nearly dead—still takes part in all that might be called the intellectual pursuits of his Weimar home. One can literally see how the strong inner forces of cohesion within him, together with his intellectual life, carry him through his final weeks and days. Then we are led into the room where he died. Through the description by the young Voß, we experience how Schiller can barely look out of his eyes—eyes that had always gazed so benevolently, so lovingly, so spiritedly. He has his youngest child brought to him. Voß describes how his eyes—from which, on the one hand, death is already visible, but on the other, his powerful, fiery soul still shines through—how his eyes fix intently on the child. And we can believe that Voß is right when he says in his description that something like the following thought spoke from those eyes: © “You, my child, whom I must leave behind so young—I should have been a father to you in so many more ways.” Then the dying Schiller handed the child back and turned away, facing the wall.

[ 16 ] As we witness these moments, we, as the German nation, feel as if we could relate to Schiller in the same way this child does. One senses that the sustaining power of the German spirit—the power that carried Schiller into death—is alive; and this power lives on in the German people. But looking up to such giants of the spirit, we must say: Not only have they produced much that is great and mighty, but also much that is in its infancy, which has yet to develop. Schiller’s thoughts also apply to the German people—that he could have given them so much more. But how closely was Schiller connected to what might be called the sustaining force of the German spirit? We have a remarkable document that was discovered only long, long after Schiller’s death, in which Schiller, so to speak, wrote down what he bequeathed to humanity—like a testament—as his vision of the German spirit. In this document, Schiller expresses the following beautiful words about that spirit, whose sustaining power is felt by anyone who comes to know it.

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

[ 17 ] — the German —

is destined for the highest,
and just as it is situated in the midst of
the peoples of Europe,
so it is the core of humanity,
while they are the blossom and the leaf.
He has been chosen by the World Spirit, during
the struggle of time
to work on the eternal edifice of human culture
and to preserve what time brings,
therefore he has thus 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
emerged and faded—he has preserved;
it remains his own: the treasures of
centuries.
Not to shine in the moment and
play its part, but to prevail in 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 what might be called the driving force of the German spirit.

[ 19 ] And if we now turn our attention to another intellectual giant—one who, in a sense, embodied the full power of the German spirit, a philosopher who, drawing on a strong sense of humanity, created a philosophy of dramatic clarity—let us turn to the author of the “Addresses to the German Nation,” let us turn to Johann Gottlieb Fichte.

[ 20 ] Let us also look at him in terms of the driving forces of German intellectual life, to which Fichte felt so closely connected that, during one of Germany’s most difficult periods, he was able to stir German hearts in a rare way through his speeches. Let us see how, in his case, the driving force of the spirit permeated even the immediate, everyday life. As Germany set out on its great struggles against Western foreign domination, Fichte asked himself whether he was called upon to help in any way, and ultimately he realized that he could make the greatest impact through intellectual activity. His wife, however, devoted herself to nursing the sick. It was she who brought the fever home from the military hospitals, but then recovered. Fichte, however, was infected by his wife’s illness. And as he lay ill, it was remarkable how, in his final days, the philosophical thoughts—which rank among the most powerful of their kind in human development and among the most luminous—merged into the feverish fantasies of the dying man. And it is remarkable that Fichte—the clear-thinking, diamond-bright philosopher—channeled his philosophical thoughts in his soul, which was entirely absorbed in the spirit that reigns over the German essence, in such a way that he believed himself to be out on the battlefields, in the midst of the armies, where Blücher’s crossing of the Rhine was taking place.

[ 21 ] Thus we see the highest flowering of thought coming together even in the feverish fantasies of a dying German. His son brought him some medicine. Fichte felt as if he were connected to the power of the German spirit, in which he had firm hope that it would lead the German people to victory. He pushed the medicine aside and said, “I don’t need any medicine, for I feel that I will recover.” Then he died. Those were, in a sense, his final moments. This is the Fichte from whose soul the sustaining power of the German spirit speaks so clearly that one sees how, in his case, the recognition of the will reigning in his soul is grasped so directly that one can say: In every word of Fichte’s, we feel this power of the German spirit penetrating through, a power that cannot help but affirm that the spirit is not an abstraction, but something that interweaves, surges through, and permeates the world—and in which the soul knows itself and can experience itself. How beautifully Fichte expresses this when he says:

There is no doubt whatsoever; rather, it is the surest thing there is—[indeed, the foundation of all other certainties, the only absolutely valid objective truth—that there is a moral world order, that every rational individual has been assigned a specific place in this order and is held accountable for his work.]

[ 22 ] This is the commitment to the spiritual world that has been cast aside by the driving force of the German spirit. And Fichte feels so connected to this spiritual world that he once addressed his students with the following words, which are as much thoughts as they are a will springing from the depths of his soul: “You stars that wander above me, you mountains all, … if you were all to collapse at once, if lightning were to flash through you, if the elemental forces were to crush you so that not a speck of dust remained of you, you would tell me nothing about the nature of my own soul. This defies your power; this is not eternal, just as you are not eternal.” Thus spoke Fichte, drawing from the immediate power of the connection with the spiritual world within his own soul. This is not merely philosophical speculation; these are not merely thoughts, but rather inner spiritual life—a merging of the soul with the Spirit. This is the result of the sustaining forces of the German spirit.

[ 23 ] And as a scholar of the humanities today, one can indeed draw on Fichte. Here is one example among many that demonstrates how one can draw on Fichte within the context of today’s humanities: It is stated in the “Addresses to the German Nation”—and many may skim over this—but it is important for those who wish not merely to grasp Fichte at the surface level of his words, but to delve into the depth of his views. Fichte delivered the “Addresses to the German Nation” before his people, for his people, through which he sought to kindle the German spirit in German hearts so that the German essence might triumph in Europe. And what he particularly recommended as a means to that end at the time was a completely new kind of education. Whatever one may think of his plan today, one must acknowledge that at the time it was a grand and bold vision—one that truly embodied, once again, the sustaining power of the German spirit. But Fichte knew—as he articulated this before an audience that was, admittedly, willing to receive the message dedicated to the service of humanity, and as he articulated what characterized his plan—that he was saying something that must permeate all conceptions of human education and development. In doing so, he demanded something entirely new from people. And there he drew a comparison between what he conceived as novel in relation to previous habits of thought, and what they regarded as [gap in the text].

[ 24 ] And now let us ask ourselves: How could spiritual science—which is a science of spiritual life—how could it use a comparison if it wanted to characterize what it seeks, what it strives for? Spiritual science aims, after all, to lead to a true inner enlightenment, so that the soul, outside the body, regards the body with its physical experiences just as one would otherwise regard an external object. Through this, the spiritual researcher gains insight into how this soul behaves after death, how the soul looks upon the body with spiritual eyes, and how it surveys it as an external element. And so the spiritual scientist today, by standing firmly on the ground of this spiritual science, comes to say: This new element behaves like a soul that leaves the body and looks back upon it. One might take a symbol that people today, however, still regard as mere fantasy. But let us ask what kind of symbol Fichte himself chose when he sought to characterize the “new” aspect of his educational system in relation to the “old.”

[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 its gaze away from the shell it 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 soul has entered, have already taken her in and surround her with a warm breath of love; true, secret voices of her sisters already greet her joyfully and welcome her; true, something is already stirring and expanding within her in all directions to develop the more glorious form into which she is to grow; yet she still has no sense of these breezes or hearing for these voices; or, if she did, she is consumed by grief over her loss, believing that in it she has also lost herself.]

[ 25 ] This is Fichte at his best! Must we not say that what spiritual science today seeks to unfold and recognize out of a genuine spiritual insight—we find it precisely where Fichte surrenders to the deep intentions of his spirit and chooses a metaphor that is deeply rooted in the sustaining forces of the German people? It is a commitment to the real, living, surging, and weaving spirit. And thus it is rooted in the greatest figures of this German spiritual life.

[ 26 ] And do we not see how these driving forces of the German spirit are also at work in Goethe? Is it not already evident from the fact that Goethe, even in his youth, had to declare himself unsatisfied with everything that can enter the human soul as concepts and ideas—merely as a reflection of the external sensory world through the speculation of the intellect—that he feels something like that Faustian urge not merely to lose himself in abstract concepts, sensory perceptions, but to unite, with the innermost powers of the soul, with the spirit that reigns in the world. And from such an urge, which then sought artistic expression, arose in Goethe that which he portrayed in his *Faust*—that *Faust* which, in its entirety, constitutes a work of poetry such as no other people can possess. For everything that a human being can strive for through the deepest powers of his soul on the path to the spiritual world is meant to be revealed in this *Faust*. Do we not see how Faust, feeling unsatisfied in the outer world of the senses, seeks to reach the sources of life? How he passes through error and triumph, through temptation and seduction, and how he initially stands there and, in the spirit that seizes him in his innermost self, simultaneously recognizes what surges and weaves through the world as the spiritual. Thus, already in the first part of the drama, Faust comes to find this spirit, which reigns out there in nature but also reigns within the human soul. To this spirit—with which anyone who is truly rooted in German spiritual life feels connected as a living being—Faust feels connected in words that can be quoted again and again:

[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 the magnificent natural world as my kingdom,
The power to feel it, to enjoy it. You do not
do you merely permit me to be a cold, marveling visitor,
but grant me to gaze 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 silent thicket, in air and water.
And when the storm roars and creaks in the forest,
The giant spruce, toppling, strikes down neighboring branches
And crushes neighboring trunks as it sweeps downward
And the hill thunders with a dull, hollow roar at its fall,
Then you lead me to the safe cave, show
Me to myself, and in my own breast
Secret, profound wonders unfold.]

[ 27 ] These sublime words express how a person, having found the sustaining forces within himself, seeks to find them in all things of the senses as well. And how, having thus come to know the Spirit, is Faust then led back to the reign of the Spirit within his own breast.

Then you lead me to the safe cave, show me to myself, and secret, profound wonders within my own heart are revealed.

[ 28 ] We can call this: the weaving of the Spirit into the spirituality of the world, in which beings are of a supersensory nature, just as in the sensory world there are beings of the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the animal kingdom. And so we see how this Spirit reigns and works within our greatest beings and sustains them.

[ 29 ] But we also see how, within German intellectual culture, a striving begins to truly unite with this spirit, to be vividly permeated by it, to wed itself to it. One could point to hundreds of important historical events to show how, in German intellectual life, a longing arises to unite with the spirit that has sustained the German essence throughout the centuries; to seek not only how it acts in the present, but also how it has acted throughout all periods of development. And wherever the German can find something—wherever the spirit confronts him like a figure, wherever he has encountered it—there one sees how the German is capable of embracing with fervor the German spirit that can sustain him. I would like to cite one example, an event that took place during Goethe’s lifetime.

[ 30 ] A worldview of German intellectual life emerged, known as Romanticism; a perspective that sought to return to an earlier stage of German intellectual life, because something occurred, so to speak, whereby the German spirit appeared before the German soul in a form in which the soul sought to grasp the German spirit with religious fervor. This was at the time when, after the republican leaders of the West—that West which today claims it must fight against the German “barbarians”—when these leaders, just as the leaders of the West do today—of course, they did so back then according to their own convictions, and they do so today as well, for the sake of freedom and the rights of peoples—went to war. At that time, these gentlemen marched into the Lower Rhine region and into the Dutch territories. There we can see these gentlemen as they swept through, wreaking havoc on palaces, churches, monasteries, and everything imaginable; as at that time, devastation occurred on a tremendous, immeasurable scale, and the finest works of art from these regions were shattered and scattered across the world. Of course, at the time these gentlemen claimed they were fighting for freedom, justice, and humanity. And then one could see how the remnants of these devastated works of art began to resurface—of course, only sparse remnants, fragments—in the cities along the Rhine. The broken and devastated pieces then fell into the hands of a number of people, including the Boisserée brothers, who adhered to the worldview of the Young Romantic school. And at that time, something emerged within this school that one might call [gap in the text]. Something then came to light for these German Young Romantics that they perceived as the divine workings of the German spirit itself—something they sought to introduce into life. And if we were to study the development of Central European art in the nineteenth century, we would find how that which, at that time, continued to work from the devastated ruins—from the sustaining forces of the German spirit—in poetry and in the finest works of art; we would find how it confronts us everywhere.

[ 31 ] But it did not merely imprint such power upon the soul—merely reinforcing what was already there—rather, the souls were prepared to be moved in this way. And even if he does not belong to the younger Romantic movement, but rather to the older one—and one may well believe that he will be increasingly appreciated for his wonderful spirit—I am referring to Novalis. He is one of those in whom the sustaining power of the German spirit reveals itself so clearly that in much of what he has left us—some of it in fragmentary form—we must see something that emerges from the unconscious of his soul, something that merely needs to be developed in order to lead us into what humanity will one day have to grasp as spiritual science.

[ 32 ] And one might say: The world has, to a certain extent, already embraced what Novalis developed from the sustaining power of the German spirit. This is understood not only by the “barbaric Germans,” as hostile nations now put it, but even by some French writers who have some understanding of the matter—even among those who today revile the German spirit and denounce it as a “barbaric spirit.” We know, after all, how, not long after the outbreak of the war, Maurice Maeterlinck could not find enough words to revile and denounce German “barbarism.”

[ 33 ] Now one might point Maeterlinck toward another—perhaps another French mind—who has delved deeply into what Novalis can offer of his own accord, who has written about what Novalis stirred within his soul. And this French poet, philosopher, and artist—what did he find in Novalis, in that German “barbarism” so despised today—let us say by Maurice Maeterlinck? He felt compelled to say: Yes, what Sophocles, even Schiller, and other poets have produced—what the poets’ characters do, what Hamlet and so on have to do with one another and with their surroundings—these are certainly feelings and sensations that interest earthly souls. However—so this French writer argues—one must assume that if beings were to look down from the cosmos, they could not be interested in what these characters—those created by Schiller, Sophocles, and others—have to do with one another. But Novalis would be a person—so says this French poet-philosopher—who, from the depths of his soul, has something to say about things that might not only interest earthly human beings but that must also interest spirits who visit Earth from the heavenly spheres.

[ 34 ] He speaks these words in connection with Novalis, drawing on what he experienced through Novalis. We must take these words to heart, word for word:

But if he needed further proof, she would lead him among those whose works border on silence. She would open the gate to the realm where some loved her for her own sake, without concerning themselves with the subtle gestures of her body. Together they would ascend to the lonely highlands, where consciousness [rises a notch] and where all those filled with restlessness [about themselves] attentively survey the immense ring that links the world of phenomena with our higher worlds. She 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 [only] in the invisible, where he must be constantly on guard.

[ 35 ] So he is always talking about Novalis. He wants to turn to realms where Novalis dwells, to worlds that human words can no longer adequately describe. That is why he says, “whose works almost border on silence.” Then he continues:

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 reigned for a moment, and these dimly lit peaks are perhaps the only lights that herald the Earth in the realm of the spirit. Their reflection truly bears the color of our soul. We feel that the passions of the mind and the body would resemble the tolling of bells in the eyes of a [foreign] 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.

[ 36 ] So says this French poet-philosopher about Novalis, about what Novalis inspired in him. This Novalis, who is entirely sustained by the primal force and primal destiny of the German genius. Wouldn’t this poet-philosopher retort to a Maurice Maeterlinck—if he were to come along now and speak of “barbarism”—saying: Look to Novalis, whose works are so sublime that they “almost move one to silence.”

[ 37 ] One might think that these words, which come from the philosophical poet, were made up to counter Maurice Maeterlinck. But the fact is that these words, which I just read aloud, come from Maurice Maeterlinck himself! Admittedly, from the Maurice Maeterlinck who lived years ago, who allowed the German spirit to influence him years ago; not from the Maurice Maeterlinck who now denounces the Germans as a “barbarian people.”

[ 38 ] Such experiences must be faced today by the German spirit, which lies besieged within European culture as if in a great fortress. It is fair to say: This German spirit, which is so misunderstood today, was truly not always misunderstood in this way by the world. The world has indeed recognized the sustaining power of the German spirit. And one can present evidence of how this German spirit has been regarded throughout the world. It is, after all, somewhat awkward to express certain sympathetic—I would say emotional—judgments about the German spirit in the German language. Let us therefore choose another approach. Let us begin with what a leading English thinker of the nineteenth century in America had to say about the German character. A distinctive, great figure, Emerson, once reflected on the German character. And to show how the driving force of the German spirit has been felt and perceived, Emerson says—while speaking of Goethe, and we shall see from the words themselves how he regards Goethe as the very embodiment of the modern German spirit—Emerson says:

One [quality] in particular, which Goethe shares with his entire nation, 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

[ 39 ] — please note, it is not written in German, but by an American, an American English speaker, in English —,

In England and America, talent is respected, but people are satisfied only when it works for or against a party they support. In France, people are delighted whenever they see brilliant ideas, no matter where they lead.

[ 40 ] So no German said that; it was said by an English-speaking American to characterize the Germans, the German character!

In all these countries, however, talented men write to the best of their abilities. 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 spirit 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?”

[ 41 ] One might think it was said by a German; it seems to have a vain slant.

The German public expects a writer to rise above things and simply speak his mind. Intellectual vivacity is present—very well: What does it stand for? What is this man’s opinion? Where—[where]—does he get all these thoughts?

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

The Germans think for Europe.

[ 42 ] Keep in mind, not a single German says that!

For this reason, the distinguishing terms commonly used in high-level conversation are all of German origin. While the English and the French—who are renowned 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—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. 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.

[ 43 ] Now, one might well say: Emerson has been dead for a long time, and this is a characterization that was already applied to the German character a decade ago. Yet even such minds as the one regarded today as the most significant French philosopher [gap in the text] made such a statement after the speech he delivered, in which he portrayed the Germans of today as devoid of everything that once lived within them during their golden age. One also finds in him—in this French philosopher with the name that sounds so beautifully French, a name worn at least until before the war—one also finds him emphasizing how these Germans have become so different in recent times.

[ 44 ] And so let us, for once, look not to what is being said on the German side, but rather listen once again to an English voice. And now let us even select critical voices that were expressed not long ago—in fact, barely two years before the war—voices that characterize the German spirit. Lectures were given in Manchester under the title “Germany in the Nineteenth Century.”

[ 45 ] The preface emphasizes why these lectures on the German character were held in Manchester. It states that the journalists in England should learn something about the German character. Two things can perhaps be gleaned from this statement, from this preface: that at the time, those learned Englishmen who delivered these lectures considered the journalists to be in need of such enlightenment. But one can also see the other point; I’ll leave it to your judgment whether what was said to the journalists was of much use, in light of today’s experiences. But what was said to the English journalists back then? As mentioned, the lectures were not delivered in German in Leipzig, Berlin, or Hamburg, but in English for the English visitors. It was said:

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

[ 46 ] As I said, not in Berlin or Leipzig, but in Manchester!

Imagination, emotion, and will asserted their right to be heard alongside reason—or even beyond it—and under their transformative influence, the universe became deeper, broader, 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.

[ 47 ] This is how the German character was described in Manchester.

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 largely flowed along separate channels, in Germany they intersected or merged completely. Wordsworth sang and Bentham calculated; Hegel, however, ensnared 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 close of his eventful life, we see a foreshadowing of today’s Germany—the Germany of restless, bold will and action—and we can all the better understand why the great cosmopolitan, in whose eyes the state and national identity were subordinate and sometimes harmful ideals, nevertheless maintains his unassailable position as the greatest poet of the German Empire alongside Bismarck, his creator.

[ 48 ] This is how the German character was described by English scholars in Manchester.

[ 49 ] You will have come across a name that, after the outbreak of war, could not find enough words to describe the high moral standards that guided the British government in its declaration of war against the German Empire: Haldane. He wrote the preface to the collected lectures, which contain what I have just read aloud. And that Lord Haldane—he wrote the following in the preface, though it was, admittedly, some time before the war:

The source of the stream of his

[ 50 ] — 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 centuries, 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. [..] 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.

[ 51 ] So spoke this leading English intellectual. You know what he said after the outbreak of the war. The same scholar who uttered the words just read also spoke quite different words at that time in Manchester to clarify matters for the journalists. He said:

On the whole, there is no question that the establishment of the German Empire has contributed to world peace.

[ 52 ] Delivered in Manchester.

This explanation 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 goings-on of the present, and in that higher light, things that seem hurtful will take on a natural appearance. For when we look to the past, we find that our ancestors viewed 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, for Great Britain as well. 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 arose 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.

[ 53 ] One could certainly say that these words were spoken in praise of the sustaining power of the German spirit—indeed, one might even say the power of the German spirit that sustains the soul of Europe. Can one say more than what this Englishman said to the journalists in Manchester, with whom his words went down so well!

[ 54 ] And we can trace such phenomena right up to the present day. We have seen, after all, how Emerson explicitly emphasized how little the English can actually understand what constitutes the driving force of the German spirit. But once they really set out to explore and got to know this German spirit, they did learn to think of it differently. Let me mention just a few words written by an Englishwoman shortly before the outbreak of the war, after she had spent eight years in Germany. Admittedly, she did not get to know Germany the way most English people do; rather, she visited schools and hospitals and attended lectures in philosophy and other fields. I could now cite various passages that are deeply characteristic, but I will read only one passage written by an Englishwoman who was well-versed in the German character. Miss Wylie writes the following:

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 battle against powerful rivals whose power and experience were established generations ago. (...]

At every border and across the waters, Germany’s commercial and political adversaries 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] very well.

[ 55 ] One truly need not praise the sustaining power of the German spirit oneself; one need only, so to speak, listen to what was said in times when people spoke from a place of reflection, and not from a place of thoughtlessness—especially when this is said by nations whose objectivity has, after all, been proven. If one looks around, one will find many judgments similar to this one regarding the German character and its sustaining power. This sustaining power of the German spirit is demonstrated precisely by the fact that this German spirit acts within every soul of the German character that seeks the path to the spirit—as if shining into these souls—so that it can indeed be said: In what emerged as German idealism at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries lie the seeds for making spiritual experience ever more alive. And so it came to pass that not only in the course of the nineteenth century, through minds that would later play a major role—Troxler and Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert—can we find magnificent beginnings of today’s spiritual science; that which we ourselves can once again draw forth from the spiritual world. These sustaining forces of the German spirit can be found throughout the entire development of German spiritual life. And here, once again, let us cite a case—that of one of the finest, the most profound, and the most quintessentially German of Germans from the second half of the nineteenth century: Herman Grimm.

[ 56 ] Herman Grimm is an extraordinary art historian who has written about many artists and works of art with a sense of intimate experience. One often wonders: Where does Herman Grimm derive what he has to say about art and works of art—not from ordinary evidence, but from his direct, lived experience of aesthetic judgment? Then one must turn to the artistic and literary works he has produced. There, in his novellas, one finds that the sustaining power of the German spirit is also evident—a power that is transmitted there, not as spiritual science, but through the artistic medium. Of course, one cannot cite artistic products as evidence for the findings of spiritual science. But if the spiritual scientist can say that, in the work of art, the expressions are, in fact, expertly accurate in depicting the spiritual experiences described, then one may point to such a phenomenon, as will be done today.

[ 57 ] Herman Grimm always seeks to point out that one can only understand the world if one is able not only to look at what [gap in the text], but also to consider what extends from the supersensible into the sensible. He then depicts mental processes that demonstrate his effort to show that the world extends beyond the mere sensory realm. To this end, he wrote a novella: “The Singer.” He describes the fate of a singer who is somewhat coquettish but nonetheless endowed with a deep soul. There is a man who loves the singer, but she rejects him. In an immensely significant way, the novella unfolds until the singer’s death. The singer is led by a friend directly into the house where her lover—whom she had rejected—committed suicide. The moment she enters, the suicide is committed. From that hour on, burdened by guilt, she can no longer sleep. Her friend, the master of the house, must keep watch over her. Here, Herman Grimm depicts how this singer sees, as she sits up in bed, the spirit of the deceased approaching her. And Herman Grimm depicts this in such a way that one can see from this portrayal: He does not wish to reflect on a figment of the imagination; rather, through a spiritual experience that the guilt-ridden singer has, he seeks to illustrate how forces are at work beyond death, to point to the destiny that extends beyond death. The singer dies following her beloved; she is, as it were, taken away. Spiritual science would say: Before the singer’s soul appears that which can be described as the first manifestation revealed to a human being once they have passed through the gate of death—the manifestation of the etheric body, which is precisely meant to bear the destiny that must be carried beyond death.

[ 58 ] But this is not the only such instance in Herman Grimm’s work. He wrote a cultural-historical novel: *Unüberwindliche Mächte*.

[ 59 ] The most important thing is this: The story centers on the young heroine, Emmy. Emmy, too, is placed in a situation—through the shooting of her beloved—where the fate of the beloved dead person affects the living, but not merely through the inner forces of the soul; rather, this effect is such that it refers to the forces that—even after the soul has passed through the gate of death—continue to exert a real influence on life. Herman Grimm depicts how Emmy, as it were, dies after her beloved. And we find a beautiful scene at the end of the novel *Unsurpassable Powers*. Emmy dies, and Herman Grimm describes how a figure rises from the dying Emmy, emerging from her physical body—a figure with arms resembling her physical arms, with a face resembling Emmy’s—which drifts away and vanishes into the spiritual world. Herman Grimm is able to artistically capture the moment of death, just as spiritual science can grasp it in a living vision.

[ 60 ] One can see that the driving force of the German spirit is also at work in this poet’s soul, which, drawing from German idealism, comes to embrace a vibrant spiritual life. The fact that Herman Grimm is able to portray this in a novelistic manner, yet with the fullest reality—that he is capable of doing so—is the power of spiritual life that reigns through the German spirit. Herman Grimm felt—having, after all, grown up entirely within what had passed from Goethe’s spiritual life into the German spiritual life—he felt, with his whole soul, immersed in the current of German spiritual life. He knew this German spiritual life because every phase of it was a phase of his own life. And how did Herman Grimm characterize this mood of the German spirit in 1895, shortly before his death? Anyone familiar with German life knows that this description is true; what I am now about to read aloud from Herman Grimm—words intended to portray the mood of the German spirit—is true. He wants to express—he who so often pointed out how dear to him the idea of repeated earthly lives is—he wants to express how German intellectual life aims to acknowledge the spiritual world, not in a one-sided way to develop a nationality, but rather to embrace the most universal aspects of humanity. These words, spoken by Herman Grimm in 1895, are beautiful, but also deeply significant for characterizing German spiritual life.

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 endeavors of the masses have but 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.

[ 61 ] Then he goes on to say:

We would all sacrifice ourselves for our fatherland; but we are far from longing for or bringing about the moment when this might happen 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.

[ 62 ] This is how Herman Grimm describes the mood in Central Europe. But then he shows that he is not a dreamer, but rather someone who can assess the situation well. For he goes on to say:

Humanity, viewed as a totality, recognizes itself as subject to an invisible court of justice enthroned as if in the clouds; it regards failure to stand before this court as a misfortune, and seeks to align its internal conflicts with the court’s judicial proceedings. With anxious earnestness, 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.

[ 63 ] Anyone familiar with the Central European mindset will know that Herman Grimm spoke the truth back then. And they will then be able to judge what it actually means when, from the left and the right, from the West and the East, those who today wish to assert this truth from Central Europe are repeatedly shouted at: “Who wanted the war!” One really has to say that this “Who wanted the war?”—it feels as if a group of people were standing around a house with threatening gestures, and the owner of the house sees that they want to storm the house, so he goes out and has no choice but to beat them up. And then the question would be asked: “Who wanted this brawl?” It’s the same logic. Yes, one can even say many things about this logic that prevails in the world today. One could even say: This logic is—one is almost embarrassed to say it, because it’s so flimsy—when people say, “We didn’t want the war; rather, it was wanted in Central Europe.” —it is the same logic as if one were to say: “Yes, we couldn’t wage war if the Germans hadn’t invented gunpowder, because then there would be no war; so who wanted the war?” It would be the same logic if people in Central Europe wanted to blame us for the fact that they use printer’s ink on paper to accuse the German character of being “barbaric.” After all, the Germans also invented the process of printing with ink on paper. But this notion of “wanting” does indeed look strange to anyone who looks not merely at what took place in the last few months before the war, but at what has been building up as the driving forces over the course of decades. Those who have truly been able to observe what is happening in Europe with open eyes—those who have wanted to see it—have already observed how this war, so to speak, was being prepared in its fundamental impulses precisely from the East. And anyone who were to ask the right question today—“Who could have prevented the war?”—would, of course, have to point to Russia. But those who have seen clearly have known this all along. We can see this in words that were spoken long before the war.

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 lashing out fiercely 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 that it is now deemed expedient in [St. Petersburg] to take up the Eastern Question once again. If the Mediterranean were ever to become, to use an expression that is more pompous than true, “a French sea,” Russia has the even more ambitious intention of turning the Black Sea into a Russian sea and the Sea of Marmara into a Russian pond. That Constantinople must become a Russian city and Greece a direct vassal state of Russia is a fixed objective of Russian policy, which finds its basis of support in the shared religion and in Pan-Slavism. The Danube would then be closed off at the Iron Gate by a Russian barrier.

[ 64 ] However, this was not said recently, but in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War; though it was said by those who did not speak off the cuff, but who knew how forces were gradually gathering from the East, how the Austrian national spirit was permeated by a distorted form of Slavophilism, ultimately leading to what has now resulted in war—and which the Western powers have fallen for.

[ 65 ] I would like to read another passage to you that can show you how the connection with the active forces and impulses reveals itself to those who truly wish to see them. When looking at what took place in the summer of 1914 and what subsequently led to the war from the perspective of the East, could one not use the following words—I want to read aloud words that could be coined for the first half of 1914:

[——. how a sort of press campaign gradually began in St. Petersburg, (...] and I personally was suspected of certain intentions. 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; there is no reason whatsoever 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 aspirations.]

[ 66 ] What has happened, however, shows that the European center can save itself from such an attack. The words I have read to you could serve as a characterization of the forces at play in 1914. But in fact, I have only altered them slightly; the words I read to you were not written or spoken in 1914 at all, but were spoken by Bismarck in the German Reichstag on February 6, 1888. And I will now read them to you in their original form. You will see how they correspond to what I read to you as being appropriate for the spring of 1914. Bismarck spoke these words when he addressed the Reichstag against the military bill:

[... 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. These attacks intensified over the course of the following year, up until 1879, 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 become dependent 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 intentions.]

[ 67 ] So one could say: The balance of power between Eastern Europe and Central Europe in 1888 had to be characterized exactly as it was in 1914. Let us dare to say once again that there were supposedly people living in Central Europe in 1914 who brought about this war. Anyone with a sound sense of facts will not be able to accept such a claim. One must, however, have a sound sense of facts. How was the mood in Eastern Europe prepared—the mood that ultimately led to that spark, through the connection between East and West, resulting in the current siege of Central Europe? What was taking shape there in Eastern Europe?

[ 68 ] In the nineteenth century, we saw, among other things, the emergence of the Slavophile movement. Among these Slavophiles there are idealists, but there are also people who later transformed the spirit of Slavophilism into a complete absorption in and idolization of what currently exists in Russia; who did not see Russia’s mission in the pursuit of the inner spiritual forces of the Russian people, but rather in the violence and power that now reign there. And the finest among these Slavophiles have worked to spread the conviction that the culture of Western Europe—and Germany in particular—is a culture in decline, and that a rebirth of European life must come from Eastern Europe. This has become a creed. And this creed has slowly and gradually become ingrained in what might be called Russian life. Certain aspects of this Russian life are completely permeated by it. The finest minds, by virtue of being interwoven with Russian life, are also interwoven with this idea of Slavophilism.

[ 69 ] Even the great Soloviev had a period in his life when he was a Slavophile, when he truly believed—albeit in a different way than [Aksakov, Katkov, and Danilevsky]—that there could already be something in Russian life today whose mission was, so to speak, to envelop all of Europe with a new culture. But then he came to understand more and more what Slavophilism had become in present-day Russia. He learned to consider how what Slavophilism had become in present-day Russia would affect the European center and the European West. And there it was, at the time when he said the following to himself—these are the very words of Solovyov, the Russian philosopher; he says that Slavophilism had become a “fairground commodity” that “filled all the filthy streets, squares, and back alleys of Russian life with wild, bestial clamor.” Those are Solovyov’s own words. At the time when Solovyov was faced with a question of conscience—one that it is important to visualize in one’s mind’s eye—that question of conscience which led him to say: “Why does Europe not love us?”

[ 70 ] He actually wanted to raise the question: What must Europe see when it looks at us? And Soloviev, the great philosopher of the second half of the nineteenth century, answers this question from a Russian perspective: What must Europe see in us?:

Europe [...] looks upon us with fear and resentment, [since the elemental power of the Russian people is dark and enigmatic, its intellectual and cultural powers are inferior, while its aspirations, on the other hand] are clear, resolute, and grand.

[ 71 ] This is not the view of a German, but of a Russian, regarding the forces that have been at work for decades and have now manifested themselves in the fire blight. Soloviev goes on to say:

[Across Europe, the clamour of our nationalism resounds—a nationalism that seeks to destroy Turkey and Austria, to defeat the Germans, and to seize Constantinople and, if possible, India as well. But if one were to ask us how we intend to bring happiness to humanity after seizing and destroying all of this, we could only remain silent or spout meaningless platitudes.”

“Thus [...] the most fundamental—indeed, the only important—question that honest and reasonable patriotism should address is not Russia’s power and mission, but its sins.”

[ 72 ] So says the great Russian on the Russian character. Might the question then be posed from the heart of Europe toward the East: “What do you want? If you could somehow gain control of the heart of Europe, what would you want?” The greatest, most significant, and most beneficial Russian of the nineteenth century answers this:

If someone were to ask us [how we intend to bring happiness to humanity after seizing and destroying everything, we could only remain silent or spout meaningless platitudes.]

[ 73 ] Here we see what needs to be defended—what the forces that, amid blood and death, must defend the German essence on both the left and the right actually have to defend.

[ 74 ] Well, my esteemed audience, it should come as no surprise that this German essence—this driving force of the German spirit—is, in fact, misunderstood everywhere. One might say that it arises from the individual German’s intimate engagement with the German spirit, which the individual German must perceive as a living force. And this gives rise to those misunderstandings we encounter everywhere when we ask people from other nations—other than those we have just met today—who are considered enlightened. We sometimes hear that words such as those spoken and written by Herman Grimm—who understood the German essence and knew Goethe well—regarding Lewes’s biography of Goethe are true; what Herman Grimm said about this book is true: Lewes has written a book about Goethe—that is to say, he has written a book about a man born in Frankfurt, to whom he attributes Goethe’s works, and of whom he claims that he died in 1832. But the way he portrays him—the soul he depicts in the book—bears no resemblance to what is felt by those who, in German intellectual life, feel connected to Goethe.

[ 75 ] And so, wherever the issue is about establishing a relationship with the German intellectual tradition, we find nothing but misunderstandings. As a more or less trivial, but perhaps nonetheless interesting episode, I would like to mention one more thing in closing.

[ 76 ] The movement to which we belong did, after all, have some connection with the movement originating in Adyar. [Our friends, due to their deep connection with German spiritual life and its driving forces, could no longer go along with it] when English materialism, masquerading as theosophy, went so far that some came to believe the absurdity that the Spirit of Christ had revealed itself in a little Hindu boy. We know under what guises all this was carried out. It was then that the German sense of truth arose, compelling the German spirit to turn away from those activities that called themselves “theosophical.” Yet now the president of that movement has the following to say—out of an English spirit—regarding the circumstances surrounding the separation of the German spiritual-scientific movement, which is united in the Anthroposophical Society. The following was indeed written in England. Please forgive me for bringing my insignificant person into the whole context, but this was written months after the war had broken out.

Now, looking back in light of the German methods as revealed to us by the war, I realize that the long-standing efforts to take over the Theosophical Society and place a German at its head —the anger directed at me when I thwarted these efforts, the complaint that I had spoken of the late King Edward VII as the protector of European peace instead of bestowing that honor on the Kaiser—that all of this was part of the widespread campaign against England, and that the missionaries were tools, skillfully used by the German agent here to carry out their plans. If they had been able to transform the Theosophical Society in India, with its large number of administrative officials, into a weapon against the British government, and if they had been able to indoctrinate it to look up to Germany as its spiritual leader, instead of standing up, as it has always done, for the equal alliance of two free nations, it could gradually have become a conduit for poison in India. To achieve this, it was first necessary to overthrow their president, who, as is well known, has advocated for the alliance of the two peoples for the past twenty years.

[ 77 ] So, we are said to have been upset that she portrayed Edward VII—rather than the German Emperor—as a beacon of peace, and that we therefore broke away; whereas the split actually occurred because we could not agree with what was being said on that side regarding the Christ Presence. But then she gives us far too much credit by listing everything the German spiritual science movement is said to have done to bring about the current war—that is, those who spoke over there about our spiritual science movement. Now we are learning something about their plans from an English perspective. It is remarkable what we are said to have done, what is said to have been our intention. One sees how this side interprets what necessarily had to happen for the sake of the German sense of truth, the German spirit of truth—for the sake of that which feels itself to be part of the sustaining power of the German spirit. Then one must say: When one sees how this German spirit, with its sustaining power, has worked in hundreds and thousands, how it has brought about German idealism, which contains the seeds [to] arrive at a grasp and experience of the living spirit, then one must say that Goethe’s words—which Friedrich Lienhard also quotes in his pamphlet *Germany’s European Mission*—are profoundly true; the words Goethe spoke in 1813 during a conversation with Luden, when he said:

The destiny of the Germans has not yet been fulfilled. If they had had no other purpose than to shatter the Roman Empire and to create and organize a new world, they would have perished long ago. But since they have endured—and with such strength and capability—I believe they must still have a great destiny ahead of them.

[ 78 ] This statement by Goethe remains relevant even today. And as we now live in these fateful times, we feel, distinguished guests, that everything connected with the great historical development of the German spirit—which stands before us as an organism—we look to what has lived in German minds, what lived in Wolfram von Eschenbach, in Herder, Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Fichte—and what reached the very limits of grasping the living spirit in Herman Grimm, extending all the way to spiritual science—we see what spiritual and soul forces spring forth from the German spirit as if from a single source. That is the sustaining force of the German spirit.

[ 79 ] Now the German spirit has a different task. It must flow into the self-sacrificing deeds that must be accomplished through death and blood in defense of what we have sought to consider today with these—admittedly inadequate—words. But what shows us that the German essence, as it has manifested itself, has not yet fulfilled its mission in the world—that it must be defended because it has a mission for the world, one that must still lead it to a complete grasp of living spiritual life. And so, from contemplating the sustaining power of the German spirit, hope and confidence spring forth for Germany’s future. Yet all of this also resonates in our sentiments and feelings, causing us—on the one hand—to look with a mixture of wistfulness and comfort, and yet also with the greatest admiration, upon what Germany must now accomplish in this fateful hour. Our feelings and emotions are with all that is bleeding and suffering—yet also accomplishing great deeds in the West and East—precisely when we see in all of this merely another expression of the German spirit. And those who, as mothers and fathers, as brothers and sisters, are losing a beloved family member—they know that they are losing him for the sake of what must be achieved: the German spirit, the German future, the entire German essence, which still has a role to play in the world—an essence that must be viewed as one that has not yet been perfected.

[ 80 ] And so, let us summarize—in terms of intuition and feeling—the impulses that emerge from this reflection in the following words: Yes, this German essence—one sees it growing as it comes into being—and only a lack of understanding could speak of a decline of this German essence. The truth is quite the opposite. What is true is what I would now like to express—summarizing this evening’s thoughts intuitively as I conclude—in words that are meant to convey how what we can observe in the German spirit ultimately converges and resonates within our hearts as hope, confidence, and certainty in the continued development of the German spirit:

The German spirit has not yet fulfilled
What it is meant to bring to the world.
It lives in hopeful concern for the future,
It hopes for future deeds full of life; —
In the depths of its being, it feels powerfully
Something hidden that must still ripen and take effect.
How can the desire for its end,
In the power of the enemy, without understanding, Come to life:
As long as life reveals itself to it,
Which sustains it creatively at the roots of its being?