The Rudolf Steiner Archive

14. A Forgotten Quest for Spiritual Science Within the Development of German Thought

Ladies and gentlemen!

[ 1 ] Once again, it seems appropriate to me—as on previous occasions when I have been here during this fateful time—to begin with a reflection on the development of German intellectual life, and then to turn tomorrow to a subject that, in the stricter sense, belongs to the field of spiritual science.

[ 2 ] And if today we are to undertake a reflection in connection with the development of German intellectual life, I would like first and foremost to emphasize once again that this reflection does not wish to fall into the trap that so many reflections fall into today—that of establishing an external connection between all manner of intellectual upheavals and the fateful historical realities of our time. In an age in which the force of arms decides the fate of nations, words cannot—in any way—intervene, or intervene meaningfully, in what is to be decided by the force of arms. But we do, after all, live in an age in which self-reflection—including national self-reflection—seems entirely appropriate.

[ 3 ] Now, when one speaks—from the perspective of a science, including the humanities—of how certain developmental forces within such a humanities discipline are rooted in folk forces, as we shall do today, one will immediately encounter, esteemed audience, all manner of objections—objections that are exceedingly facile because they are so self-evident, [which]—from a certain point of view—are so self-evident that, precisely because of their self-evidence, they appear extraordinarily plausible to those who do not wish to rise to certain higher points of view. In such a line of thought, one will encounter time and again the objection that science as such—and everything that in any way claims to be, as they say, “international”—does not permit one to assert any kind of rootedness in the folk tradition.

[ 4 ] Let me address this objection by way of a comparison. “International,” ladies and gentlemen, is, for example, the moon as well. It is exactly the same for everyone; yet how differently the various peoples speak of the moon! Certainly, someone might object again: Yes, but that belongs to the realm of poetry. — Yes, certainly; but anyone who delves a little deeper into the spiritual life of humanity will notice that—even though the observations and insights regarding external, factual matters are all the same in the science of the Moon—what the individual peoples have to say, based on what human beings can perceive and arising from the innermost driving forces of the human soul, varies, [and] depending on the different dispositions and the different impulses of the individual peoples, penetrates more or less deeply into the mysteries of existence. And the overall progress of humanity does not depend on what is the same everywhere, but rather on what is incorporated into the overall development of humanity from the driving forces — those peculiar to the innermost essence of each individual people.

[ 5 ] From this perspective, we shall point out today how German folklore is intimately connected not only with the endeavor to establish a science of the external senses, but also—through a profound penetration into the spiritual mysteries of existence — just as the search for a path to the spiritual mysteries of existence is a distinctive feature of much of what can be called German national character.

[ 6 ] And there is yet another reason, distinguished guests, why such a consideration may be offered here: it is my conviction—arising not from some narrow-minded, populist sentiment, but from what I believe to be an appropriate consideration of the German essence— — conviction that what has been advocated here for years as a spiritual science is deeply rooted in the general spiritual life of the German people, and that all the seeds for a true spiritual science are present in the spiritual development of the German people.

[ 7 ] To begin with, ladies and gentlemen, I will take as my starting point three figures about whom I had the opportunity to speak here in this city a few months ago, when I attempted to outline the worldview of German Idealism; even at the risk of repeating this or that in minor details, I will take as my starting point the three great figures who appear within the intellectual and spiritual development of the German people, and who create a worldview that provides the foundation, the backdrop—one might say—for what was subsequently achieved in the artistic and poetic realms by Goethe, Schiller, Herder, Lessing, and so on—within German intellectual life, as a flowering of modern intellectual life in general that can be directly compared only to the tremendous flowering that human intellectual life achieved during the era of ancient Greece: let us once again begin with Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel.

[ 8 ] Fichte stands before us—and I already noted this in my lecture a few months ago—in that he has a sense that everything he has to offer his people as the very best—a worldview and insights into the essence of his people—he has gained as if through a dialogue with the German national spirit itself. Johann Gottlieb Fichte is inwardly sustained by the awareness that a quintessentially German essence speaks from his soul.

[ 9 ] It was he, too, who—not only during one of the most difficult periods in the development of German thought—found the words that were so well suited to inspiring the entire nation’s enthusiasm for its rise from oppression; but it was he [also] who, in the way he seeks to maintain a worldview for his understanding, clearly demonstrates that he seeks this worldview from the qualities of the human soul, from the powers of the human soul—qualities and powers that are essentially German characteristics of spiritual life. He emphasized this. And with regard to Johann Gottlieb Fichte, this is certainly the absolute truth.

[ 10 ] And what exactly is this “immediately German” aspect in Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s endeavor? It consists in the fact that Johann Gottlieb Fichte, drawing from his German identity—as he himself calls it—came to seek, in a living way, a deepening and, at the same time, a strengthening of man’s own spiritual essence, of his own “I,” and was convinced, through the vivid, inner experience of the true “I,” that into this “I”—if it is experienced in the right way, if it becomes fully aware of itself—there can flow that which interweaves, illuminates, and warms the world as the divine-spiritual. Thus, according to Fichte’s view, that which speaks outwardly in all natural phenomena, that which speaks in the course of history, and that which also speaks behind natural phenomena and behind history as spiritual forces, flows into the human will.

[ 11 ] The human will, which asserts itself in the “I,” is nothing other than the innermost, most secret expression—the innermost, most secret expression of the soul—of that which permeates and warms all beings in the world, from the most materialistic to the most spiritual. This intimate intertwining of what is experienced in the soul with the great mystery of the universe—to the extent that human beings can fathom it—is the uniquely German aspect of Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s endeavor.

[ 12 ] And one can see, when observing Fichte as he lives his life, that this is not something contrived or acquired through upbringing, but rather something that arises from the innermost depths of his soul as his natural disposition. To corroborate this, let us cite a few specific examples from Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s life. As I said, even at the risk of repeating minor details that I have already taken the liberty of mentioning here.

[ 13 ] There, for example, we see this Johann Gottlieb as a small, seven-year-old boy in front of his father’s house—his father was a poor master weaver—and we see Johann Gottlieb Fichte, at the age of seven, standing by the little stream that flows past his father’s house; and he has thrown a book into that stream. His father comes along and is utterly astonished at what has just happened. — What had happened? Well, Johann Gottlieb Fichte was a six- or seven-year-old boy, a diligent student. What is called a sense of duty was alive with the greatest intensity in his soul; and because he was so diligent, his father had given him a book for his last Christmas: *The Horned Siegfried*. The seven-year-old boy, who could already read fluently, was utterly fascinated by the book *The Horned Siegfried*, and he was constantly absorbed in the great figure of the Horned Siegfried; so much so that people had noticed he had become somewhat less diligent in school, and they called him out on it. Now, within the life of the will, a sense of moral duty was already stirring in the seven-year-old boy: he no longer wanted to continue reading, nor did he want to be tempted to read any further in the book about the Horned Siegfried. And to be absolutely sure, he threw the book into the stream, weeping! — Such was the nature of the one who, according to his own awareness, was to create the German worldview for his time!

[ 14 ] And again, let’s take a look at the nine-year-old Johann Gottlieb Fichte. It was a Sunday morning; the neighboring landowner had come from the neighborhood to hear the sermon. But the landowner had arrived too late and was therefore unable to hear the sermon. Some of the landowner’s acquaintances had come up with the idea of sending for little Johann Gottlieb Fichte, since he was such a good listener that he could repeat the sermon word for word. They fetched the nine-year-old Johann Gottlieb Fichte. After initially appearing somewhat awkward in his blue peasant smock, he stood up and repeated the sermon—not merely as an external recitation of the words, but with the deepest personal involvement, not just from memory, [but] with the deepest personal involvement, so that one could see: Everything that had been spoken lived a life of its own within his soul.

[ 15 ] These are the small details that show how intimately Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s soul was intertwined, on the one hand, with what he called duty, and on the other, with the urge within him to elevate and strengthen his own human self to such an extent that what, as primordial laws, willfully interweaves and warms the world could find expression and reveal itself within him. And just how he later set out to achieve this—after being appointed professor at Jena—is recounted to us by people who heard him speak themselves and who assure us that, when he spoke, his words were serious and stern, yet at the same time compelling, as if interwoven with the language through which the mysteries of the world speak from the very nature of things. His speech was like rolling thunder, and the words burst forth—so says one who heard him and was a friend of his—the words burst forth like flashes of lightning. His imagination, though not exuberant—we are told—was majestic and magnificent. And so we are told that he lived in the realm of supersensory ideas, not merely as one who dwells within it, but as one who essentially mastered this realm of ideas.

[ 16 ] It was also peculiar, for example, how he viewed his profession as a teacher: there was little of what one is accustomed to expecting from a speaker or teacher. He was constantly engaged in inner work. His preparation for any lecture or speech consisted not so much in organizing the content as in trying to immerse himself, with his soul, in that spiritual inner essence which he wished to allow to flow into the souls of his listeners—not merely through the content of his words, [but] through the manner in which he presented them; he strove to have an effect in which what mattered was not so much the content of his words as the fact that the souls of his listeners were moved by the very way in which the spiritual was active in the flow of his speech. Thus, someone who knew him well could say: He strove not merely to educate good people, but great souls.

[ 17 ] It is worth noting a small detail that must be mentioned time and again if one wishes to bring to life the immediate vitality of Fichte’s interaction with his audience. For example—as the profound thinker Steffens has handed down to us—Fichte said to his audience in Jena: “Think of the wall!”—People naturally found this easy: they thought of the wall. After he had let them think of the wall for a while, he said: “All right, and now think of the one who just thought of the wall!” — That left some of them baffled!

[ 18 ] That was, after all, a reference to one’s own inner life, in which that which flows through and warms the world at its very core was to be kindled. [As much as this may have astonished people,] it is at the same time a testament to how—I would say—Fichte in fact did not merely seek to bring the spiritual directly to his listeners through clever words. Through the words—he did not want to work merely within the words themselves. This is why this man also sought to actively grasp the historical dimension of the creative national spirit at work. And just as he sought to connect himself vividly with the workings of the world in general, so too did he seek to connect himself vividly with that which is a part of these worldly workings and to live close to it as a member of his own people; he sought to connect himself with the essence of the German national spirit. And no one can truly understand—not only the profound but also the sustaining power—of the wonderful words that Johann Gottlieb Fichte addressed to the German people as his “Addresses to the German Nation” during such a difficult period in the history of the German people, no one can truly grasp this who does not see the connection between the way in which Fichte sought to grasp the world will within himself in the “I,” and then, in turn, sought to carry the power that arose within his soul out into action, into events, into the social and other forms of human coexistence, and into the conception of life.

[ 19 ] There he stands—albeit in our own way—before us, this Johann Gottlieb Fichte! And—as I said—these things that must now be discussed are to be said not out of narrow-minded nationalism, but entirely out of objective observation. We need not, after all, fall into the same error into which the enemies of the German spirit are now falling—those who not only accuse this German spirit but even slander it in the true sense of the word; we can adopt an objective standpoint in our consideration of the German spirit, and it is precisely through this objective standpoint that we will be able to recognize correctly what the essence of the German national character is.

[ 20 ] Fichte sought to grasp the World Will as a living entity in itself. And for him, this World Will was the bearer of what he called the World Duty, which in turn breaks down into individual human duties. Through this, what lives outside has become, for him, a living presence everywhere. But this also places him in opposition—as he himself emphasizes in his “Addresses to the German Nation”—you can read about this in my exposition in my little book “Thoughts During the Time of War,” which is currently out of print but will be published again soon, [just as] he, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, seeks the living in everything everywhere and is thus so conscious—that he thereby stands in opposition to much of what he calls a dead science. And Johann Gottlieb Fichte also finds this dead science among the Western European peoples, among the French and the British. — Let it be said, however, as I mentioned, merely for the sake of accurate description, not to take anything out of order with any nation; but it must be recognized what the relationship is between the German spirit and the spirits of other nations in this fateful time!

[ 21 ] Even back then, when I was attempting to outline the worldview of German Idealism, I pointed out how characteristic Descartes, Cartesius, is in the development of French philosophical thought at the beginning of the seventeenth century. I pointed out how he characteristically expresses what lives within his worldview, stemming from his national character, in that for him not only the mineral and plant worlds, but even the animal world, is nothing other than a sum of animated—not animated by a soul—but merely moving machines! This is the peculiarity of this Western mind: that, at its core, it can grasp only a dead science.

[ 22 ] In all his writings, Fichte, with his concept of the “living,” stands in fundamental contrast to the Western path of knowledge and the Western pursuit of knowledge, [where] animals are like machines. This trend has continued. And not long before Johann Gottlieb Fichte began his work in Germany—seeking to reveal life in all the facts and beings of the world through a living grasp of the world’s mysteries—a descendant, so to speak, of that Descartes—Cartesius—was active in France: de La Mettrie.

[ 23 ] And while Cartesius at least conceded to human beings a distinct soul based on inner experience and inner sensations, de La Mettrie, taking this dead Western science a step further, argued in his book *Man a Machine* that even what stands before us as a human being is itself part of the cosmic context as a mere machine; that one can understand the whole human being by conceiving of him as the result of purely material processes and forces. According to de La Mettrie, everything about human beings—including all qualities and activities of the soul—should be understood in such a way that human beings are recognized solely as machines.

[ 24 ] Certainly, to a certain extent, man is a machine. The essence of the science of the mind is not that it contradicts the validity of such assertions, but rather that it shows other paths—we will speak of this tomorrow—that it reveals other [complementary] paths to it, and knows of other paths that also lead beyond the legitimate claims of materialism. De La Mettrie is, fundamentally speaking and drawing from French folklore, one of the most representative minds of the view that the entire human world is merely a kind of mechanism. And it is interesting to consider precisely such a contrast as that between the Frenchman de La Mettrie and the German Johann Gottlieb Fichte. For de La Mettrie, everything about human beings is mechanism; for Fichte, everything is spirit to such an extent that he received into his soul what he calls the “world-will,” and that the external material world is for him merely an internalized arena for the fulfillment of duty arising from the spirit. Hence Fichte’s beautiful, wonderful endeavor to derive everything that appears to human beings in the sensory world from the spirit; in contrast, de La Mettrie is entirely driven by the goal of viewing the external physical realm as a directly determining impulse even for spiritual life.

[ 25 ] De La Mettrie can be quite witty on such matters, for he is just as deeply immersed in his mechanistic worldview as Johann Gottlieb Fichte is in his idealistic worldview. For example, when de La Mettrie says in his book *Man a Machine*: “Can’t you see how the body shapes the soul? Take a famous poet—one need only look into his soul to see that he is half a scoundrel and half endowed with the fire of Prometheus?”—De La Mettrie was clever enough not to specify which poet he meant; but Voltaire flew into a rage over this remark. When this was pointed out to him, de La Mettrie replied: “Well, all right, I’ll retract one half of the claim”—he meant the half about Prometheus!—“but the ‘scoundrel,’ that he continued to [maintain].” He simply expressed it in his own way; there’s no need to read too much into it. But if you take the individual points—that man, in particular, is a machine—and in this regard he is tireless in showing how the mechanical aspect, so to speak, the “stoking” [gap in the transcript] within man, how this characterizes the whole person and brings about satisfaction—in this regard, he sometimes becomes quite peculiar. And I don’t know—I really don’t know—what kind of feelings a passage from *Man as a Machine* evokes when read in France today! I certainly do not wish to cite it as something that one, as a German, ought to share; but I would like to cite it nonetheless, because it is quite characteristic, and because—you will soon see the reason why I would like to cite it—one might perhaps ask, precisely from the standpoint of the science of the spirit: How does such a soul—though he denied that this is possible—but: How does such a soul look down, more than a hundred years after his death, upon what is now being exchanged as words of praise between France and England, when he, de La Mettrie, the Frenchman, in his book *Man a Machine* demonstrates how human beings, in their very character and in their souls, are entirely dependent on the way materialistic influences affect them, when he states the following:

“Raw meat makes animals wild; humans would become the same if they ate the same food.”

[ 26 ] He cites this as evidence that the material also determines the spiritual.

“How true that is”

[ 27 ] says de La Mettrie, the Frenchman,

“One can see in the fact that the English nation, which cooks meat less than the French do and eats it quite raw and bloody, displays a greater savagery—a savagery brought about in part by that diet, and in part, of course, by other causes that only education can suppress. This savagery gives rise in the soul to arrogance, hatred, contempt for other nations, unruliness, and other feelings that corrupt the character, just as coarse food produces a sluggish and clumsy mind in a people whose main characteristics are laziness and dullness.”

[ 28 ] As I said, there is no need to adopt this characteristic of the French materialist; but it might still be interesting to reflect on it today, from the perspective of how feelings change over time.

[ 29 ] Ladies and gentlemen, when we consider the second of the thinkers who laid the ideological foundation for what German art and German poetry achieved during the Goethe era, it is Wilhelm Joseph Schelling. And while what is most admirable about Fichte is how he grasps the influence of the will upon the “I” and draws strength from the awareness of this influence, what is remarkable about Schelling is that he establishes a science of nature and a science of the spirit in such a way that one can truly say: Where he seeks to understand and recognize natural phenomena in an abstract manner, the German spirit is at work within him. Through this, Schelling becomes—not the antithesis, not in the same way that Fichte is the antithesis to Frenchness or to Britishness—not the antithesis to idealism, but rather its continuator and expander. In Schelling stands, alive, created from the German spirit, a worldview that, in the best sense of the word, elevates to a higher plane of spirituality that which, for example, a Giordano Bruno could only inspire. In Schelling’s soul, which was so thoroughly imbued with the German spirit—and artistically imbued as well—nature and spirit grew together in unity. He was able to go so far—certainly, such a thing is one-sided, but today it really does not matter whether one must, in a childish way, be a supporter or an opponent of a worldview, but rather that one knows precisely that it is not a matter of being a supporter or opponent, but to contemplate the striving that lives within such a person—the striving toward truth, the striving for knowledge of the deeper mysteries of human existence. From a one-sided but vigorously powerful standpoint, Schelling arrived at the assertion to which I have already alluded here in one of my recent lectures: To know nature is to create nature. — Certainly a one-sided assertion, but one of which one can say: It springs from a soul that knows itself to be one with what weaves and lives in nature.

[ 30 ] Once again, drawing from the essence of ancient Germanic thought, a creator of a worldview who knows that the human self can be so elevated, so empowered, so imbued with spirit that what mysteriously and spiritually permeates and warms the world finds expression within this self. And again—one might say—it is precisely through the impact Schelling had on his contemporaries that Schelling himself can be recognized. We are told—by the deeply spiritual Schubert, himself a deeply spiritual man and a student and friend of Schelling’s—how people knew that when there was a special kind of liveliness on the streets of Jena in the afternoon—Schelling was, after all, a professor in Jena—it was not due to student gatherings, but rather because Schelling was speaking about what he sought to develop as a worldview. Schubert, who heard him in Jena, expressed how Schelling then appeared to him. I would like to read this passage from Schubert to you verbatim, so that you can see how a contemporary spoke of Schelling—this Schelling who, as can be shown in the case of Fichte, had truly become one—in his entire being, in his entire humanity—with his spiritual striving—with the mysteries of the world.

[ 31 ] This immediate—I would say—deeply and intimately sincere fusion of the soul with the mysteries of the world is the very essence of the striving characteristic of the very era we are now discussing.

[ 32 ] [Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert describes Schelling as a young man. And] I knew, esteemed audience, others who had heard Schelling in his old age, and even then it was still the case that what lived within him spoke directly and personally through Schelling’s entire personality—it lived as if it had flowed in from that which spiritually reigns and weaves throughout the world. Therefore, to those who listened to him, he appeared like a seer, enveloped in a kind of spiritual aura, and [who] spoke in such a way that he spoke like a seer—coining words not out of human caprice, but because he looked into the spiritual driving forces underlying the world. That is why Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert, an amiable and witty thinker, says:

“What was it that drew young men and mature men alike, from near and far, so powerfully to Schelling’s lectures? Was it merely the man’s personality, or the unique charm of his oral presentation, that held this alluring power?”

[ 33 ] That wasn't all.

“It lay in his vivid words”

[ 34 ] however

“a compelling force that, wherever it encountered even a modicum of receptivity, no young soul could resist. It would be difficult for a reader of our time”

[ 35 ] In 1854, Schubert wrote down what he had experienced with Schelling in the 1790s

“who, unlike me—a youthful and engaged listener—could not grasp how, when Schelling spoke to us, I often felt as though I were reading or hearing Dante, the seer of an otherworldly realm open only to the initiated eye.” The powerful content contained in his speech—measured out in a lapidary style with almost mathematical precision—seemed to me like a bound Prometheus, whose bonds it is the task of the understanding mind to loosen and from whose hand to receive the inextinguishable fire.

But neither the personality nor the animating power of the oral presentation alone could have been what, immediately after Schelling’s philosophy became publicly known through his writings, aroused such interest and excitement—for or against its direction—as no other literary phenomenon of a similar kind has been able to do before or since for a long time. Here, this had to be achieved solely by the content itself.

When it comes to things perceptible to the senses or natural phenomena, one can immediately tell whether a teacher or writer is speaking from his own observation and experience or merely discussing what he has heard from others—or even what he has concocted based on his own imagination... The same applies to inner experience as to outer experience. There is a reality of a higher order, the existence of which the knowing mind within us can experience with the same certainty and assurance as our body experiences the existence of external, visible nature through its senses. This reality of physical things presents itself to our perceiving senses as an act of the very same creative power through which our physical nature itself came into being. The existence of the visible is just as much a real fact as the existence of the perceiving sense. The reality of the higher kind has also approached the knowing spirit within us as a spiritual-physical fact; it will become aware of it when its own cognition rises to a recognition of that from which it is known and from which, according to a consistent order, the reality of both physical and spiritual becoming arises. And that realization of a spiritual, divine reality in which we ourselves live, move, and have our being is the highest gain of earthly life and the quest for wisdom. ...

“Even in my own time”

[ 36 ] as Schubert says

“Among the young men who listened to him, there were some who sensed what he meant by the ‘intellectual vision’ through which our spirit must grasp the infinite source of all being and becoming.”

[ 37 ] Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert seeks to convey that Schelling spoke of such a world of the spirit based on such direct perception.

[ 38 ] And as if the German spirit were seeking to reveal itself in every direction, we see in Hegel—who, like Schelling, is from Württemberg; Hegel is even from Stuttgart— we see in Hegel how he strives, in what the soul can experience within itself, to simultaneously experience that which, as the divine-spiritual, permeates the world and can come to life within one’s own soul, but in a third way. As if the German spirit were seeking to reveal itself in every direction: Hegel attempts this in the third way. For him, what pervades and illuminates the world is the divine-spiritual thought. And as human beings think, as they illuminate the thought within themselves—the thought that is not dependent on memory, but rather the thought free from sensibility—this thinking grows within the soul together with that which, as thought, pervades the world itself through the laws of the universe.

[ 39 ] And here Hegel establishes something—as I said, one need not be either a follower or an opponent, but [one should] turn one’s gaze toward the conception of striving—here Hegel establishes something that is, once again, so characteristic of the German national spirit. The way in which Hegel strives—one might say: it is the nature of mystical striving, fused within one’s own inner self with that which fundamentally fills the world as the divine-spiritual. But this is not a fusion of dark, nebulous ideas or chaotic feelings—as so many who wish to become mystics are so fond of—but rather a striving that, while mystical in its path, is in its very nature, in its entirety, filled with thought and intellectually clear. This is the defining characteristic of the German quest for a worldview: that one does not seek a dark worldview arising from mere feelings or mere trivial clairvoyance, but rather a worldview that is on the path toward the divine-spiritual in the world, but which is permeated and illuminated by intellectual clarity and intellectual light. This, then, is what is distinctive about Hegel!

[ 40 ] And when one now allows these three significant figures to step before one’s mind—Fichte, Schelling, Hegel—one always has the feeling, esteemed audience: Three aspects of the development of German thought find expression in these three minds—aspects of the development of German thought that are still becoming part of the national consciousness.

[ 41 ] I already pointed this out last time, right here, when I was speaking from a different perspective: that a way can be found—even if the narrow-minded still say, “Oh, that’s all just abstract thinking!” Despite the objections of these narrow-minded people, a way will be found to [express] these great forces, these great driving forces that seek to connect the human soul with the mysteries of the world, in the simplest possible language, so that—one might say—every child can understand and every child will be able to listen. That they could be expressed in this way will be the result of a spiritual self-reflection by the German people.

[ 42 ] But one always has the feeling that within what is expressed in these three manifestations of German intellectual life, there is something even deeper at the core—a higher spirit, as it were, that speaks through all three. And then one gets the impression: This is the German national spirit itself. It expresses itself in three different ways, forming a worldview in Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel! And one gets this feeling in particular when one now considers what I would like to call, in today’s reflection, a forgotten aspiration, a forgotten, a faded tone of German intellectual life.

[ 43 ] For what is remarkable, esteemed audience, is that the spirits mentioned—who are spirits of the very highest order in terms of development—have successors: lesser spirits, spirits who are apparently not as significant as these three great ones; yet these lesser spirits are capable of producing something more significant than the great ones. There is, of course, no need to be surprised by this; any schoolboy can understand the Pythagorean theorem. The inspiration to understand it must, of course, have come from Pythagoras! But, as I said, I merely wanted to express what is at issue here in a somewhat paradoxical way; it does not hold in such a paradoxical sense.

[ 44 ] Yet it is true that these three spirits have successors who certainly cannot hold a candle to them in terms of creative power, spiritual vitality, or talent, but who, with regard to the path the human soul must take to enter the spiritual world—the living spiritual world—can achieve even greater things than these three great, inspiring forebears.

[ 45 ] And here we immediately see Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s son: Hermann Immanuel Fichte. He was not as great a mind as his father; but he was certainly under his father’s influence as long as his father lived. And Immanuel Hermann Fichte—who also taught at the University of Tübingen— Immanuel Hermann Fichte—he goes so far as to speak, drawing on more recent thought and the latest developments in philosophy, of how human beings, as they appear to us in the world, do not merely possess an outer physical body; rather, Immanuel Hermann Fichte speaks of an etheric body that underlies the outer, physical body. And just as the outer physical body is bound by its forces and laws to the outer material aspect of physical existence, so too is the etheric body bound by its forces and laws to the element that permeates and interweaves the world. And starting from the physical, Immanuel Hermann Fichte sees, at the very core of the human being, a sort of higher human within the human—the etheric human—and he contemplates this etheric human.

[ 46 ] And then we see a figure emerge as the successor to the great thinkers mentioned above—a figure who is truly at home in the faded, forgotten tone of German intellectual development. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Troxler, Ignaz Paul Vital Troxler. Who knows Troxler?!

[ 47 ] But this is so characteristic of the younger generation, who are now coming of age and achieving greater things than their elders, because German folk spirit pulses through them and finds expression in them.

[ 48 ] What a remarkable figure—this Troxler! He began writing at an early age, particularly under the influence of Fichte and Schelling: “Insights into [the Nature of Man],” he wrote. In “Lectures,” which he had published in 1835, he writes in a marvelous way about how human beings can develop, alongside their perception of the sensory world, a supersensory understanding of it; how a person can come—and I am now using the characteristic terms that Troxler employed—how a person can come to two powers of the soul that lie dormant in the soul in ordinary life. Troxler speaks of the fact that human beings are not merely dependent—not merely dependent, with regard to the perception of the world—on the ordinary senses and on the ordinary intellect, which is bound to the brain; rather, Troxler speaks of the fact that, although human beings do not apply these higher powers—which lie dormant within them—to the external world, they can nevertheless be developed.

[ 49 ] Troxler speaks first of two forces in the human soul: the “supersensible spirit” and the “superspiritual sense.” These are Troxler’s own words. But I would like to characterize the meaning of what he believes with a few words that echo what I have often discussed here in the context of spiritual science. Troxler says that when we look out into the world, we do not speak in such an abstract way—saying “nature, nature, nature”—and mean plants in general, but rather we speak of the tulip, the lily, the clover, and so on, do we not? But the philosophers—those who think in abstract terms—speak of the spirit in general, of this spirit that, as a spirit—though not really in a vague, general sense—permeates and permeates everything. And one feels exalted when one can be a pantheist, but in relation to the outer life of nature. Troxler sees this clearly: If one engages with the concrete, with individual things through the mind, there is a “super-spiritual sense” that does not merely—pardon the expression—ramble on in general terms about what, as spirit, pantheistically underlies all phenomena and facts and underlies all entities, but rather engages with the concrete, with the individual reality of individual spiritual beings: “super-spiritual sense.”

[ 50 ] And again: “Supersensible spirit”—[meaning a spirit that one need not at all conceive of as bound to the brain, but rather] that it is directly present in the spiritual world, without the mediation of the senses and the nervous system, just as human physical cognition is present within physical existence: “Supersensible sense”—“supersensible spirit.”

[ 51 ] And Troxler speaks—not in a generally vague way, but in a truly scientific manner—about how feelings can become intelligent, can be elevated—we will have to discuss this again tomorrow, not in relation to Troxler, but in relation to the topic to be discussed tomorrow—can be elevated and can themselves provide powers of cognition. In 1835, Troxler speaks of intelligent feeling and of sentient thoughts—thoughts that touch the spiritual being. This is a fading voice that strives toward spiritual science from a primal German essence within the development of German thought.

[ 52 ] But Troxler delves even deeper into the human soul when he says the following: Well, certainly, here in the physical world, the soul exists by incarnating itself in a body and by acting through the body. [And] the most beautiful, the greatest thing that this soul can embody here in the physical body—that which it can express through this embodiment—is faith, is love—the crown and blossom of physical human existence—and that is hope. But while these three eternal forces—faith, love, hope—manifest themselves in the way that a human being acts through his soul from within the body, there are higher forces within the eternal powers of the human soul that pass through death and enter the spiritual world—forces that are experienced. Because they are inherent to the soul—which, as something purely spiritual, lies behind all physicality—behind the power of faith—which, as the power of faith, is supreme but resides within the body—lies, for Troxler, what he calls “spiritual hearing.”

[ 53 ] What a wonderful, magnificent perspective on the insights of spiritual science—the details of which we will discuss again tomorrow. What a person does here in the physical body in response to certain phenomena is this: he develops his power of faith. But this power of faith is the outer shell for what the soul possesses when free from the body—that which enables it to enter the spiritual world through the gate of death: spiritual hearing, spiritual hearing. And this spiritual hearing within the body is expressed through the power of faith.

[ 54 ] And love—this crown and blossom of life, of the soul within the body—what is it for the soul, insofar as this soul carries the eternal powers within itself? Love is the outer shell for spiritual perception. Troxler speaks of this: Just as one reaches out with one’s hand and touches physical things, so one can extend the soul’s spiritual antennae and perceive spiritual things. And what manifests as love here in the body is the outer substance for the spiritual power of perception.

[ 55 ] And hope is the outer shell of spiritual perception, of spiritual vision.

[ 56 ] We see that this German line of thought is truly on the right path—the very path that has consistently been sought in these lectures here as the path of the spiritual sciences, which we will discuss again tomorrow. Thus Troxler feels at home in what I must call a faded tone within German intellectual life; he feels so at home there that he speaks of how one might seek spiritual reality within and outside of human beings, just as the senses and the intellect bound to the senses seek physical reality.

[ 57 ] I would like to read a passage by Troxler that is characteristic in this regard. He says:

“Even in the past, philosophers distinguished a refined, noble spiritual body from the coarser physical body … a soul that possessed an image of the body, which they called a ‘schema,’ and which represented to them the inner, higher human being … In more recent times, even Kant, in the dreams of a clairvoyant, seriously yet jokingly envisions an entire inner, spiritual human being who bears all the limbs of the outer body on his spiritual body; Lavater writes and thinks in the same vein; and even when Jean Paul humorously jokes about Bonn’s “little underskirt” and Platner’s “soul corset,” which are supposed to be tucked into the coarser outer body’s overcoat and torture smock, we still hear him ask once more, “Why and from where were these extraordinary inclinations and desires placed within us, which, like swallowed diamonds, slowly cut through our earthly shell? ... In the stony limbs”

[ 58 ] of human beings

“His living creatures grow and mature according to a way of life unknown to us.” We could”

[ 59 ] Troxler goes on to say

to cite yet another myriad of similar ways of thinking and writing, which are ultimately nothing more than different perspectives and conceptions, in which ... the true, sole doctrine of human individuality and immortality is contained»

[ 60 ] is. And now, before Troxler’s mind—as I have said, what I am sharing here is contained in other writings by Troxler, notably in his “Lectures” published in 1835, in which he seeks to present a worldview in his own way—the idea of a science of humanity, as opposed to mere anthropology, arises. Anthropology is the science that arises when human beings observe other human beings with their senses—that which they then synthesize with their intellect. Anthropology: the observation of the outer human being by the outer human being. Before Troxler’s mind arises the image of a science in which the inner human being—the human being with the awakened faculties of the supersensible spirit and the super-spiritual sense—the invisible, supersensible human being—also observes the invisible, supersensible human being. And how does Troxler speak of this science, which is supposed to represent a higher spiritual realm in contrast to anthropology, which is oriented toward the sensory? Let me also read that to you verbatim from Troxler’s book. There he says

“While it is indeed most gratifying that the newest philosophy, which … must reveal itself in every anthroposophy … is gaining momentum, it cannot be overlooked that this idea cannot be the fruit of speculation, and that one must not confuse the true individuality of the human being with either what it posits as subjective spirit or finite ego, nor with what it contrasts this with as absolute spirit or absolute personality.”

[ 61 ] Anthroposophy stands before Troxler’s soul, in which the spiritual human being contemplates the spiritual human being, just as in anthropology the sensory human being contemplates the sensory human being. When people speak of anthroposophy today, they are speaking of the continuation of what lies in the seeds of the faded tone of German spiritual life, of which I am speaking.

[ 62 ] And isn’t it wonderful, distinguished audience, truly wonderful, when we see—and not merely where one, in a sense, professionally, though in a higher sense—one strives for a worldview—as in the case of Hermann Immanuel Fichte or Ignaz Paul Vital Troxler—that such things emerge not only there, but that they can arise within German intellectual life from the simplest of circumstances!

[ 63 ] Isn’t it wonderful when we come across a book published in 1856—a little booklet written by a simple pastor, Rudolf Rocholl, who served in Sachsenberg in the Principality of Waldeck—who, as a simple pastor, sought to develop a spiritual worldview rooted in German intellectual life? And anyone who reads this little book—titled *Contributions to a History of German Theosophy*—written as early as 1856 by this humble pastor, gets the impression: Here speaks a human being! From today’s perspective, much of it may seem somewhat fanciful; but that is not what matters. What matters is the impression of striving that one gains, the impression that: Here we are dealing with a person who is not merely capable of speaking in abstract philosophical terms, but who speaks of a concrete spiritual world into which one can look. And in a wonderful way, this simple pastor, in his 1856 booklet *Contributions to a History of German Theosophy*, points to a vibrant, spiritually grounded worldview!

[ 64 ] These are just a few isolated examples from German intellectual life. One could find examples everywhere, and hundreds upon hundreds of such examples could be cited that belong to a bygone era of German intellectual life.

[ 65 ] But now I would like to speak to you about another spirit, a spirit—I might say—in whose local aura we actually live here. Although he is so significant for German intellectual life—and I mention this explicitly, lest anyone think I am merely trying to flatter the people of Württemberg—I have recently highlighted this spirit in Hamburg, Bremen, Leipzig, and everywhere else where the topic came up: “A Forgotten Endeavor Toward Spiritual Science Within the Development of German Thought.” The person I am referring to is Karl Christian Planck, who was born here in Stuttgart in 1819, a—I would say—true son of the German national spirit and a self-aware son of the German national spirit, Christian Karl Planck, a son of the German national spirit who sought only to create, out of the most primordial essence of this German national spirit, a worldview in keeping with the spirit! Christian Karl Planck is a marvelous spirit. In contrast to what seemed to him far too idealistic—and therefore selfish—for even idealism can be entirely selfish— he strove, in contrast to the idealism of the Germans, which he considered merely one-sided, for a realism—but a spiritual realism, a realism that was precisely intended to bring forth the power of thought development in a spiritual way in order to penetrate reality; but not merely into external, material reality, but into the whole, full reality to which matter and spirit belong.

[ 66 ] This is quite characteristic—one can only highlight individual, so to speak, symptomatic aspects of his worldview. How does Christian Karl Planck view the Earth from his perspective? Distinguished audience, one can only begin to grasp the magnitude of the idea conceived by Christian Karl Planck when one sees how geologists—ordinary, natural-science geologists—view the Earth. To them, the Earth is simply a mass of mineral matter, isn’t it? To view the Earth in this way seemed to Christian Karl Planck like trying to view a tree solely in terms of its trunk and bark, and refusing to acknowledge that blossoms and fruit are part of the whole tree; and that one views the tree only one-sidedly and incompletely if one does not also consider that which belongs to its innermost essence. Thus, to Planck, the Earth appears not only as a living being but as a spiritual-soul being—one that is not merely material but that brings forth human beings from within itself, just as the tree brings forth blossoms and fruits from its own being. Karl Christian Planck strives for a holistic understanding of the Earth. And he strives for this in all fields—not merely as a theory, as mentioned, but as a foundation that is equally conscious of the spiritual, enabling us to grasp the force that permeates and animates the world, a force that can also influence external human conditions and human coexistence.

[ 67 ] This Christian Karl Planck—certainly, all sorts of the kind I just referred to as “stump-brains”; they might well come along and say: “Yes, if one considers his later writings—namely, the posthumous work left behind after Christian Karl Planck’s death, the posthumous work *Testament of a German*—one sees a heightened sense of self-confidence”; and then they’ll go on to say—which, of course, these dimwits are quick to do—that he was half-crazy, wasn’t he! But still, it was a sad life! Planck was aware that the German essence is not only being encircled—we’ll speak of this in a moment—in a political sense, but that it is thoroughly encircled by a foreign essence, and that, above all, it must be saved from this. There, at every turn, one encounters precisely what is extraordinarily essential to consider in this realm.

[ 68 ] So, ladies and gentlemen, it must be said again and again: Goethe created his theory of colors from the depths of the German spirit; and, from the depths of the German spirit, he became, in this “theory of colors,” an opponent of a theory of colors that has encircled the world in the English manner: Newton’s theory of colors!

[ 69 ] Any physicist today would, of course, tell you what was told to me years ago: In the face of such amateurishness regarding “Goethe’s Theory of Colors,” a physicist can raise no other objection than that he simply cannot make any sense of it at all! Certainly; but the time will come when people will understand this chapter, “Goethe Is Right Against Newton,” in a different way than they do today. Even in the field of color theory, that self-reflection of the German spirit—which is so necessary and for which the present era may also be an extraordinary sign—may emerge, so that minds like Karl Christian Planck, who consciously sought to create works rooted in German folklore, will no longer be forgotten.

[ 70 ] Only V-Vischer—the noble V-Vischer—took him under his wing; it did just as little good as the fact that I had already characterized Karl Christian Planck in the first edition of my *Welt- und Lebensanschauungen* back in 1901. Such things still don’t get you very far today. But when the German spirit—and this will happen—becomes aware of its entire position in world history, then people will come to understand such things, and how Karl Christian Planck was able to create from the depths of the German spirit. Ladies and gentlemen, the following words, which he recorded in 1864 in Ulm in his *Grundlinien zu einer Wissenschaft der Natur* (*Outlines of a Science of Nature*), demonstrate this:

“The power of deep-rooted prejudices, as seen from the perspective of previous thinking”

[ 71 ] by the author

“He is fully aware that the text is controversial; yet just as the work itself—despite all the adverse circumstances that, given the author’s overall situation and professional standing, stood in the way of a work of this kind— it nevertheless fought its way to completion and into the public eye, so he is also certain that what must now first fight for its recognition will one day appear as the simplest and most self-evident truth, and that in this, not merely his cause, but the truly German view of things will triumph over all still unworthy, external, and un-German conceptions of nature and the spirit.

What our medieval poetry had already foreshadowed in an unconscious, profound intuition will finally be fulfilled in our nation as the times mature. The impractical, inward-looking nature of the German spirit—plagued by harm and ridicule (as Wolfram depicts it in his *Parsifal*)»

[ 72 ] — Written in 1864, before Wagner’s *Parsifal*! —

“finally attains the highest through the power of her unceasing striving; it delves to the very depths of the ultimate, simple laws of things and of human existence itself; and what poetry symbolized in a fantastical, medieval manner through the wonders of the Grail—whose dominion its hero attains—finds, conversely, its purely natural fulfillment and reality in the enduring understanding of nature and the spirit itself.”

[ 73 ] So says Karl Christian Planck, who then summarized what he had to say. He died in 1881; in his final year, he wrote his book *Testament eines Deutschen* (*The Testament of a German*), which was subsequently published in its first edition by his fellow countryman Karl Köstlin and reappeared in a new edition in 1912.

[ 74 ] As mentioned, although Karl Christian Planck had been brought to people’s attention, he was not given much attention—not even when the second edition of *The Testament of a German* was published in 1912. People had other things to do. Those who were deeply engaged with questions of worldview at the time were, for example, preoccupied with other books from the same publisher that had released Karl Christian Planck’s *Testament of a German*; for at that time people were preoccupied with the great mind of Henri—yes, he is still called Bergson today—with Henri Bergson, that very mind which, in such an incomprehensible and foolish manner, now not only reviles but actually slanders the German essence and German understanding everywhere. So far, he has done so in Paris, telling his French audience all sorts of nonsense about German intellectual life, so that these French people and their allies could see what terrible things actually dwell in this Central Europe, what wolf- and tiger-like spirits live there. Next, he is supposed to do the same in Sweden, this very same Bergson.

[ 75 ] People had, if I may use this trivial expression, fallen for him. If one looks at what can at least be discerned in Bergson—I drew attention to this in my *Riddles of Philosophy*, and the relevant passage was written before the war, as you can see for yourself in the preface—if one looks at what can be discerned to some extent in Bergson’s worldview, it becomes clear that, according to Bergson, one must not begin one’s view of the world with the various forms of being, but must place humanity at the forefront—that humanity is, so to speak, the first creation—and that as humanity develops, it pushes aside the other kingdoms: the animal, the plant, and the mineral.

[ 76 ] I cannot go into the validity of this worldview today; although it may seem as incorrect as possible to the contemporary worldview, there is certainly something in this worldview that captures reality. But I also pointed this out in my *Riddles of Philosophy*—you can read about it there—as I said, not prompted by the war, but long before the war—that this idea, before it took root in Bergson’s mind, had already sprouted in a deeper, more penetrating, and more comprehensive way—because it sprang from the depths of German intellectual life—in the German philosopher — who, in turn, is cited in my book *The Riddles of Philosophy*—in the German philosopher Wilhelm Heinrich Preuss. There, the idea emerged much earlier than Bergson espoused it—as early as 1882 and even earlier—and was expressed forcefully by Wilhelm Heinrich Preuss in his book on *Spirit and Matter*!

[ 77 ] It is impossible to know whether Bergson was unaware of Preuss—which, for a philosopher, is just as reprehensible as if he had known about Preuss but failed to cite him. Based on what has now come to light, one can already assume and believe the latter to be true of Bergson. For if one investigates the matter, one can show that entire pages in Bergson’s books are copied from Schopenhauer and Schelling—in some cases, almost word for word! It is, however, a strange phenomenon: one copies from German intellectual life, and then one stands up and explains to people how this German intellectual life has declined since that great era, how this German intellectual life is guided by mechanistic principles—I already said this once last year. Bergson believes that when one looks over to Germany, it seems as if only the mechanical confronts one. Bergson probably thought—as I’ve said before—that when the French fire their cannons and rifles, the Germans will step forward and recite Goethe or Novalis! That’s about how logical what Bergson has to say today is!

[ 78 ] As I said, it is only in individual examples that I can highlight that which truly exists as a fading note of German intellectual life, yet which is nonetheless present within that very intellectual life. It will simply be a matter of time, ladies and gentlemen, before we come to appreciate what, for example, creative minds like Troxler or Karl Christian Planck—though narrow-minded people might say of him: “He just got a little twisted toward the end of his life”—they had to write “toward the end of their lives” because, out of German consciousness, they had to oppose the world—which is also intellectually encircled today—with words, as Planck writes in the preface to his *Testament of a German*. He says there:

“... often, in the bitter struggle of a lifetime, the words of the ancient Roman would come to the lips of the lonely man: ‘Ungrateful fatherland, not even my bones shall you have!’ For throughout all the best and most vigorous decades of his life, right up into his old age, it did not even grant him the profession whose indelible stamp, despite all obstacles, marked his entire life and work, and his own immediate homeland, just a short while ago, inaugurated the beginning of the fifth century of its university by excluding its sole creative philosophical force from the professorship!”

[ 79 ] The time will come when everything foreign will be seen for what it is—how it has crept into German, into the original German spiritual life—and when people will reflect on what lies at the heart of this German spiritual life! Then one will also see much more clearly the relationships that exist between this Central European spiritual life and that—which is not to be reviled, but only characterized— [and] that which surrounds it, and which is currently striving to [combat] this German spiritual life—as I said: those who not only seek to combat the German essence with weapons, but also to denigrate, indeed to slander, German spiritual life!

[ 80 ] History will one day be able to say something—using large numbers, albeit sober ones—to you, distinguished guests; something that, in light of today’s facts, may well be brought to the forefront of our minds; history will have to record something peculiar. One may ask: How does the geographical area in which German intellectual life develops compare to that area—and how does the population of Central European intellectual life compare to the population of those who today not only resort to armed resistance against Central Europe, but even, in a display of bravery, seek to starve the Central Europeans — which is why it has come to pass that this Central Europe is being starved out! It is, after all, the more noble part of bravery—especially when one considers the circumstances of which history will one day have to speak! History will have to ask: What percentage of the entire dry land, the continental landmass, do these Central Europeans possess? Four percent! What percentage do the small nations still possess today—even without counting the Japanese—those who stand opposite them as the so-called Antipodes? Forty-six percent! That means that today, for every 6 million square kilometers belonging to Central Europe, there are 69 million square kilometers owned by those who have encircled Central Europe. They truly had no reason to be envious of what Central Europe was taking away from them. And excluding the Italians: 741 million people on the side of the Entente stand in contrast to 150 million people in Central Europe. That means: Central Europe, with nine percent of humanity, stands in contrast to nearly half of the world’s population—45 to 47 percent. History will surely record this as the situation in which we lived at that time.

[ 81 ] And the forces that have led to this can also be considered from a spiritual perspective. In my little book *Thoughts During the War*—which is now being republished, having, as I mentioned, been out of print for some time—you can read about how these forces have been at work in recent decades. Not only is there, from the West, that which manifests itself spiritually in precisely the way it has been characterized today—albeit in broad strokes and very inadequately—but there are also forces in the East that perhaps deserve even greater consideration than those of the West. Here, too, there is no need to resort to the tone that our opponents adopt! There is no need to denigrate the Russian people. We need not resort to the tone adopted by our opponents if German self-reflection is to be practiced. But attention can still be drawn to certain characteristic aspects that are truly [gap in the transcript] to the Russian character; they must indeed be emphasized, especially in a people endowed—with a certain versatility and adaptability, and even, when one considers the people as a whole, with a certain peace-loving character—precisely among those who seek to rise to the level of the intelligentsia within the Russian East of Europe; there, for example, the views emerge—I have already highlighted them here in earlier lectures— the views that this Central European, this Western European spiritual life is, at its core, senile and doomed to death, and that Russian spiritual life must replace this Central European spiritual life.

[ 82 ] It is deeply rooted, first in those who emerged as Slavophiles; and then it is deeply rooted in those who, as Pan-Slavists, succeeded the Slavophiles. And I do not wish to mention anything uncharacteristic, but only to highlight what is truly, in an intellectual sense—expressed successively from different perspectives—the same as what has been expressed on the political side.

[ 83 ] For example, as early as 1829, we have Ivan Vasilyevich Kireyevsky, who—based on what he believes to be his own insight—speaks of how the European spirit and way of life have grown senile, are dying out, and how the Russian spirit is to gradually supplant and replace both this Central European and Western European spirit. This Ivan Vasilyevich Kireyevsky says:

“The fate of every European state depends on the unity of all the others; — the fate of Russia depends on Russia alone. But Russia’s fate is determined by its education: this is the condition and source of all good things. As soon as all these good things are ours, — we will share them with the rest of Europe, and we will repay our entire debt to them a hundredfold.”

[ 84 ] In other words, the goal is for Russia to own all of Europe; and then, once it possessed it, Russia would naturally be inclined to divide it up under the care of all of Russia. This idea permeated Russian intellectual life throughout the nineteenth and well into the twentieth century; it is everywhere. As for what German intellectual life was like—these people, who are the intelligentsia right over there in the East—as I said, let me just emphasize these things one last time—these people in the East really could not understand much of it! They did, however, try to understand something like *Faust*, something like Goethe’s *Faust*. And it is interesting to read the thoughts of a representative of the Russian people—[Mikhailovsky]—who says something like: Yes, these Germans see in *Faust* something in which the human soul strives for the mysteries of the world, strives for a kind of redemption. But this *Faust*, Michajlovskij argues, when viewed from a deeper perspective, is nothing other than the purest expression of Central and Western European egoism, of capitalist ambition. This Faust is a true capitalist metaphysician. And when he comes to speak of the metaphysicians—those people who transcend the immediately sensory—Mikhailovsky becomes quite peculiar. He says, for example, that metaphysicians are people who have gone mad with fat. — I don’t know whether, particularly in Central Europe, one can find many people of this sort—those “who have gone mad from fat.” But he now counts Faust among these metaphysicians who have gone mad from fat! In short, we see that there is not much understanding among those who first seek to conquer and then to divide.

[ 85 ] There is much that could be discussed here as well; but, as I said, I would like to emphasize one thing in closing: how one of the most distinctive figures in Russian intellectual life, Yushakov, wrote a book at the end of the nineteenth century in which he reflects on Russia’s relationship, on the one hand, to Asia and, on the other hand, to Western Europe—not merely to the German part of Western Europe, but to Western Europe in the broader sense. In 1885 he—I mean this Yushakov—wrote the book [it is a remarkable book]. There he first turns his gaze toward Asia, and he sees: Over there in Asia, peoples live; though they have fallen into decline today, they still show the last traces of a great, spiritual worldview that once lived among them. They tried to elevate themselves to the spiritual aspect of existence; but they could do this—they were only able to do this—as Yushakov says—by referring to a myth of the Orient: by aligning themselves with the good god Ormuzd against the evil spirit Ahriman. It was from Turania, from the Turanian peoples, that originated what Ahriman—what Ahriman, as an adversary, did against the good Iranians, among whom Yushakov also counts the Hindus and the Persians. These Asians, who had allied themselves with the good Ormuzd, groaned under the deeds of Ahriman and thus created their own culture. Then the Europeans came—in 1885, of course, he couldn’t say much about the Germans yet, could he? But he speaks of Europe—we’ll see in a moment which Europe he’s referring to in particular—and there he says: What did these Europeans do to these Asians who had taken up the struggle, who had allied themselves with the good Ormuzd against the evil Ahriman? They took from the Asians the possessions they had acquired alongside Ormuzd in the struggle against Ahriman, and they delivered them even more completely into the clutches of Ahriman. And in whom does Yushakov see this evil? The book is titled *The Anglo-Russian Conflict*—dispute, war—and in it, Yushakov—specifically referring to the English in 1885—says the following, demonstrating and characterizing how the English treat these Asian peoples. Yushakov says: They—the English—treat these Asian peoples as if they were of the opinion that these Asian peoples exist only to

“to dress in English fabrics, to fight one another with English weapons, to work with English tools, to drink from English vessels, and to play with English tinsel.”

[ 86 ] And, alluding once more to what he finds so appalling about these Englishmen, Yushakov says: This will only oppress the Asians; Russia must intervene and liberate these Asians once again by empathizing with them. And—this is not my words, but Yushakov’s own: Something great will emerge from Russia; a wonderful alliance will emerge from Russia—an alliance between the peasant, who knows the value of the earth, and the bearer of the noblest spiritual life, the Cossacks. And from this alliance between the peasant and the Cossack—and this is not my saying, but Yushakov’s—will emerge something that will spread across to Asia, something that will in turn bring the Asians back to the joys of Ormuzd and free them from the clutches of Ahriman. Then, in summary, he says:

“England exploits millions of Hindus, yet its very existence depends on the obedience of the various peoples who inhabit the rich peninsula; I do not wish anything like this for my homeland—I can only rejoice that it is sufficiently far removed from this state of affairs, which is as glorious as it is sad.”

[ 87 ] Spoken in 1885 by a Russian intellectual. Perhaps this is the reason why Russia allied itself with England?

[ 88 ] I do not mean to say that the liberation of the Asians from the clutches of Ahriman has been achieved, or that there has been a reversal of the glorification of this wonderful alliance between the peasantry and the Cossacks. But a change has indeed taken place in this relationship. It is important to consider such changes and to understand the circumstances, ladies and gentlemen!

[ 89 ] I have not offered these reflections merely to speak fruitlessly about a faded aspect of German intellectual life, but because I believe that what has been said about German intellectual life does indeed contain living seeds. They may—I would say—lie dormant beneath the surface of progressive, conscious education for a time; but they will emerge. And we can be certain of this: that an intellectual life which bears such seeds within it [...] has a future, and that it cannot be crushed even by a force such as the one currently opposing it.

[ 90 ] Perhaps it is precisely in these fateful times that the German spirit will rediscover the great aspects of its essence. And that is more important to us than whatever currently stands in our way as a threat; it is more important to us than the slander of other nations. Above all else, it is more important for us to realize that when German culture turns toward the spiritual, it need not become unfree, but rather that the power of genuine thought—allied with spiritual life—can also be free. I could cite many examples to show that this is the most trivial of arguments—that the claim that life in the spirit makes one unfree, and that anyone who lives in the spirit must be a convoluted idealist—is the most unfounded objection that—to use the expression once more—the narrow-minded can raise against spiritual life.

[ 91 ] In Karl Christian Planck, the Württemberger, one sees precisely what could and will be demonstrated in hundreds of cases; once such a thing is recognized, it is characterized precisely in Karl Christian Planck. Ladies and gentlemen, “practical people” have always spoken about European politics, about what is rooted in and present within Europe’s political forces, and about what might come of it—these “practical politicians” certainly look down on people like Karl Christian Planck, people of intellectual life, as impractical idealists who know nothing of reality. These “practical people”—whether they are diplomats or would-be great politicians—certainly look down on others, precisely because they are the practical ones; because they believe they have had practicality “spoon-fed” to them, they certainly look down on such “impractical idealists” as Karl Christian Planck! But from Planck’s *Testament of a German*, I would like to read you a passage that was written as early as 1880, in which Karl Christian Planck speaks of the current war. This is what he, the “impractical” idealist, says about the current war:

“No political wisdom, no love of peace on Germany’s part can prevent this hostile clash within the current, purely national order. For the nature of the circumstances is more powerful than all prudence; and even now, despite the friendly stance of Germany and Austria, the hostile sentiment of the Russian East is becoming all the more evident, precisely because it was not possible to give it a free hand in everything, but it was necessary to set a specific goal. And if a conflict should eventually arise, then—no matter how much we must fight it for the good of Europe—Europe will not stand by our side; rather, just as in the East, we will have to defend ourselves simultaneously in the West and in the South; on all sides, hostile national jealousy will rise up against the new empire placed in their midst.”

[ 92 ] Written in 1880! — When has a “practitioner” ever described the current situation exactly as it is, based on such expertise!

[ 93 ] The time will come, ladies and gentlemen, when people will realize that it is precisely by drawing upon the best qualities of the German people that we will ensure that nothing un-German can find a place in Central Europe and [that whatever seeks to suppress legitimate aspirations—or at least many legitimate aspirations—will remain powerless in its incompetence], so that the German essence, as it is in its very roots, will [not] be eradicated from the world.

[ 94 ] It is indeed appropriate to speak serious words in serious times, provided those serious words are based on facts and not on all sorts of far-fetched idealisms that any dilettante who does not take the trouble to examine the facts can come up with.

[ 95 ] When one looks at this Central European essence: One finds it, however, in contrast—in a significant contrast—precisely to the Oriental essence that looms so menacingly behind Oriental Russia today; one finds it in a characteristic contrast. What lives in Asia today is the remnant of a search for the spiritual world—but a search as it was and as it had to be at a time when the greatest impulse had not yet struck the course of human development: the Christ impulse. Just as this striving for the spiritual world had to be in pre-Christian times, so it manifests in Asia by paralyzing the human being, paralyzing the “I,” so that, with the “I” subdued and dulled, the human being can merge into the spiritual world. This was a kind of absorption as it occurred in Hinduism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, and so on; yet it is by no means appropriate for a more recent era into which the Christ impulse has entered. At its deepest level, the essence of this modern age has nevertheless emerged in what the now-faded tone of German spiritual life so beautifully reveals to us today: not the subjugation of the “I,” but the strengthening, the enlivening of the “I,” that true standing within the “I.”

[ 96 ] The opposite of what was once the Eastern essence finds, by drawing strength from within, its way into the spiritual worlds through the human being. Because the German spirit has this task, it places itself, with its mission, within the overall development of humanity—it stands on the ground of 6 million square kilometers as opposed to the 68 million square kilometers of the peoples who today threaten this German spirit from all sides.

[ 97 ] In closing, let me quote the words of an Austrian poet that demonstrate how deeply rooted throughout Central Europe is what I have taken the liberty of calling today the “German essence,” and which I have attempted to characterize in its world-historical sense. Let me characterize it by referring—as I said—to a Central European poet who hails from Austria. As someone who has lived in Austria for nearly thirty-one years and was involved there in all the struggles that the German essence has also had to wage in recent times, I must be permitted to point to Robert Hamerling; that Robert Hamerling who, after all, deeply felt—even in relation to intellectual life—what the nature of circumstances had brought about: the fusing together of Central Europe through Germany and Austria; but since he was not turned away from external circumstances either, just how deeply such spirits feel rooted in the overall Central European, German spirit is shown by statements such as the one just made by Robert Hamerling, who says: “Austria is my fatherland; but Germany is my motherland.” This is precisely how one who is connected to Central European culture feels as a German of Austria. But such a German Austrian is also connected to the entire German spirit.

[ 98 ] Just—I’d like to say—as a minor point, I’d like to refer to what Robert Hamerling jotted down in 1880 as a small, insignificant [little poem], back when the French were burning the German flag in front of the Alsace monument, in front of the statue in Strasbourg, and performing a dance—during which they burned the German flag at that time in [Paris], at that time, Robert Hamerling wrote—I do not wish to point to this as having any poetic significance—but rather to something specific; he wrote the words:

“If you believe in revenge,
And in the victor’s future wreath:
Do not hope to reclaim
A single patch of German soil!
Even if you swarm like ravens
Around a statue in Alsace,
You will not have Strasbourg,
Strasbourg nevermore.”

[ 99 ] This is precisely what the Austrian German Robert Hamerling from the Waldviertel proclaimed. But the great mission of the German people also appeared to him; in 1862, Robert Hamerling wrote his *Germanenzug*. It is wonderfully depicted how the Germanic peoples—the ancestors of the later Germans—migrated from Asia to Europe—how they encamp in the glow of the setting sun, still on the border between Asia and Europe; the setting sun and the rising moon are wonderfully portrayed. And Robert Hamerling expresses it wonderfully—how one man alone remains awake among the sleeping Germanic people as they migrate from Asia to Europe; Hamerling expresses it wonderfully by having Teut, the blond-curled youth, remain awake alone; and the Genius—the Genius of the future German people—now speaks words of Germany’s future to the blond Teut. There he speaks, the genius of the German people, to the blond Teut, while the other Germanic tribesmen sleep all around:

“To whom will words one day burst forth from the depths of the soul
As they did to your people—so rich, so tender, so powerful?
Who breathes so solemnly into the sounds of the strings
His innermost being? To whom does the mind so magnificently
Carve granite hieroglyphs into the azure sky
Of the soul’s ascent from life’s confines?
Who, in the end, ties the strands
Of the inquiring mind to the stars
So boldly, striving and fighting along every path?
Whom does his urge, his intuition, lead so high, so deep?
Who grasps the near and the far so faithfully?
Where does every zone of earth and sky
Reflect itself as in your thought, O Teuton?”

[ 100 ] And this essence of the German spirit—which is a post-Christian renewal, yet a deepening of spiritual understanding arising from the “I”—was so beautifully expressed, among others, by the man known as the “philosopher of Germanness,” Jakob Böhme—this essence of the German spirit, which always seeks to combine knowledge and understanding with a religious dimension—we find this essence of the German spirit in Jakob Böhme as follows:

“If You Feel the Depth”

[ 101 ] he is referring to the depth of the blue sky

“When you look at the heavens, the stars, and the earth themselves, you see your God, and in Him you live and exist. And that same God reigns through you and also reigns over you.” “You are created from this God and live within Him. All your knowledge also resides in this God, and when you die, you will be buried in this God.”

[ 102 ] This spirit of the German mind is once again so beautifully expressed by Robert Hamerling, who, as early as 1862 in his *Germanenzug*, has the blond Teut speak words intended to convey how the finest aspirations of Asia were once to be developed with heightened vitality by the German people in Europe. There, the genius says to the blond Teut:

“Yet no matter how proudly you soar, above other swarms
Hovering high, you will always preserve a flame
Of that ancient, sacred fire:
Within you will live on the dream-filled
Divine ecstasy, the soulful warmth of the heart
Of the ancient Asian homeland.
In tranquil permanence
This sacred ray, a temple fire
For humanity, free from smoke, with a pure flame
Will continue to glow in your breast and soul
Remaining with you and guiding your course!
You strive only because you love: your boldest thought
Will be devotion that seeks to sink into God.”

[ 103 ] Thus, throughout Central Europe, Germans are aware of their place within German culture. And if one considers the pure reality of the matter, as we have attempted to do today, esteemed audience, one may find reason to believe—as I have said here before in earlier lectures—that one may have confidence and faith in the essence of the German people; that because it contains seeds in the spiritual realm of the kind we have described, it will one day, in times to come, bear blossoms and fruit. And those who are enemies of the German people will not be able to remove these blossoms and this fruit from the course of world history.

[ 104 ] As I said, the way in which the course of events in world history is determined today is decided by the power of arms. This power of arms, as it exists today in our fateful times, is merely another aspect of the strength of the German spirit. And another aspect, in turn, is the power of the German spirit, which I wanted to reflect on this evening.

[ 105 ] But I would have liked to achieve this with words—which, after all, could only be truly fragmentary in light of the task they set for themselves—and I would have liked to achieve this precisely through a factual, purely objective examination of German intellectual life as well: the fruitful, indestructible essence of the German spirit is that which, in the face of the most severe oppressions—for the people living on 6 million square kilometers are confronted by those surrounding them who occupy 68 million square kilometers—enables these people in Central Europe, once again drawing upon Robert Hamerling from the depths of German feeling and the essence of the German heart, insofar as it is also connected to German intellectual life, to articulate what Robert Hamerling—thereby expressing the indestructibility of the German spirit—summarized in the beautiful words with which I would like to conclude this reflection today:

“And if ever the day proves hostile
To the German name,
The German spirit will find
Its path from sea to sea.”