The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. The Mysteries of Humanity’s Historical Life According to the Findings of the Spiritual Sciences

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! Drawing on a deep insight rooted in his observation of people and humanity, Goethe offered a brief, succinct, and significant assessment in the following words: “The most valuable thing about history is the enthusiasm it inspires.”

[ 2 ] It is fair to say that the judgment of a figure who, like Goethe, has looked so deeply into human life—regarding historical understanding, for that is what it is primarily directed at—can give one cause for serious concern. For it does seem as though Goethe believed that what is valuable and significant in history is not the knowledge one can acquire about the development of human history, but rather the emotional impulses, the enthusiasm—as he puts it—that history arouses.

[ 3 ] And indeed, certain matters that one feels compelled to examine more closely in light of what is commonly referred to as historical knowledge actually serve to reinforce Goethe’s judgment in a remarkable way. One need only recall that when this catastrophic event—in which humanity is currently embroiled—began, a number of people—and there were quite a few of them— believed they were judging on the basis of sound historical evidence; they believed, in particular, that they could form a well-founded judgment based on the picture of the economic and other, including material, motives of world history; at that time, they came to the conclusion that this war could last no more than four to six months. And one may well say: The judgment that was thus made is not actually foolish. One cannot even say that it was short-sighted in light of the historical motives that humanity is accustomed to applying when considering its own history on Earth. And yet—in the face of reality, in the face of events—what was this well-founded historical judgment?

[ 4 ] Or let’s consider another case that occurred involving a truly significant figure. Although it happened a long time ago, the matter is still worth mentioning. The case involved a figure who was a history professor at a university. This figure delivered a witty inaugural address. In this inaugural address, the individual in question stated that, based on his examination of the historical development of humanity, it had become clear to him that the peoples of the European nations would in the future form a large, more or less united family—a family in which all sorts of disputes might still arise, but within which it would be impossible for its peoples, these members of a great family, to ever tear one another apart again.

[ 5 ] This judgment—the truth of which can hardly be doubted—was made in 1789 based on historical perspectives, and it was made by Friedrich Schiller when he assumed his professorship of history at the University of Jena. Consider that Schiller believed he could arrive at a judgment based on historical observation that, in a certain sense, could rise to the level of prophecy. Immediately after Schiller made this judgment, the events of the French Revolution unfolded, along with everything associated with it. And if we consider what has happened up to the present day, we find that even what this brilliant mind sought to glean from his historical analysis has been horrifically refuted by the facts of reality.

[ 6 ] And what has just been said, my esteemed audience, could be expanded upon with hundreds and hundreds of other examples. This makes it necessary to consider what is actually the case with what is commonly called history; to what extent history truly gives us the opportunity to form a judgment about what is happening around us. In a time such as ours, this must be particularly evident. And history is meant to teach us to recognize what the day brings, the day in which we are placed. And today we are truly placed in the midst of no small number of events. Catastrophic events are unfolding across the entire earth, demanding that we form a judgment—a judgment about the American West and what it might actually become for humanity in the future; a judgment about East Asia. How are we to form such a judgment when history presents itself in the manner that has just been roughly sketched?

[ 7 ] Let us begin by examining how history is viewed from the perspective of the manifold human conditions—I can only cite a few examples here by way of introduction. I would like to characterize a few aspects based on very different premises, which, however, present themselves as closely related, so to speak.

[ 8 ] At the beginning of our century, when the events we are facing today were just beginning to take shape, it so happened—through what is commonly called a strange coincidence in everyday life—that two people offered a comprehensive historical assessment of their respective peoples. It is interesting to take a closer look at these two individuals—who are not at all far apart geographically but are very far apart in terms of their national identities—and who offered a judgment on their respective peoples, specifically with regard to the distinctive nature of their historical perspectives. One is the German historian and scholar of history, Karl Lamprecht—who has been widely contested, though that is beside the point—who, in 1904, at the invitation of Columbia University in America, delivered to his American audience a comprehensive assessment of the history of his German people. A German spoke in a lecture about the spirit of German history.

[ 9 ] It was around the same time, though a little later, that Wilson offered a summary assessment of the American people in a lecture. It is interesting to compare these two facts. It would also be valuable to bring in a third example, but there isn’t enough time—for instance, a very beautiful statement that I can recommend comparing with what I am going to say today: Rabindranath Tagore made a very beautiful statement about the spirit of Japan. If there were enough time to compare all three of these things, one would obtain a wonderful tableau of literary-historical reflection.

[ 10 ] I take as my starting point the unique views that Karl Lamprecht, the German scholar, has formed about his own German people. He goes beyond the mere documentary, historical analysis of Ranke and others; he seeks to study the inner course of human development. He seeks to examine the driving forces and applies this examination specifically to the example of his own people.

[ 11 ] Now I can only briefly outline the views Karl Lamprecht arrived at, which he then presented in these lectures at Columbia University. He said at the time: If one looks at German history, it can be divided into clearly distinct epochs based on the inner character of human actions, the human state of mind, and human activity. We can go back to a certain prehistoric period that ends around the 3rd century A.D. If one goes back to this period, one finds that in this primordial era, everything that happens within the German people arises from a certain imaginative activity. This imaginative activity is inspired to think in symbols and allegories. Even revered figures and personalities are often presented to the people in allegorical form and are venerated through such symbols.

[ 12 ] Then comes a period that differs markedly from the preceding one. While in the preceding period it is evident that the symbolic, imaginative conception of life—which, according to Lamprecht’s views, is supposed to underlie history— led to social relationships and communal life taking on a comradely-military character, it becomes apparent that from the fourth and fifth centuries onward, extending into the eleventh century, an entirely different way of thinking takes hold, and entirely different psychological motives come to the fore. In place of a life based solely on close comradely bonds comes one that can be described more as a cooperative way of life. In place of a life lived through imaginative symbols—one that sees symbols everywhere for what is happening—comes the concept of the “typical,” according to Lamprecht. Even the individual outstanding personality is understood as a type of the era and is thus revered, portrayed, and characterized from all sides, including in the primitive art of the time.

[ 13 ] This is followed by a relatively shorter period, from the twelfth century to the middle of the fifteenth century. Lamprecht characterizes this period based on all the forces at work within it—the way in which manorialism and serfdom developed from the old landownership system and its conditions, and, in turn, how the state of mind influenced art, the veneration of people, and human activity, as well as how chivalry and urban life took shape on the other hand. Lamprecht characterizes this as the era he calls—not the one that was symbolic or typified, which had passed—but rather the era of the conventional view of life. Historical conditions at that time were based on convention, on agreement, and on established norms.

[ 14 ] Lamprecht sees the mid-fifteenth century as the beginning of a significant phase in the historical development of the German people. In his view, it is only then that individual, personal identity begins to take hold. It is no longer merely the conventional relationships between people—which transcend the individual—that are decisive. It is then that the individual begins to shape the course of history. Lamprecht is not wrong in characterizing this period as the beginning of something very important. Whereas up until that time, life—the living out of human existence through actions—had been governed more by dark impulses of the will, impulses that welled up from the deep recesses of the soul, from the mid-fifteenth century onward, the intellect, the reason emerging from the individual personality and individuality, became particularly decisive. This continues until the middle of the eighteenth century.

[ 15 ] Then begins—what we would call merely a higher stage of individualism; Lamprecht distinguishes it from the preceding period; he says: Then begins the age of subjectivism, of the human inner life, and the elevated intellect takes on even greater significance in human development. Lamprecht characterizes individual aspects of this historical development quite well from this perspective. He shows, for example, how the very different, more elemental impulses of earlier centuries in the relations between peoples give way to purely rational, intellectualized diplomacy. And so he illustrates such things in many areas. We are still in the age of subjectivism.

[ 16 ] From this brief outline I have provided, you can see that a historian appears who attempts to characterize what unfolds historically based on human nature and its development. As we shall see shortly, what Lamprecht has undertaken is intimately connected with the very essence of the German way of viewing things. It is evident that this is an attempt to penetrate historical reality—using all the means available today to grasp reality—when psychological and spiritual factors come into play within that reality.

[ 17 ] But when one examines how Lamprecht applied these ideas—which he developed in broad strokes in his lectures—when one examines how Lamprecht applied these ideas in his sweeping historical account, one finds oneself deeply moved—deeply moved because nowhere in Lamprecht’s historical analysis can the conviction truly take hold that these efforts, through certain considerations of the inner forces of the human soul, have already led to a convincing result. It is a struggle for a new conception of history, but nowhere is there anything one can hold onto that would allow one to say: Here something is emerging that truly tells us, for example, how this German people, for internal reasons, has developed precisely into what it has become. And this question keeps weighing on one’s mind again and again when one goes through Lamprecht’s cultural-historical reflections.

[ 18 ] I am drawing a comparison here, ladies and gentlemen, with how Wilson viewed the American people. It is something very, very peculiar, and—so as not to be misunderstood—I may safely assume that I am truly anything but an admirer of Woodrow Wilson. Well, how this actually stands will become clear to us in further lectures. But I just want to mention that the position I take toward Wilson is by no means a result of the last six years. No, at that time—and this can be documented—before the war began, I had already set forth my decidedly negative judgment of Wilson’s entire mindset in a series of lectures in Helsinki; at a time when even in this country there were still many people who were far removed from Wilson’s views, when his book Merely Literature was translated into German and his treatises on freedom were published—a time when many people here, too, were misled and naturally regarded Wilson as a great man, for reasons I do not wish to discuss here. It is neither a chauvinism fostered in recent years nor anything other than an objective examination of Wilson’s mindset that prompts me to say what I have to say about him.

[ 19 ] I was particularly interested in this parallel phenomenon: Wilson, as he speaks about his fellow Americans, about the American people. This parallel phenomenon in his lectures is, from a certain point of view, extraordinarily significant, because Wilson hits the nail on the head regarding what matters when one considers a limited aspect of world-historical development and, as part of that, has a certain understanding of it. In this lecture, Wilson points out that the American people are not properly viewed historically by those he calls the New Englanders, who are based in the East... [gap]. And he also points out the entirely mistaken perspective held by the inhabitants of the South. For he derives the essence of the American and his historical development from those events that took place in the middle between the West and the East of the North American states in the nineteenth century, when peoples intermingled with one another, and from that way of life emerged what Wilson calls the American nation. It is interesting how he succeeds in showing that this American history begins only when the people of the American East look westward; that they begin to colonize the West; that Dutch, Germans, English, French, and so on, and that something takes shape there—not through the vision of statesmen, but through the farmers, through those who work in the forests with axes and rifles. Something takes shape there that is only just coming into being.

[ 20 ] And now he provides a comprehensive description of how, under the influence of this cultural work, America’s three most important political issues are being resolved. I cannot go into details, but I would like to point out what is most important to me: the most crucial issues—the question of the government’s stance on land, the question of tariffs, and the question of slavery. All of this arose under the influence of these circumstances. It is a historical analysis that hits the nail on the head regarding those circumstances. And linked to these lectures are other lectures by Wilson in which he speaks generally about historical analysis, in which he explains how he envisions the study of history should be conducted. Something very curious happens to anyone who considers these things in context. I must say—as I’ve already hinted—that I find Woodrow Wilson an extraordinarily unsympathetic figure as a thinker, a scholar, and so on. By contrast, I find the man who is perhaps far too underappreciated within our intellectual life to be an exceptionally likable figure—that is, Herman Grimm, who applied his historical mode of observation primarily to art, yet in whose work historical ideas were very much alive. I know this from his own words, as he has repeatedly expounded them to me. They lived within him in a wonderfully comprehensive way. When I read the book Nur Literatur, I come across many things that Wilson has written. Then I read many things that Herman Grimm has said about how history should be viewed, and how he conceives of the development of humanity in the light of history. And something remarkable becomes apparent when one reads Wilson and Grimm in this way: a sentence by Grimm could often be taken verbatim and applied to Wilson, and vice versa. Sometimes entire short passages are such that, viewed purely from the outside, one could say they might just as well be found in one as in the other. Just try to acquire the knowledge that is easily obtained in this field, and you will see that what I say is true!

[ 21 ] But what exactly are we dealing with here? Surely there is an immensely significant difference between these two figures and their perspectives on history? — Nowhere can one learn more than from such an example what we so desperately need to learn in the present: that the content—the literal content—of any matter is not yet the whole matter! What matters is the spirit in which a thing is spoken! This, my esteemed audience, is something our age will have to learn—but something our age finds so difficult to learn. For our age, as much as it imagines itself to be living in reality, loves the abstract and the theoretical. Our age is inclined, when it finds a few sentences with the same content in one person and the same in another, to say: “That’s exactly the same thing!” — The content of a thing—the purely literal content—is sometimes very far removed from reality. As strange as that sounds, this example illustrates it. For what is actually going on here?

[ 22 ] Essentially, only the spiritual science I described to you yesterday can get to the heart of what is actually at stake here. And only the spiritual science described here yesterday can also discern the difference between Woodrow Wilson’s American view of history and Karl Lamprecht’s view of history. What Woodrow Wilson says—the abstract thinkers of our time fall for it. Not anymore, but before the war they fell for it. For they do not see what really matters. Wilson says many excellent things. But compare them with what Herman Grimm says, what Karl Lamprecht says—who may be mistaken, perhaps terribly mistaken: What Grimm and Lamprecht say—even if it sounds similar to what Wilson says—has been won through an inner spiritual struggle with the matter at hand; it bears the mark throughout of having been lived through directly by the personality. What Wilson says bears the character—for those who see through such things—that one must, admittedly, place the details of the content within the overall spirit that sustains it— it bears the mark that this personality—I do not shy away from using this frowned-upon word—is obsessed with his views; that from the subconscious depths of the soul emerge things that have not been directly and personally worked out by the soul, but which surge upward, rising to the surface. This personality is obsessed with what lies beneath consciousness.

[ 23 ] I truly do not make this judgment lightly, for I am aware that it has far-reaching implications. But I am also aware that it has been reached objectively, my esteemed audience. Therein lies the great difference: on the one hand, a personal struggle with the truth; on the other, the articulation of something that one is actually only inwardly obsessed with, for which one serves more or less as an external medium for something indefinite. From this perspective, Wilson even offers such an accurate characterization of his people that one could hardly find anything more apt. But this judgment he passes on the Americans stems from his own historical assessment. I must say, such statements strike one deeply, like those Wilson makes about the Americans. He says: Since these Americans actually emerged from the labor of the farmer and the woodsman, they have developed the very traits that characterize them today: the alertness of the eye, the inclination to quickly embrace bold and adventurous ideas, and the inclination to devise plans—without much attachment to their homeland—that can be realized anywhere.

[ 24 ] Agility of the eye, a penchant for bold, adventurous plans—that, my esteemed audience, is the character trait that manifests itself not in an immediate, personal struggle, a conscious struggle with the things at hand, but rather where something subconscious is at work, where the individual is, more or less, merely a conduit for what is taking shape. Nothing could confirm more firmly what Wilson himself presents as his insight into the American character than the very way in which he himself has written history.

[ 25 ] With this introduction, my esteemed audience, I simply wanted to illustrate how much what might be called the study of history depends on the nature of human beings themselves, and how little the historical perspective has, to this day, become independent of that human nature. I wanted to show that the very foundation of historical analysis itself is what should first be studied.

[ 26 ] Well, my esteemed audience, what, for example, does Karl Lamprecht—who is certainly not obsessed with his ideas, but rather is engaged in a personal struggle with these historical ideas of his—actually want? What does he want? He wants to bring psychology into history. He wants to understand, based on psychological impulses, how the historical development of humanity has unfolded. He seeks the psychology of his time. What does he find? He seeks it among the so-called psychologists, among the researchers of the soul. He has made an honest effort to find something among the researchers of the soul, among the psychologists—something that human souls experience inwardly—which he could then apply to his historical perspective. But this very thing caused him uncertainty; it led him to conclude that nowhere in his historical analysis was there anything that could satisfy him in a truly convincing way. Why? Because what is officially practiced today as the study of the soul penetrates very little into the true self of the human being, into the true inner soul-being of the human being.

[ 27 ] Now, the inner life of the human soul is revealed in a very special way when one person stands face to face with another and interacts with them in that encounter. It is precisely from all this that the historical development of humanity emerges. What is happening here, ladies and gentlemen, cannot be viewed in the same way that contemporary historical scholarship views it. What has this contemporary historical scholarship become accustomed to? What did Karl Lamprecht find in contemporary soul researchers regarding this historical science? He found an approach shaped by the model of scientific observation. And increasingly, over the course of the nineteenth century, the study of history has moved into a sphere where historical life is viewed as natural life. The same kind of method of cognition, the same kind of judgment that is applied to observe and understand natural phenomena in the external world was also applied to the historical development of humanity. Karl Lamprecht sees significance precisely in the fact that he applies to the historical approach that which has led to such reliable results in the natural sciences.

[ 28 ] In this regard, too—one might say out of a sense of historical instinct—Herman Grimm offered a fine assessment, a fine assessment of the famous historian Gibbon. Gibbon, who historically described the decline of the Roman Empire, is in fact a historian who exemplarily applies an external, purely naturalistic perspective to history as well. What actually happened there? Well, Herman Grimm observed this correctly. Gibbon is more astute than the typical natural-science observer of history; but he describes all the forces—which he portrays so excellently in the early centuries of Christianity—he describes only those forces that are forces of decay, that lead to the fall of the Roman Empire, that bring to an end the development that had been underway for some time. And Herman Grimm rightly reproaches Gibbon for failing to recognize that, even in these centuries when the Roman Empire was heading toward its decline, something fundamentally different was still taking place—something positive: forces linked to the emergence of Christianity were intervening in the course of history. These are the forces of progressive development, the forces that stand alongside the forces of decay—the negative forces—in a positive way. They are simply omitted from Gibbon’s analysis. Herman Grimm made this significant observation based on his historical instincts. He did not know what this fact was based on; for it is the task of spiritual science to shed light on all these matters—a spiritual science whose method I outlined here yesterday, one that works with the forces that otherwise lie dormant in the soul and are brought to life, a spiritual science that enables people to truly look into the spiritual realm. This spiritual science concludes that one cannot grasp the progressive, future-bearing forces of historical development at all if one applies to historical development only the kind of knowledge that is characteristic of the natural sciences.

[ 29 ] What does one find when one applies this perspective—which is the correct one for the natural sciences—to historical development? One finds the forces of decay. One finds that which becomes a corpse in historical development, in the social life of humanity. If one applies only what the intellect, ordinary consciousness, can grasp, one can only study the impulses of decay. The growing, sprouting, and developing impulses—those that positively sustain historical development—elude this approach. They elude this approach even when one confronts real life, even when one seeks to intervene in life using this approach.

[ 30 ] It is outrageous, my esteemed audience, that one must say such things, but the present generation must learn to grasp reality. Let us try to do so earnestly, but at the same time let us observe what emerges; let us not go through reality as if asleep; try, for once, to assemble parliaments or the like, where people who are all educated intellectually according to the scientific model are to decide what should happen in social or other aspects of life; create a parliament of people who have developed their intellect through the scientific method, and admit no one other than those who are consummate experts in precisely these fields. You can be absolutely certain that these people will pass no resolutions other than those that will very quickly lead the society—the community—upon which they impose their decisions into ruin, in every conceivable area. For this way of thinking relates precisely to what are forces of ruin! It can observe only forces of decline in human development. For what constitutes emerging, burgeoning powers cannot be grasped by the forces of ordinary consciousness. And I must return here to something I already hinted at a few months ago in connection with my reflection on the revelation of the unconscious.

[ 31 ] This human inner life, this human life in general—viewed superficially—alternates between waking and sleeping. We are awake, and of course, since we are all diligent, for two-thirds of our lives; we sleep for one-third of our lives. These states alternate. But that is not entirely correct, my esteemed audience; rather, what we call sleeping and dreaming essentially extends into waking life as well. Waking life is only partially fully awake. Beneath the surface of waking life lies a state in which a person sleeps, even when awake.

[ 32 ] The profoundly significant Schwaben-Vischer—the so-called V-Vischer—had already recognized something of this, albeit only instinctively, so to speak, when he pointed out how closely the emotional life—which is the life of passion—is related to the life of dreams. Anyone who is able to investigate, anyone who can truly observe in this realm, will find [that] what lies within our feelings—what we experience as feelings—is conscious in a different way than what we experience as perceptions and ideas. For it is only in the case of perceptions and ideas that we are truly awake. Feelings, like dreams, shine up from the subconscious realms of the soul. We are no more conscious of our feelings than we are of our dreams; we do not know them in their true form—we know only their gleam as they rise into the sphere of consciousness. By visualizing our feelings, we lift them up into the waking state. We dream all day long by allowing feelings to permeate our soul. And we sleep by nurturing impulses of the will, by moving through the world with these impulses. You know the motive behind these impulses of the will; you know that which, as a perception, prompts you to will. How what you want actually plays out in a person—how your thoughts translate into movement in your limbs and cause your hand to move—takes place deep in the subconscious, just as subconsciously as everything that occurs during sleep. We sleep and dream beneath the surface of our ordinary consciousness.

[ 33 ] Once one has learned to view human beings in this way, once one has learned to view historical life in accordance with its reality, then, my esteemed audience, all those deeds, actions, and impulses in the historical development of humanity—those that are enduring, those that are not forces of decay—appear as something that all of humanity dreams and sleeps in its coexistence. As strange and paradoxical as this may sound, it can nevertheless become a most important truth, without which there will be no salvation in the study of history: that what propels humanity forward in its historical development does not arise from the ordinary forces we also apply in the natural sciences; that these historical impulses do not arise at all from ordinary, clear consciousness, but rather from dreams and sleep. One must simply not take this as a comparison or a metaphor, but must regard it as something that is reality in the deepest, most significant sense.

[ 34 ] That is why, ladies and gentlemen, in earlier times — as I have already pointed out in previous lectures — when human beings were still connected in their spiritual lives, albeit subconsciously, to the spiritual realm, these people sought to gain insight into social life and historical development through something other than what we today call historical analysis. They sought to gain insight through myth, through legends, through imagery. Through these, they knew more about what lived in the impulses of their people than can be known today through the intellect alone—an intellect bound to ordinary consciousness and one that has produced such magnificent, such significant achievements in the natural sciences. But that is where it belongs.

[ 35 ] Karl Lamprecht correctly observed that the mid-fifteenth century marked the beginning of a new era. But he was unable to capitalize on this truth. He said: The individual becomes significant; he becomes an intellectual. History only emerges with this era. It is initially pursued in such a way that it will be understood according to the model of the scientific worldview. Of course, we can no longer return to the old way. But the impulses that underlie historical development are subconscious. When a person is possessed by a subconscious force at work within their soul, then—as in Wilson’s case—something powerful emerges from the subconscious, something that hits the nail on the head.

[ 36 ] But this makes it all the more difficult for those who are called to struggle with the truth as individuals, as individual souls. It is therefore necessary, especially in this intellectual age, in order to understand social, historical, and even moral life, something else must emerge: something that can look into that aspect of human nature which cannot be grasped by ordinary consciousness, something that can look into the places where this ordinary consciousness is not active in the human being, where he dreams away and sleeps through ordinary life.

[ 37 ] But what I described yesterday as imaginative insight, as inspired insight, as intuitive insight—that which looks into the spiritual world, that which looks down beneath the threshold of consciousness, that which truly penetrates the subconscious— but into that subconscious where true, essential spirit is at work. One can bring to the surface what is otherwise, in ordinary life, historically dreamed of and slept through by humanity—one can bring this to the surface only by viewing history through imagination and inspiration. In other words: Since historical life is something that unfolds in the subconscious—something that does not reveal itself to ordinary consciousness—one must apply that which penetrates beyond this ordinary consciousness; it must be applied to history, as well as to social life, ethical life, and the legal life of humanity, if one wishes to recognize its original factors—that which is developed as a spiritual-scientific method, which I described yesterday as imagination, inspiration, and intuition. From the depths of historical development, one must bring to the surface those realities that first appear before the soul in images and imaginings. These imaginings must then inspire one. In this way, one will arrive at what is truly active in the historical process. What one encounters in history thus far—including what Karl Lamprecht attempted—can sometimes arise from instinct. It would only become true, spiritually illuminated knowledge once history is deepened through spiritual science. Now, I do not wish to shy away from setting against what is called history today certain historical findings derived from spiritual science. I would like to begin with the premise that Karl Lamprecht instinctively sensed something I have already mentioned: that around the middle of the fifteenth century, a new age emerged from an older one.

[ 38 ] If one looks into historical life with a clairvoyant gaze—that is what I explained yesterday—if one looks into historical life with a clairvoyant gaze and a discerning consciousness, one indeed sees a significant turning point that occurs around the turn of the fifteenth century. Everything Karl Lamprecht states about subjectivism and typism is of secondary importance. At the turn of the fifteenth century, something occurs—though it is not sufficiently recognized—that is of the utmost significance as a radical shift in all of human life and that finds its most typical expression, in particular, in Central European human life.

[ 39 ] If one goes back to the time before this era, one finds in the configuration—in the entire structure of the human being and human actions—something that can be described as follows: In that era, the intellect still operates instinctively. In spiritual science, we therefore distinguish the instinctively acting intellectual soul, in which one is intelligent by instinct. This is replaced around the middle of the fifteenth century—not, as the convenient saying goes, because “nature takes no leaps,” but through decisive leaps—and is replaced by an entirely different configuration of the human soul. What we in spiritual science call the conscious soul—which grasps everything through consciousness and does not function instinctively—becomes characteristic of humanity. And one can understand what has been happening since then only if one knows that an entire, long-lasting period can be grasped only by considering how this instinctive intellect—this human being acting as the intellectual soul—began to function in roughly the same way in the seventh or eighth century B.C.; how this intellect shaped Greek history, Roman history, Roman law, and Roman politics; how all these events can only be understood when viewed through the lens of the instinctive intellect.

[ 40 ] And one can only understand what was emerging around the middle of the fifteenth century—what suddenly changed in the course of events—if one knows: That is when the consciousness soul enters the picture—a soul that relates to external reality in an entirely different way, one that does not act instinctively from within, but rather in such a way that the human being must think things through; that he no longer merely compares things, but draws conclusions and proceeds intellectually. We are living in the midst of this age. And what lies at the very core of the soul through this soul of consciousness—that is what must be studied and can be studied in every detail.

[ 41 ] For this manifests itself differently among peoples who, like the Italian or Spanish people, have retained much of their ancient heritage; unlike among peoples such as the British, who—due in particular to their diverse geographical conditions, which direct their attention toward the material world—must develop the conscious soul through direct configuration.

[ 42 ] The situation is different in Eastern Europe, where there is no foundation for this soul of consciousness; where the development of the soul of consciousness is currently being overlooked, and only a subsequent era—which will succeed this era of the soul of consciousness—will find the people ready; people who, until recently, were the Russian people, and who will develop their true soul nature, which today cannot yet be perceived with the external senses in the people living there in the East.

[ 43 ] And today, my esteemed audience, it is necessary to gain a deeper understanding of what is happening across the Earth; to gain a deeper understanding, too, of what is taking place within the individual human being, insofar as he is a participant in the great historical dream—a dream that can only be understood by drawing from the dreaming human soul something that cannot be grasped through ordinary observation: that from the seventh and eighth [pre-Christian] centuries right up into the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, instinctive will and instinctive intellect developed, just as the turning point occurred under whose influence we stand today. That is one example.

[ 44 ] And I would like to cite another example. Here, where I have been speaking for so many years now, I do not wish to shy away from citing the concrete findings of spiritual science, for the simple reason that one would not make any progress in this field of spiritual science unless one gradually moved on to describing these concrete findings.

[ 45 ] Conventional history, after all, draws only on external observation, and for earlier times, only on external documents. You saw yesterday that the method of spiritual science is derived from a special development of the forces lying dormant in the human soul. You have seen how the soul is led to look into that which otherwise never comes to light in ordinary life within this human soul. You have seen how this human soul can free itself from the body, how it can then perceive without the body. Yes, this is where the human soul begins to work with forces that are indeed present in ordinary life but remain dormant in the subconscious and the unconscious. And with the ordinary powers of cognition, one cannot grasp the real life that a human being lives.

[ 46 ] Take an ordinary phenomenon—but one that leads deeper into the mysteries of human life, even in everyday life. Take this example: You memorize something you want to remember. In this way, you study how human memory works. Well, people usually believe that you take possession of the idea of what you are taking in; then you have it in your consciousness. After some time, it resurfaces from your consciousness. In numerous “psychologies,” in official psychology, this superstition is taught. It is supposed to be science—this superstition that the ideas one takes in wander down into some indeterminate realm; there they wander about in the subconscious of the soul; and when one needs them, they wander back up again as memories.

[ 47 ] Such a view is based solely on the fact that one has never truly learned to observe the actual life of the soul. The reality is quite different. While one takes in an idea, what remains in consciousness is only the fact of having taken in that idea. Parallel to this activity is another that remains unconscious, that is of an entirely different nature, and that creeps into the human organism, causing something quite different to take place within that organism than the mere formation of the concept. Everything that occurs in parallel with the formation of the concept, however, is unconscious. Memory develops unconsciously. Now we have taken ideas into ourselves. This parallel activity has taken effect. Roughly speaking—one can substantiate this, but there isn’t time for that now—roughly speaking, you can already observe this if you just recall how it was for you personally. When you’ve memorized poems, or when you’ve had to memorize something for an exam—when you really have to cram—what else are you doing on the side, besides taking in the mental image so that the information sticks? You’re trying to support what’s happening unconsciously with your conscious mind. There really is a parallel process at work, and the way people touch their foreheads when they’re cramming what they need to remember is a way of supporting this subconscious activity.

[ 48 ] What we take on as a concept does not last; it is temporary. What is down there—what is being configured and prepared down there within the organization—is something we perceive internally just as we perceive external things; there, we reform the mental image; this is something different from a mental image. Every time we remember, the mental image must be reformed according to the internal imprint. That is the true state of affairs.

[ 49 ] But the activity underlying memory remains unconscious. If it is brought into consciousness in such a way that one acts upon it—that is, consciously does what otherwise runs parallel to the activity of forming mental images, what one does subconsciously—what is that? It is the same power one employs [when] one applies imaginative insight. In memory, one continually applies imaginative insight. It shapes the organism. One penetrates beneath the threshold of consciousness; one penetrates into something one constantly practices in life, yet which remains unconscious. And one can penetrate ever deeper. Then memory expands. Then one gains the opportunity to truly grasp the spirit within oneself. One gains the opportunity—I must now take a relatively large leap, because I have to cite results—one gains the opportunity to trace historical development from purely spiritual perspectives and to gain insight into the meaning and the driving forces of human development across the Earth. Various laws reveal themselves there that go far beyond what external observation can provide, but which lift into consciousness precisely that which human beings otherwise daydream away and sleep through in the course of historical development. Let me give an example of this.

[ 50 ] This spiritual science that I am referring to—which works with imagination, inspiration, and intuition—can go back further, much further, in that what is grasped as memory expands into the memory of humanity, and one can truly see what humanity has experienced by grasping that memory within oneself and then continuing it. This is, however, a task more difficult than any other scientific work, difficult precisely because one is oneself interwoven into it. There one goes back to even older epochs of human development than the one to which I have referred. I have referred to the epoch that began in the seventh and eighth centuries [B.C.] and ended approximately in the fifteenth century. But one goes back to even older times. One goes back to a very ancient time that roughly followed what geology calls the Ice Age—what various geologists call the [Great Flood]—but which must be placed further back in time than is usually assumed. We go back to ancient millennia. But we do not go back to an ape-like humanity. That is a scientific superstition. Rather, we go back to a humanity that was of a completely different spiritual nature.

[ 51 ] We are returning to an ancient epoch in the Earth’s development—allow me to publicly state a conclusion of spiritual science that is considered so daring today, but one must approach spiritual science without prejudice if one does not wish to regard its findings as mere fantasy— we go back to an ancient epoch about which the following can be said: When we now observe a human being in the course of their development, we notice what arises from their physical development. This develops during the early years of childhood, continuing into the later years of childhood up to sexual maturity, and even beyond. And if one possesses a keen power of observation, one notices, even well into one’s twenties, that what develops within us on the soul level goes hand in hand with physical development. But then it comes to an end for us. Then we are no longer in a position to participate in our soul’s development in the same way that a child participates in the changing of teeth, in growth, in becoming taller, or in reaching sexual maturity. Then the body goes its own way, and the soul goes its own way. This is precisely what characterizes our development from the ages of 25 to 30 onward, right into old age: we no longer participate with our soul in what the body develops.

[ 52 ] This was different during the first period I am now about to describe, which dates back to ancient millennia. At that time, souls remained connected in their development—all the way into old age—with the development of the physical body. Back then, souls participated in what was developing within the body—including the body’s decline—right up into a person’s fifties, just as today the soul’s life participates in physical life only in children and in the ages of youth and maidenhood. Through this, human beings experienced something that can no longer be experienced on a soul level. After all, we no longer automatically experience on a soul level the decline and deterioration of our physical constitution. We have already been lifted out of the body. There, the soul life unfolds within what culture represents. There, the soul life is no longer dependent on the physical constitution. Far away in Asia, in India, humanity developed in ancient times in such a way that spiritual-soul life remained dependent on physical-bodily life well into one’s fifties. That was a completely different kind of experience.

[ 53 ] Then came the next epoch in Earth’s development, the next historical epoch. Things went back even further. At that time, people were participants in their physical lives with their soul life only until their early forties. Then another epoch began. In that epoch, people were participants in their physical lives only from the mid-thirties onward. There was something very special about that. The ancient Egyptians and the ancient Chaldeans still experienced this. And what was special about it was that—since human beings begin to decline after the age of 35, as physical life starts to wane—they still experienced this decline on a soul level as well. Then that period came to an end.

[ 54 ] And then came the period I have already spoken of: the period in which Greek and Roman civilization developed, the influence of which lasted well into the fifteenth century. And during this period, people remained, to a greater or lesser extent, participants—people don’t believe this today because they no longer engage meaningfully, with inner involvement and a contemplative consciousness, with what has emerged in the course of human development—but back then, people were participants in the soul-spiritual aspect of their physical being at least well into the 1930s. Back then, beginning in the fifteenth—the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries—the era began in which people move through spiritual and soul life solely through their physical organization, continuing until the end of their twenties. By then, one no longer experiences what constitutes a declining human life. In the Greek and Latin eras, people experienced the beginning of their thirties through their instinctive intellect. Now, one ceases to experience the physical aspect of life upon reaching the late twenties.

[ 55 ] You see, a remarkable historical law! Humanity is regressing in terms of its spiritual experience of old age. Spiritually, it experiences ever younger physical forms as its final state. This is one of the most comprehensive and significant laws of human development. While the individual human being grows ever older, humanity—if you think through what I have said—becomes ever younger in terms of its physical life. That is to say: It does not sense aging in its spiritual reflex; it senses it only in its effects; but what actually plays out in the soul was something entirely different in the past. It was something that allowed one to look directly into the spiritual world through instinctive insight. But this, in turn, must now be consciously attained by humanity. One must learn to look into that which one cannot see, because humanity today can only experience what the body allows up to the age of 27.

[ 56 ] I know this is a bold conclusion I am drawing—about humanity’s process of becoming disciples, about the soul-spiritual not participating directly in the physical. But it is something that marks the beginning of a true understanding of history. For this true understanding of history will focus on what is otherwise overlooked. One will only be able to properly understand what happens in the course of historical development when one is able to appreciate such great, comprehensive laws.

[ 57 ] I think I may cite a personal experience here. Those of you in the audience who have heard me speak on other occasions know that I only speak of personal experiences when there is a specific reason to do so. What I have just described to you—the process of humanity becoming a disciple, the influence exerted upon humanity by the fact that the spiritual-soul aspect only experiences the physical aspect in its younger years—I came to know this influence precisely because I once directed spiritual scientific research toward these matters. That is how this process of humanity becoming a disciple became clear to me. And I am convinced—I know this with absolute certainty—that anyone who applies a spiritual-scientific method will discover in this way a historical law, not one that must be characterized as I did at the beginning of this lecture. It then became clear to me: How old, then, was humanity when it began to experience the physical body in the Greek era? At that time, this experience extended back to the early 1930s. There was a powerful turning point there. For that is when human beings begin to undergo a downward development. In ancient times, the awareness of this physical decline—this regression of the physical—gave them a particular form of spirituality. We study this spirituality when we study the ancient wisdom and the ancient sciences.

[ 58 ] Thinking, I have said, is connected with regression. When the human soul was still participating to such a high degree in the regression of the body, it developed a special wisdom. This wisdom was lost during the period that began in the seventh century B.C. and ended in the fifteenth century. During this period, humanity stood, so to speak—insofar as it concerns us now, since we ourselves are part of it—in the midst of its development. Unless a new impulse were to strike it, humanity was in danger of losing its spiritual connections with the universe. Then an impulse arose.

[ 59 ] Truly, when I first considered this process of humanity becoming disciples, I did not initially think of this impulse. It came only later. And this is one of the most profound findings of spiritual scientific research. I said to myself: The general course of human development shows that humanity had reached a crisis in which it was in danger of losing its connection with the spiritual. What happened during this crisis? I only realized this after I had gained insight into the course of events. This is important; and I must emphasize it as a personal experience. Then the significance of the Mystery of Golgotha, which falls precisely within this period, became clear to me—the new impulse that gave humanity a fresh impetus. In a wondrous way, this Mystery of Golgotha is woven into the historical development of humanity.

[ 60 ] Ladies and gentlemen, I depart from the principle—which is, after all, expressed in the commandment that one must not take the name of the Lord in vain (Exodus 20:7)—only on special occasions. Spiritual science does indeed lead to the great religious impulses. But I consider it my duty to ensure that these religious impulses are nurtured by those who are called to do so. I know that what is attained through spiritual science also deepens the religious impulses of the human soul. What constitutes a Christian worldview is, in the highest sense, discovered precisely from the premises of spiritual science. But one cannot please everyone. If people were to find that one repeatedly addresses the great religious themes of becoming in a way that does not please them, they would hold it against you. If they find that one does not do so—because one leaves it up to them, because one consciously refrains from doing so, because one knows that engaging with spiritual science certainly leads to a deepening of religious life—then they will also hold that against you. Then they say: “Spiritual science doesn’t speak of Christianity at all.” These are the misunderstandings—I’ll just call them that—that people like to bring up against spiritual science. If one speaks of anything, one is criticized for what one says. If one does not speak of it, if one considers others to be called to do so, it is misunderstood in such a way that people say spiritual science has no Christianity, or something similar.

[ 61 ] What I have just mentioned—that this event, set against the backdrop of the entire cosmic context of the world, occurs precisely at a crucial point in human development—is indeed one of the most profound experiences, when one experiences it as I have—let me share this personal detail—entirely without seeking it out. I simply wanted, my esteemed audience, to present to you, so to speak, the beginning of a spiritual-scientific contemplation of the evolution of the world.

[ 62 ] Instinctively, out of a certain premonition, what seeks to delve deeper into history has come to the fore, particularly in our Central European development. One need only ask: How does the individual human soul participate in this vast historical process? I mentioned yesterday how, when one considers thinking on the one hand and willing on the other, together with what finds expression in the overdevelopment of the human sexual organization, this leads the spiritual-scientific perspective to the eternal in the soul—to that which lives in the spiritual world before birth or conception, and to that which passes through the gate of death.

[ 63 ] This leads to yet another point. That which is connected to our physical constitution—that which descends from the spiritual world as we are conceived and born—is, after all, intimately related—as I have already stated today—to that which works through our entire life course and makes us into unified, living human beings; it is intimately related to that which acts from the depths of our soul as memory. If we now delve not only into the fact I mentioned yesterday—that thinking is grasped as inspiration—but also into what is connected there with our physical constitution, what, flowing from this inspiration, goes hand in hand with our memory and our growth, then we find not only that we pass over from a spiritual-soul experience before we have entered into physical experience, with what we develop in life, but also that within what passes through the gate of death lies the longing to begin a human life anew after the soul has lived a purely spiritual life—and precisely in that which not only works within us as inspiration but also shapes us, which does not merely stem from a spiritual-soul experience before birth but arises from earlier earthly lives. A true insight into past earthly lives and a justified outlook on future earthly lives arise from imagination, inspiration, and intuition.

[ 64 ] I can only hint at this; there is not enough time for a more detailed description. But when one looks into this individual human life as it passes through repeated earthly existences, one finds something concrete expressed in a particularly distinct way within the course of history. After all, the human being participates in these various forms of development that I have described. He passes repeatedly through the cultures of the Earth. As a soul, he carries over from one epoch to the next that which has been formed there. Unconsciously, in this present epoch—where the consciousness soul is newly developing—human beings carry over from the earlier epoch, when the instinctive soul acted instinctively through the intellect and when the souls now living were already here once before; unconsciously, human beings carry this over and are now shaping it. One now fully understands what the “dream of history” consists of—how these human souls, which carry themselves over from epoch to epoch and return again and again, play their part.

[ 65 ] This idea has emerged instinctively from Central European intellectual life. It has not yet been fully developed. The science of the spirit is called upon to develop it. The pedants or the “very clever people”—I say this in quotation marks—who say: Well, Lessing certainly accomplished many great things; then he grew old, and then he wrote something like his Education of the Human Race, in which he introduces this dream of repeated earthly lives. It is easy to be pedantically “cleverer” than a man who penetrated so deeply into the mysteries of humanity, as Lessing did, if one possesses the necessary disposition—the necessary callous disposition. Lessing accomplished something great and powerful back then. He pointed out—albeit in an amateurish and dilettantish way—how inner forces guide the process of becoming human and the development of humanity. He says: There was once a time when humanity was educated in a certain way. Then came a time when humanity was educated differently. Now is the time when self-education begins. — He sensed something of the successive epochs, just as Karl Lamprecht did. Lessing sensed even more by pointing out that the forces of one epoch are carried over into the following epochs through human souls that repeatedly incarnate. Certainly, it is easy to raise the objection: why, then, do human souls not remember the earlier epochs? That is the same as saying: Here is a four-year-old child who cannot do arithmetic; therefore, human beings cannot do arithmetic. The memory of past earthly lives is something that is acquired only through insights such as those I mentioned yesterday. But without these insights, one cannot penetrate what is dreamed as history. This is what humanity must come to understand—something that is intimately connected with humanity’s present development.

[ 66 ] Great questions confront our souls today. The question: What is the nature of human souls in the East? What is it like among us? And in the West? The only historical science we have before us is one that errs in the way I described at the beginning. We need a historical science that penetrates into the deeper forces of the human soul, one that brings into consciousness what would otherwise remain dreamlike or dormant. When imagination and inspiration delve into the otherwise dormant experience of history, then we will recognize what acts from person to person in social life. Then something other than what the past centuries have produced in the form of social laws or the like will emerge. Then what is truly commensurate with life and reality will emerge. Today, people experience history in a strange way. Well, in conclusion—it will only take a few minutes—I would like to cite a few more examples of this.

[ 67 ] A man named Johann Heinrich Lambert was born in a city in southern Germany in the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, around the 1840s, a monument was erected in his honor in that city in southern Germany. The monument features the celestial sphere, symbolizing that this man had penetrated the laws of the heavens—as far as was possible in the eighteenth century. Little of this has become known. He penetrated deeper than the Kant-Laplace theory suggests. In the 1840s, the southern German town where he was born erected a monument to this man. A hundred years earlier, after several people had pointed out to his father that his 14-year-old son was a very gifted boy who should be supported, the father applied for financial assistance. The noble city then gave 40 francs! 40 francs—but on the condition that he get lost and never come back! A hundred years later, following this act—such is the course of history—the monument was erected.

[ 68 ] Such things, my esteemed audience, recur time and again in the course of human development. You will recall that, for certain reasons, at the outset of this world war—right here in this city—I frequently drew attention to a profoundly significant thinker who lived here: Karl Christian Planck. I referred to him back then, and in my books long before that. Now we are seeing that people are referring to him. But that was not the intention behind my references at the time. If Planck were alive today, under circumstances that are now different, he would also express what he said in the 1880s in a different way. It is only through a passionate engagement with reality—not merely through retrospective reflection—that what humanity truly needs is expressed. Because some people believe we need new perspectives, they assume that a person who, as a brilliant and profound thinker, expressed certain ideas in the 1880s would say the same things today. We honor the memory of such people when we continue to work in their spirit, when we ask ourselves: How would they speak today from the same great spirit from which they spoke back then?

[ 69 ] Today, the times demand that we look into the depths of humanity’s development, particularly in the realm of history. Then judgments such as those I cited at the beginning of this lecture will no longer arise. Nor will vague prophecies be uttered. Instead, historical life will be expressed in such a way that we can face reality with our feelings—feelings that otherwise dissolve into dreams—when we need them; that we confront reality precisely with our deeper forces, not with our intellectual faculties; that we have grown to meet the demands placed upon us. And the demands of the present are great and formidable. We must know what is pulsating within humanity from East to West, what is playing out today. We must rise to meet this reality that is knocking so fiercely at our doors. We must take on board historical laws that are not contained in today’s laws—laws that penetrate deeper than the merely intellectual, than the understanding that has produced such great achievements in the natural sciences but cannot grasp social, political, historical, or human-moral life.

[ 70 ] Goethe felt this. He not only articulated the impression that historical insight made on him at the time, but he also articulated an ideal—something that ought to be. History made an impression on him that its greatest value lies not in abstract laws, but in the impulses that penetrate our feelings and our enthusiasm. That which people dream away can be raised up through imagination, inspiration, and intuition. These will then settle back into reality within our feelings and our enthusiasm. We will—not prophetically, not in a mystically vague way, but in such a way that, when reality approaches us, we can engage with that reality while being inwardly permeated by these impulses—we will be able to view history in the future as creating spiritual laws, not those it already possesses; laws that penetrate the human soul to the point of enthusiasm, yet an enthusiasm that is equal to reality.

[ 71 ] Not only is what Goethe said back then true; what can be said today is also true. For today the following holds true: History must become that which, as the best thing for the life of the human soul, generates enthusiasm for the right, true, and full grasp of reality. The most valuable aspect of the history of the future will be the enthusiasm it generates in the human soul.