The Rudolf Steiner Archive

11. The Human Being and the Historical and Moral Life of Humanity According to the Findings of Spiritual Science

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! With regard to the historical life of humanity and the understanding of this historical life—as it was sought in his time and is likely still sought in much the same way in our own time—Goethe made a significant statement that can certainly give one pause for thought. He said that the best thing about history is the enthusiasm it arouses. If one is accustomed to seeking in Goethe’s sayings the result of his deep life experience, and wisdom, then this very statement can indeed provide ample, indeed very ample, cause for reflection; and if one draws upon certain experiences one might have in relation to what is called historical knowledge—if one consults certain experiences—then one does indeed arrive at a perspective that can lead to what Goethe might actually have meant.

[ 2 ] Historical understanding—it is fair to say that, particularly over the course of the last century, great human insight, scholarly diligence, and conscientiousness have been devoted to it. And it is not a frivolous criticism of the historical judgment that people have adopted when I point out how little—especially in tricky cases—what is still called “history” today serves its purpose when it comes to drawing from history a judgment of the kind that real, true life demands of us. In our catastrophic times, indeed, every thinking person is often confronted with observations that prompt him to ask: In the face of the events of this or that day—which are piling up and which truly have a profound impact on the development of humanity—what does historical knowledge have to say?

[ 3 ] I would just like to mention, by way of introduction, how people—who were by no means to be taken lightly, nor viewed merely as theorists, but rather as very serious individuals who believed they could form a truly sound judgment by studying history— at the outset of this war-torn catastrophe had come to the conclusion that this global conflict could not last much longer—given the general conditions that have developed in the social and moral coexistence of humanity, as revealed by the study of history—and that this catastrophic clash of humanity could not last longer than four to six months. This is what people—who had already formed a judgment based on history that is, in a certain sense, still valid today, and who are by no means out of touch with practical life—thought in August, September, and so on, in the year 1914. And what did reality, what did life itself have to say about this judgment? This may well give cause for concern; it may well draw attention to the question of whether the historical perspective, as we are accustomed to it, is in fact suitable for forming a judgment, given how reality seriously challenges such judgments.

[ 4 ] Yes, distinguished guests, I would like to cite yet another similar example—there could be hundreds and thousands of examples along these lines—I will cite yet another, one offered by a figure whose genius, at any rate, no one can doubt; a figure who felt called upon to ask himself: What does history tell us about human life in modern times? He posed this question to himself upon assuming his university professorship, and this figure, who offered this judgment, is none other than Friedrich Schiller. And what judgment did Friedrich Schiller offer at that time, when he felt compelled to instinctively express the effect of the study of history on his soul during his inaugural lecture? Schiller said at that time, in 1789: “History teaches that the peoples of Europe have finally emerged as one great family, within which there may well still be this or that difference, but within which it can never again happen that they tear one another apart.”

[ 5 ] This judgment was delivered by none other than Friedrich Schiller, immediately before the outbreak of the French Revolution and the great upheavals in Europe that followed. And when one considers what has happened up to the present day, Friedrich Schiller’s judgment also appears in a peculiar light. One might say: Perhaps because Goethe, in his wisdom, saw more deeply into human life and existence, he did not seek what history, as it presented itself to him, could offer in a judgment that could be learned; rather, Goethe sought the fruit of history—perhaps for good reasons—in an impulse that penetrates deeper than the mind, deeper than the outer intellect in human beings, he sought the fruit of history in the stirring of the whole soul through enthusiasm.

[ 6 ] And perhaps today’s reflections are particularly well-suited to developing and expanding this judgment of Goethe’s and revealing its full significance in relation to reality. For I would like to base today’s reflections on the following question: What does the scientific approach—which we have become accustomed to regarding as history—offer in comparison to what reality demands of us? One might say: Precisely when one observes life in its various forms, this life—in its various forms—may reveal, in a way that is significant in relation to what has emerged as a historical judgment itself, something that is extraordinarily instructive in a deeper sense.

[ 7 ] That is why I wish to begin with the perspective and way of thinking of two historians—two observers of history—whose mental dispositions could not be more different; but the present truly demands, even today, a perspective that is of a different nature than one that merely seeks to dwell on what one can barely grasp within one’s immediate surroundings—just far enough to see the local church tower. The events of today, of the immediate present, certainly demand that we broaden the horizon of our perspective to encompass the entire earth, and so I would like to preface my reflection today with what two very different personalities had to think about history in a specific case and in a specific field.

[ 8 ] One such figure is the late Karl Lamprecht, a professor of history at the University of Leipzig. As summarized in a brief excerpt—which is precisely why it is so instructive—he set forth what he had to say after a life of research devoted to the history of the German people with great conscientiousness, he had summarized what he had to say about the driving forces behind the development of his people, and he had summarized it in the way he believed it needed to be summarized specifically for a foreign audience; for I base this discussion on the lecture he delivered in 1904, first at the World’s Fair in St. Louis and second at the invitation of Columbia [University] in New York. There, Karl Lamprecht spoke about the driving forces behind the development of the German people, from the earliest times that historians can trace—the first Christian centuries—right up to the present.

[ 9 ] And I would like to draw a parallel between this form and the mode of representation offered by a mind that has truly grown out of Central European folklore and what this Central European folklore experiences as its history, I would like to draw a parallel between this and the distinctive way of thinking of another man, who is also, in a certain sense, a historian—the way of thinking of Woodrow Wilson, who spoke on the same topic at almost the same time, but with reference to his American people. For anyone who wishes to gain insight into the way history is sought today across the globe, I can think of nothing more characteristic than what emerges from a comparison of these two figures’ perspectives on the history of their own peoples.

[ 10 ] Karl Lamprecht attempts to move beyond the old Rankean and English approaches to history, which rely solely on external documents. He attempts to turn his gaze toward the inner driving forces of historical development—toward that which cannot be found merely in external documents, but rather can be discovered by delving into the spiritual life of the people and seeking out the deeper forces that shape the course of history. In this regard, Karl Lamprecht arrives at some quite interesting insights. He goes so far as to say: When one looks back at the earliest development of the German people, one finds—as far back as the third century A.D.—a distinctive kind of emotional forces and their effects developed within the soul of this people; if one examines the various spheres in which these forces manifested themselves in that ancient time—in the moral, military, political, social, and artistic spheres, however primitive they may have been at the time—one must say: The people of the German nation lived in such a way at that time that they shaped their social life and social activities out of a certain symbolic, allegorical disposition. Not only did they attempt to depict world events in symbolic terms in their primitive works of art; they also lived, so to speak, in their interpersonal relationships in such a way that this symbolic mindset shaped their experiences. For example, people regarded the leaders of the nation as symbols of the entire national character, and this, according to Karl Lamprecht, led to the emergence in moral and social life of what can be described as the principle of military camaraderie.

[ 11 ] Then, according to Karl Lamprecht, that which lives as an inner impulse in the course of history is supplanted by another form of the powers of the mind, which then shape the course of German development well into the eleventh century. This symbolist, allegory-forming disposition is supplanted by a typifying one. It is no longer so much the imagination that is at work, but rather reason. Reason attempts to assign “types” to individual phenomena—representatives of a whole, not symbols, but types; even in the individual personality who takes the lead, one sees the type for the rest of humanity. As this mindset changes, however, military-style camaraderie gives way to a more cooperative form of coexistence, in which the imaginative is increasingly influenced by the intellectual and the rational—including in the social and moral structure of human coexistence. But the impulses are still elemental, primitive, and stem from the will during this period.

[ 12 ] Then, according to Karl Lamprecht, one can see—in stark contrast—an era in which entirely different impulses prevail in the powers of the soul. It begins in the tenth and eleventh centuries, extends into the middle of the fifteenth century, and I would ask you to keep in mind that Karl Lamprecht, drawing on a certain historical instinct, sets the middle of the fifteenth century as the end of what he considers to have begun around the eleventh century and calls the “conventional age.” Whereas, he argues, the moral and social structure of human society was previously shaped by certain necessities, now—even though the old ways remain to some extent—reflection enters into the structure: conventions. Contractually, cooperative life develops between individuals and between societies—a life that differentiates people even less—yet through this conventional framework creates powerful distinctions, dividing people into estates; chivalry and the urban class, chivalry and the bourgeoisie, develop under the influence of these conventional impulses. Manorialism and serfdom emerge as a socio-moral structure in contrast to manorial rule and the leasehold relationship, which had already existed earlier. But in the socio-moral sphere, the social configuration of the relationship of domination and the relationship of serfdom is structured through this purely external, necessary configuration in property relations.

[ 13 ] Karl Lamprecht, by consistently tracing how various artistic achievements emerge from the same impulses, concludes that what he now calls the “individualistic age” begins in the middle of the fifteenth century. Now—as he puts it—the individual begins to assert himself. Previously, the individual operated more from within the whole, a whole defined by conventions, for example in the preceding era. Now the individual asserts itself, and within the individual, the rational, intellectual element gradually comes to the fore. And it is quite—to a certain extent—interesting how Karl Lamprecht demonstrates, for specific areas of life, how this rational and intellectual aspect has emerged since the mid-fifteenth century. It is particularly interesting when Karl Lamprecht delves into the specifics of this area. For example, when he shows how diplomatic and political arrangements between different people in earlier eras arose from elementary impulses of will and emotion, whereas now the diplomatic and political sphere is subsumed into intellectualism and begins to be governed by reason. Karl Lamprecht dates this era to last until approximately the middle of the eighteenth century.

[ 14 ] He then marks the beginning of the era that, in his view, continues into the present and in which we ourselves find ourselves: the subjective era, the individualistic era. From the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, the human individual remains at the forefront; but this individual does not yet act through his internalized powers. Subjectivity, the inner life, does not emerge until around the middle of the eighteenth century and then becomes the truly decisive factor in the driving forces behind the development of the German people. This subjectivism is particularly evident in the great classical achievements, and so on, and so on.

[ 15 ] I cannot go into the details. I merely wanted to point out how, in the present day, the old historical perspective of Ranke and others has nonetheless given rise to an effort to grasp from within what is alive in the course of historical development. It must be said: One is, in many, many respects, highly dissatisfied when one allows Karl Lamprecht’s perspective to take hold. It often gives the impression of a chaotic, confused account; but one can see in it the immediate, personal, and most inner struggle with certain forces that are being sought—forces that are meant to find their expression in what then reveals itself externally as historical development. One gets the feeling: Here is someone searching; he is simply not yet able, given the current conditions of the times, to actually find what he is looking for.

[ 16 ] If one now compares this German scholar’s approach to personal inquiry with that of Woodrow Wilson, something extraordinarily interesting emerges. I do not wish to be misunderstood in either direction. Nor do I wish for what I say to be interpreted in a one-sided, chauvinistic manner, nor do I wish to leave any doubt as to my actual stance toward Woodrow Wilson’s character in relation to what I have to say. Ladies and gentlemen, I had already characterized Woodrow Wilson’s entire character long before it became as obvious as it is today to characterize him in an adversarial light—namely, long before the events that broke out in July 1914. In a series of lectures I gave in Helsinki before the war, I had already pointed this out at a time when even here everything was still filled with admiration for Wilson’s new, magnificent worldview. What is there not to admire in this day and age, unless one is forced by external circumstances to set aside that admiration! Back when people were still marveling at the grandeur and novelty of Wilson’s worldview, I pointed out how limited, how narrow-minded, and how utterly incapable of penetrating the true impulses of reality the mode of thought of this very individual is—and how infinitely regrettable it is that the impulses of the times have truly not placed a mind of such narrowness in one of the most important positions of modern times for the good of humanity. I therefore do not believe I will be misunderstood if I attempt to objectively characterize what is supposed to distinguish, in its own way, that which, as Karl Lamprecht said for his people, Wilson said for his fellow Americans.

[ 17 ] First, it must be noted: It is precisely this lecture—the one Wilson gave on the development of the American people—that provides a remarkable example of a powerful insight into the way Americans have developed historically. Curiously, Wilson shows how the perspective he has adopted regarding the development of his people leads him to the key points where it becomes clear to him how Americans have historically become Americans. So let me briefly characterize that as well.

[ 18 ] Wilson points out that those who base their views on how the English settlers in the eastern United States perceive the development of the American people hold entirely mistaken views about that development. Wilson rejects this English perspective; he also rejects the perspective that stems more from the southern states; he points out that what has made Americans American—what constitutes the essence of the history of the American people—lies in what emerged as the American East advanced toward the West, as this mix of peoples—composed of Scandinavians, English, Germans, Russians, Latin peoples, and so on—as this mix of peoples moved from the East toward the American West, cultivated what was still uncultivated, and overcame the ancient wilderness. Not, he meant, what was brought over from Europe, but what was acquired in the struggle with the wilderness by a mixture of peoples—that is the starting point; that is what made the American, whom he, as one can sense, unerringly portrays—with his lively eyes, with an adventurous zest for everything that quickly emerges in the form of daring plans and is swiftly seized upon, with the rootlessness that inspires plans not tied to a single homeland but capable of being carried out anywhere, and so on, and so on. The cattle driver, he says—not the statesman—the forest rider, the hunter—not the statesman—brought forth what, in the course of the nineteenth century, as the mix of peoples advanced from east to west, ultimately shaped the American.

[ 19 ] And his portrayal, it must be said, is spot-on for the American people. He casts all the details—which are usually viewed differently and which constitute the substance of the social and moral history of America, that is, the United States—in the light of this perspective. The tariff issue, the issue of land distribution, and even the issue of slavery—of all three issues, these three most important issues—he shows that they acquired their specific form, their social and moral structure, through what he calls the “conquest of the West from the East.”

[ 20 ] One might say: What a forceful judgment! But this very judgment is strangely instructive, and you have seen from the words I alluded to earlier that, from my perspective, Wilson is not exactly a sympathetic figure; yet, as I delved deeper and deeper into what actually underlies his way of thinking, something highly peculiar presented itself to me. I had to ask myself: What about the peculiar force of Woodrow Wilson’s historical judgment? I tried to recall and compare it with the historical judgment of a figure whom I particularly esteem—one who truly emerged from the most recent phase of German intellectual life—and I tried to compare Wilson, with his peculiar way of constructing sentences and so on, to Hermann Grimm, who, after all, viewed history solely in relation to artistic phenomena. But he himself once explained to me, when I spoke with him in person, how he actually intended to take a comprehensive view of history that truly sought, as far as he was able, to engage in a kind of intellectual grasp and intellectual contemplation of the world of facts. I had to compare—the matter itself demanded it—certain aspects of Wilson with certain aspects of Hermann Grimm in particular.

[ 21 ] What struck me as peculiar—and to my great surprise—was this: Some sentences could be taken exactly as they appear in Wilson’s work, translated, and inserted into Hermann Grimm’s writings. In terms of their wording, they fit well. And conversely, one can take sentences as they appear in Hermann Grimm’s writings, translate them, and insert them into Wilson’s treatises. They fit right in. The sentences are interchangeable. This strange fact presented itself to me; it turned out to be true. All the more reason, then, to delve into the psychological underpinnings at stake here. In Hermann Grimm’s work—and this can already be seen in Karl Lamprecht’s as well—there is a personal struggle over historical judgment. Everything such personalities say is individual, personally experienced and hard-won; it is an immediate personal experience arising from an inner struggle with the meaning of the facts. One gets this sense precisely when looking at things quite objectively. How is it with Wilson? Precisely where he makes such accurate judgments, the situation is quite different. I do not hesitate, since I believe that, following my lecture the day before yesterday, I cannot be misunderstood with such remarks regarding terminology. I do not hesitate to use an expression that is very often interpreted in a superstitious sense, but certainly not by me—rather, in a strictly scientific sense, as I demonstrated the day before yesterday. With Wilson, precisely when one delves into the structure of his sentences, into the wording of his sentences, one comes to realize: what he says, he does not say in the immediate struggle of the individual personality with the matter at hand, with the object, but rather he states it as if he were possessed by this view as by an unknown force, as if possessed by something to which the soul is only distantly connected—something that dawns upon the soul from particular, irrational depths, so that one is not fully aware of what it is that possesses one. And I must say: If one considers the unerring judgment that Wilson offers here regarding the American national character—derived from this development of his historical perspective—one senses, I would say, in the “exterior,” so to speak, of the American he describes, something of this obsession with that judgment. The “quick agility of the eye”— compare it—if one may put it that way—to the extraordinary calmness of the gaze of a human observer such as Herman Grimm or other Central European observers of humanity, who, though they fight with their whole soul for their judgment, reflect that calm in their eyes, which bears no resemblance to that restlessness of the gaze through which what the soul is obsessed with penetrates outward, as well as the other characteristics Woodrow Wilson refers to.

[ 22 ] It is precisely from such an example, ladies and gentlemen, that we can learn something extraordinarily important for the present. Our present age considers itself so extraordinarily practical; it regards its judgment as grounded in reality and realistic; but in truth, our present age is, in a certain respect, theoretical to the point of excess; for it is generally clear to itself that when two people say something with the same wording, they are saying the same thing. Nevertheless, one can be as different as possible while saying things that have the same wording. One engages with the reality of human beings only when one is able to see the true reality behind the point I have just mentioned.

[ 23 ] Anyone today who bases their allegiance or opposition solely on the letter of the text is no longer in touch with reality. Today, if one wishes to keep pace with the impulses that our times demand of us, one must develop something deeper in the soul than the mere intellectual and rational acceptance—the intellectual acceptance—of the literal wording. Today, the literal wording no longer constitutes the content of worldviews, for such wording can be fought for within every single conception of the individual soul. Then, through the way it is spoken, one must be able to participate in what is taking place within the soul. Or, such wording can take possession of the soul; in that case, one must be able to look more deeply into certain things that are empty and barren, even if—as is strikingly the case with Woodrow Wilson and Hermann Grimm—the sentences are interchangeable. And perhaps in no other field than that in which the present is viewed historically can one have such experiences.

[ 24 ] It is interesting that the German researcher Karl Lamprecht is driven, precisely by a certain instinct, to base his historical analysis on spiritual forces; yet his work leaves one unsatisfied. Why? He leaves us unsatisfied because he turns to the study of the soul—the official study of the soul—that currently surrounds him. He turns to the researchers of the soul who have emerged from the ranks of official philosophy today. He asks them: What is going on in the soul of the individual human being? That is already the novel aspect. But he is proceeding from a major error. Even if one were to assume—which, of course, the spiritual researcher cannot possibly accept—even if one were to assume that official psychology or the study of the soul as it is practiced today is more than mere dilettantism in relation to a true understanding of soul life, it would still not be possible to achieve what Karl Lamprecht is attempting out of a commendable instinct—an attempt that is bound to fail, however. He attempts to clarify: What does the psychologist say about the development of the individual human being in relation to his or her soul? And then he applies what is revealed in today’s official psychology regarding the soul development of the individual human being to the entire German people.

[ 25 ] What emerged was a strangely iridescent characteristic—one that, while distinguishing between the various eras, nevertheless indulged in endless repetitions. If one wishes to discern what actually underlies this, one must point to something that today can certainly be regarded by the broadest circles as paradoxical, perhaps as fantastical, perhaps as mere daydreaming—but which must penetrate humanity’s historical perspective if history is truly to become for life what one believes it should be for practical living. If one considers the individual human being in the development of his soul in relation to what enters his ordinary consciousness, one is not at all in the realm that contains the driving forces of historical development. Why? Because what acts and lives in the moral, historical, and social interaction between human beings does not exist in a person’s ordinary consciousness.

[ 26 ] One can only come to terms with what is at stake here by truly taking to heart a thought that I have already mentioned on several occasions. In the ordinary, trivial view of life, people believe that the human state of consciousness alternates between the two major phases of daily waking life and the dull, nocturnal life of sleep, where consciousness is pushed back into the deepest possible twilight. But this is only a superficial way of looking at things. In truth, anyone who delves more deeply into the conditions of inner human life and its manifestations—using the methods I briefly discussed here the day before yesterday as imagination, inspiration, in short, the means of intuitive penetration into the spiritual world—that person discovers that what we call dream life, what we call sleep life, does not merely occupy the human senses from the moment of falling asleep until waking, but extends into waking life.

[ 27 ] Even when we are awake, dear listeners, we are awake only in relation to our perceptions, to our life of imagination or thought. We are not fully awake in relation to our emotional impulses. These emotional impulses lie deep within the depths of our inner life. What we experience of our emotions while awake—what we bring into our ordinary consciousness—are merely mental images of those emotions; they relate to the emotions in the same way that the memories of dreams we have upon waking relate to the dreams themselves. Feelings are no clearer, no more evident in our soul than the dreams themselves. As we lead a life of feelings, we lead it within the realm of dreaming. And only by imagining our emotional life do the waves of that emotional life surge up from the unconscious into the conscious.

[ 28 ] And even in the impulses of the will! Remember how I explained this from a different perspective the day before yesterday: even in the impulses of the will, one must say: There, a person does not merely dream; rather, the life of sleep, in all its dullness, continues into waking consciousness within the very element of volitional impulses. What does a person know, when they have an idea of what they are going to do, of how this idea plays out solely in the movement of their hand! What do they know of the mechanism of this hand movement, of the transition from the volitional idea to the hand movement! This is lost in the depths of consciousness. Thus, the impulses of dream and sleep life continue into waking life, and this is expressed not so much in individual human life; for a person deals with their individuality in such a way that their life of imagination and perception is what matters to them—for their development, for what stands clearly before their soul; but when one person acts upon another, when a person learns to know and love another, when a person acts on behalf of another, then it is not merely the impulses of perception and thinking cognition that are at work; rather, what leaps from one person to another is that which springs from dreamlike feeling and from the sleeping will. In social and moral life, an element operates across all of humanity—especially within a united humanity—that is dreamlike, that is overlooked, an unconscious element.

[ 29 ] Ladies and gentlemen, stating such a truth in the abstract, as I have just done, is, of course, relatively easy. When applied to a genuine examination of life, however, it requires a strictly scientific approach. But this rigorous scientific approach leads to something quite, quite different from the historical perspective to which we have been accustomed in school—a perspective which, as I showed you in my opening remarks, fails us precisely in the most important cases of evaluating life. One need only recognize, in the full scope of its significance, that what pulsates within humanity as historical, moral, and social life must be viewed as it directly affects us—like dreaming, like sleeping—and it will become clear: History must become something other than what has been understood by that term up to now—and than even Karl Lamprecht [understood by it]—for he seeks to observe the soul of the individual human being and thus apply to historical analysis that which lives in waking consciousness. This does not yield history, because it fails to penetrate the dreamlike and slumbering impulses of events. And one comes closest of all when one does what has been done more and more throughout the nineteenth century—when one applies to history the scientific method that has yielded results so great, so powerful, and which have certainly been fully appreciated by the humanities as well—if one attempts to apply the scientific mode of thinking to history, this scientific mode of thinking that is, after all, very much a product of modern intellectualism.

[ 30 ] The greatness of the newer approach to history has been seen precisely in the fact that one has begun to view everything from a scientific perspective, that one has begun to place historical development in the same light in which natural phenomena present themselves to us and in which natural phenomena are rightly viewed. Here, too, Hermann Grimm made a very significant remark, born of a deep instinct—even though he did not recognize its full implications, since he was not a scholar of the humanities and, in fact, rejected the humanities altogether—a remark concerning the study of history. He pointed to a typical nineteenth-century historian such as Gibbon with his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. And he said it was curious that this Gibbon, who entirely wishes to link the events of historical life according to cause and effect in the manner of the natural sciences, actually finds only the forces of decline in the Roman world during the first centuries of the Christian development of the West, while he simply lets it slip between the lines, not even considering it.

[ 31 ] Herman Grimm did not realize that there was a profound necessity underlying this. One need only try to apply to historical development—not the scientific approach, that is, adherence to facts grasped by the intellect—what is correct here for the consideration of the individual human life, and what is also good for guiding that individual life. And one will see—precisely upon a thorough, well-founded, and appropriate examination of historical life—that one thereby finds in history only that which leads to a downward development and, in each case, to decay, and that one can never, through that which makes natural science great as a mode of thought, can find anything other than the products of decay in history; that one can never thereby find the sprouting, budding forces, because these remain below the threshold of ordinary consciousness and must first be brought up from the dreaming and sleeping states through the powers of imagination, inspiration, and so on, as they were described here the day before yesterday as the method of spiritual science.

[ 32 ] When the natural sciences are illuminated in a special way by what can come from the humanities—history will only be able to be constructed, will only be able to be understood in its true nature, when one resolves to apply the humanistic method. What Karl Lamprecht instinctively sought—what he felt arising from a deeply rooted Central European spiritual need—will only become a reality when we transition, in the manner just described, from the ordinary cognition of ordinary consciousness to the spiritual understanding of historical development.

[ 33 ] Ladies and gentlemen, the person who comes to know life, who acquires the ability to understand life precisely through spiritual science, who knows that a glimpse into the emerging forces of life—into that which is secure and promising for the future— can never stem from the purely rational, theoretical mode of thinking that shines so brightly in contemporary natural science. To put it somewhat radically, but it is a statement that can certainly be justified: Human beings stand within reality itself and must shape reality through their actions; if they bring what reason and intellect provide them—and what can make them so great in the natural sciences—into the social and moral spheres, If they seek to regulate this, if they seek to give it a structure—even if only in the realm of external commerce or banking—they are bound to fail. If one were to attempt to assemble a parliament, or any society tasked with providing a social structure for humanity, composed of brilliant, ingenious representatives of the scientific intellectualism that serves the natural sciences so well; such parliaments composed of such scholars will most certainly ruin the social order completely, for they will be able to provide only those impulses that serve to bring about decay and decline.

[ 34 ] One would uncover many of life’s mysteries if one were to view life in such a vital way. Some uncomfortable truths would come to light in the process; but reality is so serious that it must also be viewed seriously, and one must know what capacity certain mental faculties have to bear the weight of reality. If one were to recognize this, much of what is today called dilettantism and what is today called fantasy or daydreaming would be seen for what it truly is: steeped in reality, closely related to reality, and destined to intervene in reality precisely where today’s theorists—those who think in scientific terms, in the manner of Wilson—see only the banal, so-called “ideals of nations,” so-called “principles of interstate treaties,” and so on and so forth—all that theoretical, impractical, self-defeating nonsense—are the only things they can offer; where such a purely theoretical personality posits something unreal, there must be a true understanding of reality, a true practice of life, in a time that demands such seriousness from us as the present one.

[ 35 ] Ladies and gentlemen! I will not shy away from explaining to you here—at least in specific points—how what I developed here yesterday as “perceiving consciousness” can truly immerse itself in reality, and how this leads to a historical perspective. Of course, I will only be able to touch on the basics—the very fundamentals—today, since I cannot speak until midnight or beyond; but you will see from this how, in certain minds such as Karl Lamprecht’s, there is indeed an instinctive desire for such a view of history, yet there is no awareness that, precisely in the field of historical reflection, one must transition to a truly spiritual-scientific mode of perception. I have pointed out that, out of a correct instinct, Karl Lamprecht regards the middle of the fifteenth century as a significant turning point in the modern development of the German people. And since the German people are in fact regarded in modern times as a representative people based on objective knowledge—I say this not out of chauvinism—one can study the demands of modern-era impulses particularly in relation to the German people.

[ 36 ] But Karl Lamprecht does not go beyond an instinctive remark; otherwise, he would not have equated this profound turning point—this turning point in historical development in the middle of the fifteenth century—with turning points in the world during the eleventh century or even with a turning point in the eighteenth century. Anyone who penetrates deeper into the course of history than Karl Lamprecht, however, will notice that—though this is, of course, always reflected only in external events—a powerful leap, a powerful change in the current of development, occurs in the depths of life at the midpoint of the fifteenth century. And the beginning of this very same European current—which comes to a close around the middle of the fifteenth century and gives way to certain impulses within which we still find ourselves, in the very beginnings of which we actually stand—the beginning of this current, which comes to a close in the middle of the fifteenth century, lies roughly in the seventh or eighth century B.C.

[ 37 ] From the seventh or eighth century B.C.E. until the middle of the fifteenth century, European life was characterized by a unified moral, political, and social configuration. All facts, all impulses stem from an inner spiritual reality, which—since I must describe it briefly here—I would like to characterize by saying: It acts as it does from person to person in the course of historical development, because during this period people were still governed by a certain instinctive mode of intellectual activity. Until the mid-fifteenth century—beginning in the seventh or eighth century B.C.—the inner life of human beings was, in a certain sense, homogeneous and uniformly structured, but in such a way that the intellect, which today is grasped and experienced individually, functioned like an instinct; and all events, everything that people desired, all cultural manifestations—one can understand them in this era only if one can relate to this particular mode of soul activity, where the intellect acts instinctively, where deliberation does not yet play a major role, where events arise elementally from the human breast—events that today can occur only after a person has undergone a long process of deliberation.

[ 38 ] And by the middle of the fifteenth century, what occurs is that in place of this instinctive intellectual soul — in spiritual science, it can also be called the “soul of feeling” — is replaced by what can be called the “soul of consciousness,” where everything must pass through the individual consciousness, where the human being must apply the concept and the thought in every situation, and where the instinctive no longer acts so fundamentally within the soul. Everything that has happened since the middle of the fifteenth century—I can only sketch this out in broad strokes here—can only be understood if one has the foundational understanding, if one truly grasps this turning point I have indicated. Here you have one perspective—I can only offer guidelines—and I would like to present another perspective, which, however, is regarded by people today as even more fantastical, in that it has been gained through a genuine, not amateurish, but hard-won scientific rigor, the existence of which most people still have no inkling of. This will become apparent over time, just as it has become clear that it is not the old worldview of the pre-Copernican era, but the Copernican worldview that is appropriate for the modern age.

[ 39 ] Conventional historical documentary research already takes us quite far back in time compared to earlier periods; but one can only truly arrive at an understanding of the history of human development—one that can emerge from a comparison of the various epochs of earthly evolution—when one is able to go much further through intuitive consciousness, through the insight of intuitive consciousness into human development, than historical documents can ever provide. Of course, people will naturally dismiss [this] as mere fantasy—that may be so— but it is nevertheless true that what I described here the day before yesterday as the three foundations of true, non-fantastical, non-superstitious clairvoyant consciousness—imagination, inspiration, and intuition—enables one to trace the development of humanity on Earth by looking inward. Then, not by relying on external documents, but by examining the life of the soul and through inner spiritual contemplation, one goes back even further than to a time lying in the seventh or eighth century B.C.; one goes back to a time that took place a few millennia earlier, one goes back to those periods that follow that significant catastrophe in Earth’s history, which geology describes as the Ice Age, and which various folk traditions describe as the Flood—which, of course, must be placed much further back than tradition states; one goes back to ancient times to which no external document, no literary monument extends, but to which spiritual vision does extend—I can only hint at the results today—one goes back to an ancient past where a culture once flourished, from which later emerged—though much later—what existed as the culture of ancient India. Sanskrit literature reports on this, but it is a later product than what I actually mean here in terms of human development. One goes back to an age in which the human soul operated under entirely different conditions.

[ 40 ] It is a common misconception today that the human soul has not changed since the earliest times for which we have records. Oh, it has changed quite a lot. If one looks back with a spiritual-scientific perspective to the early period following the great Ice Age epoch of Earth’s development—a period that reached its peak particularly in ancient Indian culture—one encounters a completely different kind of humanity, from which impulses must have emerged that are entirely different from the later ones; one encounters a type of human being who remained capable of development well into old age, just as we are capable of development only in the early years of childhood. We are capable of development there to such an extent that we experience—albeit still in a vague way—what occurs during the change of teeth, for example; we experience the physical-bodily aspect within the soul. How does a person in youth experience sexual maturity, the physical-bodily aspect within the spiritual-soul aspect! But for our time, this ceases in one’s twenties. Certain precocious children—though one simply must not say this today—even believe that this dependence of the spiritual-soul aspect on the physical-bodily aspect ends even sooner. After all, when it comes to writing “on the whole,” one believes oneself to be mature even earlier than at the age of twenty. The dependence on the physical-bodily aspect lasts until then. But then it ceases. I am not referring to the external dependence that manifests in the weariness of the body, in the graying of the hair, in the wrinkles on the face—that is external dependence.

[ 41 ] But in that ancient era I am now speaking of, people experienced a level of dependence well into their fifties—the kind one experiences today only in childhood. Everyone who was young at that time knew: You experience new things as you grow older. That was something very significant, because from about the age of 35 onward, a person reaches a stage in their development where that development begins to decline, and their physical development starts to deteriorate.

[ 42 ] Now, the experience of the physical body’s decline is not exactly as we experience it today; rather, it is an inner experience, similar to the experience of reaching sexual maturity—that is, a special inner development in relation to the spiritual and the mental. It is precisely the mental aspect—this experience of the physical decline—that provides this. And because people in that earliest epoch experienced the physical and bodily aspects, the physical in that earlier epoch was particularly suited to developing in the soul in a direct, elemental, and natural way—just as we today only recall the various stages of our childhood and youth— so in this earliest time, human beings were capable of experiencing special spiritual and soul experiences inwardly, the echoes of which can be clearly perceived in later ancient Indian literature and culture.

[ 43 ] Then came another era. By then, this had already begun to recede. Human beings were connected in this way—with their spiritual-soul aspects in relation to their physical-bodily aspects—only up until their late forties. Then came the third epoch following the great ice age. During that time, human beings were capable of developing in the manner I have described only up until their late thirties. And then came the era that began in the seventh and eighth centuries before the Christian era, about which I have said that the intellect still functioned instinctively—and it functioned instinctively because the capacity for development extended into the mid-thirties throughout the entire human life. In this Greco-Roman period, human beings remained capable of development.

[ 44 ] Then the process reversed, and for our time—such things can be calculated, though I can only cite the results here—the 27th year is roughly the limit up to which the last remnants of this accompaniment of the soul-spiritual by the physical-bodily persist. In spiritual science, I call what I have just described the “ever-younger-becoming” of humanity. Humanity, so to speak, remains youthfully fresh, growing, and flourishing in earlier times right up to old age; it retained its powers of development well into old age. I call this the “ever-younger-becoming” of humanity.

[ 45 ] As you can see from this: If one considers the true laws of historical development on the grand scale of human evolution, one cannot take into account the psychology—the study of the soul—of the individual human being, as Karl Lamprecht does; for the psychological aspect of human evolution—in the times when people did what Karl Lamprecht advocates—was approached in such a way that one might say: “Well, in ancient times, humanity was in childhood; then it entered adolescence, and then mature adulthood; then it grew old.” The exact opposite is true for the study of reality. Humanity remains young from the very beginning right through to the highest age; that is, it reaches a ripe old age while retaining the freshness of youth and becomes younger and younger in its defining forces—that is, it increasingly develops in ways that depend on youth, to which old age contributes nothing.

[ 46 ] One must therefore apply an entirely different approach and psychology to the study of the soul if one wishes to bring to light that which is otherwise experienced by human beings—historically and morally—in the course of their development, even in the dreamlike state or while asleep. And only when one thus brings to light what pulsates deep within the human soul—which can be revealed only by truly coming to know the driving forces of human development—only when one learns to view human development in this way and delves into it, including the individual concrete facts, will one arrive at a vibrant, realistic understanding of historical life.

[ 47 ] I would like to mention just one event. Those in the audience who have been listening to my lectures here every winter for years—it has been over 14 or 15 years now—know how reluctant I am to delve into personal matters in these lectures; but in this case, the personal is often relevant. If I may mention something personal, let it be this: I tried to remain objective even with regard to the greatest historical events in the development of the Earth—to remain as objective as is at all possible. I proceeded without any preconceptions. And when, after decades of research, I discovered the law governing the historical development of humanity on Earth—as I have described it—this law of humanity’s becoming younger, according to which one must say: There was an age when humanity was capable of development up into its fifties, up into its forties, then into its thirties, and so on; and in Greek times, it was capable of development up to about the age of 35. In the seventh and eighth centuries, then, up to the age of 34, 33, and then back to the age of 28. That brings us roughly to the middle of the fifteenth century. That is where instinctive intellectual knowledge ends in the human soul.

[ 48 ] Now I said to myself: There comes a point in time when humanity stands at the midpoint of its development, when human development reaches a particular juncture. Once, during this Greco-Roman era, humanity had reached the age of 33 in its process of growing older and then younger; a new impulse had to arise if humanity was not to lose its connection with the spiritual world. For this spiritual aspect becomes clear to the human being especially when he looks within himself and experiences, on a spiritual and soul level, the physical and bodily decline, as was the case in ancient times. This spiritual impulse came. It is to be deepened through modern spiritual science. For what human beings can no longer draw from their physical nature, the Spirit must give them as something spiritual through spiritual scientific knowledge, [in order] to preserve their capacity for development right up to the highest age. But for this, a special impulse had to come at a particularly important moment in history, when humanity, descending from above, had reached the 33rd year. And the new impulse from Golgotha—the Christ impulse—stands there, strangely, as the greatest symbol in human development. From the 33-year-old Christ Jesus, in the thirty-third year of humanity’s existence, emanates the greatest impulse that has ever passed over the development of the Earth. I did not set out, esteemed audience, to regard the Christ impulse as the first and to artificially insert it. I knew nothing of this insertion in this way. First, this law presented itself to me, as I explained earlier, and then, in the light of this law, I had to view the Christ impulse.

[ 49 ] When one looks at the matter this way, one realizes for the first time how spiritual science does not lead to a superficiality or a flattening of religious life, but truly to a deepening of religious life—to the very deepening that immerses this religious life so profoundly into the development of human reality. I just wanted to point this out because one so often encounters the following: People criticize you, whether you speak of religious life in lectures on spiritual science or whether you do not speak of it. What don’t they criticize! If one does not speak of it, they say, spiritual science has no religion, no Christianity; perhaps this only becomes apparent because this spiritual science, in a deeper sense, understands how to observe a certain precept that also exists:

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain! (Exodus 20:7)

[ 50 ] If one does not mention the names “Christ” or “God” in every sentence, people say that spiritual science leads away from religious life. If one does mention these things, people regard it as an attack, because they all feel called upon to speak about religious life. You can’t please everyone. But that is not the point. Those who penetrate to the very heart of spiritual science can know how this spiritual science can only lead to a deepening in all areas, including the realm of religious life. And how are moral, social, and historical life grasped—life that unfolds in such a way that its impulses do not even rise into consciousness? Yet we live in an age where consciousness must take hold, where what in earlier times could remain in the unconscious must now rise into consciousness. We can look back to those ancient times in human development when people experienced the dreamlike and the dormant aspects of human impulses in a different way. Back then, historical life was lived out for consciousness in myths, legends, and fairy tales.

[ 51 ] Anyone who knows how to appreciate this understands—for this is, of course, a banal truth—that fairy tales and myths, on the surface, as history is viewed today, contain no truth; but in a deeper sense, they contain precisely those historical impulses that people otherwise dream away and overlook. By developing his myths, legends, and fairy tales, man placed himself within the moral, social, and historical context of his fellow human beings; in his own way, he brought to conscious awareness, in a vivid manner, what is at work in historical, social, and moral life.

[ 52 ] Today, of course, we cannot invent myths and fairy tales; but through spiritual-scientific imagination and inspiration, we must bring up from the depths of the human soul what would otherwise remain subconscious, and we must recognize that when one human being faces another morally, there is a kind of subconscious clairvoyance in this encounter. And what the researcher of the spiritual world describes is merely a bringing to consciousness of the subconscious, dreamlike elements that are revealed through human actions.

[ 53 ] Thus, the humanities must contribute to the study of reality and to a deeper understanding of it. And these humanities essentially correspond to what our instinctive consciousness has been striving for within our spiritual life. One need only recall a mind such as Lessing’s and his The Education of the Human Race, or the great and significant impulses toward historical reflection provided by Herder. Much of this has been forgotten. In my book The Riddle of Man, I pointed this out, and I also pointed to a forgotten current in German intellectual life. But this forgotten current in German intellectual life will reemerge; for within it lie the seeds of a spiritual approach to reality.

[ 54 ] Such a spiritual approach to reality is particularly needed in history. Then the true impulses—which no intellectualism, no scientific perspective, and no Wilsonianism can introduce into our view of humanity—will enter into that view. One will come to understand that what unfolds in history—what unfolds through human beings—speaks more deeply to the soul than that which merely engages the mind, which merely grips the intellect, and which rightly celebrates such glorious triumphs in scientific knowledge. But one cannot master reality with that alone. People will understand why a history shaped by the scientific model was bound to make such mistakes—as even Schiller did, and as the people of our time have made with regard to the great world catastrophe.

[ 55 ] In our time, we are called upon to form our judgments regarding the development of the Earth. We must not shy away from delving deeper into these judgments; we must grasp what Goethe meant, what lay behind his words when he stated that history cannot be learned through reason alone, but that history—if one immerses oneself in it to the point of bringing the subconscious into consciousness and placing it within the human context in such a way that we develop ideals through which we can rise to the challenge of present-day situations. It is not false prophecies—false prophecies will not arise in our consciousness—but rather the strength will arise, no matter where we find ourselves in life; we will know how to grasp the interconnection of facts and will be able to act out of natural necessity. Then what we come to know through a realistic examination of history will not take the form of false prophecies or all manner of divinations and the like, but rather of truly prophetic—that is, future-proof and forward-looking—action.

[ 56 ] History must first come into being—and will come into being only—when one brings oneself to view reality in a spirit-filled way. Then history will also develop into the true moral science; then history will be that which can give human beings the very best of all—namely, the right, understanding, reality-penetrating enthusiasm for life that does the right thing in the right place. And this is what life in the immediate present demands. Life in the immediate present teaches us many things; it also teaches us that we must meet the demand for a true historical perspective.