The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. The Science of the Supernatural and Moral-Social Ideas

[ 1 ] If I were to describe a fundamental characteristic of anthroposophically oriented spiritual scientific endeavor, I would say: One such fundamental characteristic is the striving for ideas, concepts, and notions about the world that are embedded in reality in a much deeper sense—or, I might say, permeated by reality—than the concepts, notions, and ideas that are rightly characteristic of the modern scientific worldview. This might certainly seem very strange at first, since many people believe that these scientific conceptions are precisely those that are most deeply rooted in reality. However, even if one sets aside what has been presented in the course of the three lectures on the humanities held this year, and looks solely at what discerning natural scientists themselves have stated regarding what natural science can say about the nature of that which underlies natural processes, one will come to the realization that even such natural scientists themselves are clear about the following: With the usual scientific ideas, which are so fruitful in their own field, one cannot penetrate the essence, the deeper causes of reality. How much have natural scientists in particular spoken about the limits of scientific knowledge! And I did, in fact, present a characteristic fact in the first of these lectures—the fact that one of Haeckel’s most important students, Oscar Hertwig, himself produced a fundamental and significant book in recent years in which he demonstrates the impossibility—he, the natural scientist, the biologist! —using precisely those scientific concepts that celebrated their greatest “triumphs” in the second half of the 19th century—to somehow approach the essence of life phenomena.

[ 2 ] As long as the aim is merely to penetrate the very essence of nature itself, the limitations of scientific imagination cannot even come to light. But it becomes apparent when human beings seek to apply the powers of the soul—which they employ for scientific knowledge—to moral and social life in the broadest sense. What in the natural sciences may remain a mere error or a mere one-sidedness—something open to discussion and which, over time, can indeed be corrected conceptually or through experience— becomes harmful—and leads to catastrophes of varying magnitude—when it is taken as the basis for work in moral and social life, which, after all, seeks to shape human community and society.

[ 3 ] One of the greatest catastrophes in human experience is the one we are currently facing. As strange as it may seem to some people today: to those who are able to grasp things in their deeper context, it is clear how what is now unfolding as such a tragic event for humanity is connected to the inadequate moral and social ideas that have been developing for centuries and that came to the fore particularly in the 19th century—a century so glorious in other respects. Pure science, pure knowledge, and pure theory correct themselves painlessly when inadequate concepts are introduced into them. Reality, however, corrects itself through pain and catastrophe when actions are introduced that arise from an inadequate understanding and grasp of that reality.

[ 4 ] Now, if we wish to apply anthroposophically oriented spiritual science to moral and social life, we will have to turn to ways of thinking that may seem remote—remote only because they still appear very, very foreign to the present day and to current habits of thought, due to the prejudices with which they are met. I must begin by pointing out how the view of the human being, particularly under the influence of the modern worldview, has become relatively one-sided— one-sided to such an extent that even far-sighted natural scientists today are already exploring paths other than those in which such great hopes were placed in the 19th century—not merely to penetrate the purely natural aspect of the human being, but to penetrate the full, comprehensive human being, in all of his or her being. For only when his entire being is taken into account can it become a reality in social and moral life, and can any influence on social and moral life be of any benefit.

[ 5 ] Now, it might seem strange to say: For a complete, comprehensive view of human life, it is necessary not only to consider this person as he or she goes about daily life while awake—the life that unfolds through sensory perception and through the intellect, which is built upon that perception—; but rather, in order to grasp the whole human being, one must also take into account the other side of life, which, alternating with the waking state, continually occurs in human life and human existence: sleep, and what emerges from the life of sleep—the life of dreams. Indeed, discerning natural scientists today are attempting to gain some insight into this life of dreaming by seeking to take the subconscious into account alongside what is present to the human being in waking daytime consciousness. Yet even a mere observation of the dream life reveals that such attempts today—precisely because they seek to distance themselves from what is known as anthroposophically oriented spiritual science—still operate with inadequate means of knowledge.

[ 6 ] What spiritual science is able to reveal through the approaches described yesterday leads us to the realization that this life of sleep and dreams flows into the totality of human life in a far more intense way than is believed in a one-sided view of nature. And I must emphasize a statement that still seems paradoxical to the widest circles today, but which will be increasingly confirmed as we move from abstract concepts to concepts that are full of life and saturated with reality. I could present a comparative psychology of sleep, tracing it from the plant and animal worlds up into the human world. In doing so, it would become clear how spiritual science—as has often been emphasized here—faces greater challenges than a one-sided view of nature, because it cannot start from “simple concepts,” as people so readily say in their comfortable thinking, and use them to encompass the entire world. Just as death—as we had to emphasize in an earlier lecture—is something different for the spiritual scientist in the plant, animal, and human kingdoms, so too is sleep, so too is the life of dreams, something different for spiritual science in animal life and something different in human life. And spiritual science concludes—by observing the actual life of the soul through the means that have been discussed—that what we experience as human “I”-consciousness, this very central, this very focal essence of the human being, can only exist because we experience sleep, in alternation with waking daytime consciousness, in the way we experience it as human beings. The trivial view, of course—as I have already mentioned here—is that a person must sleep because they are tired. It is a trivial view, and the example of the retiree who sits down to a lecture or a concert—and who is certainly not tired—but has already fallen asleep after the first five minutes, proves sufficiently through experience that the theory of fatigue certainly does not hold true for sleep. Only those who understand sleep as an inner rhythm—a rhythm of longer duration that must permeate life—will truly understand it, just as we learned yesterday that such a rhythm of life is one of the elements that correspond, so to speak, to the human soul as the body’s instruments.

[ 7 ] In a sense, just as—I repeat this, as it were, from yesterday—a single note can never be music, but only in combination with other notes can the impression of melody or harmony arise, so too must a person lead their life in such a way that one state of life follows another, that one state of life interacts with another over time. Rhythmic processes must underlie human spiritual life. And it is precisely these rhythmic processes that become a reality in the alternating states of sleep and wakefulness and in the dreams that interweave within them.

[ 8 ] It is commonly believed that one can understand this state of sleep—the “dream state”—by observing it as it presents itself to ordinary observation. Yet it is precisely when one views it in this way that one will never arrive at a true understanding of the nature of the dream state or the state of sleep as such. Only when one is able to grasp what spiritual science reveals as the eternal essence of the human being, only then will one be able to recognize that when a human being withdraws from waking daily life, when he severs every connection with physical life that leads to sensory and intellectual life—that is, when he sinks back into sleep or into a dream—then what belongs to his eternal being is far more active within him than during the waking state. It is only that human beings, as they are in the present world period, are still not very developed in relation to this eternal aspect of their being. When this eternal aspect does not have the foundation of physical life, as it does in waking daily life, but is dependent on itself, as in sleep, then what manifests within this eternal aspect certainly points to states other than those that occur between birth and death—yet it points in such a way that direct perception or direct observation cannot reveal its true nature at all.

[ 9 ] Therefore, spiritual science shows that the nature of, for example, dreams is misunderstood in the most diverse ways. One misunderstands it when one approaches the dream in the old, superstitious way, when one focuses on the dream images, focuses on the content of the dream, and then believes that the “dream can make some kind of prophetic statement about life.” But one also misunderstands the nature of the dream when one is a true modern Enlightenment thinker and merely smiles at those who have seen something prophetic in the ‘dream.’

[ 10 ] Spiritual science shows: It is true that there is something prophetic in dreams. What works in dreams, what is active within them, is indeed the essence within us that is so closely connected to our future that it even encompasses that part of us which we carry through the gate of death. The forces of our eternal soul truly act prophetically in dreams. However, what emerges as images—that in which the dream is clothed—is a reminiscence from the past. One might say: The dream is, by its very nature, distorted because the human being is unable to truly work with what acts as his or her essence within the dream. He clothes that which cannot yet come to his consciousness in the images provided by his body, by certain sensory impressions, and by certain memories from his past life. All of this is a distortion of the dream; it is a mask of the dream. And just as it is superstition to attach any significance to the images that appear in a dream, there is a healthy kernel of truth in the superstition that the dream has something prophetic about it. However, this prophetic aspect cannot come to light through mere perception or the ordinary observation of the dream. From a spiritual scientific perspective, the dream is precisely something of extraordinary significance.

[ 11 ] But what is important is something else entirely. What is important is that, according to common belief, people are thought to live and dream at certain times and to be awake—fully awake—at other times. Spiritual science demonstrates, based on its actual observation of the soul, that this is one of the most erroneous views one can possibly hold. What lives within us as a state during dreaming and sleeping does not cease when we are awake; these states continue uninterrupted into our waking daily life; they are merely drowned out by what constitutes waking daily life. This waking daily life, which unfolds in the imagination, is, so to speak, a bright light that drowns out what remains more subconscious, what flows beneath the current of this waking daily consciousness. But while we feel our waking daytime consciousness flowing through our soul, while we experience what passes through this flow, a continuous dream life—one that permeates our entire waking existence—continues to flow subconsciously and obscurely within us, and a life of sleep continues to flow. We dream by developing feelings, emotions, and passions alongside clear, bright images. In the first of the lectures given here a few weeks ago, I drew attention to how what spiritual science seeks to connect has always been discovered by individual, exceptionally insightful people as if in flashes of insight, and I already pointed out at that time a person with such flashes of insight: the great aesthetician and philosopher Friedrich Theodor Vischer. When he wrote his essay on Volkel’s book Die Traum-Phantasie (The Dream-Imagination), he pointed out that no one understands passion, no one understands emotions, and no one understands this remarkable life—which we characterized here yesterday in terms of its physical and spiritual aspects—who does not understand the nature of the dream. Vischer, however, was labeled a spiritualist for this assertion—one might find it hard to believe, but it happened—by the very “intelligent,” by the very enlightened people of our time, of course. So we continue to dream in our ordinary lives. Except that when we are awake, we do not experience the images of the dream, but rather what now unfolds within us with the same clarity or obscurity of consciousness, and which possesses the same degree of reality as the dream: feelings, emotions, passions.

[ 12 ] What lives in the life of the imagination also lives in feelings, emotions, and passions. But it lives there in the same way that ideas live in a dream. However, when we develop a feeling, a passion, or an affect—be it good or bad—it is not the underlying images, just as they underlie a dream, that come to our consciousness; rather, the feeling, the affect, and the passion themselves come to our dream-like consciousness.

[ 13 ] Likewise, human volition—this mysterious volition, which remains a mystery to a genuine view of the world—is rooted in sleep, which permeates waking consciousness. Why have discussions about the nature of the will—about free will—arisen time and again throughout the course of humanity’s spiritual development? Why have so many arguments for and against been developed in this very area? And why have philosophers never agreed on how the will actually functions in human beings—whether as free or unfree? The reason is that, for ordinary waking consciousness, what takes place in the act of willing is overlooked. Even though our thoughts during waking consciousness are quite clear, even though we are, so to speak, permeated by brightness, we remain oblivious to the actual process of willing, the actual experience of willing. The deepest aspects of human being reside in this willing, but they are not immediately present to waking consciousness.

[ 14 ] Now, spiritual science shows that, through what it calls “contemplative consciousness,” it looks into the supersensible world. Through what it calls imaginative and inspired knowledge on the first two levels, it penetrates into that world which, for ordinary consciousness, appears only as the ebbing and flowing, chaotic—one might say, in the sense I have just described—“world of dreams.” For the human being with ordinary physical consciousness, as they stand in the outer sensory world, only what constitutes the false paths of dreams surges and billows upward from the world that is precisely the world of the eternal and essential—the world that surges and weaves beneath the outer sensory realm. In imaginative supersensible knowledge, in inspired supersensible knowledge, spiritual science truly raises up from these depths the true form of that which lives, weaves, and surges there. And in intuitive knowledge, what is otherwise slept through—what is completely covered by the darkness of consciousness—is brought to light.

[ 15 ] From this, however, it will become clear to you that human life is not governed solely by what is perceived by ordinary waking consciousness, but that—because dreams and sleep also permeate waking daily life—human life is governed by what is real, and true—that which is inaccessible to ordinary waking consciousness, which cannot be grasped in concepts or images, but which can be grasped in concepts and images only by the perceiving consciousness. So let us look at human social life; let us look at human life as it is to be encompassed by social, moral, and political concepts—we find that, in reality, what lives within this human life is what is merely dreamed, what is even slept through.

[ 16 ] This is the secret of social life; this is, in fact, the secret of historical life; this is the secret of everything that can be called the moral and social existence of human beings. History cannot be grasped with concepts derived from the natural sciences—concepts that arise from the habits of thought characteristic of the natural sciences and belong entirely and exclusively to ordinary waking consciousness—nor can moral and social life be grasped with these concepts.

[ 17 ] Yesterday I pointed out that anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is meant to restore to humanity something it has lost. I said that, instinctively, the impulses that spiritual science is meant to bring to consciousness were already present in earlier centuries and millennia. It is interesting to consider, from this perspective of human development, the role of modern natural science. If one inquires about this modern natural science and its significance merely in the way that is so often done today, one arrives at a completely false conception. People always assume that this natural science has become what it is because the concepts it provides correspond to pure truth and absolute reality. Anyone with insight into these matters knows that the following view is entirely true: Anyone who stands firmly on the ground of natural science must at the same time be a doubter, a skeptic, because they know that these scientific concepts correspond entirely only to a very superficial aspect of the truth. These scientific concepts did not arise in the course of human development because humans were stupid, foolish, and childish for millennia, as many believe who always proceed from the principle that we have “come so wonderfully far”; they did not come into being because humans were childish for so long and have now suddenly become intelligent and will remain so—or at least think they will— as long as the Earth endures. Rather, they have come about for an entirely different reason.

[ 18 ] If we look back to the times when a more instinctive understanding encompassed both nature and the spirit, we see that people then, on the one hand, applied concepts to nature in such a way that they spoke of natural phenomena and natural beings as if these were also spiritual; and when they spoke of their own spiritual nature, materialistic notions came into play. Even in our words “spirit” and “soul,” materialistic notions still linger, if we understand these concepts precisely from a historical perspective. Human beings were still so intertwined with nature that they did not distinguish their spiritual nature more precisely from nature itself. The more recent development of human history means that human beings have detached themselves from natural existence. And it is precisely through this detachment that they have come to establish such concepts of nature as those that constitute the very content of the modern scientific way of thinking, which no longer contains anything spiritual. To reach such a stage of development, human beings have developed these scientific concepts: for their own sake. Not because this is the sole truth leading to salvation that one has finally arrived at, but because humanity could only attain a certain level of freedom and self-determination by detaching itself from nature and establishing concepts intended to encompass nature—concepts that can offer nothing to the soul.

[ 19 ] When a person holds such concepts of nature that they can no longer perceive their own soul life within them—when they feel completely alienated from nature, as was not the case in ancient times but certainly is under today’s scientific worldview—then that person must all the more be directed toward their own inner powers, which we referred to yesterday. Only then will their self-awareness be able to awaken in the right way. We are in a transitional phase. Natural science will give rise to a spiritualism in the understanding of the life of the soul. Scientific materialism has the great merit of leading human beings to a high level of self-reflection, precisely because it strips nature of everything spiritual.

[ 20 ] When one views the development of modern natural science in this way, it certainly appears different; it appears—if I may use Lessing’s expression—to be designed for the “education of the human race,” then the concepts of natural science have been developed so that human beings no longer, as in the past, infuse nature with spirit in a mystical way, but rather so that they free themselves in their view of nature from all that is spiritual, while at the same time being compelled to draw from the depths of their own being that which has spiritualized the spiritual, that which can be perceived as spiritualized within the spiritual realm. Then, especially if one is a researcher of the spirit, one can see something great in the justified materialism of natural science. And it is nothing but a slander against anthroposophically oriented spiritual science to set it in any way in opposition to natural science. On the contrary, it points to the great and significant role that the development of the natural sciences has played in the vast educational process of the human race throughout Earth’s history.

[ 21 ] But what appears as a scientific concept—what is absorbed into the soul as a scientific concept—is, precisely because what I have just explained is true, not suited to encompassing this life that we can call moral and social life; it is not suited to forming concepts, perceptions, and ideas from which actions in moral and social life can arise. What a person perceives as nature, they perceive in waking consciousness. Moral and social life, and historical experience, are not based on the same kinds of impulses that waking daily consciousness possesses—impulses that are entirely suited to the apprehension of nature—but rather on idealistic impulses of a kind that otherwise come to light only through the life of dreams.

[ 22 ] And so the humanities arrive at the strange conclusion that the historical life of humanity and the social life of humanity cannot be encompassed by a spiritual being who has been shaped by the natural sciences and now wishes to write history according to the model of the natural sciences and to view the social sciences according to the model of the natural sciences.

[ 23 ] What attempts have been made—especially in the present day, amid the advances of the natural sciences—using inadequate concepts to understand social life with the methods of inquiry that have proven successful in the natural sciences!

[ 24 ] One need only recall the English philosopher Herbert Spencer, who, in his comprehensive worldview, sought to encompass everything real in which human beings are situated, including the sociological structure of humanity. He sought to apply the concepts of embryology—the concepts of embryonic life—to the structure of social life, to the structure of human moral and social life: Embryologically, the embryo develops in such a way that, in its early stages, one can distinguish the ectoderm, from which the nervous system develops; the endoderm, from which other subordinate organs develop; and the mesoderm. From these three components, the human embryo gradually develops and matures: these are the three components of the germ. In moral and social becoming, in moral and social development, Spencer also distinguishes three such impulses. He says: Just as the ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm are present in natural development, so too are they present in the social becoming of humankind. And he seeks to show: Just as the organic germ has the ectoderm, so in human development that which is militarily and politically strong—but primarily militarily strong—develops from the ectoderm, from the social ectoderm; that which is laboring, agricultural, and peace-loving develops from the endoderm; and the merchant class, the commercial class, develops from the mesoderm. Here, a parallel has been drawn between the stratifications of social and moral life and the stratifications of the organic embryo. It is, of course, the underlying premise of this view of the great English philosopher Herbert Spencer that, just as the nervous system develops from the ectoderm, so too must the most valuable elements of the state—and of human society—develop from that which corresponds to the ectoderm in social and moral life. Consequently, Spencer’s worldview naturally depends on identifying the truly valuable element within militarism. It is in militarism that political life—the higher form of life—is supposed to take shape. Just as nervous life emerges from the ectoderm, so too is the political—the true guiding essence—supposed to emerge from the military.

[ 25 ] For reasons that are easy to understand, I will refrain from further characterizing this peculiar view of the philosopher Herbert Spencer. But it is indeed necessary that we become aware of such things even in the present day. And I could now cite many, many examples drawn from all areas of intellectual life on earth, showing how people have attempted to apply scientific concepts to social life, time and again seeking to understand moral and social development in the same way that one understands the facts of nature.

[ 26 ] But the peculiar thing is that, in the course of human development, the ancient instinctive cognition—which encompassed both mind and body, matter and spirit— yet was not fully conscious cognition, has gradually, in the course of human development, through the purely external scientific knowledge of the inanimate, transitioned to the higher stages of cognition to which spiritual science points today: to the imaginative cognition of the beholding consciousness, to inspired cognition, and to intuitive cognition. Scientific knowledge is merely an intermediate stage between the instinctive cognition that was characteristic of ancient times and the higher cognition that must arise for humanity from the depths of the soul itself. I have characterized this in my book The Riddle of Man and, more recently, again in my book The Riddles of the Soul. Contemplative consciousness is divided into imaginative consciousness—which is, in a sense, the lowest stage—inspired consciousness, a higher stage, and intuitive consciousness, the next stage. The peculiar thing is simply that, for the observation of the external natural world, this instinctive, ancient form of cognition had to give way to scientific concepts. Following this transition, the other, spiritual forms of cognition will emerge.

[ 27 ] Social and moral life cannot make this transition. It is attempted; but it cannot be made. Instinctive cognition—instinctive life within the state and in sociopolitical ideas—must transition directly, bypassing the natural-scientific mode of thought, into the conscious cognition of the very same world that humanity dreams of in history and in social life. What humanity dreams of in history and social life—can only be consciously recognized in imaginative, inspired, and intuitive consciousness. And in this realm, there is no transition from instinctive to imaginative consciousness via the natural scientific. It is bound to have disastrous consequences if one attempts to make this transition, if one seeks to incorporate into the social order concepts and ideas that are modeled after scientific concepts. This has happened everywhere over the course of the last few centuries, particularly in the 19th century, and right up to the present day. Scientific ideas have catastrophic effects when they flow out of the human mind and find their way into human action. The transition must be direct from the old instinctive experience—which gave rise to myth and fantasy—to imaginative cognition.

[ 28 ] Thus, someone might say with a smile, in a mocking tone: Therefore, the view that one can master social and moral life using concepts drawn from the natural sciences must not prevail at all; rather, this social and moral life can be healthily permeated only when it is recognized that these concepts must be deepened through the spiritual sciences! — Someone may scoff; they may turn a blind eye to certain great signs of the times, to that clear language spoken by the catastrophes of the present day. But this is the case. And just as certain circles are already beginning to take notice of spiritual science—which has something to say when it comes to shaping reality, a reality that is not the figment of some dreamers’ imagination, but one that truly has something to say regarding the shaping of reality— so too will the voices grow ever more numerous—those who will recognize that when one needs life-affirming concepts for moral and social existence, one must turn to spiritual science, which alone can offer a substitute for what abstract concepts—which have their full validity in the natural sciences—can never provide for human moral and social existence. That is why spiritual science has emerged in our time not out of arbitrary agitation on behalf of individual people, but as a result of the signs of our times, as a result of profound historical necessities.

[ 29 ] Let us take a look at some of the ideas from an earlier era that we may encounter. I have already pointed out here how such views—as those that prevailed at the beginning of this war—arose from the imagination, or rather, from the very nature of the imagination that has developed entirely under the influence of scientific materialism: namely, that this war could not last longer than four to six months! Discerning, highly intelligent people have advocated this as a theory.

[ 30 ] But we need not limit ourselves to minor figures if we wish to consider what is at stake here. History—as the science of moral and social life—is, after all, not very old. It is commonly believed to be an ancient science. In reality, however, as it is practiced today, it is barely a hundred years old! Anyone can see this for themselves by examining the history of history itself. When history first emerged as a discipline, one of its earliest teachers was none other than the great Schiller. And perhaps it is fitting to mention a great figure precisely here, where we wish to cite examples of what is so often said—that one can learn from history for the moral and social life of humankind. How often do we hear people say today—now that every day demands that we pass judgment on this or that, which must be felt and perceived under the influence of tragic events—“History teaches this,” “History teaches that.” — Well, if we look at these lessons of history, let us examine them in the context of one of the greatest: When Schiller took up his professorship in Jena—it was 1789—he characterized a lesson from history that had become clear to him in the following way. It is certainly good to heed such words. In his famous inaugural address, with which he began his history lectures at the University of Jena, Schiller spoke about the philosophical mind and the “bread scholar” in history; he said: “The community of European states seems to have been transformed into one large family. The members of this household may be hostile toward one another, but hopefully they will no longer tear one another apart.” That is the lesson that even a figure as great as Schiller drew from history! One must bear in mind: these words, meant to be prophetic, were spoken in 1789! What tearing apart of the European peoples occurred shortly thereafter, and what has befallen this Europe once again today! What kind of prophet was the historian—even a historian of such genius as Schiller? Why is all this so? Hundreds upon hundreds of examples could be cited to show that a view of history of this kind, as is still common today, offers nothing for life. Why? For the simple reason that such a view of history relies on concepts derived from external reality—the subject matter of the natural sciences. These concepts are inadequate for grasping the life of history and moral-social activity, which people, as they are in life, can only dream of.

[ 31 ] What the history of life is can only be dreamed. And if we are to have concepts that intervene in this historical, in this moral and social life—concepts that truly encompass it, that truly embrace it, and that can even master it—then these concepts must, of course, be scientifically clear, just like other scientific concepts, but what is essential is that they clearly grasp what, for ordinary consciousness, comes into being only in the dreams of history and of moral and social life.

[ 32 ] I know that it is still a paradoxical truth today when it is stated that what constitutes historical becoming is not experienced by human beings in such a way that this experience operates within the concepts of waking daily life. But it is a truth; a truth that must be recognized. Only then will it also be recognized what kind of concepts, notions, ideas, and ideals are needed to master this life.

[ 33 ] Herman Grimm—please forgive me for sharing this personal anecdote today—has often told me in conversation—he, the witty art historian who has portrayed Raphael, Michelangelo, and other artistic periods in such a brilliant and insightful manner—: If one wishes to have a historical perspective that truly encompasses the historical, then one cannot present history in the terms used by the natural scientist; rather, one must present history—well, he said, since he had no concepts, no notions of imaginative insight—from the perspective of the creative imagination of peoples. — One must therefore start from what, so to speak, remains in the subconscious; one must first bring it up into consciousness—but into a consciousness different from the ordinary one. A sense of what is true in this realm underlay this intuition of Herman Grimm.

[ 34 ] Anyone who therefore believes they can encompass historical or sociopolitical life with concepts rooted in scientific thinking—and these are all of our popular concepts today, which we try to apply to everything—is very much mistaken. For anyone who sees through things knows, for example, what the surest way is to ruin a community in a relatively short time: to consign it to decline. Establish a parliament in that community, staffed entirely with professor-type theorists who think in scientific terms; let them make the laws, let them formulate the legal provisions for the community: then, through such a parliament of scientifically minded theorists, you will very soon bring about the downfall of the community. For they will seek to translate into reality nothing but concepts and ideas that can have no reality in historical and socio-moral life, but must instead transform this socio-moral life into a corpse.

[ 35 ] Herman Grimm’s observation is therefore very astute when he says: It is curious that the English historian Gibbon—this exemplary English historian—when describing the first Christian centuries, does not depict the rising Christian life, the growth, the developing, the flourishing, but that, strangely enough, he is only able to depict the decline, the decadence of the old way of life, because, as an honest researcher, his concepts allow him to grasp only the decadent, the declining way of life. — The growing, flourishing, and rising life cannot be grasped by concepts derived from waking daily life, but only by concepts that immerse themselves in the very same stream of life into which humanity immerses itself when it is merely dreaming with ordinary consciousness.

[ 36 ] In more recent times, all these things have become particularly important for the simple reason that, especially in the 19th century, I would say, the scientific approach attempted to make its way into historical and socio-ethical life as well. And only a few have resisted this intrusion of the scientific mindset into historical life. But it has been done. It has been done brilliantly where this intrusion was carried out most consciously. And it was done most consciously by modern socialism, which sought to be entirely scientific. Socialism sought to place social and moral ideas entirely within the framework of a scientific perspective. Precisely in more recent times, when the natural sciences began their triumphant advance, this extreme tendency emerged: to view human life—specifically, social and moral human life—exclusively from the perspective of material interests, class struggles, the drive for surplus value, and so on, as has occurred in Marxism and in the materialist conception of history.

[ 37 ] Spiritual science is not based on the premise that one must apply an “either/or” approach to everything—I must point this out from the outset, otherwise I could be seriously misunderstood, especially on a matter such as this—; spiritual science is based on the premise that human concepts generally represent one-sided views. I have often used the following comparison: When the researcher of the spirit rises to the level of concepts, viewing them as illuminations or even images of reality from various angles—just as four photographs depict a tree from four sides in four different forms—then one can portray the world in pantheistic, theistic, monotheistic, or polytheistic terms. One can see all these things in their true, genuine meaning only if one regards them, so to speak, as one-sided reflections of true reality, which can never be captured in an abstract concept but only in a living oneness with reality itself. Therefore, you must not interpret what I am about to say as if I were trying to completely destroy everything that has emerged in recent times under the influence of socialist thought. That would never even occur to me. For this worldview has produced many valuable things, and it has certainly had to fight hard to establish itself. Those who are the truly most enlightened and significant official guardians of spiritual life—who are responsible for ensuring that correct concepts and ideas emerge—have, quite simply, simply rejected in a negative manner whatever came from this side, until they allowed themselves to be reined in, and now not only the sparse concepts of the older academic socialism, but even much more substantial concepts of socialism have become not just salon-ready—no, but even suitable for the academic podium.

[ 38 ] Such matters lie outside the scope of the humanities, which do not take sides but seek only to view the facts objectively. Yet it must be said: This perspective of modern socialism—in particular, the materialist conception of history—is essentially oriented toward the natural sciences. What are they, in truth?

[ 39 ] For the researcher of the spirit, what Karl Marx, for example, presented with such dialectical acuity and compelling logic is an expression of the social and moral impulses that humanity had dreamed of during the four centuries leading up to the mid-19th century. Karl Marx described the impulses that had been clearly present over three to four centuries, beginning in the 16th century. But they existed in such a way that they did not live in waking, everyday consciousness; rather, humanity dreamed of these things in its impulses, in its social and moral ideas. And when, in fact, the “dream had already been dreamt to the end,” when, in fact, a social and moral order had already come into being—one that corresponded to the dreams of the past four centuries—it was then that Karl Marx wrote his books about what had already become a corpse, from which an awakening was to take place. In reality, what Karl Marx sought to present as a program had already existed in the time that preceded him—in fact, even before his ideas had come into being.

[ 40 ] But reality demands that now—as I have characterized it—by transcending the scientific mode of thinking, social and moral ideas be permeated by what constitutes higher consciousness, supersensory consciousness, and the grasping of the supersensory impulses existing in social and moral life. In the past, one could grasp this instinctively. And even what Karl Marx wrote about was still instinctively imbued with this sense. The new era must no longer allow itself merely to dream, merely to experience social and moral ideas instinctively; it must know how to immerse them in imaginative cognition—in the recognition of that which reigns supersensibly in the human historical and sociopolitical current in which humanity is enmeshed.

[ 41 ] If one wishes to be trivial, one can say of every era that it is a “time of transition.” The question is always what is transitioning. In our time, however, the old instinctive cognition is giving way to conscious cognition. In the realm of the view of nature, our age has entered the intermediate stage of the natural sciences. In the social sphere, it must find the direct transition from instinctive socio-political feeling—as it was lived out mystically in ancient times through old instinctive conceptions, and as it has been carried over, for example, into Roman law—it must find the transition to the creative. It must also find this transition to the creative realm where, I might say, moral and social ideas directly intervene in the very shaping of humanity: in the field of education. With purely intellectual concepts, as they present themselves to waking, everyday consciousness, one cannot be an educator, nor a politician, nor anyone who participates in shaping social life in this or that sphere. A time will come when people will think about what is today called political economy, and about what is today presented as social-political theories, will be viewed—with a smile—just as one would smile today if some theorist calling himself an aesthetician were to write down model examples of how a proper opera or symphony ought to be—a theorist who cannot compose, who can only view a symphony or an opera from an aesthetic-scientific perspective, and who cannot himself create from the life of the imagination. If he were to present that model example, people would laugh.

[ 42 ] As strange as it may still sound today: What appears, based on mere concepts of waking daytime consciousness, as “national economy”—a concept that has proven so inadequate—will be viewed as such. People will smile and understand it as a mistake that was understandable in the age of the natural sciences. But it will be overcome when the consideration of social and moral life must flow into a conceptual world that stands in living connection with the supersensible reality—a reality that brings the supersensible into legal life, the life of duty, spiritual life permeated by social love, and the organizational life of communities.

[ 43 ] And one can even specify in detail that anyone who wishes to participate in the state-social organization of a community can gain a perspective only from what I would call a scientific approach—one that has something artistic about it, that is itself artistic and creative, if I may use that expression. It is not aestheticians but composers who must create operas and symphonies. Social concepts cannot be found by theorists who think in scientific terms, but rather by those who are imbued with concepts that arise from this living reality, which otherwise emerges only in the impulses of dreams, in the life of feelings, moods, emotions, passions, and in the life of the will itself.

[ 44 ] And the social organization of the community can arise only from imaginative insight. That life which permeates social communities—that life of the dream which flows out of the human being in love, in the love of one human being for another, in mutual understanding—this life, which then becomes a life of duty, can only find its external expression in the community under the influence of inspired concepts of the contemplative consciousness.

[ 45 ] And legal life—this legal life— which even today remains entirely steeped in the echoes of ancient legal concepts that still stem from the instinctive consciousness of human beings—whether the consciousness of the Germanic or the consciousness of the Romance peoples—in Roman law, as an instinctive manifestation, only concepts survive today that in reality capture nothing of what originally lived under the Roman legal concept— this legal life, which remains so obscure to scientific observation; this legal life, which is being tampered with by bringing all manner of possible and impossible modern psychological concepts—viewed from a scientific perspective—into the courtroom; this legal life will only be able to flourish and become creative once again when it is permeated by intuitive insight.

[ 46 ] Truly, the anthroposophical view of life is not about a few dreamers, but about people who are to become capable of stepping powerfully into life, seizing this life, and working together within it; it is not a matter of establishing isolated colonies of a few people who want to live comfortably in their own way, eating vegetarian meals somewhere in a mountainous region and engaging in similar frivolities; rather, it is a matter of understanding the signs of the times and knowing what is truly historically necessary in the course of human development. Anthroposophy is not a hobby for individual groups; anthroposophy is something demanded by the spirit of our time itself.

[ 47 ] Everything that today exists so widely as pedagogical rules will give way to the insight that can be gained through the humanities regarding nature and the essence of the human being. Preconceived rules and preconceived laws will mean nothing to future educators. Instead, educators will be imbued with an understanding of the emerging, developing human being that transforms into direct, perceptive love. They will learn something entirely different from theoretical pedagogy; they will learn to stand within life itself in its fullness. They will therefore be able to meet the needs of every individual being. People will come to understand how freedom and necessity interpenetrate in life.

[ 48 ] One will come to understand that moral and social life, viewed according to the model of the natural sciences, would be roughly like this: suppose I have an object here, a second object, and a third object. I shine a light on the first object, letting rays of light fall upon it, and it is illuminated; now I shine a light on the second object, and the first becomes dark; now I let the second go dark and shine a light on the third. I observe this. As I observe this, I say: The first object was illuminated first; that is the cause of the second’s illumination; the second is the cause of the third’s illumination. Such an illusion—as if the first object, illuminated from the outside, acted as the cause of the second object’s illumination, and the second as the cause of the third’s—underlies that historical mode of observation which always regards the following fact as the effect of the preceding fact, and the preceding fact, in turn, as the effect of the fact preceding it. Just as there is absolutely no connection between the illumination of the first object, the illumination of the second, and the illumination of the third object when they are illuminated by a common light source—and just as one must view them in this way if one wishes to understand why one body after another becomes illuminated—so too does no such causal connection exist in sequential history as it does in nature. Rather, the fact is that a common light illuminates the successive events. And one must penetrate this light through a higher, supersensible understanding.

[ 49 ] What works well in the natural sciences—breaking things down into their individual parts, examining them in detail—does not work in the humanities. Nor does it work in sociopolitical life. For the humanities, a detailed description of sociopolitical life would be just as—forgive the comparison, but perhaps, if I use it, it will aptly convey what needs to be said—as if a chess player were to meticulously map out exactly which moves he intends to make, and were to believe that once he sat down at the chessboard with an opponent, he could carry out those moves he had first conceived. He cannot carry them out, because that depends on his opponent’s moves! But that does not mean that, if one has mastered the rules of chess, one cannot be a good chess player. As a chess player, one can, so to speak, hold one’s own. And the same is true if one wants to master life. Only in the realm of nature do laws exist that are strictly defined. When you face life, you must possess the skills necessary to rise to its challenge. You must always be prepared for something from the abundance of life to confront you, just as your opponent does in a game of chess.

[ 50 ] For the educator, every single child is something like a partner to a chess player—every single child. Educational science will take on forms through which it equips people with the skills to live, enabling them to penetrate into every single human being. Such a life in the socio-political sphere, however, can only emerge from a genuine recognition of what truly lies within human lives and human beings—what is dreamed of as history, what is dreamed of as socio-political impulses. How much is still being neglected in this regard today!

[ 51 ] In the spiritual sciences—I just want to point this out—a start was made many years ago to study the nature of the Western, Central, and Eastern peoples of Europe; to examine what impulses are truly alive there; to observe how the various expressions of the soul are distributed geographically and historically; and to determine which impulses are actually present. Only through knowledge of the impulses that are truly present can that imagination, that inspiration, arise which can find expression in moral and social ideas, as they emerge in social life, in the life of duty, and in legal life, in the manner already indicated. Steps have also been taken in this area. I would like to point out a very promising beginning right here in Switzerland, because here, for the first time, a specific detail has been extracted in a legal context from an understanding of the impulses at work in everyday life. In this regard, I would like to point to the book published by Dr. Roman Boos on the “Collective Bargaining Agreement under Swiss Law,” a book that, for the first time, captures certain concepts and institutions existing in legal life from their true essential substance, from their very essence: The Collective Bargaining Agreement under Swiss Law by Dr. Roman Boos.

[ 52 ] In recent times, however, various attempts have been made to understand, based on the psychological and social nature of human beings, how laws and impulses gradually come into play. For example, an American has written a very interesting book—I don’t know if he still stands by it today; Roosevelt wrote a foreword to it, though it is less significant than the book itself—this American has written a book in which he seeks to show how peoples are divided into two groups: one group consists of the rising, growing, and progressive peoples, while the other consists of the declining peoples, those falling into decadence. Brooks Adams, the American, describes the spiritual nature of the rising nations as follows: It stems from a fundamental spiritual quality of these nations, from the imaginative-warrior spirit; thus, nations that have a future are endowed with an imaginative life of the spirit and with warrior impulses. — I am not the one saying this; it is the judgment of the American Brooks Adams! And those nations that are falling into decadence—those that have no future, that have only a past behind them, a similar past in their warlike and imaginative lives—these are the industrial and scientific nations.

[ 53 ] This is, of course, one-sided. But even these most one-sided perspectives show that an attempt has already been made to find, based on what is real, a way to master life through truly moral and social ideas. However, one cannot grasp life in its entirety using concepts that are based solely on the model of the natural sciences. One can only grasp it by penetrating into the depths—the supersensory depths—of this life. And this can only be achieved through the contemplative consciousness employed by spiritual science.

[ 54 ] I could only offer a few hints. In individual lectures, I can, after all, only provide inspiration. It is easy to attack spiritual science today, easy to refute it, because it can only ever offer suggestions. So it is, of course, child’s play for someone who listens to one or two lectures to come up with all sorts of refutations and the harshest criticism. But spiritual science is not yet in such a fortunate position today that it has countless university chairs at its disposal, as other sciences do. That, too, will come. And then the criticism of the caliber that still exists today against spiritual science will fall silent. Such things have, after all, manifested themselves in the most diverse ways throughout the course of human development. They will unfold just as these things have unfolded. But spiritual science today can only offer inspiration. Even with regard to social and moral ideas, it can offer only inspiration.

[ 55 ] And when one finally takes stock of everything that has been outlined today, one could bring it to a climax by showing that, under the influence of living moral and social ideas, the community must also develop in such a way that the human being as a whole—as a total being—can develop within this community. But this total being includes what I explained yesterday: the independent, eternal nature of the human being—this independent, eternal nature of which I was able to say yesterday that it contains the idea of freedom.

[ 56 ] The highest of all social and moral ideas is this idea of freedom. No community will be able to realize the idea of freedom within itself unless it is grounded in transcendental ideas. For the supersensible—which can be free—can flourish only where the structure of the community is based on supersensible impulses, feelings, concepts, and ideas. The ideas of ordinary, waking daily consciousness—which have become so gloriously significant for the natural sciences—do not operate in the realm where social-moral ideas operate. If a person wishes to have an impact in this life, they must engage in this moral and social life with a different aspect of their being—one other than the aspect that is developed through the scientific mode of thinking.

[ 57 ] One could say: The great figures of the past already glimpsed, in fleeting flashes of insight, what it was all about. And just as I was able to point out yesterday, in a different way, toward the end of my talk, the spirit that is one of the greatest in the course of human spiritual life—the spiritual orientation that I myself represent, which I would most like to call “Goetheanism”—so too may I point to Goethe again today, toward the end, in order to summarize intuitively what I have stated. He did not yet have spiritual science. But when he looked upon historical life—which is, after all, the embodiment of social and moral life—and sought to understand what underlies this social and moral life as it is embodied in history, if I may put it that way, remarkable words, beautiful words, came to him when he said: “The best thing we have from history is the enthusiasm it arouses.”

[ 58 ] What wonder lies in such a statement! I said that Friedrich Theodor Vischer—V-Vischer—had said: “One cannot understand passions, emotions, or the life of the feelings unless one understands dreams.” — Goethe looks at what humanity experiences throughout history, at the “dream of history.” He knows instinctively, intuitively, that humanity dreams as it lives history; that is, historical impulses do not play out in concepts similar to those of the natural sciences, but rather in what unfolds within the dream-sphere of historical experience. That is why the best we have from history is not that “fable convenue” found in history books—which we revere today as history, but which offers nothing more than the corpse, the corpse that has already been killed—not that which unfolds as the stream of humanity in socio-political becoming.

[ 59 ] And Goethe knows: It is not what is written in history books that people gain from history, but rather what may be connected to this dream of history—a good quality, a creative quality: the enthusiasm that history inspires.

[ 60 ] In this way, he has, in a sense, intuitively articulated a great truth—a truth that must become a force for reform if humanity is to move beyond catastrophic events such as those we are experiencing today.

[ 61 ] But this truth can be supplemented by pointing out that one cannot intervene in social -moral life; rather, it can be achieved through concepts that are much more closely related to life itself, much more intimately connected with it—ideas that are fully immersed in this life, as sought after by anthroposophically oriented spiritual science.

[ 62 ] Stronger forces are needed than the non-creative ideas in history—the very ones that even historians dream of: what is needed is enthusiasm. Everything intended to enable human communities and social and moral life to unfold must spring from enthusiasm. But it must be the right kind of enthusiasm. And the right kind of enthusiasm can only be that which arises when what cannot be grasped by the natural sciences—but can be recognized through the union of the individual human being with the universally supersensible human through imagination, inspiration, and intuition—fills the soul in such a way that it becomes moral and social enthusiasm.

[ 63 ] Just as Goethe was able to say, on the one hand: “The best thing we have from history is the enthusiasm it arouses”—so the spiritual researcher might add: Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science seeks to penetrate the supersensible; it seeks to recognize the eternal, the immortal, and that which is in keeping with freedom in human life. Yet the best thing it wishes to give to humanity will be that it can and may instill the enthusiasm that can serve as a creative force for the highest thing humanity can bring into being on Earth: moral and social life, moral and social ideas.

[ 64 ] In this vein, I wanted to offer some hints and suggestions in this final lecture to show that spiritual science is not meant to be merely a theory, but a force that, arising from the innermost impulses of life, works together with genuine, true, and active human life—the kind we need. This is evident in these catastrophic times.