The Rudolf Steiner Archive

6. Findings from the Humanities on the Concepts of Freedom and Social and Moral Life

[ 1 ] Anyone who hears today about anthroposophical spiritual science, as it is meant in these reflections, very often forms the judgment—based on this or that piece of information they hear about the subject—that they are dealing with something that seeks to insert itself into contemporary spiritual life in a sectarian or similar manner. Especially since construction began on the building in Dornach near Basel to support this branch of spiritual science, both this building and the entire field of spiritual science have been cast into the mold—and molds are so very much in demand today—of a sectarian spiritual movement. And it is difficult to even begin to address such prejudices against anything. They take root more and more, and I would almost say: the more one does to counter them, the more vehemently they arise and the stronger the belief in them becomes.

[ 2 ] By way of introduction, however, I would like to note today that what underlies anthroposophically oriented spiritual science has absolutely nothing to do with any sectarian tendency or goal. Indeed, as understood here, this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science did not develop at all from any initially religious impulse; rather, it takes the position that what it seeks is a necessary endeavor of our time, precisely in light of the great and significant achievements of scientific thought over the course of the last few centuries and, in particular, in recent times.

[ 3 ] Scientific thinking, which has achieved so much in a certain respect, proves, upon closer examination, to be incapable of addressing the true enigmas of humanity that pertain to the realm of the spirit. It is precisely then—when scientific thinking achieves the most outstanding, the most significant, and the most apt results in its own field—that it proves incapable of addressing these questions. And there is a historical necessity for research in the humanities to emerge in modern times alongside the natural sciences, yet with the same seriousness with which the natural sciences themselves proceed.

[ 4 ] And so it is precisely the conviction and aspiration of this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science to refrain absolutely from interfering in any religious movement, to refrain absolutely from influencing any religious movement or this or that person’s religious conviction; on the contrary, it will lead people who have strayed from active participation in religious life back to that religious life. — But this is just an aside.

[ 5 ] But, as I said, I would like to briefly touch on a few points in this regard, because—at least on a deeper level—they are not entirely unrelated to the topic of this evening.

[ 6 ] I have often emphasized here and there that no one’s religious convictions are compromised by what is known as spiritual science. How often has it been emphasized, in particular, that spiritual science does not interfere in religious movements and, above all, does not wish to be—nor can it be, given the current conditions of our time—what might be described as the founding of a new religion, a new sect, or the like—how often has this been emphasized! Yet, precisely when this is emphasized, a reproach is very often leveled from a certain quarter, which goes something like this: “Just take a look at this spiritual science—it has nothing to say about this or that religious impulse.” — And then they criticize it for failing to address this or that. Yet this silence stems precisely from the tendency to ensure that the representatives of religious denominations, for their part, are not hindered in the work they are called upon to do. One simply does not want to interfere with the other. And one can then easily forge a weapon out of what is not undertaken in order not to violate some right. Of course, if one does the opposite, an opposition is also constructed out of it.

[ 7 ] Well, I just wanted to point out that anyone who traces the origins of spiritual scientific endeavors will find that they emerge as a direct development of the demands posed by natural science itself, when properly understood.

[ 8 ] However, upon closer examination of precisely such presuppositions as those discussed here the day before yesterday, it becomes apparent that this scientific approach—precisely because of what makes it great—must in turn prove inadequate for the very questions that are to form the subject of today’s discussions: the questions of moral and social life.

[ 9 ] Today, one often hears from various quarters that what has fostered the natural sciences—and what they have accomplished—must also be made fruitful for social or sociological perspectives, and for the integration of ethical and moral ideas into human society, and so on.

[ 10 ] Now I would like to begin with something we hear very often today. Today, people’s judgment is being challenged in the most diverse ways by the tragic, catastrophic event that all of humanity on Earth has entered into—one can certainly say that today— people’s judgment is being challenged in the most diverse ways to form an opinion about this or that aspect of what these great, profoundly life-altering, and sorrowful events bring. One person feels compelled, by virtue of their position and profession, to form an opinion about this or that aspect of what these sorrowful events bring; another will form a judgment purely out of the goodness of his heart, out of compassion for the fate of all humanity. And it is precisely from these significant, profoundly far-reaching events that the necessity has arisen for some to form a judgment about what we might broadly call the social life of humanity—the life of humanity within human society itself.

[ 11 ] Once again, one very often hears, when questions like these arise: What can one think about this or that? How can this or that issue be decided in light of today’s tragic events? — one very often hears the judgment: History teaches this or that. After all, history is nothing more than a record of what people believe they know about the course of social life up to the present.

[ 12 ] For many people, history is, understandably, the basis on which they seek to form a judgment as to how the events that have unfolded in human life up to this point—in this or that field—might develop in the future.

[ 13 ] Anyone who is fully engaged, in mind and spirit, with the events of our time will indeed have to admit that these events do not give many people the impression that something entirely new must be learned from them, that in many respects it is necessary not to remain stuck with the judgments one held four or five years ago regarding the impulses of human life.

[ 14 ] Anyone who is deeply involved in these events with a part of their soul will have to form this judgment of “re-learning.” This is perhaps one of the saddest symptoms of all: that this judgment based on re-learning has not yet taken root among broad segments of the population, even though these sad events have been going on for so long that there are still so many people today who believe they can apply the same judgment to certain matters today as they could have four or five years ago. The signs of the times, in particular, could teach us a great, great deal in this regard.

[ 15 ] I would just like to start by giving an example from contemporary history and then one from the broader scope of history.

[ 16 ] Those who study contemporary history know that so-called level-headed people—people who have formed their judgments based on what appears to be a careful examination of the facts—believed they could speak with complete authority when this war broke out: Given the general economic and social conditions that have now taken shape as a social structure within humanity, this war cannot last longer than four, at most six, months. — These are truly not insignificant people who arrived at this judgment, which they believed was deeply rooted in a proper understanding of what an expert on the circumstances could observe.

[ 17 ] How the events themselves have refuted such a seemingly sound judgment! How reluctant people still are to admit to themselves: Such sound judgments have been refuted, and we must learn anew. In such matters, we must learn anew. — One must not simply cling to the—understandably existing—prejudice that history teaches this or that. History has taught that a war cannot last longer than four to six months; but how history corresponds to reality—that reality itself has taught!

[ 18 ] Another example, taken from a broader historical context: In 1789—one might say, at the dawn of the era in which the science of history, as we know it today, first began to take shape—for it is not as old as is commonly believed; the science of history, as we understand it today, is barely a hundred years old—a fact known to very few people—at the dawn of modern historical thought, a truly great man took up his professorship of history: Schiller in Jena. And the speech with which he assumed his professorship has, of course, become famous: “On the Philosophical Mind and the Scholar of Bread.” In this speech, delivered in 1789, Schiller expressed a very, very remarkable sentence as his conviction—as the principle that was to underpin his historical outlook. This sentence reads: “The community of European states seems to have been transformed into one great family; the members of this household may be hostile toward one another, but hopefully they will no longer tear one another apart.” — This statement was made by someone who, with genius, sought to penetrate the lessons of history—and who, as no one will deny, possessed a measure of genius. It was uttered in the period immediately following the French Revolution, with all that it, in turn, brought in its wake.

[ 19 ] Well, if one considers even the longer periods that have come since then—how does this look in light of what Schiller learned from history, namely, that the European peoples and the European states have transformed into one big family, that they resemble a big family, and that although they may be hostile toward one another, they can no longer tear each other apart? Something must follow from what the signs of the times teach us today. That is, that we truly learn something from them.

[ 20 ] Well, what is the actual situation regarding the underlying premise—the statement that “history teaches this or that”? — Above all, one must be clear that life cannot be judged by its mere outward symptoms. That is precisely what spiritual science aims to do: to move away from the surface and penetrate into the deeper foundations of life. One cannot judge life by its outward symptoms. What has emerged as the scientific way of thinking—as I said, I hold it in the highest regard—has developed out of the habits of thought and the impulses of thought that have arisen in humanity over the past few centuries. It is the expression of these impulses of thought. And it is not only scientific thinking, but all of humanity’s thinking that has been drawn into these habits of thought, so that these habits of thought not only have a beneficial effect in the natural sciences, but must also have an effect in other areas of life. One can certainly say: Effort—great effort—has been made to carry over what has made the natural sciences great as a school of thought, as a thought impulse, into other areas of human life. Today, we should focus primarily on the sociological and ethical spheres. But the impulses have had a different effect there.

[ 21 ] Anyone capable of following contemporary history in a deeper sense knows how closely the effects these impulses have produced over time are connected to the catastrophic event we are living through today.

[ 22 ] I would like to begin by noting that it is precisely outstanding thinkers who have endeavored to apply what has emerged as such a significant scientific mode of thought to the field of sociology—to a mode of analysis that ultimately leads to history, to the historical life of humanity.

[ 23 ] Let us mention one example along these lines, though hundreds and hundreds of examples could be cited. The great English philosopher Herbert Spencer attempted to apply biological concepts—ideas derived from the scientific study of life—to human social life. The concept of evolution has, after all, been applied to everything. It has also been rightly applied to human life.

[ 24 ] Now Herbert Spencer said: One observes development in organic life—in the life of animals and in the life of humans themselves; the individual living being develops in such a way that it emerges from the embryo, from a three-layered cell structure—the so-called ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm. These are the three cell layers from which the various organs of animals and humans develop. Herbert Spencer—who was well-versed in scientific concepts—now attempts to apply this way of understanding a scientific process to historical and social life as well. He seeks to conceptualize what develops in human life—in moral, historical, and social life—in such a way that it, too, develops, as it were, from a three-layered structure. In a very interesting way, he applies all those organic systems that develop in humans and animals from the ectoderm to the idea that, in social life, the actions and activities of those who belong to the military class would develop, as it were, from the social ectoderm; those who belong to the working class, from the social endoderm; and those who belong to the merchant class—the mediating class in society—from the esoderm. It is then only a necessary consequence that the great English philosopher Herbert Spencer goes on to say: Just as the nervous system and the brain develop from the ectoderm in an organism, so too does the best emerge from the social ectoderm. — I will, of course, not be advocating this militaristic view of the philosopher Herbert Spencer, nor do I wish to comment on it in detail here for reasons that are easily understood; but it is only a necessary consequence for him to say that the ruling circles of any state must necessarily emerge from the military class, because otherwise the state would have no nervous system, no leadership, no leaders, but only the subordinate organs.

[ 25 ] This is just one example; hundreds and hundreds could be cited of the attempt—made so often—to directly apply a scientific way of thinking to the understanding of social and historical life.

[ 26 ] Anyone who has a feel for such things—and I am speaking here only of a sense of these matters—will see how all these attempts demonstrate only one thing: that such concepts, which achieve so much in the natural sciences, cannot even begin to address what is at work in social life. One cannot get to the heart of these things. The big question arises: Why can’t one get to the heart of these things?

[ 27 ] I will now apparently have to start from something very, very distant in order to then lead our reflections into the moral and social realm. But in spiritual science—since it must strive for a fundamentally different kind of knowledge than that of the natural sciences—many things today must be derived from very far afield.

[ 28 ] The first point I must bring to your attention in connection with what I said the day before yesterday is that people today are not very inclined to include the entirety of human life in their understanding. What is included in this understanding is what is encompassed by waking daily life.

[ 29 ] Well, anyone who followed my discussions the day before yesterday will not suspect me of wanting to introduce any fantastical, dreamlike elements into my spiritual scientific reflections; but this must be emphasized: The entirety of human life consists of what the human being—I cannot go into other beings today due to time constraints—experiences in waking daily life, and what enters into this life during sleep and during dreaming, which at first surges up and down in chaotic images from the life of sleep. Indeed, the most remarkable and peculiar conceptions have been formed precisely in the realm of scientific thought, including those concerning sleep and “dream life.” It would be very interesting to explore this topic in more detail at some point. However, I must be brief regarding these matters, which are, after all, only meant to be touched upon. Above all, people have truly peculiar ideas about what is supposed to happen during sleep. I must draw attention to this.

[ 30 ] Who among today’s scientists is not often convinced that sleep results from fatigue, that a person simply becomes tired and must then fall asleep? Anyone can very easily refute this theory of fatigue by recalling that the well-nourished retiree who somehow finds himself at a concert or a lecture and falls asleep after the first five minutes does not necessarily drift off to sleep because of fatigue, but that there must be entirely different reasons.

[ 31 ] Anyone who investigates these matters will see that fatigue leads to sleep rather than sleep resulting from fatigue. Sleeping and waking are truly a rhythm of life that must alternate, because one is just as necessary for human life as the other.

[ 32 ] Well, as I said, I cannot go into the actual characteristics of this rhythm of life; but what is important is that spiritual science, on the one hand, is compelled to truly explore this other aspect of human life—sleep, with its manifestations in dreams—and, on the other hand, is compelled to recognize that what we call sleep and dreams is far more widespread in human life than is generally assumed in trivial judgment.

[ 33 ] The humanities are by no means intent on adopting old superstitious prejudices. And it certainly counts among the old superstitious prejudices, for example, to ascribe any prophetic significance to a dream regarding something in the future. But there is sometimes a rational core to such old superstitions. One just must not take it the way it is usually taken.

[ 34 ] When I recently gave a series of lectures—and was therefore able to discuss certain topics in greater detail than I can here, where I have less time—I also pointed out how spiritual science must address the problem of sleep and dreams. In response, those who practice psychoanalysis argued that this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science speaks of a certain higher form of knowledge which, in terms of the intensity with which it acts upon consciousness, could well be compared to the dream images present in consciousness; but that psychoanalysis, which, after all, is so enlightened and scientific, is correct in this regard, because it uses what a person dreams only for the study of human nature in such a way that it sees merely the symbolic in the expressions of dreams, and sees only the symbolic in everything that occurs outside of ordinary consciousness—in the so-called subconscious; whereas I, for example, as a representative of the spiritual sciences, regard what otherwise occurs in the subconscious as a reality.

[ 35 ] Well, one could not possibly put forward anything less accurate or more misleading. For in genuine anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, it would never occur to anyone to regard what the dream presents—that is, the immediate content of the dream—as even symbolic. One can safely say: If psychoanalysis believes it has gone beyond spiritual science by viewing the dream as something symbolic, then spiritual science is not at all intent on viewing the content of the dream as a reality; rather, it even shows that what constitutes the content of the dream has no real value or real significance whatsoever. In contrast, spiritual science says: What lives in the dream, what is active in the dream, is connected to what I spoke of the day before yesterday—what a person comes to know as the primordial core of their being. When a person is “working” in a dream—if one may call it work— then an excess of their ordinary consciousness is at work in the dream—that excess of their ordinary consciousness which, when examined closely through a form of insight that will be discussed in principle shortly, proves to be connected with the eternal core of the human being’s being, which enters spiritual life after death through the gate of death. What lives in the dream is also that which now works into our future. But what a person experiences in a dream—the images they experience—have absolutely nothing to do with the reality underlying the dream.

[ 36 ] Therefore, the researcher of the spiritual realm will never view a dream in such a way as to disregard the following: When someone dreams something, the dream is based on a spiritual fact, but the dream images—as experienced and recounted as they were experienced in the dream—could be entirely different. One person may experience the same thing as another in a dream; yet he may recount the dream in a completely different, radically different way, because his dream images have entirely different meanings. What matters to the spiritual researcher in a dream? What matters to them is not to trace the dream images as such—whether one grasps them in their reality or in their symbolism—but rather the inner drama of the dream: how one image follows another, whether one image replaces the next, thus bringing a sense of relief or anxiety, and so on. This inner drama, which the soul experiences entirely subconsciously, reveals itself to ordinary consciousness only when what is experienced subconsciously is clothed in the reminiscences of everyday life. That which is at work in the subconscious as the psychological drama of these images is clothed in images.

[ 37 ] The same experience can take on different forms for hundreds of people, manifesting in hundreds of different images. Anyone who, as a researcher of the spiritual realm, becomes acquainted with a dream therefore knows that they must not listen to the dream by focusing on its content, but rather on the “how” within it—on the way the images ebb and flow. That is where the essence lies.

[ 38 ] I mention this because, in this context, I have to say that when, through spiritual exercises and by strengthening specific spiritual powers—as was mentioned here the day before yesterday—a person comes to behold the eternal core of their being, they then recognize what sleep and dreams actually are. These are processes of consciousness, and they must also be recognized within the field of consciousness. The spiritual researcher who explores consciousness in the manner I described the day before yesterday comes to the conclusion that what has been so frequently misunderstood in recent times—and which cannot be grasped by a natural-scientific mode of thinking—is precisely what such distinguished psychological physiologists as Ziehen and others attest: That human beings can have the experience of the “I”—the “I”-experience—as they do, only by being integrated into the life rhythm of waking and sleeping.

[ 39 ] If one learns to recognize what the soul is, one also learns to recognize that the only reason a person is aware of a “self” is that, between birth and death, he is not constantly immersed in waking life. Imagine, hypothetically, that waking life were extended to encompass the entire human lifespan between birth and death; imagine that one could never sleep: then one would never experience that contrast through which the “I” becomes aware of itself in time. It is precisely because one can sleep—because one can exchange this consciousness, which lives in the external sensory world and through the intellect that operates within that world, for a consciousness between falling asleep and waking up that distinguishes nothing because it is dull—that one possesses one’s sense of self. A person would not learn to say “I” to oneself if he were not caught up in the rhythm of life between sleeping and waking.

[ 40 ] It is strange how little people are inclined to delve into such matters. The great aesthetician Friedrich Theodor Vischer—known as “V-Vischer”—embarked on an exploration of the life of dreams. He criticized Johannes Volkelt’s interesting book on dream fantasy and wrote a treatise on the subject. People were quick to label him a spiritualist, even though he certainly did not engage with such matters in a falsely mystical sense. Well, what won’t people make of a person when they want to pin something on him? But Vischer knew that people can easily say: What manifests itself in dreams is fantastical stuff. — Certainly it is fantastical stuff, but within this fantastical stuff lives that which is the primal, eternal essence of the soul. And if a person is not prepared, in the full wakefulness of daily life—through that wakefulness, through what might be called “contemplative consciousness”—to develop images of such intensity as are otherwise found only in dreams, then he is utterly incapable of looking into the eternal nature of the human soul. If one wishes to look into the eternal nature of the human soul, one must be able to elevate that which works involuntarily in dreams to a voluntary, completely free consciousness.

[ 41 ] But Friedrich Theodor Vischer drew attention in a very interesting way to something that, if properly explored, sheds tremendous light on human life. He pointed out that anyone who cannot properly understand dreams also fails to properly understand human emotional life, the life of passion, and emotional life in general. Why is that? Because Friedrich Theodor Vischer was absolutely right! Just as the soul is active in dreams—except that there it expresses itself through images that are reminiscences of life—so, too, during waking life, the human soul is active in the life of feeling, emotion, and passion.

[ 42 ] We dream through our feelings, our emotions, and our passions. And anyone who is capable of truly observing the life of the soul knows this: the same degree of intensity and the same quality of the life of the soul that manifests itself in dreams—in my case, in an abnormal way—also manifests itself during waking daily life in everything that otherwise lives in human feelings. Spiritual research demonstrates precisely through its methods of truly observing the soul that human beings reserve their full waking life solely for external sensory perception and for the life of the imagination. We are truly awake only in relation to sensory perceptions and the life of the imagination, while the dream permeates waking life. It permeates waking life in such a way that what we experience emotionally—the emotional impulses within us—are dreamt. While waking daily life unfolds in sensory perceptions and in the life of the imagination, the undercurrent of subconscious life—which can, however, be brought up into consciousness through spiritual science—continues as a stream of dreams in the emotional and passionate life; we continue to dream while we are awake. And above all: We continue to sleep while we are awake. We do not merely dream; we continue to sleep while we are awake.

[ 43 ] Everything that lives in our emotions is what we dream about while awake. What lives in our will is no more conscious to us in our waking daily life than the dull, barely perceptible consciousness we experience during sleep. This is precisely why people in the realm of philosophy have always argued about whether the will can be free or not—because, even if they are the most enlightened of philosophers, they cannot, with their ordinary consciousness, look into the workings of the soul as it expresses itself in the will, just as little as they can into what the soul experiences during the deepest, dreamless sleep. For the life of the will, in its true mystery, is in fact not only dreamt away—it is slept through in ordinary consciousness. We know nothing more about any action we perform, or anything we bring into life, than what ranges from sensory perception to imagination. You can convince yourselves that psychophysiologists who think thoroughly from a scientific standpoint have already arrived at this conclusion by studying Theodor Ziehen’s highly significant book on psychology: that one must stop at the volitional disposition, at the volitional impulse, at the idea; that one cannot go any further down. Only then does the completed action occur, which in turn re-enters the imagination. What lies between the completed action and the imagination is just as immersed in the dullness of consciousness during waking daily life as that which a person experiences between falling asleep and waking up—when no dream passes through their sleep—is immersed in darkness.

[ 44 ] Thus we continue to dream during our waking daily life; thus we continue to sleep. From our dream life, which permeates our waking state, arise the emotional impulses; from the sleep life that permeates our waking daily life arise the volitional impulses. Thus, that which manifests itself in social life and in history arises from our dream and sleep life.

[ 45 ] To investigate these matters, however—as I spoke about the day before yesterday—one needs a faculty of cognition that engages the soul in a way entirely different from what ordinary consciousness is capable of, and that enables one to truly perceive spiritual life as such through the spiritual realm.

[ 46 ] I would also like to add something today regarding what consciousness must do in order to arrive at an understanding of these things. For time and again, the misunderstanding will arise that the spiritual researcher does not prove his claims. He proves them by showing what the soul accomplishes in order to arrive at a direct perception of these things.

[ 47 ] However, one cannot arrive at an understanding of these things by relying solely on ordinary consciousness. As I said, I spoke about this the day before yesterday. You can find more detailed information in my books, such as Occult Science and How Does One Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?, or summarized in my book The Riddle of Man, and again in my latest book, which will be published in the coming days: The Riddles of the Soul. But I would like to emphasize one thing that may be particularly essential for our consideration today: The kind of thinking that is fully justified for scientific thought must become something entirely different if one is to fully grasp what I have just said and what I am yet to say. It cannot be grasped with the kind of thinking that is rightly applied when dealing with ordinary daily life. That approach does not reach, for example, into the realms where the impulses of social, moral, legal, and ethical life lie. There, one needs concepts that are much more intimately connected with reality than scientific concepts. Scientific concepts are characterized precisely by the fact that the reality, the essence, lies outside them; in a certain sense, they are not at all dependent on immersing themselves in the object, on immersing themselves in objectivity itself. One cannot penetrate the humanities with these concepts. To penetrate the humanities, it is necessary for the concepts to grow together with life, to immerse themselves in life, so that they contain within themselves such an experience, so that they feel within themselves the vibration of what is happening within the things themselves.

[ 48 ] This can only be achieved by breaking away from the way one relates to things through one’s ideas in ordinary consciousness. But this ordinary consciousness has rightly extended to encompass the entire study of nature, for only in this way can the brilliant advances of natural science be achieved.

[ 49 ] When a person enters into a spiritual-scientific perspective, their perceptions become something entirely different. You see, if you look at a tree from four sides—I’ve already given this example here—or photograph it from four sides, those four sides are all quite different from one another, and yet you will always have the same tree. You cannot tell from a photograph what the tree is actually like.

[ 50 ] In everyday life, a person is satisfied when they have a concept that serves as a representation of some process or entity, when they can simply state a law of nature. As soon as one enters the realm of spiritual science, concepts such as these must be applied from four different perspectives. One can never form a conception of a being or a fact in the real spiritual world by forming just one concept. One must form one’s concepts in such a way that they, so to speak, circle around the thing, that they take in the thing as much as possible from various sides—I may say now—though the concept is meant only symbolically. In everyday life, people are pantheists, monadists, monists, or some other kind of “-ist.” They believe that with such a concept they can truly explore something of reality. The spiritual researcher knows that this is not possible. When it comes to the spiritual realm, it is not possible to conduct research in a pantheistic manner—to view the tree from only one side. One must simultaneously be a monadist, photographing the tree from another side as well, and so on; one must make one’s concepts internally flexible.

[ 51 ] But this gives you the opportunity to truly immerse yourself in the fullness of life. As I have shown in my book The Riddle of Man, this makes your concepts more in line with reality. And it is necessary to become ever more true to reality in one’s concepts. This is what the spiritual researcher strives for. I would like to illustrate this with an example.

[ 52 ] You see, the natural scientist is quite right when he keeps his concepts within the sphere of ordinary consciousness. He achieves something meaningful within his legitimate domain precisely when he takes these concepts as they are presented by ordinary consciousness; for there they prove suitable for grasping the facts that are apparent to the senses. However, if the natural scientist then wishes to extend these concepts beyond the facts perceived by the senses, he must be aware that he may be venturing into a void, that he is no longer remaining true to reality. The following example is very interesting in this regard.

[ 53 ] Professor Dewar, a great scientific thinker of our time, has very clearly and meaningfully described—based on the processes that researchers can observe today—what the Earth’s final state will be like after millions of years. By proceeding entirely in accordance with the principles of physics—as a good physicist would do, taking everything into account—one can form a picture of how certain conditions change over short periods of time. Then, by extrapolating the changes occurring over a shorter period to a much longer timeframe, one can, in a sense, calculate what the situation will look like after millions of years. The professor describes in a very interesting way how a time might come when, for example, milk will be solid. — I don’t know how it will manifest itself then; that’s another matter! — He describes how the walls of a room will be coated with this white milk; that’s how solid the milk will be. Of course, it will then be many hundreds of degrees colder than it is now. But there will be no liquid milk; milk will be solid. These ideas are all conceived with great scientific acumen, and there is absolutely nothing to object to in the formulation of such hypotheses on a scientific basis.

[ 54 ] For the spiritual researcher, a different thought immediately comes to mind, because he thinks in a living, concrete way and not abstractly. One can even take the example of a young person aged fourteen and observe how he or she has changed by the age of eighteen, then compile these small changes using the method Professor Dewar employed, and calculate what this human organism must be like after three hundred years. It is exactly the same method. Only, after three hundred years, the human being no longer exists as a physical being! This becomes immediately apparent to the spiritual researcher. The approach is entirely correct; it makes full use of all the scientific and physical methods. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it; it is entirely correct. One must not portray it as false, but it does not correspond to reality; it does not penetrate into the real. Similarly, one could work backward from the changes the human organism undergoes and then, based on these changes, ask oneself: What was it like three hundred years ago? One will arrive at a very nice conclusion—except that humans did not exist three hundred years ago! But it is according to this pattern that those who formulate theories construct their examples. The Kant-Laplace theory of the primeval nebula—which, as we know, has undergone numerous modifications— but what underlies it in principle is, for the researcher of the spirit, an impermissible thought, because just as the human being did not physically exist three hundred years ago—even if one has correctly calculated his earlier and later states—so too did the Earth not exist during the time for which the Kant-Laplace theory of the primordial nebula is posited; and the solar system did not exist. I have cited this merely as an example of how ideas can be entirely correct, derived entirely from correct foundations, yet still need not correspond to reality.

[ 55 ] This is precisely what the spiritual researcher achieves through his exercises: arriving at perceptions that are true to reality, through which he grasps that which can only be grasped by immersing oneself in reality. And through such immersion, one learns to recognize what the “I” would be like in its ordinary consciousness if human beings were unable to sleep. Self-consciousness—or “I”-consciousness—would simply not exist in human consciousness if human beings did not live within the temporal rhythm of sleep and wakefulness. One also learns through direct observation to recognize how emotional qualities are actually “dreamed,” and how volitional qualities are actually “slept.”

[ 56 ] As an aside, so to speak, I would like to add something here, because several people have brought to my attention a remark I made the day before yesterday. I said: What the spiritual researcher experiences can be transformed into concepts; but the experience itself—the direct perception of the spiritual—cannot be recalled; rather, it must be experienced anew time and again.

[ 57 ] One might quite rightly object: How can one even know that a mental experience is new if one does not remember it? One cannot remember a mental experience any more than one remembers certain people who are not present. A mental event that fades away is not preserved in memory. Only when one has transformed it into concepts, into ideas, does one remember those ideas. Just to avoid any misunderstanding, I wanted to mention this, so to speak, in parentheses.

[ 58 ] But now I would also like to touch briefly on the other side of human consciousness. What happens, then, when a person truly brings into consciousness that which otherwise always remains in the subconscious—that which is dreamt or slept through—through such inner processes as you will find described in my books? When awareness of this arises—just as it is present in ordinary daytime consciousness only for sensory and imaginative life—a person then actually comes to know, for example, what is otherwise merely overlooked in their impulses of will. But just as one learns, when focusing on the life of sleep, that ego-consciousness is dependent on the life of sleep, so one learns, in a different way—through the actual raising of the life of the will from the subconscious into the conscious—that if one always had this life of the will before oneself, if one did not sleep through the life of the will, one would have an entirely different consciousness—that consciousness which the spiritual researcher truly develops in a certain way. That which wills within us—and, in a certain sense, also that which corresponds to our feeling, which lives in the impulses of feeling—would, if a person had it before them just as they do their life of imagination, act upon them as if it were another person, as if they had a second, different person within themselves. A person would be walking around with another person. And one can say: It is arranged in the wise plan of development such that the unified consciousness a person needs for their life between birth and death is made possible by the fact that the life of the will is pushed down into sleep; thus, the person is not split in two by having to constantly look at the other who is actually willing within them. For this other person, in turn, is connected to the human being’s primal, eternal core—to the human being’s primal, eternal core that is free from physicality, to that which does not act through physicality.

[ 59 ] Therefore, if the spiritual researcher truly succeeds in this—as I said the day before yesterday, I will not allow myself to be deterred by any hesitation from drawing attention to the things that truly emerge from the field of spiritual research with scientific precision, just as the laws of natural science do in the realm of natural science— if the researcher in spiritual science truly succeeds in bringing the life of the will and the life of feeling into consciousness, if he strengthens his inner activity to such an extent that he can enliven within himself not only the life of the senses and imagination, but also the life of feeling and will, then the world is complemented by the other side, by the spiritual side; then the human being experiences as a reality that we are separated from those souls who have lost their bodies through death only by our sensory and imaginative lives. The moment we consciously enter into our emotional and volitional lives, we enter a realm where we stand on common ground even with the souls who have passed through the gate of death.

[ 60 ] The separation between the so-called living human souls and the so-called deceased human souls is bridged by spiritual science. It is bridged by spiritual science in a very precise way. Through a very precise approach, however, the life of the soul must in turn be transformed. If one truly wishes to make real perceptions in this realm that human beings enter—dreams come involuntarily, and what is experienced in a dream comes involuntarily—if a person wishes to bring into their consciousness something that truly comes from the realm where the dead live, then they must use equally arbitrary concepts, but now higher than those of waking daytime consciousness, because these images must encompass the life of feeling and will—he must face the objects in the spiritual world with equally voluntary images, just as one otherwise faces the objects in the sensory world. In an ordinary dream, one cannot distinguish between what compels one to imagine and oneself. This distinction exists when the spiritual researcher approaches the life to which souls who have passed through death also belong.

[ 61 ] Therefore, dreams that occur involuntarily—even if they seem to convey messages from a supernatural world—must always be treated with caution. The spiritual researcher can only recognize as a genuine observation that which he intends to bring about entirely of his own volition. If, therefore, the researcher wishes to establish contact with any soul belonging to the spiritual realm—one who may have long since passed through the gate of death—he can do so by willfully bringing about the experience he shares with that soul, rather than in the involuntary manner in which it occurs through a dream.

[ 62 ] You see, spiritual research leads us to recognize how another world extends into our own—a world that, however, has a profound and intense significance for our world, for the simple reason that our emotional life and our life of the will belong to that world.

[ 63 ] For the world, however, that is confined to the senses—the world to be governed by laws derived from those senses—in short, for the world that the natural sciences consider, the abstract concepts of waking and ordinary consciousness are sufficient. For the world of social and moral life, one needs conceptions that correspond to reality. Conceptions such as the Kant-Laplace theory, or those regarding the final state of the Earth, can only lead to error. They may be valid conceptions if one remains within the realm of theoretical discussion. The moment one introduces into social life and the political structure, from a scientific perspective, concepts that are abstract and not grounded in reality, one has a destructive effect and brings about catastrophes within that reality. In this context, concepts that are not grounded in reality take on an entirely different meaning.

[ 64 ] Now it turns out that if one wishes to consider what actually happens in the course of human history—what drives historical life forward—one cannot do so using the concepts of the natural sciences; for this historical life is not experienced in a realm where the concepts of the natural sciences apply. The whole of history is not truly driven by human beings through conscious concepts, but is rather dreamed. This is the crucial point that can be grasped—a truth that is still quite paradoxical today, just as Copernicanism was a paradox when it first emerged—historical life is not created out of the kind of concepts we are accustomed to in the natural sciences. Sociological, social life does not arise from the kind of impulse we grasp through the natural sciences; rather, it is dreamed. Human beings dream social life.

[ 65 ] I have always found it interesting—if I may make this personal remark; it has now been more than thirty years since I began to engage intensively with this problem, seeking to explore it from every angle—it has always interested me how it has shed brilliant light on a mystery whenever Herman Grimm, in conversation with me, has often said: If one applies the usual concepts—the concepts of the natural sciences—to historical life, as if they were suitable for that purpose, one gets nowhere. If one wants to grasp historical life, if one wants to look into the impulses at work within it, then one can do so only through the imagination. Herman Grimm was not yet a researcher of the spirit; he rejected such ideas. But he believed that one can grasp this historical life only through the imagination. Well, one cannot grasp it through the imagination either. But Grimm was at least a figure who knew this: one cannot enter into historical life using ordinary concepts.

[ 66 ] But it is precisely spiritual science that can bridge this gap by adding to ordinary consciousness imaginative consciousness, inspired consciousness, and intuitive consciousness—three supersensible modes of perception belonging to the contemplative consciousness. Spiritual science brings into consciousness what would otherwise be lost in daydreams or overlooked.

[ 67 ] In earlier centuries and millennia, people—as I mentioned the day before yesterday—had a certain instinctive awareness of spiritual realities. But this instinctive awareness was bound to be lost. It was lost and will be lost more and more as the brilliant achievements of natural science continue to prove their worth in their respective fields.

[ 68 ] From the other side, what has been lost to instinctive consciousness must return. Therefore, one can say: During the era of human instinctual life, moral and social ideas—ethical and legal ideas—that were merely dreamed of were able to flow into historical, social, and communal life; and so humanity can still draw upon what emerged from instinctive consciousness.

[ 69 ] But this age has dawned in which humanity must enter into full consciousness, in which humanity must attain full freedom. The old, instinctive consciousness will no longer suffice. We are in that epoch in which, from the perspective of spiritual science, those forces must be brought to the fore that are to be effective in the social structuring of society, in the ethical structuring of society, and in political life. What lives in social life can never be grasped with concepts derived solely from sensory perceptions—or, indeed, from waking daytime consciousness, from ordinary consciousness.

[ 70 ] Herman Grimm was quite right—though he understood only half the story—when he asked: Why is the English historian Gibbon so significant in his depiction of the early Christian centuries, specifically in his account of what was coming to an end? And why is there nothing in his historical account of the significant growth and development that Christian impulses brought to the evolution of humanity? For the reason that Gibbon, too, relies on ordinary concepts—the concepts of waking, everyday consciousness. But these can grasp only what is perishing; they can grasp only the corpse.

[ 71 ] That which comes to be, that which grows—this is dreamed, this is slept through. And this can only be recognized and understood through spiritual science. Because political impulses must become conscious—since they can no longer be merely instinctive—they must therefore be understood through spiritual science in the future.

[ 72 ] This is what must be recognized right now from the signs of the times in a realm deeply connected to the human soul; even from external things, one can recognize such things today. Let us take an example that is very widespread today.

[ 73 ] In speaking of this example, one must by no means believe that spiritual science seeks to be one-sided in any particular direction or to take sides with one camp or the other; rather, it takes very seriously the fact that any concept illuminates a matter from only one side, and that one therefore acts wrongly if one attempts to apply this concept directly to reality. Take, for example, the materialistic, historical-sociological view—which is indeed brilliantly evident to many people—that Karl Marx and others of his ilk have presented regarding the social life of humanity and the course of history. If one follows this social-democratic perspective—and if one follows Marx as he truly seeks to demonstrate, with a certain acumen, that everything that happens historically plays out through certain class struggles, and that material impulses determine the structure of historical life—then one realizes: One can understand what Karl Marx says in this area only if one knows that he is describing realities—albeit one-sidedly. But what kind of realities does he describe? He describes the realities that had already passed by the time he wrote his books!

[ 74 ] Starting in the 16th century, European life—and that which belongs to the European sphere—begins in such a way that, alongside what is conventionally recounted in history—for history is, after all, mostly a fable convenue, as taught in schools—alongside what is told as “real history,” there are class struggles and material impulses. What emerged up to the era described by Karl Marx—he describes it one-sidedly, though not entirely without reason—what had already been dreamt away by humanity by the moment he attempts to apply concepts of ordinary consciousness to it; what was reality back then, when humanity was still dreaming, is cast into ordinary concepts. But now it turns out: If the method of spiritual science—which arises from reality—is not applied, then one finds nothing in social processes, among what one seeks to grasp with ordinary consciousness, that can lead further; one finds nothing applicable for life going forward. Karl Marx’s description is correct for a certain one-sided aspect of life, for the past few centuries. It is no longer applicable now that humanity has dreamt itself out, having exhausted what he describes. It is indeed the case that when one arrives at concepts grounded in reality, one cannot say that what really matters can be deduced from external experience, as the natural sciences must do. Anyone who, in any role or position in life, must intervene in the social structure must have concepts grounded in reality. But these concepts grounded in reality cannot be derived from life itself. Only what ordinary consciousness grasps can be derived from life.

[ 75 ] One must be fully immersed in social life if one wishes to deal not with an absence of reality, but with living concepts. One must be so deeply immersed that one is not dependent on this life giving one something, but rather that one knows the laws that otherwise reign only in the subconscious, and that one is able to introduce them into life. From imaginative insight—that is, the kind of insight capable of elevating ordinary abstract concepts to such a degree of inner vitality that these concepts, while pictorial, are nonetheless immersed in reality—from this imaginative insight emerge all those concepts that can have an impact on the social structure in the future.

[ 76 ] Social experiments have remained so dismal and have given rise to so many real errors because people believed they could conceptualize social concepts in the same way that scientific concepts are formulated—because they formulated these concepts in a way that was detached from reality. Only from the imagination—from immersing oneself in that which is otherwise experienced by ordinary consciousness only as in a dream—can one draw the impulses needed by anyone who has something to express that claims to be a social idea. Every era is a time of transition. It is, of course, a trivial truth when it is said time and again that an era is a time of transition; what matters is only what is transitioning. But in our time, instinctive consciousness is transitioning into free, full consciousness, which lives under the idea of freedom. The old impulses that arose from instinctive consciousness—including Roman law—must be replaced by that which provides imagination for social life, inspiration for ethical and moral life, and intuition for legal life. Admittedly, this is not as convenient as trying to construct all sorts of legal concepts from the abstract and knowing—because one is, after all, a clever person—how the whole world should be constituted. One knows that!

[ 77 ] As a researcher of the spirit, one is not in this position; one must penetrate reality in every respect. Today, people have very little understanding of how this happens. For decades, work in this field has been conducted in such an abstract manner. People do not know, for example, how the Western peoples of Europe—as peoples, not as individual human beings!—possess certain soul characteristics, and how the peoples of Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Asia possess certain other soul characteristics, nor how these soul characteristics are connected to what these peoples are. Today, in these catastrophic times, when we look more deeply, we often see what only spiritual research is capable of seeing: we see a sad event, incomprehensible to outer consciousness, passing through humanity in the world—an event whose signs speak so clearly that humanity can only find its way if it seeks concepts that correspond to reality. Concepts that correspond to reality are not those modeled on the natural sciences or on waking daytime consciousness when it comes to social, moral, and legal life.

[ 78 ] Here in Switzerland, a start has been made—a promising one—with regard to legal concepts; an attempt has been made to ground the concepts of the ordinary contractual relationship in concrete reality. In his excellent, recently published book The Collective Bargaining Agreement under Swiss Law, Dr. Roman Boos has, for the first time in modern times, taken the first step toward identifying, within concrete reality, elements that form part of the legal structure.

[ 79 ] This way of shedding light on legal life from a social, moral, and libertarian perspective must continue if we are to seek concepts that correspond to reality. There is a simple means—there would be a simple means—that would be very helpful if, in its radical form, an attempt were made to demonstrate somewhere just how incapable the concepts of ordinary consciousness—which appear so magnificent in the realm of the natural sciences—are of intervening in moral and social life. One need only attempt to assemble a parliament consisting of people who are particularly prominent in the realm of philosophical reflection on the world, using concepts derived solely from ordinary consciousness—which is also called scientific consciousness. Such a parliament would be best suited to ruin the community to which it belongs in the shortest possible time, because such a parliament would see only the impulses that are fading away.

[ 80 ] Those who can bring into consciousness what otherwise exists only as a dream in external real life and in history—what has sunk into sleep—are part of the creative life.

[ 81 ] That is why utopias are so bleak. Utopias are really like trying to apply a carefully studied chess game without regard for one’s opponent. To construct utopias means to cast that which ought to live into abstract intellectual forms. Therefore, a utopia can never contain anything other than what a community can destroy—but not what it can build. For what reality can build cannot be grasped in terms of intellectual concepts; it operates only in living imaginations and has, in its immediate activity, something that is related to—but is not the same as—artistic activity—I ask that you note this explicitly. The greatest diversity is revealed to us when we consider precisely this social, this moral life from the perspective of spiritual science.

[ 82 ] Above all, when that which manifests itself in this way as social and moral ideas, as legal ideas, enters into life, it will always culminate in human freedom. This human freedom can never be understood through the natural sciences, because the natural sciences cannot grasp what is free in human beings; for the natural sciences, human beings cannot be free beings. The humanities, however, reveal the eternal core of human nature, which I have told you about—it is like another human being within the human being. The natural sciences reveal only one human being, not the other; yet the other is the free one. The free human being also lives within the human being. But through social and moral life, through civic life, and through ethical life, the free human being is brought to the fore.

[ 83 ] The modern perspective—which should now be refuted by the facts, if one could observe them correctly—actually leads, even in theory, to the suppression of freedom in every area.

[ 84 ] Let me add this one last point. In modern times, there have always been—and even now they are coming to the fore and causing a stir—such perspectives on social and moral life, as well as on state and political life, which compare the state, for example, to an organism or a form of life. An outstanding scholar whom I hold in high regard has published a sensational book: The State as a Form of Life. But it is really an example of precisely what must be overcome. Some have attempted to draw these analogies, comparing the state to an organism. You can compare anything. If it were merely a matter of comparison, one could quite easily draw parallels between a peach and a walking stick; it just depends on being witty enough to do so! Comparisons are irrelevant; what matters is that the comparison be true to reality, if it is to be used at all.

[ 85 ] Well, I cannot go into the details of the matter today because there is not enough time. But if one truly compares what is at work in social and moral life with what exists in organic life, then the comparison holds only insofar as one must compare the individual state—indeed, the individual community—to a cell. And if one wishes to compare a collection of cells, such as an organism, then one can only use all life on the entire Earth as a basis for comparison with the organism.

[ 86 ] As I said, the book in question, The State as a Form of Life by Kjellen, is completely untenable, precisely because it uses this analogy in a wholly untenable way. However, if one uses the comparison correctly, one can compare the individual state to a cell and the entire life on Earth to an organism composed of individual cells. Yet this organism does not yet contain what develops within it as soul, as spirit. But what matters is what develops within the organism as soul and spirit; indeed, it is of the utmost importance that spirit be added to the total life of the Earth. And only a social structure of the Earth that does not, when considering purely external aspects, harbor the belief that it can thereby encompass the whole human being will be properly conceived.

[ 87 ] Just as one cannot fully comprehend the soul or the spirit within the organism, so too—even if one extends this organic perspective to the entire earth—one cannot, within the realm of mere state life, fully comprehend that in which human freedom is rooted. For human freedom transcends the organism.

[ 88 ] This is something that, if you fully understand it, can provide proof that even the kind of thinking that introduces the ordinary, abstract form of consciousness into the examination of state life must necessarily exclude the concept of freedom.

[ 89 ] The humanities, by focusing on a life that is free from physicality—a life that cannot be compared to an organism—will be uniquely called upon to reintroduce the concept of the free human soul into life.

[ 90 ] I began this as early as 1894, when I wrote my Philosophy of Freedom — which, unfortunately, has been out of print for so long — in which I attempted to show how, by actually developing a free spiritual life that, as something distinct, breaks away from the concept of causality—which natural science rightly regards as merely observational—human beings come to live out their freedom. As long as one does not hold the view that natural science is entirely correct in denying freedom within its domain—because it deals only with that which lacks freedom—as long as one does not recognize this, one also fails to recognize that that to which freedom pertains cannot be grasped by natural science either.

[ 91 ] Spiritual science achieves this by showing that, in addition to the human body—which, on the one hand, is an expression of the soul and the spirit—human beings possess a spiritual aspect that can only be grasped by the contemplative consciousness, by the supersensible consciousness: by the imaginative consciousness, from which social ideas also flow; by the inspired consciousness, from which moral ideas flow—ideas that are lived out in ordinary life through compassion and empathy for others—and from which, when it becomes intuitive consciousness, legal ideas flow, because in intuitive consciousness a person not only penetrates into what the other being is, but through this intuitive consciousness also experiences the other being to a certain degree within themselves. And as spiritual science penetrates into what is eternal in the human being—and what can only be grasped through imaginative, inspired, and intuitive consciousness—it also advances toward that which can pulsate in human life under the light, under the sun of freedom.

[ 92 ] Today it is still quite paradoxical when, in order to describe reality, one finds oneself saying that impulses of sleep and dreaming pulsate through history, social life, moral life, legal life, and the life of freedom—and that what pulsates there can only be discovered through spiritual science. But I must mention again and again: What spiritual science must bring into the world as a paradox for our time can indeed be compared to the paradox that Copernicus brought into the world, when people believed that the Earth stood still and the Sun and the stars moved around it. He put forward the opposite. It was not until 1822 that a certain church permitted anyone to believe in Copernicanism! Well, how long it will take before the scholars and the so-called educated people of our time will allow—or will no longer be ashamed, as of a superstition, to accept—that spiritual science explains life, broadens it into concepts that correspond to reality, and leads to fruitful concepts—that remains to be seen. But the signs of the times speak so powerfully that one cannot help but hope it might happen very, very soon! Yet enlightened, outstanding minds have always—even if only in fleeting flashes of insight—beheld what the truth is. In this respect, spiritual science is actually nothing new. It merely systematizes and synthesizes, through a realistic perspective, what the flashes of insight from humanity’s most outstanding personalities have always pointed toward.

[ 93 ] And just as I mentioned such a spirit of eternity at the end of yesterday’s talk, so let the same be mentioned today: Goethe. He, too, engaged with history—with the perspective inherent in history. He sensed—even though he had not yet had the opportunity to study the humanities at that time—for the time for that had not yet come in his era—that what pulsates in historical life does not contain what can be expressed in the concepts that arise from ordinary imagination and ordinary sensory perception. He sensed that what lives in history—even the great things that live in history—contains impulses that are different from the abstract conceptualizations of ordinary mental life. That is why Goethe uttered those significant words about history: “The best thing we have from history is the enthusiasm it arouses”— a feeling it arouses when one can immerse oneself in the historical unfolding—not by extracting something from it, as the theorists of ordinary consciousness do, but by bringing forth that which speaks not merely to the imagination and the senses, but to what is dreamt of in the impulses of feeling, and what is even slumbering in the impulses of the will. Then one has what lives in history, not the corpse of history.

[ 94 ] And with regard to social and moral life, with regard to freedom and the legal system, one might say: Humanity will have to realize that it must arrive at such an understanding of the reality of these things that the whole human being is involved, including that which otherwise lies dormant in waking consciousness, because otherwise the human being remains completely unaware of the realm of social and moral life.

[ 95 ] And so the point will be to stimulate, spur on, and inspire precisely that which is not theoretical in human beings—that which is akin to enthusiasm, that which has the effect of art—like art, I say! And so, at the end of such a reflection, one will likely have to utter words similar to the quote from Goethe that I just cited—words that, in a certain way, summarize what could only be hinted at in a brief reflection today, but also what was intended to be merely hinted at: the summary of that which I believe must be spoken of today, so urgently, under the influence of the signs of the times. The point is for human beings to discover the whole human being, so that they may act appropriately in social and moral life and make further contributions to the shaping of the social and moral structure and of political life. The point is that human beings should not merely arrive at abstract ideas in this realm, nor merely adopt a physiological perspective, but rather come to possess real, life-affirming forces imbued with enthusiasm. This is what our times—these sad, catastrophic, and trying times—are waiting for!

[ 96 ] Spiritual science seeks only to provide an answer as to what is truly underlying this enthusiasm, and spiritual science is convinced that when humanity once again finds the path to its eternal self, to its immortal self—to that part of human life from which the impulse toward freedom springs— then humanity will also find the right path to emerge from the chaos into which it has fallen—in reality, not merely through illusion.