The Rudolf Steiner Archive

10. Moral, Social, and Religious Life from the Perspective of Anthroposophy

[ 1 ] In the lecture I gave the day before yesterday, I endeavored to show how a person can, through a special training of their soul powers, gain a direct perception of the world that surrounds them as a spiritual world, just as as they are surrounded by the sensory world as physical human beings—that spiritual world of which, however, nothing can be perceived through ordinary consciousness, that is, the consciousness not grounded in the training of the soul I spoke of the day before yesterday. Today I would like to discuss the relationship of these supersensory insights to important areas of human life, particularly those areas of human life that—as one might say—from a certain point of view have either already entered a crisis in our time and are in the midst of it, or are about to enter such a crisis. I would like to speak about the relationship between supersensible knowledge and the moral, social, and religious life of human beings.

[ 2 ] The naturalist Wallace, who was frequently cited—especially in earlier times—and who, like Darwin, sought to establish a worldview, made a significant statement regarding the moral development of humanity. Haeckel also agrees with this statement, as do many other researchers, particularly those in the natural sciences. Wallace said: “As great as humanity’s progress has been with regard to the understanding of nature and its underlying principles—that is, with regard to the intellectual aspects of human life—so small, on the other hand, has been the progress of moral life. Step by step, one can see progress in our understanding of the world. But if one looks—as this thinker observed—at moral development, one cannot say that humanity has made significant strides forward since ancient times.

[ 3 ] Now, such a statement is certainly of very special significance, especially coming from a naturalist. However, anyone who attempts to gain a deeper insight into the course of human development will not be able to agree with this thinker forever; but for the period for which Wallace, as a naturalist, has a particularly keen eye—the period of more recent human development, which has been particularly illuminated by the natural sciences—this statement will hold true. In earlier times, which the aforementioned thinker has less of an overview of, it is not true that intellectual knowledge advances in such a significant way relative to the upheavals and stages of moral development. But precisely—and this is the curious thing—for the period in which scientific knowledge has advanced so brilliantly, what this thinker asserts holds true. And anyone who contemplates the catastrophic events of the past four and a half years with understanding, with human compassion, with human concern, and with love for humanity will truly be unable to delude themselves that what has been experienced does not attest to any particular moral progress that might keep pace with intellectual progress within humanity.

[ 4 ] This is clearly a very significant question—one that is all the more pressing given that, on the other hand, there is a desire, particularly in our time, to gain awareness of those areas of human life that are referred to as the realm of morality and ethics. But the person who, in the manner I described the day before yesterday, gains insight from the standpoint of the spiritual sciences into the true character of scientific research—that person who, through the experience I described the day before yesterday, has truly found himself standing at the limits of this scientific knowledge—knows that this is not merely a coincidental convergence over the past few centuries, but that a causal connection can be found. I explained the day before yesterday how the very significance and essence of scientific knowledge lie in the fact that this scientific knowledge achieves its progress by, so to speak, disregarding that aspect of human soul life which precisely enables us to establish the right relationship, the right connection between one human being and another—that aspect of human soul life which we call the capacity for love. But because—as I had to say—this capacity for love continues to work within the human soul and merely needs to be held back, precisely so that natural science can reach its full potential during the process of scientific inquiry, this is why human beings reach a certain limit in scientific inquiry.

[ 5 ] Now, as is easily seen in physical life—and something very similar applies to spiritual life—the development of a person’s capacity for love is connected to all life that progresses, to all life that develops, to life that blossoms and flourishes.

[ 6 ] In contrast, if we consider the mental faculties that a person employs when pursuing the course of nature in the spirit of contemporary scientific research—without amateurishness—we find that the forces playing a special role in this research cannot be directed toward life that is sprouting and budding, but rather toward life that is declining, fading away, and dying. When we look into life with these scientific investigative forces, we do not see life itself, but rather that which is imbued in this life as the descending, the dying.

[ 7 ] For those who can participate spiritually in the development of scientific research, it is by no means merely a shortcoming—one that gradually spreads—when natural scientists who wish to be consistent repeatedly oppose the inclusion of concepts such as “vital force” or the like in scientific research. Over the course of the 19th century, what was formerly referred to as “life force” was rightly eliminated from scientific research. Now, however, some believe that it is merely a temporary shortcoming that human beings cannot look into life itself, but can in fact observe only the dead and the dying within the living. But this is not the case. The capacity for knowledge that is thus directed toward nature is itself compelled to seek within the living only what is dead, to seek what is in a state of decline. Hence there is a tendency to drive life aside in order to seek precisely that which is not life. And one cannot say that, by further developing the scientific mode of thinking—which has today reached a particularly high level—one will also come to understand life. No, this mode of thinking will attain its greatness more and more precisely because it does not comprehend life, but rather seeks what is—as I would like to say—imbued within life as the dead, as that which is dying.

[ 8 ] That is why, even in an age when this way of thinking has reached a particular height, understanding of the soul’s faculties has declined—truly declined—faculties that are connected to the very soul faculty that natural science does not actually need, cannot need: the soul faculty—if one may put it that way—of loving. And the entire ethical and moral life is connected to the soul’s capacity for love. Love is the fundamental force that must develop in order for an ethical and moral life to exist.

[ 9 ] It can be shown that external events also fully corroborate what I have just explained. One experiences quite remarkable things in this area. In the course of my lectures over the past few years—in which I sought, from various perspectives, to demonstrate the complete harmony between natural science and spiritual science, as understood here—I have repeatedly referred to an excellent book published in recent years by Oscar Hertwig, The Development of Organisms: A Refutation of Darwin’s “Theory of Chance.” I had to describe this book as nothing less than a brilliant achievement by a contemporary natural scientist, because in it Oscar Hertwig refutes, using a conscientious scientific method, all the hasty conclusions drawn by materialistically minded Darwinists. In Oscar Hertwig, we are dealing with a thinker who masterfully applies the scientific mode of thought.

[ 10 ] Now something most peculiar occurred. Oscar Hertwig followed up this excellent treatise on “The Development of Organisms” with another, shorter work, in which he sought, in a sense, to pay his tribute to the wartime era, addressing moral, social, and political issues. And lo and behold: This treatise is—I do not shy away from stating the matter bluntly—this treatise is full of the purest nonsense. This treatise is entirely driven by a mode of thinking that is in no way suited to understanding the questions posed or to solving them in any way. Thus we see a brilliant natural scientist—a natural scientist who is great in his field precisely because he has developed a one-sided way of thinking in that field—fail completely when he attempts to address social, moral, and political phenomena. This is an extraordinarily interesting phenomenon that has come to light in the present.

[ 11 ] One could multiply these examples many, many times over—albeit with perhaps less typical ones. But one need only point to one example to show how the modern era, with its push toward what are indeed legitimate scientific ideals, has become barren when it comes to understanding moral life. When characterizing these things—because people today are still unwilling to believe them—one must become a bit heretical; heretical in this case not so much against the Church or any religious community, but heretical against entirely different currents of thought. After all, when many people in modern times wish to point to something truly significant in the philosophical worldview, they point to something that, in a certain sense, is not as superficial as many philosophies arising from a mere view of nature, but which nevertheless aligns, for many, with the scientific way of thinking: they point to Kant and Kantianism.

[ 12 ] Well, such references are indeed quite peculiar. Especially with regard to Kant, one has recently been confronted—one might say repulsively—with a peculiar frenzy of quoting. For one could see how the worst warmongers invoked Kant and quoted him, just as the most radical pacifists quoted him! And those who, in a relatively short time—in the course of just a few weeks, in recent weeks, in fact—have transformed themselves from furious warmongers into radical pacifists—such people do exist, after all!—they used to quote Kant and now quote him in what they consider the most beautiful way.

[ 13 ] But Kant is indeed representative, in many areas, of the form that modern thought has taken. He is also representative of the way in which people often take in what they encounter in their intellectual lives. Due to his writing style, Kant is, after all, a somewhat difficult author and can indeed be considered somewhat hard to understand. But since some people do manage to make sense of him and naturally consider themselves very clever—even though they would not admit this in so many words—they then conclude, since Kant has said something so clever that they can just barely understand, that this Kant must be a particularly great man.

[ 14 ] Now, with regard to moral life, Kant formulated a principle that is cited particularly often—though sometimes it is merely referred to by saying that Kant established the “categorical imperative” with regard to moral life. This “categorical imperative”—put into words—what does it actually look like? It contains the following: Act in such a way that the maxims of your actions can serve as a guide for all people. — It has always struck me as if someone were saying: Have a tailor make you a coat that is designed, as far as possible, so that all people can wear it. — For that which is a moral, immediate moral impulse—which seeks to be grasped in the most individual aspect of a person, and which can only be fully realized when it is grasped in that most individual aspect—is forced into the empty phrases of the most extreme abstraction, into the gray mist of that which is supposed to apply equally to all people.

[ 15 ] The important thing is to realize that, in the realm of natural laws, one must naturally strive for abstractions and generalities; but this mode of thinking, which strives for such abstractions and such universal validity, leads one away from that aspect of the human being that demands to be grasped—that which, if one wishes to perceive the moral impulses with the eye of the soul, that is, that which directly sustains and animates human beings in their moral life. For that which makes us moral human beings must be kindled by the immediate circumstances of life, by the immediate relationship between one person and another. This is, in every single case, something fundamentally individual. And the human soul must have the possibility of driving forth from within itself a primordial individual impulse that cannot be characterized by saying that it should be capable of serving as a maxim for all human beings. No, that which can serve as a maxim for all people possesses the very least moral impetus; it does not sustain a person morally through life, but rather that which, in the most individual sense, compels him directly in the moment to act in one way or another.

[ 16 ] In everyday life, what sustains human beings in a moral sense is not some concept or idea, but simply love. And it was my aim, as early as 25 years ago in my Philosophy of Freedom, to establish this individual ethics as a counterpoint to the abstract tendency of Kantianism. This individual ethics is, above all, permeated by the realization that what constitutes moral action can arise only from a love for the specific action to be performed that is equal to the love for a single human individual. Love must prevail in the action that claims to be moral—a love that is not self-love, but rather one that pushes the self aside and replaces it with that which is to be done out of pure love. The individual insight that the action incumbent upon me is to be carried out is what truly makes the action moral.

[ 17 ] Now, the day before yesterday I had the following to explain: In that consciousness which, in a sense, first emerges from ordinary human consciousness—the consciousness that prevails in everyday life and also in conventional science—in this supersensible consciousness—as I would now like to call it—prevails precisely that force which does not prevail in ordinary abstract thinking, in intellectual thinking: the force of love. Of course, this does not mean to claim that the activity the spiritual researcher engages in—by developing within himself that insight into the spiritual world of which I spoke the day before yesterday—is the same as what the soul accomplishes through moral feeling. It is not the same, but it is of the same nature: just as the soul acts in a certain sphere in ordinary life through moral feeling, in the same way it acts in a completely different sphere by awakening a power that otherwise lies dormant, by looking into the spiritual world and developing what can be described as the ultimate goal of supersensible knowledge—intuitive knowledge. One ascends—you can read about this in my book How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds? and in my Esoteric Science, as well as in other writings of mine—one ascends from imaginative to inspired to intuitive knowledge. What is called intuitive knowledge is not the same as love in the moral realm, but rather the state in which the human soul finds itself in relation to the spiritual beings and spiritual events that it beholds and into which it looks through intuition; the state of the soul in this supersensible beholding, when this soul encounters a supersensible being—this state of the soul is the same as, in the sensory realm, in the physical realm, the state of the soul is when it feels love in a moral sense. The soul’s state is the same.

[ 18 ] Therefore, this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, of which we are speaking here, may say: Within its own practice, on a higher spiritual level, it is precisely that capacity of the human soul which is realized in moral life that is cultivated. For this reason, what has been pushed into the background precisely by the glorious development of scientific knowledge—namely, the attention to and inclination toward that power in the soul which is necessary for moral action—is particularly cultivated by spiritual science. And so it may be said: When one considers Kantianism, when one considers the particular mode of conception characteristic of scientific ways of thinking, these are of such a nature that they, so to speak, push the earlier, more instinctive life of the human being—which provided the moral impulses—down into the unconscious. But what must come as spiritual science, in turn, raises up these forces that are related to moral feeling. And what formerly lived in human beings as instinctive moral feelings will be raised up into full consciousness, into bright clarity, through the advent of spiritual science.

[ 19 ] Thus one can understand that precisely at the time when humanity emerged from a more instinctive spiritual life and first developed one-sidedly in the realm of intellectual understanding of nature, there was initially—for life is always a ebb and flow, a back-and-forth oscillation—the sense that is directly attuned to what lives morally within the human being receded. And so, while on the one hand, in the realm of natural science, humanity has achieved truly immeasurable triumphs in terms of knowledge, precisely during this age of natural science—and continuing to this day—the sense, the conscious sense for moral impulses, remains neglected. It will dawn when the very force for the knowledge of the higher supersensible worlds—which must dwell within the soul at a different level than ordinary moral feeling—steps into the very center of the soul’s life.

[ 20 ] Now, spiritual science, as understood here, gives rise to these concepts of the supersensible worlds. Some of these concepts were, in fact, presented the day before yesterday; you can find more in the writings already mentioned and in other writings related to them. If these spiritual-scientific concepts are received by humanity in the same way as scientific concepts, they will have a different significance in the life of the soul than scientific concepts do. These spiritual-scientific concepts are drawn from those regions of the soul where the soul force related to moral love is cultivated. They therefore, in turn, have a reciprocal effect on a person’s capacity for love and thus on the immediate, individual impulses of moral life. Whereas the age of abstractions—the worship of merely theoretical references to the entirely abstract: “Act in such a way that the maxims of your actions may serve as a guide for all people”— could, so to speak, only provide a general definition, could only establish a general concept, spiritual science will be able to intervene directly in life, will be able to warm the soul directly, so that in each individual case it faces life with understanding and derives the moral impulse from the intuition of life in that particular instance. Then this spiritual science will exert a completely different kind of moral influence than any abstract theory of ethics or a set of moral principles. It will bring about what not only makes a person’s maxims immediately moral—for one can indeed see this in life—I have already expressed this here at times and must say it again and again—: Moral sermons do not help much in human life; in fact, moral sermons help just as little in human life as coaxing a stove to warm the room when no wood is put into it. But if you put wood in the stove, then you don’t need to coax it; it will heat up and warm the room. All this talk—that it is a categorical imperative for you to be a good person, to behave toward your fellow human beings in this or that way, to do this or that—is like saying: “It is your duty as a stove to heat the room; otherwise, you wouldn’t be a good stove.” — But one can dispense with this moral talk and simply stoke the stove with wood; for nothing else will come of it anyway. So it is with what appears concretely as the science of the spirit.

[ 21 ] Admittedly, some people today regard it as a necessity of our time to emphasize again and again: People should love one another. — But that is merely empty talk, if not outright nonsense, if not simply a mask for the fact that one actually has little love for others and therefore emphasizes it all the more. But with this spiritual science, the situation is this: the less it speaks of love, the less it uses the word “love” in vain, the more it will come to pass that the particular imaginations of the mind—arising from the power of love and settling into the soul—will in turn kindle the understanding; I would say, the gift of immediately unfolding the moral in the individual situation.

[ 22 ] What this spiritual science may therefore hope for, if it finds a way to reach people, is that it does not merely provide moral maxims, but—if I may put it in trivial terms—is itself moral fuel. Thus, that which has withered away under the mere scientific knowledge that deals with the dead will thaw once more and be brought to life precisely through this spiritual science. And with regard to human moral life, it will be evident that whenever attempts have been made from one side or the other to introduce scientific thinking into the moral realm, such scientific thinking can lead only to concepts of decline in the moral sphere, because even in relation to nature it considers only life in decline. But because spiritual science, in its seeking, is akin to the creative power expressed in love, spiritual science will also be able to bring productive morality back to humanity—namely, a moral task, a moral mission. It will once again bring something among people such that they will not despair over the question: “What am I actually supposed to do?” What is my task? — Instead, this spiritual science will work among people in such a way that they receive from it the inspiration to do this or that in life and, through this, to be morally sustained and supported by life itself. There will be fewer of those who are weary and burdened—those who are spiritually ill, and consequently physically ill as well, precisely because they fundamentally do not know what to do with their lives, since they have nothing in their thinking, in their conceptions, and in their ideas that allows the moral task to well up from the life task that certainly exists within their lives.

[ 23 ] In spiritual science, there will be a body of knowledge—a sum of qualities—that does not leave a person empty of the ability to conceive of such life tasks, but rather imbues them with a moral impulse, so that at every moment of life they can say to themselves: You have this or that to do—and thus finds no time to brood with an empty soul, not knowing what to do with life, or to have to go to sanatoriums here or there to be stimulated from the outside in a meaningless way so that the soul might be filled, whereas in truth it can be fruitfully filled only when life’s tasks are drawn from the depths of one’s own inner being and permeate the human essence.

[ 24 ] One might easily object—and certain experiences one can still have today in places where so-called followers of the spiritual science movement live confirm this—one might easily say today that one does not observe in these followers of spiritual science that the fruits just mentioned are manifesting themselves in them; on the contrary, one finds that, in many cases, in the milieu in which such adherents move, selfishness and egotism—sometimes a sophisticated, intellectually nuanced form of egotism—are all the more prevalent, and that little love for humanity is often to be found precisely in this circle. This must certainly be acknowledged even today. That which is to develop must first make its way through many veils and many obstacles. But it is in the very nature of things that they develop this way. There is also a very good reason why something else appears at first. And those who say, “Yes, spiritual science also finds”—I spoke about these things the day before yesterday—“that a person’s present life points back to earlier earthly lives and points toward future earthly lives—with lives in the spiritual world always lying between the earthly lives—that, in a sense, the fate a person is now experiencing despite their freedom, is dependent on what they bring with them from previous earthly lives, and that what they accomplish in this earthly life will, in turn, have an effect on future earthly lives.

[ 25 ] Indeed, I have heard how well-fed people, who were doing quite well in life, when it was pointed out to them that they do, after all, have an advantage over those who are starving and miserable—I have heard how such well-fed people, who nevertheless believed themselves to be quite devoted followers of some school of spiritual science, said: “Well, that’s quite right; we earned it in a previous life, and he earned his life—his hunger—in a previous life!” — This is merely a radical expression of a phenomenon that occurs frequently, whereby people, driven by very intense materialistic impulses, use what they receive from spiritual science to justify their materialistic impulses. Of course, when one must extend human individuality even beyond this single life between birth and death, when one must point to that which develops in a transpersonal way within the human individuality and evolves through earthly lives, this can stir up egoism; just as theoretical egoism is frequently stirred up among the numerous adherents of spiritual science who now have nothing more urgent to do than to speculate about who they were in their previous earthly lives. Such people are indeed very numerous. But what underlies this is the following.

[ 26 ] As a rule, a person goes through two stages in their approach to spiritual science. The first stage consists in accepting what one receives from spiritual science for one’s own satisfaction—in finding, as it were, a desire fulfilled in it, in finding that it does one good and is soothing to certain longings of the soul. They are glad to be told something that makes life bearable; they want something for themselves, for their own inner satisfaction. That is the first stage. It is certainly very justified, especially in today’s world, where one can obtain little else from elsewhere to satisfy the soul.

[ 27 ] But the second stage is the one where one goes beyond mere desire, beyond what gives rise to a subtle form of egoism—which is evident among so many followers of spiritual science—where one moves beyond simply wanting something for oneself that brings satisfaction, and transitions to a state in which the will—the whole human being in their relationship to life—is stirred, permeated, and infused by what spiritual science can offer. Then, indeed, egoism ceases; then worlds are stirred within the human being, carrying him beyond that narrow sphere consisting of brooding over one’s own soul and desiring that this brooding find its satisfaction. There, the human being is then directed away from himself toward other human beings. And what can be described as an individual moral sensibility transforms into a social sensibility, from which moral action then springs forth—and from which emerges precisely that which corresponds to a fundamental demand of our time.

[ 28 ] We are thus touching on something that, however, cuts deeply into the crisis of our time. At the same time, we are touching on a field in which, despite its pressing nature, the greatest possible ambiguities prevail. But as I turn to the social sphere, I would like to begin by pointing out what is perhaps most important. When one speaks of—or hears others speak of—the ascent of the human being to the kind of supersensible knowledge that I characterized the day before yesterday, one very easily gets the impression that this is something very remote, something entirely foreign to ordinary earthly life.

[ 29 ] That is not quite the case. If one does not misuse the term, one can say: The possessor of supersensible knowledge is, in fact, a seer. One might then think that he believes he has acquired something that no one else possesses. But that is not the case. In one particular realm, every human being is always in a state of mind—though in ordinary life we are unaware of it, and even when it is asserted, we cannot immediately grasp its meaning—every human being is always in the state of mind that one must laboriously acquire for the other realms of spiritual science, as characterized the day before yesterday, in order to attain supersensible knowledge. There is one realm in which we are always in this state of mind; otherwise, we would simply be blind in that one realm. And this one realm is that in which one enters into a loving relationship from one human being to another. One regards the other person with whom one enters into a loving relationship from the very same spiritual perspective—but only that person—from which one must look if one wishes to attain supersensible knowledge. One must first develop the soul’s capacity, however, to bring about within one’s soul—in relation to another—the same state that is brought about simply by instinct, through ordinary life, when one approaches another person lovingly, with understanding and interest, and delves into that person’s soul nature with interest. In this case, when one approaches another person with inner involvement, with deep understanding, and with genuine interest in their innermost soul life and their entire way of being, at that very moment one becomes—if I may put it this way—clairvoyant in ordinary life. It is simply the case that in ordinary life, a person is granted the ability to become clairvoyant in this one instance only; in other cases, they must first acquire the corresponding abilities in a methodical and laborious manner.

[ 30 ] But this—the ability to approach another person with understanding and interest, and indeed to develop in life the capacity to delve into the uniqueness of another person—is what, despite all the objections raised today, constitutes true social life. Therefore, because it is, at its core, the capacity that must instinctively be present in a human being if they are to enter into a relationship with another human being—and because it is the very capacity through which the most significant research in the spiritual sciences is accomplished—this spiritual science, in turn, has a reciprocal effect on social life and on the awakening of social feelings. The knowledge one must acquire regarding the supersensible world has a reciprocal effect on social sentiment, awakening genuine understanding for one’s neighbor, for one’s fellow human beings. And that is what is significant.

[ 31 ] This is why social demands arose precisely during that period when, on the other hand, scientific thinking—with its power of abstraction and its sheer intellectuality—was celebrating its greatest triumphs. Before the 16th century, we do not actually find that people reflected thoroughly—and certainly not scientifically—on any social demands. All social life was steeped in instinct. With the emergence of scientific modes of thought, the need to acquire social concepts and to assert conscious social sentiments began at the same time. And when we look at where social demands arise in the most radical way—among the industrial proletariat, from which they actually emanate—we find that this industrial proletariat has developed its entire way of thinking based on what has only emerged in recent times, and specifically with the help of the natural sciences: modern mechanistic thought, modern machine culture, and so on. One result of modern machine culture is the modern proletariat. What, I would say, the modern proletariat has experienced in the outwardly realized scientific way of thinking—in the modern mechanistic cultural elements—that is, indirectly through scientific progress—has essentially given rise to this particular way of intellectually orienting itself toward social demands. Because all of these factors have suppressed precisely that aspect of human relations—the position between one person and another that is akin to clairvoyance—the social element has receded significantly in recent centuries. And because it has receded, because social instincts no longer prevail, intellectual social demands have arisen.

[ 32 ] Now, there is something very peculiar about human life. If we do not merely view it by looking at what a human being is as a physical being in the physical environment, but rather become aware through spiritual science that the human being exists as a soul in a spiritual environment of which ordinary consciousness is unaware, then the entire human being is distributed between the physical world and the spiritual world. It is distributed in a peculiar way. If we first look at our view of nature—at what is expressed in the natural sciences and at what is connected with the natural sciences—what do we find? There is the curious fact that all questions regarding what the natural sciences provide arise from the spiritual realm. The questions do indeed come from the spirit; certainly, they can be drawn from the spirit, as was done in ancient times, or—as natural scientists do in more recent times—they can be inherited from the times when they instinctively took root in the human mind.

[ 33 ] What we observe through experimentation is, in the realm of our perception of nature, merely an answer. Questions lie within the mind. The answers, however, lie here in the physical realm. This is a very interesting connection. And because in ancient times—in earlier eras—there existed what, in a certain sense, might be called an atavistic, instinctive spiritual life, scientific questions in those times arose instinctively from the human soul. These questions were far more comprehensive than the answers people could obtain for themselves through external scientific observations and experiments. What was peculiar was that the ability to still intuitively sense these questions began to recede. Insight into the supersensible worlds was not yet available; therefore, only the legacy of these questions remained in the realm of natural science—precisely in the age when methods for observation, experimentation, and so on were being developed.

[ 34 ] Anyone who approaches modern science—and specifically its most outstanding achievements in this field—with a reasonable degree of understanding will come to realize that the questions posed all stem from very ancient times and are, in fact, gradually becoming increasingly vague. And the answers are certainly compromised by this growing vagueness of the questions. If spiritual science were not to emerge—a science capable of providing new questions for natural science from the spiritual world, so that what is discovered through experimental observation can be properly illuminated—then, despite all external methodological activity in the life of natural science, we would gradually experience a complete paralysis, as can already be seen very clearly today if one is only attuned to it. This is the case with regard to the view of nature.

[ 35 ] With regard to social and moral life, the opposite is true. There, the questions and demands arise within the physical world, the sensory world; and the answers come only from within the spiritual world. There, the opposite is true.

[ 36 ] In the past, human beings had an instinctive spiritual life that, in a sense, provided answers from within the spirit—without their being consciously aware of it—to the demands posed by social and moral life here in the physical world. The moral and social maxims that human beings produced in the past were produced instinctively. The time when these instincts were at work in human nature is over. We live in an age in which human beings must transition to consciousness, an age in which human beings have advanced above all in terms of intellectuality—which was not yet as luminous in the instinctive age as it is now. But this intellect, in its initial naivety, operates in a certain way—I would say—instinctively.

[ 37 ] Thus, with regard to social life, social questions and social demands first came to the fore. And the answers can never be found in any other way than by ascending into the world of the supernatural, from which alone the answers can come. For a true social science capable of providing the necessary answers to the pressing social questions of the present posed by life itself, we need the depth of the humanities, for only they will arrive at these answers. And it is our own age that confirms what must be said in this regard.

[ 38 ] Over the past four and a half years, we have witnessed a terrible catastrophe befalling humanity. Today, spread across vast regions of the Earth, we see what has emerged from this terrible global catastrophe—a situation that still holds within it many things that cause people to view the near future with concern. Anyone who observes these circumstances impartially will not pose the question in the abstract way it is usually posed: What, in fact, has this war-induced catastrophe brought upon the entire world in such a terrible form? — Those who think in terms of the spiritual sciences think in terms of reality in all areas; they do not think in theories or abstractions, but point to realities everywhere. What this terrible catastrophe has brought about is evident in what now remains. More than anything else, the preliminary outcome of this catastrophe is the lifting of a veil, and the truth now emerges in its naked form across Eastern and Central Europe—and likely in other regions as well. What is now emerging, what is now revealed in the social chaos sweeping across the earth—well, it wasn’t that it wasn’t there before; it was merely held in a semblance of order, it was merely concealed. The catastrophe has merely pulled back the veil. Now what was concealed is making itself felt, and we see what is now being revealed. We see what exists as social demands and what cries out for answers. These answers are not provided by those who proceed according to the model of scientific concepts—no matter how ingenious and convincing to the proletariat, as Marxist concepts are—these answers are not provided by concepts that seek to be derived solely from sensory life; rather, these answers can only be provided from the sources of spiritual life.

[ 39 ] This is precisely what becomes clear even through direct observation when one conscientiously and carefully studies what, on this or that point, appears so hopeless—because it amounts to mere exploitation—in the actions of certain leaders of today’s social chaos. These leaders of today’s social chaos—what on earth could they possibly have in mind? They believe they are overcoming old classes; yet they have merely adopted the ideas of those classes. They believe they are bringing about a new way of life, but they can do so only with the ideas they have inherited from the old way of life. Karl Marx himself said mockingly of the philosophers that they had always concerned themselves only with organizing life through thought; what matters, however, is to transform life through thought. — Had he been complete, had he been able to take the step from physical life into the supersensible, he would have had to say something else. But then something entirely different would have emerged. He would then have had to say: The thoughts that have been accepted up to now are only suitable for leaving life in the sensory realm as it is; if one wants to transform this life, if one truly wants to find the answers to the questions arising from social chaos, then one needs different thoughts; for the old ones show that they cannot transform life.

[ 40 ] A mind like Karl Marx may rail or criticize bourgeois ideas and bourgeois life at length. To the proletarian, of course, this is self-evident. And just as it is self-evident to the proletarian—one need only have experience to see it! I have—if I may add this, even though it is a personal remark—worked for years as a teacher at a workers’ educational school run by the Social Democratic Party. I know what makes sense to today’s proletarian; I had the opportunity to get to know what lives in these souls—that which entire strata of today’s humanity cannot even begin to imagine. But what this is really all about, humanity—including the proletariat—will first have to learn to understand. What is actually at stake is that we live in an age that can no longer make do with the old instincts from which human moral and social life has flowed, but must rather transition to a clear, luminous understanding of the answers to the social and moral questions that arise here in sensory life, originating from the supersensible world.

[ 41 ] This brings us back to that perspective on reality that has been lost to humanity—a humanity that, especially today, believes it is so deeply immersed in reality. Sometimes this humanity seems like someone who sees a horseshoe-shaped piece of iron and is told: “Hey, that horseshoe-shaped piece of iron—it looks like any other piece of iron—is a magnet.”—“Oh,” says the first person, “that’s just iron; I’ll use it to shoe my horse.”—He does not believe in the reality of what he cannot see with his own eyes. This is essentially how materialistic thinking relates to the whole world. One believes in an abstraction precisely by believing that one is looking into reality. One stands far removed from true reality, because true reality includes that which underlies things, events, and beings as spiritual life, as the supersensible life. And one distances oneself from reality in one’s habits of thought, in one’s feelings, in one’s impulses of will; one distances oneself from moral and social life when one refuses to allow oneself to be imbued by the spirit.

[ 42 ] While, guided by instinctive faith, people—I would say—lived in clear and orderly circumstances that showed them how everything in their lives was connected to reality, today they live in a world order that has become complicated, one in which they do not even develop the desire, in many cases, to seek a direct relationship with reality. People know, at first glance, what a crop is—what cabbage or wheat is—and what significance cabbage or wheat has for them as commodities. They also know what the performance of human labor means from one person to another; they also know what an intellectual achievement means, because they seek to receive intellectual achievements to satisfy their spiritual needs. As long as a person remains within the sphere of such things, they connect the ideas they form about them—and what they make of life as a result of these ideas—with immediate reality. But life has become more complicated, and today there are many things in external life for which a person hardly has the opportunity even to consider how these things are connected to immediate reality. As strange as it may sound, this is the case for the most important things. What does a person know about how capital, interest, annuities, money itself, or even credit are connected to what happens in life—and in which they are immersed—through capital, annuities, interest, credit, and money? A person merely passes coins from one hand to the other; a person makes use of interest payments and annuities to support their livelihood. Where do they have the opportunity today to reflect on what it means to let money pass from one hand to the other—that, in essence, by letting money pass from one hand to the other, they are letting a certain amount of human labor power pass from one hand to the other!

[ 43 ] Or one need only recall something else to see how people here today have lost touch with reality. Those economists—who are today’s official economists and who are often so helpless when it comes to identifying truly social impulses, who have produced such fruitless results, the fruitlessness of which is becoming apparent precisely now, when it should be proving itself and coming to fruition in life—those economists are just as unable to provide a clear answer to the question of what money actually is in the social process. This is, after all, a point of contention in the field of economics: what money actually is. In the field of economics, there are so-called metallists and nominalists with regard to money. The metallists assert that what matters in money is the metal value—the material itself. The nominalists assert that only the name and the value assigned to the piece in question by the state or other corporations—excluding the metal value—has significance in social transactions. Thus, not only do people fail to use their entire sensibility and the entirety of their human experience to pursue reality in these matters, but even within the field of economics, there is no understanding of how these things relate to reality.

[ 44 ] It is precisely in this field that we see how urgent it is to rediscover reality. This is precisely what spiritual science can offer people: a different kind of mental agility and also a different kind of spiritual necessity. It is true, after all: many people find spiritual science, as it is presented here, difficult because it requires effort—intellectual effort—and people today do not like to exert themselves intellectually. When one observes through the natural sciences or conducts experiments, one observes the processes, and thinking is more of an accompaniment. It proceeds hand in hand with the external processes. People love that today, in the age of the movies, where they like to be entertained by something they merely accompany with their thoughts; that’s what people love today, when they’re naturally less inclined to attend lectures where they’re expected to engage; they much prefer events where slides are shown, where there’s no need to think so much. Certainly, spiritual science does require effort and activity on the part of the human soul. That is why it has such a hard time gaining acceptance, why it encounters so many opponents—or apparent opponents. But there is also a counterbalance, there is also a counter-image. This spiritual science makes concepts—it makes the human capacity for ideas flexible—so that, above all, it also possesses the will to penetrate what actually exists in reality. Therefore, spiritual science will be able to bring order precisely to those fields of knowledge that achieve nothing of substance through today’s—I would say—merely accompanying mode of thinking, namely in political economy, for example, in economics, in the social sciences, and in social life itself. It will be able to traverse the long paths that lead unbroken from such things as money, capital, interest, rent, and credit all the way to reality.

[ 45 ] Certainly, there are many people today who say: What, is this supposed to be spiritual science—this lofty, sublime spiritual science, which is supposed to dwell only in spiritual matters—is it supposed to strive for something as materialistic as an understanding of capital, interest, rent, credit, and so on? This is precisely what must be overcome; this is precisely what one must move beyond if one is to reach the sublimity of the spiritual heights. — That may indeed be quite correct from one perspective, but from that one perspective—the one in which it is correct—it nevertheless satisfies, at least for this earthly life, only the selfish or subtly selfish instincts of human beings. What matters is that this spiritual science can be precisely the most practical thing for human life, that—when introduced in the right way—it will allow us to see through to true reality precisely in those areas that otherwise hover above true reality as a kind of illusory reality.

[ 46 ] And so, since time is of the essence, I would like to draw particular attention to one thing. Anyone familiar with proletarian thought today—and proletarian thought remains the most important aspect of the social question—knows that a presentation of Marxism is particularly compelling to the proletarian, and that, among the various ideas circulating through the world via the proletarian movement, one demand is discussed time and again in a wide variety of forms. This is what Karl Marx knew how to make plausible to people: There are commodities on the world market that are bought and sold according to supply and demand, and so on. A certain law governs this. But among these commodities, due to the modern social order, there is also a very special commodity: human labor power, which the entrepreneur buys. Other people have other commodities that they bring to market and sell—objects as commodities that satisfy human needs. The person who identifies as a proletarian today, because he possesses nothing, has no such things to sell; he has only his human labor power to sell. He brings this to the market, and it is purchased from him only for as much as is strictly necessary to cover his livelihood and that of his family. He receives only as much as human society must provide to sustain his life, while the surplus value—to use the Marxist term—is pocketed by the entrepreneurs or transferred into the rest of social circulation.

[ 47 ] The feeling that he must sell his labor power on the market—that is what drives the proletarian; that is precisely what he seeks to abolish through the so-called socialization of the means of production.

[ 48 ] Now, this idea is one that, if not approached from a deeper perspective, will lead to serious moral problems. It must be pointed out—with that power of thought gained through the sense of reality provided by spiritual science—that there is a tendency in the development of humanity, not in the way it appears in Auguste Comte’s work, but in an entirely different way, which today calls for the reshaping of something very specific. The fact is this: We can still look back to the Greek era. Many of us have indeed experienced—or perhaps not sufficiently experienced—the blessings of this Greek culture, but this Greek culture points us back to Greek slavery and then leads us to reflect further on how slavery itself gradually disappeared in the course of human development. What, then, was transferred along with slavery to other human beings? The whole human being. Almost as far back as serfdom, the whole human being was transferred to other human beings. There, the whole human being had to be transferred to other human beings as a slave. This was part of human development and corresponded to the human instincts of that time. And while on the one hand we see that Plato, the great philosopher, considered slavery necessary, we must also recognize—as the compensation that is always associated with it—that the slave, driven by his instincts and patriarchal sentiments, did not perceive slavery as what we perceive it to be today when looking back on human development. Slavery was simply a part of human development at that time.

[ 49 ] Now, the trend in development is that human beings give less and less of themselves; as slaves, they still gave themselves entirely; then came the time when they gave their labor—when their labor was bought from them at the same value as goods are purchased. Just as in ancient times people gave themselves entirely in slavery, and just as slavery was overcome by a historical necessity—not by human will—so too will the situation in which people give up only a part of their being—their labor—be overcome.

[ 50 ] And this feeling—that this is the case, that it will be overcome—is expressed in the proletarian’s understanding of the Marxist theory of labor power as a commodity and so on, a theory that is, admittedly, very erroneously and one-sidedly asserted. But what is true about this is that first the whole human being, then this part of the human being—human labor power—and now, thirdly, what development is striving toward, only something else can be transferred from one human being to another. Social life will not be abolished, but something else will take its place. Once people begin to speak of this “other,” once they come to understand social reality in such a way that they can speak of this “other,” then they will find understanding by embracing the new ideas that respond to social life.

[ 51 ] That intuition which flows from spiritual science tells us: We are living in a time when the social structure of humanity on Earth is about to change in such a way that labor power, physical labor power can be exchanged for any means that is also given up as a commodity—as an objective commodity—but rather that this human labor power is freely performed by the fact that the human being is placed in a specific position, is situated within a specific social position, and allows the place in which he finds himself to be determined by human society, and also devotes his time to human society. At first, it was the whole person who had to sell himself or was sold; then it became human labor power; and thirdly, it is place and time. In certain areas, this has already been implemented. It is not the case that we can say: We ourselves, who are in different life situations than a proletarian, also give up our labor power, our output, or anything else. We are not paid for our labor power, but at most for working in a specific place and devoting our energy for a certain period of time to the benefit of all humanity. That which no longer belongs to the individual—the social environment in which a person is embedded, their position, which today is determined more or less only for civil servants by the social structure (though this leads to other drawbacks)—will be what takes the place of payment and the resulting commodification of labor power.

[ 52 ] This is what becomes apparent when one observes, from the perspective of spiritual impulses, the development of humanity as it races toward the future. The moment one realizes this, when one speaks and acts from a position of authority—in institutions, in laws, and wherever action is needed in public life—one will act in such a way as to strive, for example, toward such a social principle, and one will thereby meet the social demands that exist among humanity today. Time is pressing, and I can no longer cite anything else from spiritual science.

[ 53 ] One could well say: Something different now lives in the minds of the proletariat—namely, Marxist ideas, or, in the case of revolutionary-minded people, ideas similar to Marxism; after all, we are dealing with these people. Oh no! I myself, esteemed audience—I’ll make this personal remark at the end—having taught among these people for years, was driven out not by them, but against the will of the 400 students by four emissaries of the leadership. But these leaders will not remain leaders for much longer. What remains as a wasteland after this war-torn catastrophe—and upon which these leaders can now exert their influence for a time—will see these leaders disappear; for they will be unable to achieve anything through their ideas. Along with trust in the leaders, trust in the old ideas will be lost.

[ 54 ] And that is what one longs for: that when the opportunity arises, there will also be ears to hear what can be proclaimed as genuine social ideas—that there will then be enough people willing to truly bring such social ideas to humanity, ideas that are constructive and fruitful, instead of those who, through their exploitative practices today—such as those of Lenin, Trotsky, and others—seek to bring destruction and death upon humanity.

[ 55 ] This is what must be taken into account above all else today. I could elaborate on this in relation to broad areas of social life, but I merely wanted to hint at it so that, from a principled standpoint, it might be seen how this spiritual science also addresses—in the realm of social life—what is the most important demand of our time.

[ 56 ] In conclusion, I would like to point out that this spiritual science also seeks, in the third realm—that of religious life—to discover what is precisely the goal of the present time in this realm as well. It is all too easy to hear the objection from people who have only a superficial acquaintance with this spiritual science, as it is understood here: “This is a sectarian movement that seeks to found a new religion”—and the like. The spiritual science referred to here is just as little intended to form sects as it is to found any new religion. It aims to be a science—the very science demanded by the impulse of the times themselves. It aims to be no more amateurish than the natural sciences are permitted to be in their own fields; nor does it stand in opposition to the natural sciences, but to a greater extent even than today’s natural scientists themselves, it adopts the standpoint that has been inaugurated precisely by the natural scientific movement.

[ 57 ] But the reality is quite different. In accordance with the demands of the present—and these demands will become ever more apparent in the future—this spiritual science also seeks to understand religious needs in the way that they must now, under changed circumstances, be understood more and more. Spiritual science aims to be a science. Science always leads away from human individuality, even though it is precisely in the moral and social spheres that it makes the individual comprehensible, and even though it is precisely there that it stimulates the sources of individual impulses. But as science itself, as knowledge, it makes the human being selfless, leads away from individuality, and leads into that which is all-encompassing and universal. However, for the human being to achieve full humanity, it is always necessary that he have a direct, individual relationship to the supersensible—a relationship that he can experience directly and subjectively. Human beings need not only a connection to the supersensible world, as spiritual science can offer it; they also need a connection—through worship, the sacraments, and so on—to the founders of religions and to all the real, external, sensually perceptible developments throughout the decades and centuries that are linked to the founders of religions and to the external revelations. Spiritual science will take what lives in external worship, what lives in the external forms of confession; spiritual science will deepen it spiritually and show what the supersensible, as it manifests itself in the sensory world, actually looks like when penetrated by supersensible knowledge. In this way, spiritual science will prepare people, in a truly modern sense, to have religious needs. But these religious needs can be satisfied in no other way than by looking to the ancient religions.

[ 58 ] Strangely enough, it was a Catholic cardinal, Newman, who, in his inaugural address in Rome, uttered the words—those strange words—that he saw no other salvation for the Catholic Church than a new revelation. — The Catholic cardinal thereby merely demonstrated that he could not adopt the position that humanity had held up to that point regarding the old revelation, for he proclaimed precisely what is to emerge through spiritual science. Spiritual science takes the world as it truly is, and it knows that—although the laws governing the development of humanity differ from those of the individual human being—the same laws that govern development in individual human beings also apply to the development of humanity as a whole. And these laws governing the development of the individual are such that what a person experiences at age 50 cannot be a mere repetition of what he or she experienced, for example, at age 25. One cannot, at age 50, experience the same thing in the same state of mind as one did at age 25. Each stage of life calls for something different and in a different form.

[ 59 ] Now, the course of human development is something else entirely. It is not the same as that of the individual human being, and seeking analogies between individual human beings and historical development is amateurish and incorrect. But spiritual science discovers the laws according to which all of humanity develops, and knows that the founding of religions belongs to very specific eras that lie behind us; that Christianity has synthetically brought together what was scattered among the other religions; that Christianity, as a religious form, is in a certain sense the culmination of religious forms; that one need not wait for a new revelation in the sense advocated by Cardinal Newman, but that one can only understand and reinterpret—in a more enlightened way, in a new and higher sense—the revelation that has appeared in Christianity as a religion among other religious revelations. Precisely because spiritual science thinks in terms of reality and not against reality, it knows that it would be attempting the impossible if it sought to found a new religion. It would be doing the same thing as if it wanted to make a 50-year-old person 30 years old again. For what matters in human development is that the way we relate to religious revelation changes over time, and that new inner foundations must be created. These new inner foundations are being created precisely for today’s human beings and their needs—needs that, admittedly, remain unconscious to many—precisely through spiritual science. And those who, as official representatives of this or that religious denomination, fear—or at least claim to fear—that spiritual science might make people irreligious, should first and foremost ask themselves whether they themselves do not contribute far more to people’s irreligiousness than this spiritual science, which, on the contrary, will lead people back to religious life in the true, true sense.

[ 60 ] Anyone who seeks to hold back this religious life as a church creed at a certain stage—who does not want to allow what must necessarily emerge from the new state of the human soul to find its way in—is far more an opponent of religion, even if he appears in priestly garb, than the one who asks himself: How can human beings, with their deepened inner life, once again develop within their souls that impulse which leads them to an understanding of religious life? — Spiritual science is not the founding of a religion; it is the science of the supersensible life. But in being this, it also leads people to deepen those instincts that—precisely because religious life has declined under the influence of mere external knowledge of nature—will once again make this religious life alive and fruitful in humanity in the most diverse forms.

[ 61 ] This is what the humanities must respond to—namely, the numerous attacks coming from this quarter today, which, however, actually originate from those who are perhaps more hostile to religious life in reality—even though they defend their religion and their faith with words—than anyone who is merely indifferent; let alone the scholar of the humanities, who will lead people back to true religiosity. To such people, one always wants to give an answer—one that I will quote again today, which I was once compelled to give to someone. I gave a lecture in a city in southern Germany on “Christianity and Wisdom.” There were also two Catholic clergymen in the audience; they were listening. They hadn’t heard anything else—only this lecture—and it didn’t strike them as particularly heretical. Afterward, they came up to me and said: “You say things that we, as official representatives of religion, do not necessarily have to oppose. But it is not right for you to present it this way. The way you present it, it is only understandable to certain people.” The way we present the matter, it is understandable to everyone.” — I replied: “Reverend, you see, I can well believe—for that is human nature—that you think every person in a similar situation would have to do the same as you, because it is simply human nature to always believe that everyone should do things the way you do them.” But whether I think I’m doing it right, or whether you think you’re doing it right—that doesn’t matter at all to someone who thinks in terms of reality; what matters is this reality itself. In this case, reality itself dictates the answer to your objection. I ask you: Do all people still go to your church—which would show that you speak for everyone—or do some remain outside? —You had no choice but to tell me that some do remain outside. Well, you see, I said, for those who remain outside and who nevertheless have a living, healthy sense of how to find the path to Christ—it is for them that I speak.

[ 62 ] This is what reality tells us, not the subjective belief that everyone is, of course, entitled to hold. Let us not decide for ourselves, but let reality decide. This insight into reality, this inner search for reality—that is what spiritual science will be able to bring to humanity, especially in the three areas currently at war: the realms of moral, social, and religious life. And perhaps, once one sees through these things, one will be able to say: This spiritual science already has tasks specifically for the present. And it is no coincidence, no arbitrary decision, and not merely the agitation of a single individual that this spiritual science is taking root in human thought, feeling, and the impulses of the will precisely at this moment. For one can say, in a certain sense: The present itself, with its difficult experiences, with the tragic fate that will befall humanity and which likely still harbors many a tragedy within it—this present—it shows, in and of itself, that a new remedy is necessary for many things. And there are many things—I would like to say this in conclusion to these reflections—for which precisely the sense of reality developed by spiritual science shows that it alone can be the remedy, and that if humanity does not find the courage and the interest to turn to this spiritual science for salvation, we will lack a remedy for many things.

[ 63 ] If one refuses to embrace the humanities, one will be unable to make progress in many areas. And therefore, since humanity is never forced to take refuge in pessimism but is always allowed—and indeed must—believe in the good aspects of human nature, we may therefore believe: Because humanity needs to observe the supersensible life, it will choose the path to this supersensible knowledge and will then also find it.