The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. Closing Remarks

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen, dear fellow students! We have reached the end of this event, and I, too, would like to express the hope already voiced by the esteemed organizers: that something deeply satisfying may have found its way into the souls of our most welcome audience members over these past few days, and that something equally satisfying may remain with them in their reflections afterward. It is, of course, only natural that in the course of such a brief event, one can offer only a few glimpses of what anthroposophical spiritual science seeks to be—and what it seeks to be, in particular, in our age of science and life.

[ 2 ] The fact that a number of individuals—precisely those belonging to academic circles—have come together to pursue anthroposophy out of youthful enthusiasm is one of the most deeply gratifying things for anyone who would like to devote his or her life to all that lies within this anthroposophical spiritual science. You will therefore believe me when I say, from the bottom of my heart, that I extend my heartfelt thanks to my esteemed fellow students, who have devoted their energy, their efforts, and their good will to this event.

[ 3 ] I am convinced that all those who have contributed to this event and who are involved in one way or another in our anthroposophical movement will, in the same spirit, extend their most heartfelt thanks to the esteemed organizers of these university courses. This gratitude is directed first and foremost to the working groups of the Federation for Anthroposophical University Work in Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Giessen, Marburg, Heidelberg, and Würzburg, who have gone to such great lengths to ensure that this event could be a worthy one. But this gratitude is also directed to all participants in this anthroposophical endeavor.

[ 4 ] And now that I am to address a few closing remarks to you, my esteemed audience, dear fellow students, please do not expect me to present what I have to say—what I would now like to share with you at the end—in the usual form of a closing speech; rather, let me say a few things that seem necessary to me in part and that, especially in light of what I have been privileged to experience here among you these past few days, are very close to my heart.

[ 5 ] There has been extremely strong opposition from some quarters to the fact that the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach—where, during the war, it was necessary to demonstrate to the world how German spiritual life should be presented—has been named “Goetheanum.” I have used the name on several occasions—but the decision to call this educational institution the “Goetheanum” originated with others. But perhaps it may be said that there is something in this name that is connected to my own growth into the anthroposophical movement during this earthly life. And for that reason, I would like to begin by framing what I wish to say to you in the form of a few memories from my life.

[ 6 ] When I myself entered university in Vienna, it was still a time when technical universities were just beginning to establish what has since gained such immense global significance: electrical engineering. In Waltenhofen, the Vienna “Technik” had its first representative of electrical engineering, who had, however, emerged from the field of general physics. And since then, we have been able to keep pace with everything that has emerged from this field—and which, as we have seen, has become so influential that the study of light and many other natural phenomena has now become part of a scientific worldview, one might say, derived entirely from the observation of electrical phenomena. The modern concept of electrons has replaced the purely elastic atoms with which we still had to grapple in our complex differential equations. And these decades encompass significant developments in the evolution of modern humanity. But it also encompasses what I attempted to hint at yesterday in my public lecture: the striving to move away from the increasingly pervasive materialistic view of the world—which, after all, actually celebrates its triumphs in the theory of electrons—and back toward a spiritual understanding of the world. Within what we can gain from the theory of electrons, we simply do not find the human being. But we must find the human being once again. And perhaps it has become clear to you from the aspirations underlying our lectures that what we seek first and foremost is knowledge of the human being—but a knowledge of the human being that is connected to all other scientific knowledge and to all worldly endeavors, right down to the individual social sphere, which is to come alive in anthroposophy.

[ 7 ] For me, back when I was still allowed to feel the way many of you feel today, something came to meet me—amidst the scientific and technical mindset that surrounded me in my youth—shortly after I entered the Vienna University of Technology. In addition to the other subjects I was studying, I also attended the lectures of my former teacher—who had become a friend—the late Karl Julius Schröer. And among the most profound experiences I had at that time was when, in his first lecture on German literature, Karl Julius Schröer spoke a word that so clearly showed how the renewal of the spiritual life of modern humanity can be born out of the German, Germanic essence. Perhaps today this word no longer seems as significant to you as it did to me back then. Karl Julius Schröer sought to characterize how Goethe, Schiller, Herder, Lessing, the German Romantics, and the German philosophers had immersed themselves in the entire spiritual life of humanity. To this end, he wanted to show that art—that aesthetic experience—had become, for Germans at that time, a sacred matter of humanity, not merely a luxurious addition to life. Something that is fundamentally human was to flow into art. And Karl Julius Schröer expressed this in his own way at the time in the sentence he uttered during the first hour of his lecture: “The German has an aesthetic conscience.” — This also underlay the way he subsequently approached Goethe’s Faust, in which he sought to portray Faust as the hero of invincible idealism, who, precisely at that time, had to emerge from the deepest recesses of German spiritual life into the development of the world and humanity.

[ 8 ] Then I took part in what Karl Julius Schröer called the “Deutsche Gesellschaft” at that time—a movement that drew inspiration from what Uhland and Grimm had developed in their teaching—I took part in what was then known as the Deutsche Gesellschaft. Young people gave lectures; they were able to speak their minds freely. The first lecture I was to give within this “Deutsche Gesellschaft” dealt, in my then clumsy, youthfully immature way, with the rejection of Kant and Kantianism—that barrier erected against the essence of the world by the particular interpretation that phenomena have found in modern science.

[ 9 ] And then I had the privilege, as a participant in the “Deutsche Lesehalle” at the University of Vienna, of speaking about Johann Gottlieb Fichte to a group of Viennese students. I tried to incorporate into what I wanted to say about Fichte precisely everything that, in my immature way at the time, seemed necessary to me for enriching intellectual life from a very special perspective.

[ 10 ] And one of the essays I wrote while I was briefly editing the Deutsche Wochenschrift in Vienna had the same title as the second lecture I gave here—albeit in a different manner: “The Spiritual Signature of the Present.” But this essay sought to point out the true sources of German intellectual life that could lead to a spiritualization of modern culture.

[ 11 ] I am not saying this to take credit for anything, but rather I would like to present such images so that perhaps one or two people might gain a truer picture of what I personally have contributed to the spiritual-anthroposophical movement than the image that is now being widely disseminated by those with dishonest motives.

[ 12 ] Well, distinguished guests, dear fellow students, I had ample opportunity back then to become acquainted with the forces of decline in modern academic life. And so it gave me deep satisfaction that, during my time working at the Goethe-Schiller Archive in Weimar—drawing on my studies of Goethe, if I may say so—I was able to devote myself to “Goetheanism,” so to speak, for years on end. There, one truly felt at the very center of German intellectual life. Weimar back then, in the 1880s, was still quite different from what it is today. There was still a certain atmosphere pervading the whole of Weimar that is no longer there today, and it was precisely from this atmosphere that one sensed what is specifically “Goethian.” At that time, I attempted to point the way toward what was to come by giving a lecture in Weimar on “The Imagination as the Creator of Culture.”

[ 13 ] What I have now attempted to present from a scientific-philosophical foundation shows you, even in its very first attempts, that the aim is to draw the spiritual current from what served as the foundation of Goethe’s thinking and feeling in all areas of knowledge and life. I certainly did not start from Haeckel; anyone can see that by reading the chapter I wrote specifically on Haeckelism in the first introduction to Goethe’s scientific writings in the early 1880s. But anyone who wishes to be fully engaged in the life of the humanities must take everything seriously; they must actually put into practice what they advocate in theory. Therefore, those currents of contemporary spiritual life that have now entered this life with all their might and force must also be lovingly lived through; and this immersion in Nietzscheanism and Haeckelism has been perceived as a form of allegiance [on my part]. However, if one were so inclined, one could easily find the sources of anthroposophical spiritual science in those of my writings that preceded even these debates with Haeckel or Nietzsche. In my Philosophy of Freedom, I first attempted to point out in a practical way how the spiritual must flow into moral and social action.

[ 14 ] And when it is emphasized once again today that my work has been incorporated into that of the Theosophical Society, then, my esteemed audience, I must stress time and again that I have never, anywhere, advocated anything other than what I have gained through my own inner path of inquiry. That people within the circle of this or that society wanted to hear me, that they invited me to work within that society in order to hear me—that is something I consider entirely possible, indeed necessary. And I will never allow myself to be prevented from speaking wherever people wish to hear me, now or in the future.

[ 15 ] Therefore, I must emphasize that I did not seek out the Theosophical Society, but rather that it came to me. And I must emphasize again and again that when I wrote my first book, which was based more on the natural sciences Mysticism at the Dawn of Modern Spiritual Life and Its Relationship to the Modern Worldview, people within theosophical circles—to which I did not belong at the time—told me that this book contained everything that these theosophical circles were actually seeking. But this did not originate from those circles; rather, it was discovered through the path of research that I felt compelled to take—starting from a foundation in the natural sciences, ascending into the spiritual realm, and leading to anthroposophy.

[ 16 ] And so the transformation of the “Theosophical Society” into the “Anthroposophical Society” was also brought about by the facts themselves. But what flowed through the work of these societies was never anything other than what flows today. But it goes without saying that this anthroposophical spiritual science, because it has been cultivated for decades in a wide variety of fields, has developed slowly and gradually, step by step, and that what had to be expressed in a more abstract form at the beginning has been able to take on an ever more concrete form. Consequently, when we speak today, we can draw much more from spiritual reality than could be drawn in earlier decades. But spiritual science in the anthroposophical sense would not be a living entity if it were not so. And those who are not concerned with the dead spiritual, but with the living spiritual, will understand this living development. They will understand that just as a mature person can no longer be a child, so too can anthroposophical spiritual science, having come of age, no longer speak in the same way it did when it was still in its infancy. Anyone who wishes to view these matters objectively will see that things must be exactly as they are, precisely because the subject matter seeks to be something thoroughly alive.

[ 17 ] Even those areas that were taken up relatively late—the artistic and the medical—have become organically integrated, because the need for them essentially arose from the external world and was met by pure anthroposophy. One yielded—I would say almost as a matter of destiny—to what had emerged from the necessities of the times, from the signs of the times. But understanding the signs of the times—that is what it is all about.

[ 18 ] Ladies and gentlemen, dear fellow students, I could cite many other examples to show how what has found its way into anthroposophy is to be found in the very source of German spiritual life. For the sake of brevity, I will not do so today. I have given these individual examples solely because, in recent times, a campaign has been waged against anthroposophical spiritual science under the banner of hostility toward German culture. And in the face of what emerges from the most unscrupulous motives and scientific incompetence—as in the case, for example, of Professor Fuchs of Göttingen— and which is coupled with all manner of attacks by various other figures who have never even sensed a hint of what anthroposophical spiritual science and anthroposophical spiritual will truly are—and which are directed precisely at the German essence of anthroposophy—in the face of this, it must be said: Whatever anyone chooses to think or feel about anthroposophy is their prerogative; anthroposophy will stand its ground against those who are honest opponents. — I have never turned against even the sharpest criticism when it has taken the form of a judgment. But I will always turn against something else. The criticism from many circles that are hostile to anthroposophy today is not based on judgment, [and this is] for easily understandable reasons: because these circles lack such judgment, because they do not wish to make the effort to truly familiarize themselves with anthroposophy and with the way in which it seeks to flow into external social life; their criticism is based on something else. In the broadest circles today, the numerous attacks—of which you have likely already heard—are based on lies. These fabrications go as far as forged letters. They go so far that during my April lecture in Stuttgart—which was given in self-defense—one of these attacks was directed at me from the audience: It was claimed that I had said this or that in Cologne in recent months. I had to reply that I had not been to Cologne for years. The person in question cited a letter that had supposedly been written to him from Cologne, and he had the audacity to produce this letter. I had to reply: No matter what it says, it is a forgery, because it is a lie that I have been in Cologne in recent years. — This is typical of the attacks coming from certain quarters. They do not base their claims on judgment or opinion; it is all a lie. Everyone is entitled to their own judgment and opinion according to their abilities, according to what they are capable of; I will oppose these only within the limits that they themselves provoke. For whoever is an honest opponent strives to get to the heart of a matter; it would be a sin not to engage with such opponents in complete good faith. But with those who resort to deceit—even going so far as to fabricate letters—no other form of engagement is possible than to make the world aware that they are lying.

[ 19 ] This is what I would like to express here in just a few words, because I am speaking to devoted younger people who, out of the depth of their enthusiasm, have made it possible—despite the fact that anthroposophy is presented to the world today in such a distorted form—for this lecture series and this lecture event to take place.

[ 20 ] Dear fellow students, insofar as you are interested in anthroposophy to the extent that you have already demonstrated, you will be drawn into fierce struggles, and you will have to pay particular attention to the dishonesty that pervades these struggles. In many cases, particularly within the older anthroposophical movement as it has developed over the years, something has arisen that today often renders this movement ill-equipped to face its well-organized opponents. Anthroposophists are often calm people at heart who really only want to receive what uplifts their spirits in a certain way. They are very rarely people equipped for battle. That is one side of the coin. On the other hand, the situation today is such that, precisely because of this longing for an inner peace of mind, it has very often happened that when attacks based entirely on falsehoods came from outside and one was then compelled to call a lie a lie, the sentiment even within anthroposophical circles has not turned against those who attacked with lies, but rather against those who had to defend themselves. This is something that has become an exceptionally strong custom, especially in our own circles.

[ 21 ] Well, my dear fellow students, of those who have already shown how they are finding their way into anthroposophy despite the difficulties the anthroposophical path presents, and how they are making sacrifices for it—of them, perhaps, we may especially expect that, wherever insincerity arises, without passing judgment on the true nature of anthroposophical striving, they will be inclined to to unmask that insincerity with all their might. Insincerity, after all, plays a widespread role in the present world in other ways as well, and a good part of how we move forward from forces of decline to forces of ascent will be the enthusiasm for truthfulness that we are able to develop. Truthfulness is, after all, the highest good—never any particular partisan orientation. The entire system of anthroposophy must, after all, be built upon truthfulness. For how could one who does not understand how to stand up for truthfulness in outer life ascend to those regions where one must be guided solely by an inner orientation toward truthfulness—since, unlike in outer life, one cannot always be corrected regarding untruthfulness? What could possibly be revealed to the world from the regions of the supersensible worlds if enthusiasm for truth were not the foundation? This enthusiasm for truth—we see it particularly in the discussions about the responsibility for the war—this enthusiasm for truth is so often lacking today, even among those who call themselves the bearers of civilization. We need this enthusiasm for truthfulness, and anyone who is as deeply intertwined with German identity—I would like to mention this in all modesty—as I am myself, will be, can be, and must be convinced that this German identity suffers no detriment whatsoever when truthfulness is insisted upon even in the most difficult matters. All attacks directed against anthroposophy from this very quarter bear the stamp of insincerity. Understand, therefore, my dear fellow students, how deeply gratifying it must be to me that, despite everything that is being directed against anthroposophy today in a well-organized manner, you have undertaken to hold this event here. And whoever among you already senses today how sincere this gratitude is will also have to feel that, along those paths which, unfortunately, are only available to us in a limited way, we will strive to work together in the fullest harmony as we continue to follow the anthroposophical path. I have often had to take refuge in Goetheanism in response to the urge for renewal arising from modern scientific and technical life. Today, some of you, my dear fellow students, are certainly seeking this path through anthroposophy from the depths of your hearts. And it may be said, based on an unbiased observation of the course of history: You are seeking this path in response to the true signs of the times. — May it therefore be possible, through our collaboration with those who are already actively engaged in the anthroposophical movement in one place or another, for the work of youthful minds in particular to unfold in the most fruitful way. Youthful minds will then have no reason to turn to Spenglerian pessimism. Spengler, however, has recently denied that what he strives for is pessimism. But in any case, anyone who is fully imbued, in the anthroposophical sense, with the inner substance of the rising forces of our age has no reason to turn to Spenglerism. On the other hand, what once made a great impression on all young people—provided they were willing to turn to science—once they had engaged with it, may be revived in a new form, in a more spiritualized form: what Fichte once spoke of in his “Addresses on the Nature and Vocation of the Scholar” at the end of the 18th century. These ideas can—albeit in a transformed form—be articulated once more, precisely to help the emerging forces of the first third of the 20th century bear fruit. In particular, however, we should recall the words Fichte spoke right at the beginning of his lectures, addressing all those who wanted nothing to do with drawing from the spiritual realm for real, practical life. To them he said: if they believed that all reality was exhausted in the sensory world, that ideals were merely utopias, then they should be convinced that the one who speaks as he, Fichte, does, also knew quite clearly—perhaps better than they did—that ideals cannot be realized in real life as directly as that to which they always point. But Fichte also added that such minds might not be persuaded, and that therefore—since the providence of the world had not actually counted on them—God might grant them, at the right time, food, sunshine, and rain, and, if possible, a few good thoughts as well.

[ 22 ] This is how Fichte, the idealist, spoke back then at the end of the 18th century, and this is also how we may speak today, drawn by the innermost impulse of anthroposophical spiritual science. I can sense at this moment, as we part ways, that you feel something of this spirit, and that it was out of this spirit that you took the step to organize these lectures—this entire event.

[ 23 ] It is out of gratitude—arising from all the attention and goodwill you have shown toward what we have been able to offer you—that I speak to you. I speak to you because I truly believe that it will be of the utmost importance for the emergence of a new spiritual movement if the youth of humanity—moved to the depths of their hearts—turn to this movement. It will depend on you, dear fellow students, how circumstances will unfold in the coming decades. It will depend on you whether the downtrodden German people will be able to rise again. Humanity needs strength for this, not just words—strength! But strength can come to humanity today only from the spirit. In many respects, the young generation has made a start by forming these student groups. It has continued by having the esteemed student groups from Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Giessen, Marburg, Heidelberg, and Würzburg organize this event. May this event be the starting point for fruitful further work—work that will lead to a genuine resurgence of humanity in the coming generations, and, in particular, to a resurgence of humanity in Central Europe. For, after all, everything that has been sought to be accomplished here in recent days was directed toward this goal, toward this ideal. So, my dear fellow students, let us work together in the spirit of a truly anthroposophical attitude, so that what humanity needs may flow into it: above all, the strength of youth, the enthusiasm of youth—and may that seriousness which youth experiences through engagement with science also flow into it. Let us stand firmly on the ground of a strictly scientific outlook. But let us move beyond abstractions, beyond mere theory, beyond dead conceptual constructs. Let us move toward a living grasp of the full reality that unfolds not only in the outer sensory world but also in the soul and spiritual worlds.

[ 24 ] And when I speak here specifically to those who, as aspiring technicians, are actively involved in this movement, I may say that this active involvement within technical work seems to me to be of particular significance for this spiritual movement. In the world, things develop in polar opposites. What is highest in the scientific way of thinking, the technician experiences it in design, in construction, and in the laboratory. By pouring the laws of nature into the outer world, by developing technology, we bring our soul, above all, into contact with that which at first does not contain the spirit—yet the human heart approaches everything. The human soul and the human spirit enter into this sphere. It is precisely through the perception of the technical that feeling and thought must be directed upward toward the other pole—toward that which, as spirituality, surges through and weaves through the world. Technology is particularly suited, precisely because it penetrates the outer sensory world most deeply, to point toward the other side—toward the realm of spirituality. I therefore believe that it is precisely from the aspiring technician that much of that power can emanate which can contribute most significantly to the development of humanity by fostering a spiritual attitude and a spiritual worldview.

[ 25 ] It is in this spirit that I wished to address these final words of today’s event to all of you. Let them once again resonate as a heartfelt thank you to all those who contributed to this event, and as a heartfelt thank you to all those who have paid attention to it.