The Rudolf Steiner Archive

91. Human Character

[ 1 ] On Monday and Tuesday, Dr. Rudolf Steiner from Berlin spoke to a large audience on behalf of the Stuttgart branch about “The Mission of Devotion” and human character. Human character, the speaker explained in his second lecture, is what gives a person their distinctive character. This character, in turn, is determined by the soul’s disposition. The soul can be divided into three parts: the sensory soul, the intellectual or emotional soul, and the conscious soul. These three souls are, as it were, the strings of a musical instrument which, depending on how they are plucked, can resonate in great harmony or result in shrill, discordant sounds. The great master of music is the “I,” which human beings must regard as their first and only task to purify. In doing so, they must begin at the lowest level of the soul and gradually guide their development upward through the intellectual or emotional soul toward the conscious soul. However, they can do this only by not judging the world on their own initiative, but rather by learning from the great and manifold events of the entire, all-encompassing universe. For the world is the only true teacher. But whoever does this will, albeit gradually, comprehend and solve the great mysteries of their soul.