The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Theosophical Morality I

[ 1 ] Following an impulse that occurred to me—and which may well warrant further discussion—we are now examining one of the most important, one of the most significant areas of our theosophical worldview. It is, after all, not uncommon for us to be accused of being so eager to elevate ourselves in our contemplation of distant cosmic developments and their connection to humanity, of being so eager to ascend into the realms of spiritual worlds, that we all too often merely observe such distant events of the past and such far-reaching perspectives of the future, and almost neglect the very realm that ought to be closest to humanity: the realm of human morality and human ethics.

[ 2 ] Regarding what is so often said when we are accused of addressing this most important realm of human spiritual and social life less than that more remote realm—it is true that this realm, the realm of human morality, must be the most essential to us. But what must be said in response to this accusation is that, precisely because we feel within ourselves the full significance and scope of theosophical life and theosophical attitude, we may approach this realm only with the most sacred reverence, so that we are conscious that, if it is to be regarded in the proper sense, it touches human beings as closely as is possible and requires the most serious, the most worthy preparation.

[ 3 ] The accusation leveled against us by that side in the manner just described could perhaps be put into the following words. One might say: Why engage in lengthy reflections on the world? Why tell stories about the many reincarnations of many beings, about the complicated workings of karma, when the most important thing in life is what a sage who had reached the pinnacle of this life repeated over and over again to his followers as he, after a life rich in wisdom, already sick and weak, had to be carried away: Children, love one another. As is well known, this is what the Apostle, the Evangelist John, said in his advanced age, and it has often been emphasized that these three words—Children, love one another!—constitute the very essence of the deepest moral wisdom. And some might say: What, then, is the point of everything else, if goodness, if the noble moral ideals, can be fulfilled in such a simple way, as is the meaning of these words of the Evangelist John?

[ 4 ] There is one thing that is overlooked when deriving the assertion—based on the entirely correct fact mentioned above—that it was enough for people to know that they should love one another. One thing is overlooked here, namely the fact that the one cited as a witness to these words spoke them at the end of a life rich in wisdom, at the end of a life that encompassed the writing of the deepest, most meaningful Gospel, and that the one who spoke them only granted himself the right to speak these words after he had lived through this life of profound wisdom, which led to such great and mighty results. Yes, whoever has a life like his behind them may summarize all that human souls can feel in response to the profound wisdom found in the Gospel of John into the words just cited as the final conclusion of his wisdom, which flows from unfathomable depths of the soul into the depths of other hearts and other souls as well. But whoever is not in such a position must first earn the right to express the highest moral truths in such a simple way by delving into the foundations of the world’s mysteries. As trivial as the oft-repeated saying is—“When two people say the same thing, it is not the same”—it applies in a very special way to what has just been stated. If anyone who simply wishes to refuse to know or understand anything about the mysteries of the world says, “It is so simple to characterize the highest moral life,” and uses the words, “Children, love one another,” this is quite different from when the Evangelist John speaks these words, and moreover at the end of such a life rich in wisdom. That is why precisely the one who understands these words of the evangelist John should draw a very different conclusion from them than is usually drawn. He should conclude that one must first remain silent about such profoundly significant words, and that one may only speak them once one has acquired the necessary preparation and maturity for doing so.

[ 5 ] But now, having made this statement—which is sure to strike a chord with many—something quite different will arise in our souls, something of infinitely profound significance. People will say to themselves: Yes, it may well be that moral principles, in their deepest sense, can only be understood at the end of all wisdom, but people always need them. How, then, could it be possible at all in the world to promote any kind of moral community or social endeavor if one had to wait until the end of the pursuit of wisdom to grasp the highest moral principles? Morality is the most essential thing for human coexistence, and yet here someone claims that moral principles can only be attained at the end of the quest for wisdom. Indeed, some might say that they would despair of the wise order of the world if that were the case—if what is most necessary could only be attained at the end of human striving.

[ 6 ] The facts of life provide us with ample answers to what has been described here. You need only bring together two facts of life, which you are undoubtedly quite familiar with in one form or another, and you will immediately see that both of the following can be true: that we only attain the highest moral principles and their understanding upon completing the pursuit of wisdom, and that the things just mentioned—moral and social communities and works—cannot exist without morality. You will see this immediately if you bring to mind two facts that are certainly familiar to you in one form or another. Or who has not already seen how an intellectually highly developed person—perhaps even one who has not merely absorbed external scholarship with a clever and intellectual grasp, but who has also understood much, both theoretically and practically, of occult and spiritual truths—is by no means a particularly moral person. Who has not already seen that intelligent, spiritually highly developed people have strayed onto the wrong moral path? And who has not experienced the other fact from which we can learn so much—that, for example, they have met a nanny with a narrow horizon, limited intellect, and few insights, who, while not raising her own children but working in the service of others, raised other people’s children, one after another, from the first weeks of their physical existence, contributed to their upbringing, and perhaps until her death sacrificed everything she had for these children in an absolutely loving manner, with the most selfless devotion imaginable. And if anyone had approached this woman with moral principles, drawn from the highest treasures of wisdom, she probably would not have been particularly interested in these moral principles at all. She would likely have found them utterly incomprehensible and useless. But what she has achieved morally has a greater impact than mere recognition; in such a case, it often causes us to bow in awe before what flows from the heart into life and creates infinite good.

[ 7 ] Facts of this kind often shed much clearer light on life’s mysteries than theoretical debates, for we tell ourselves that wise creation, wise evolution, did not wait for humans to invent moral principles before imbuing the world with moral action and moral influence. Therefore, we must say: Setting aside immoral actions—the reasons for which we will come to understand in the course of these lectures—there is indeed something present in the human soul that can be regarded as a divine inheritance, given as an original morality that one might call instinctive morality, and which already enables humanity to wait until moral principles can be fully understood.

[ 8 ] But perhaps it is quite unnecessary to worry too much about exploring moral principles. Could one not perhaps say that it would be best for people to rely on their original moral instincts and not allow themselves to be confused by theoretical debates about morality? That this is not the case either is precisely what these lectures are intended to demonstrate; they are intended to show that, at least in the cycle of humanity in which we currently find ourselves, we must seek theosophical morality, that theosophical morality must be a task that arises as the fruit of our entire theosophical striving and our theosophical science.

[ 9 ] Schopenhauer, a modern philosopher who is certainly no stranger to the North, has—amidst the many errors contained in his philosophy—uttered a very true statement specifically regarding the principles of morality, namely: It is easy to preach morality, but difficult to justify it. This statement is quite true, for there is actually hardly anything easier than to declare, in a manner that appeals to the very deepest principles of human feeling and sensibility, what a person should or should not do in order to be a good person. Admittedly, it even offends some people when it is claimed that this is easy. But it is indeed easy, and anyone who knows life, who knows the world, will not doubt that hardly anything has been discussed as much as the correct principles of moral conduct. And one thing in particular is also true: that, fundamentally speaking, one finds the greatest possible agreement among one’s fellow human beings when speaking of these general principles of moral conduct. It feels so good, one might say, to the listening crowd, and one feels so strongly that one can absolutely agree with what the speaker says when he presents the most universal principles of human moral conduct.

[ 10 ] But moral teachings and moral sermons do not establish morality. Not at all. For if morality could indeed be established through moral teachings and moral sermons, then there would certainly be no immoral acts today; then all of humanity would be, one might say, simply dripping with moral actions, for everyone has undoubtedly had the opportunity time and again to hear the most beautiful moral principles—especially because they are so often preached. But knowing what one ought to do, what is morally right, is the very least of it on moral ground. The most important thing in the realm of morality, on the other hand, is that impulses may live within us which, through their inner strength, their inner power, are transformed into moral actions—actions that thus manifest themselves morally outwardly. As is well known, moral sermons or the results of moral sermons do not do this at all. But that is what it means to ground morality: when a person is led to the sources from which they must draw those impulses, from which they receive the powers that lead to moral action.

[ 11 ] Just how difficult it is to find these forces is shown by the simple fact that countless attempts have actually been made, from a philosophical perspective, to establish an ethics or a moral code. How many different answers are there in the world to the question: What is good? or: What is virtue? Try writing down what the philosophers have said, starting with Plato and Aristotle, through the Epicureans, the Stoics, the Neoplatonists, the whole line up to modern philosophical views; write down everything that has been said—I’ll just mention from Plato to Herbert Spencer—about the nature and essence of the good and of virtue, and you will see how many different approaches have been taken to penetrate to the sources of moral life, to the sources of moral impulses.

[ 12 ] The lectures I intend to give here are meant to show you that it is indeed only through an occult deepening of life—through penetrating the occult mysteries of life—that it becomes possible to go beyond mere moral teachings and reach moral impulses, the moral sources of life.

[ 13 ] However, a single glance shows us that this moral aspect of the world is by no means always as straightforward as one might like to believe from a certain comfortable vantage point. Let us for a moment set aside what is commonly understood today as “moral” and instead consider human life in those areas where we might gain much for a moral outlook on life.

[ 14 ] Among the many things that occultism has already revealed to us, the realization that the most diverse views and impulses have made themselves felt among the various peoples in different regions of the world is by no means the least significant. Let us compare two regions of humanity that at first glance seem far apart. Let us go back to the venerable life of ancient India and consider how it has gradually developed right up to the present day; for, as you know, in none of the regions of actual life on Earth known to us does the fact apply to such a high degree as it does to India: that which was characteristic of ancient times has been preserved right up to the present day. This applies to no region more than to life within Indian and certain other Asian cultures. Right up to the present day, the feelings, sensations, thoughts, and views that we already find in these cultural regions in ancient times have been preserved. What is striking is that a reflection of ancient times has been preserved in these cultures; that when we look at what has been preserved right up to our own time, we are, so to speak, looking into the ancient times at the same time.

[ 15 ] However, we will not get very far when dealing with specific, distinct ethnic groups if, for example, we apply only our own moral standards from the outset. Therefore, let us set aside for now whatever might be said about the moral issues of our time and simply ask: What has emerged from these characteristic features of the ancient, venerable Indian culture?

[ 16 ] First of all, we find there, revered and sanctified above all else, what might be called devotion—the dedication to the spiritual. And the more a person is able to turn inward, to live quietly within themselves, and to direct the best that is within them—apart from all activity in the outer world, apart from everything a person can be on the physical plane—toward the sources of the spiritual worlds, the more we find this devotion to the spiritual sanctified and honored. We see this devout turning of the soul toward the depths of existence as the highest duty among those who have belonged or belong to the highest caste of Indian life, the Brahmins. Everything they do, all their impulses, are ordered toward this devotion; and there is nothing that more deeply impresses the moral sensibility and feeling of these people than this turning toward the Divine-Spiritual in a devotion that forgets all that is physical, in an intensely deep self-observation and self-renunciation. And how the moral life of these people is permeated by what has just been described, you can see from the further fact that those who, especially in earlier times, belonged to other castes, regard it as self-evident that the caste of devotion, the caste of religious and ritual life, is viewed as something venerable and set apart. Thus, the whole of life was permeated by these impulses, just described, of orientation toward the divine-spiritual. The whole of life was in the service of this orientation, and one cannot understand what is at stake here through the general moral principles upon which any philosophy is founded. One cannot understand it for the reason that, in the times when these things developed in ancient India, they were initially impossible among other peoples. These impulses required the temperament, the fundamental character of this very people, in order to develop with such intensity. Then, in the course of the outward cultural currents, they spread from there across the rest of the earth. If we wish to understand what is meant by the divine-spiritual, we must go to this original source.

[ 17 ] And now let us turn our attention away from this culture and turn it to another. Let us turn it to the European continent. Let us turn our gaze to the European peoples in the times when Christianity had not yet penetrated European culture, when it was just beginning to do so. You are all aware that, as it were, the European folk culture opposed Christianity—which was penetrating Europe from the east and south—with very specific impulses, with very specific inner values and forces. And anyone who studies the history of the introduction of Christianity in Europe, in Central Europe, and also here in the North—especially those who study it through occult means—knows what it cost in one region or another to find a balance between this or that Christian impulse and what was offered to Christianity from Northern and Central Europe.

[ 18 ] And let us now ask, as we did regarding Indian folklore, what were the most outstanding moral impulses, and what was contributed to Christianity by the peoples—whose descendants make up the current European population, particularly in the North, Central Europe, and England—as moral goodness, as a moral legacy. We need only name a single one of the cardinal virtues, and immediately we know that we are speaking of something quite characteristic of this Nordic population, of the Central European population. We need only say the word “bravery,” “courage”—the commitment with all one’s personal human strength to realize in the physical world what a person can will from their innermost impulses—and then we have named the most principal virtues that were offered by the Europeans to Christianity. And the other virtues are, in essence—and we find this all the more true the further back we go in time—the consequences of these virtues.

[ 19 ] If we examine true fortitude, true bravery, in terms of some of its fundamental characteristics, we find that it consists of an inner vitality that is capable of giving. This is what strikes us most in ancient times, particularly among the European peoples. Such a person, as found among the ancient European population, possesses within himself more than he needs for his personal use. But he gives away the surplus because he has the impulse to do so. He instinctively follows the impulse to give away what he has in excess. One might say: In nothing was the ancient European North more wasteful than in its moral abundance, in its ability, its capacity, to let life forces flow out into the physical realm. It was truly as if the people of prehistoric Europe, every single one, had been endowed with a very specific abundance of strength that meant more than what a person needed for personal use—strength they could let flow out, with which they could be wasteful, which they could use for their acts of war, for the deeds of that ancient virtue that modern times have placed among the human qualities to be called vices; which they used, for example, for what has been termed magnanimity. Acting out of magnanimity is, once again, something as characteristic of the ancient European population as acting out of devotion is of the ancient Indian population.

[ 20 ] Principles and theoretical moral tenets would not have served the European population of prehistoric times, for they would have shown little understanding of them. To preach morality to a person of prehistoric Europe would have been like advising someone who dislikes arithmetic to write down their income and expenses with the utmost precision. If they dislike it, then the only requirement is that they have no need to write it down—that is, that they possess enough to be able to spend. Then he can avoid meticulous record-keeping if he has an inexhaustible source. This is no trivial matter; theoretically, it applies fully to what a person values in life, to personal competence, and to personal commitment. This applies to the moral sentiments of the ancient European peoples as they shaped the world. Everyone had, so to speak, received their divine inheritance, felt filled by it, and spent, spent in the service of the tribe, in the service of the family, and in the service of larger communal contexts. This is how they acted, how they managed their affairs, how they worked.

[ 21 ] We have now identified two areas of human civilization that are quite different from one another, for the sense of devotion that was so deeply ingrained among the Indians was completely absent among the European population. That is why it was so difficult for Christianity to instill this sense of devotion in the European population. The circumstances there were entirely different.

[ 22 ] And now, having set these things before our eyes, let us ask ourselves—setting aside all objections based on moral concepts—about the moral effect. It does not take much thought to realize that this moral effect was infinitely great where the two worldviews and schools of thought met in their purest form. The infinite has been given to the world through that which could only have been achieved by the existence of a people such as the ancient Indians, with the orientation of all feeling toward devotion, with the turning toward the Highest. But the infinite has also been given to the world—as one could demonstrate in detail—through what the bravery and fortitude of the European people of the earlier pre-Christian era were to bring about. Both of these things had to work together, and both produced the moral effect that we shall see continues to have an impact today and has benefited not only a part of humanity but all of humanity from both sides; we shall see how it lives on in everything that humanity regards as the highest, both the effect of Indian culture and the effect of ancient Germanic culture.

[ 23 ] Can we simply say that whatever has this moral effect on humanity is the good? We can say this without a doubt. In both cultural currents, it must be the good, and it must be something that we can designate as the good. But if we are to ask, “What is the good?” we are once again faced with a riddle. What is the good that has brought about this effect in both cases?

[ 24 ] I do not wish to preach to you, for I do not consider that to be my task. Rather, I consider it my task to present to you the facts that lead to a theosophical morality. Therefore, I have first presented you with two systems of known facts, regarding which I ask you to consider nothing other than that the fact of devotion and the fact of fortitude have moral effects on the cultural development of humanity.

[ 25 ] Now let us turn our attention to other times. When you consider our present life with its moral impulses, you will naturally say to yourselves: We cannot be today—at least not in Europe—as the purest ideal of Indianism requires, for one cannot cultivate European culture with Indian devotion. But it would be just as impossible to achieve what our culture is today with the ancient virtue of fortitude—so highly praised—of the European people. And it is immediately apparent to us that there lies something else in the depths of the European people’s moral sensibility. We must therefore seek something else in order to answer the question: What is the good? What is virtue?

[ 26 ] I have often pointed out that we must distinguish between the epoch we call the Greco-Latin, or fourth post-Atlantean, cultural period, and the one we call the fifth post-Atlantean cultural period, in which we are currently living. In fact, what I have to say regarding the moral being is intended to characterize the emergence of the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch. Let us begin with something that you may initially find questionable, since it is taken from the world of poetry, the world of legend. But it is nevertheless indicative of the way in which new moral impulses have taken effect, how they have flowed into people as the development of our fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch gradually began,

[ 27 ] There was a poet who lived at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century. He died in 1213 and was named Hartmann von Aue. This poet created his most significant work of poetry entirely out of the mindset and realities of his time, specifically from the perspective that was widespread among the people at that time: the poem “Poor Henry.” This poem expresses, in the most profound sense, how certain moral impulses were viewed in certain circles and regions at that time. This poem contains the following: There lived Poor Henry as a wealthy knight, for originally he was not Poor Henry, but a well-endowed knight who, however, disregarded the fact that the tangible things of the physical plane are fleeting and transient; he thus lived for the moment and thereby accumulated bad karma as quickly as possible. Consequently, he is afflicted by what was then called “Miselsucht,” a kind of leprosy, and since he goes to the most famous doctors in the entire world of that time and none can help him, he gives up on life and sells his estate. He could not go out among people with his illness. He therefore lived apart from them, in solitude on a farmstead, faithfully cared for by an old, devoted servant who managed the farm, and by the servant’s daughter. One day, the daughter—and indeed the entire family of the farmstead—received word that only one thing could help the knight who had suffered this fate. No doctor, no medicine can help him; only if a pure virgin sacrifices her life for him out of love might recovery be possible again. Despite all the warnings from her parents and from Knight Heinrich himself, something comes over the daughter that makes her believe she is the one who must make the sacrifice. So the daughter sets out for Salerno, the most famous medical school of the time. She does not shrink from what the doctors demand of her. She is ready to sacrifice her life. The knight, however, does not let it come to that; he prevents it and takes her home with him. But the poem tells us that when the knight returned home, he truly began to recover little by little, and that he then lived for a long time with the one who had wanted to be his savior, enjoying a happy twilight of life.

[ 28 ] Yes, you might say: First of all, this is a work of fiction, and we don’t have to take the facts presented there at face value. But the matter takes on a different light when we compare what Hartmann von Aue, the medieval poet, wrote in his “Poor Henry” with something that actually happened, as we well know, in the life of a person well known to you and his deeds. I mean, if we compare what Hartmann von Aue intended to portray with the life of Francis of Assisi, who was born in 1182 and lived in Italy at that time.

[ 29 ] Now, in order to characterize what is taking place—in such a concentrated form within the single personality of Francis of Assisi—in terms of moral and personal development, let us allow the matter to pass before our minds as it appears to the occultist, even if we are to be regarded as foolish and superstitious. Let us take these things seriously, because they also appeared so serious during that transitional period.

[ 30 ] We know that Francis of Assisi was the son of Bernardone, an Italian merchant who traveled extensively and conducted business in France, and his wife. We also know that Francis of Assisi’s father was a man who placed great importance on outward appearances. His mother was a devout woman, open to the pious “virtues and fine qualities of the heart,” who lived according to her religious feelings. The stories that now surround the birth and life of Francis of Assisi in the form of legends correspond entirely to occult facts. Although occult facts are often cloaked by history in images and legends, these legends do correspond to occult facts. Thus, it is entirely true that, before Francis of Assisi was born, a number of people received—as if through a visionary revelation, as a kind of knowledge or insight—the realization that an important personality was to be born. From the external history, among the large number of people who dreamed this—that is, who saw in a prophetic vision that an important figure would be born—Saint Hildegard stands out. — I emphasize here once again the truth of the facts that can be substantiated by research into the Akashic Records. — She dreamed that a woman appeared to her with a battered, blood-streaked face, and that this woman said to her: “The birds have their nests here on earth, the foxes have their dens on earth, but I have nothing at present, not even a staff on which to lean.” When Hildegard awoke from this dream, she knew that the true form of Christianity was meant by this figure. And so many other figures had similar dreams. These figures realized at that time, from what they could know, that the external structure and institution of the Church could not be a vessel, a shell for true Christianity. They understood this.

[ 31 ] A pilgrim—and here we have another true story—once stopped by the home of Donna Pica, the mother of Francis of Assisi, while Francis’s father was away on business in France, and said to her directly: In this house, where there is abundance, you must not give birth to the child you are expecting! You must give birth to him in a stable, for he must lie on straw to follow in his Master’s footsteps! This request was truly made to the mother of Francis of Assisi, and it is no legend but the truth that, because his father was on a business trip in France, she was able to do so, so that the birth of Francis of Assisi actually took place in a stable and on straw.

[ 32 ] And the other part is true as well: After the child had been born for some time, a strange man arrived in that by no means densely populated town—a man who had never been seen there before and was never seen there again. He walked repeatedly through the streets, saying, “An important person has been born in this town.” At that time, the people who were still able to lead a life of deep spiritual insight also heard bells ringing during the birth of Francis of Assisi.

[ 33 ] A whole series of events could still be cited. We will, however, content ourselves with these, which are mentioned only to show how significantly everything from the spiritual world was focused on the appearance of a single personality of that time. All of this becomes particularly interesting to us when we consider something else as well. The mother had a specific idea: the child should be named John. That is why he was given the name John. It was only when the father returned from France that he, in keeping with his own mindset—because he had done good business there—gave his son the name Francis. Originally, however, the child was named John.

[ 34 ] Now we need only highlight a few aspects of this remarkable man’s life, especially his youth. What kind of person do we see in Francis of Assisi when we consider him as a boy? We see—as we need not fail to notice amid the many ethnic mixtures following the migrations from the north—a person who appears to be a descendant of the old Germanic knighthood. Brave, warlike, filled with the ideal of gaining glory and honor through the weapons of war—this was what emerged in him like an heirloom, what was present in the individual personality of Francis of Assisi as a racial trait. More outwardly, one might say, those qualities appear in him that were present in the old Germanic world in a more spiritual, heartfelt manner; for Franz von Assisi became nothing other than what one calls a spendthrift. He squandered the rich estates of his father, the wealthy merchant of that time. Wherever he went, he lavishly squandered the goods, the fruits of his father’s labor. He had more than enough to spare for all his comrades and playmates. No wonder that in the childish skirmishes he was always chosen as leader by his comrades, and that he then grew up in such a way that people saw in him something of a true warrior boy. As such, he was also known throughout the city. There were all sorts of disputes between the boys from the towns of Assisi and Perugia. He took part in these as well, and it happened that he was captured along with his comrades and held prisoner. It was he who not only bore his captivity with chivalry but also encouraged all the others to endure it in a chivalrous manner until they could return home after a year. And when a military campaign against Naples—necessary in the service of chivalry—was to be undertaken, it so happened that this young man had a vision in a dream. He saw a great palace. Inside, there were shields and weapons everywhere. He saw something of a building in which pieces of weapons were stored everywhere. He had this dream, though he had only ever seen all sorts of cloth in his father’s shop and home. He therefore said to himself: This is the call for you to become a soldier! And he consequently decided to join the campaign against Naples. Already on the way there, and even more so after he had joined the military campaign, he received spiritual impressions. He heard something like a voice that said: “Do not go any further; you have misinterpreted the dream image that is significant to you. Return to Assisi, and you will learn how to interpret it correctly.”

[ 35 ] He heeded these words, returned to Assisi, and lo and behold, he experienced something like an inner dialogue with a being who spoke to him spiritually and said: It is not in outward service that you must seek your knighthood. You are destined to transform all the powers you can muster into spiritual powers, to transform them into weapons that you are to use spiritually. All the weapons that appeared to you in the palace signify spiritual weapons of mercy, compassion, and love. All the shields signify to you the reason you must apply to stand firm in the face of the hardships of a life lived in mercy, compassion, and love. — This was followed by a brief, though not without danger, illness, from which he recovered. Afterward, he experienced something like a retrospective on his entire past life, in which he lived for several days. How transformed was the entire knight, who in his wildest dreams had longed only to become a war hero, into a man who now sought to the very end all the moral impulses of mercy, compassion, and love. All the powers he had intended to use in the service of the physical plane had been transformed into moral impulses of the inner life.

[ 36 ] Here we see how, in a sense, a moral impulse is triggered within a single individual. It is not insignificant that we are considering a great moral impulse, for even if the individual cannot always rise to the highest heights of moral impulses, one can only learn from them where the impulses express themselves radically and where we see them at work in their greatest power. It is precisely when we focus our attention on the radical, and view the small in the light that shines upon us from the radical, the great, that we arrive at a true understanding of the moral impulses of life.

[ 37 ] But what, then, became of Francis of Assisi? There is no need to go into detail about the conflicts he had with his father when he turned to a completely different kind—a completely different method—of extravagance. The extravagance in which his father’s house also played a part—since it had gained fame and prestige through his son’s extravagance—his father could still understand; but he could not understand that, after his transformation, his son cast aside his finest clothes, keeping only the bare necessities, and gave them to those who needed them. He could not comprehend it when his son was overcome by the impulse in which he said to himself: “How strange that those through whom Christian impulses have achieved such greatness in the West are so little respected.” After that, Francis of Assisi made a pilgrimage to Rome and laid down a large sum of money at the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul. The father did not understand these things. I need not describe the struggles that took place there; I need only suggest that all the moral impulses were concentrated within Francis of Assisi. These concentrated impulses had then transformed courage into a spiritual quality. They had developed in such a way that they received a special strengthening in his meditations and appeared to him as the cross with the Crucified One upon it. In these states, he felt an inner, personal connection to the cross and to Christ, and from this came the strength through which he was able to elevate to such immeasurable heights the moral impulses that now flowed through him.

[ 38 ] He found a curious application for what was now developing within him. At that time, the horrors of leprosy had indeed swept across many European countries. The outward confession of the Church found a curious kind of healing process for these lepers, who were so numerous at the time. The priest would have these lepers come to him and then say to them: “You have been struck by this disease in this life; but precisely because you are now lost to life, you have been won for God—you are consecrated to God.” But then he was sent out to places far from people, where he had to end his life in solitude and abandonment in the manner described.

[ 39 ] I do not wish to criticize this treatment. No other, no better method was known. But Francis of Assisi knew of a better one. And that is why it is mentioned here, because it will lead us, through direct experience, to the moral sources. You will see in the coming days why we are going through these things. Well, they led Francis of Assisi precisely to seek out all the lepers everywhere, to shy away from nothing in his dealings with these people. And indeed, what none of the remedies of that time could heal—what made it necessary to cast these people out of human society—Francis of Assisi healed in numerous cases, because he approached these people, though with the strength he drew from his moral impulses, which made him shrink from nothing, but rather gave him the courage not only to carefully cleanse the individual sores present on such people, but to live with them, to care for them intensely, indeed to kiss them and to fill them with his love. — It is not merely a work of fiction, like the healing of Poor Henry by the daughter of the faithful servant: it expresses what actually happened in numerous cases at that time through the historically well-known figure of Francis of Assisi. And do take to heart what happened there. What happened was that in a person like Francis of Assisi there was an immense reservoir of psychic life—something we have found in the ancient European population as fortitude and bravery—which was transformed into spiritual-soul qualities and subsequently exerted a spiritual-soul influence. Just as in ancient times what had worked as magnanimity and bravery had led to personal extravagance and was still evident in Francis of Assisi’s youthful profligacy, so it now led him to become a squanderer of moral forces. He was brimming with moral strength, and it indeed flowed from what he possessed within himself to those to whom he directed his love.

[ 40 ] Feel deeply that there is a reality in this, a reality just as real as the air we breathe and without which we cannot live. It is a reality just like that which flowed through every limb of Francis of Assisi and from there into all the hearts to which he devoted himself, for Francis of Assisi lavished a wealth of energies that radiated from him. And it is this very thing that has flowed into and through the entire, mature life of Europe, that has been transformed into the spiritual and has thus, as it were, taken effect in the reality outside.

[ 41 ] Try to reflect on these facts, which at first glance may seem to have nothing to do with current moral issues. Try to grasp the essence of Indian devotion and Nordic fortitude. Try to reflect on the healing power of such moral forces as those employed by Francis of Assisi. Then tomorrow we will be able to speak about what real moral impulses are, and we will see that it is not merely words but realities that create in the soul and establish morality.