The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] As you have already gathered from what has been hinted at, the intention of this lecture is to guide us toward an understanding of the individual karma of human beings and, in a broader sense, the collective karma of our time, But human life, especially when viewed in terms of how it affects each individual, is extraordinarily complex, and one must trace the many threads that bind a person to the world and to a past—whether near or distant—if one is to answer the question of that person’s destiny. This perhaps explains why, while I actually intend to explore something very close to us—something very close to every human being—I am taking such wide detours right now and offering reflections that are meant, so to speak, to shed light into the narrow little room of each individual’s existence, by drawing on an earthly life of world-historical significance: Goethe’s earthly life. After all, Goethe’s earthly life is accessible to us in terms of a great many details. While it goes without saying that every human life is, in terms of its destiny, very far removed from the course of a spirit so exemplary and significant in world history, it is nevertheless possible, precisely through the contemplation of such a life, to gain insights for each and every one of us, Therefore, let us not allow ourselves to be discouraged from expanding a little further on these connections—which we began yesterday—precisely in relation to our specific questions, which we will be addressing more and more as we go along.

[ 2 ] When one traces Goethe’s life in the way that many who claim to be his biographers have done to this day, one pays no attention at all to how people are inclined to hastily link effect to cause. You see, even today, natural scientists will repeatedly point out that people commit many errors when they hastily adopt the principle of “based on one thing and therefore arising from that very thing”—this “post hoc, ergo propter hoc”: because something follows another, it must necessarily arise from the former as an effect. This is criticized in the field of natural science. In the realm of observing human life, however, we have not yet progressed far enough to thoroughly reject this principle. Certain primitive peoples, such as the Kamchadals, believe that wagtails or similar birds bring spring because spring follows their arrival. Thus, people in general very often conclude: What follows something else arises from that other thing. — We learn from Goethe’s own descriptions—that is, from the descriptions of a human life that sheds particular light on humanity—that Goethe had this father, this mother, and went through the experiences in his youth that he himself recounts to us, and one then biographically deduces what he went on to do later in life—which made him so important to humanity—from these youthful impressions, entirely in accordance with the principle that, because something follows something else, it must also arise from that other thing. This is no more sensible than believing that spring is brought by the white wagtail. In the natural sciences, such superstition has been sharply condemned; in the humanities, we have yet to reach that point. It is, of course, very nicely explained that Goethe, at a relatively early age—still a boy—when French troops were quartered in his father’s house while Frankfurt was occupied by the French, witnessed how the famous royal lieutenant Thoranc staged theatrical performances there, how he employed painters, and how, as a result, Goethe—still almost a child—came into contact with painting and with the theatrical arts; and one then readily attributes Goethe’s later inclination toward art to such impressions from his youth.

[ 3 ] Indeed, one can see his predestined karma at work with remarkable clarity, especially in Goethe’s case, from his earliest youth onward. Is it not a particularly striking feature of Goethe’s entire life how he combines his view of art and his worldview with his view of nature, how, in a sense, behind his artistic imagination lies the quest for the knowledge of truth in natural phenomena? And do we not see, as a clearly predetermined karma, the boy—the six- or seven-year-old boy—already gathering minerals and geological specimens that he finds in his father’s collection of minerals and rocks, placing them on a music stand to create an altar for the great God of Nature? Yes, how he attaches a small incense stick to this altar made of natural materials and now kindles a light—not in the usual mechanical way, but by using a magnifying glass to focus the rays of the first morning sun, precisely the first rays of the morning sun, to direct them through the magnifying glass onto the incense stick and thus kindle a fire with the rays of the morning sun, which he offers to the great God of Nature. How magnificent—and at the same time, how magnificently beautiful—it is to see in this six- or seven-year-old boy his mind focused on that which lives and weaves as spirit within the phenomena of nature! There we see—since this trait, so to speak, must certainly have come from an original predisposition and cannot originate from the environment—how what he brought with him into this incarnation has worked with particularly strong power in this very person.

[ 4 ] If one considers the era into which Goethe was born in his incarnation at that time, one will find a remarkable harmony between his nature and the events of that era. According to today’s worldview, one is certainly often inclined to say: Well, what Goethe created—this “Faust”—and the other things that emanated from Goethe to uplift and spiritually penetrate humanity—these came about precisely because Goethe acted in accordance with his own inclinations. — It is, of course, more difficult to demonstrate, in the case of such things as those given to humanity by Goethe, that his creations cannot be bound to his person in this simple sense. But consider something else for a moment. Consider how short-sighted, in the face of certain phenomena of existence, is a certain way of looking at things that believes it is engaging thoroughly with the truth. In my latest book, The Riddle of Man, you can find de Lamettrie’s statement that Erasmus of Rotterdam and Fontenelle, for example, would have become entirely different people if even just a small part of their brain had been different, According to such a way of thinking, one must assume that everything Erasmus and Fontenelle created would not exist in the world if, as de Lamettrie suggests, Erasmus and Fontenelle had become fools instead of sages due to even a slight difference in the nature of their brains. Well, I would say, in a certain sense, that is sufficient for things such as those created by Erasmus and Fontenelle. But consider the same idea in relation to another case. Can you imagine, for example, that the development of modern humanity could have taken place without the discovery of America? Just imagine all that has flowed into the life of modern humanity through the discovery of America! Could one, as a materialist, say that Columbus would have become a different person if his brain had been a little different and he had become a fool instead of Columbus, and that then Columbus would not have discovered America? Certainly, one could say that—just as one could say that Goethe would not have become Goethe, Fontenelle not Fontenelle, or Erasmus not Erasmus, if, for example, their mothers had suffered a misfortune during the time when the individuals in question had not yet been born, and they had been stillborn. But we can never imagine that America would not have been discovered if Columbus had been unable to discover it. You will find it quite self-evident that America would have been discovered even if Columbus had had a brain defect!

[ 5 ] Thus, you will have no doubt that the course of world events is one thing, and the individual’s part in these world events is another; and you will have no doubt that world events themselves call upon those human individuals who, through their karma, are particularly suited for this or that which world events demand. In the case of America, this is very easy to imagine. But for the deeper observer, it is no different—let us say, for example, with regard to the creation of Faust. One would truly have to believe in the utter nonsense of world history if one were to think that there was no necessity for a work of poetry such as Faust to have come into being—even if what the materialist so readily emphasizes had occurred: that a brick might have fallen on Goethe’s head when he was a five-year-old boy and he might have become a simpleton. Anyone who traces the development of spiritual life in the decades leading up to Goethe will see how Faust was truly a demand of the times. Lessing, after all, was the quintessential spirit who wanted to write a Faust—he had even already written a scene that is very beautiful. It was not merely Goethe’s subjective needs that called for Faust—the times themselves demanded Faust! And for those with deeper insight, it is indeed true that one can say there is a connection—similar to that between Columbus and the discovery of America in relation to the course of world history—between Goethe’s creations and Goethe himself.

[ 6 ] I said that if one considers the era into which Goethe was born, one can already discern a certain harmony between Goethe’s individuality and that era—and indeed, that era in its broadest sense. Consider that, despite all the great differences—we’ll come back to this in a moment—there is nevertheless something very similar in the two minds, Goethe and Schiller, not to mention others, less significant figures, around them. Consider how much of what we see coming to light in Goethe we also see coming to light in Herder. But one can go much further. When looking at Goethe, it may not stand out immediately; we will return to this point in a moment. But when one looks at Schiller, when one looks at Herder, at Lessing, one will say: Although their lives took a different course, in their tendencies and impulses, there is certainly a certain disposition in Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and Lessing through which, under different circumstances, they could just as easily have become a Mirabeau or a Danton. They are truly in tune with their age. In Schiller’s case, this will not be all that difficult to demonstrate, for no one would view Schiller’s outlook—insofar as he was the author of The Robbers, Fiesko, and Intrigue and Love—as very different from that of a Mirabeau, a Danton, or even a Robespierre. It is simply that Schiller channeled the same impulses—which Danton, Robespierre, and Mirabeau had infused into their political tendencies—into the literary and artistic realms. But—one might say—with regard to the lifeblood that pulses through world history, the very same lifeblood flows through The Robbers as through the deeds of Danton, Mirabeau, and Robespierre; and this same lifeblood also flowed through Goethe, even if one might initially imagine that Goethe is very, very far removed from being a revolutionary. But that is not the case at all; it is absolutely not the case. It is just that in this complex nature—in Goethe’s nature—a particular interplay of karmic impulses and fateful impulses comes into play, which placed him in the world in a very special way even in his earliest youth.

[ 7 ] If one traces Goethe’s life from a humanities perspective, it can initially be divided—setting aside all other considerations—into certain periods. The first period unfolds in such a way that one might say an impulse, already evident in his childhood, continues to flow. Then something comes from outside that seemingly diverts the course of his life: his acquaintance with the Duke of Weimar in 1775. And then, in turn, we see how his stay in Rome sets him on a different path in life, how Goethe becomes a completely different person through his ability to absorb Roman life into himself. If one were to go into this in even greater detail, one might say: a third impulse, which seems to come from outside—though, as we shall see, this would not be entirely correct in the spiritual-scientific sense—would be his friendly collaboration with Schiller after he had undergone his Roman transformation.

[ 8 ] If one studies the first part of Goethe’s life up to the year 1775, one finds—though one must examine the events more closely than is usually done—that a powerful revolutionary spirit lives within this Goethe, a rebellion against his surroundings. However, his nature is, so to speak, spread across many things. And because the impulse to rebel does not emerge as strongly as it does when it is concentrated—as in Schiller’s The Robbers—but is instead more diffuse, the matter stands out less prominently. But anyone who is able to approach Goethe’s childhood and youth from a spiritual-scientific perspective will find that there is a spiritual life force within him, one he carried into his existence from birth, which—had certain events not occurred—could not have accompanied him throughout his entire life. That which lived within him as Goethe’s individuality was far greater than what his physical organism could actually absorb and live out.

[ 9 ] With Schiller, this is palpable. If one could feel such palpability today, one would certainly find it. Schiller’s early death stemmed from nothing other than the fact that his body was consumed by his powerful spiritual vitality. It is palpable. After all, it is well known that when Schiller died, his heart was found to be withered inside. It was only through his powerful spiritual force that he held on as long as he could, but this very force simultaneously consumed his physical life. In Goethe, this spiritual force was even stronger, and yet Goethe lived to a ripe old age. How did he achieve such a long life?

[ 10 ] You see, yesterday I mentioned a fact to you that plays a very significant role in Goethe’s life. After he had been a student in Leipzig for several years, he fell ill—seriously ill—and faced death. He truly looked death in the face, so to speak. This illness is certainly a physical phenomenon, but one never truly comes to know a person who creates out of the elemental forces of the world—indeed, no person at all—if one does not consider such events in the context of their karma. What actually happened to Goethe when he was so ill in Leipzig? What happened was what one might call a complete loosening of the etheric body, in which the soul’s life force had been active up to that point. It loosened to such an extent that, after this illness, Goethe no longer had the strong connection between the etheric body and the physical body that he had previously possessed. The etheric body, however, is that supersensible aspect within us that actually enables us to form concepts and to think. Abstract ideas, such as we have in ordinary life—and which most people of a materialistic disposition alone cherish—arise because the etheric body is closely connected to the physical body, bound to it, as it were, by a strong magnetic bond. But because this is the case, one also has a strong impulse to carry one’s will into the physical world. This impulse is present in the will when, in addition, the astral body is particularly strongly developed. If we look at Robespierre, Mirabeau, and Danton, we see an etheric body strongly connected to the physical body, but also a strongly developed astral body, which in turn acts upon the etheric body and places these human individualities firmly within the physical world.

[ 11 ] Goethe was organized in this way as well. But now another force was at work within him, one that brought about a complication. This force caused the etheric body, as a result of the illness that brought him very close to death, to loosen and remain loosened. However, because the etheric body is no longer so intimately connected to the physical body, it no longer projects its forces into the physical body but retains them within the etheric. Hence the transformation that took place within Goethe when he returned from Leipzig to Frankfurt, where—through his acquaintance with Miss von Klettenberg, the mystic; through his acquaintance with various physician friends who devoted themselves to alchemical studies; and through his acquaintance with the writings of Swedenborg—he truly built up a spiritual world system, still chaotic, but nonetheless a spiritual world system, just as he also has a deep inclination to engage with supersensible matters. But this is connected to his illness. And the soul that brought into this earthly life the predisposition for this illness thereby brought in the impulse to use this illness to prepare the etheric body in such a way that this etheric body would not merely live out its life in the physical realm, but would receive the urge—and not merely the urge, but the gift—to permeate itself with supersensible perceptions. As long as one merely considers the external biographical facts of any given person in a materialistic manner, one fails to grasp the subtle interconnections within the current of a person’s destiny. Only when one considers the interplay between natural events that affect our organism—such as Goethe’s illness—and what emerges ethically, morally, and spiritually does one gain the ability to sense the profound effect of karma.

[ 12 ] Goethe’s revolutionary spirit would certainly have manifested itself in such a way that it would have consumed him at an early age. Since it would not have been outwardly possible to give free rein to that revolutionary force in his social milieu, and since Goethe could not have written dramas like Schiller, he would have had to be consumed by it. It was diverted by the loosening of the connection—the magnetic bond—between his etheric body and his physical body.

[ 13 ] Here you can see how a natural phenomenon plays a significant role in a person’s life. Certainly, something like this points to a deeper connection than the one that biographers often seek to bring to the surface. For the significance of an illness for a person’s entire individual experience cannot be explained by hereditary tendencies; rather, it points to a person’s connection with the world in such a way that this connection must be conceived spiritually. You can also see from this how Goethe’s life became more complicated. For how we take things in depends on who we are ourselves.

[ 14 ] Now he arrives in Strasbourg, so to speak, with an ethereal body imbued with occult insights. And so he meets Herder. Herder’s grand insights were bound to take on a completely different form in Goethe than in Herder himself, who did not possess the same predispositions in his more refined constitution. An event such as this encounter with death occurred for Goethe in Leipzig at the end of the 1860s, but its seeds had long been sown. And anyone who seeks to attribute such an illness to external events or to merely physical causes has not yet reached, in the spiritual realm, the same point of view as the natural scientist: namely, that what follows must not be regarded directly as an effect of that which precedes it. Thus, in Goethe, this sort of self-isolation from the world—“through this connection between the physical body and the etheric body, which only reached its crisis through the illness”—was always present.

[ 15 ] The external world affects someone in whom there is a close connection between the physical body and the etheric body; but as it makes impressions on the physical body, those impressions immediately pass into the etheric body—that is one aspect; and the etheric body then simply keeps pace with the impressions of the external world. In a nature such as Goethe’s, impressions are naturally made on the physical body, but the etheric body does not immediately follow along because it is more detached. The consequence of this is that, in a sense, such a person can be more isolated from their surroundings, and that a more complex process takes place when an impression is made on their physical body. If you shift your focus from Goethe’s organic constitution to what you know from his biography—namely, that he allows events, including historical ones, to take effect upon him without, so to speak, distorting them—then you will have gained an understanding of the peculiar workings of Goethe’s nature. I told you: he takes the biography of Gottfried von Berlichingen, allows himself to be influenced only by Shakespeare’s dramatic impulses, and does not alter much of Gottfried von Berlichingen’s not particularly well-written autobiography, so that he does not even call his work a “drama,” but rather “The Story of Gottfried von Berlichingen with the Iron Hand, Dramatized”; he changes only a little. You see, this—I would say—gentle and tentative touch, so that he does not grasp things forcefully, is brought about by this very special connection between the etheric body and the physical body.

[ 16 ] This connection was absent in Schiller. That is why he portrays characters whom he has not merely depicted based on an external impression, but whom he shapes quite forcefully from his own nature: Karl Moor. Goethe needs the impact of life. But he does not violate life; he merely gives it a gentle nudge to elevate life to a work of art. This is also the case when the circumstances of life come to him, which he then shaped in Werther. His own circumstances, the circumstances of his friend Jerusalem—he does not distort them, nor does he shape them much; rather, he takes life as it is and merely gives it a gentle nudge. And through the gentle way in which he assists—precisely from within his etheric body—life becomes a work of art. But through this very structure, he also comes, I might say, only indirectly close to life, and in this incarnation he prepares his karma through this merely indirect approach to life.

[ 17 ] He comes to Strasbourg. In addition to what he experienced—what I told you about yesterday, which helped advance his career as a Goethe scholar—he also, as you know, developed a romantic relationship in Strasbourg with the pastor’s daughter in Sesenheim, Friederike Brion. He is very, very deeply invested in this relationship, and certainly, one could raise various moral objections to the course of this relationship between Goethe and Friederike von Sesenheim, which may well be justified. That is not what matters now; what matters is understanding. Goethe truly goes through everything that, in someone who were not Goethe, would not only have led—but would naturally have led—to a lasting life partnership with Friederike Brion. But Goethe does not experience things directly. Through what I have told you, a kind of chasm has been created between his unique inner world and the outside world. Just as he does not violate the vitality of the external world but only gently reshapes it, so too does he, in a sense, not immediately establish—through his physical body—such a firm connection between his feelings and sensations—which he can experience only in his etheric body—and the external world that what would have led to very specific life events in others could have led to the same for him. And so he withdraws once more from Friederike Brion. But one should take such things in a spiritual sense. When he rides out one last time, he encounters—on his way back—as you can read in his biography—himself. Goethe comes to meet Goethe. Goethe recounts this much, much later, describing how he encountered himself back then. Goethe comes to meet Goethe. He sees himself. He rides out, and on his way back Goethe comes toward him—but not in the clothes he is wearing, but in different clothes. And when he later, years later, returns there to visit his old acquaintances, he realizes that he really did go out again in the very outfit—without having sought it—that he had foreseen in himself years ago when he encountered himself. This is an event one must believe in with the same conviction with which one believes anything else Goethe recounts. To find fault with it, I would say, is not befitting the love of truth with which Goethe portrayed his life.

[ 18 ] How is it that Goethe—who was so far removed from, yet so close to, the circumstances into which he had entered—so close that it would have led to something entirely different for anyone else, and so far removed that he was able to withdraw—how is it that he encountered himself there? Well, for a person who experiences something in the etheric body, the experience very easily becomes objectified when this etheric body is loosened. He sees it as something external; it projects itself outward. This is precisely what happened to Goethe. At a moment particularly suited to it, he saw the other Goethe—the etheric Goethe who lived within him, who remained connected through his karma to Friederike von Sesenheim. That is why he encountered himself as a ghost. But this is precisely the kind of event that, in the deepest sense, confirms what can be discerned about his own nature from the facts.

[ 19 ] There you can see how a person can be caught up in external events, and how one must first grasp the particular way, the individual way, in which they are caught up in them. For the relationship between a person and the world, and to the past—the connection with what we carry over from the past into our present—is complex. But precisely because Goethe, so to speak, tore his inner self away from its physical context, he was able, even in his early youth, to nurture within his soul the profound truths that so surprise us in his Faust. I say “surprise” deliberately, for the simple reason that they really must surprise us; for I know of hardly anything more simplistic than when Goethe biographers constantly peddle the phrase: “Goethe is Faust, and Faust is Goethe.” I have read this many times in works by Goethe biographers. It is, of course, utter nonsense. For what we truly have in Faust—if we allow it to take its full effect on us—actually strikes us in such a way that we must say to ourselves: It is sometimes the case that we do not even suspect that Goethe experienced it in exactly the same way or could even have known it—and yet it is right there in Faust. Faust always transcends Goethe. However, this can only be fully understood by those who know the surprise that the creator of a poetic work experiences himself when he finally has that work before him. For one must not believe that the poet must always be as great as his work. He need not be any more than a father needs to be as great in spiritual strength and genius as his son; for true poetic creation is a living thing. And just as it cannot be said that something living does not create beyond itself, so too it cannot be claimed that something spiritual and creative never creates beyond itself.

[ 20 ] But it is through this inner isolation—which I have described in Goethe—that those profound insights emerge in his soul, insights that come to us through his Faust. For works such as Faust are not poetry like other works of poetry. “Faust” springs forth, as it were, from the entire spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch; it extends far beyond Goethe himself. And much of what we experience in the world and its unfolding resonates with us from “Faust” in a remarkable way. Recall the words you heard just a moment ago:

My friend, the times of the past
Are a closed book to us;
What you call the spirit of the times,
Is, in essence, the spirit of the masters themselves,
In which the times are reflected.

[ 21 ] It is all too easy to gloss over a word like this. Those who feel its full depth will be reminded of many things that only such a word can make true in the deepest sense. Just think of what modern people have gained through their knowledge of Greek, of Greek intellectual life, through Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides! People immerse themselves in this Greek intellectual life—let’s say, in Sophocles. Is Sophocles a book with seven seals? It’s not easy to imagine that Sophocles could be a book with seven seals! Sophocles, who lived to be ninety-one, wrote more than eighty plays, seven of which have survived! Do you know of anyone who wrote eighty-one or more plays, of which only seven have survived? Isn’t that literally true: a book sealed with seven seals? How can anyone claim to know Greek civilization based on what has been handed down, when they simply have to admit that seventy-four of Sophocles’ plays—which delighted and inspired the Greeks—are missing? A very large number of Aeschylus’s plays are also missing. Poets lived during the Greek era whose names are not even known. Aren’t the times of the past a book sealed with seven seals? If one considers such an objective fact, one must admit this. And —

...it is a great delight,
To put oneself in the spirit of the times,
To see how a wise man thought before us,
And how we have ultimately come so far.

[ 22 ] Wagnerians believe they can easily put themselves in the mind of a wise man—provided, that is, that it has been demonstrated to them! For it is a pity that one cannot test what these valiant little reviewers would write about Hamlet if it were to appear right now and be performed before these gentlemen on some major city stage, or if a Sophoclean drama were to be performed before them today! Perhaps even what Sophocles himself had to do to convince at least his relatives of his greatness in his old age would not help these gentlemen. For he lived to be ninety-one years old, and his relatives had to wait so long for their inheritance; so they sought to obtain evidence that Sophocles had become feeble-minded and could no longer manage his own fortune. He had no choice but to save himself by writing Oedipus at Colonus. With that, he was at least able to prove that he had not yet lost his mind. Whether it would work with today’s critics, I do not know, but it helped back then. But anyone who delves into such a reality—into the tragedy of the ninety-year-old Sophocles—will at the same time come to appreciate how difficult it is to find the path to human individuality; how this human individuality is intricately connected to world events. And much, much more could be cited to show how one must dig into deep chasms to understand the world. But how much of the wisdom necessary to understand the world is already present in the very first parts of Goethe’s Faust! This can be attributed to this peculiar course of fate, which truly shows how nature and spiritual activity are one and the same in human development, how an illness can have not only an external, physical meaning but also a spiritual one.

[ 23 ] Thus we see—one might say—a sharp continuation of the karmic impulse that was present in Goethe. But then again, in 1775, his acquaintance with the Duke of Weimar enters his life as if from outside. Goethe is summoned from Frankfurt to Weimar. What does this mean in his life? One must first understand what such an event meant for a person’s life if one wishes to uncover further insights in order to understand that life. I know how little today’s world is inclined to truly awaken the spiritual powers necessary to fully perceive and feel what is already alive in the first parts of Goethe’s Faust. To write what has now been performed here—“Faust I,” the monologue in the study, the Earth Spirit”—requires a richness of soul that, when one beholds it, makes one want to linger before it for a long, long time in fervent reverence. And one often feels the deepest pain of the soul when one sees how the world is, in fact, quite dull and incapable of sensing greatness at all. But if one fully senses something like this, then one will also understand what the person who is truly imbued with spiritual science comes to feel. For that person comes to say to themselves: There was something within this Goethe that consumed him. It could not go on like this.

[ 24 ] You really have to have that kind of insight. Imagine: Goethe was born in 1749, so in 1775 he was twenty-six years old. He took the manuscript of the scene we performed today—let’s just take this one; there were others in there as well—with him in his suitcase to Weimar. Anyone who has lived through such an experience—to the point of being able to write it down—carries it within their soul; it weighs heavily on their soul, for it is a force that strives to rise upward, a force that threatens to shatter the soul.

[ 25 ] There are two things we must keep in mind if we are to properly appreciate—in the true sense and in the proper light—these early parts of Faust that Goethe wrote. One might imagine that Goethe wrote these scenes gradually, say, from the age of twenty-five to fifty. Then they would not have strained his soul so much; then they would not have been “such a burden.” Now, certainly, but that is not possible—it would not have been possible—because from the age of thirty or thirty-five onward, the youthful vigor necessary to shape these things in precisely this way would have been lacking. He had to write them during those years in accordance with his individuality, but he could not continue living that way. He needed something like a dampening, a kind of partial slumber of the soul, to temper the fire that burned within him when he wrote the first parts of Faust. The Duke of Weimar summoned him to appoint him as a minister in Weimar. And he was a good minister, as I have already said. There, as a minister, by performing a great deal of diligent work, he was able to rest—partially lulled to sleep—from that which had burned in his soul. And there really is a tremendous difference in mood before 1775 and after 1775, which can already be compared to a kind of intense wakefulness followed by a subdued life. The word “dullness” even comes to Goethe’s mind when he describes his particular life in Weimar, where he immerses himself in events but resonates with them more than before, when he used to rebel against them. It was remarkable, then, that this numbness was followed for ten years by a gentler way in which events approached people. And just as little as the life of sleep is a direct effect of the preceding waking life, so little was Goethe’s life of sleep an effect of what had gone before. The connections are far greater than one usually thinks. I have often pointed out that it is a superficial view to answer the question, “Why does a person sleep?” with, “Because he is tired!” — It is a lazy, itself-slumbering truth, for it is nonsense. Otherwise, it would not be a fact that those people who cannot be tired—for example, reindeer after a full meal—drift off to sleep when they are asked to listen to something in which they have no particular interest. They are certainly not tired. The fact is not that we sleep because we are tired, but rather that waking and sleeping are a rhythmic process of life, and when the time for sleep—the necessity of sleep—approaches, we become tired. We are tired because we are supposed to sleep, but we do not sleep because we are tired. I do not wish to elaborate on this further at the moment.

[ 26 ] But just imagine the vast context in which the rhythm of sleep and wakefulness is embedded! It is, after all, a reflection of day and night in the cosmos within human nature. To try to explain sleep as a result of the fatigue of the day is, of course, an obvious approach for materialistic science, but the opposite is true. The rhythm of sleep and wakefulness must be explained in terms of the cosmos, within the context of larger interconnections. But these larger interconnections must also explain why, after the period when Faust surged through Goethe’s veins, there followed the quietude of his ten years in Weimar. This immediately points you to his karma, about which we cannot speak further at this time.

[ 27 ] The ordinary person wakes up in the morning, as far as their own consciousness is concerned, generally just as they fell asleep the night before. In reality, however, this is never the case. We never wake up exactly as we fell asleep, but are in fact somewhat richer; we simply do not become aware of this enrichment. But when a trough follows a crest—as it did for Goethe during his Weimar years—then waking occurs on a higher level; indeed, it must occur on a higher level. Yet the innermost forces strive toward this. And in Goethe’s case, those innermost forces also strove to awaken from the Weimar lethargy to full life once more, in an environment that could now truly provide him with what he lacked. That was in Italy, when he awoke. In Weimar itself, given his particular constitution, he could not have awakened. Yet it is precisely in such a matter that one can see the deep connection between the creative work of a true artist—a great artist—and his unique experience. You see, someone who is not a great artist can simply write a drama bit by bit, page by page; he can do it quite well. The great poet cannot do this, for he needs to be deeply rooted in life. Goethe was therefore able to express the deepest, deepest truths in his Faust at a relatively early age—truths that far exceeded the capacity of his own soul. But he had to express a rejuvenation in Faust. Just imagine: Faust had to arrive at an entirely different state of mind; even though he is so deeply developed, he had to be rejuvenated. After all, despite all his depth, what he had absorbed into his soul up to that point had brought him close to suicide. He had to be rejuvenated. A petty person can quite well describe, perhaps in quite beautiful verses, how a person is rejuvenated. Goethe could not do so readily; he himself first had to be rejuvenated in Rome. That is why the rejuvenation scene in The Witches’ Kitchen was written in Rome, in the garden of the Villa Borghese. Goethe would not have dared to write this scene earlier.

[ 28 ] Now, associated with such a rejuvenation as Goethe experienced is a consciousness, albeit still a vague one. In Goethe’s time, spiritual science did not yet exist: it could not have been a clear consciousness, but only a vague one. Such a rejuvenation is once again linked to special forces that already extend into the next incarnation. Here, experiences belonging to this incarnation intertwine with various elements that extend into the next incarnation. When one considers this, one is led to a particularly profound tendency in Goethe. You see, if I may interject this personal remark: I have been engaged with Goethe’s view of nature for a number of decades—I can say, in fact, almost continuously since 1879–80, and intensively since 1885–86. And during this time, I have come to the following conclusion: In the impulse that Goethe gave to the view of nature—which today’s naturalists, scientists, and thinkers about nature actually understand nothing of—there lies something that can be developed, but only over the course of centuries. So that Goethe will likely, when he returns in another incarnation, still find the opportunity to shape what he has not yet been able to complete in this incarnation based on his views of nature. There are many things in Goethe’s view of nature that we cannot even begin to fathom today. I have spoken at length about this in my book Goethe’s Worldview and in the introductions to Goethe’s Scientific Writings in Kürschner’s National Literature. So one can already say: With his view of nature, Goethe carries within himself something that points toward vast, vast horizons, yet is intimately connected with his rebirth—which, while not strictly tied to Rome in this regard, was linked to the period of his life that he spent in Rome. Read for yourself how I have described these things: how the metamorphosis of plants and animals—the primordial plant and the primordial animal—took shape during his Italian journey; how, upon his return, he undertook his theory of colors, which even today remains incomprehensible; and how he undertook other projects as well; then you will see that this immersion in his comprehensive view of nature is also connected to his rebirth. He then, of course, related what had developed within himself over the course of his life to Faust—but not as a minor poet would, but as a great poet does. Faust experiences the tragedy of Gretchen. In the midst of the Gretchen tragedy, Faust’s grand view of nature suddenly confronts us—a view that, admittedly, bears much resemblance to Goethe’s own grand view of nature, and which finds expression in Faust’s words:

Sublime Spirit, you gave me, gave me everything,
That I asked for. You did not in vain
Turn your face toward me in the fire.
You gave me the magnificent natural world as my kingdom,
The power to feel it, to enjoy it. You do not
do you merely allow me to be a cold, marveling visitor,
but grant me to gaze into its deep bosom,
as into the bosom of a friend.
You lead the procession of the living
past me, and teach me to know my brothers
in the silent thicket, in air and water.
And when the storm roars and creaks in the forest,
The giant spruce, crashing down, sweeps aside
Neighboring branches and trunks,
And the hill thunders with a dull, hollow roar at its fall,
Then you lead me to the safe cave, show
Me to myself, and within my own breast
Secret, profound wonders unfold.

[ 29 ] A grand worldview! Goethe attributes it to Faust. Goethe himself did not arrive at this profound insight into the soul until his trip to Italy. The scene “Sublime Spirit, you gave me, gave me everything” was also written in Rome; Goethe had not written it earlier. For these two scenes—the rejuvenation scene in the “Witches’ Kitchen” and the “Forest and Cave” scene: “Sublime Spirit, you gave me, gave me everything”—are precisely the ones that were written in Rome.

[ 30 ] There you can see a true rhythm in Goethe’s life, a rhythm that reveals an inner impulse, just as the rhythm of waking and sleeping in human beings reveals an inner impulse. We can study certain laws particularly vividly in a life such as Goethe’s, but it will become clear to us how the laws we encounter in great personalities can become important for the life of every individual. For, after all, the laws that govern a great person also govern every single human being. Tomorrow we will continue to discuss the interconnections of life as they can be understood from this perspective.