The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] My dear friends! Let me say once more beforehand that I am asking you in particular not to take notes during these lectures. It is so strange how a request of this nature, it seems, meets with absolutely no cooperation. But for these lectures, I must urgently ask you [truly not to take notes], because: First, the times we are currently living through are by no means conducive to allowing anyone who takes human development seriously to shape the things I now have to summarize into truly well-rounded lectures—at most, they can be reduced to individual remarks. And second, my dear friends, we know all too well what misunderstandings have been caused by the fact that, at the beginning of this time of ours that is now so painful, all sorts of details from my lectures were communicated here and there, scattered to the four winds—partly with laudable intentions, but partly also with less laudable ones—to tell this or that person: “Look, he doesn’t really say such terrible things about this or that”—or even to rile them up all the more and provoke them to harbor all sorts of grudges.

[ 2 ] Individual sentences taken out of context—especially from a series of lectures—never really mean anything and can always be interpreted in one way or another. And my sole concern is the search for truth—especially in this particular case, because a number of our friends have actually requested reflections along the lines of what we are now pursuing and have expressed a desire for this to happen. I am truly not concerned with people being able to say to one another regarding what I have said: “Look, that’s not so bad after all”—rather, I am concerned with the truths. And the truths must actually be the concern of everyone who takes spiritual research seriously and who, in particular, considers the tasks of spiritual research for the development of humanity in our time.

[ 3 ] My dear friends, today I would like to present a few additional points of view that provide the foundation for forming a sound judgment about the present—not only for the immediate days, weeks, or even years ahead, but for the present in a broader sense. Let us, my dear friends, above all keep in mind that spiritual science is a serious matter, and if one wishes to grasp it in the proper sense, it must be more serious than all other things. But if one approaches it—as so often happens when a society serves as an instrument [for spiritual endeavors]—with all manner of prejudices and, in particular, preconceived notions, and becomes enraged over one thing or another because of such preconceived notions or prejudices, then one is simply demonstrating that one is not yet ready for spiritual science, even though, on the other hand, one can already recognize today that spiritual science alone is capable of truly developing the seriousness that is necessary in our tragic times.

[ 4 ] In such cases, one must set aside one’s personal preferences in one direction or another and try to approach matters without prejudice; one need not agree, but one must try to approach matters without prejudice. And some things cannot be said without mentioning facts that are unpleasant to some people. There are plenty of people today who consider it a sin merely to mention certain facts, because they believe that mentioning one fact or another amounts to taking sides in one way or another—which is certainly not the case. One must calmly face certain facts, because only then can one arrive at a truly valid judgment. Certainly, one need not necessarily want to arrive at such a judgment, but one could do so if one wishes to stand on the ground of spiritual science.

[ 5 ] I will now make a series of remarks that may lead me, at the end of today’s reflections, to present to you something that is likely to foster an understanding of the way in which certain—let us say, occult—insights are making their way into the current spiritual development of humanity, and how, through human evolution, they push themselves to the surface—how they reveal themselves, so to speak—without the need to introduce them into human development through any kind of agitation. I will begin with some details, which I ask you to accept calmly as a foundation, so that we may then focus primarily on that which will form the culmination of these reflections.

[ 6 ] You see, I began these reflections by saying: If, as a good European, one goes to every possible effort—truly every possible effort—to examine the facts that have been at work for decades and have come to light in recent times, and to delve into them without prejudice, and then considers how it is commonly judged—and I say this with full deliberation— how judgment is commonly passed there—even by people who, in the times preceding these painful events, bore names that sounded honorable—then one ultimately comes to realize how certain lines of reasoning are inevitably of such a nature that—no matter what one might say, no matter what one might argue—people’s responses ultimately boil down to: “Never mind, the German will be burned”—following the old adage: “Never mind, the Jew will be burned.” — For in many, many judgments there is nothing else but a certain aversion—the justification or lack thereof of which can certainly be debated—a certain aversion to everything in the world that is called “German”—I will choose my words very carefully!

[ 7 ] A certain aversion to everything in the world that is called “German” has recently escalated into a truly fervent hatred—one that is not at all inclined to examine anything or to allow anything that has been examined to sink in, but which simply believes itself justified in hating. But this right is not simply claimed openly. After all, if someone says, “I hate”—and they mean it and make it clear that they mean it—what’s there to object to? Everyone, of course, has the right to hate as much as they want; there’s nothing wrong with that at all. But for many people, that is not the point—on the contrary, what matters to them in this case is not having to admit to the feeling of hatred, but rather numbing themselves to this hatred by saying all sorts of things intended to mask the hatred and replace it with a supposedly objective, just judgment. As a result, everything is cast in a false light. If someone honestly admits, “I hate this or that,” then it is possible to reason with them—or, of course, not, depending on the degree of their hatred. But truth—real truth toward oneself and the world—is necessary in all things, and if we fail to grasp precisely this, my dear friends—that truth is necessary in all things—then we cannot make the very essence of what spiritual science is meant to be for humanity right now the innermost impulse of our own hearts and souls. We may well say to ourselves: Certainly, we want only a part of spiritual science—only that part which does not deal directly with our sympathies or antipathies, which does us good—but if anything does not suit us, then we reject it. — One can take this standpoint, but it is not really the standpoint that is in any way beneficial for the development of humanity today.

[ 8 ] I would like to begin with a few specific remarks, but truly “sine ira”! You see, it is a well-known fact that a great many people view today’s events in the context of the founding of the German Empire, which lies at the heart of Europe. Well, it is not my task to speak about the politics of the German Empire or about any other political matters. Nor will I do so; I merely wish to provide you with a few factual points of reference. After all, one can form opinions about the events that led to the founding of this German Empire. One might even hold the view—whether it is justified or not, let’s not argue about that now—one might even hold the view that the very existence of such a thing as “Germans” is a calamity for humanity. Certainly, these matters could also be discussed—why not, if someone truly and honestly admits to holding such a view? But that is not the issue at hand; rather, let us consider for a moment that this German identity led to the founding of the German Empire in the last third of the 19th century.

[ 9 ] Well, my dear friends, there may be many people who, from entirely different perspectives, challenge the founding of this German Empire—who believe that the establishment of this empire was not beneficial for the development of humanity. But those who adopt the standpoint of the Western empires do not have the right to pass such a judgment, for one must certainly bear in mind that the Western peoples, in particular, are extraordinarily attached to what might be called the imperial ideal, the concept of the state. The thinking of the Western peoples is also linked, in terms of their national identity, to various concepts of the state. Anyone who, from the outset, links patriotism and the concept of the state in the same way as Western peoples do has no right to begin their criticism by questioning the legitimacy of the concept of the Reich in the first place, for in doing so they adopt an illogical standpoint; they take the position that another people has no right to do what their own people have done. And when discussing something, one must, after all, adopt a standpoint that provides a basis for discussion—one that allows one to remain logical. Wouldn’t it be quite possible, for example, to discuss with Bakunin whether a German Empire in Central Europe is a beneficial thing—that would be based on entirely different premises. But one cannot discuss it with people—and I don’t even mean statesmen here, but rather most citizens of Western nations—who are completely imbued with their concept of the state. So, one would have to adopt this standpoint: that one assumes [the idea of the empire] as something to be posited for everyone, as a hypothesis, so that one speaks, so to speak, of one empire after another; otherwise, one has no foundation. There are, of course, judgments that are entirely free of prejudice—they exist precisely in relation to earthly reality—but one must be aware of one’s presuppositions if one wishes to make valid judgments.

[ 10 ] Today, people no longer even think about the historical forces that gave rise to this empire in Central Europe. For example, people no longer think about the fact that the land on which this empire was largely founded served for many centuries as a kind of reservoir, a kind of source, for the rest of Europe. You see, a “Romanic” culture—in the sense that one could say it is a continuation of the ancient Roman culture—no longer exists today. The Romanic has, if I may use the expression, thoroughly evaporated and has been absorbed into other ethnic elements only in isolated impulses. Take the soil of Italy. Throughout the Middle Ages, all manner of Germanic elements continually migrated into Italy—if I may use that term; I may come back to define it in more detail later—all manner of Germanic elements. And in what is today called the Italian population, there is, even in terms of bloodline, an immense amount of what one might call Germanic heritage. This has been influenced by the Romance element, but not to the extent that one could even remotely regard the modern Italian people as a continuation of the ancient Roman people. Now, it has always been the case that, from Central Europe—as the reservoir of peoples—the various tribes have migrated toward the periphery, all the way to Spain, across to North Africa, to Italy, to France, to Britain, everywhere [white arrows]. So I would say: As the “ethnic” spread, as the “ethnic” radiated [everywhere], it encountered a non-ethnic element, the Romance [red arrows]; in the middle, so to speak, lay the reservoir.

[ 11 ] A phenomenon such as the one I presented to you yesterday in connection with Dante is merely a characteristic expression of a very general phenomenon. What, after all, are the French of today? Surely not merely descendants of the Latin element! The Franks—that is, originally Germanic tribes—spread across this land and were permeated by what is no longer purely folk-based, but rather what, I might say, through the indirect influence of the Roman bureaucracy and the like—I cannot go into all the details here—has blended as a Romance element with the ancient Celtic element. And from this something has emerged in which, today, more than one might think, Germanic impulses live—truly live within it. And in the more recent Italian element, above all, there are an immense number of such Germanic impulses. If one were to investigate these matters, one could closely study the penetration of the Lombard—that is, a Germanic—element into northern Italy, which, in a sense, merely adopted the other, the Roman element. Britain was originally inhabited by peoples who were later driven back to Wales and Brittany, and even as far as Caledonia, after they had previously sent out scouts to invite the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons to the island and thereby drive back the raiding Picts and Scots coming from the north. Thus, a population group emerged in which the Germanic element, naturally, predominates immensely.

[ 12 ] So this radiation occurs in all directions. Only in the center does a reservoir remain, and this is also connected to the fact—because the center had to develop differently—that the center, so to speak, made that leap, which I do not wish to describe in a vain way as a leap forward, but simply as a leap that is expressed in what I cited yesterday as the law of sound shift. These are laws that need not be measured at all against any sympathies or antipathies; they are simply facts. And as for the consequences these facts must entail, everyone can form their own ideas about them, but they need not pursue these matters with sympathies or antipathies.

[ 13 ] This is how it came to be: When the Roman emperors waged their campaigns against the Germanic tribes, the Germanic tribes that were defeated first actually made up the vast majority—by far the largest portion—of the armies, so that the Romans fought the Germanic tribes with other Germanic tribes. In later times, it came to pass that the masses of people arising on the periphery tended, in part, to oppose what was at the center to such an extent that the necessity arose to establish precisely that kind of empire which, in its final phase, led to the Holy Roman Empire [of the German Nation] — You are surely familiar with the passage in Goethe’s Faust where the students are glad that they do not have to worry about the Holy Roman Empire. On the other hand, this led to the central element being attacked in the most terrible way, precisely from the peripheries, so that the periphery continually rebelled against the central element. And indeed, one must certainly take into account that much of what exists as consciousness in Central Europe is connected to the fact that the soil on which this empire was founded in Central Europe was, in fact, the place designated from all sides as the theater of war for the perpetually quarreling peoples—a fact that found its particular expression in the 17th century during the Thirty Years’ War. In that war, this land—Central Europe—lost up to a third of its inhabitants through the fault of the surrounding peoples, as not only the towns and villages but entire regions were destroyed—the peoples of Central Europe were truly torn apart from the periphery. These are facts that one must simply accept as historical facts.

[ 14 ] It is hardly surprising, then, that in Central Europe a tendency—an impulse—arose to, in a sense, want what other peoples were striving for: namely, an empire. However, the people of this region have a very different attitude toward the idea of an empire—[much more relaxed] than the people of Western Europe, who are particularly attached to the idea of an empire—regardless, my dear friends, of whether we’re talking about a republic or a kingdom. Isn’t that right? Whether one belongs to a republic or another form of government is, after all, irrelevant; what matters is the attitude one takes toward this sense of belonging, whether one has a sense of this belonging in one way or another. Well, I said it is not surprising that in Central Europe the tendency—the impulse—arose to have an empire as well — an empire that, on the one hand, offers some protection against the centuries-old onslaught from the West—an onslaught that truly lasted for centuries—and, on the other hand, provides the possibility of limiting what comes from the East, what is driven by the East, in a way that is, of course, not necessary for the East itself, but is nevertheless necessary for Central Europe. I believe these things must be understood.

[ 15 ] The people of Central Europe now view what might be called the concept of the state somewhat differently than the people of Western Europe, particularly the French. For centuries, such a concept of the state was not as vibrant in Central Europe as it was, for example, in France; a concept of the state such as existed in France is not suited to what has remained in Central Europe. And one need only recall how what developed in Central Europe—what has remained there—reached its intellectual zenith at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century, a fact that will surely be recognized again by the West once hatred has subsided. It will then be recognized once more that here in Central Europe, the greatest intellectual heights—whose fruits will by no means have been fully savored by humanity, even after centuries—were attained at a time when, due to the circumstances in Central Europe, any possibility of forming a unified state structure from the West was ruled out. Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and everything associated with them did not, after all, come of age within a unified political entity; they came of age precisely because no such entity existed. One can hardly—I would almost say cannot—imagine what a difference it makes that Goethe did not come of age within such a political structure, whereas Corneille and Racine are simply inconceivable without the backdrop of a political structure that attained its splendor and grandeur through Louis XIV, the king who said of himself: “L’État, c’est moi.” These things belong together.

[ 16 ] But now, driven by impulses that were initially purely internal, a tendency emerged among the inhabitants of Central Europe over the course of the 19th century to form a kind of unified state. And this tendency initially took shape in a very intensely idealistic manner. And anyone familiar with the developments of the 19th century knows that the idea of the state, which captivated the inhabitants of Central Europe, was initially rooted above all in the minds of idealists—people who were perhaps more idealistic than practical, and who were certainly far less practical with regard to the concept of the state than their practical Western counterparts. And so we see how these idealistic aspirations—how the conditions for uniting the Central European German peoples into a unified German Empire—developed. We see them take on specific forms, particularly in the year 1848, though these forms are distinctly idealistic in character. But since the nineteenth century was, after all, the age of materialism, that which originally had an idealistic character did not fare particularly well—not so much due to any fault of the peoples themselves as to what had emerged in the nineteenth century as materialism. And now the task was to achieve, in a practical way, what could not be achieved through idealism—that is, to achieve it in the same way it had been achieved throughout European history up to that point. How, then, did states come into being? States came into being through wars, and that is also how the German Empire came into being between 1864 and 1870.

[ 17 ] Those of you who lived through those times, my dear friends, know how much pain there was in the hearts of those who, at the time the new German Empire was founded, were still imbued with the ideas of 1848—when people had sought to establish this empire out of a sense of conviction, emotion, and idealism. Particularly in the 1860s and 1870s, one could observe the people who belonged to the so-called Greater German Party—the Greater Germans—who were then opposed by the Lesser Germans. The Greater German Party consisted of those who adhered to the old idealistic principles, who sought to achieve the founding of such a Reich based on ideal foundations and ideal impulses. These “Greater Germans” did not want to conquer anything; rather, they wanted to unite everything that is German within a common imperial or state structure. Anyone who even remotely thinks that these “Greater Germans” wanted to conquer the slightest thing simply does not understand the degree of national idealism that lived within them. And they were fierce opponents—one might even say irreconcilable opponents—of the “Small Germans,” who later, under Bismarck, founded the present-day German Empire—that is, the German Empire under Prussian leadership. But they eventually came to terms with the new situation because they ultimately realized that, in 19th-century Central Europe, things could not unfold any differently than they always had. They came to terms with it by telling themselves: Just as France and England were founded, so too must Germany be founded. — Thus, the “Greater Germans” gradually reconciled themselves to what was entirely contrary to their ideal. These things must be taken into account.

[ 18 ] And whatever one may think of the events that took place between 1866 and 1870—of course, I can neither get lost in details here nor engage in politics—whatever one’s view of these events from 1866 to 1870, 1871, whatever one’s views may be; one may think whatever one likes about guilt or innocence regarding the outbreak of the War of 1870 [whatever the case may be]—I naturally grant everyone the right to think about it as they wish—but one thing must not be forgotten, because it is a fact—of course, such a thing can also be denied, but the facts remain true even if they are denied. However the events may have unfolded, it is true that on the French side—and when I say the French or English side, never the will of the people, but rather the cohesion of those who, at the time in question, as they say, were at the helm—those who shape external events—that is to say, among those who shape external events, there was, above all, the will to prevent the founding of the German Empire; one must not overlook the fact that the entire policy was geared toward ensuring that the German Empire could not be founded. People may think what they will about the War of the Spanish Succession or about a French or German faction, but there should really be no dispute that in France certain people went to great lengths to turn the judgment—that it was incompatible with the “gloire” of the French state for an independent German Empire to arise in Central Europe—into reality. And what played out in the attempt to prevent the emergence of this empire is one of the root causes of the War of 1870. And as a counter-reaction, a sentiment developed at that time—about which one can again think as one pleases—namely, the view that the German Empire could be founded only by the same means by which France had founded its own empire, namely, by waging war against a neighboring state. One must simply face these facts in a completely dispassionate manner.

[ 19 ] Now, this German Empire was founded in the manner with which you are, of course, familiar, although people today are no longer inclined to examine the historical facts closely. But most of you will be familiar with the relevant details—or at least the basic outline of the facts. One can therefore say: This German Empire was founded while war was being waged between France and Germany, in that the forces that brought about this German Empire were generated during that war. So the German Empire was founded. Let us consider the moment when Paris was not yet under siege, but German successes had already created the prospects for founding the German Empire. Since there was reason to believe that opposition to this German Empire had been broken, the idea arose in Central Europe to set the stage for the founding of a “Small German Empire.”

[ 20 ] So, let’s consider the period roughly from December of the year 1870. In doing so, my dear friends, we are faced with the fact that to speak of what happened there in Germany — to speak of “Germany” is, after all, merely a bad habit of those who live on the periphery, for there is still no such thing as “Germany” today, any more than there is a “Kaiser of Germany” —, that is, from what happened in what would later become the German Empire, a sentiment has developed on the periphery [that the founding of this German Empire had caused great harm to Europe]. As I said, it is actually a bad habit to speak of “Germany”; there are only individual German states, and the one who is to represent these German states to the outside world, explicitly on the basis of certain characteristics of Central European identity, does not bear the title “Emperor of Germany,” but rather the title “German Emperor”—which is a difference. I note that, when the modern Romanian state was founded, there was a great deal of discussion about whether the new king should be called “King of the Romanians” or “King of Romania.” These things make a great deal of difference when one looks at realities and not merely at illusions. The title “King of Romania” was ultimately chosen based on very specific historical circumstances—instead of the title “Romanian King” or “King of the Romanians,” which had initially been considered. It is precisely such details that matter greatly.

[ 21 ] Well, my dear friends, if one allows these judgments—which have, after all, been prepared well in advance and have recently escalated at times to the height of folly—to sink in—though, again, the question of whether any particular instance is justified is not to be discussed, since, of course, in each individual case, everything may be justified or unjustified—if, then, one summarizes these judgments, one could say: A sentiment has emerged that the founding of the German Empire has caused great harm to Europe, and that this imperial structure in Central Europe is, in a sense, a threatening entity.

[ 22 ] To make it clear what I actually mean by this, I’d like to read you something that will illustrate my perspective on some of the issues we’re discussing right now. The opinion that has taken shape goes like this: It was said that, yes, the Germans—Germany—felt threatened in one way or another, but that it was actually a threat to all of Europe itself. And there is in particular—I hope I’ll be able to find it now—there is in particular a judgment that I will now cite for you, which is of some significance. The judgment appears in the Matin of October 8, 1905. Isn’t it true that when one takes realities into account, one must realize that behind every opinion there is always the judgment of countless people, and the events that unfold there stem from realities. So, I will now read you a judgment from the Matin of October 8, 1905. It reads:

When Mr. von Bülow complains that there is a desire to isolate Germany, he should instead ask himself whether Germany is not isolating itself from the rest of Europe through its own actions. The architects of the mistrust and suspicious hatred that are tightening their grip on the German Empire day by day are not Delcassé, Lansdowne, not Edward VII, and not Roosevelt—but rather Bismarck and Moltke, Wilhelm II, and Bülow. They are the ones who created and developed this rigid, barbed, agitated, and provocative empire—one that has been glaring defiantly at Europe for a quarter-century and that Europe, of necessity, has ultimately had to regard with suspicion itself. It is they who, by making Germany ever more Prussian, are robbing it of the sympathies that were once secured by its active scholarship and its earnest modesty. It is they who, in our age—which we had believed to be a mild one—are allowing barbaric threats or brutal passions to erupt.

[ 23 ] And that's why:

Europe fears the fire that smolders incessantly in Berlin and, as a precaution, is already forming a human chain.

[ 24 ] So, in October 1905!

[ 25 ] Now the question arises: What is the truth behind this judgment that the German Empire has become a threat to all of Europe? Today, those speaking out in the West will say little else than: How could it have come to pass that Germany has become a threat to all of Europe? — And: In fact, nothing worse could have happened than for this people—which once shone so brightly through its science and its earnest modesty, as is so beautifully stated here—to have become a threat to all of Europe. — For the fact that it has become such a threat is repeated over and over again by countless voices and, in particular, in rivers of ink.

[ 26 ] Well, one might ask: What is the truth of this judgment? People are quick to say—and you hear this judgment often—: “Well, it’s really just out of Germanic arrogance—the word “Germanic” is misused in this context—out of Germanic arrogance and certainly not out of any necessity of world history that this empire came into being. And the people who live within this empire can’t help but constantly emphasize: The German is ahead of the world, the German must exist for the salvation of the world, and so on. — Countless times one has heard the judgment: The Germans have become a haughty people; they regard themselves as called to rule the entire world; they regard the empire they have founded as something that has become particularly necessary in modern times, and so on; the pride and arrogance of the Germans have become simply unbearable. — Such is the judgment that has been passed time and again in the most varied forms.

[ 27 ] I do not wish to sugarcoat anything; I would simply like to read to you a judgment that was handed down right at the founding of the Empire, specifically during the period I have outlined for you. I said: Let’s go back to November 1870. Upon hearing this judgment, which I am now going to read to you, my dear friends, some people today might—forgive the trivial expression—be beside themselves and say: Well, there you have it—that shows what kind of ideas people have about the importance of this German Empire! It’s immediately clear: even before it had come into being—when it was still in the process of being formed—it was already viewed in this way, it was already presented as if it were necessary not only for the good of the Germans, but for the good of all of Europe or the entire world, indeed even for the good of the French themselves. So, to show you that I’m not sugarcoating anything, my dear friends, I’d like to read you a commentary from the very year 1870. It says:

No nation has ever had a neighbor as terrible as the one Germany has had in France over the past four hundred years—terrible in every way: insolent, predatory, insatiable, implacable, and always aggressive.

And now, furthermore, there are no intrusive and unjust neighbors in all of history who have ever been struck down so completely, so suddenly, and so shamefully as France has now been by Germany. After four hundred years of mistreatment at the hands of this neighbor—and, for the most part, of misfortune as well—Germany has finally had the great good fortune to see its enemy completely brought to its knees: and Germany, I say without mincing words, would be a foolish nation if it did not consider, now that it is in a position to do so, erecting several secure border fences between itself and such a neighbor.

To my knowledge, there is no law of nature and no divine act of parliament according to which France—as the only one of all earthly creatures—need not return a single item of the things it has stolen, if the owners from whom they were snatched have the opportunity to reclaim them.

[ 28 ] And further:

The French are wailing terribly, claiming that they face a “loss of honor,” and wailing spectators earnestly plead: “Do not dishonor France; leave the honor of poor France unblemished.” But will it save France’s honor if it refuses to pay for the windows it willfully shattered at its neighbor’s house? The attack on its neighbor’s window was a disgrace to France. [...] France’s honor can only be saved through France’s deep remorse and through a sincere resolution never to do it again—and, indeed, to do the opposite from now on.

[ 29 ] But:

For now, I must say, France looks more and more insane, pitiful, shameful, wretched, and even contemptible: France refuses to see the facts that lie right before its eyes and the punishments it has brought upon itself—a France that has collapsed into anarchy without a discernible leader; no longer able to distinguish its head or leaders from the rabble; with ministers who soar in hot-air balloons whose only ballast is shameful public lies and proclamations of victories concocted by the imagination; a government that consists of nothing but deceit from beginning to end and that is willing to let the horrific bloodshed continue and grow even worse rather than allow these famous creatures of the Republic to relinquish their leadership: I do not know when or where a nation has ever been seen to have covered itself with such dishonor. [...] For me, the most distressing symptom in France is the state in which its “men of letters”—its highest literary spokesmen, who are supposed to be the prophets and seers of the nation—currently find themselves, and indeed have found themselves for a generation now. It is unmistakably their belief that new heavenly wisdom radiates from France over all the other nations, which lie in the shadows, and that France is the new Mount Zion of the universe [...].

[ 30 ] And a few paragraphs later:

I believe Bismarck will get his Alsace and as much of Lorraine as he needs, and I further believe that this will do him, us, the whole world, and eventually even France a world of good. Anarchic France is getting its first stern lesson here—a terribly drastic purgative for poor France, and it will be good for the country if it can learn its lesson properly.

[ 31 ] The remarks conclude with the words:

Bismarck [...] does indeed strike me as possessing a remarkable ability to pursue, through patient, grand, and successful steps, a goal that is beneficial for Germany and for all other people. That noble, patient, profound, pious, and steadfast Germany will finally be forged into a nation, and that this nation—rather than fickle, vain, gesticulating, quarrelsome, restless, and excessively irritable France—will become the queen of the continent: this seems to me to be the most hopeful public development that has occurred in my lifetime.

[ 32 ] One might well ask, however: Isn’t this [German] megalomania? — My dear friends, I have just read to you [excerpts from a letter by Thomas Carlyle] that appeared in the Times in [November 1870]. [And in that same Times, one could] read the following sentences in an editorial from December 1870:

There will now be a strong, united Germany. [...] Whereas we used to have two militarily powerful, centrally organized empires with a fragmented, still-unformed nation in between—which could have been ground to dust whenever the other two [powers] had decided to do so—a strong barrier has now been erected in Central Europe, making the [European] structure stronger [and thus more stable].

[ 33 ] I'm going to skip a sentence now—you'll see why in a moment:

They all wanted a strong central authority and worked toward that goal in times of peace and war, through negotiations or by forming alliances [...].

[ 34 ] Well, the sentence I left out is:

In this respect, the political goals of generations of English statesmen have been fulfilled.

[ 35 ] You see, my dear friends, it is indeed necessary to consider things a little as they really are, for anyone reading The Times today should also take a moment to consider The Times’s editorial from December 1870. And perhaps one might even come to have some strange insights into the most dreadful phrase ever uttered—the phrase “German militarism”—if one were only to reflect a little on that assessment, [which came from the English side at the time]:

Whereas in the past we had two militarily powerful, centrally organized empires with a fragmented, still-unformed nation in between—which could have been ground to dust whenever the other two [powers] decided to do so—a strong barrier has now been erected in Central Europe, as a result of which the [European] structure has become stronger [and thus more stable].

[ 36 ] You see, my dear friends, times change—as they say—but people always believe they can make absolute judgments and are so content with their absolute judgments.

[ 37 ] One truly need not be hostile to the English character, to English folkways—to what many Englishmen are, who believe themselves to be good Englishmen—when one makes a judgment that may seem incorrect to many Englishmen, just as I did yesterday regarding Sir Edward Grey. But, my dear friends, I am not in the habit of making judgments without having supported them in some way—and specifically, having supported them from the side where one is justifiably supported. You might say: The person who made this judgment is not an Englishman; nor does he know Sir Edward Grey personally. — Now I will read you a judgment by a man who is English and who also knows Sir Edward Grey personally, because he was a fellow minister of his. This man, who is in any case also English, has made the following judgment about Sir Edward Grey—these lines were written in the winter of 1912–1913:

For those of us who have known Grey since the very beginning of his career, it is quite entertaining to watch him impress his continental colleagues. They seem to suspect something in him that he certainly does not possess. He is one of the finest sport fishermen in the Kingdom and a quite good tennis player. He truly possesses no political or diplomatic skills—unless one were to regard a certain tedious monotony in his manner of speaking and a strange tenacity as such. Rosebery once said of him that he made such a focused impression because he never had a thought of his own that might distract him from a task entrusted to him with precise instructions. When a somewhat spirited foreign diplomat recently expressed admiration for Grey’s quiet manner, which never reveals what is going on inside him, a cheeky secretary remarked: “If a clay piggy bank is filled to the brim with gold, it certainly doesn’t rattle when you shake it. But if there isn’t a single penny in it, it doesn’t rattle either.” With W. C. (Winston Churchill), a few coins rattle so loudly that it gets on your nerves; with Grey, not the slightest rattle. Only the person holding the box can know whether it’s completely full or completely empty!” That was cheeky, but well said.

I believe that Grey has a very decent character, even if a certain mindless vanity may occasionally tempt him to get involved in matters that those who insist on absolute integrity would do well to avoid. His excuse, however, is always that he is incapable, on his own, of surveying and thinking through a matter. He, who is by no means a schemer in his own right, can appear to be the most consummate schemer as soon as a skilled schemer chooses to make use of him. This has always been a temptation for political schemers to choose him specifically as their tool, and it is solely to this circumstance that he owes his current position [...].

The people who once set this smooth, hollow sphere rolling would surely be pleased with its progress. But some of them are dead, some have disappeared from the political scene, and some no longer take an interest in the events unfolding today. If the sphere, which we see rolling along at an alarming speed, still keeps their memory alive in those who know the history of this country over the last ten years, it is due to the sloping plain onto which it was thrown and the scant resistance it has encountered so far during its course.

[ 38 ] It's an Englishman, a fellow minister of Sir Edward Grey, who says that!

[ 39 ] Well, my dear friends, the point is to consider such matters a little more closely—precisely so that one does not believe that the peace of Europe in July 1914 was particularly well in the hands of precisely such people. Of course, one can prove anything with a series of documents cited in all sorts of books, but the real question here is whether the forces that matter were handled properly.

[ 40 ] There is one thing, my dear friends, that you must bear in mind: namely, that historical events unfold gradually, that they develop slowly. And what ultimately led to the events of 1914 had been in the making for a long time—a very long time, in fact. Now, all sorts of things have been said about this preparation; for example, it has been said: Yes, there is no—or never was—any kind of “common understanding” among the so-called Triple Alliance, the “Entente cordiale,” against Central Europe; this Entente cordiale was always solely concerned with ensuring that Europe had peace—true peace. — Various facts have been cited that have been taken as apparent evidence for such a supposition. Well, I would of course have to tell you long stories if I wanted to provide full proof of what I have to say, but at any rate, I would still like to give you a few points of reference.

[ 41 ] For example—since this will surely play a certain role in history at some point—I would like to read to you a passage from a speech delivered by Jaurès in France in October 1905. Of course, such speeches are always one-sided, but when you take everything into account—and there are many important points to consider here—a judgment naturally emerges. I can choose this particular example because a few weeks ago I said a few things about Jaurès from a completely different perspective. Jaurès was, as you know, a democrat—even a social democrat—and—whatever one may otherwise think of him—he was a man who was genuinely concerned not only with maintaining peace in Europe—as would have been so necessary for Europe, at least for Western Europe, in light of certain other circumstances—but who was also committed to bringing together people from all over the world who truly and earnestly wanted to maintain peace. In a certain sense, Jaurès was already justified in speaking that way [as he did in his speech]. So, in October 1905, shortly after the French democratic cabinet had—pardon the trivial expression—“dumped” Delcassé because it had become apparent during a cabinet meeting that he was capable of genuinely endangering European peace in a short time, Jaurès said at the time, referring to this event:

England has figured out the plan that was occupying the mind of our leading minister and has prepared to exploit it in secret. German industry and commerce pose an ever-greater threat to England’s trade and industry in all world markets. It would be cynical and scandalous for England to declare war on Germany solely to destroy its military power, annihilate its fleet, and stifle its global trade. But if a dispute were to arise one day between France and Germany, and if France were to invoke legal grounds and assert claims to national integrity and human rights, these splendid pretexts might conceal the calculations of English capitalists who seek to stifle German competition by force in order to achieve their goals.

Thus it came to pass that, when troubles broke out in Morocco due to difficulties between France and Germany, and Germany—suspecting the secret intention of an Anglo-French coalition—suddenly intervened to force the two nations to make declarations, England—I am compelled to say this—appeared far too inclined to provoke a conflict. It is true that, at the very moment these events were unfolding, England approached France with a proposal for a defensive and offensive alliance, in which it promised us its full assistance, in which it undertook not only to destroy the German fleet, but also to occupy the North-East Sea Canal and Kiel, as well as to land 100,000 English troops in Schleswig-Holstein. If this treaty had been signed—and Delcassé wanted it to be signed—it would have meant immediate war. That is why we Socialists demanded Delcassé’s resignation, thereby rendering a service to France, Europe, and humanity.

[ 42 ] Above all, Jaurès knew things that those who pass judgment so readily today know nothing about—and he knew things that were quite essential and important. And one day, he let his guard down and spoke of these important and essential things in such a way that one could infer he might say them again in the future. It is well known to occultists, my dear friends, how in the first third of the 19th century a member of a certain brotherhood revealed certain things about the world that, in the opinion of that brotherhood, should not have been divulged. But after the person in question had spoken of these things, he disappeared one day; he was murdered. Jaurès was not an occultist, to be sure, but one may well be curious as to whether the world will ever learn the circumstances that led to his death on the eve of the war.

[ 43 ] You see, things like what Jaurès just said ultimately go back to a certain Cabinet meeting—that Cabinet meeting in which Delcassé, the puppet of King Edward VII and other puppets behind him, was “ousted” from the French government of the time, perhaps not even so much because he wanted to pave the way for war, but for an entirely different reason—we are in the year 1905, my dear friends! Russia is still engaged in the East, and there is no hope that, if the fire Delcassé is stoking in the West really breaks out, things will turn out as they would later if Russia were no longer engaged in the East—we are in the year 1905! But Delcassé is not a man who accepts things so easily. When the people who, at that time, did not want a war in Europe told him that he had every intention of to drive the situation to war with absolute certainty, he replied that France had been informed by England that the latter was prepared to occupy the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal and attack Schleswig-Holstein with 100,000 men; if France so desired, England would be willing to repeat this offer in writing. This news, which Delcassé conveyed at the time to his fellow ministers—who had just shown him the door—was, of course, the result of negotiations he had conducted behind his fellow ministers’ backs, and behind which King Edward VII was essentially the driving force.

[ 44 ] Now, I could cite many examples that would corroborate this fact, which appeared not only in Le Matin but later in other newspapers as well, but I simply wish to point out that, at the time, there was at least one person who took a closer look at the story and found it somewhat questionable. And that was a figure who may not be to everyone’s liking, particularly in France—namely, the clerical Senator Gaudin de Villaine, who, on November 20, 1906, when the Clemenceau ministry was already in office, submitted an interpellation asking what the actual state of affairs was regarding relations between France and England, which had been the subject of so much discussion. Clemenceau then said that, as far as the idea of revenge was concerned, he was outraged that a French senator had sought to set a trap for him and impose upon him the obligation either to disappoint [the “good” French]—that is, the brothers of the “Grand Orient” Lodge—or to issue a declaration of war; he would therefore not answer. In other words: In response to the senator’s question as to whether there was anything that could lead to a European war through a coalition between France and England, Clemenceau stated that he would not answer, for if he did, he would either have to disappoint the brothers of the “Grand Orient” Lodge regarding the idea of revenge or issue a declaration of war. So you see: Clemenceau would have had to issue a declaration of war if he had wanted to speak out about the relations between France and England at that time; he would have had to issue not a peaceful declaration, but a declaration of war—he said so himself. That was in 1906.

[ 45 ] We must not forget, my dear friends, that in all matters in the world, what one hears from others has a significant impact. Can you imagine how people in Central Europe could have been expected to believe in the “peaceful” intentions of Western Europe if they had heard not just one, but many, many such facts of this caliber? Well, when one seeks to assess these matters, there are various factors to consider. One must consider that, when viewing Central Europe in a broader sense, it is utterly nonsensical to speak so readily of its militarism, for this militarism has been the natural and historical consequence for a country sandwiched between two military states—a consequence necessary simply to survive between them.

[ 46 ] Now, certain people who lack any sense of reality might well ask: “Yes, but haven’t all sorts of disarmament proposals been made?”—Just take a look at these disarmament proposals! After all, there’s no need to achieve something in just one way; it can be achieved in various ways. Naturally, certain people—I’m not talking about nations—certain people in Western Europe would have been quite happy not to have to achieve what they wanted and still want through a war in which hundreds of thousands upon hundreds of thousands on all sides would have to shed their blood, [but they would also have been satisfied] to be able to achieve it in such a way that afterward—forgive the trivial expression—they could have licked their fingers and said, “We’ve made peace!” So, my dear friends, when it comes to achieving something, one can seek to achieve it by various means. One of the means employed by Western European politicians of a certain ilk was the disarmament proposal that was put forward, for it served only to achieve, by a different route, what they wanted to achieve. Since the disarmament proposal did not become a reality, [what could not be achieved in this way] had to be achieved by other means. Of course—if Central Europe could have been strangled without war, through disarmament, that would have been the preferred option, but it was merely another way to achieve the same end.

[ 47 ] We must not be deceived by words; we must not be deceived by illusions; rather, we must be clear about what people want. And so, my dear friends, we must time and again stand up for those who think clearly—those who truly mean what they say—when, under the influence of hatred and all manner of other negative feelings, they are lumped together with people who [deliberately] bring about this or that. We must defend them and be clear about how unjust it is to say: “The English have done this or that; the English are to blame for this or that.” — That is not a reasonable judgment, but neither is it reasonable for an Englishman to feel offended when such things are revealed, as has just been demonstrated by the facts.

[ 48 ] That is why one must pay attention when, based on reason, certain things that are part of the complex of causes are—I would say—pointed out explicitly. For example, on October 13, 1905, we find a statement in the Daily News that refers to the British government of the time—that is, the British government that bears such an enormous share of the blame for what has happened to this day, for Sir Edward Grey’s predecessor was by no means as much of a nonentity as Sir Edward Grey himself. His predecessor, Lord Lansdowne, already understood much better what was at stake and what he wanted, but from a certain point on, those behind it all needed a nonentity, because it was easier to operate with one. So at that time, we read in the Daily News of October 13, 1905:

It is high time that Lord Lansdowne clarified and defended that aspect of his diplomacy for which he and his colleagues are constitutionally responsible. Recently, there has been a tendency to put Lord Lansdowne on a pedestal, but the country will have little reason to thank him if it turns out that he allowed it to be drawn into entanglements that raised the risk of a European war. [...] The finest courts are sometimes the scenes of family quarrels, but what do the peoples of Great Britain or Germany have to do with that? [...] The anti-German hotheads in England and the anti-English hotheads in Germany are the sole obstacle to peaceful relations, and great nations may one day suffer greatly because of them.

[ 49 ] One must examine matters in the contexts where they actually occur. But one must also take into account that one could prove—not only on the basis of numerous facts, but actually through reason alone—that the two Central European states had not the slightest reason to provoke a war. For, isn’t it true that for anyone who gave the matter any thought—how must such a war have appeared to them?

[ 50 ] France should have realized that, in a war that would inevitably become a European war unless certain circumstances arose, it would suffer greatly. But then again, people in France did not believe such a thing, because the faith in France—which has ruled Europe for centuries—simply exists. So, in France, people don’t believe such things. In Italy, of course, there are very special circumstances—which we may discuss in another context if we have time—but even Italy could not expect any great advantages, under certain conditions, from a coming war that would throw everything in Europe into disarray.

[ 51 ] In Russia, too, the circumstances are quite unique. As for what they are like—well, I have already described them to you when I characterized Russia’s relationship to the Slavic peoples and to Slavic culture, and I would like to draw your attention once again to the “depth” of Sir Edward Grey. This was evident, for example, in the following: When a thought was once instilled into his meditative mind—as his colleague so aptly put it, he was only so focused because he had no thoughts of his own—by the very side that was instilling thoughts into him, he then said: “The Russian race has a great future and will play a major role in the world.” — He simply forgot that the discussion had been about Slavdom, that there is no such thing as a “Russian race,” and that one must truly distinguish between Russism and Slavism when speaking of realities. The circumstances in Russia are quite unique, but as they had developed, the only people in Russia who could hold out hope for something great from a future European war were those who advocated Russism—namely, to realize, at least in part, the legacy of Peter the Great. At the same time, one could “expect” a great deal of suffering, but this is a suffering that Russism, in particular, does not place much value on.

[ 52 ] England could tell itself that it had the least to lose or risk, for—isn’t it true—we have already been caught up in these painful events for many months now, and if one were to weigh up who has suffered the least, one could certainly say: England has suffered almost not at all—at least in the eyes of world history. Yes, one must say, [the country that has suffered the least] is England, and it will be able to wage war for a long time to come without suffering significantly from the war. But in contrast, the so-called Central Powers certainly had nothing to gain from such a war, and such a war was of no consequence to them. Therefore, there were always two things about them: first, a certain carelessness that does not stem from knowledge of the circumstances but is a matter of character—carelessness is, after all, a particularly Austrian trait—so, on the one hand, carelessness, and on the other hand, it was repeatedly and emphatically stated that they wanted nothing more than to retain what they had already achieved—anything else would, in essence, have been nonsense. And so it never even occurred to them as a possibility, for example, to conquer any part of Serbia, if the war between Austria and Serbia could have been confined to that region.

[ 53 ] If, for example, England had been led by a statesman who had not already said on July 23: “If Austria goes to war against Serbia, it could lead to a European war”—but instead had been led by a statesman who had said: ‘Under all circumstances, we will use our influence to ensure that the war remains localized’—then the outcome would have been quite different. But then one would not have had to pass judgment as Sir Edward Grey did, who from the very beginning was under the hypnotic impression that: “If Austria goes to war with Serbia, a European war will result.” He never asked: “Well, what does Russia actually have to do with the whole war between Austria and Serbia?” — That never even occurred to him; nor is it even hidden in any statement he made, but he always had only the legitimacy of Russian influence in Serbia before his eyes—the legitimacy of that influence, which, admittedly, had been prepared in a peculiar way and carried along on peculiar waves, as I have explained to you.

[ 54 ] Everything that took place there—including the 364 murders that occurred between 1883 and 1887—has nothing to do with any judgment on the Serbian people, who fought bravely—even in their current state — and to whom alone the credit is due for the only success the Entente has had down there in recent weeks. No one who sees through these matters will pass judgment on any people, and certainly not on a people that, even in its most tragic days, has shown that it is not only willing to defend its true nature with its blood, but also knows how to do so, and that it is there in moments of crisis when it is called upon to be. But this was, after all, a very specific campaign—I would simply remind you that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was merely one final major undertaking and followed a whole series of assassinations that took place within a few months against various Austrian government officials. It was, after all, a very specific campaign that took place at that time, and one that is quite understandable when viewed in relation to certain people, my dear friends. Recall what I told you earlier in some reflections about the occult undercurrents of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s personality; do you remember these occult undercurrents? Do you remember that it is indeed a fact—albeit a paradoxical one—that this couple, who were in fact, in the most eminent sense, friendly toward the Slavs, were apparently eliminated by the Slavic side—apparently! I would like to know whether one might not, out of a certain understanding of the heart, demonstrate just how right one is when pointing to deeper connections; out of a certain understanding of the heart, one can come close to the heart of the matter itself. We see a man who is, in the most eminent sense, a friend of the Slavs, and his wife, killed by Slavic bullets. At the very last moment, the duchess looks out of the carriage at a young woman standing nearby, who drowns out the chorus of the crowd with a bright “Nazdar!”—“Hello!”—The duchess, catching sight of this young Slavic woman, smiles for just a few more moments before the bullets strike. “Do you hear that?” she calls out to her husband, “There’s a Slavka!” Then the bullets strike. It does seem to point to a strange karma that, before the Slavic bullets strike her, the duchess is still delighted because her gaze has fallen upon her beloved Slavic people.

[ 55 ] But you see, I have explained to you that there was a connection between these events and certain carefully orchestrated circumstances on the Apennine Peninsula, which extend far [to the east]. And in this context, I ask once again—as I have already hinted at before—: Why, my dear friends, was there a mention in a Parisian newspaper—albeit a poor one—in January 1913 of the necessity that Archduke Franz Ferdinand be killed for the sake of humanity? Why did that so-called occult almanac, which I spoke to you about earlier, state twice that he would soon be killed? I believe one must look at these things in their entirety. One will find that the alchemy of the bullets that underlay this assassination at the time was a very complicated one, and that the bullets—even though they came from a Serbian arsenal—had been “anointed” from an entirely different source, if I may express myself symbolically—truly, they had been anointed from an entirely different source. But these are things that were happening, for example, in Austria—we must not forget that.

[ 56 ] Just imagine for a moment that Switzerland were surrounded by nothing but haters. I don’t know if that would be particularly reassuring, especially if this hatred were expressed not only in the way it has, for example, become a proverb in Romania regarding Austria: “Jos cu Austria perfidă!”, which means “Down with treacherous Austria!”—or: “Better Russian than Austrian!” and so on. I mean, when such things exist—when you consider everything that was written in Italy quite a long time before the war against Austria broke out—then one really couldn’t feel particularly reassured. And now a highly organized campaign has been launched that extended far into Austria. I don’t want to defend an empire; I just want to present the facts to you.

[ 57 ] Yes, and there you simply have to weigh two facts against each other. When, through Lord Salisbury’s significant influence, Austria was commissioned at the Congress of Berlin to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina—that is, when England gave Austria the mandate in the 1870s to undertake this Balkan campaign “for the good of Europe”—there was fierce opposition in Austria to the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, because the Germans in Austria said: “We already have enough Slavs as it is; we can’t possibly absorb so many more.” — If the idea had arisen in Austria to acquire any part of Serbia through the current war, that would, mind you, have met with the sharpest possible opposition in Austria, for one could not have committed a greater folly than to want any piece of Serbian soil; the aim was merely to hold the empire together in order to face the campaign. That must be taken at face value; even if it was perhaps reckless, it was nonetheless sincere. And if one considers the matter objectively, one cannot help but rule out the possibility that Austria’s ultimatum to Serbia would have triggered this war had Russia not adopted the stance with which you are well acquainted—even though it had no reason to believe that Austria intended to make any territorial gains. But in all these matters, my dear friends, one must also consider public sentiment—above all, public sentiment. Everything I have told you has, of course, given rise to public sentiment not only on the periphery but also in Central Europe.

[ 58 ] Now I would like to give you a small example of something that can show you how one can indeed form a judgment about such matters if one seriously sets out to form a valid judgment. Isn’t it interesting to look at certain points at specific times, because that is the only way to truly understand something? So one might ask: What must it have been like in the soul of someone who felt responsible for Austria—say, at the time the heir to the throne was assassinated, in the period that followed, or even immediately beforehand? Isn’t it true that, in order to arrive at a valid judgment regarding the mood among honest people in Austria—so as not to be influenced by what later triggered the assassination—it would be best to focus on the period immediately preceding the assassination, for that is when one can best see how people thought at the time? So you see how careful I’m trying to be. I am not focusing on the agitated mood following the assassination, but rather I say: Let’s take a look at what was in the heart of the honest Austrian amid all the influences that had been at play since the Delcassé affair, since the Italian Foreign Minister Tittoni came to power—always taking into account what Western Europe was doing in relation to Eastern Europe and Russia. Well, I can present such an assessment to you by reading aloud a short excerpt from an essay written precisely during the period I am referring to. Although it was published after the assassination, it was already in press when the assassination took place. It therefore stems from the weeks leading up to the assassination and was written by an Austrian. I would now like to read you a short excerpt from it, for here you have the assessment of a clear-thinking person who surveyed the situation in Europe even before the final cause—the assassination—had occurred. Here, then, you have a person who clearly surveys the situation and comes to the conclusion:

If the Danube Monarchy—and this will inevitably be the course of events in the near future—is forced into war by the Serbian Balkan states at Russia’s instigation, [...]

[ 59 ] — so there hadn't been an assassination yet —

[...]as things stand, no power in the world will be able to prevent Romania and Italy from joining the fight against their former ally; the elemental force of the people’s will will sweep aside the policies of dynasties and cabinets, and neither the Savoy nor the Hohenzollern crown will dare to resist, [...]

[ 60 ] — that is, neither the Italian nor the Romanian —

[...] unless they want to put themselves at risk. This is reality, which is already tangibly clear today, and any opinion or claim to the contrary is fiction, unreality, and any policy based on the opposite view is a Potemkin village.

[ 61 ] Everyone knew that Austria would be forced into war by the Serbian Balkan state at Russia’s instigation, that this was bound to happen. Therefore, if one had wanted to avoid the war, the right course of action would have been to start right here and work toward containing the conflict, for which the very best prospects—even from an external standpoint—were indeed available. So, my dear friends, the point is this: If one wishes to underpin one’s own feelings with judgments, it is necessary to base those judgments on facts, for judgments are facts to us; one must be willing to look at the facts. To explain what I actually mean, I could only present a few individual facts to you today, but I presented them with the intention of illustrating “facts” and nothing else. But let us be clear about the purpose of citing such facts: it is to promote the truth, even if that truth is—forgive the paradoxical expression—“harmful”; yet such a truth can never be as harmful as error. Anyone who knows the facts knows how endlessly people have lied from the moment they were able to lie unhindered—because they had the opportunity to proclaim only their own opinion, while the opposing side could not be heard or was at least drowned out by the various means that have come to light in such a painful way. But, my dear friends, what is at stake here is the search for the truth, the acknowledgment of the truth. When people say that this war was instigated by Central Europe, they are simply not telling the truth. Perhaps they cannot tell it because they do not know it—well, all right, that is another matter. Of course, when something like this war happens, both sides are usually to blame in some way, but in different ways. I am not speaking at all about the question of blame, but I am speaking about the futility of the judgments that have been passed—about the futility of those judgments that do not even bother to look in any way at what is really at stake. Now, my dear friends, I do not demand that these judgments not be made, for I know, of course, the course of human evolution and that, especially in our time, there is no inclination to base judgments on valid foundations, since many things prevent people in our time from basing their judgments on valid foundations. But then one should also state what the matter is—and state it correctly.

[ 62 ] If anyone today who is connected to certain places of origin of these painful world events—which are now called “war”—and who, out of a certain carelessness of thought, still wishes to call them “war”—and who feels connected to what is happening on the periphery, at least from certain centers on the periphery, should feel free to say: “Yes, I want the same thing that is wanted from certain centers; I want the people of Central Europe to be partly exterminated and partly turned into helots.” — Certainly, certain people in those centers do not want the intellectual life of Central Europe to perish; they speak of the beautiful scientific rigor and intellectualism and of the serious modesty that once existed. In other words, they would be pleased if they could rule over this realm of intellectual life and modesty, but in much the same way that the Romans dealt with the Greeks. Of course, Greek culture was the superior culture, so the Romans did not destroy it. Of course, no one in the Entente wants to [destroy German culture]—on the contrary, people would be quite happy if the Germans were to continue their culture quite well, but they would like to reduce it—in a manner similar to the relationship between the Romans and the Greeks—that is, what exists in Central Europe—to a kind of intellectual helotry. Then let them say so! Let them not embellish it with something that is downright ridiculous, for what German militarism is—which is not to be denied—is, in its true origin, French and Russian militarism, for without French and Russian militarism there would be no German militarism.

[ 63 ] Then let them say, however, that they want to turn Central Europe into a land of helots! Let them also say that they’ll be satisfied once they’ve achieved that. Then let them calmly admit: I hate that there’s a people like that in the middle of Europe who want to do things the way the other peoples around them do. — If someone admits this, if someone says: “I hate everything German; I don’t want the Germans to have anything like what other nations have”—well, you can talk to him or not, if he doesn’t want to, but he’s telling the truth. But if he says: “I want to destroy German militarism; I want the Germans to stop oppressing other nations; I want the Germans to do this or that”—as is said today and has been said for years—then he is lying. Perhaps he doesn’t realize he is lying, but he is lying; he is indeed lying; he is lying objectively, even if perhaps not subjectively.

[ 64 ] This, my dear friends, is what is necessary: to stand on the ground of truth. I say: Even if this truth may be harmful, even if it is unpleasant to oneself, one must admit it to oneself; one must not numb oneself with platitudes about German militarism; one must admit—even if one does not want to—that one harbors hatred; one must admit—even if one does not want to—that one has the will to create German helotism. You may need a form of numbing to achieve what you want, but that is not the truth, and it is very important to stand on the ground of truth. Well, you see, if you have the courage to face the truth, then you always get a little further. But you must have this courage to face the truth.

[ 65 ] It is indeed true that every people, even as a people, has its own mission, its own calling within the overall evolution of humanity, and that these various missions, these various callings, together form a whole: namely, the evolution of humanity. But it is equally true that individual people—especially those who become acquainted with humanity’s mission—presume to stage this or that in the interest of a limited group and, to that end, to make use of what exists within humanity.

[ 66 ] Let us take the example of the English people. If what must necessarily come to pass in the fifth post-Atlantic epoch—and must come to pass precisely through the English people—then, given the distinctive nature of this English national character, England can never initiate a war, for what constitutes the very essence of the English national character in its world-historical significance for human evolution stands in direct opposition to any warlike impulse. English national character makes its people the least warlike that can possibly exist. And yet, perhaps for centuries, not ten consecutive years have passed without England waging war. We simply live in the realm of the Maya. But that does not change the fact that the truth is still the truth.

[ 67 ] It is inherent in the nature of the English people to reject all forms of war. Just as it was once—though no longer; now it must be artificially incited—inherent in the nature of the French people for centuries to wage war time and again, so it is not at all in the nature of the English people to to wage wars, precisely because the unique configuration of the specific English national spirit is directed toward developing what is to be incorporated into the conscious soul of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. But this is achieved through all those connections among people that arise, on the one hand, from logical-scientific thinking and, on the other hand, from commercial-industrial thinking. And when Brooks Adams put forth the ideas I have cited to you, it was an initiative from America to point out what is inherent [in the English national character] through its deeper national essence—in which there is nothing of imagination or warlike spirit, as is, for example, entirely present in the Russian national character—to point out that in which the English national character as such should see its mission in the world. Now it will depend on whether this essence of English folk character will one day be understood in a deeper sense, in the sense of spiritual science.

[ 68 ] On a superficial level, my dear friends, some individuals have seen through this, and anyone who is familiar with Herbert Spencer or John Stuart Mill knows that England’s most enlightened minds have already fully grasped this—though not yet from a spiritual-scientific perspective, but rather from their more materialistic standpoint. I therefore advise you to read with a certain fervor the political essays by Herbert Spencer or John Stuart Mill in particular; you can learn an extraordinary amount from them. And this spirit of peace, which, as I have already explained, also enables a certain kind of political thinking, has indeed spread from England to Europe. Anyone who has been immersed in European life from such diverse perspectives—as I can truly say of myself—knows that, for example, all the political sciences of Central Europe have been thoroughly influenced by England, and that it is no coincidence that, for instance, the founders of German socialism—Marx and Engels—established German socialism from their base in England. [And he also knows], my dear friends, how easily the Central European spirit is misunderstood.

[ 69 ] The true nature of Central Europe is still almost always misunderstood in Western Europe. How could it be otherwise? Central European culture was so deeply permeated by French influences that one of the greatest and most significant works to set the tone during the golden age of German literature—Lessing’s Laokoon—was such that Lessing even considered whether to write the book in French or German. And in 18th-century Central Europe, the most educated people wrote poorly in German and well in French—that must not be forgotten. In the 19th century, Central Europe faced the great danger of becoming entirely “Anglicized,” of being completely permeated by the English spirit. It is no wonder that this Central European spirit is so little understood, since it is constantly—even in intellectual terms—overwhelmed by influences from other quarters. Just consider what Goethe contributed as a theory of evolution for animals and plants—it is truly a step above materialistic Darwinism; it is indeed a step higher, just as German, in terms of sound shifts, is a step higher than Gothic-English. But in Germany itself, materialistic Darwinism has been favored by fortune, whereas the truly German, the Goethean, has not. It is therefore hardly surprising that the German essence is poorly understood and that no effort is made to truly understand this German essence as it ought to be understood if one wishes to do it justice.

[ 70 ] Well, as I said, especially in the political sciences, everything was influenced by English thought. But what is necessary, my dear friends, is a certain self-knowledge of the peoples—the self-knowledge of the peoples is urgently needed. And until this self-knowledge is attained—for which Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill are insufficient, but which must be grounded in spiritual science—the perception of what is provided by spiritual science, no salvation can come about. Just consider how difficult it is, for example, to recognize the following, yet what is meant by it underlies life itself—it is not a dry theory, but rather the very foundation of life. You see, there is a certain relationship in the soul between the idea and the word.

[ 71 ] What I am about to demonstrate to you are, in fact, facts. Let us assume that, in the structure of the mind, the word [blue] lies, so to speak, in this field, and the thought [yellow] in that field:

[ 72 ] So, the word in the lower field, the thought in the upper field. Now the thing is that French folklore has a tendency to force the thought down into the word—that is, when speaking, to squeeze the thought into what is being said—which is why it’s so easy, precisely in this realm, to get carried away by the word, to get carried away by the phrase, whereby I mean “phrase” entirely in a positive sense:

[ 73 ] English folklore has a different tendency; it pushes the idea beneath the word, so that the idea permeates the word and seeks reality beyond it:

[ 74 ] The German language has the peculiarity of not carrying a thought all the way to the word. And it is precisely because German does not carry the thought all the way to the word, but rather preserves the thought within the thought, that philosophers such as Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel—who would otherwise have been impossible anywhere else in the world—became possible. But because of this, my dear friends, people can very easily misunderstand one another, for even the result of a genuine, accurate translation is, after all, always merely a surrogate. There is no way to express what Hegel said in English or French. That is entirely out of the question; a translation is always merely a surrogate. A certain possibility of understanding exists only because certain basic Romance elements are still prevalent throughout, for whether one pronounces the word “association” in French or English, for example, makes no difference—it all goes back to the Romance languages. It is through such things—[through such knowledge]—that bridges are built between peoples. But every nation has its own special mission, and the differences between peoples can only be overcome through a longing for a genuine understanding of the mission of each individual nation.

[ 75 ] Slavic folklore pushes the idea back into the inner self, where it resides:

[ 76 ] In Slavic folklore, the word is completely detached from the thought; it hovers as if separate from it. The strongest coincidence between thought and word—to the point that the thought vanishes in the face of the word—is found in French. The strongest self-realization of thought is found in German, which is why only in German does the term coined by Hegel and the Hegelians have meaning: the “self-consciousness of thought.” What is an abstraction for a non-German is, for the German, the greatest experience he can have, if he understands it in its living sense. What the German people seek amounts to establishing a union between the spiritual in itself and the spiritual of thought. Nowhere in the world, my dear friends, in no other national culture can this be achieved except in the German national culture.

[ 77 ] This has nothing to do with any particular empire, but it will be endangered for centuries to come if people reject what is now spreading throughout the world as an idea of peace; for then it is not merely an empire in the center that is endangered, but the very essence of Germany itself. That is why these present days are truly fateful days for those who understand these matters. And one may—indeed, one should at least hope—that events will be judged differently than they were back then, when, for the first time, a fateful impulse was, so to speak, thrown into the course of events, and people should have reflected on it but ultimately did not. At that time, Austria had voluntarily agreed to cede Trentino to Italy, which could have prevented Italy from abandoning its long-standing commitment to neutrality and aligning itself with the “Grand Orient.” At that time, on the periphery, no thought was given to what it actually meant to pay no heed to what Italy—or rather, those three men—Salandra, Sonnino, and Tittoni—were doing there. Hopefully, now, however things may turn out, the world will be more inclined to take these matters a bit more seriously. But the German element already has its specific task—precisely because of the special position of the idea. And therefore it will never be possible for that spiritual evolution—which must take place—to unfold without the participation of this idea that lives within itself. You see, one must simply view things as they are.

[ 78 ] English folklore necessitates that the spiritual be, so to speak, somewhat materialized. This is not meant as a criticism of English folklore, but simply as a description of a fact. The spiritual must be materialized to a certain degree within English folklore. That is why people there—arising solely from the breadth of the folklore itself, not from the individual human being—will have an ever-greater understanding of mediumship or medium-like phenomena, or anything else handed down from the past. It is precisely there, in the ancient, that the origin of so much is always to be found. The ancient Rosicrucians, the ancient Indians, and so on—these must always be held in a certain reverence there [in English folklore], just as the [English] language itself has remained at the level of Gothic; here, the word “remained” is not meant as a moral judgment or one based on sympathy or antipathy, but simply to indicate a different point on the scale; it signifies nothing other than a systematic classification, not a lag in development or anything of the sort.

[ 79 ] Well, let’s really take things as they are. Of course, every people today can understand everything, but you see, it is true after all: Whatever truly fruitful spiritualism—in the best sense of the word—and whatever occultism exists in England originates from Central Europe; it has been imported from there—Central Europe is its place of origin, or it has been adopted from elsewhere. And since England possesses a particularly highly developed intellectual tradition, it is able to systematize it and organize it. A thinker like Jakob Böhme, for example, would be impossible in France, but since Jakob Böhme was so thoroughly rooted in the spiritual thought of Central Europe, he gained a large following through Saint-Martin, the so-called “philosophe inconnu,” the unknown philosopher, who was a follower of Jakob Böhme.

[ 80 ] These things must therefore work together, and one cannot judge them based on national sentiments, but only according to what is lawfully prescribed for humanity. And the moment one considers that karma is a serious matter—that one is thus connected to one’s national identity through karma in the manner I described yesterday—if one views the matter from a karmic perspective rather than through national passion, one will already find the right attitude. And I could imagine that a time will come when even a people as exclusively passionate in all patriotic matters as the French might also learn to understand the idea of belonging to a national culture in more karmic terms.

[ 81 ] And I could even imagine that, given the English people’s great predisposition toward spirituality, it might one day be precisely this people who, through a certain spiritual science, come to realize that there are other peoples with whom one might consider a degree of equality—a concept for which there is currently not the slightest understanding in England. This is not a criticism—far from it—but that is simply how things are in England. Isn’t it true that we are often unaware that we are constantly saying things that, while we ourselves understand them, strike others as downright strange? This is only overshadowed by what the Americans say. With them, of course, it’s even more paradoxical—though naturally only for those who don’t share their perspective—this complete lack of awareness that the other person also intends, in a sense, to develop according to their own nature. Given the great aptitude that English culture has for spirituality, many things can find their way into this culture precisely through the detour of spirituality, especially when we consider that, at the same time, this culture possesses the greatest aptitude for purely logical—that is, non-spiritual—thinking and for systematization. There is, of course, nothing in which such a talent for organization is better expressed than, for example, in Herbert Spencer’s writings. With regard to everything that is scientific, English folk culture possesses the greatest talent for organization; hence, it also systematizes everything throughout the entire world with the greatest of talents.

[ 82 ] And only those who, in turn, love rhetoric rather than reality speak of the Germans having a special talent for organization, despite the fact that this talent is something that lies furthest from the true German character. One must not forget that what has seemingly brought about German identity—both territorially and culturally—in certain directions in recent times has been brought about under the pressure of being squeezed between East and West. Indeed, certain characteristics have emerged over the course of the 19th century that, I would say, have been developed in a more precise manner than among those peoples to whom they actually belong. But this, my dear friends, is precisely what one can easily understand: self-knowledge has not yet taken hold everywhere, and since the Germans are so capable of assimilation—able to adopt and absorb so much in certain respects—the peoples of the West in particular—not those of the East—have the opportunity to see much of what they themselves are through the fact that the Germans have adopted it. Of course, one always finds such things very appealing in oneself—understandably so! But when one encounters them in another, only then does one realize [what they really are]. One has no idea how much of what is criticized by the West in Central Europe is merely a reflection of what has been brought into Central Europe from the West.

[ 83 ] You have no idea what kind of secret is actually hidden there. For example, it is very strange—once you look at the matter objectively—how some members of the French people, in particular, are completely incapable of recognizing in themselves the very things they condemn so harshly when they encounter them in someone else who has adopted them under their influence—perhaps it is indeed unpleasant to encounter them in an imitative form. But if humanity is truly to make progress, then this collaboration of the Central European idea—which I have elaborated upon in my latest work, The Riddle of Man—this collaboration of the Central European idea [in the overall evolution] must take place, my dear friends. This is necessary; it cannot be ruled out, nor must it be brutally shattered.

[ 84 ] And now humanity is currently faced with the task of resolving certain specific issues that lie ahead—above all, something I have already drawn attention to, which is connected to the much-admired modern technology that is a product of natural science, a field that is likewise admired by spiritual science. This much-admired modern technology will, in the not-too-distant future, reach a point where it will, in a certain sense, bring about its own demise. In contrast, something will come about—as I have already hinted at here—that will enable human beings to make use of those subtle vibrations, those subtle oscillations present in their etheric bodies, to drive mechanisms. There will be machines that are linked to human beings, but human beings will transmit their own vibrations to the machine, and only they will be able to set certain machines in motion under the influence of specific oscillations they themselves have generated. Those who today wish to be practitioners will, in the not-too-distant future, find themselves confronted with a complete transformation of what is called “practice,” when human beings will be integrated, through their will, into the objective perception of the world. That is one thing.

[ 85 ] The second point is that what is called arising and passing away—the forces of arising and passing away, the forces of birth and death—will, to a certain extent, be understood by human beings. For this to happen, it will simply be necessary for human beings to first attain moral maturity. But this will also involve gaining insight into matters about which people today speak only nonsense. I drew attention to this when I said: People today talk about how to increase the birth rate in places where it is declining. And of course they are talking utter nonsense, because they know nothing about the matter and because, given the way the issue is being discussed, it is certainly impossible to achieve what they are talking about.

[ 86 ] The third point is that, in the not-too-distant future, we will witness a complete revolution in our entire way of thinking about illness and health, because medicine itself will be permeated by what can be grasped in the spirit—for we will learn to recognize illness as the result of spiritual causes. I have already said that one must not tell today’s spiritual scientist: “Well, in the field of medicine, you could certainly demonstrate your skill!” — One must first set them free! As long as everything is dominated by materialistic medicine, it is impossible to accomplish anything, even in the smallest detail. Here one must truly be Christian—that is, Pauline—and know that sin comes from the law, and not, conversely, the law from sin.

[ 87 ] But all these things that must come upon humanity during the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, my dear friends, all these things will not come unless we are willing to allow spiritual thoughts to play a part in human evolution. We need these spiritual thoughts. For this, however, it is necessary that what only a few people recognize today become a general understanding. You see, it is necessary, for example, that a fundamental shift in a certain direction take place, particularly within English culture. And so that you may see that what I am saying is well-founded, I would like to share with you Lord Acton’s judgment on a specific matter, from which you will be able to glean a great deal. Lord Acton said: The foreigner has no mystical entity in his state, no “arcanum imperii.”—One can see how, in the 1890s, this Lord Acton thinks soundly by beautifully combining the rationalistic aspect of English national character with the predisposition for the spiritual—even if he does not yet possess the spiritual itself—and by seeing through the mystical element inherent in English imperialism. Imperialism is a product of recent times, but its character has been shaped by the mystical element that thrives precisely in the English variant of imperialism. And this mystical element—it seems strange that I call it “mystical,” but it is truly rightly so called—this mystical element has also found expression in external events.

[ 88 ] Until the 1890s, England was the model of honest and sincere parliamentarism, in that it relied on Parliament to set the course of its foreign policy; through the various parliamentary institutions, the people of England were truly involved in foreign policy until the 1890s. At a time when the developments we have alluded to in various ways were taking hold, it became necessary to create a special institution in England, for one cannot, of course, allow all manner of backroom dealings to take place if everything is to be brought before Parliament. Consequently, the management of foreign affairs was removed from Parliament and also from the Foreign Office and transferred to an internal committee comprising only the Privy Council and a certain department within the Foreign Office. For far more goes on within this committee than in all the bodies presided over by someone like Grey. The body where the threads converge has been separated from foreign policy since the 1990s; foreign policy itself had essentially become nothing more than a shadow policy, one that no longer mattered at all—and where one can only see what is actually going on if one looks in exactly the right place. So, at the very moment when one wanted to pick up on this characteristic string-pulling, the field of action was shifted from foreign affairs to domestic affairs, into a so-called committee for the Ministry of Foreign Policy. Lord Acton said:

The foreigner has no mystical construct in his state, no “arcanum imperii.” Its foundations are clearly laid bare before him; every motive and every function of the mechanism is explained to him, as clear to him as the gears of a clock. We, on the other hand, with our indigenous constitution—which is neither made by human hands nor written on paper, which prides itself on its organic growth—we, who do not believe in the power of definitions and general principles and rely on relative truths, we can possess nothing of value comparable to the long and lively deliberations in which other states have made the innermost secrets of political science accessible to anyone who can read. The debates of the constitutional assemblies in Philadelphia, Versailles, and Paris; in Cádiz and Brussels; in Geneva, Frankfurt, and Berlin—and, more than almost any other, the deliberations in the most enlightened states of the American Union, whenever they have recast their institutions into new forms—stand far ahead in political literature and offer us treasures that we have never had the pleasure of enjoying in our own country.

[ 89 ] And yet England remains the model of parliamentarianism, the model of political life, because none of that is necessary—because it can be mystical to simply surrender to one’s own national character, which, however, has been denied since the 1990s.

[ 90 ] The fact that there is a very specific task in England with regard to the consciousness soul of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch also means, my dear friends, that certain ways of thinking are prevalent there—they need not be the ways of thinking of individual people, but they are prevalent—for which there can be no room at all in Central Europe, absolutely no room. I will give you an example of this. Faraday is a great mind, one of the greatest minds of all time. Now, you see, Michael Faraday explicitly stated how he, as a natural scientist, relates to matters of religion—his statements are, I would say, truly monumental:

And although the things of nature can never conflict with the higher things that pertain to our future existence—but rather, like everything that concerns Him, contribute to His glory—I do not consider it at all necessary to link the study of natural things with that of religion; and in my dealings with my fellow human beings, religious and scientific matters have always been two entirely different things.

[ 91 ] With such a mindset, Darwin, for example, was able to justify his materialistic Darwinism while remaining a devout man in the most bigoted sense, and Newton was able to be the greatest dogmatist and the most bigoted person in the world. When Darwinism was introduced to Central Europe and adopted by Haeckel, he could no longer—due to the peculiar nature of his thinking—remain separate from religious sentiment. Thus, in Haeckelism, Darwinism has become a religious system. All these things have their deepest reasons. But they show us how people can work together regardless of religion, nationality, and so on, if they know how to distinguish themselves as individuals from the missions that are specifically assigned to the various peoples. And humanity will have to understand this—truly understand it. Then, on the one hand, justice will be done to the nations, and we will no longer have to endure those sad times in which we find ourselves today—times that are sad not only because of the great amount of blood that is shed, but also because they have demonstrated how little sense of truth exists in humanity—in general, how little sense of truth exists in humanity. That is why we can speak about this here, for our motto is: “Wisdom lies only in truth.” And especially in these grave times, we must also draw attention to such matters—in times when the heart bleeds all the more, for instead of passing the time with all sorts of such things, as people do under the influence of journalism, it would be more useful to undertake many other things.

[ 92 ] One constructive way to form an opinion, for example, would be to consider just how terrible it actually is that this war is not only being waged from the periphery, but is also being waged in such a way that—not merely due to this or that circumstance, but because of culpable behavior—it is lasting longer than it need to. It is, after all, nothing short of outrageous [in the attitude of the periphery], when one considers how crucial it is that the war not last too long—if it must be waged at all. The periphery is waging the war in precisely the way it could never be waged if one realized that, time and again, under the influence of one’s own amateurism and incompetence, one is doing nothing—and that it is precisely this inaction that is dragging the matter out so terribly.

[ 93 ] But, my dear friends, now is the moment when those who really matter—not the peoples, who will merely show whether or not they have learned anything during the many months of war—when, in other words, those who really matter will have the opportunity to show whether they still have a shred of justification, at least on the surface—in reality, it is quite another matter—to speak of yes, that they, too, want something like peace, for if peace does not come quickly now, then it is obvious even to a child where peace is not wanted!

[ 94 ] And even a child can see how ridiculous the objections being raised right now are—they can all be assumed hypothetically. One need not go so far as to consider what was reported from an Entente country the day before yesterday—and the report appears to be true—namely, that in an Entente newspaper, among all sorts of other things, the following sentence can be found: “In addition to all the projectiles that Germany has sent us, we now face the most terrible projectile of all, the projectile of peace.” — It really doesn’t have to come to such extremes of madness, my dear friends, for peace to be described as the worst of all projectiles! One can certainly maintain that the Germans have this or that ulterior motive, this or that intention—Briand and Lloyd George can, of course, come up with all sorts of things as to what [the Germans] might be motivated by—but none of these motives really matter; one can even assume that they exist. If you take the trouble to analyze every single motive that has emerged so far, you will find yourself saying in every case: All right, let’s assume it is as Mr. Briand or someone else assumes; let’s assume that is the case, but then, precisely in the case of a true friend of peace, the presence of such motives would give rise to a longing to seize peace as quickly as possible!

[ 95 ] If only, my dear friends, we could—without actually influencing anyone’s judgment—clear away as much as possible of the immense debris that today piles up before people’s ability to judge! You have no idea how it pains the heart of one who sees through these things to witness that people feel no indignation—that, without any honest, sacred indignation, they are capable of listening to or reading such things as can paradoxically be written today. Merely railing against journalism won’t get us very far, for if these things did not have their [deeper] roots, they could not be written at all. Today it is possible to—I won’t say throw sand in the eyes of some people—but to cast a fog before the eye of their soul when one tells them: “Beware, they want to spread poison among us [by wanting peace].”—It is child’s play to convince oneself how nonsensical such a thing is, for let us suppose one truly wants peace—one can safely assume the premise that one wants peace—then nothing prevents one, even if one wishes to analyze everything that has happened so far, from first undertaking what must be done for the good of humanity—namely, to put an end to the bloodshed!

[ 96 ] I can think of only one kind of people, my dear friends, who, in their utter blindness, would not come to such a conclusion; these would be those who exist even in our own time and who say: We want an absolutely lasting peace, a completely perfect peace, and until we have that, we cannot stop the war. Well, there are many such people; they often even call themselves pacifists. Yet it is precisely from these circles of pacifists that some have, in recent days, begun to feel ashamed of making such a judgment and are now offering more reasonable assessments. But in the course of these painful events, it could indeed happen that people said: “We are fighting for a lasting peace”—without realizing that what they are saying is actually nothing but empty rhetoric; yet today one can spout empty rhetoric while giving the impression of representing the highest ideal.

[ 97 ] No, my dear friends, the ideal of eternal peace will never be achieved by even a single drop of blood shed by an instrument of war; it must be brought into the world in an entirely different way! And whoever claims to be fighting for peace and therefore must wage war—war to the point of the enemy’s annihilation—in order to have peace: that person is lying, even if he is not aware of it. These are things that are not given much thought today. But for us in particular, my dear friends, spiritual science ought to serve as a guide to the development of our power of judgment. And that is why I do not shy away from calling things by their proper names from time to time—based on an insight that, in this case, has truly not been easily attained, my dear friends. But I don’t think we can speak until midnight today, and so we will conclude now.

[ 98 ] We’ll meet here again—after we arrive in Basel on Thursday evening—next Sunday at 5 o’clock. There won’t be a lecture on Saturday: first, because some of you might be busy with other Christmas preparations, and second, because I was just told that something so wonderfully beautiful is being prepared for Saturday this week that we’ll also need the afternoon for rehearsals. So we’ll meet here again next Sunday at 5 o’clock, if no one has any objections. If anyone would prefer a different time, please raise your hand.