The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Sixth Lecture

[ 1 ] Behind all these considerations we have just examined lies a question that is viewed in the light of materialism by the present age—an age that, in its fundamental views, is far more materialistic than it realizes. This question concerns the origin of certain historical events. People speak of historical necessity; they say that what happens this year, for example, is in a certain sense the historical effect of what happened in previous years.

[ 2 ] What I refer to here as “historical” naturally encompasses all aspects of events arising from human action—that is, the social, the moral, and other aspects of cultural life. The materialist view—which, after all, does not consist merely in deriving mental phenomena from material foundations in the realm of the natural sciences, but also encompasses many other aspects—would actually prefer to eliminate the concept of freedom entirely. And so it would like to interpret the events that unfold in the course of history in the same way it has become accustomed to viewing natural science—namely, that the subsequent always arises as an effect from a preceding cause with a certain inevitability. Then one says—perhaps believing one is thinking quite objectively: “Well, any event—even an event such as the one that has now so terribly and catastrophically burst into our world affairs—is simply a necessity.”

[ 3 ] In this sense—that is, in connection with the concept of “scientific necessity”—this view is completely nonsensical, even though the expression “a certain event is a necessity” makes perfect sense in a different context. If you reflect on what once again came before our souls yesterday—the complexity of human nature—then you will gain insight, not only intellectually but also emotionally, into the depth of the world order as a whole, and you will gradually wean yourself from the belief that this reality can somehow be encompassed by abstract scientific concepts of law.

[ 4 ] Your attention will then also turn to certain natural phenomena which, if only viewed in the right light, could teach people many things—phenomena such as the following. Every year, a large number of seeds of life develop in the sea that do not become living beings. Seeds of life are laid and perish. Only a small portion of them become actual living beings. This, of course, does not happen merely in the vast ocean; it happens throughout nature as a whole. Just consider how much, if you look at a single year, is actually destined for life—in that the seeds of life, the eggs, are laid in their initial form and do not come to fruition. How much is destined for life that never becomes life! Must we not say, then: All these seeds of life contain causes that do not become effects? — Indeed, anyone who observes nature without preconceived theoretical opinions—and especially without the most entrenched theoretical opinion of all: Every cause has its effect and every effect has its cause—whoever observes nature with an open mind will find that there are countless things in nature that must be designated, in the full sense of the word, as causes, without these resulting in an effect in the sense that they would if the cause were to run its course completely. We see, as it were, at countless points, time and again, life held back, so to speak, and not reaching its goal.

[ 4 ] Your attention will then also turn to certain natural phenomena which, if only viewed in the right light, could teach people many things—phenomena such as the following. Every year, a large number of seeds of life develop in the sea that do not become living beings. Seeds of life are laid and perish. Only a small portion of them become actual living beings. This, of course, does not happen merely in the vast ocean; it happens throughout nature as a whole. Just consider how much, if you look at a single year, is actually destined for life—in that the seeds of life, the eggs, are laid in their initial form and do not come to fruition. How much is destined for life that never becomes life! Must we not say, then: All these seeds of life contain causes that do not become effects? — Indeed, anyone who observes nature without preconceived theoretical opinions—and especially without the most entrenched theoretical opinion of all: Every cause has its effect and every effect has its cause—whoever observes nature with an open mind will find that there are countless things in nature that must be designated, in the full sense of the word, as causes, without these resulting in an effect in the sense that they would if the cause were to run its course completely. We see, as it were, at countless points, time and again, life held back, so to speak, and not reaching its goal.

[ 6 ] Let us now ask a specific question: What is revealed to the spiritual researcher when he directs the eye of the soul toward such suspended life processes as those described? The physical eye sees that germ-like potentials are simply perishing; but the spiritual eye—the soul’s eye—sees that where such germ cells appear to be merely perishing, something essential arises at an earlier stage, at a stage that is not yet material. If a person were to wish to trace what really happens in such a case—where, so to speak, material causes have no effects—then he would have to, if I may use the expression, dream cosmically. In ordinary consciousness, a person can only dream egoistically. When he dreams at night, he dreams while bound to his own organism; in his dream, he is not connected to his surroundings. If he can be connected to his surroundings and develop the same forces that he otherwise develops in his dreams, then he is engaged in imaginative thinking.

[ 7 ] Whatever is held back in the natural process—whatever does not become a physical living being—becomes something that can very well come to the awareness of the imaginative mind. Beings arise from such retained seeds of life, which are accessible only to the imagination—beings one might dream of if one were dreaming not as a human being but as a being from the hierarchy of the Angeloi. The Angeloi do indeed dream—if I may use that expression—of those beings that rise in great numbers every year as elemental forms from the sea and from the earth, beings that are nothing other than products of the life-germs that appear to have perished.

[ 8 ] If you really bring this idea to life in your mind, you will see elemental life rising from the earth like a spiritual fragrance—a life in which we are embedded, in which we stand with our souls. But we are even more deeply immersed in this elemental life, for we are involved in the process I have been speaking of. We, as human beings, are very much involved in it. And the animals are involved in it as well. Why? Well, there is no difference at all between what happens when a certain number of fish eggs are laid in the sea—eggs that do not become fish but merely give rise to an elemental existence—and what happens when we see seeds, say wheat seeds, sprouting from the earth in a field. How many grains of wheat grow from them, all of which are predestined as causes to form wheat stalks themselves—and which do not become so because we eat them! It is we ourselves, in our own processes within the world, who are connected to what is developing there as an elemental existence. We also sustain the ongoing, unfolding process within the grains of wheat and the other products from which we nourish our lives. We do not allow them to become real beings, but through our own existence we bring about the transformation of that which is destined for something entirely different, in elemental processes that are accessible only through imagination. But this reality, which underlies this imaginative life, unfolds precisely because we ourselves are placed within the process, because we participate in it. From the grains of wheat, from the grains of rye, from everything else we enjoy in this way from nature—from all of this, elemental life develops, and this elemental life flows through us. We take in this elemental life; we stand within this elemental life.

[ 9 ] There you see the very foundation of elemental life. There you see how, in a sense, we can only exist in the world by halting another ongoing process and bringing it to a state of spiritualization. Even when we eat, we transform a process that would otherwise be purely material into a spiritual one.

[ 10 ] The opposite is true in the spiritual world. There, the situation is such that there are effects which do not have causes in the same sense as the movements of a billiard ball struck by another, but which, so to speak, occur without it being possible to say: this or that is their cause. The concept of cause and effect simply loses its meaning when we turn our attention to such things. Effects enter our soul-spiritual life—effects from the spiritual world—of which it cannot be said that they are caused. Just as we now face the elemental effects—which, so to speak, rise like a fragrance from the processes described—with a longing, with that longing that springs from our vital necessity: we want to nourish ourselves, and so we are compelled to entangle ourselves in those elemental processes that have been described—just as we face these processes with a certain desire, so too, insofar as we are human beings of the physical plane, do we actually regard the spiritual influences—which are, in a certain sense, causeless—with aversion, with antipathy. As physical human beings, we strive not to allow such effects, which come from the spiritual realm, to enter within us.

[ 11 ] If you grasp this somewhat subtle idea, you will see: We are, in a sense, surrounded by a spiritual will that wants to enter us, that strives to enter us, and toward which we do not initially feel any desire; at first, we are not even inclined to accept it into ourselves without further thought. It is as if impulses of will were constantly floating in the air around us, toward which we behave dismissively. This is also something to which clairvoyant consciousness soon leads once it has developed: the insight into how, in a sense, image-like forms move and surge in our surroundings, and how we have inner resistance to taking these image-like forms into ourselves.

[ 12 ] Let us regard this imagery as a reality. Just as it is true that every year on Earth a certain number of seeds of life perish, so it is true that in the world that always surrounds us as the spiritual world, there exists a spiritual-imaginative realm—one that can be accessed through imagination, but to which we, due to our human nature, readily resist.

[ 13 ] These resistances should not be understood merely in abstract, general terms, but must be understood in concrete, differentiated terms. What develops in physical life each year as an ascending elemental life develops, in other periods—as a spiritual descent—into something we reject—in other periods, that is, and not in entirely regular intervals. There are times when, so to speak, spiritual life surrounds us vehemently and seeks to engage with us in many ways. There are other times, however, when the spiritual atmosphere around us is, so to speak, poorer. Human beings can then behave in a more or less receptive manner, even though they generally feel aversion to taking in this pictorial essence that is accessible through imagination. Yet they can still behave receptively due to certain preconditions—which we will discuss later—or they can behave in a completely rejecting manner.

[ 14 ] Let us suppose that in some age—I would say—there were a particular influx of such beings, beings who, in a sense, wish to approach human beings spiritually, and that human beings were averse to receiving this spiritual essence into themselves. What will happen? What will happen is that by refusing to accept this spiritual essence that is offered to them, human beings—and thus humanity as a whole—will create within themselves the conditions for the old, which has withered and dried up, to persist and, instead of producing a living effect, to bring about a dead effect: just as if a plant that has completed its life cycle were not removed, but were to continue to exist—dry and withered—as a woody plant, to the detriment of its surroundings.

[ 15 ] In the course of history, this takes the following form: When an age arrives—and such an age was essentially the beginning of the 20th century—in which the spiritual and essential is, so to speak, waiting to reach humanity, in which humanity is fully called upon to open its soul to new revelations, and yet humanity refuses to receive these revelations and is averse to them, then the old continues to spin out in an inappropriate way. For this old needs to be rejuvenated indirectly through human beings. This does not take place. The unfertilized continues to spin out barren and dry, and then events such as the present catastrophic event arise.

[ 16 ] Among the various causes that can be found in the spiritual world, one of the most significant is that, as the 20th century approached, developments had progressed to such an extent that people resisted—for reasons we will discuss later—new revelations. One could say: The spiritual world was full of what was offered to humanity in the way of new spiritual insights and new spiritual impulses, and humanity rejected it. For what reason? Certainly, such things are also connected with the conditions of humanity’s development. We know, after all, that the materialistic age had to come, for it has its positive qualities in certain other respects. So this materialistic age arrived, and one consequence of this materialistic age was that people developed concepts that relate only to a part of human nature.

[ 17 ] Think about what we discussed yesterday. We discussed yesterday that this fourfold human being—who, broadly speaking, consists of the physical body, the etheric or formative body, the astral body, and the I—actually has different ages with respect to all these parts, these members. When a person is twenty-eight years old, I said yesterday, they are only twenty-eight years old with respect to their physical body; with respect to the so-called etheric body, they are twenty-one years old; with respect to the astral body, fourteen years old; and with respect to the “I,” only seven years old. You can easily gain an understanding of this from what was discussed yesterday: there stands a person who is twenty-eight years old; but this is speaking in a figurative sense: the person who is twenty-eight years old is only twenty-eight years old as a physical being. In this person, for example—if we disregard the other aspects—lives the “I,” which develops more slowly and is still a seven-year-old child when the person is twenty-eight years old. This seven-year-old child—when the person is twenty-eight years old in terms of his physical body—is in fact connected to worlds entirely different from the one in which scientific necessity reigns. But in this materialistic age, people have become accustomed to forming only those concepts that are applicable to the relationship between the human physical body and the physical environment, and everything is judged according to this. Human beings, as real human beings standing within the world, are complex entities—as complex as we discussed again yesterday and as we know from many perspectives. What human beings believe they know about themselves, what they say about themselves, is actually, in our materialistic age, only a quarter of what pertains to the human being—only that which pertains to the physical body. It is only in regard to this relationship between the physical body and its surroundings that one can speak of scientific necessity. What must we speak of when we set aside the rest—with regard to what, for example, is still a seven-year-old child within a twenty-eight-year-old person? There we must speak of something entirely different, something from which this infinitely enlightened present, this infinitely clever present, has turned its back entirely. There, as strange as it may sound to people today, one must speak of the miracle.

[ 18 ] Miracles in the sense that people often imagine them—miracles as even those who enjoy attending spiritualist séances imagine them—are things that true spiritual science cannot speak of. Miracles lie in entirely different realms. Miracles lie in spiritual events. For just as necessity lies in external, natural events, so do miracles lie in the realm of spiritual events. No human being who enters the physical world from the spiritual world—who proceeds to physical incarnation—is a physical necessity. They are a necessity because they impose this necessity upon themselves, because they make the superconscious decision from within the spiritual world to connect with a particular hereditary current. The cause need not lie with the father and mother; only the opportunity lies there. Every human being’s appearance in the physical world is a miracle. That which enters the physical world—and which, by the time we are twenty-eight, is only seven years old—is always a true miracle; in the face of this, any scientific inquiry into its cause is sheer nonsense. To trace to heredity that which lives so slowly within us that it is only seven years old by the time we are twenty-eight is an absurdity. If we truly wish to trace its origin, if we ask: “Where does that which is only seven years old at the age of twenty-eight come from?”—then we return to the spiritual world, to that world we share with the so-called dead, to that world we inhabited before we descended into our physical bodies. Spirits who were able to think impartially were already capable of forming concepts of such things, even if, in our materialistic age, this is achieved only with great difficulty.

[ 19 ] Consider how deeply Goethe engaged with scientific concepts, and how he arrived at what were, in fact, exemplary scientific ideas! As you know, he harbored a persistent longing for Italy even before he arrived there. And when he saw the great works of art in Italy—which gave him a sense of Greek artistic creativity—he wrote to his friends in Weimar: “There is necessity; there is God.” He spoke of a different kind of necessity than that of which mere natural science speaks. He could have sensed this necessity earlier, precisely in accordance with his scientific conceptions; but the necessity that shone forth from the spiritual world—and which is identical with the miracle—he sensed when he beheld the Greek works of art in Italy.

[ 20 ] But our age is enlightened; the people of our time are very intelligent. Therefore, they have not only rejected the unfounded concept of miracles, but have also banished miracles as such from the spiritual world. But to banish the miracle from the spiritual world means nothing other than doing everything possible to ensure that we cannot understand this spiritual world at all. For things emerge from the spiritual world in such a way that we see only effects; when we seek the cause, we cannot find it. Precisely when one is a spiritual researcher, this imposes itself as an absolute truth. And because humanity’s insensitivity at the end of the 19th century had risen to a certain high degree with regard to wonder and reverence for that which seeks to reveal itself from the world, there was a reluctance toward such revelation. For in the same way that reverence develops toward all that constitutes the depth of the world, to that same extent do these revelations also approach human beings.

[ 21 ] That which can occur as a miraculous event within the order of the worlds may also fail to occur; it may also be absent. This numbness of humanity toward miracles is connected to what was neglected in the era leading up to the 20th century. And if one wishes to speak of causes for our catastrophic events, then these causes are not ones that human beings have created, but rather they are sins of omission. That is the essential point.

[ 22 ] In previous years, in a lecture I have given on several occasions, I drew attention to an outstanding philosopher who lived in the mid-19th century: Karl Christian Planck. I have taken the opportunity in many places to draw attention to this Karl Christian Planck, for the reason that he wrote a work that he left behind, so to speak, as his philosophical and literary testament. And in this work, the current global catastrophe is described—not merely hinted at, but depicted in advance—in great detail, including spiritual details. The book was written in 1880. How was he able to do that? Because Planck was one of those minds who, at the right time, saw what was happening. If you have a house that is dilapidated, it must be repaired at the right time. If you wait until it can no longer be repaired, it will collapse, and catastrophe will ensue. And our current catastrophe is nothing other than a collapse. Viewed objectively, it is a collapse. The 1870s and 1880s of the last century were the right time for what should have happened. As is well known, minds like Karl Christian Planck, who pointed out what was bound to come, are never suited to becoming leading figures in public life! When it comes to selecting a leader, finding a statesman, or the like, one naturally does not turn to those who, in the spirit of Karl Christian Planck, possess such knowledge—one simply cannot choose them, can one?—but rather to others who very often lack the ability to prop up the crumbling house. But today one can provide historical proof—if one only looks into the background of life—and Karl Christian Planck is not the only one; there are many others—that at the right time, some people from the spiritual world received a revelation regarding the events toward which humanity was heading. Back then, there would still have been time to set these events on a different course. Of course, Karl Christian Planck was not heard.

[ 23 ] But are the people who speak of this—which, if it is to be effective, must be announced years before the collapse occurs—being heard now? Unfortunately, one must say: The way humanity has been living through this catastrophic event so far makes it clear that, if this catastrophic event continues for another four years, people will have grown accustomed to it and will accept it—just as they do normal life; for this habituation has already progressed to a high degree. But those who understand the signs of the times are asking today: What must happen? — because if something does not happen, decades later what is bound to come will manifest itself, precisely because something did not happen at the right time.

[ 24 ] But what is to happen under today’s circumstances cannot be found in the surrounding physical world. Today, if one wants to hear the truth, one must listen to those who can speak from the spiritual world. Of course, for less significant matters, things unfold more quickly. One might say: In five years, people may come to realize that they should have heeded certain things they could have known today if only they had listened. Yet they are not inclined to hear these things, because they are only inclined to listen to what is already showing signs in the outer physical world. But the physical world is insignificant for historical development. It does not reveal what is meant to be the impetus, the impulse for events. What is meant to be the impetus, the impulse for events in social and moral life must originate in the spiritual world.

[ 25 ] Now, in preparation for the greatest event in the course of human development, humanity in our age is to be educated to believe in freedom—even within the course of historical development. At a certain point in spiritual life, present-day humanity is to be impelled with all its might to believe in freedom—and the miracle is identical with this. And this point lies in the understanding of the Christ impulse, in the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. Humanity’s attitude toward the Mystery of Golgotha was quite different in earlier times, and became increasingly different the further back we go in historical development. We have spoken of this often. Today, people—especially those who are most advanced in the sense of the spirit of the age—are unable to regard the event of Golgotha as a historical event in the same way as other historical events. I need only hint at what is required here as a prerequisite: You know that the significance of the Gospels as historical documents has been shaken. We cannot regard the Gospels—or the other documents in the New Testament that pertain to the event at Golgotha—as historical documents in the same sense that we treat the documents concerning Socrates, Plato, Alcibiades, or Caesar, given the way historical research is conducted today. Given the way people today think about historical research, this research is unable to regard the Gospels as historical documents or to view the event at Golgotha, as described in the Gospels, as a historical event—that is, as one that is historically provable, I mean, provable in the same sense that other historical events and facts are historically documented and proven. One cannot speak of Christ Jesus as a historical figure in the same sense that one can speak of Charlemagne as a historical figure based on what are today called historical sources.

[ 26 ] For those who see through things, the time has now come when a sincere, truth-seeking human sensibility must ask itself: What was once considered historical evidence regarding the Mystery of Golgotha has been shaken by the direction historical research has taken. And one must indeed be something of a dullard—like, for example, Adolf Harnack, the famous theologian—to stand there time and again and claim that what, as he says, can be compiled on a single quarto page about Jesus Christ contains historical documents in the sense of modern history. Of course, there are just as few historical documents in these matters—which fit on that quarter-page—as there are, according to Harnack himself, in the Gospels. But an undertaking such as Harnack’s—which is opposed by hundreds and hundreds of others—is precisely linked to the general dishonesty of our time in such matters, a time that never wants to draw the radical conclusions that are, in fact, simply the correct ones.

[ 27 ] The conclusion that must be drawn is this: based on the evidence at hand, people today must admit that if they seek Jesus Christ in an outwardly historical way, they cannot find him. One must find him through spiritual exploration. There, however, one will certainly find him. There one finds the historical event of Golgotha. Why? Because the historical event of Golgotha was one that arose through freedom in the development of humanity—through a freedom in a much higher sense than other historical events—and because this free event is meant to approach humanity precisely in our time in such a way that nothing compels a person to accept its validity, but rather they must accept this validity out of inner freedom. Where historical proof already exists, one is not free to choose whether to accept it. Where external historical proof is lacking, one accepts it for spiritual reasons, and on spiritual ground one is free. One becomes a Christian through freedom. And this is precisely what is necessary for our age to understand: that one can truly be a Christian only out of complete freedom, not even compelled by historical documents. In our age, Christianity is destined to attain that truth—which is predestined for this time—through which it becomes the great impetus of human understanding for freedom. It is one of the fundamental truths of our time that this be recognized—that it be recognized that the evidence for Christianity must be sought in the spiritual world.

[ 28 ] If this insight becomes as deeply ingrained in human nature as it should, it will also give rise to other insights and bring about many other things. What it should bring about first and foremost is that human beings learn, in general, to answer the question: How can I make myself more receptive to that which the physical world does not compel me to acknowledge, but toward which I may initially even feel an aversion or antipathy? What makes me more inclined toward it?

[ 29 ] Truly not out of personal vanity or foolishness, but simply because I wish to set a concrete example here, I must take such an opportunity to point out time and again that I began my literary career not by initially expressing my own opinions, but by publishing everything I stood for, in connection with Goethe’s spirit, consciously looking back to a spirit who had already ascended to the spiritual realm of the so-called dead as early as 1832. But read what I wrote in connection with Goethe in the period preceding my Philosophy of Freedom! Most so-called Goethe scholars judge a text solely by whether it reflects Goethe’s views. To these people, one is considered to have grasped Goethe’s views only if one is a literary ruminator—that is, if one regurgitates what Goethe said during his earthly life up to 1832. I have always been of the opinion that what Goethe said really does not need to be repeated by this or that schoolmaster—nor by me—because Goethe himself has already expressed what he wanted to say far better than anyone else. It is always better to read Goethe’s works than the views of schoolmasters, even if they are such outstanding schoolmasters and professors as, for example, Lewes with his famous biography of Goethe. What I attempted to write was based on inspiration from Goethe, who is no longer on earth: the further development of his views in a certain field after his death, which could be written from a certain sense of living connection with so-called departed souls.

[ 30 ] I mention this as an example, not out of silly vanity, but because it relates to the question: What should people do to make themselves more receptive to what comes from the spiritual world? People must connect with the dead. They must find their way into those worlds where the dead live, but in a reasonable, sensible way—in a truly appropriate way—not in a spiritualist manner. The dead continue to speak after their death. And what they say, what they inspire—as we have seen—does not live in our sensory experiences or in our imagination, but it does live in our feelings and in the reality of our volitional impulses. That is where it lives.

[ 31 ] But then we must also find within ourselves what inclines us to approach the spiritual world in the first place. Linked to the disbelief in approaching the spiritual world is an aversion to the imaginings that seek to enter from the spiritual world—imaginings that also seek to inspire our actions in social, moral, and ethical human life, and which alone can truly set human beings free.

[ 32 ] Two things are necessary in our time: to recognize that the commitment to the mystery of Golgotha must be a free act of the human soul, and to fully internalize this. And on the other hand: to seek, in a real way—not merely abstractly, not merely through abstract faith—but in a real way, a bridge to the dead. There is also much in our time that speaks against the latter. People do not immediately fully grasp all that speaks against it. What do people today envision as an ideal for social life? They imagine: We are intelligent, because we were born, we went to school; we are therefore intelligent beings, intelligent people, and so we know without further ado what must happen in social life. We form assemblies, municipal councils, state councils, parliaments—whatever you call them—and there, of course, we discuss what needs to happen in social life, because we are intelligent, and when such intelligent people as those of the present day come together, the right outcome will always result.

[ 33 ] That is the ideal. But it is based on a premise that is not correct. It assumes that one knows without a doubt what is right. Do you know what is right? Do you know who knows what was right in 1917? Not those who are now in their twenties and who prefer to sit around in parliaments just talking and passing judgment on what was right for 1917—no, those who have long since died know best! We should ask them how we should behave! Herein lies a good part of the answer to the question: How can our social life be improved? — If we learn to consult the dead.

[ 34 ] As a physical human being here on earth, one generally knows things only to the extent that they personally benefit oneself. Knowledge only truly matures after one has died. Only then does it become mature enough to be properly applied to social life. But one must not believe that the dead are now to intervene directly, as if with physical hands, much like people living here in physical bodies. The dead may know better than the living what needs to happen socially, but they must be heard by people, and the agents carrying out these actions must be the people living here in the physical world. Above all, people in the present must learn to be such implementing bodies. But we will not be hearing about such—if I may use the term, though it is so unpleasant—such “parliaments,” where people will strive to let the dead have a say, for a long time to come. However, in certain areas, there will be no salvation unless we are willing to let the dead have a say, unless social life can also be spiritualized from this perspective. Before one succumbs to the belief that the wisdom attained here on earth—through birth, the world, and education—is ripe for social impulses, one should delve into what has truly become ripe for social impulses: that wisdom which has already shed the physical body and which, if we truly explore it, opens up meaningful perspectives for us.

[ 35 ] Consider how emotional life is deepened, how the entire human mind undergoes a deepening, when what I have now expressed as ideas becomes, in fact, feeling and sensation; when the old myth that connected modern humans with their ancestors is replaced by the bond I have hinted at: a concrete spiritual life that will once again fill our spiritual atmosphere; and when what can be grasped as ideas through spiritual science passes into the soul and sensibility, and people truly wish to live within it.