The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] Recently, I have presented here a series of important facts about human beings that can be investigated through the spiritual sciences. I am less concerned with the details of these facts being understood—for I have, after all, spoken frequently about the nature of these facts—than with these facts evoking a certain impression: an impression of the essence of what might be called the illusion of the physical external world, so that you may gain a sense of what is actually meant when one speaks of: The external world, as we see it around us—I say “see,” not “have”—is, at first glance, an illusion, and behind it lies the true, the real world. And I wanted to evoke a deeper sense of what is meant when, on the basis of spiritual science, one speaks of the real world. So it is more a matter of these general impressions. And with that, I have arrived at the point where we have, so to speak, another opportunity to link our spiritual scientific considerations to important, significant interests in the spiritual life of the present—by which I naturally mean a broader present, not merely the present day, but the centuries in which we live.

[ 2 ] Our spiritual life is caught in a conflict—a conflict that can be characterized in a wide variety of ways and defined in various ways. But ultimately, all these definitions must converge once again into a kind of sense of two currents—currents of ideas that we must form for ourselves out of the spiritual culture of the present—and which, in a sense, cannot quite be reconciled. There are two currents of ideas. One of them—which, in the broadest sense, can be called the scientific current—does not refer merely to what is thought and asserted in the circles of natural scientists, but rather to that scientific current which today, to a greater or lesser extent, lives in the consciousness of all humanity. This scientific current has gradually become a popular, widespread view. It produces concepts that have taken deep, deep root in the inner lives of people today. One can best see how this scientific worldview has taken root when one considers that it has taken root most deeply precisely where people believe they are approaching spiritual life. After all, what is commonly called spiritualism—and what is espoused by many as a theosophical theory—is nothing other than an outgrowth of a materialistic worldview. The concepts people generally have about the etheric body and the astral body—and what is experimentally produced in spiritualist séances—are entirely captured in terms borrowed from the scientific worldview, as best demonstrated by people such as du Prel, who believes he is venturing directly into the spiritual world. But everything he says about the spiritual world, he conceives in terms of natural science—that is, in terms that should be used only to think about nature, not about the spirit, Likewise, it is downright striking how materialistic the theories of most theosophists actually are, how they go out of their way to align concepts such as the etheric body or even the astral body with scientific terms that should only be applied to nature. The etheric body is very often conceived of as something entirely material, as a fine mist or the like. Well, I have, of course, spoken out on these matters on more than one occasion.

[ 3 ] This is the one—I would say—set of concepts that we have: the concepts of the natural sciences. And less importance—I emphasize this once again so that I am not misunderstood—should be attached to the fact that these scientific concepts are found within the natural sciences themselves, where they are, after all, largely justified; rather, what is important is that they creep into the general worldview and are used in an attempt to comprehend spiritual matters, indeed, that some people actually live under the delusion that they are saying something special when they emphasize the similarity between the concepts they use in the spiritual realm and those of the natural sciences.

[ 4 ] The significant fact we must bear in mind here is that these scientific concepts can capture only a certain sphere of our world—a certain sphere of the world in which we live—within our understanding; that another world must remain beyond our understanding if we apply only scientific concepts. These scientific concepts thus constitute one current.

[ 5 ] The other current consists of certain concepts we form about the ideal or the spiritual, and—even today, as has been the case for a long time—about morality. Take a scientific concept such as the concept of heredity or the concept of development. You are thinking scientifically if you consider these concepts in a clear and precise manner; you are thinking incorrectly if you extend these concepts of heredity and development—as they are commonly used in science—to the spiritual realm. Take certain concepts that are necessary in life—for example, the concept of the inner freedom of our soul, the concept of benevolence, the concept of moral perfection, or higher concepts such as love and the like—and you have, once again, a stream of ideas and concepts that are also legitimate, because they are, after all, necessary for life. But only by indulging in self-deception can one build a bridge from the way scientific thinking is practiced today to the way idealistic, spiritual, or moral thinking is practiced today. If someone thinks purely in scientific terms—that is, if they seek a scientific worldview, as is the ideal for many people today—then within a world that corresponds to this worldview, there is no place for anything encompassed by concepts such as goodwill, or—for my part—happiness, love, inner freedom, and so on. A certain ideal of scientific thinking is to bring everything, as they say, under the concept of causality—to conceive of everything in terms of causes and effects. And a very popular generalization—as I have already mentioned here—is the law of conservation of energy and the law of conservation of matter. If you form a worldview in such a way that you use only the concepts of cause and effect in the scientific sense, or of the conservation of energy and matter, then you can either be ideologically dishonest, or you must say: Within such a world order, in which only the law of causality, only the law of cause and effect applies, or in which the law of conservation of matter and energy applies—in such a world, everything that constitutes ideals, ideas, and moral concepts is, at the very core, really just a joke. — For a worldview that conceives, for example, the law of conservation of energy and matter as universal, nothing else makes sense except to say: Our world order develops according to this law of conservation of energy and matter. — For certain reasons, the human race has also emerged within this world order. The human race dreams of goodwill, of love, of inner freedom, but all these are concepts that people invent for themselves; and once that state has come to pass in our world system—which, according to scientific concepts, must come to pass—then there will in fact be a common grave for all such notions of goodwill, inner freedom, love, and so on. These are dreams that people dream while they are completing their existence within Earth’s evolution in accordance with the pure order of natural laws, and it makes no sense at all to speak of anything else regarding the validity of ideals and ideas other than that they are human dreams, for within such a scientific worldview, ideas and ideals have no power to realize themselves. After all, if the world truly corresponded to the scientific worldview, what would ideas and ideals ever accomplish once the state of affairs has set in—a state one must necessarily conceive of if one thinks solely in scientific terms? The ideas and ideals are buried! But today people conceive of ideas and ideals—even if they do not admit it—as having no inner power to realize themselves. They are merely thoughts that are realized through people attaching their feelings to them, through people behaving toward one another in a way that corresponds to those ideas. But these ideas have no inner power to realize themselves, unlike magnetism, electricity, or heat—which do possess the inner power to realize themselves! Ideas as such—so for my sake, always think of moral ideas—do not possess such inner power to realize themselves within our worldview if we conceive of them solely in scientific terms.

[ 6 ] Certainly, very few people are aware of the conflict that exists between these two currents of our present age, but it is there, and the fact that it plays out in people’s subconscious is far more important than having a theoretical understanding of it. Only a certain segment of the population is theoretically aware of what I have just said, and it is this segment that we should keep an eye on in contemporary life. To put it plainly: the view that the entire world is organized solely according to the natural sciences, and that ideas and ideals have meaning only because people feel they must align their mutual behavior with them, is found exclusively within contemporary socialist theory. Contemporary socialist theory therefore rejects all humanities; it even regards the traces of ancient humanities still found in jurisprudence, ethics, and theology as prejudices belonging to the early stages of human development, and it insists that everything that could be called the humanities be understood as social science: it seeks to establish socialist social science as applicable solely to the mutual behavior of human beings. The world is ordered according to the natural sciences, and apart from the natural-scientific explanation of the world, there is only social science. This is the fundamental conviction of every self-aware socialist.

[ 7 ] If one wants to get to the bottom of such matters, one must not succumb to confusing concepts. I know, of course, that one might say: “But that’s not how socialists think!” — But that is not the point—as I explained precisely in the first few days when I was lecturing here again—what ideas contain, but rather through what ideas take effect, how they penetrate and take root. And the socialist idea takes root by rejecting any talk of a spiritual content of the world, by asserting that the content of the world is ordered solely by the natural sciences and that the humanities must be replaced by the social sciences alone.

[ 8 ] Now, people feel that mere ideas and ideals—when conceived as they are today—truly have no more power than to find their way into the human emotional life and thereby realize themselves—to realize themselves as a dream that humanity dreams within the course of Earth’s evolution. No idea—no matter how beautiful or ideal—has the power to make anything grow, to generate heat anywhere, to move a magnet, or anything of the sort. This alone condemns it to being a mere dream, because—as long as one conceives of the order of the worlds merely as the sum of electrical and magnetic forces, forces of light, forces of heat, and so on—it cannot intervene in the fabric of these forces, especially when one posits the law of the conservation of force and matter, according to which force and matter are supposed to have eternal validity. For then they are always present, and ideas have no room to intervene, since force and matter then have their own eternal laws.

[ 9 ] With this law—and I say this only as an aside—of the conservation of force and matter, a great deal of nonsense is being peddled. Just as one finds references in today’s literature to the law of the conservation of force and matter—specifically, of force and energy—it is also frequently attributed to Julius Robert Mayer. Anyone who is truly familiar with Julius Robert Mayer’s writings knows that attributing the law of conservation of force and matter to Julius Robert Mayer—as is done in the literature today—is just as sensible as, say, attributing trashy literature to Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press. For what is presented today in textbooks and standard handbooks as the law of conservation of force and matter has nothing to do with the law of Julius Robert Mayer, who was locked up in an insane asylum for his work.

[ 10 ] For anyone who takes spiritual science seriously, all that I have presented actually raises the question: What relationship, what connection exists between what can never be reconciled within the current worldview—moral idealism and a naturalistic view of the world? This question cannot be answered theoretically off the cuff. The present age often demands theoretical answers, and even those who turn to theosophy or anthroposophy sometimes desire, above all else, theoretical and dogmatic answers. But the answers that are to be given on the basis of spiritual science must be answers of insight. In this regard, it is not acceptable to carry the present age’s preference for dogmatism into spiritual science as well. Spiritual science demands something else. Spiritual scientists, of course, often demand that new dogmas be established, but spiritual science cannot in any way take the view that merely different dogmas should be established than those that already exist; rather, it requires that we think and perceive differently—that certain things be considered from entirely different perspectives. What is often practiced today as spiritual science—and particularly as theosophy—can frequently give the impression of a somewhat modified form of medieval scholasticism. I do not wish to speak out against scholasticism at all, for scholasticism contains elements that are far more significant than what is currently being produced philosophically. But the tendency of many people today is simply to adopt yet other dogmas—about God and immortality and who knows what else—to think differently, but still only to think, rather than to arrive at insights that spring from a foundation entirely different from earlier conceptions. If one stands firmly on the ground of spiritual science, one says to oneself: During the era of Scholasticism, enough was speculated—if I may use the term here without any negative connotation—about the Trinity, the nature of the human being, human immortality, and the problem of Christ. For the true value of Scholasticism lies not in the dogmas it established, but in the technique of thinking, as I once described in my work *Philosophy and Anthroposophy*, which is now to be republished in a new, substantially expanded edition; it lies in the way of thinking about things. But this way of thinking is actually better acquired today by turning to the Scholastics than by turning to the often confused ideas that are called theological or philosophical in modern times. There was enough theorizing about these things in the Middle Ages. For example, the “Christ problem” was grappled with in such a theoretical manner. Anyone who understands the nature of this struggle cannot find much appeal in a somewhat modified form of scholasticism, such as has often been practiced in theosophy, for example, where—instead of the Trinity, immortality, or other concepts of the past—one now has, in turn, the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. It is a different kind of theorizing, but it is, fundamentally speaking, qualitatively the same thing. Anyone who truly delves into this medieval school knows that, in a sense, it is a settled matter to seek to penetrate, let us say, the Mystery of Golgotha. Today it is far more important, for example, to penetrate to the figure of Christ Jesus—which is what we are attempting here in the Central Group of the Building, where we seek to truly rediscover the figure of Christ Jesus. Anyone who is genuinely interested in earlier dogmas will be far more interested today in drawing the figure of Christ out of spiritual life, because the time is now ripe to do so. The Middle Ages were a time for sharp-witted reflection and the elaboration of scholastic concepts; today—as I have often described—we are at a point in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch where people’s perception must be directed toward spiritual forms. What was once sought as the image of Christ were, after all, fantastical representations. I have spoken here often about the development of the Christ figure. Through the means of spiritual contemplation, the figure of the Christ will once again be found. Thus, every age has its own special task. For what matters is not that anything be fixed, but that humanity, in its development, seeks and thereby strives to reach ever higher and higher stages of its evolution.

[ 11 ] So what matters is that one can, so to speak, find a bridge where the modern worldview cannot find one—but where, if it understands itself correctly, it must necessarily arrive at socialism, that is, at socialist theory—not at socialism in terms of its legitimacy; I have, after all, spoken about this on numerous occasions. But this bridge can only be found if one has the sincere will—just as one delves into what lies between birth and death—to also delve into what lies between death and a new birth; that is, if one has not merely the will to analyze the world here, so to speak, but the will to truly engage with the spiritual. People speak of the human being and say: The human being consists of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, the “I,” and so on. — That is certainly true; but it is true for the human being who lives here between birth and death. What I explained here last time and the time before that, however, can already point out to you that one can now speak in a similar way about the human being after death, about the human being between death and a new birth. If you wish to ask: “What does the human being consist of?”—you cannot merely ask: “What does the human being consist of here on Earth?”—and answer: “He consists of the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I”—but we must now also raise the question: “What does the human being consist of when he is not on Earth, but in a spiritual world between death and a new birth?” How can one speak of the components of human nature in that context? — One must be able to speak of the components of human nature in just as real a way there. And if one reflects honestly on such a matter, one must realize that every age has its own special task.

[ 12 ] People are not fully aware that, in fact, the way they think, imagine, and even feel, yes, even the way they view the external world—just recall certain remarks I made in my *Riddles of Philosophy* regarding the relatively short period of six hundred years before our era up to the present—is only now as it is. We cannot go back beyond the 8th century before the Mystery of Golgotha with the thinking, feeling, and perception that we have now. I have given you the exact year: 747 before the Mystery of Golgotha is the true founding date of the city of Rome. If one goes back beyond this 8th century B.C., then the entire nature of human life is different from what we now know as soul life. There, all ways of viewing the world become different. There is, however, a dividing line that is easier to observe than the other one—which is actually also quite observable, but not yet for people of the present: the dividing line that lies in the 15th century. The 15th century is too close to people of the present; they cannot quite put themselves in the mindset of the great upheaval that occurred then. On the whole, people imagine that people have always thought and reasoned as they do now, even if one goes further and further back in time; but how little they actually go back! Well, the fact is that as soon as one goes back beyond the 8th century B.C., one encounters a completely different way of thinking. And now we can raise the question: Why did people have a different way of thinking back then? When people today try to imagine this different way of thinking, they come up with rather foolish ideas, one might say. When people today hear how, say, in the Egyptian mysteries—which were the most sought-after at the time—teachings were imparted, or when they hear something about the way truths were discussed there, they think: “Well, that just reflects the fanciful times of back then; people weren’t as smart back then as they are now, so they had childish ideas; we have the right understanding now!” It is particularly natural for people today to think this way, because they have become so deeply entrenched in this modern way of thinking that they cannot conceive of anything else. Let’s suppose a Greek—Pythagoras, for example—had come to Egypt and studied there, just as someone today might go to a famous university to study. But what did he learn? I’ll tell you something that Pythagoras was actually able to learn there: He learned there that in ancient times, Mercury once played chess with the Moon, and Mercury won that game of chess. For every day, he took twenty minutes from the Moon, and these twenty minutes were then added up by the initiates. How much do these twenty minutes amount to over three hundred sixty “days”? They amount to exactly five days. That is why the year was not calculated as three hundred sixty days, but as three hundred sixty-five days. These five days are what Mercury won from the Moon in the game, and what he then bestowed upon the other planets and all of humanity as an addition to the three hundred sixty days of the year.

[ 13 ] Well, isn’t it true that if one were to say that Pythagoras could have learned such a thing from the wise Egyptians, everyone today would laugh—quite naturally. Nevertheless, it is merely another way of expressing a profound spiritual truth—we will speak more about this in the coming days—which the present age has not yet rediscovered, but which is nonetheless a truth.

[ 14 ] You might ask: Why were calculations done so differently back then? — Compare the lecture of such an Egyptian sage, who thus addresses that sly fox Pythagoras: In the game of chess, Mercury has gained twenty minutes from the Moon for each day—with a lecture on modern astronomy held in a lecture hall, you will become more aware of the difference. But if one asks: Why is there such a difference?—then one must delve a little deeper into the very nature of human development. For if one goes back beyond the 8th century BCE—Pythagoras does not, admittedly, belong to this early period, but in Egypt the remnants of a wisdom that had been established long before the 8th century BCE have been preserved, and people could still commit it to memory—if such teachings were given in those ancient times, there is a profound reason for it. The entire relationship of human beings to the world had been viewed differently; it had to be viewed differently in those times.

[ 15 ] I would like to point out that various remnants of old ways of thinking have been repeatedly revived in an atavistic manner; by the term “atavistic,” I do not mean or imply anything derogatory. Anyone who reads a work such as Jakob Böhme’s *De signatura rerum*, for example, will—if they are honest—admit even today that they cannot make sense of it. For there are some very strange discussions presented there that must either be judged from a higher perspective—in which case they make sense—or, from the standpoint of the modern-thinking person, should actually be rejected as the irrational ramblings of a layperson who has been daydreaming a bit. All the wild talk about Jakob Böhme, often peddled by immature theosophical circles, is actually harmful. Nevertheless, viewed from a higher perspective, this Jakob Böhme—in the entire structure of his thought, in the way he approaches the analysis of certain words, for example when he breaks down words like “sulfur” and seeks something in the resulting parts—we do not wish to focus on the material aspect here, but rather on the way he proceeds, for instance, in his work *De signatura rerum*— he reminds us far more than any of the abstract sciences—which, after all, have only recently entered the public sphere—of a certain concrete connection between human beings and the entire spiritual world. This Jakob Böhme stands much more firmly within that spiritual world. And this immersion in the spiritual world is the defining characteristic of such thinkers who, before the 8th century B.C., before our era, were indeed thinkers. They did not think with the individual, private reason with which we think today. We all think with individual, personal reason; they thought even more with cosmic reason, with creative reason, with the kind of reason that, I would say, one must still listen for in some of their creations if one wishes to discover it.

[ 16 ] Today, there is really only one area left in which one can still perceive, even if only a little, how something like creative reason still flows into and influences human life. In one area, one can still perceive something of the realization of the ideal; but, I would say, only a shadow of it remains, and for the most part, this shadow is not even taken into account. Today there are a number of naturalistic anthropological theories regarding the origin of language and how it is said to have developed. As you know—I have mentioned this before—there are two main theories. One is called the “Wauwau” theory, the other the “Bimbam” theory. The “Wauwau” theory is advocated more by continental scholars, while the “Bimbam” theory is advocated by Max Müller. The “Wauwau” theory is based on the idea that humans started from the most primitive states, and since their inner organic experiences barked out just like a dog when it says “wauwau,” and through a corresponding development—everything develops, isn’t that right, from the primitive to the perfect—the dog’s “wauwau,” which can still be observed today in humans at their primitive stage, has become human language. If one traces everything in its development from “woof-woof” to modern speech—much like the theory of descent does, as proposed by Darwin or Haeckel, beginning with the simplest monera, that is, from the simplest form, the most inarticulate form, all the way to modern language—then that is precisely the “woof-woof” theory. Another theory holds that one can develop a certain sense of kinship with the sounds of a bell: “bimbam”; each time, one would have a specific inner sound that one imitates. According to this, the “woof-woof” theory would be more in line with a theory of evolution, while the “bimbam” theory would be more in line with a theory of adaptation—an adaptation of humans to the inner nature of material words. Then one can also ingeniously combine the two—the “Bimbam” theory with the “Wauwau” theory—which results in something more complete, as it unites evolution with adaptation. Well, these ideas are more or less commonplace today. There are also those who laugh at these two theories and have other theories of their own; but in principle, they aren’t much different either.

[ 17 ] From a spiritual perspective, when viewed spiritually, there can be no question that the development of language is as it has just been characterized; rather, even from a purely external standpoint, the structure of language shows that true reason reigns in the formation of language, in its emergence. And indeed, it is particularly interesting to observe the reign of reason in language, for the simple reason that an ideal element lives most vividly in language—that is, the very element that is currently being contemplated in a particular current of thought— and because language does not merely address the human mind, but has its own laws—that is, the ideal is already realized in it in a certain way, even if only as a shadow compared to natural laws. Take, for example, a word—I simply want to draw your attention to a few very elementary cases—where you can see how inner reason governs the formation of language; take a word like *Oratio*, meaning “speech.” It is remarkable that when one takes a word such as *Oratio*, meaning “speech,” and then observes what becomes of this word in human life after death, a remarkable similarity emerges with what has been at work as emerging reason in the development of language. This provides a certain certainty that can hardly be attained today by any other means. By other means, one can at best arrive at hypotheses. The dead person will rarely—at least after a certain time has elapsed since death—still understand the word *Oratio*; they will no longer understand it; they lose their understanding of it. On the other hand, they will still understand a perception, an imagination, which leads back to what can be expressed by the words: *Os*, *Oris*, “mouth,” and *Ratio*, “reason.” The dead person breaks down the word *Oratio* into *Os* and *Ratio*. And in the course of development, the reverse process has indeed taken place: the word *Oratio* actually arose through a synthesis of the original words, *Os* and *Ratio*. *Oratio* is not as original a word as *Os*, *Oris*, and *Ratio*; rather, *Oratio* is formed from *Os* and *Ratio*.

[ 18 ] I would like to cite a few such elementary examples for you. These phenomena can be studied most clearly in the Latin language, because they are most evident there; however, the rules that can be derived from them are also significant for other languages. Take, for example, three original words: *Ne ego otior*; taken as a single word, this would mean: “I am not idle.” Ego otior: I am idle; ne ego otior: I am not idle. Through the prevailing cosmic reason, these three words combine to form “negotior,” which means “to trade.” Here you have three words fused into one, and you can see the logical structure of the words. You see reason at work in the development of language.

[ 19 ] As I said, I would not assert this so strictly were it not for the curious fact that the dead person once again dissolves what has been brought together here in the world. The dead person dissolves, in turn, something like the “Negotior” into “Ne ego otior,” and understands only these three words—or rather, these three perspectives—which he assembles from this trinity, while forgetting that which arose through the act of assembly.

[ 20 ] Another obvious example is: *Unus*, the one, and *Alterque*, the other; these are combined in the Latin word *Uterque*, meaning “each of the two.” We would be quite happy if we had a word in modern languages like *Uterque* that conveys that concept; the French can at best express it by sticking to the former: *I’un ct l’autre*; they do not have a single term to express it. But *Uterque* expresses it much more precisely.

[ 21 ] Let’s take an example so you can see exactly which principle I’m referring to. Of course, you’re all familiar with the word “se,” the French word “se”: oneself. You know the word “hors”: out of oneself, out, one might also say, and “tirer”—I’ll just keep the “tir” from that— “tir”: to pull, to pull oneself away. If you then combine these three elements according to the same principle, you get “sortir,” to go away, which is nothing other than a combination of “se hors tir”; “tir” is what remains of the word “tirer.” There you can still see this same prevailing rationality at work in a modern language. Or take an example where the matter is somewhat obscured by the interplay of different linguistic levels: “coeur,” the heart; “rage,” which is the living, the invigorating, the enthusiasm that emanates from the heart; combined: “courage.” These are not mere inventions, but real events that actually took place. This is how words are formed.

[ 22 ] But the possibility of forming words in this way no longer exists today. Today, human beings have severed their living connection with cosmic reason, and therefore there may still be a possibility—at most in very sporadic cases—of venturing into language to extract certain words from it that, as one says, are in the spirit of the language. But the further back one goes—and especially the further back one goes beyond the 8th century B.C., even in the case of Greek and Latin—the more active this principle is in living reality, showing that language development operates precisely in this way. And what remains significant here is that one must point to this as something eurythmic by observing in the dead: He pulls the words apart again; he breaks them down into their parts once more. The dead person has a greater sense of these parts of the words than of the whole words. If you think this through to its logical conclusion, you would break the words down entirely into sounds, and if you then translate those sounds—not into air movements, but into movements of the whole human being—you have eurythmy. Eurythmy is therefore something that the dead can indeed understand very well when it is practiced perfectly. And you see that such things, including eurythmy, cannot be judged from the outside, but that one can only grasp their entire place within the overall structure of human development if one is also able to engage with this overall development of the human being.

[ 23 ] Much more could be said about what eurythmy actually aims to achieve, but there will be an opportunity to do so later. For now, I simply wanted to draw your attention to a realm—albeit a shadowy one—where, in earlier times, the living activity of human beings themselves involved the interplay of the ideal with the real. As I said at the beginning today: In today’s worldview, we no longer find the possibility of building a bridge between the ideal, the moral, and that which lives in nature. The bridge is missing. It is also entirely natural for humanity’s current cycle of development that this bridge is missing. The ideal no longer creates. I wanted to show you an example from the human realm itself—albeit, as I said, a faint one—where the ideal still creates within the human being. For in the composition of such words, it was not human agreement or the deliberation of a single human individuality or personality that was at work, but rather reason, without the human being being truly present in the process. Today, people want to be fully involved in everything they do: Well, if something as beautiful, grand, and significant as this were to be created—then you would see what would come of it with the wisdom of people today, if language were to be formed today! But it was precisely in those times when human beings were not yet so self-absorbed that these magnificent, wise, and significant things came to pass in humanity, and they came to pass in such a way that, within this process, there was still a close interplay between the ideal and the real—namely, ideal, that is, rational becoming, and the real movement of air through the human respiratory organs. Today we cannot build a bridge between the moral idea and—for the sake of argument—electric power; but here a bridge has been built between something that is happening and something rational. This does not, of course, lead us—as I will elaborate further tomorrow—to build the same bridge; today it must be built in an entirely different way. But you can see from this that humanity has progressed to its present state from a different state: from standing within a living weaving that was close to what, in a certain sense, takes place in reverse post mortem—that is, after the death of human beings. Today, in order to find a way forward between death and a new birth, human beings must, after death, take apart what has been joined together by forces—we will speak of this tomorrow—in such a way that this joining can still be clearly seen when one goes back to the earlier stages of language formation.

[ 24 ] These are important matters—matters that one really must take into account when considering them: How should—we have, after all, often spoken of the need for us to take this into account—what can be found on the basis of spiritual science be integrated into the entire structure of contemporary spiritual life? — And when we speak again and again of the importance of integrating spiritual science into the entire course of development, we must also think concretely in this area. In these lectures, I would now like to contribute something to this concrete thinking. If it were possible for spiritual science to be carried by a certain movement in the present, by a human movement, then this spiritual science could have a fruitful effect in all areas. But, of course, above all else, there would have to be a willingness to engage with such subtleties as are often emphasized here. For it is upon these subtleties—which always pertain to the relationship of our spiritual science to contemporary spiritual culture—that we must ground what we might call our own integration into the spiritual movement of the present with spiritual science. It is truly the case that the sad, catastrophic events of the present should make people aware that old worldviews have gone bankrupt. Not in spiritual science alone, but in its relationship to these old worldviews, one could see what must happen so that we may emerge from the bankruptcy of the present age.

[ 25 ] To do this, of course, it would be necessary to finally address the intentions that I have often explicitly stated as being precisely those of the spiritual science movement. It would truly be necessary to understand the reasons why, for example, on the one hand, working on this building has become so fruitful within certain circles, and why other endeavors of the Anthroposophical Society have, in a sense, remained just as fruitless; why, apart from what it has actually accomplished—namely, bringing the Dornach building into being—the Society has nevertheless failed in many respects. Such an achievement on the one hand always implies—unless it is meant to evoke the opposite—that certain other things must happen. It would be necessary for the Anthroposophical Society not to fail in other areas as well, as it has completely failed in the years since its founding. There would be no need to emphasize this failure again and again if the view were much more widely held that one must reflect on why the Anthroposophical Society fails in so many other respects. If one were to reflect more deeply, one would recognize, for example, why the opinion keeps spreading out in the world time and again that I merely lead the Anthroposophical Society by the nose and dictate everything; whereas there is hardly any society in the world where what a so-called leader wants happens less than in the Anthroposophical Society! As a rule, the opposite of what I actually intend happens. So, isn’t it true that the Anthroposophical Society, of all places, can demonstrate how, in practice, reality is far removed even from its so-called ideals? But one must then also have the will to stand on the ground of reality. Of course, there are personal factors in any society; but one must also recognize these personal factors as such. If, somewhere in a branch, people are arguing for purely personal reasons, one should not turn white into black or black into white, but should calmly admit: We have personal reasons; we dislike so-and-so for personal reasons. — Then one is close to the truth; after all, there is no need to distort reality into ideals. Thus, while on the one hand my endeavor is directed toward lifting everything in spiritual science out of sectarianism and stripping away all that is sectarian, the Anthroposophical Society is slipping further and further into sectarianism and harbors a certain fondness precisely for that sectarianism. If there is an effort anywhere to break free from sectarianism, it is precisely here that this desire to break free from sectarianism is met with hostility.

[ 26 ] Of course, I don’t want to criticize anyone, nor do I want to be ungrateful for the admirable efforts that can be found here and there; I fully acknowledge all of that. But it is necessary to reflect a little on certain things; otherwise, the same issues will keep cropping up again and again—issues that have been brought to my attention once more in recent days. Isn’t it true that, here too, the personal is already intimately intertwined with the matter at hand? Whenever some calamity arises in a country, the very nature of the Anthroposophical Society is such that—I would say—the Society gets a kick out of squabbling a bit, and out of all this squabbling comes the fact that I myself am personally reviled in the most vile manner. Yes, if this keeps repeating itself over and over again, we won’t make any progress. If I am constantly being vilified in the most vicious manner because others are squabbling and I am being made a scapegoat—if it always comes down to me being made a scapegoat—then, of course, I can no longer sustain the anthroposophical movement in the world. It would be possible to work in a positive way if people were more inclined to focus on the positive—which I have, after all, pointed out time and again. It would be possible to set aside such things, which are mostly based on terribly inferior matters. But in many circles, people are far more inclined to quarrel, far more inclined—especially—to dogmatic disputes, from which personal squabbles then often develop. And then it turns out that the abuse is usually directed at me—which, personally, leaves me quite unmoved, but the movement cannot continue if things are to go on this way. It is not that I am criticizing what my friends have done in this instance, but I am pointing out that they have failed to do something else—which is not my place to suggest in a crude manner—yet which would prevent what is constantly happening far more reliably than the approach that is constantly being attempted. Today the situation has already reached the point where one can say: We have distributed *Cycles* only to members of the Society, and I know how I myself am often strangely approached by this or that member of the Society when I am much more liberal than members from outside the Society often wish to be in the distribution of *Cycles*. Indeed, what has been brought into the world through the cycles could never have fared worse at the hands of outsiders than it has at the hands of members of the Anthroposophical Society! This must also be taken into account. We have already reached the point today where the cycles are being misused by members—by members who have fallen away from the Anthroposophical Society—to such an extent that it may very soon come to the point where people say: We won’t set any limits at all; we’ll sell the cycles to anyone who wants them. — It can’t get much worse.

[ 27 ] I’m not saying that it should happen as early as tomorrow, but I’m merely suggesting that society doesn’t function as a society at all—always outside the institution and outside individual circles—that it doesn’t actually do what a society would otherwise do. Thus, society is of no help at all; it is not at all the kind of thing that would give rise to a movement.

[ 28 ] It is so clear here that I cannot be referring to anyone in particular, so I can discuss this quite impartially, for the simple reason that this is precisely the place where fruitful work is being done within the Society—namely, on the building site. This is truly something that has emerged from within the Society. And if other projects—which could be much less costly than the building—were to be carried out in the same spirit of the Society as the workers on our building site, then something immensely beneficial could spring forth from the Anthroposophical Society. But then one must call white white and black black. One must also truly say, when personal matters are involved: these are personal matters—and not elevate them to a lofty idealism; otherwise, one will simply have to consider what should take the place of the Anthroposophical Society. A society could not then be put in its place, for it would simply be the same misery all over again! Isn’t that right? The Society cannot merely be a means for people to bicker with all sorts of inferior personalities. But it has become a means that forces one to constantly take all sorts of inferior stuff into consideration.

[ 29 ] Well, I don’t want to bore you any longer with this today; I just wanted to add it after the allotted time had run out. I had already finished the lecture; I only mention things like this after the lecture time is up, as a postscript.