The Rudolf Steiner Archive

First Lecture

[ 1 ] I would like to delve deeper into some of the points raised in the reflections we have already shared here this summer, and over the next few days we will add some historical and factual information. Today, by way of preparation, I would like to draw your attention to some historical facts, and based on these historical facts—particularly the revelations of certain historical figures—I will present to you some conclusions that arise from a more thorough examination.

[ 2 ] Those who are initiated into the mysteries—and have been initiated throughout the ages—have always, and rightly so, made a certain statement. It is this: that, on the one hand, if one does not know how to assess the two currents of worldview—idealism and materialism, which we have mentioned—in the proper measure, one either runs the risk of falling through a trapdoor into the abyss of worldview, or, on the various paths one takes to arrive at a worldview, one may end up in a dead end. The pit into which one can fall through a trapdoor—one that is easily overlooked in the realm of worldview—is regarded by the initiates of the mysteries of all ages as dualism, which fails to find the bridge between the ideal—or, one might say, the spiritually colored ideal—and the material, the physical. And the dead end into which one can stray while traversing various paths of worldviews—if one cannot strike a balance between idealism and materialism—is, for initiates of the mysteries, fatalism. Indeed, modern times clearly tend, on the one hand, toward a dualistic worldview and, on the other, toward a fatalistic worldview—even if neither of these tendencies is acknowledged, or indeed even recognized, by modern worldviews.

[ 3 ] Now I would first like to present a figure—initially characterized in broad strokes—from life during the twilight of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, with reference to the life of worldview, and then consider other figures who are more characteristic of the life of worldview in our epoch, the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.

[ 4 ] A very, very distinctive figure in the history of Western thought is Augustine, who lived from 354 to 430 of the Christian era. We wish to commemorate him with a few of his thoughts because, as you can see from the dates, he lived during the twilight of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, which came to an end in the 15th century. One can already clearly see how this conclusion was approaching, beginning in the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries A.D. Now, Augustine was exposed to a wide variety of worldviews. We have, of course, already spoken about these things. Above all, Augustine was influenced by Manichaeism and skepticism. He absorbed into his soul all those impulses one receives when, on the one hand, one sees in the world everything that is ideal, beautiful, and good—everything that is filled with wisdom—and, on the other hand, everything that is evil and wicked. And we know, of course, that Manichaeism seeks to come to terms with these two currents in the world order—to put it crudely, but it can be expressed this way—by assuming, as it were, an eternal polarity, an eternal opposition between light and darkness, good and evil, wisdom and wickedness.

[ 5 ] Manichaeism can only come to terms with this dualism—in its own way—by linking certain ancient, pre-Christian fundamental concepts with its own assumption regarding the polarity of worldly phenomena; above all, it links certain ideas that can only be understood if one knows that in ancient times, people with atavistic clairvoyance perceived the spiritual world, and these visions were such that their content resembled the impressions made by the world of sensory perception. Because Manichaeism has incorporated such ideas—I would say, of a sensory appearance of the supersensible—it gives many people the impression that it materializes the spiritual, as if it were representing the spiritual in sensory forms. This is, in fact, a mistake that even more recent worldviews—such as, for example, as I have explained to you in recent days, modern theosophy—often make. Augustine strayed from Manichaeism precisely because, in the course of a more purified life of thought, he could no longer tolerate this sensualization, this materialization of the spiritual. That was one of the reasons that led him away from it.

[ 6 ] Augustine also went through a phase of skepticism, which is a legitimate worldview insofar as it draws people’s attention to the fact that one cannot learn anything about the supersensible merely by contemplating what can be gained from the sensory world and from the experiences and perceptions of that world. And if one then also holds the view that the supersensible cannot be grasped as such, one comes to doubt the possibility of knowing the truth at all. Augustine also went through this doubt regarding the possibility of knowing the truth at all. It was this that gave him his strongest impetus.

[ 7 ] Now, if one wishes to understand how Augustine actually positioned himself within the Western worldview, one must point to the central tenet of his philosophy—that central tenet from which all the light that shines in Augustine radiates, and which was precisely the central tenet of his later, fully developed worldview. This is the point that can be characterized as follows: Augustine came to the conclusion that certainty—true certainty, certainty not subject to deception—can actually be attained by human beings only in relation to what they experience within their own souls. Everything else may be uncertain. Whether the things that appear to our eyes, that are audible to our ears, that make an impression on our other senses—whether these things are truly constituted as must be assumed according to the testimony of the senses—one cannot know; one cannot even know what this world actually looks like when one shuts one’s senses off from it. — This is how people think who, in the spirit of Augustine, reflect on the external, experiential world. They believe that this external, experiential world, as it presents itself to human beings, cannot provide any absolute certainty or true certainty; that nothing can be gained from it upon which one could stand as a firm foundation for a worldview. In contrast, with what one experiences within oneself—regardless of how one experiences it—one is immediately present; it is one’s own self that experiences the ideas and feelings within; one knows oneself to be immersed in that inner experience. And so, for a thinker such as Augustine, the fact verifiable through inner experience becomes clear: With regard to what a person experiences within as truth, they cannot succumb to any delusion. One may hold the view that everything else the world says is subject to deception, but one cannot possibly doubt that what we experience as our ideas and feelings is truly and genuinely experienced by us within. — This firm foundation for acknowledging an undeniable truth forms one of the starting points of the Augustinian worldview.

[ 8 ] This point was taken up in a most striking way during the fifth post-Atlantic period by Cartesius, who lived from 1596 to 1650—that is, already at the dawn of the fifth post-Atlantic period. In Cartesius’s famous statement, “I think, therefore I am”—which remains true even if we doubt everything else—Cartesius also sees the starting point, and with this view he is actually entirely in line with Augustine’s position.

[ 9 ] The fact is, however, that when it comes to worldview, one must always say: Whoever lives at a particular point in human development arrives at certain views. Certain perspectives of these views are not apparent to them at the time; these are seen by those who come later. One might say: It is always reserved for those who come later to see something more thoroughly and more truly than can be seen by the one who must articulate certain things at a certain point in human development. — And there is no getting around this fact. And it is good if, particularly from our anthroposophical standpoint—as I have often mentioned—it is consciously and thoroughly recognized that even the knowledge of spiritual matters that can be acquired in the present, no matter how well-developed it may be, must not be regarded as a collection of absolute dogmas. One must be clear about the fact that people in the future will arise who will see greater truth in precisely what we are able to present today than we ourselves can see. The spiritual development of humanity is actually based on this. And every obstacle, every hindrance to humanity’s spiritual progress ultimately stems from the fact that people are unwilling to admit this; they would like to have truths handed down that are not the truths of a particular age, but rather absolute, timeless dogmas.

[ 10 ] Today, once again, we can look back on Augustine from our own perspective, and we will have to say to ourselves: If one adopts Augustine’s standpoint, one must take careful note that he assumes uncertainty regarding the truth in all external revelations, and true certainty in the experience of what we carry within our souls. — This presupposes, if one is to embrace such a view, that one possesses a certain courage as a human being. Perhaps there would be no need to mention what I am now saying so emphatically, as I must, were it not for the fact that, particularly in our time, the lack of precisely this courage is characteristic of our worldview. And this courage, which I mean here, manifests itself in two directions. One direction is this: that one boldly admits to oneself, like Augustine: You find true certainty only in relation to what you experience within yourself. — Then there must be the other pole of this courage, which is precisely what is lacking in the present; one must also have the courage to admit to oneself: This true certainty about reality is not contained in external sensory perception. — It takes a certain inner intellectual courage to deny that external reality—which, for example, today’s materialism regards as absolutely certain—possesses true certainty in its assertions. And, on the other hand, it takes a certain courage to tell oneself: True certainty arises only when one becomes truly aware of what one experiences within.

[ 11 ] Certainly, such things have been said again in our own time, and there are people today who demand this courage—which manifests itself in two ways—from their fellow human beings, insofar as the latter wish to arrive at a worldview. Nevertheless, one must think differently about this matter today if one wishes to think it through exhaustively, and it is precisely in this that the full historical significance of Augustine for people today becomes apparent: that one must think about this matter somewhat differently. For today one must know what neither Augustine nor Descartes considered—I have elaborated on this in my book *The Enigma of Man* where I discussed Descartes—and today one must say: The belief that one can attain a satisfying worldview by grasping the immediate inner life of the human being, as it is experienced by people today—this belief is refuted by every instance of sleep. Every time a person of our time sinks back into the unconsciousness of sleep, it is not what Augustine speaks of—the absolute, true certainty of inner experience—but the reality of this inner experience that is snatched away from them. Every time, from falling asleep until waking up, the reality of this true experience has slipped away. And modern-day people, who experience their inner life in a somewhat different way than it was experienced in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch—even in the twilight of Augustine’s time—must say to themselves: No matter how keenly or how clearly a certainty may be experienced within, it still offers no certainty regarding life after death, for the simple reason that with every sleep we see reality sink down into the unconscious; modern man does not know whether it does not also sink into the unreal. — Therefore, one can no longer conclude today that what one experiences inwardly as seemingly absolutely certain cannot be challenged. It cannot be challenged theoretically, but the very fact of sleep refutes it.

[ 12 ] However, if one considers what has just been said, one immediately recognizes that Augustine actually had a much greater right to arrive at this view than Descartes did later, who, after all, more or less merely echoed the idea. Throughout the entire fourth post-Atlantean epoch, including the age of Augustine, there still lived within people some echoes of the ancient, atavistic clairvoyance. Unfortunately, history today pays far too little attention to this and actually knows very little about it. But throughout the entire fourth post-Atlantean epoch, there were many people who knew from personal experience: There is a spiritual life—because they actually saw this spiritual life. But they saw it in this fourth epoch—unlike in the third or second epochs—primarily through its influence on their sleep life. So that one can say: During the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, sleep was not yet, as it is now in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, a completely unconscious process. — People of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch still knew: From falling asleep to waking up is a time during which what they experience as thoughts and feelings from waking to falling asleep is active in other forms. In a sense, the waking life of truth was immersed in the twilight-like conscious life of sleep. And people knew: What one experiences as inner truth possesses not only truth but also reality; it is truly real. For they were familiar with those moments in the life of sleep that revealed how what one experiences inwardly exists as a real, tangible life—not merely as an abstract one. It does not matter whether anyone today can still prove—or not—that Augustine himself could have said, based on his own experience: “I know that what one experiences inwardly as true but unreal endures throughout the period from falling asleep to waking up.” —But that one could grasp such a view, that one could stand upon it, was entirely possible in Augustine’s time.

[ 13 ] Now, if you generalize what I have just explained regarding the subjective aspect of the human being to the entire macrocosm, you arrive at something else; you then arrive at that from which this subjectivity actually emerged in earlier times—that is, still during the fourth post-Atlantean epoch—and which made it possible. In pre-Christian times—let us speak now of the pre-Christian era; specifically, the Mystery of Golgotha marks the boundary between ancient, atavistic views and later, new ones that are only now beginning to emerge—people were still able to hold fast to certain living truths of the Mysteries. The truths of the mysteries to which I refer are those relating to the great mystery of birth and death. Certain initiates into the mysteries regard the mystery of birth and death as a secret which, in their view, should not be revealed to the profane world because the world is not yet ready for it. But even in pre-Christian times, within the mysteries, there existed a certain view of the connection between birth and death in the great life of the world, into which human beings are, after all, integrated with their entire being. In this pre-Christian era, the mysteries directed attention primarily toward birth, toward everything that comes into being in the world. Anyone familiar with the worldviews of ancient times knows that the emphasis on being born, on coming into being, on sprouting and growing, was a central concern of these ancient worldviews. And I have, of course, often emphasized the contrast that arose through the Mystery of Golgotha. I have mentioned it in the following way: Consider how, some six hundred years before the Mystery of Golgotha, Buddha—who stands in the development of humanity as the culmination of the pre-Christian worldview—was led to his insights, in part, by seeing a corpse. Death is suffering—and for the Buddha, it is an axiom: Suffering must be overcome; a means must be found to turn away from death. —The corpse is that from which the Buddha turns away in order to arrive at that which, though spiritualized, is nevertheless for him the very thing in which the sprouting, burgeoning life can be sensed.

[ 14 ] And if, six hundred years after the Mystery of Golgotha, we look around at certain people in other places, we see how the sight of Christ’s body on the cross does not become something from which one turns away, but rather something toward which one turns, something upon which one gazes with one’s whole heart as the symbol that is meant to reveal the mysteries of the world, insofar as they relate to human beings and their development.

[ 15 ] There is a wonderful connection within these twelve centuries: Six hundred years before the Mystery of Golgotha, the turning away from a corpse gave rise to what was to become the concept of ascension in the worldview; six hundred years after the Mystery of Golgotha, the symbol—the image of the crucifix—is formed: the turning toward death, the turning toward the corpse, in order to draw strength from it and arrive at a worldview that also sheds light on human development. Among the many things that characterize the tremendous transformation that has taken place in earthly existence through the Mystery of Golgotha are this Buddha symbol—the turning away from the corpse—and the Christ symbol—the turning toward the corpse, which is regarded as the corpse of the highest being to have appeared on Earth.

[ 16 ] It was indeed the case that, in a certain sense, the ancient mysteries placed the mystery of birth at the center of their worldviews. But in doing so, since the mysteries sought to impart mystical knowledge and not merely trivial views, they simultaneously presented the soul with a profound cosmological mystery: they directed our gaze toward that which is connected with the life of births in the course of the world. And one cannot come to understand the life of births in the course of the world unless one goes back to the ancient mystery of the Moon. We know, after all, that the embodiment of the Earth, before it became the Earth, was the ancient Moon. And in various phenomena connected with our present Moon—the remnant of the ancient Moon—you can read about this in my *Outline of Esoteric Science*—one can observe the aftereffects of what took place during the ancient Moon era, the time that preceded the Earth’s formation.

[ 17 ] Now, there would be no births in the process of becoming earthly; throughout all the realms of nature, there would be no births in the process of becoming earthly, were it not for the law of the ancient Moon—or rather, its laggard, which is the Earth’s satellite. All acts of birth throughout the realms of nature and humanity are connected to the influence of the Moon. This is also why the initiates of the ancient Hebrews regarded Yahweh as a lunar deity—they viewed Yahweh as the God who brings forth and orders all that is brought forth, as a lunar deity. It was clearly understood that, cosmologically speaking, the laws of the Moon underlie all birth throughout the realms. And so, in a sense, a profound mystery of cosmology could be symbolically expressed by saying: As the moonlight falls upon the Earth, from all that is represented by this moonlight springs forth all sprouting, budding, and nascent life. — In the highest mysteries of pre-Christian times, people did not turn to the life of the Sun; rather, they turned to the life of the Sun reflected by the Moon when speaking of the mystery of births. The distinctive nuance that pervades the depths of pre-Christian worldviews stems, first and foremost, from the fact that the ancient mysteries were familiar with the mystery of the moon.

[ 18 ] The mystery of the sun was regarded as something entirely veiled, as something that is scarcely bearable for people who are not well prepared, because it was known that it is an illusion, a Maya, to believe that the sprouting, budding beings of the various kingdoms are drawn forth by the sun’s rays falling upon the earth. It was known that birth does not depend on the life of the sun, but rather the opposite: withering, the waning of life, the dying away of life. That was the mystery: that the moon brings beings into being and the sun causes them to die. So however highly the life of the sun was otherwise revered for other reasons in the ancient pre-Christian mysteries, it was revered as the cause of death. The fact that beings must die is not to be attributed to that sun which we know from “Esoteric Science” as the second incarnation of the Earth, but it is certainly to be attributed to the present sun, which appears so magnificently to us on the horizon.

[ 19 ] Well, the end of life—the opposite of birth—is connected to the life of the Sun. But there is also something else: something that was not yet so important in pre-Christian times, but which has become particularly important in post-Christian times. All conscious life is connected to the life of the Sun. And that conscious life through which human beings are currently passing in the course of their earthly existence—that consciousness which shines forth particularly brightly in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, to which we ourselves belong—is very closely connected to the life of the Sun. We need only contemplate this life of the Sun spiritually, just as we have already done in the previous lectures this summer. Although the Sun is indeed the creator of death and of the scorching life in the cosmos—and for human beings as well—it is at the same time the creator of conscious life. This conscious life was not so important in pre-Christian times because it was replaced by the atavistic, clairvoyant life, which was still a legacy of the Moon. In the post-Christian era, consciousness has become important—more important than life itself; for the goal of becoming human on Earth can only be fulfilled if this consciousness is attained by human beings in the appropriate manner. They must receive this consciousness from the Giver of it—the same Giver from whom the life of death, not the life of birth, also comes.

[ 20 ] Thus, through the Mystery of Golgotha, the Son of the Sun—Christ, who passed through the body of Jesus of Nazareth—enters into the evolution of the Earth, as it were, as the power that has now become the most important factor in this evolution. This is therefore connected with profound cosmic mysteries. Try to recognize—as the ancient initiates of the mysteries would say to their students—from your life of sleep, into which the lunar forces play a part even when you are awake—for we know that even when awake, a person is partly asleep— the lunar life that permeates this sleep life just as the silver moonlight permeates the darkness of the night. — The Christian initiates, on the other hand, have this to say to their students: Try to recognize that consciousness shines forth from waking life because the forces of the Sun play a role in this waking life, just as the Sun shines outside in earthly life from morning until evening.

[ 21 ] This turning point was brought about by the Mystery of Golgotha. And while in pre-Christian times the most important thing was to recognize the origin of life, the most important thing has now become recognizing the origin of consciousness. Only by learning to connect the cosmological wisdom alluded to with what one experiences as true certainty in one’s soul—that is, only by grasping spiritual science through one’s inner being—only in this way can one come to find, within that which otherwise does not guarantee reality in this inner realm, a guarantee of spiritual reality.

[ 22 ] With the means available to Augustine, and with the means available to those who adhere to Augustinian principles, one cannot get very far, because every instance of sleep refutes the true certainty of what is experienced inwardly. Only when the reality of this inner experience is experienced alongside the experience itself does one arrive at a true, firm footing on the ground of this inner experience.

[ 23 ] What we think today, what we feel today in our present earthly life, has no reality yet in this present earthly life—as some people with a scientific mindset already recognize today—and is therefore unreal in relation to the present. And this is precisely what is so peculiar: what we experience most intimately—that in which the truth shines forth for us beyond all doubt—is not real in the present, yet it is the very seed that will sustain our next earthly life. We may speak of what Augustine refers to—and for which he offers no guarantee—as the seed for our next earthly life. We may say: It is certainly true that truth shines forth within us, but it shines forth as an illusion. Today it is still an illusion, but in the next earthly life, what is now an illusion—and as an illusion, a seed—will become the fruit that animates the next earthly life just as the seed of a plant this year animates the visible plant next year. — Only when one transcends time does one find reality in what can be experienced inwardly. We would never be the people we are meant to be if the truth experienced inwardly were now as real as the outer world. We would never be able to become free. There could be no question of freedom at all. Nor, however, could we be a personality; we would be bound within the order of nature. Whatever happened within us would happen out of necessity. We are a personality—and specifically a free personality—only because, like a miracle, the appearance of what we experience within ourselves rises above the waves of necessary events, and only in our next earthly life will this become an external reality like the one we see in our surroundings.

[ 24 ] That is the deceptive nature of time, to which all imagination still succumbs today: one does not consider that what shines forth inwardly as unreal in one earthly life becomes reality in the next. Well, we will continue discussing this very point tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.

[ 25 ] But we see how, from the perspective we are able to gain today, we can look down upon the Augustinian standpoint; how, in a sense, we can see in Augustine what he himself was not yet able to see. Thus, perhaps it is particularly significant for us that Augustine stands within the twilight of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, pointing with special precision to the one current in world history—the ideal current—and attempting to find a fixed point within that ideal current. That is what Augustine attempted. Today we simply want to present this historical fact.

[ 26 ] In his time, people had not yet realized the immense shift that had taken place with regard to the mystery of birth and death; for it is only from this mystery of death that the true consolidation of the absolute certainty of the truth experienced within the human soul can spring forth.

[ 27 ] We will now take a big leap to characterize another personality in the same way that we characterized what was revealed in the personality of Augustine at the twilight of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. We will likewise describe characteristic personalities of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch from a certain perspective. I would like to single out two. One of these figures, from whom we can characterize in a certain direction what emerges for humanity in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, is Count Saint-Simon, who lived from 1760 to 1825. Another figure is Saint-Simon’s disciple, Auguste Comte, who lived from 1798 to 1857. While in Augustine we have a figure who, using every means available to him through his insight, sought to strengthen Christianity, on the other hand we have, in both Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte, figures who, at the core, have completely lost their way with regard to Christianity. The easiest way to gain an understanding of what drove Auguste Comte—and, in a certain sense, Saint-Simon as well—is to outline, at least schematically, some of Auguste Comte’s main ideas.

[ 28 ] Auguste Comte is, to a high degree, a representative of a certain worldview in our time, and it is only because so little attention is paid to the way in which various ideological impulses are integrated into people’s lives that someone like Auguste Comte is studied as if he were a historical curiosity. People simply do not realize that, fundamentally—though perhaps not everywhere—numerous people are influenced by Auguste Comte in a somewhat disciple-like manner—though that is not the point—and that they agree with Auguste Comte in the essential direction of their thinking. Thus, one can say: Auguste Comte is the representative of a large part of contemporary worldview life.

[ 29 ] Auguste Comte says: Humanity has evolved. It has evolved through three stages. It has now reached the third stage. If one observes the inner life of human beings as they pass through these three stages, one finds that in the first stage, people’s ideas were predominantly inclined toward demonology. The first stage of development, then, in Auguste Comte’s sense, would be the demonological stage. People imagined that behind the phenomena of nature—which are perceptible to the senses—spiritual beings were active and at work, to be conceived of in the same way that ghosts are conceived of in everyday life. Demons were sensed everywhere—demons both great and small. That was the first stage.

[ 30 ] Then, once they had developed somewhat further, people moved from the perspective of demonology to that of metaphysics. Whereas they had initially imagined demons, elemental beings, or the like behind all phenomena, they then began to conceive of comprehensible reasons in abstract terms. People became metaphysical after they no longer wished to be believers in demons. The second stage is thus that of metaphysics: one develops certain concepts and connects these concepts to one’s own life, so that one believes that through such concepts one can approach the fundamental causes of things.

[ 31 ] Humanity has now moved beyond this stage as well. It has now entered the third stage, in which Auguste Comte—entirely in line with the views of his teacher Saint-Simon—assumes that man no longer looks to demons when he wishes to learn about the fundamental principles of the world, nor to metaphysical concepts, but solely to what the sensory reality of positivist science provides. The third age is thus that of positivist science. What can be revealed through external scientific experience, humanity should regard as that which enlightens it toward a worldview. One should seek to enlighten oneself in such a way that this enlightenment is understood in the same sense as mathematical enlightenment regarding spatial orders, as physics regarding orders of forces, as chemistry regarding orders of matter, and as biology regarding orders of life. Everything that can be experienced in this way through the individual sciences—whose harmony Auguste Comte attempted to describe in detail in his great work on positive philosophy—everything that can be experienced in this way through the individual positive sciences, Auguste Comte regarded as the only thing worthy of human beings in the third stage. He still regards Christianity itself—admittedly as the highest form of development—but nevertheless only as the final phase of demonology. Metaphysics then emerged; it provided humanity with a body of abstract concepts. Only positive science, according to Auguste Comte, leads to something truly real that can also provide humans with a dignified existence here on Earth. For this reason, Auguste Comte also sought to establish a church based on positivist science, one that would bring people into social structures conceived on the basis of positivist science.

[ 32 ] It is very curious to see what conclusions Auguste Comte—I want to highlight just a few characteristic features today—actually arrived at in the end. He was, after all, very involved in founding a church, the positivist church. And this positivist church—if you look at some of its specific aspects, you’ll immediately grasp its spirit—was also supposed to introduce a kind of calendar. A large number of anniversaries, for example, were to be dedicated to the memory of people like Newton or Galileo, the champions of the positivist sciences; these days of the year, dedicated to these individuals, were to be used to honor them. Other days should be used to denounce figures such as Julian the Apostate or Napoleon. That, too, should be regulated. But life in general should, to the greatest extent possible, be governed entirely by the principles of positivist science.

[ 33 ] Anyone familiar with life today knows that very few people are willing to take ideals such as those held by Auguste Comte seriously. But that is really only out of cowardice; for in truth, people already think just as Auguste Comte did. If one studies the picture presented by Auguste Comte’s positivist church, one actually gets the impression that the structure of this church corresponds exactly to that of the Catholic Church—only the positivist church of Auguste Comte lacks Christ. And that is the strange thing. That is precisely what one should hold before one’s soul as its defining characteristic: Auguste Comte seeks a Catholic Church without Christianity. He arrived at this by incorporating these three stages—the demonological, the metaphysical, and the positivist—into his soul. One could say: He regarded all the forms of Christianity, as they had developed throughout history up to his time, as something very good; but he wanted to remove Christ himself from this church. That is, after all, the essential point at the heart of Auguste Comte’s thought: a Catholic Church without Christ.

[ 34 ] This is exceptionally characteristic of the dawn of the fifth post-Atlantic era. For just as Auguste Comte thinks, so must have thought a mind that had fully absorbed Romanism into its soul, that thought from within this Romanism, but at the same time thought entirely in the spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch with its anti-spiritual character. Thus, Auguste Comte and his teacher Saint-Simon are highly characteristic of the dawn of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. But much will be decided in this fifth post-Atlantean epoch. That is why the other nuances that are still possible also come into play. As I said, I want to present a few historical glimmers of hope to you today; we will then build on them further.

[ 35 ] Schelling, who lived from 1775 to 1854, stands in striking contrast to Auguste Comte. He, too, is in a sense characteristic of the dawn of the fifth post-Atlantic period. Of course, I cannot even give you a schematic overview today of Schelling’s multifaceted and internally structured worldview—which we have already discussed on several occasions from various perspectives—but I would like to draw your attention to a few characteristic features.

[ 36 ] I said: In the twilight of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, Augustine stands at the point of viewing a current—the ideal one—in such a way that it should provide him with a firm foundation upon which to stand. Now we are entering the fifth post-Atlantean epoch: At dawn, we have figures such as Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte, who seek the firm foundation of positivist science in the other, purely natural, material order. There we have the two directions: Augustine on one side, Auguste Comte on the other. Schelling sought, beyond what can be seen in the world using the ordinary means of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch—at first in an abstract-philosophical way and with tremendous energy—a bridge between the ideal and the real, the ideal and the material—you will find the essential points outlined in my book *The Riddle of Man*—; he sought with immense energy to bridge these opposites. At first, he arrived only at all sorts of abstract ideas regarding this bridging. By initially building, in particular, on the same foundations upon which Johann Gottlieb Fichte had built, he made some progress and attempted to grasp something in the world as a being that is both ideal and real at the same time. Then came a time in Schelling’s life when it seemed impossible to him to build such a bridge using the means of abstraction that this fifth post-Atlantean epoch had developed over time. This seemed impossible to him. One day he said to himself: People have, after all, really only gained, on the basis of modern scholarship, those concepts with which one can comprehend the external order of nature. But for what lies beyond this external order of nature—the sphere where one can build the bridge between the ideal and the real—we have no concepts. — And it is very interesting that Schelling once made the following confession: it seemed to him as if the scholars of the past centuries had concluded a silent pact to eliminate from their worldview everything deeper that seeks to lead to real, true life. Therefore, he argued, one must turn to the uneducated people. This was also the period when Schelling engaged with Jakob Böhme, so that he then found in Jakob Böhme that spiritual depth which led him to his final, theosophical period in his life—from which emerged the beautiful treatise on human freedom, the beautiful treatise on the deities of Samothrace, and on the Kabir deities; then the *Philosophy of Mythology* and the *Philosophy of Revelation*.

[ 37 ] What Schelling sought above all else, particularly during this final period of his life, was to comprehend the intervention of the Mystery of Golgotha into human history. That is what he sought above all else. And in doing so, he realized that the concepts available to modern scholarship are insufficient to understand the life through which the Mystery of Golgotha flows—and thus also insufficient to understand true human life. As a result, Schelling—and this is the aspect I would now like to emphasize in particular; we will build further on these ideas in the coming days—arrived at a view that was completely opposed to that of his contemporary Auguste Comte. And this is the remarkable thing: We can say that Auguste Comte seeks a Catholicism—or rather, I would say, a Catholic Church—without Christianity; Schelling, based on his own views, seeks a Christianity without a church. A Christianity without a church: Schelling seeks, so to speak, to Christianize the whole of modern life, to permeate it with the Christian spirit, so that everything a human being can think, feel, and will would be pulsing with the Christ impulse. He does not seek a separate ecclesiastical life for Christianity, especially not along the lines of what has already existed in historical development, although he carefully examines this life. Thus we have the two extremes: Auguste Comte’s idea of a church without Christ, and Schelling’s idea of Christ without a church.

[ 38 ] I wanted to present these historical perspectives to your soul so that we might build upon precisely these things. For we see a mind—Augustine—who seeks a firm foundation in idealism; a mind—Auguste Comte—who seeks a firm foundation in realism; and a figure like Schelling, who seeks to bridge the gap. These are all tendencies that precede the development in which we ourselves now find ourselves.

[ 39 ] Now one can say the following: One can survey what has taken place over many centuries, what has occurred in the realm of worldviews, and one can then turn one’s gaze to the way in which people’s ideas take shape in the broadest sense. It is precisely through the study of Auguste Comte that one gains a very important insight, but Auguste Comte was unable to grasp this insight clearly because he was, after all, completely entrenched in his positivist prejudices. But something that can become an important starting point for us in the coming days emerges precisely when one takes in the entire context—I would say Augustine, Auguste Comte, Schelling—as a whole: an insight that I would like to place at the end of today’s reflections, because I want it to take root in your souls first and foremost. We will then have to discuss in the coming days what is significantly connected to this insight. Since this insight arises precisely from a consideration of what I have presupposed, I present it aphoristically, without being able to provide a detailed justification as to why one finds this insight—which is not found in Auguste Comte, but in the works of others—when, from the standpoint of the later thinker—as I have indicated today—one engages with a thinker who, in this case, is not much later: the one who, at the beginning of the 20th century, reflects on someone who thought at the end of the 18th and in the first half of the 19th century. But it is already important today—as I have emphasized time and again and have also sharply characterized this time—that one should not view the life of worldview merely in the abstract, but rather as it is integrated into the entire life of humanity. Only by taking this integration into the total life of humanity into account can one arrive at a realistic standpoint.

[ 40 ] Now, Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte, in particular, are well aware that they could only have arrived at their positivism in the modern era, and that positivism would have been impossible in an earlier time. Auguste Comte feels this particularly strongly: “The way I think,” he tells himself, roughly speaking, “is a way of thinking that is possible only in our age.” — This is something that stands out as immensely important in the modern movement, and it is connected precisely to that insight I am referring to. If one takes as a basis precisely what Auguste Comte regards as the starting point for his threefold division, then one can also say, entirely in his spirit, that this threefold division consists of theology, metaphysics, and what he—whether rightly or wrongly, it does not matter—calls positivist science.

[ 41 ] Now, the peculiar thing is that one might ask: Who is most likely to become a believer in one of these movements? Please do not misunderstand me regarding what I am about to say in connection with this insight; please do not interpret this in any way as a one-sided, radical dogma, nor should you take it to mean that it can be observed with apodictic certainty in the present day; rather, one must consider the entire course of human development if one is to grasp what I am about to say. But then one cannot ask, “Who becomes a believer?” but rather, “Who most easily becomes a believer in one of these schools of thought?” — And careful observation reveals, however much the facts may seem to contradict it: The one who most easily becomes a believer in theology—not a proponent of theology, not a theologian, but a believer—I am not speaking of religion, but of theology—is the soldier! The one who most easily becomes a believer in metaphysics is the civil servant, especially the legal one, and the one who most easily becomes a believer in positivist science is the industrialist.

[ 42 ] If one wants to evaluate life, it is important not to remain stuck in the abstract, but to look at life with true objectivity. But then one must ask oneself such questions.

[ 43 ] I would just like to touch on this briefly at the end today as an insight that emerges precisely when one engages more deeply with Auguste Comte, because he is aware of it: He is fully comprehensible only to industrialists, and it was only in the industrial age that he could actually emerge with his views. But this is connected to the fact that the industrialist most readily becomes a believer in positivist science, the soldier most readily becomes a believer not merely in Christian theology but in any theology, and the civil servant most readily becomes a believer in metaphysics.