The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] I said yesterday that among the various signs of how current thinking is far removed from reality is, for example, the fact that in the circles currently engaged with this issue, no one even considers that the establishment of a League of Nations—as it originated in Wilson’s mind— was proclaimed at the time as something that would only be possible in an appropriate manner if peace were to be achieved without the victory of one side or the other. Today, however, so that you may see just how sharply Wilson laid out these conditions for the League of Nations on January 22, 1917, I would like to read to you the relevant passage from his speech in the German translation. You can compare it if you wish; the English edition has now been published here with the German translation in parallel columns, and you will find that the German translation in no way alters the meaning of the passage. Wilson says:

[ 2 ] “Above all else, this means that peace must be without victory. It is not pleasant to have to say this. Allow me to set forth my own view on this matter and to emphasize that no other view has occurred to me. I am merely seeking to face the facts head-on, without any euphemistic cover-ups. A victory would mean that peace would be imposed on the vanquished, that the defeated party would have to submit to the victor’s terms. Such terms could only be accepted with deep humility, under duress, and at the cost of unbearable sacrifices, and they would leave behind a painful wound, a sense of resentment, and a bitter memory. A peace resting on such a foundation could not endure; rather, it would be built on quicksand. Only a peace between like-minded parties can be lasting—a peace that is, in its very essence, based on equality and on the shared enjoyment of a benefit that serves the common good of all. The right attitude, the right spirit of goodwill between the various nations, is just as necessary for a lasting peace as the just settlement of intractable disputes over territory, race, or nationality.”

[ 3 ] That was put forward as a condition at the time for the establishment of a League of Nations. And if we think clearly, my dear friends, there is nothing else to say but this: At the very moment when such a peace without victory does not exist, all talk of establishing a League of Nations at this time—which could offer no prospect of success anyway—must be abandoned. But that has not happened. People do not think in accordance with reality; they think abstractly and let their thoughts roll on once they have begun to roll, regardless of whether these thoughts are based on assumptions that still hold true today or not.

[ 4 ] This is just one glaring example of the kind of thinking that has brought such great misfortune upon the world. And until people realize that such unrealistic thinking must be replaced by a different kind of thinking—one capable of immersing itself in reality—conditions will certainly not be able to change in a way that is beneficial to humanity. This must be recognized in regard to the great affairs of the world, and it must also be recognized in regard to everything that each individual must manage in their daily life. For the actions that the individual takes in daily life are intertwined with the highest concerns of humanity. Therefore, it must occur to us again and again as a necessity to ask what could bring about a real change in the present.

[ 5 ] Now we know, of course, that what we call humanity’s acceptance of spiritual science is not merely a matter of adopting a certain belief in the supersensible worlds. That would be the “what.” It is a matter of the person who, in the true sense of the word, takes into his thinking what can justly be said today about the supersensible worlds based on the spiritual revelations of our time—that person arrives at a certain “how” in their thinking, such that their thinking is gradually transformed in such a way that they truly gain a sense of and interest in what is genuinely and actually taking place in the world. So it is not solely a matter of what we acknowledge through spiritual science, but rather how we transform our thinking through spiritual science, how our thinking changes. If this is the case, then the question must be all the more close to our hearts: How is it that there is such strong resistance to spiritual science in the present day?

[ 6 ] Well, I already pointed out yesterday that, of course, anything one might say about this resistance must at the same time be considered in relation to everything that can arise under the influence of the threefold social organism. I said yesterday: if one were to effectively advocate even once for spiritual life to stand on its own two feet, for the independence of spiritual life from the economic cycle and from political life, then spiritual science could be made widely known today in a relatively short time. But one can ask an even deeper question: Why are people so reluctant to recognize precisely what must emerge as a necessity through a true emancipation of spiritual life, through spiritual life standing on its own? — This stems, of course, from the fact that spiritual life has taken on a certain form in recent times, a form that, in and of itself, prevents people from turning their gaze toward the spiritual world. In a certain sense, one could even say that the current sad events are a kind of punishment for humanity for its misunderstanding—for the inevitable misunderstanding of spiritual life—that has taken hold in recent times. And this, my dear friends, must be recognized: that in the future, we will not be able to do without steering human thought in a social direction. The facts teach us this; facts that it would be foolish to fight against. But on the other hand, what is already evident to you from many of the explanations I have given must be understood at a very deep level: that any form of socialism, without a simultaneous process of spiritualization, must bring about not the salvation but the ruin of humanity. The best way to gain a foundation for understanding this is to thoroughly examine socialist thought in its emergence from the rest of modern thought.

[ 7 ] I have already given you some hints as to what exists in this area. Today we want to summarize some of the hints we have heard so far in this direction. I have pointed out to you that there is something in thinkers such as Fichte, for example, when they apply their thinking to the social sphere, which leads to a view quite similar to the one we encounter today in Bolshevism, for example. I tried to express this by saying: Johann Gottlieb Fichte would be a true, genuine Bolshevik! Certainly, Johann Gottlieb Fichte still possessed enough spiritual depth that he could, I might say, have Bolshevik ideas printed in his *Closed Commercial State* at that time without posing a danger to people. Today, people are so little inclined to delve into the true substance of things that they do not even realize that Johann Gottlieb Fichte is a genuine Bolshevik in his *Closed Commercial State*.

[ 8 ] But the mode of thought that is particularly characteristic of modern times actually came to the fore in Hegel. And as I have already told you, Karl Marx is in turn dependent on Hegel—albeit in a most peculiar way. Now I would like to speak to you—even if this seems, though only seemingly, to lead to abstract heights—about the particular nature of Hegelian thought. After all, much that is inaccurate has been said about Hegel amid the turmoil of the last four and a half years. Why shouldn’t we also take an objective look at the way he actually meant his ideas?

[ 9 ] Let’s take a moment to consider how Hegel thought about and reflected on the world, and how he sought to direct our gaze toward the revelation of the world’s mysteries to humankind. Hegel, after all, often presented what he had to say about the world’s true essential nature quite clearly; most clearly in his *Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences*. Let’s take a look, in very simple terms, at the worldview expressed there. You see, Hegel’s worldview is divided into three parts. The first part is what Hegel calls logic. But for Hegel, logic is not the art of human—that is, subjective—human thought; rather, logic is the sum of all those ideas that are at work in the world itself. For Hegel sees in ideas not merely what haunts the human mind. What haunts the human mind is merely the perception of the idea. For Hegel, ideas are, so to speak, forces at work within things themselves. And Hegel does not go any further back to the essence of things than to the ideas, so that in his Logic he seeks, as it were, to present the sum of all the ideas that are within things. The ideas that have not yet manifested themselves creatively in nature—the ideas that have not yet been reflected or recognized by human beings—are the ideas in themselves, which operate in the world as ideas. — I am well aware that what I am saying may not make much sense to you; but people have long claimed that they cannot make sense of Hegel because they cannot imagine that a pure fabric of ideas exists anywhere. But Hegel sees God in this pure fabric of ideas prior to the creation of the world. Thus, for Hegel, God has essentially become a sum—or rather, an organism—of ideas, specifically in the form in which these ideas existed before nature came into being, and before humanity, in turn, developed on the basis of nature. In this way, Hegel seeks to represent the ideas in pure logic. That is God before the creation of the world. Thus, God before the creation of the world is pure logic.

[ 10 ] Now, one might say that it would be very fruitful for human intellectual life if someone were to lay out all the ideas that existed, regardless of whether they were ideas of a living God or whether they merely floated in the air like a spider’s web—which, however, did not yet exist at that time; that alone would be a gain for the human soul. But if you examine this pure logic in Hegel—and that is why so few people do—you will find nothing but yet another web of ideas. It begins with the most meager concept, with pure Being. Then it ascends further to non-Being, then to existence, and so on. So you are urged to bring before your mind the sum total of all the ideas that human beings form about the world—ideas they usually do not reflect upon because they find it too tedious—ranging from pure being to the functional structure of the organism, apart from any external world. There you are presented with a sum of ideas, but only abstract ideas. And human beings’ living feelings will naturally take a certain stance toward this sum or this organism of abstract ideas. Let’s suppose, for a moment, that someone were to say: It is a pantheistic prejudice that Hegel believes ideas exist as such; I, for my part, assume that a God existed before the creation of the world, and that this God would have had precisely these ideas and would have created the world according to them. — But just think: if you were to imagine the reason and the inner life of a God who had nothing else within himself but Hegel’s ideas—who, in other words, had always thought only about what lies between Being and purposeful organization, who had within himself only the ideas of the utmost abstraction—what would you say to such an unreasonable demand to conceive of God’s inner life in this way? You would not be able to comprehend at all how a God could be so meager as to think only these abstract ideas in his divine reason. And yet, for Hegel, the sum of these abstract ideas is God himself—not merely God’s intellect, but God himself even before the creation of the world. So that is the crux of the matter: that Hegel does not, in reality, go beyond abstract ideas, but rather regards the abstract ideas themselves as the divine.

[ 11 ] Then he moves on to the second: that is, nature. I could also offer you certain definitional judgments regarding the way Hegel proceeds from the Idea—that is, from God before the creation of the world—to nature. But even that would probably not be of much use to you if you stick to the habits of thought you have been accustomed to up to now. According to Hegel, logic contains the Idea in its “being-in-itself.” Nature contains the Idea in its “being-outside-itself.” So what you perceive as nature is also the Idea; it is actually nothing other than what logic contains, only in the different form of “being-outside-itself.” And then Hegel examines nature from mere mechanics all the way to the description of biological, plant, and animal conditions. That is to say, he attempts everywhere—to the extent that nature presents itself to human beings—to demonstrate the presence of ideas in nature: the Idea in light, in heat, in other forces, in gravity, and so on.

[ 12 ] Hegel rewards those who can meaningfully accept his abstractness with a vividness and imagery that are unique to him. Yet this very vividness and imagery in Hegel can sometimes be dangerous for understanding what Hegel actually intended. I once tried to defend Hegel to a university professor friend of mine, a philosopher. You know, I defend Hegel because I consider it more fruitful to defend everything in relation to what is truly positive than to simply swear by one’s own opinion and criticize everything else to the ground. If anything is good, I always defend it; that is the positivism of the humanities. But back then, my defense of Hegel didn’t go over very well. The person in question said: “Oh, spare me with Hegel; a man who has nothing else to say about comets except that they are a leprosy in the sky—you can’t take him seriously!” — Of course, a statement like that—that comets are a leprosy, a rash, something like measles or the like in the sky—must be taken in its full context. It goes without saying that it’s easy to make fun of such things. It can even be quite charming when people make fun of such things. To view the world realistically, one doesn’t always need to pull a long, gloomy face; rather, one needs a certain sense of humor, precisely in order to fully understand the tragedy of the world.

[ 13 ] After Hegel has thus, in a sense, provided a catalog of all concepts—all ideas embodied in nature—he ascends, as the third stage, to the Spirit. In the Spirit, he sees the Idea in its “in-and-for-itself” being; that is to say, it is not merely as it was before the creation of the world—not merely in its “in-itself” being—but it exists for itself. It lives in the human soul and there for itself—the Idea existing objectively outside and, moreover, for itself within the human being. But since man is an idea—because everything is an idea—this is the idea in its “in-and-for-itself” being. Here Hegel again attempts to trace the idea as it is present first in the soul of the individual human being, then—if I skip over a few points—in the state. In the human soul, the Idea works internally; in the state, it has once again objectified itself; there it lives in the laws and institutions. There, the Idea lives everywhere within; there it has become objective. It then continues to develop objectively in world history. State, world history. Thus, everything in terms of ideas that brings about the further development of humanity on the physical plane is recorded in world history. However, all those ideas that live in the soul, the state, and world history lead nowhere beyond the physical plane; they do not draw people’s attention to the possibility that there might be a supersensible world, for, for Hegel, the supersensible world is simply the sum of the ideas that live within all of this—first in their “in-itself” existence before the creation of the world, in their “out-of-itself” existence in nature, and in the “in-and-for-itself” existence of the human soul in the state and world history.

[ 14 ] And then the idea reaches its highest point of development; it comes into its own, so to speak, in a final moment of becoming—in art, religion, and philosophy.

[ 15 ] These three—art, religion, and philosophy—when they appear in human life, stand above the state and above world history; yet they are merely the embodiment of pure logic; they are the embodiments of abstract ideas. In art, these ideas—which existed as logic before the creation of the world—are represented through sensory images; in religion, through emotional conception; and in philosophy, the idea finally appears in its pure form within the human mind. Man fulfills himself through philosophy, looks back on everything else that humanity and nature have produced in terms of ideas, and now feels—how shall one put it—as if filled with God, who is, however, the Idea looking back on its entire previous becoming. God beholds himself in man. But in reality, the Idea beholds itself in man. Abstraction beholds abstraction.

I. Logic: The Idea in Its Being-in-Itself

II. Nature: The Idea in Its Being-Outside-Itself

III. Spirit: The Idea in Its Being-in-and-for-Itself
Soul — State — World History: Art, Religion, Philosophy

[ 16 ] One cannot imagine anything more brilliant than this idea about human abstraction, when one considers brilliance in the realm of the abstract. And one cannot really imagine anything more intrinsically bold than when a person asserts: the highest reality is ideas; apart from ideas, there is no God; ideas are God; and you, human soul, are also an idea—only that the idea within you has attained its being-in-and-for-itself, and it gazes upon itself. — You see, we are swimming in ideas; we ourselves are ideas; everything is an idea. The world in its most extreme abstraction. It is of immense significance that, precisely at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century and into the 19th century, a spirit emerged that had the audacity to say: Only he who grasps reality in the abstract idea truly grasps it; there is no higher reality than the abstract idea.

[ 17 ] However, if you go through Hegel’s philosophy from beginning to end, you will find that there is nowhere—anywhere—a path into the supersensible world! There can be no such path into the supersensible world at all, for when a human being dies, according to Hegel’s philosophy—since a human being is essentially an Idea—he or she merges into the general flow of the Ideas of the world. And it is only through this flow of the Ideas of the world that one can say anything at all. There is not a single concept—and this is precisely what makes Hegel’s philosophy so magnificent—that deals with anything supersensible; it is simply that everything which now confronts us—albeit in the most icy abstraction—as Hegel’s philosophy is itself supersensible, but specifically the abstract-supersensible. It proves entirely unsuited to incorporating anything supersensible itself; it proves suited only to incorporating the sensible within itself. Through a supersensible element, the sensible is spiritualized, albeit only in abstract forms; but at the same time, everything supersensible is rejected, because the sum of the ideas presented from beginning to end relates precisely only to the sensible world. Thus, I would say, the supersensible character of these ideas in Hegel does not come into play all that much, for this supersensible does not refer to a supersensible realm, but only to the sensible,

[ 18 ] I would like to draw your attention primarily to the fact that the tendency of modern thought was expressed in a thorough rejection of the supernatural—not through superficial materialism, but through the highest power of intellectual thought. Hegel is therefore not a materialist; he is an objective idealist. But this objective idealism asserts that the objective idea itself is God and the foundation of the world and of everything.

[ 19 ] For anyone who conceives of such a spiritual impulse, this act of conception provides a certain inner satisfaction that allows them to look past what is missing. But the person who comes along later—that is, someone who did not originally conceive of such a thing but reflects on it afterward—may then feel the inadequacy all the more keenly. I have, in fact, pointed out all these things in my book *The Enigma of Man*.

[ 20 ] Now imagine that it is not a person like Hegel who thinks this way, driven by an inner, supersensory impulse, but rather that this line of thought is taken up by another mind that is entirely focused on the material world—as was the case with Karl Marx. Then Hegel’s idealistic philosophy becomes precisely the reason to reject and dismiss everything supernatural and thus everything idealistic. And so it was for Karl Marx. Karl Marx adopted the form of thought he had found in Hegel. However, he did not now regard the Idea in reality, but rather regarded reality as it continually unfolds as mere external material reality. He carried forward the impulse of Hegelianism and materialized it. And so the very lifeblood of modern socialist thought is rooted in the culmination of modern idealist thought. That, both personally and in terms of world history, the most abstract thinker should intersect with the most materialist thinker was an internal necessity of the nineteenth century; yet this is also the tragedy of the nineteenth century; it is, in a sense, the reversal of intellectual life into its opposite.

[ 21 ] Hegel proceeds through abstract concepts. Being turns into non-being, cannot reconcile itself with non-being, and thereby becomes becoming. And so, concept by concept, he proceeds through thesis, antithesis, and synthesis according to a certain inner triad, which Hegel masterfully handles in the realm of the pure idea. Karl Marx transfers this inner triad—which Hegel sought in the inner movement of ideas for logic, nature, and spirit—to external material reality, stating, for example: from the more recent form of human association based on private-capitalist economy, just as in Hegel’s thought non-being emerged from being, the formation of trusts and the capitalist socialization of the private-capitalist economy developed. As trusts consolidate more and more means of production, private capital ownership itself turns into its opposite. Corporations emerge—the opposite of an economy run by individuals. This has turned into its opposite, into the antithesis. Now comes the synthesis. The whole process turns once more, just as non-being turns into becoming. And the fusion of private economies into trust economies turns into something even greater, which in turn abolishes the trust economy: the communal economy of the means of production. Thus reality proceeds in a triad—purely external economic reality. What Karl Marx conceived here follows Hegel’s pattern exactly, except that Hegel’s thought moves within the realm of ideas, while Marx’s moves within the interplay and life of external economic reality. Thus the extremes lie side by side; one might even say, like being and non-being.

[ 22 ] But, my dear friends, you can now argue as long as you like about idealism and realism, spiritualism and materialism—there is no conclusion, no result. The only way to find what sustains the human being is to think in terms of the modern Trinity: the human being at the center, the one extreme—the Luciferic—on one side; the Ahrimanic extreme on the other. Ahrimanic materialism and Luciferic spiritualism as the two extremes, the human being as the point of balance. If you wish to arrive at the truth, you cannot be an idealist or a realist, a materialist or a spiritualist; you must be both one and the other. You must seek the spirit with such intensity that you find it as spirit even within matter, and you must penetrate matter so deeply that you can find the spirit through it. This is the task of the modern age: to cease arguing about spiritualism and materialism, and instead to find the point of equilibrium. For the two extremes—those of Hegelian Luciferism and Marxian Ahrimanism—have run their course. They were there; they have revealed themselves. What must now truly be found is that which constitutes the balance. And this is precisely what is meant by anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. To achieve this, one must indeed ascend to a level of pure thinking such as that to which Hegel ascended; but this pure thinking must be capable of being used to break through to the supersensible. One must not merely find logic—that is, an organism of ideas that can ultimately relate only to the sensory world—but must break through, at the very point where logic is discovered, from the sensory into the supersensory. This breakthrough was not yet achieved by Hegel. That is why humanity was set back once again.

[ 23 ] In a certain sense, it is connected to the purest and noblest ideals to which modern thought has risen that socialism emerged without any reference to anything spiritual. And the fact that it has become so difficult in the present day to find a spiritual dimension to socialist thought is, in a certain sense, rooted in the inner course of human development. One must, however, grasp the entire context in order to gain the strength to find salvation within it. The scientific enterprise propagated today by the universities has truly failed to achieve this.

[ 24 ] What did Hegel essentially do? He squeezed humanity—not physically, but mentally—just as one squeezes a lemon until it is completely dry; and this dry “lemon” of humanity is then nothing more than an idea. You are sitting here in your chairs; in the sense of Hegel’s philosophy, you are all ideas sitting here, not bodies, not souls: ideas. For each of you carries an idea within you; it existed before the creation of the world as an abstract idea. Then, each of you, in and of yourself, is a body, nature: the idea, existing outside of itself, sits there on the chairs. Then, within you, there is once again the idea in its being-in-and-for-itself. You yourselves grasp this idea that you are. Just think what a kind of specter you are! Just think how squeezed out you are when you sit there as an “idea”: in itself, outside itself, in and for itself—but still, after all, only as an idea!

[ 25 ] And now, again in the spirit of Karl Marx: There is nothing at all about ideas—precisely because he has gone through the method of Hegelian idealism. Now you are merely the animal that has become bipedal, merely what you outwardly appear to be in the natural order.—The other extreme!

[ 26 ] Given the state of human development at that time, was it not necessary to attempt to restore humanity to its true nature in people’s perception as well, that is, to present the essence of the human being not merely as a very general idea, nor as the mere animalistic human, but as the real, individual human being—who possesses a physical form that is the pinnacle of nature, and who has within himself a spiritual essence that has become the goal of a spiritual world? Human perception had to be guided back toward the real human being. And I undertook this attempt in my *Philosophy of Freedom*. This is the actual historical context of the problem that presented itself when it impelled me to write the *Philosophy of Freedom*! This highly developed animal that envelops the human being cannot be free; nor can that shadowy human being—who is an idea—be free—being-in-itself, being-outside-itself, being-in-and-for-itself—for he is formed by logical necessity. Neither is free. Only the real human being is free, who is regarded as the balance between the idea—which, however, breaks through into the real spirit—and external material reality.

[ 27 ] Therefore, in this *Philosophy of Freedom* as well, an attempt was made to ground the moral life not on some abstract principle, but on the inner, moral experience—which I called at the time the “moral imagination”; that which, in the individual human being as such, springs from intuition—to put it figuratively. Kant formulated the categorical imperative: Act in such a way that the maxim of your action can serve as a guiding principle for all people. — Put on a coat that fits everyone! The maxim of the philosophy of freedom is: Act in whatever way comes to you from the spirit—to you and your highest human powers—precisely in this concrete moment, in this individual, concrete moment.

[ 28 ] Thus, one arrives at the spiritual realm via the detour of moral philosophy. And this, in particular, might be a path for humanity today to arrive at an understanding of the spiritual world: if humanity were first to recognize—which, after all, is not so difficult to understand—that morality has no foundation whatsoever unless it is understood as part of the supersensible-spiritual realm.

[ 29 ] You see, Hegel’s logic is, from beginning to end, a collection of abstract ideas. But what harm is there, after all, in viewing all of nature—everything that exists on the surface—merely as a schematic arrangement of ideas? — But it is harmful if that which spurs and impels us toward morality does not come from the spiritual world; for if it does not come from the spiritual world, it has no true reality at all—it is merely smoke and mirrors emanating from the animalistic human. When the animalistic human dies, nothing remains. In Hegel’s philosophy, there is not a single concept that could refer to anything that would still be there for a person after they have passed through the gate of death, or before they have passed through the gate of birth. Hegelian philosophy is great, but it is great as a milestone of the 19th century. To acknowledge Hegel in his greatness leads precisely to continuing his work, to breaking through what stands in the way when one enters into pure thought, into pure logic, into the Idea, into its being-in-itself—into the supersensible world. Being a Hegelian can only be the private pleasure of a few convoluted minds who, at the beginning of the 20th century, seek their great intellectual brilliance in standing where one was permitted to stand in the first decades of the 19th century. For this, my dear friends, is what we must learn: not merely to want to live as human beings in the abstract, but to live in time, to live within the unfolding of time. It is precisely by rejecting absolutism that we enter into the living reality; otherwise, we will not be able to participate in human development. And that is what matters: participating in human development.

[ 30 ] You see, Raphael was great. The Sistine Madonna is a very significant work of art. Only someone who, if a painter were to paint the Sistine Madonna today, would consider it a poor painting is truly qualified to appreciate it properly. For what matters is not that one regards anything as absolute, but that one knows how to place oneself within the broader context of humanity. And that is the great sin, that is the true calamity of our time, when this is disregarded. Today there is a need—not merely, as was permissible in earlier times, to place oneself absolutely within the world—but in this age of the development of consciousness, it has become a necessity to feel oneself consciously situated at the precise point in time to which one has been placed in a particular incarnation. As paradoxical as it sounds, only those who—if a painter were to paint this Sistine Madonna today—would be able to regard it as a poor painting from the perspective of today’s artistic sensibilities will be able to properly appreciate Raphael’s Sistine Madonna. For nothing has absolute value; rather, things derive their value from their place in the world. Until now, one could manage without such insight. From now on, such insight is necessary. After all, it is not even particularly profound. The man who discovered the Pythagorean theorem was a great man in his time. If someone were to discover or invent it today, it would be interesting, wouldn’t it? It would also be interesting if someone were to paint the Sistine Madonna today—but this is simply not the time for it; it is not what must happen at this stage of development where we now stand.

[ 31 ] You see, my dear friends, what a reformation of thought is necessary, what a socialization of thought! Sharing in the experience of humanity—that is what matters today. To most people today, this will certainly seem like a paradox. But we are already faced with the necessity of thoroughly rethinking our ways and arriving at truly new ideas. We can no longer go on living with the old ideas. If people continue to cling to the old ways of thinking, the world will inevitably come crashing down on their heads. The salvation of humanity depends on people being able to break away from the old ways of thinking and truly embrace new ways of thinking. Spiritual science is new thinking. It is precisely for this reason that it is so frowned upon—because it fundamentally contradicts all old habits of thought. Only those who sense the necessity of arriving at a new way of thinking will be able to fully appreciate spiritual science in general, as well as its revelations regarding specific areas of the soul’s life—such as, for example, the social question.

[ 32 ] And there is yet another factor that accounts for the unhealthy nature of the present age: that, deep down in their subconscious, people are already beginning to think differently, but out of a historical stubbornness they suppress this alternative way of thinking rooted in their subconscious and thereby suffer the punishment of that suppressed thought. The current historical development is, in many ways, a punishment for stubborn human nature, which suppresses what lies deep within and artificially clings to what it has clung to for centuries. One should not look to the inconsistent, complacent thinkers, but rather to the consistent thinkers of the past, now-defunct era, in order to see from them where one has gone astray. What is characteristic of that bygone era are not the thinkers who made every little concession, but those who stood firm on the old position. When, many years ago in the Austrian House of Lords, all the abstract thinkers and liberal progressives spoke of progress and liberalism and all that—how religion must be transformed so that it meets the demands of modern times—in short: what all those respectable, staid philistines—from Gladstone on down to the staid parliamentary philistines of the continent—have been saying over and over again—Cardinal Rauscher replied, as a thoroughly old-fashioned clergyman firmly rooted in the old ways: “The Catholic Church knows no progress; what was once true will remain true throughout the ages.” Anything that seeks to assert itself as a novelty has no justification.—That was an old-fashioned but internally coherent spirit of a bygone era. The same goes for Pobedonoszew, the only one who, in a brilliant and witty manner, condemned the entire Western culture of modern times because, in his view, it would ultimately lead nowhere—nor could it lead anywhere. The old order, to which the modern bourgeoisie had grown accustomed, could only be maintained if one wished to shape the world as Cardinal Rauscher and Pobedonoshev himself had wanted to shape it. Had the world truly been governed not by Nicholas II’s wishy-washy policies but by Pobedonoshev’s rigid principles, our war would, of course, never have come to pass. There is, however, one objection to this: it would not have been possible to act on Pobedonoszew’s ideas, because reality took a different course than those ideas. And what matters now is to follow reality—not by making concessions, not by behaving as most minds did during the second half of the 19th century or even in the two decades of the 20th century, but by truly resolving to think something that is as different from previous thinking as the devastation of one world war after another—on the negative side—differs from what has happened so far. From the terrible misfortune of humanity—about which it is said time and again that nothing like it has ever occurred in the course of history—we should now at least learn that we must also conceive of thoughts of which we can say: something like this has indeed never existed in the course of history to date.

[ 33 ] You see, it is up to humanity to make a major decision. And what, unconsciously and driven by instinct, seeks to bring this decision to fruition is, in essence, what asserts itself as socialism. The world will not emerge from chaos until a sufficiently large number of people add ideal spiritualism to material socialism. That is how things are interconnected today. But as long as people are not even ready to see the most immediate reality when it is right under their noses, no salvation can spring forth in the historical and social development of humanity. This, my dear friends, should, in a sense, become the inner spiritual practice that arises from the impulses of spiritual science. Time and again, I would like to try to draw your attention to this inner spiritual practice. The more strongly you feel that something like this is necessary for our time—as I have once again attempted to portray in today’s reflections—the more rightly you will move within that spiritual current that seeks to be enlivened by anthroposophically oriented spiritual science.

[ 34 ] We'll talk more about that next Friday.