The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Ninth Lecture

[ 1 ] In what I am going to say today as a further elaboration of my recent reflections, it must be taken into account that, from the perspective of the humanities as well, there must be a very specific understanding of the role of the individual personality in history. People usually imagine that a personality—be it an artist, a statesman, a religious figure, or any other kind of personality who is active in history—acts through impulses that spread as a result of conscious processes, and that such a personality acts only in this way. And one then considers related questions by asking: What did such a personality do, what did they say, how did this reach the people, and so on?

[ 2 ] Things are not quite that simple, especially in the most significant cases of historical development; rather, what is at work in human evolution depends on the driving spiritual forces that lie behind historical development, and personalities are, in a sense, merely the means and channels through which certain driving spiritual forces and powers from the spiritual world work their way into our historical earthly development. This does not contradict the fact that much also radiated outward from the individuality and subjectivity of such leading personalities into wider circles. That goes without saying. But one can only gain a proper understanding of history when one is clear about the fact that, when here or there a so-called great man utters this or that, it is the leading spiritual powers of human development that speak through him, and that he is, in a sense, merely a symptom of the presence of certain driving forces. He is the gateway through which these forces speak into the course of history.

[ 3 ] If, for example, a particular figure from a certain historical period is cited and one attempts to characterize that person’s influence on the entire configuration of the era, this does not mean—when speaking from a spiritual-scientific perspective—that one wishes to give the impression that this person exerted such an influence solely through the power of his or her personality. Let me give an example. Let us assume that for a particular historical epoch—as we will have to do shortly—a philosophical figure must be cited as particularly characteristic. Someone might then come along and say: Yes, this figure wrote philosophical works, but they only influenced a certain circle of people; a broader circle of people was not influenced by this figure at all.

[ 4 ] It would be entirely wrong to raise this objection, because the figure in question—even if he is a philosophical figure—is merely the expression of certain forces that stand behind him, and it is these forces that have influenced and made an impression on wider circles. In this figure, one sees only what is at work in that era. The following, for example, could be the case. At a certain time, a spiritual current or a spiritual movement might be at work in the subconscious of broad circles of human souls. In the case of a particular individual, this might manifest in such a way that what broad circles—perhaps entire peoples—merely sense, this individual articulates with particular clarity and distinctiveness, yet does not write it down at all, perhaps sharing it with only five or six other people, or saying nothing at all. Thus, this extreme case could occur: centuries later, the memoirs of a particular individual might be discovered containing ideas that were never disseminated through literary channels, and yet these memoirs might contain the most characteristic ideas and forces of that very era. It is in this sense that I have always provided characterizations, whenever I have attempted to do so. I never wanted to give the impression that ideas from prominent figures exert their influence solely through conventional propaganda; rather, I always wanted to point out that the influential ideas are found formulated in the individual figures themselves. Of course, it must be taken into account that the effective influence of such figures may play a role in this. But the exact opposite may also be the case. A single figure can have a broad impact; but the other point must be explicitly stated so that certain things are not interpreted in such a way that one might say, for example: If someone characterizes a figure as significant for a particular era, they are thereby characterizing something that happens only in some niche, whereas one is actually interested in hearing a characterization of what is taking place among the broad masses. — I ask you to consider what I am going to say today from these perspectives.

[ 5 ] I have often discussed how there was a certain significant leap in the historical development of humanity during the 15th century. Anyone who studies the spiritual life of civilized humanity will find that this spiritual life in the 16th and 17th centuries is radically different from that of the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries. I have often pointed out that one of the most untrue statements—yet one that is constantly repeated—is that nature, the world, or world events do not undergo leaps. — Such leaps are precisely present at the most significant junctures of development. And one such leap in the development of civilized humanity is precisely the transition from the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, which came to an end in the 15th century, to the fifth, in which we still live today and at the very beginning of which we actually stand. In a certain sense, the entire mindset and thought patterns of civilized European humanity change after the 15th century; but this change manifests differently among the various nations and peoples. Certain transitional phenomena appear in different ways among the various peoples.

[ 6 ] Now, one cannot understand the spiritual life we are currently living unless one has some sense of what has been gradually emerging in our spiritual life since the 15th century. One must grasp the characteristic features of this newly emerging spiritual life. Of course, one can only ever characterize individual currents and individual points of view. When one considers the period preceding this fifth post-Atlantean epoch—from the Mystery of Golgotha to the 15th century—one must say: During this time, a large part of civilized European humanity was striving to gain an understanding, a religious understanding, of Christianity. Anyone who attempts to study the various views—as they developed in relation to Christianity in Europe from the 3rd 4th centuries onward through the 15th century, will find that the people of this civilized Europe devoted all their intellectual faculties, their emotional capacities, and everything they could draw from their souls to understanding Christianity in their own way—to gaining, in their own way, an understanding of what the world had become through the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 7 ] After the 15th century, very special circumstances began to emerge. It is actually only then—and for those who do not regard that “fable convenue” commonly called history, but rather real history, this is quite clear—that what is today widely referred to as the scientific way of thinking begins to emerge. Before that, something entirely different existed. What is today regarded as truly scientific only begins in this fifth post-Atlantean period. And a very specific configuration is imposed upon it—imposed, one might say, in various ways. It is, admittedly, always the same imprint, but it is imprinted in different ways in the West, in regions of Western civilization, and somewhat differently in regions of Central European civilization. And the time has now come when these matters should be viewed with an open mind—viewed without nationalist ideas influencing our perspective in the unfavorable way I described yesterday.

[ 8 ] And so, when we wish to examine a characteristic personality trait to understand how this modern era has acquired its intellectual signature, we turn to a figure such as the one who is particularly emblematic of the transition from the 16th to the 17th century: the English philosopher Bacon of Verulam. Among those who consider themselves scholars, Bacon is regarded as a kind of innovator of human thought. But this Bacon is an exponent, a symptom of something that has emerged in recent history in the sense I have just described. The entire Western world is, in essence, permeated by a certain wave of thought, and Bacon is simply the one who most clearly articulated this wave of thought in the Western world. Without people realizing it, this wave of thought lives on in individuals. The way they think, the way they express themselves on the most important matters of life, is Baconian in parts of Western civilization, even when people oppose Bacon or say the opposite. After all, what matters is not so much the content one ascribes to any particular worldview, but rather the way in which such a worldview first takes root in the human heart, and then how it fits into the impulses of world-historical development.

[ 9 ] To clarify what I just said—and I’d like to do so through a paradox—one could say: In our time, one person might be a staunch materialist and another a staunch spiritualist, and both could quite easily express their ideas within the context of our materialistic age—the difference would not be significant. It doesn’t really matter so much whether someone today professes to be a spiritualist or a materialist in the literal sense, but rather what spirit motivates them to do one or the other. For it is not the literal content that actually has an effect, but the spirit from which something arises. That is what has an effect; only if one is an abstract thinker does one attach importance solely to literal content.

[ 10 ] It should be noted that Bacon, if one truly considers the essence of his way of thinking, attempted to use the intellectual powers that had emerged particularly since the mid-15th century to establish human knowledge—to establish science. The powers of cognition available to humanity in modern times were to become the sciences. It was a significant time, the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, in which Bacon appeared. It was, so to speak, the time when truly everything was being called into question; for one could no longer spin any ideas about the mysteries of the world in the old way—using the methods of ancient alchemy, ancient astrology, all the other ancient methods, nor even the old religious way of thinking. There was a drive for renewal. How, then, was this drive most characteristically expressed? — This drive was expressed in the fact that, precisely at this time, there was a low point for all of humanity’s true spiritual powers of comprehension.

[ 11 ] Until the 15th century, it would have seemed impossible to attempt to comprehend something like the Mystery of Golgotha with a mind focused solely on the sensory realm. Rather, it was taken for granted that something like the Mystery of Golgotha could only be understood as the highest manifestation among others—one grasped through higher powers of cognition than those used to comprehend the natural world that surrounds us. These powers of cognition still possessed a certain level of height when the Mystery of Golgotha took place. They diminished more and more as human development progressed. And when the modern era began after the 15th century, people no longer possessed spiritual powers of comprehension; they had only an intellect directed toward the sensory world.

[ 12 ] With a mind focused on the sensory, Bacon sought to establish a scientific mindset. And so he rejected all those methods of inquiry that had previously been recognized as valid, and asserted first and foremost that experimentation was the sole foundation upon which science should be built. A large part of the world still holds this view today: One must experiment; one must build the apparatus and experiment; and views about nature must emerge from these experiments. — Viewed from the perspective of the mind, this means: I have a butterfly here; it is too complicated for me to examine this butterfly, so I make a very lifelike replica of it out of papier-mâché and then examine the papier-mâché replica.” — This essentially amounts to the same thing as observing living nature through a dead experiment, which is nothing other than replacing living nature with a corpse for the purpose of natural observation. Even when we work in a physics laboratory, we should be aware that we are experimenting on the “corpses” of nature. Of course, one must experiment; one must also conduct investigations on human corpses. But when working with a human corpse, one cannot succumb to the illusion that one is dealing only with a corpse. In an experiment, however, one succumbs to the illusion that it is the experiment that first reveals the truth. But no one who does not already possess within themselves the spiritual intuition to pour into the experiment—from living nature—the very essence of what is at stake can gain anything from the experiment—the dead experiment—that applies to living nature.

[ 13 ] This, however, suggests that Bacon’s way of thinking was, from the outset, aimed at making the inanimate the explanatory principle of the nature of the world. Now, what is peculiar is that in that imitation of the living—which one can still achieve through experimentation—one finds clues for explaining non-human nature; yet one should not succumb to the illusion that through any experimental means one can truly gain anything that sheds light on human beings themselves. All experimentation leads away from human nature.

[ 14 ] This is why, in the centuries that have passed since then—during which the school of thought that reached a certain height in Bacon has spread—an understanding of the true human being and his nature has been lost. What has been lost is an understanding of what is actually contained within the very core of human nature itself as a driving, active force.

[ 15 ] Now, no one can identify the great impulses of moral and social will without addressing the essence of human nature. That is why an understanding of the impulses of moral and social will has disappeared in recent centuries—precisely as a result of the Baconian mindset. Consequently, the mere morality of utility has developed in parallel with the erosion of an understanding of the world as conceived by Bacon. It is, in fact, a Baconian definition: Good is that which is useful to humanity—either to the individual human being or to all of humanity.

[ 16 ] Thus, based on Bacon’s mindset—and it was far more widespread than anyone today can imagine—we have, on the one hand, a scientific mindset that can grasp only what is outside of humanity, and on the other hand, a morality that focuses solely on what is useful in the Ahrimanic sense. In Thomas Hobbes, a contemporary of Bacon’s, this was expressed to an even greater degree than in Bacon himself. But this wave of utilitarian ethics then spilled over into the mere sense of understanding the non-human world, spilling over into all the philosophers—Locke, Hume, and so on—up to Spencer and into the natural scientists from Newton to Darwin. Anyone who wishes to study most characteristically what has emerged from the dominant Western world to constitute the latest wave of European thought must begin there; must start from the Baconian way of thinking.

[ 17 ] However, there is something very specific associated with this Baconian way of thinking and moral outlook. One can only comprehend the superhuman through it; morally, one can only find what is useful to human beings and humanity—that is to say, using the means by which one here pursues science and natural morality, one does not even enter the realm in which religion exists!

[ 18 ] What is the consequence? The consequence is that among those who hold this view, there arises a desire to leave religion as it was before—that is, to preserve it historically, without introducing new elements into it from a new science of the mind. Bacon, after all, held the most characteristic view that science should not be combined with religion in any way, for this would render science fanciful; and religion should not be combined with science in any way, for this would render religion heterodox. — Religion, then, is to be kept well apart from that striving which asserts itself in human beings as scientific striving. The new forces that have been at work in civilized humanity since the fifteenth century are attributed to scientific endeavor. No new forces are introduced into religion. It is to be preserved with the forces that were previously introduced into it, for people fear the new forces that might be introduced into it. There is a fear that it might become heterodox, that it might lose its true essence.

[ 19 ] What was bound to happen under the influence of such a mindset? What happened? What happened was that, out of a certain human sincerity, people sought science for the non-human world; out of a certain sincerity, they sought a utilitarian morality; but they did not wish to seek religion from the very source from which they sought scientific rigor. Religion is not to be affected by this at all. It is not to have anything to do with the actual scientific pursuit, except perhaps insofar as it is viewed historically. This led to the distinction between science and revealed religion. This distinction can also be expressed more strongly; it can be expressed in the following way—in which case it is merely stated more forcefully and is therefore more unpleasant for people who do not like to hear the truth; for it can be characterized as follows: One strives honestly for science—namely, for that science which extends only to the non-human realm. One also strives honestly and sincerely for a utilitarian morality; but one does not apply this honest, sincere striving to religion, which must remain untouched by it; science must not encroach upon it. Honest, non-human science, honest utilitarian ethics—religion as hypocrisy, religion born of insincerity: this is merely a sharper way of expressing the difference between science and revealed religion, which is why it is unpleasant for those who do not wish to hear the unvarnished truth. But it is precisely by articulating such a matter very clearly and sharply that one arrives at its essence. And so the most characteristic feature of this school of thought is that it shied away from applying science to religion, that it did not want the power of knowledge—which is applied in the natural sciences and the like—to intrude into religion.

[ 20 ] This kind of intellectual signature was, in a sense, natural to Western civilization. It is so natural to it that many people in this Western civilization cannot conceive of anything other than that one should not turn to religion using the same principle by which one seeks to understand nature. This is characteristic of the Western world; it is entirely appropriate for it.

[ 21 ] But now let’s imagine that same impulse transported to Central Europe. I can illustrate this with a characteristic example. It is not always the case that this way of thinking is opposed with such sharp opposition as Goethe’s opposition to Newtonianism; rather, it also happens that Darwinism—which was directed entirely toward the non-human and which, at the same time, can never establish anything other than a utilitarian morality— was now embraced by a man as quintessentially Central European—even Prussian-Central European—as Ernst Haeckel was. In this case, the matter does not remain what it is with Darwin. In Darwin, we see the spirit of Bacon’s thought continuing to influence him. He views the natural world through the lens of Darwinism; but he remains a believer, just as Newton remained a believer. He calmly retains the old way of thinking with regard to the purely religious. How is this the case with Haeckel? Haeckel absorbs Darwinism into his very soul. For him, there is no possibility of a dichotomy; for him, there is no possibility of leaving religion untouched. He embraces Darwinism—which can really only be used to understand what is beyond human—but he applies it with a *furor religiosus* specifically to the human realm, and he turns it into a religion. It becomes a unity; it becomes a religion.

[ 22 ] And so, once these impulses are in place, they have an effect everywhere. The impulses are the same, but their effects vary, tailored to the different regions. In the West, Darwinism and religion are quite well tolerated when served together in the context of world development. Ernst Haeckel, the Central European, must mix them together and turn them into a unified whole, because for him it is impossible to have the two side by side. Bacon and his successors, up to Spencer and Darwin, fear that religion will become heterodox if science is applied to it. Haeckel is not afraid of this. He makes religion as good as possible, because, according to his entire worldview, he must carry the same truthfulness that he asserts in science into religion as well. This is the case in many fields. Goetheanism, even in Goethe himself, was already internally opposed to the conception of the merely superhuman. You need only take the prose hymn “Nature,” which Goethe had at least conceived around the 1880s—even if he did not write it down himself at that time—and which has also been presented here in eurythmy, and you will see that for Goethe, nature does not exist at all in the same sense as it does for Newton or Darwin; rather, it is inwardly animated, and for him it even exists as a force imbued with humor: “... . it thinks and ponders ceaselessly.” And so, throughout his entire life, Goethe developed such maxims—as he set them forth in the “Fragment” on nature—into ever more concrete forms. Recently, a strange essay appeared here in a newspaper—one that, I believe, even had a follow-up in this Sunday paper—in which it is claimed that when, in the 1890s, I published the “Fragment” on Nature with an explanatory note, I had overemphasized the fact that the characteristics Goethe had explored in the prose hymn “Nature” subsequently played a role in his works on the natural sciences. It is truly amusing what objection is raised in that essay. It is claimed that this “Fragment” contains no ideas of natural philosophy at all, but rather religious ideas, and that one should not seek to find the religious ideas of this prose hymn reflected in Goethe’s later scientific ideas, as I have done. — So a pedant—one doesn’t know what else to call him—has taken it upon himself to divide those who are humanly seeking understanding by trying to convince people that, in Goethe’s work, scientific ideas are something different from religious ideas. The deduction is made from the outset in such a way that one can see how Baconism runs through every fiber of this gentleman who wrote the essay!

[ 23 ] Now—and this is the question I would like to ask—can we see from something else as well that there is a distinction in modern civilization between science and religion? — We can see it from something else as well. Certainly, even in England, the land of Bacon, there was Wycliffe and others like him; but that had no influence on the actual structure of civilization. In Central Europe, on the other hand, something is actually making itself felt to a very special degree—something that, for example, has not exerted any significant influence to the west, toward France—namely, that as the modern era, this fifth post-Atlantic period, dawns, there is no opposition of this kind in Central Europe as there is in the western countries, where science is indeed established in a very proper manner, but does not allow this science to penetrate the religious sphere—which is meant to continue vegetating, with only religion revealed in the old sense remaining—but rather, in Central Europe, a sharp opposition arises precisely in the religious sphere during the Reformation, and from this stems all the misfortune in Central European development: the instigation of the Thirty Years’ War by the Jesuits, everything else that occurred as a consequence of this disastrous war, and, in turn, everything that followed. Here, in Central Europe, we see directly in the religious sphere that the impulse from the era following the 15th century was at work.

[ 24 ] In both the smallest and the greatest historical phenomena, one sees that the same impulse is present, but shifted, welling up in a different way from the human soul, from the human heart. But little by little, the Western world takes the lead, and little by little, something very significant happens. The further we see the spiritual life of Central Europe develop in the post-Goethean era, the more it moves away from Goethe himself. Goethe is still studied by literary historians and others; indeed, a field of Goethe scholarship is even emerging. But Goethe does not live on in all of this. What Goethe—and his followers—actually sought to bring into Central European civilization as an impulse gradually seeps away in the 19th century. And just as Darwinism became Haeckelism, the impulses of the Western world are slowly seeping into this Central European world. The Western world tolerates these impulses quite well, but the Central European world does not. The Central European world is indeed receptive to Western impulses—it absorbs them—but it cannot tolerate them. On the one hand, we see Darwin, who—though in his final work he did draw a conclusion regarding human beings from a principle that actually applies only to the non-human world—by no means took that conclusion to the same extreme as Haeckel did. With Darwin, the scientific principle is, so to speak, confined to the non-human realm. In Central Europe, however, the situation is the same as that of Haeckelism in contrast to Darwinism: an attempt is made to permeate all of life with such an impulse. One does not want to leave aside the unpermeated realm—for example, the religious sphere—but rather to permeate that as well with this impulse. And so it is with other fields that follow the same path. Those who are now older have indeed experienced this themselves: how English-style parliamentarism spread throughout all of Europe—with the exception of Prussian Germany—and how it was received in Europe just as Darwinism was through Haeckelism. Parliamentarism, as it exists in England, is quite good for England. For those countries in Central Europe to which it was subsequently transplanted, however, it has entailed consequences similar to those brought about by Haeckelism in relation to Darwinism. Modern times have unfolded under such influence.

[ 25 ] But one can go deeper and characterize these events, as they actually unfolded, in much greater depth. In the Western world, aside from Bacon, we have in Shakespeare a figure who has exerted a great influence on modern civilization. For those capable of studying intellectual life, Baconism and Shakespeareanism point to the same otherworldly source, though represented in the earthly realm. Both follow the same path into modern development, and it is known that the inspiration for Bacon and Shakespeare comes from the same source. In modern times, when everything is taken at face value, this has even led to the formulation of the well-known Bacon theory, which, of course, as it has been formulated, is utter nonsense. But from the very same source from which the Bacon-Shakespeare inspiration originates—and even emanating from the same initiated personality—come, for Central Europe, the spiritual currents of Jakob Böhme and the South German Jacobus Baldus. And much more than one might think, what originates from Jakob Böhme lives on in Central European spiritual life—again, such a figure who merely articulated what was already operating as a fact in the widest circles, even if this did not happen in Jakob Böhme’s own words. One need only be clear that a good portion of Goethe’s doctrine of metamorphosis derives from Jakob Böhme, and that a good portion of what is found in Goethe’s entire organic worldview reached him, via certain detours that can easily be traced, through Jakob Böhme. And even though Jacobus Baldus lived in secluded Ingolstadt, he was precisely the kind of figure who did not influence many of his contemporaries, but who expressed in a characteristic way what was being thought and felt in the broadest circles of this dawning modern era.

[ 26 ] But let us consider the remarkable depth that lies in these things: Baconism, Shakespeareanism, Böhmeanism, and Balderism all stem from the same source of inspiration. What comes from Jakob Böhme is still discernible today at the root of Central European aspirations, but it is fading away. In contrast, Baconism—whether in its own form or in the form of the later Darwin—has exerted a significant influence in Central Europe, as has Shakespeare. Just consider that the entire second half of the 18th century—at least its later part—was strongly influenced by Shakespeare, and that in the 19th century, Central European intellectual life was also strongly influenced by Shakespeare; that Goethe was deeply impressed by him in his youth and only began to emancipate himself from Shakespeareanism in the 1880s.

[ 27 ] Everywhere one can trace the same path; everywhere the impulses are the same. But they take effect in different ways. In Central Europe, these impulses have the effect of seeping away; the Western impulses pour out over the non-human realm. They initially reduce religious life to a mere facade alongside scientific endeavor. And since this Western element has spread throughout modern civilization, we see how people have not yet managed to apply the spiritual forces—spiritual science, which in recent times must be recognized as arising from human nature, just as the scientific forces directed toward the non-human do—to the realm of religion. Christianity must be understood anew—because what has been left as untouched territory can never be further developed—it must be understood anew with new spiritual powers. The old spiritual powers are exhausted, and anyone who believes today that they can somehow comprehend Christianity using the old spiritual powers recognized in the West for religious purposes is living under the most terrible illusions. It must be said today that a new epoch for humanity must dawn, through which the Mystery of Golgotha itself must be understood anew with new spiritual powers. For everything that has been said about it has run its course, has reached its own absurdity; it can still be patched up here and there, treated here and there as a scientific “do-not-touch” subject, but humanity cannot continue to live with these things. Humanity needs the strength to draw forth from within itself the new spiritual powers that will now comprehend the Mystery of Golgotha in a new way.

[ 28 ] This is what the Western world has come to realize: that it is incumbent upon it to explore these new spiritual forces. For in the Western world, people have limited themselves to merely comprehending the non-human realm. This non-human realm can never be brought within reach of human beings. A new spiritual science will have to understand human beings, and only then will it open up new perspectives on the mystery of Golgotha. What pertains to the purely extra-human world can give rise to a mere utilitarian morality; but such a utilitarian morality will never lead human beings to their own dignity. Only a morality of which the human being knows it is instilled in him by supersensible forces working into his soul can lead him to this dignity. But these forces can never be grasped through what has been left of religious revelation in Western countries. A renewal is necessary here.

[ 29 ] The questions I have touched upon here seem to lie in realms far, far removed from everyday life, but they do not. These questions are the very ones that underlie today’s most important, world-shaping issues, and no one will be able to answer the great question—How do the East and West stand in relation to one another? How do Europe, Asia, and America stand in relation to one another?—without going back to these matters. For what we are experiencing today is, in the final analysis, the consequence of what has been taking place in the human soul over the centuries.

[ 30 ] It is merely human laziness of thought that makes us unwilling to go back to these things. That is why one can experience what I would like to call that terrible heartache that overwhelms one when, today, one hears people talking about the great misfortune of our time, about different configurations of contemporary political, economic, or other aspects of life, about the affairs of Asia, Europe, and America—yet they speak like the blind speaking of color, because they do not wish to delve into that which actually lies at the heart of these great questions as their inner pulse.