The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Twelfth Lecture

[ 1 ] What I attempted to show yesterday—namely, the various preparations made by different nations for that crucial juncture in human development that lies in the middle of the 19th century, and what then, so to speak, flows out from that point into our own time—can be illustrated by describing the connections between external phenomena and the inner course, the spiritual course, of development. Today we want to bring together some of the material here that can shed light on the actual, deeper history of the 19th century. For it is precisely in the middle of the 19th century that intellectual activity becomes, in its entirety, a function—a mode of activity—of the human physical body. While this intellectual activity had been, throughout the preceding period—from the 8th century B.C. to the 15th century A.D.—an activity of the etheric body, it has, since the beginning of the 15th century, increasingly become an activity of the physical body, reaching a climax precisely in the middle of the 19th century. As a result, human beings have indeed become more spiritual than they were before. The insights into the spiritual world that had arisen earlier—insights that had, admittedly, already begun to wane in more recent times—arose precisely from a more intense connection with the human physical body and etheric body. Now that human beings have simply been enabled to exercise something entirely non-physical—intellectual activity—with their physical bodies, they have in this respect become, in terms of their activity, entirely spiritual beings. But, as I said yesterday, they denied this spirituality. They applied what they grasped in the spiritual realm solely to the physical world. And for this stage in the development of modern civilization, the various nations were prepared in such different ways, as I attempted to characterize yesterday. It will have become clear to you from yesterday’s characterization just how fundamentally different the entire spiritual disposition of the Romance-Latin part of the European population actually is from that of the Anglo-Saxon part. There is, in fact, a radical difference with regard to inner spiritual disposition. This radical difference can best be characterized by applying the currents that have run through human development since ancient times—and which have been recognized since ancient times—to the contrast between France, Spain, Italy, and the inhabitants of the British Isles with all their American descendants. One can characterize this by saying: Everything that once existed in the primordial Persian era of the Ahura Mazdao cult, —humanity’s gaze toward the light, which then appeared to us in a weakened form in the Egyptian-Chaldean culture, even more weakened in the Greek culture, and which had become abstract in the Roman culture—this is preserved in what has remained in the Romanic part of the European population through the Middle Ages and into modern times. In a sense, the last remnant of Ormuzdism—Ormuzdism, Ahura Mazdaism—has remained there, while on the other hand, what was regarded in the ancient Persian worldview as the Ahrimanic current is dawning as a modern culture. Indeed, just as Ormuzd and Ahriman stand opposed to one another, so do these two cultures in modern times. And within the Ormuzd current, we find infused everything that comes from the Roman Church. The forms that Christianity has taken on—by cloaking itself in Roman-legal forms of government, by becoming the Papal Church in Rome—these forms are the last vestiges. We have pointed out many other things from which they have emerged. But despite all this, they are the final offshoots of the Ormuzd cult. One can still recognize these final offshoots of the Ormuzd cult in the Mass and in all that is found there, and one will only be able to look correctly at what underlies it if one attaches less importance to the trivial in comparison with the great currents of humanity and seeks the true value in terms of contemplation and insight into what lives as a thought-form and a feeling-form. Externally, in terms of material civilization, the impulses of the modern era found tumultuous expression in the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century. There, as I hinted to you yesterday, the appeal to the individual, conscious human being lives on in abstractions. Emerging from the world of ideas—one might say as a counter-movement to what lives on in Roman culture—this abstraction of liberty, equality, and fraternity arose. But one must distinguish between what, stemming from ancient spiritual currents, became embedded in the Romanic forms of feeling and thought, and what arose from humanity itself. We must always distinguish between what constitutes the essence of individual nationalities and what flows as a continuous current of universal humanity. We will see later today how, later in the 19th century, a light crystallizes precisely from Frenchness that points with all its energy to this characteristic point in the development of humanity in the 19th century. But the national character of the French, the Spanish, and the Italians embodies the continuation of the Ormuzdian tradition at a time when that tradition—naturally transformed by the Catholicism of Christianity—stands as a shadow of an ancient civilization. Thus we see how, despite all the striving for freedom, Roman culture has become—and has remained—the bearer of that which the Roman Church represents as world domination.

[ 2 ] One cannot truly understand the course of European development unless one realizes how Roman Catholicism continues to live on within this Roman tradition right up to the present day. In essence, even in the struggle against the institutional structure of the Church, the patterns of thought that are themselves derived from this Catholic way of thinking continue to exist. And so we must distinguish between that general current—which has taken on an abstract character and is the general current of human development running through the French Revolution—and the specific national current, the Romanic current, the Latin current, which is in fact entirely permeated by Roman Catholicism.

[ 3 ] Now, at the beginning of the 19th century, a magnificent phenomenon emerged from this current of Roman Catholicism—a phenomenon that, in all its significance for European development, is, in fact, given far too little attention. Most people, who go through life so oblivious to the phenomena of civilization, know nothing of what has actually been living deep within European civilization since the beginning of the 19th century and is rooted entirely in Roman Catholicism. It is all that which, I would say, is then summarized in the first third of the 19th century in the work of de Maistre. De Maistre is, in fact, the representative of a Catholicism carried by the waves of Romanism, yet one that aspires to lead all of Europe back into the bosom of this Roman Catholicism. And in de Maistre we find a figure of the greatest conceivable genius, of the most penetrating spirituality, yet thoroughly Roman Catholic.

[ 4 ] We want to take just a brief look at something that people with a Protestant mindset—or an Evangelical mindset—are completely unaware of, but which is nevertheless alive in a relatively large segment of the European population. It is generally not known that there is a spiritual current that is entirely foreign to what has otherwise emerged since the beginning of the 15th century, but which is well acquainted with the effects of this new spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean period.

[ 5 ] Let us briefly describe the worldview that prevailed in the minds of people in the first third of the 19th century, of which de Maistre was the brilliant representative. He has long since passed away; the spirit that animated him lives on in a relatively large number of people throughout Europe, and now, in our own time, is the era in which it is being revitalized, in which it is taking on new forms, and in which it seeks to assume ever larger and larger forms. Let us characterize in a few sentences the worldview that underlies this. It states: Humanity, as it has lived on Earth since the beginning of the 15th century, is on a downward slope. Since the beginning of the 15th century, only debauchery, godlessness, and spiritual emptiness have spread throughout European civilization; mere intellect, focused on the practical, has taken hold of humanity. But the truth—which is identical with the spirituality of the world—has been saying something else since time immemorial. It is just that modern man has forgotten this ancient, sacred truth. This ancient, sacred truth states: Human beings are fallen creatures; they have no choice but to appeal to their conscience and to the remorse in their souls so that they may rise above their condition and so that their souls do not succumb to materialism. But since the European population has embraced materialism since the mid-15th century, European civilization is disintegrating, and all of humanity is disintegrating.

[ 6 ] So says this worldview, whose foremost representative is de Maistre. All of humanity falls into two categories: those who represent the Kingdom of God and those who represent the Kingdom of the World. And the adherents of this worldview look upon the population of the earth and distinguish those whom they say belong to the Kingdom of God. These are the people who still believe in the ancient truths that, in essence, disappeared in their true form with the beginning of the 15th century, and which can still be recognized in their finest echoes in the teachings of Augustine, who also distinguishes between those people who are predestined for salvation and those who are predestined for damnation. When one encounters a person in this world—so say the followers of de Maistre—that person belongs either to the Kingdom of God or to the Kingdom of the World. These people are mixed only in appearance. In the eyes of the spirit world, they are strictly separated from one another, and one can distinguish them from one another. In ancient times, people who belonged to the kingdom of the world indulged in superstition—that is, they formed false images of the divine; since the beginning of the 15th century, they have clung to unbelief. — So say these people. What the majority of the European population has failed to realize—that a new era truly dawned with the beginning of the 15th century—the followers of de Maistre know well. They point to this moment; but they point to it as the moment when humanity forgot what the source—the true source—of divine truth is. De Maistre’s followers say this: Through the mere use of the shadow-like intellect, humanity has come into a situation in which the bond between it and the source of eternal truth has been severed, and since that time, Providence no longer owes humanity grace, but only justice, and this justice will appear on the Day of Judgment.

[ 7 ] When one speaks of such things, it is as if one were trying to tell people fairy tales; and yet, there are people in Europe who hold fast to this view—that with the beginning of the 15th century, divine world governance assumed an entirely different relationship to human beings on Earth—and who cling to this notion just as firmly as modern natural scientists cling to the law of gravity or something of that sort. Although the existence of this worldview is of fundamental importance, especially for the present day, people today do not want to look at such things. De Maistre sees the greatest departure from this ancient truth in the French Revolution. He does not view it, as we have, as the abstract fluttering of that which is meant to lead humanity to the soul of consciousness, but rather as the most profound descent into unbelief—the worst thing that could have befallen modern humanity. And for him, in particular, the French Revolution signifies precisely this: that it is now completely sealed that the divine world government has no obligation to bestow any grace upon humanity, but only justice, which will be manifested when the Day of Judgment comes. And it is already predetermined—so it is assumed in these circles—which people are destined to fall prey to the forces of destruction, and which people are already marked as the children of the Kingdom of God, destined to be saved because they still hold fast to what, as ancient wisdom, had its particular splendor in the 4th century A.D.

[ 8 ] Such an impulse is already evident in the work de Maistre wrote in 1796, while he was still in Piedmont: “Reflections on France.” Even then, he was holding up a list of sins to France—the France of the Revolution—and even then he was pointing to the underlying currents of Romanism, which still harbors within itself what has come down from ancient times. This, however, becomes particularly evident in de Maistre’s later writings, and these writings are, of course, connected to the entire mission in world history that de Maistre attributed to himself.

[ 9 ] He chose St. Petersburg as the setting for his work; his later writings also originated in St. Petersburg. De Maistre had the magnificent idea of building upon Russian culture—specifically, upon that which had survived from ancient times, having come from Asia, within the Orthodox-Catholic Russian religion—and from there he sought to forge a connection with Roman Catholicism. He sought to bring about a great fusion between what lives on in the Eastern way of thinking—extending all the way into Russian culture—and what emanates from Rome. Already inspired by this perspective is the treatise he wrote from St. Petersburg in 1810: “Essay on the Creative Source of Constitutional Systems.” And in this treatise, one can already see how de Maistre returns to what Christianity was, in terms of its metaphysical perspective, before the Scholastic period—what it was in the early centuries, but in a form that had been accepted by Rome. He wanted Roman Catholic Christianity to be a real power; yet, in a certain sense, he rejected what the Middle Ages had, in a way, introduced as an innovation by basing itself on Aristotle. In a certain sense, he wanted to sideline Aristotle; for him, Aristotle was already the precursor to what emerged in the 15th century as modern rationality. He sought to achieve a connection with spirituality through human faculties other than logical reasoning.

[ 10 ] But the work he wrote in the second decade of the 19th century is particularly strongly influenced by this view of life: “On the Pope,” a work one might say exudes classicism in its style of composition—a style that belongs, so to speak, to the golden age of French culture under Louis XIV—and which at the same time has an impact as powerful as any inspired work. The Pope is presented—and it is important that this be said from St. Petersburg—as the rightful prince of modern civilization. He is presented in such a way that one must distinguish between the temporal—that which individual popes have brought into the world that is perishable, that which is open to criticism in the various popes—and the eternal principle of the Roman papacy. And, in a sense, the Pope is presented as the incarnation of that which, as the Spirit of the Earth, is to reign upon this Earth. One might say: All the warmth that lives in this writing about the Pope is the radiance of Ormuzd, which sees Ahura Mazda himself incarnated in the Roman Pope and therefore demands that the Roman Catholic Church, in its fusion with all that has been lived from the East over to Russia—for that is, after all, in the background— will reign supreme and sweep away everything that intellectual culture has brought over since the beginning of the 15th century.

[ 11 ] In this regard, de Maistre was truly a genius. In 1816, he published a translation of Plutarch, through which he sought to demonstrate the power of Christianity, which, in his view, had nevertheless crept into the writings of Plutarch—who, after all, was still of a pagan mindset—as a form of thought. And then, as the last work to come from de Maistre—again originating in St. Petersburg—appeared Evening Hours in St. Petersburg, in two volumes, in which, first of all, everything I have already characterized stands out particularly strongly, but then the radical struggle of Roman Catholicism against that which appears in the British Isles as its adversary stands out even more distinctly.

[ 12 ] If, on the one hand, we see how Roman Catholicism crystallizes in all of this in a certain direction—if we look at what connects figures such as Ignatius of Loyola, Alfonso di Liguori, Francis Xavier, and so on—and connect that to de Maistre’s brilliant mind, and look at everything that is alive there—then we see there, I would say, the outdated, backward light of Ormuzd. And on the other hand, we see what de Maistre observes emerging in the British Isles—and what he now combats sharply and with the caustic acid of his penetrating intellect. It is one of the most magnificent intellectual battles that has ever taken place—this battle waged by de Maistre against the very essence of the Anglo-Saxon spirit. He takes particular aim at the philosophical figure of Locke and sees in Locke nothing less than the incarnation of the very spirit that is leading humanity into decline. Locke’s philosophy is combated with intellectual fervor bordering on excess. One need only consider the significance this philosophy has held. One must see in the background, on the one hand, the Romanic principles of initiation, which play out like a continuous service to Ormuzd; one must see all that has flowed into this side through an Ignatius of Loyola, through a Bossuet, and what then flowed in a magnificent way through de Maistre. On the other hand, one must see—in contrast to all that has its center in Roman Catholicism in Rome itself, yet is thoroughly based on initiation, and is, I might say, is the latest phase of the Ormuzd initiation—one must look at all the secret societies spreading down from Scotland and throughout England, and one expression of which is what constitutes English philosophy and politics and so on, as I have indeed described here on another occasion from a certain point of view. De Maistre is just as well informed about what asserts itself through an Ahrimanic principle of initiation as he is about what he wishes to assert as the Ormuzd initiation in its new form for European civilization. De Maistre knows how to assess all these things; he is witty enough to address them esoterically as well, by taking aim at the philosopher Locke, who is, in a sense, a child—an external, exoteric child—of this other, Ahrimanic initiation. In doing so, he takes aim at an important figure—the very figure who emerged with that epoch-making work An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which went on to exert a great influence on French thought. Locke was, after all, idolized by Voltaire and had such a great influence that Madame de Sévigné said of an Italian writer who adapted Locke’s works for an Italian audience that the writer would have loved to eat Locke’s platitudes in every bowl of meat broth.

[ 13 ] De Maistre then took a closer look at Locke and said: “It is impossible that, for example, Voltaire—or the other Frenchmen—could even have read this Locke!” — And in his Evening Conversations in St. Petersburg, he elaborates at length on how writers actually achieve world fame. He shows how it is entirely possible that Voltaire never read Locke at all; in fact, he could not have read him, for otherwise he would have been clever enough not to defend him as he does.

[ 14 ] Even though de Maistre sees Voltaire as nothing short of a devil, he does him justice by saying this about him. And to prove this, he devotes entire treatises to how people in the world write and speak about figures like Locke—who are regarded as great men—without actually caring about them in the first place and knowing them only secondhand from other sources. As if humanity had been imprisoned in error—that is the effect Locke had on these people—and the entire modern way of thinking, which, according to de Maistre’s view, led to the misfortune of the French Revolution, actually stems from Locke; that is to say, Locke is the exponent, the symptom—the historical symptom—of it. From the point where Locke began, this way of thinking has dominated the world. De Maistre scrutinizes Locke, saying that there have actually been few writers who possessed such an absolute lack of stylistic sensibility as Locke, and he demonstrates this in detail. He seeks to prove in detail that what Locke says is so trivial, so self-evident, that one really shouldn’t even have to take it into account, or that it is unnecessary to give it any thought at all. He says: Voltaire claims that Locke always defined things, defined everything clearly; but, says de Maistre, what are these definitions of Locke’s, really? — Nothing less than truths, “nonsensical tautologies,” if I were to use a modern term, and ridiculous. Locke’s entire body of writing is a farce without style, without genius, full of tautologies, full of platitudes.

[ 15 ] This is how de Maistre characterizes what has become most valuable to modern humanity: that modern humanity sees greatness in banality, in commonplace ideas, in the absence of genius, in a lack of style—in what can be found on the street—yet presents itself as philosophy.

[ 16 ] Yet de Maistre is truly a person who looks everywhere for the deeper spiritual principles, for the spiritual essence. It is actually very difficult to make such things, as they are presented here, comprehensible to people today; for the way in which a personality such as de Maistre thinks is actually quite foreign to people today, who are entirely accustomed to the shadowy intellect. De Maistre does not merely see the individual human being; de Maistre sees the spiritual essence that works through the individual human being. What Locke wrote can be characterized in de Maistre’s sense exactly as I have just explained to you. Only de Maistre expresses it with extraordinary wit and genius. But he also says: When I consider Locke as a person, he was, after all, a perfectly decent man; one can have nothing against him as a person. He is the corrupter of Western European humanity, but he is a decent person, and if he were born today and had to witness how people apply this triviality—which he himself came to know after his death—he would weep bitter tears over the fact that people have fallen for his banality and his shallowness in this way.

[ 17 ] De Maistre expresses all this with tremendous power and compelling force. He is driven by the impulse to strike down in this way what he sees as the true adversary of Roman Catholicism—which, in his view, thrives especially across the Channel. I would like to read to you verbatim a passage from the Petersburg Evening Conversations in which he speaks of what he considers to be Locke’s unfortunate influence on politics: “These terrible seeds,” he says, “might not have come to fruition under the ice of his style; but, brought to life in the hot mud of Paris, they have spawned the monster of the Revolution, which has devoured Europe.” And after saying such things against the spirit that emerged through Locke, he turns once more to Locke as a person. This is something so difficult to convey to people of our time, who constantly confuse the outer personality with the spiritual principle that expresses itself through the person and regard them as a single entity. De Maistre always distinguishes between what is revealed in true spirituality and what the outer person is. Once again, he turns to the outer personality and says: He was, in fact, a man who possessed all manner of virtues, but he possessed them in much the same way as, according to Swift, that master of dance who was so excellent in all the arts of dance and had only one flaw: that he limped. — So Locke possessed all the virtues. He regards him quite literally as an incarnation of the evil principle—that is not my phrase, but an expression used by de Maistre himself—which speaks through Locke and has reigned supernaturally since the beginning of the 15th century. One cannot help but feel a certain respect for the penetrating spirituality that lived within de Maistre. But one must also realize that there are indeed people today who are regaining power, who are in the process of reclaiming their influence over European civilization, and who are thoroughly inspired by that very spirituality which de Maistre portrayed at its highest level.

[ 18 ] This de Maistre still possessed something of those older, instinctive insights into the relationship between the world and humankind. This is particularly evident in the treatise he wrote on sacrifice and the cult of sacrifice. He harbored something akin to an awareness that whatever is linked to the physical body in relation to the conscious soul must assert itself independently within the human being and that it is embodied in the blood. And de Maistre essentially saw the divine in human development as having existed only up to the 4th century A.D. He refused to acknowledge the Christ who continues to work. Above all, he wanted to eradicate everything that had existed since the beginning of the 15th century; he wanted to return to ancient times, and there the conception of Christ that he held took on something of the old Yahweh-like character, indeed something of the nature of ancient pagan gods; in essence, he went all the way back to the Ormuzd cult. And from this perspective, he realized that the divine can actually be found only beyond the human conscious soul—and thus also beyond the blood. Drawing from such deep foundations of a worldview, de Maistre states that the gods—that is, the gods of whom he speaks—have a certain aversion to blood and must first be reconciled through blood, through the blood sacrifice. Blood must offer itself as a sacrifice.

[ 19 ] This, in turn, is something that today’s so-called “enlightened” people naturally laugh at when it is pointed out to them. But this is something that has also been passed down from de Maistre to his followers—who, after all, constitute a significant portion of humanity—and who are also intimately connected to everything that now emanates from Roman Catholicism. One must not forget that in de Maistre, in particular, we have before us the purest and most brilliant representative of that which has passed from Romanism into Frenchness—which has also found expression in Frenchness in a form that one might call brilliant, yet a folk-like brilliance. What lives on in French culture is precisely what has consistently ensured that, throughout the entire 19th century, clericalism played a significant role in everything that shaped French politics. In France, the abstract ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity were always in sharp conflict with what existed there as Roman Catholicism, and one must truly feel deeply what was alive in a man like Gambetta, from whom, at a decisive moment, a deep sigh escaped: “Le cléricalisme, voilà l’ennemi!” He sensed this clericalism, which pulsed through everything that constituted the art of social experimentation in the first half of the 19th century, which lived on in Napoleon III , which even the Commune had to contend with, but which persisted well into later times—it lived on in Boulangism in the 1880s, in the struggles surrounding the figure of Dreyfus, and it still lives on today. What lives there is precisely that which stands in an inner, spiritual, and fundamental opposition to everything that lies across the Channel—and which is, in essence, embodied in what remains of other traditions, in what has been preserved within the various Masonic orders and lodges. If, on the one hand, we have initiated Roman Catholicism, then on the other hand we have those secret-society currents that I have already characterized here from a different perspective, and which represent the Ahrimanic current. There is a vast difference between the way the modern question of the individual’s personal standing—let us say, through elections to the French Parliament—manifests itself, and the way it manifests itself over in England. In France, everything stems from a certain theory, from certain ideologies. Over in England, everything stems from the immediate practical conditions of commercial and industrial life, which, as I explained yesterday, comes into conflict with the old patriarchal conditions that have taken shape particularly in the lives of large landowners. Consider the way things play out in France. Everywhere, in fact, there are what are called spiritual struggles. People are fighting for liberty, equality, and fraternity; they are fighting for the separation of school and church; they are fighting to push back against the church. But they are unable to push it back because it lives in the depths of the soul. Yet it all takes place, I would say, within the realm of a certain dialectic, a certain debate.

[ 20 ] Over in England, this is playing out as a question of power. There is a certain internal current there that is particularly prevalent among the Anglo-American population. As the mid-19th century approached, certain people—as I have often described—said to themselves: There is no other way; people must be made aware that a spiritual world exists. Relying solely on the shadowy intellect is not enough. — But they could not bring themselves to convey this inclination toward the spiritual to the world in any other way than through what is “super-materialism,” namely, through spiritualism. And spiritualism—which, in turn, wields greater power than is commonly believed—takes its origin there. Spiritualism, which, in a sense, aims to grasp the spirit externally, just as one grasps matter—and which is, in fact, a form of “super-materialism”—is more materialistic than materialism itself. One might say that Locke lives on in this super-materialism. And what, in a sense, lives within the inner realm of modern cultural development expresses itself outwardly. It is, in fact, always the same phenomenon. We have a tendency toward that intellectual current which de Maistre so radically opposed in the 1840s across the Channel: everything is to be understood in terms of material entities. Just as Locke, in essence, pointed to the intellect in such a way that he stripped it of its spirituality—using precisely the most spiritual aspect of the human being to deny the spirituality within humanity, indeed, to direct people’s attention solely to materiality—so, in the nineteenth century, people pointed to the spirit and sought to demonstrate it through all manner of material manifestations. They sought to make the spirit comprehensible to humanity through materialism. But what lived within the initiates of the various brotherhoods found its way into external social and political life.

[ 21 ] And one might say: The cotton merchant Cobden and the Quaker Bright, by fighting for the abolition of grain tariffs in 1846 and actually achieving it, were in political life just as much the outward agents of this inner spiritual current as were the two most blind fools ever to have existed in politics: Asquith and Grey in 1914. Certainly, Cobden and Bright were not as blind as Asquith and Grey; but fundamentally, it is the same presentation to the world in outward appearances as the abolition of the corn laws in 1846, when industry triumphed over the old patriarchal system—only at a new stage; I listed the other stages that preceded it for you yesterday. And now we see, I might say, one stage following another. We see the workers organizing. We see how the Whigs then increasingly become the party of industry, while the Tories become the party of the landowners—that is, of the old patriarchal order. We see, however, how this can no longer withstand the fierce clash I described yesterday: the old patriarchal order with what, in the form of modern technology and modern industrialism, had burst in with a sudden jolt, so that centuries—indeed, millennia—were leaped over, and the mindset in which England had remained until well into the 19th century—a mindset dating back to pre-Christian times—simply merged with what had emerged in more recent times.

[ 22 ] We then see how the right to vote is extended more and more, how the Tories call upon a man who, quite certainly, would not have been counted among them just a short time ago: Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield, who was, after all, of Jewish descent—an outsider. We see how the House of Lords finally becomes nothing more than a shadow, and the year 1914 approaches, when a whole new England emerges. Only in later historical accounts will it be possible to properly assess the emergence of this new England.

[ 23 ] You see, this is how the great processes in the development of the 19th century unfold. There we see the individual moments flash into view, indicating just how significant a point in human development has actually been reached. But only the most enlightened minds, I would say, can discern which are the most significant flashes of insight. I have often drawn attention to a phenomenon that is of the utmost importance for understanding the development of the 19th century. I have drawn attention to the moment that took place at Goethe’s house in Weimar, where Eckermann, after hearing about the July Revolution in France, appeared before Goethe, and Goethe said to him: “Something monstrous has happened in Paris; everything is in flames!” Naturally, Eckermann believed Goethe was speaking of the July Revolution. That did not interest Goethe at all; rather, he said: “That is not what I mean; that is not what interests me. But at the Academy in Paris, a great dispute has broken out between Cuvier and Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire over whether the individual types of animals are distinct, or whether they should be regarded as merging into one another.” — Cuvier asserted the former, that we are dealing with fixed, rigid types that cannot merge into one another. — Geoffroy said that the type must be regarded as fluid, one merging into the other. For Goethe, this was the true world event of modern times!

[ 24 ] Indeed, that was exactly it. Goethe had thus felt with immense depth and immense vividness. For what was it, after all, that Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire argued against Cuvier? — He sensed that when a person looks within, they can enliven this shadowy intellect; that this shadowy intellect is not merely logic passively applying itself to the external world, but that it can find within itself something like the living truth about the things in this world. — Goethe intuitively sensed this assertion of the living intellect in what lived within Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire—something that, I would say, was emerging in the secret development of modern humanity and reached its peak in the mid-19th century. And Goethe truly sensed something of great significance back then.

[ 25 ] Cuvier, the highly learned great researcher, asserted that one must distinguish between individual species and place them side by side. One cannot transform one into the other—least of all, for example, the bird type into the mammal type, and so on. Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire claimed that one type could be transformed into another.

[ 26 ] What stood in opposition to one another? Ordinary truth and higher error? — Oh no, that is not the case. One can prove what Cuvier claimed just as well with ordinary abstract logic—with the “shadow mind”—as one can prove what Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire claimed. On the basis of ordinary reason, which still prevails in our science today, this question cannot be resolved. That is why it has repeatedly resurfaced, and that is why we see, as in Paris in 1830, Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire standing opposed to Cuvier; we see, in a different way, Weismann and the others standing opposed to Haeckel; these questions cannot be resolved by the methods of this external science. What has become a shadowy form of reason since the beginning of the 15th century—what de Maistre so despised—is driving us toward the abolition of spirituality itself.

[ 27 ] De Maistre pointed to Rome, even noting that the Pope—setting aside the temporary, transient papal figures—resides in Rome as the incarnation of that which is destined to dominate modern civilization. The final chapter in these de Maistrean reflections was written in 1870, when the dogma of infallibility was proclaimed, when the infallibility of the Pope was declared. Through the archaic cult of Ormuzd, that which ought to be sought in spiritual heights was brought down into the person of the Roman Pope. What should be regarded as spirituality has thus become materialized matter; the Church has been transformed into an external state, after having long since succeeded in adapting external states to the form it itself assumed when it became the state religion under Constantine.

[ 28 ] On the one hand, in Romanism, we have what becomes the modern state, as the principle of law itself rises up and, in a sense, gives rise to its own polarity in the French Revolution; on the other hand, we have the outdated service to Ormuzd. Then we have what emerges from economic life, for all the measures taken across the Channel stem from economic life. In de Maistre, we have the last great figure who sought to imprint spirituality upon the legal form of the state—to carry that spirituality down into earthly materiality. This is what an anthroposophically oriented view of the spirit must oppose. It seeks to introduce the supersensible spiritual realm; it seeks to counter what stands as the extended Ormuzd service—the Ahrimanic service—with that which brings balance; it seeks to make the Spirit itself the ruler of the earth.

[ 29 ] This cannot be done any other way than by, on the one hand, shaping the earthly realm into the form of constitutional law and, on the other hand, into the economic form, one must also establish spiritual life in such a way that this spiritual life does not involve belief in a God who has become earthly, but rather the governance through the Spirit itself—which flows in with every new human being who incarnates on Earth—the free spiritual life that seeks to grasp the Spirit who stands above the earthly realm.

[ 30 ] Once again, what might be called the outpouring of the Spirit is to be asserted.

[ 31 ] In the year 869, at the General Ecumenical Council, the concept of the Spirit was suppressed so that people would not, by the beginning of the 15th century, come to recognize the Spirit who governs the earth from heaven, thereby making de Maistre possible even in the 19th century.

[ 32 ] But this is precisely the point: we must turn from the Spirit believed to be embodied on earth, from the Christian presence that lives on in an earthly church, to the spiritual essence that is indeed connected to the earth but must be recognized and perceived in the Spirit. However, since everything that must be attained by human beings within the earthly realm must be achieved within the social order, this can only happen if one recognizes solely the free right of the spirit—which descends with every new human life to acquire a physical body, which can never become sovereign within an earthly personality, and which lives in a super-earthly being.

[ 33 ] The establishment of the dogma of infallibility represents a departure from spirituality; the final culmination of what was intended by the General Ecumenical Council of 869 had been accomplished. We must return to the recognition, the faith, and the knowledge of the Spirit. But this can only happen if our social order is permeated by a structure that makes it possible for a free spiritual life to exist alongside those other things that are earthbound, such as political life and economic life.

[ 34 ] This is how what human beings must understand today fits into the course of civilization. This is how one must feel it within that context. And if one does not feel it in this way, then one cannot get to the heart of what the “Threefold Social Order” actually seeks to express—what seeks to work for the healing of civilization, which otherwise must fall into decline in the manner described by Spengler.