The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday I tried to point out how the longing that can permeate young people today must, in a certain sense, have something Janus-like about it. At first glance, this longing appears to be imbued with an enthusiasm that stems from opposition. But as strongly as this feeling is present among young people at the beginning of the twentieth century, we can already say today: Anyone who has a sense of this particular longing will find that this contrast is no longer fully present today. This may not yet be admitted impartially by many, especially by young people themselves. But I do think that this points to something very significant.

[ 2 ] The generation that, at the beginning of the twentieth century, stood before the course of world history in such a way that it experienced this “standing before nothingness”—as it was characterized here—as a profound human feeling, was indeed something entirely new in the development of humanity. Today, however, the situation has changed once again, and this feeling must reckon with many disappointments that have been brought about by its own underlying causes.

[ 3 ] The full, fluttering sails that could be seen about twenty years ago are no longer visible today. And it is not only the terrible event of the so-called World War that has caused these sails to droop somewhat. It is certainly the case that certain experiences have arisen from within the youth themselves, experiences that have significantly altered their original sensibilities. One thing became strikingly clear at the beginning of the twentieth century in the sentiments that met those who had grown older in years but were not old at heart: It was not expressed in explicit words, but in many things—in the wording, I might say suggestively—there was something among the youth that I would like to call a kind of countervailing weariness.

[ 4 ] I am presenting you with a term that aims to precisely describe something that is difficult to describe precisely. It is also difficult to describe precisely because what I actually mean may only be fully understandable to those who experienced the youth movement with a certain degree of awareness, while a large part of humanity experienced this youth movement not with awareness, but essentially in a state of slumber. For many people today, when one speaks—as I have spoken in the preceding days—one is actually talking about something that is quite distant from them, something they essentially slept right through and toward which they still behave with extraordinary lethargy even today.

[ 5 ] A kind of opposite fatigue, I said. In everyday life, it is indeed the case that not only is being active part of our physical existence, but also that feeling tired after work is something that is simply a necessary part of life. Not only must we be able to become tired, but we must also be able to actually carry that fatigue within us from time to time. It is certainly not healthy if we have spent the day in such a way that we fall asleep in the evening simply because it is a habit to go to bed at night. This is certainly less healthy than when we have the proper degree of fatigue in the evening and this fatigue, I would say, drives us into sleep in a normal way. Thus, the ability to become fatigued in the face of the phenomena we encounter in life is also something that must exist.

[ 6 ] I have often heard—for example, when people were talking about pedagogy—that we need a pedagogy that turns learning into a game for children, and that children should have nothing but joy at school. Those who speak this way should just try, for once, to figure out how to ensure that children experience nothing but joy at school, can laugh constantly, that learning is a game for them, and yet they still learn something. For it is precisely this pedagogical approach that is the very best way to ensure that nothing is learned.

[ 7 ] The right approach is for an educator to be able to handle even those things that do not bring the child joy—and that may, at that very moment, cause great effort and pain—in such a way that the child accepts them as a matter of course. It is very easy to say what one should teach a child. But simply learning through play can ruin a child’s entire childhood. For it is necessary that a person also become mentally fatigued by certain things—that is, that they require effort. One must put it this way, even if it sounds pedantic. Fatigue was also present for young people in those times when they had to strive upward toward a certain knowledge, toward a certain insight, as if toward something living—in those times when those who already knew something still stood before the young people who wanted to learn as a kind of embodied ideal. Fatigue was present there as well.

[ 8 ] I do not know, my dear friends, whether there are not some among you who view the statement I just made with a touch of skepticism. In any case, there are many people today who would view this statement with some skepticism. For when it is claimed that there were once those who knew something—who stood before those who wanted to learn as a kind of embodied ideal—this idea will seem unachievable to many. After all, it is almost inconceivable today that one would look up to someone as a kind of embodied insight, embodied knowledge, whom one strives toward as a personal ideal. And yet, quite apart from ancient times, this feeling was still very much present even in the late Middle Ages. We have largely lost those wonderful, inspiring feelings of reverence—which even in the late Middle Ages were still present—that infused life with genuine spiritual regenerative forces. Because the drive that once inspired people toward scholarship was no longer there, young people could, in a sense, no longer even truly tire of their studies. To put it more concretely, I would have to say: Scholarship had become something that no longer lived in people’s minds but was instead confined to libraries. Science had gradually become something that people no longer really wanted. That is why they no longer grew weary of it. Because they did not feel driven by any urge toward it, they no longer grew weary of it. They lacked the opportunity to grow weary in the pursuit of knowledge.

[ 9 ] This gave what was sweeping through the youth of the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century a very special character: the character of the vitality of a person who goes to bed at night, is not tired, and therefore tosses and turns without knowing why. Not that I mean to say anything derogatory with these words, for I do not at all believe that these forces—which are present in the evening in a person who tosses and turns in bed because they have not grown tired—are unhealthy. They are perfectly healthy life forces; they simply do not fit into the situation—and so it was, in a certain sense, with the forces that dominated youth at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They were quite healthy forces, but forces for which there was nothing in the world to give them direction. Young people no longer felt the urge to expend these forces on the things the older generation spoke of. But forces cannot exist in the world without being active, and so during that period one could see a vast amount of energy yearning for activity yet finding no guiding principle, and these forces manifested themselves, for example, among the student body.

[ 10 ] Ever since the first third of the fifteenth century, every intellectual pursuit has taken on a very specific character: human beings are expected to devote themselves to something that is called “science,” but which actually has little impact on them and concerns them very little. Today, it is no longer possible to appreciate the sense of humanity that still pervades, for example, a text from the twelfth or thirteenth century. This is not, of course, to say that one must return to believing what is written in the texts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. We certainly do not wish to comply with the demands of certain churches in this regard.

[ 11 ] However, it is simply not possible to delve into what, for example, Albertus Magnus wrote in his time with the same degree of indifference with which one might familiarize oneself today with the content of a biology textbook or some other work. You simply cannot come to know it that way. You have to actually pick up the book and sit facing it as if you were sitting across from another person—not accepting what they say with indifference—as people say, “objectively”—but rather engaging your inner self, your soul, which ebbs and flows because it is stirred and in motion. One’s inner life is drawn in, even when reading the driest chapter of that era—by Albertus Magnus, for example. Quite apart from the fact that even the seemingly most abstract concepts are treated with the power of vivid imagery, and that while reading—even when the most general ideas are being discussed—one actually feels such a sense of liveliness as if one were—spiritually, I mean—working with a shovel and a spade. Quite apart from this beautiful human liveliness into which one is drawn, the vivid imagery ensures that the reader remains fully engaged and confident in their understanding of the subject matter being discussed.

[ 12 ] It was certainly not a matter of indifference to such people whether, in their search, they found anything that they believed might please God or that would surely displease Him. And once one considers the difference between the image presented by Albertus Magnus—the great thinker of the Middle Ages—and that of a prominent figure among the intellectuals who paved the way for the nineteenth century, such as Herbart—I could just as easily name another— but Herbart exerted a major influence on pedagogy well into the last third of the nineteenth century—Albertus Magnus appears to him everywhere as a sort of fiery, radiant cloud. When Albertus Magnus devotes himself to knowledge, it is as if something within him were lighting up or glowing. One senses him as if in a fiery, radiant cloud, and if one has the ability to put oneself in the place of such a soul, one gradually enters into this fire oneself. Even if it seems antiquated to the modern soul, one senses in Albertus Magnus that it is not a matter of indifference when one delves into moral matters—whether by writing them down, speaking them aloud, or even just thinking them through—whether one thereby becomes sympathetic or antipathetic to a divine-spiritual being. This sense of whether one is becoming sympathetic or antipathetic is always at play.

[ 13 ] If, on the other hand, one delves deeply into the way in which Herbart treats the five moral ideas—inner freedom, perfection, benevolence, justice, and retribution—in an objective, scientific manner: indeed, then it is not a cloud that envelops one as if with warmth and cold, but rather something that gradually causes one to freeze, something that objectively becomes frosty. And that is precisely the mood that has crept into the entire realm of knowledge and reached its culmination at the end of the nineteenth century.

[ 14 ] Thus, one gradually devoted oneself to all forms of knowledge in a way that was also strongly evident on the outside. One experienced those who were presented to one as scholars, so to speak, only from the lectern. I don’t know whether others who have grown as old as I have have experienced something similar to what I have. In the 1890s, I repeatedly found myself in a state of terrible frustration. I had found my way into various scholarly circles. Time and again, I felt the need to take pleasure in such scholarly gatherings, and it seemed natural to me to speak there about this or that question. I looked forward, for example, to speaking once again about the difference between epigenesis and evolution. But as soon as one started on such a topic, people would very quickly say: “No, this technical jargon won’t do.”—One simply wasn’t allowed to say anything that had earned the reputation of being “technical jargon” at the time. One only saw the scholar on the lectern, and when he stepped down from it, he was no longer the same person—he was someone else. He would then adopt a manner of speaking in which he discussed all sorts of things, just not his own field of expertise. In short, scholarly activity became so objective that those who had a specialty treated their field very objectively and, above all, wanted to appeal to people when they did not need to address their specialty. One can associate other feelings with this as well. What I just said was merely for clarification, but I want to point to the actual core of the matter in another way.

[ 15 ] The teacher can convey what he has more or less learned to young people one way or another. For example, one often sees someone who wants to teach young people standing in front of their class with a notebook or even a printed book that isn’t their own—perhaps the notebook sometimes contains things that aren’t their own, though I don’t want to assume that—and valiantly teaching from that book. In doing so, one really assumes that there is no supernatural world.

[ 16 ] But how does one come to say that if someone goes to class with a notebook or a book in hand, they are thereby assuming that there is no supernatural world? Here, too, Nietzsche had a very interesting flash of insight, as he did on many other occasions. He pointed out that within every human being there is another person. People tend to dismiss this as a poetic expression, but it is not. Within every human being there is another person! This other person is often much wiser than the one who appears on the surface. In a child, for example, this other person is infinitely wiser. It is a supernatural reality. He is within the person; and when you sit in front of a class—say, thirty students—and teach with the help of a book or workbook, you may be able to train those thirty students to view this as something natural through their outward selves; but all thirty hidden people sitting there before you—of that you can be absolutely certain—judge it differently. The hidden selves say: He wants to teach me something that he himself has to read off at this very moment. I’d like to know why I should know what he’s just reading off right now. There’s really no reason for me to know what he’s just reading off. He doesn’t know it himself; otherwise, he wouldn’t be standing there with the book like that. I’m still so young, and yet I’m supposed to know what he—who is so much older—doesn’t even know himself and has to read aloud to me!

[ 17 ] That is how one must view things concretely. To speak of a supersensible world does not mean indulging in fanciful mysticism and talking about things that are—I say this in quotation marks—“hidden” from us; rather, to speak of supersensible worlds means precisely to speak of the true realities in relation to life. One is already speaking of the true realities when one speaks as the thirty invisible ones spoke to the teacher of the thirty visible ones. Perhaps they are merely reluctant, out of obedience, to say it aloud. If one goes into one’s little room and thinks about the matter, it doesn’t seem so foolish at all; one can only regard the statements of these thirty invisible, supersensible beings as something entirely reasonable.

[ 18 ] One must therefore be aware that within the youthful individuality sitting before someone who is to teach or educate, there are many things taking place that are quite hidden from outward observation. And so arose that deep aversion to anything that approached one in this manner. For, naturally, one could not have much trust in a person who approached another human being from within a scientific enterprise that had become so objective—as had gradually become customary at the end of the nineteenth century. Thus, one felt a deep antipathy within oneself; one no longer engaged with what was meant to carry one through life as a human being, and therefore could no longer grow weary of it. One no longer wanted what one might have grown weary of. And so one no longer knew what to do with the energies that might have led to weariness.

[ 19 ] People like those who were part of the youth movement at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century could also be found in other settings. Only there, they were sometimes not physically young, but often very old. They could still be found in movements such as the Theosophical Society. There were numerous people in it who were no longer young, and yet who, in contrast to what contemporary knowledge offered them, had a similar sensibility to that of the youth. They did not want to accept contemporary knowledge because they could no longer grow weary of it. While the young, out of this inability to grow weary—forgive the expression—ran wild, many Theosophists sought in their Theosophy a sleeping potion, a kind of opium. For what is written in Theosophical books is, for the most part, a spiritual sleeping potion. They truly lulled themselves to sleep. They occupied the mind; but consider how they often did so: by inventing the wildest allegories! For a sensitive human soul, it was enough to drive one out of one’s skin to hear all the explanations people came up with for ancient myths and legends, all the allegories and symbols that were devised! From a psychological and biological perspective, these were all sedatives. Actually, it would be quite good to draw a parallel between the way one tosses and turns after spending a tireless day and the way one numbs the mind’s actual vitality with a sleep aid.

[ 20 ] What I must describe to you here are not theories. They are the moods of the age, and one must truly immerse oneself in these moods by examining things from a wide variety of perspectives. This inability to tire was extraordinarily significant at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Yes, but this led to the fact that nothing truly satisfactory could be found, for human development had just reached that point where one could repeat with great enthusiasm: We will not let anything external come near us; we will develop everything from within ourselves; we will wander through the world and wait until what emerges from within us is something that neither parents nor teachers—nor even the old “traditions”—can provide; we will wait until the new comes to us. — My dear friends, ask many of those who spoke this way whether the new has come to them, whether the doves of humanity’s great redemption have truly flown into the mouths of those who developed this deep longing, ready-made. One might even say that, in many respects, the intoxication that was so exhilarating at the time is now beginning to be followed by something like a minor—and for some, perhaps already a major—hangover. But I only wish to characterize, not to criticize. The first thing that arose was a great rejection of what was there—what one could not do without for one’s innermost human being. And behind this great rejection lay the positive: the genuine longing for the new.

[ 21 ] This genuine longing for something new can only be fulfilled by allowing oneself, as a human being, to be permeated by something that is not of this earth. If one simply lets the soul and the body function as they wish, what can truly satisfy a person will certainly not emerge, A person who refuses to take anything in is like a lung that cannot find air to breathe. Certainly, a lung that cannot find air to breathe may, before it dies—even if only for a moment—experience the utmost thirst for air. But it cannot quench this thirst on its own; rather, it must allow the air to reach it. In truth, precisely the person who, as a young person, honestly feels the thirst we have been speaking of these past few days cannot help but long for something that unites with them—something that does not merely come from within them, like the science that has grown old and is no longer healthy breathing air for the soul.

[ 22 ] This was initially sensed. But there was far too little awareness that a new, young science must exist—a new spiritual life capable of reuniting with the soul. You see, in many respects, what belongs to the present and future ages must build upon earlier manifestations of human development. The difference lies in the fact that those older manifestations of human development arose from a soul life that lived in images and was dreamlike, whereas the soul life we carry within us—and toward which we are still striving—must become fully conscious. Yet in many respects, we must return once more to older spiritual contents.

[ 23 ] I would like to direct your spiritual gaze toward a state of mind that was native to the ancient Orient, to ancient Brahmanism. In the Brahmanic schools, one spoke of the four means by which a person acquires knowledge on the path of life. It is difficult to convey these ancient ideas exactly in the form required, since that way of knowing lies not merely centuries but millennia behind us. But in order to approximate the matter, I will nevertheless describe these four means of knowledge.

[ 24 ] The first is something that hovers somewhere in the middle between tradition and memory, something connected to the Sanskrit root s-mr-ti, and something that exists in the present only as an idea. But it can be characterized: Everyone knows what memory—personal memory—is. As firmly as we associate certain concepts with personal memory, the people I have in mind here did not do so with regard to that idea. Rather, what they remembered from their own childhood and what their father and grandfather had told them merged into a single unity. No distinction was made between what people remembered themselves and what had been handed down to them. If you had a more refined understanding of psychology, you would notice that these things still merge in the child’s soul today, because the child absorbs so much that is based on tradition. People today see only that they acquired this as children. The ancient Indian focused more on the content, and this led him not back to his own childhood, but upward to his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Thus, tradition and personal memory were something that flowed together inseparably. That was the first means of knowledge.

[ 25 ] The second means of cognition could be described today as “being presented,” but not in the sense of introducing a person by name, as is customary in conventional social interaction, but literally as “appearing before one’s eyes”; it was what we today call perception.

[ 26 ] We would call the third means of cognition “summary thinking.”

[ 27 ] So we could also say: memory combined with tradition, observation, and abstract thinking.

[ 28 ] Ancient Brahmanism also clearly teaches a fourth means of knowledge, which can be characterized as follows: receiving information from other people.

[ 29 ] Please note that in ancient Brahmanism, tradition was not conflated with this “something communicated by other people.” This “something communicated by other people” was a fourth means of knowledge. Perhaps the matter will become clearer to us if we focus specifically on what is both “tradition” and, at the same time, based on memory. With what is called “tradition,” one was not conscious of the manner in which it had come to one, but only of its content. With the fourth means of knowledge, however, the manner in which it was received was what mattered. With regard to what one had in one’s memory, one kept in mind that it had been communicated by another. The fact of having received something from others is part of what was stimulating in the act of cognition itself.

[ 30 ] I believe that many people today—true sons of the nineteenth century—would react with a slight or perhaps strong shake of the head if one were to include “communication from other people” among the means of knowledge. A philosopher who experimented with synthetic thinking and would also regard communications from other people as a means of knowledge would not even get his dissertation approved, let alone be accepted as a private lecturer. At most, he might get by in the theology department, because there it is recognized in a different form. What lies at the root of this? It lies in the fact that in the old days, people still understood the experience that consists of another person, in mutual interaction, kindling something within one’s inner being. People considered the fact that others tell you what you yourself do not yet know to be among the things one needed in order to live. They considered it so essential that they equated it with perception through the eyes or the ears.

[ 31 ] Today, of course, one is much more likely to have this entirely different feeling: It’s all well and good, and the way the world works is such that one person tells another what the other does not know. — But that has nothing to do with the essence of the matter. It has to do with the essence of the matter when one observes and experiments, and when what results from this is expressed in clear words. The other has nothing to do with the essence of knowledge. That is the natural feeling in today’s world, but from a human standpoint, it is not correct. From a human standpoint, it is simply part of life that, particularly in the spiritual-soul realm, one can be inwardly permeated by what I described yesterday as the vehicle of social life: trust. In this specific realm, it consists in the fact that what another person tells you becomes a source of your own spiritual-soul experience.

[ 32 ] What I described yesterday as trust must, above all, be cultivated among young people. It is through trust that we must discover what young people are yearning for. Our entire modern intellectual development has moved in the opposite direction. Even in theoretical pedagogy, no value was placed on the idea that one person might have something to say that another does not yet know and therefore wishes to communicate to them. Theoretical pedagogy itself was conceived in such a way that young people were, as far as possible, presented only with what was self-evident to them. But these could not be very comprehensive proofs. Consequently, in terms of the ability to provide proof, we remained at a very infantile stage. Pedagogy reasoned, as it were: How can I still convey something to the children, even on the assumption that they don’t believe a word I say? How can I introduce a method based on vivid, demonstrative evidence? — No wonder the corresponding reaction followed, and educators were now being asked to prove everything: “Yes, well, prove that to me!” — And now I’m actually going to say something that might sound old-fashioned to you, my dear friends. But I don’t perceive it as old-fashioned at all; rather, I see it as quite young, and even as part of the youth movement.

[ 33 ] When one seeks to educate today and stands before a group of young people, even before one has truly connected with them, the words echo from their young souls: “Prove it to me! You have no right to expect us to believe you.” — I find it tragic that young people suffer from this—and I do not mean this as a criticism—that they have been raised by their elders in such a way that they no longer have the capacity to receive what is, after all, necessary for life. That is why an immense question arises before us today, one that will occupy us in the coming days. I would like to characterize this question in somewhat radical terms.

[ 34 ] Let’s imagine for a moment that the youth movement continues and draws in younger and younger people, eventually reaching even infants. We would then have the infant youth movement, and just as the later youth movement rejects whatever knowledge can be imparted to it, so too will the infants—who should still be receiving their mother’s breast—say: We reject it; we rebel against the idea that we should receive anything from outside ourselves. We no longer want our mother’s breast; instead, we want to draw everything from within ourselves.

[ 35 ] What I have presented to you here as an image is a burning question for the youth movement. For in truth, young people are asking: Where are we to obtain spiritual nourishment? — And the way they have asked this question so far has been just as I depicted it in my image of the infant. And so, in the coming days, let us address the question of the sources of life toward which Faust strives. The question I have presented to you in the form of an image should prompt us to contribute something toward a solution—but a solution that can mean something to you in terms of your sensibilities, your feelings, and perhaps even your entire life.