The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Ninth Lecture

[ 1 ] From the remarks I made yesterday regarding the transformation of the human soul in the course of historical development, you will be able to see that people today relate to one another differently than they did before the year 333, which we discussed yesterday.

[ 2 ] I assume you are familiar with the structure of the entire human being, as revealed by anthroposophical knowledge. You know that within the human soul a distinction must be made between what was, up until the fifteenth century, particularly active and dynamic in human nature—the so-called intellectual or emotional soul—and the consciousness soul, which since that time has been active above all in those people who are developing toward what humanity has attained in terms of cultural achievements.

[ 3 ] When I refer to a certain activity of the human soul as that of the rational or emotional soul, this is not to say that reason as such—as we understand it today—is specifically a characteristic feature of the rational or emotional soul. We must see this rational or emotional soul as having developed particularly among the Greeks, and what is meant there by “reason” is by no means what is understood today as “intellectualism.” You will be able to understand exactly what is meant by this from yesterday’s explanations.

[ 4 ] For the Greeks, their concepts and ideas were something bestowed by the spirit. Therefore, the intellect did not have that cold, lifeless, dry quality that it has for us today, when it is merely something we have worked out. Intellectualism only emerged with the specific development of the conscious soul. You can only truly grasp the concept of the intellectual or emotional soul if you fully immerse yourself in the mindset of a Greek. Then you will already discern the difference between the relationship to the world that the Greeks had and our relationship to the world today. But some of what is at stake here should become a bit clearer to us precisely through today’s presentation.

[ 5 ] I wanted to say these introductory words simply so that we can agree that, in the centuries preceding modern times, that is, in the centuries preceding the fifteenth, people related to one another in such a way that one spoke to the other from the soul of feeling or the soul of understanding, just as one received what the other gave as coming from the soul of feeling or the soul of understanding. Today we are faced with the conscious soul. But this has only become truly tangible to the growing human being around the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, due to all the circumstances I have already described. As a result, however, the questions of life have actually presented themselves to humanity in an entirely new way. And certain questions of life must be viewed in a new way today; otherwise, the bridge connecting one conscious soul to another—which, for people today, means the bridge between human being and human being—cannot be found. And this is precisely what ails us in our age: that we cannot find this bridge between human being and human being.

[ 6 ] We must now truly frame certain questions in a new way—in such a way that the very phrasing might initially seem grotesque to us. But it is not meant to be that grotesque. Let’s suppose a three-year-old child decided not to wait until age seven for their permanent teeth, but instead said: “It’s too boring for me to wait another four years until I get my permanent teeth; I want them right now.”—I could give you other examples that might seem even more absurd to you, but this one will suffice. Well, that simply isn’t possible, because natural development proceeds under certain conditions. One such condition of natural development—which very few people today even suspect—is that one can only truly begin to understand the interconnections of life, certain things that a person must already know, from a certain point in one’s life onward; yet these are not limited to the most obvious facts about external things. Of course, even at the age of nine, one can know that a person has ten fingers and the like. But something that actually requires a judgment to be reached through active thinking cannot be known at all until a point in life that lies roughly between the ages of eighteen and nineteen. Just as one cannot get one’s permanent teeth before the age of seven, one cannot truly know anything before the age of eighteen about such contexts of life that extend beyond one’s own immediate experience—especially about things that require an active judgment. Before that, one may have heard something or believed something on authority, but one cannot know anything about it. One cannot, before the age of eighteen, develop that inner activity of the soul which is necessary to be able to say: “I know something about this or that which lies beyond the realm of what can be perceived by the eyes or ears.”—People do not speak much about such things today; yet they are of the utmost vital importance. If a cultured world is to take shape at all, then it is precisely a matter of speaking about such things once again, so that they can once again be dealt with appropriately.

[ 7 ] What, then, follows from the fact that one cannot know anything of this sort at all before the age of eighteen? It follows that, before the age of eighteen, a person is just as dependent on others who are over eighteen or nineteen as an infant is on its mother’s breast—it is no different at all. But this has an extraordinarily significant implication for the relationship between educators, teachers, and young people. If this is not taken into account, this interaction is simply flawed. Today, people are not even aware that this is the case, and therefore often act entirely incorrectly, particularly in the field of education. But it was not always this way. If we go back to those ancient times, prior to the first third of the fifteenth century, something like today’s youth movement could not have existed. A youth movement in its present form would not have been considered legitimate back then; it simply could not have existed. And if one wants to answer the question of why it could not have existed, one must look to the particularly significant relationships that existed, for example, among people preparing for life in monastic schools. We can also consider the circumstances among young people who were being trained for a trade. We would not find much difference, but rather exactly the same situation. Back then, in the earliest times, it was understood very clearly that no one could be educated in knowledge before the age of eighteen. It would have seemed simply absurd to people if someone had claimed that a person could be educated in knowledge before the age of eighteen. Among older people, especially if they were educators or teachers, it was well understood back then: one cannot guide young people toward knowledge. One must earn the opportunity to guide young people toward belief in what one oneself, based on one’s own knowledge, holds to be true. And guiding young people toward belief was something sacred.

[ 8 ] Today, all these relationships have become completely muddled, because what in earlier times was expected only of young people—faith—is now expected of adults with regard to the supernatural. Back then, the concept of faith was essentially reserved for young people; yet it was regarded as something sacred. One would have accused oneself of neglecting one’s most sacred human duty if, as a teacher or educator, one had not succeeded in inspiring young people to believe in one—and thus to embrace the truth—out of the freshness and persuasive power of human nature. This emotional nuance was present in all education and in all instruction. Other aspects of the education and instruction of that time may seem unappealing to us today because they were compartmentalized into all sorts of classes and distinctions. But if we set that aside, education back then was structured in such a way that young people could believe in their educators.

[ 9 ] But this was linked to something else: the teachers were aware that they first had to earn the right for young people to believe in them. I will explain this to you by describing the situation of young people in the monastic schools, which were, after all, the only educational institutions in the period preceding the fifteenth century. One first had to earn the right to be taken seriously by the young people, for that was the prerequisite for them to believe in one. One did not assume that the young people had to believe in one simply because one was an adult or because some authority had issued a diploma or appointed one to a position. Certainly, even back then, diplomas and such things played a certain external role. However, one did not earn the right to be taken seriously by young people simply by imparting knowledge to them. Today, it is difficult for us to make sense of the statement: “One does not wish to impart knowledge to young people.” But back then, it was almost a matter of course that one first allowed young people to observe and sense that one was capable of something before imparting knowledge to them. It was only after they reached a certain age that young people were told what one knew. First, one showed them what one could do, and so the content of instruction initially consisted of the triad of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric. These were not sciences. Grammar only later became the monstrous pseudoscience it has become over time. In those ancient times, grammar was not what it is today; rather, it was the art of connecting and separating thoughts and words, and so on. Grammar instruction was, in a certain sense, an artistic form of instruction, and this was all the more true of the arts of dialectic and rhetoric. Everything was designed to approach young people in such a way that they would feel: One is capable of something; one can speak and think and let beauty reign in speech. — Grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric: these were lessons in skill—and indeed in a skill that was closely linked to the human vitality of the teacher and educator. When we speak today of visual instruction, we detach it entirely from the personality of the teacher and educator. We gather all sorts of devices—right down to those hideous calculators—in an effort to make instruction as impersonal as possible. We strive to detach it from the personal. But this is impossible, for this endeavor only leads to the worst aspects of educators coming to the fore, and—when all manner of “objectivity” is dragged in—prevents them from unfolding the beautiful aspects of their nature at all.

[ 10 ] Educators and teachers were thus required to first help young people experience what they—in the highest sense—are “capable of” as human beings: how they master language, how they master their thoughts, and even how the beauty of their language expresses itself. Only by allowing young people to observe for a time what one is capable of in this way did one earn the right to gradually introduce them to what one can know: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music, as it was understood at the time as a harmonious and melodic permeation of the entire order of the world. By starting with grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric, one was able to infuse arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music with as much artistry as is possible when one begins with the artistic.

[ 11 ] You see, all of that has now vanished, evaporated with the first emergence of intellectualism. We have, after all, only very sparse remnants left of the old artistic tradition of this kind. As is well known, at certain universities doctoral degrees are awarded in such a way that the graduate in question is conferred the title “Doctor of Philosophy and the Seven Liberal Arts.” But you know roughly what these seven liberal arts are all about. Historically, it is worth recalling that the famous Curtius, who taught in Berlin and was an extraordinary figure, held a degree entirely unrelated to his field. You might think he had the venia legendi in art history? But that was not the case. He held a teaching position in Eloquentia—rhetoric! But in his day, it would already have been antiquated to assert the relevance of this subject in any way. He was a professor of eloquence, and in order to be able to do anything at all, he taught art history—and did so excellently. Even back then, when Curtius was teaching, it would have seemed strange if eloquence had been a subject of instruction. But eloquence—rhetoric—had once been a fundamental subject for young people, and through it, something thoroughly artistic found its way into education. Yet this incorporation of the artistic into education was still entirely framed within the perspective of the old human order, where the intellectual or emotional soul stood in opposition to the intellectual or emotional soul. Today, we are not yet in a position to ask the question from this new perspective: What must these things be like when, in the human order, the soul of consciousness stands opposite the soul of consciousness? — As soon as pedagogy in the broader sense comes into consideration, this very question arises of its own accord. It has long been posed—it has been posed for decades—but people have not yet mustered the active thinking required to formulate it and grasp it clearly. And where does the answer to this question lie?

[ 12 ] One answer to this question lies in our coming to realize—for in these matters it is the development of the will that matters, not a theoretical solution—that when the child enters earthly existence from the pre-earthly realm, it initially brings with it the power of imitation, so that the child is an imitator until the teeth change. It is through this power of imitation that language is learned. It is, I might say, instilled in the child just as its blood circulation is instilled in it when it enters earthly existence. But we cannot simply introduce the child to an increasingly conscious education by imparting knowledge in the form of so-called truth from the conscious soul. The earlier era, which I have just characterized in relation to the problem of education, held that: Before the age of eighteen, a young person can know nothing; therefore, one must lead them through skill to knowledge, which they initially accept on faith. — Through the faith they absorb in their younger years, the powers of knowledge are awakened within them between the ages of eighteen and nineteen. The powers of knowledge must be awakened from within, and in order to do this—to, so to speak, place the young person in a state of waiting until the age of eighteen—people sought to relate to youth in such a way that they first demonstrated to them what they themselves were capable of. Then they were guided to develop the sense of experiencing—I would say, provisionally—alongside the teacher until the age of eighteen what one ought to know. The “acquisition of knowledge” was provisional until the ages of eighteen or nineteen, because before reaching this stage of life, one cannot truly know anything at all. But no teacher can truly impart knowledge to any boy or girl unless the young person has developed the deep conviction: “He or she is capable of something.” — It is simply irresponsible toward humanity for an educator to attempt to influence young people in any way other than by first instilling in them the natural conviction: “He or she is capable of something.”

[ 13 ] Before young people were introduced to arithmetic as it was understood back then—it wasn’t that dry, abstract stuff it is today—they were well aware that those who introduced them to arithmetic were capable of speaking and thinking. One was also well aware that they possessed eloquence. That was a reason for a young person to look up to their elders, when one knew all this from one’s own experience. If one merely knows that they have a degree, then the foundation upon which this relationship is supposed to be built often crumbles by the age of ten. The question that was once a living concern among people must come alive again. Because in today’s social order, the “conscious soul” stands opposite the “conscious soul,” this question cannot be resolved in the same way as in the past, when the “feeling soul” stood opposite the “feeling soul.” It must be resolved differently today.

[ 14 ] Of course, we cannot go back to introducing the “trivium and quadrivium,” although that would still be better than what is currently being taught to young people. We must take into account today’s circumstances—not external ones, but those inherent in the development of the human race. The fact is that we must find the transition between the period of natural imitation—which a child engages in simply by nature before losing their baby teeth—and the period when we can impart knowledge to people, relying first on trust and good faith, and later on their own judgment.

[ 15 ] But there is an interim period, and this interim period is immensely critical for today’s youth. During this transitional period, the most important global problem—one on which the future progress, regression, or even decline of human development depends—must be solved: What role do older generations play in the lives of younger generations during the years when imitation takes place and the years when knowledge can be passed on? This question is one of the most important cultural issues of our time.

[ 16 ] And what, then, was the youth movement, insofar as it is to be taken seriously? It was the yearning for an answer to this question. And young people realized that such an answer could not be found in schools, and so they roamed—forgive the expression; it’s not meant to be as bad as it sounds—through the woods, meadows, and fields. Rather than becoming “school people,” they preferred to become birds—Wandervögel, for example.

[ 17 ] One must look at life itself, not at theory, if one wishes to address the great question of world culture. Anyone who looks into life today will find that, in order for humanity not to wither away, the period between the age of imitation and the age when a person can embrace knowledge in the form of truth must be filled by imparting to the individual—in artistic beauty—what he needs for his head, heart, and will. From an ancient cultural order, the sevenfold system of grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music had emerged as something artistic. Today we also need something artistic, but—in accordance with the demands of the conscious soul—it must not be specialized in such a way that seven liberal arts reign supreme. For elementary school-age children and long beyond that age—as long as education and instruction are concerned at all—the entire educational process must be permeated and infused with the artistic element. Beauty must prevail for elementary school-age children and for people as they grow older; beauty as the interpreter of truth.

[ 18 ] Those who have not learned to grasp the truth through beauty will never absorb within themselves that fully human quality that equips them to face life’s demands. The German classics foresaw this, though they did not emphasize its full significance. But they found no understanding for it. Just look at how Goethe seeks truth through beauty. Listen to what Goethe says: Art is a manifestation of secret forces of nature—which means nothing other than that it is only through the artistic apprehension of the world that one arrives at living truth, whereas otherwise one arrives only at dead truth. And Schiller’s beautiful words are: Only through the morning gate of beauty do you enter the land of knowledge! — Until the meaning of this path—to enter the realm of truth through the artistic—is deeply internalized in the very deepest sense, there can be no question of humanity acquiring a true understanding of the supersensible world in the sense of the Age of the Conscious Soul.

[ 19 ] For you see, with the help of the science we have and recognize today, we can only perceive the physical body of a human being. There is no way, with today’s science, to perceive anything about human beings other than the physical body. That is why discussions of physiology and biology are accurate—and indeed magnificent—only insofar as they concern the physical body. Of course, people also speak a little about psychology. But this is known only as experimental psychology, which observes those mental phenomena that are connected to the physical body. People cannot form the slightest conception of purely psychological phenomena. That is why they have come to invent what is called psychophysical parallelism. But parallels can only intersect in infinity. Thus one might also say: One can only know anything about the relationship between the physical body and the soul in infinity. — And so psychophysical parallelism was established.

[ 20 ] All of this symptomatically expresses the age’s inability to understand human beings. For, first of all, if one wishes to understand human beings, the power of intellectualism immediately comes to an end. Human beings cannot be understood through intellectualism. One can insist rigidly and stubbornly on intellectualism; but then one must forgo any true understanding of human beings. Yet to do so, one would first have to tear out one’s soul, and that is impossible. But if one does not tear it out, it withers away. The mind may well be able to do without an understanding of human beings, but the soul withers away. Our entire culture thus stems from this withered soul. And secondly, an understanding of the human being cannot be attained through the concepts that guide us so magnificently in the external natural world. No matter how much we may achieve with them on the external level—and they certainly do not even lead us to the second member of the human body, namely the etheric human body, the body of formative forces.

[ 21 ] Just imagine that, through the methods of modern science, humans could already know as much as we might, say, know at the end of the world—that is, an absolutely enormous amount. Let me assume there is a truly accomplished, truly brilliant scientist. I don’t even want to say that there aren’t scientists who are already close to this state, because I don’t believe at all that intellectualism will make any significant progress in the future. We’ll simply take other paths. I have the utmost respect for the intellectualism of our scholarly community. Please do not think that I am saying this out of disrespect; I say it in all seriousness. There are undoubtedly a great many intelligent scientists—there should be not the slightest doubt about that! But even if I were to assume that this scientific approach had reached the highest peak it could possibly attain, it would still only allow us to understand the physical human body, but absolutely nothing of the etheric body. Not that I wish to claim that the knowledge of the etheric body is based on fantasy. That is not the case. It is genuine knowledge. But the inspiration to even begin to perceive this—I would say, the most subordinate of the supersensible members of human nature—can arise only from an artistic experience of the soul. This simply requires artistic soul-blood.

[ 22 ] Therefore, you can imagine that the more our objective science strives to carefully avoid everything that is artistic, the more this science deters people from getting to know themselves—that is, from getting to know what it means to be human. We have learned an immense amount through microscopes and other instruments. But this never brings us closer to the etheric body; rather, it only takes us further away. Ultimately, we completely lose our way when it comes to gaining any access at all to what is primarily necessary for understanding the human being. In the case of plants, we can still get by, because they do not concern us so closely. The plant does not care that it is not the laboratory product that modern natural science makes of it. It still grows under the influence of the etheric force of the universe and is not limited to what physics and chemistry presuppose as forces. But when we, as human beings, stand face to face with another human being, then our feelings, our trust, our reverence—in short, everything that is in our hearts and, in the age of the conscious soul, naturally transcends the merely instinctive—for in the conscious soul, everything transcends the instinctive— depends on our receiving an education that enables us to look beyond the mere physical human body.

[ 23 ] If our educators prevent us from gaining an understanding of what it means to be human, we cannot expect the inner capacities to develop that would enable us to relate to our fellow human beings in the right way. But everything depends on a person’s ability to break free from an attachment to mere observation, to mere experimentation. Indeed, we can only truly appreciate observation and experimentation in the proper sense once we break free from them, and the simplest way to break free is through artistic, creative detachment.

[ 24 ] If the teacher, the instructor, once again faces the child in the same way that—as was fitting for an earlier age—grammar, dialectics, and rhetoric faced young people—that is, if the teacher, the instructor, once again faces young people in such a way that his approach to teaching is once again artistic, that art prevails throughout the classroom, then a different youth movement will emerge—it may seem unappealing to you today—but a youth movement will emerge that will flock to the artistic teachers, because it wants to “soak it up” there, because it will expect from them what youth must expect from their elders. For in truth, the youth movement cannot be mere opposition, a mere rebellion against the older generation; rather, it is much like the situation with an infant: if one could not receive breast milk from the mother, one could not receive anything else either. What one must learn, one simply must learn. But one will learn it precisely when one has such a natural inclination toward the older generation as the infant has toward the mother’s breast, as the child has when it learns to speak through imitation. One will have this inclination when the artistic aspect of the older generation comes to meet one, when truth first appears to one in beauty. Then the very best will be kindled in the young person: not the intellect, which always remains passive, but the will, which becomes active and will also stimulate thinking. Artistic education will be an education of the will, and after all, everything depends on the education of the will. How this is to be understood further—more on that tomorrow.