The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] Throughout all eras of conscious human development, truth, beauty, and goodness have been cited as the three great ideals of humanity. One might say: These three ideals—truth, beauty, and goodness—are identified, out of a certain instinct, as the great goals, or rather, the defining characteristics of human endeavor. In earlier times, however, people knew more about the nature of the human being and its connection to the world, and as a result, when speaking of such things as truth, beauty, and goodness, they were able to mean something more concrete than is the case today in our age, which loves the abstract. And anthroposophical spiritual science, in turn, is able to point to such more definite, concrete realities. However, this does not always align with a tendency of our time—for our time loves the vague, the indeterminate, the nebulous—the moment it comes to going beyond the everyday. Let us make it clear to ourselves today how the meaning of the words truth, beauty, and goodness is connected to the nature of the human being.

[ 2 ] When we visualize this essence of the human being in our mind’s eye, we must first turn our attention to the human physical body. Today, this physical body is, in fact, viewed almost exclusively from an external perspective. People have no awareness of how this physical body is structured in its details during pre-earthly existence—in terms of form and in terms of its activity in that pre-earthly existence. Certainly, in their pre-earthly existence, human beings live in a purely spiritual world. But in this spiritual world—as I have already stated in the lectures I gave only recently—in this spiritual world, in collaboration with higher beings, the human being works out the spiritual prototype, the spiritual form of the physical body. And what we carry here as our physical body is simply an image, a physical image of what is worked out by the human being himself in his pre-earthly existence as a kind of spiritual seed.

[ 3 ] When we consider this, we must realize: Here in earthly existence, human beings perceive their physical body. But modern people are not very aware of everything connected with this perception of the physical body. We speak of truth, yet we know very little about how the sense of truth is connected to the general sense we have of our physical body. When a person is confronted with a simple fact, they can either insist on forming a conception of that fact that corresponds exactly to it—that is, one that is true—or they can, whether out of imprecision, inner indifference, or a direct aversion to the truth—that is, out of a tendency to lie— form a concept that is not connected to this fact, that does not correspond to this fact. When a person contemplates the truth of a fact, they are in harmony with the sense they have of their physical body and even of the connection between their physical body and their pre-earthly existence. For all it takes is for us—whether out of carelessness or a tendency to lie—to form a concept that does not correspond to the facts, and it is precisely as if we were, so to speak, tearing a hole in that which connects us to our pre-earthly existence. We tear something apart in that connection with our pre-earthly existence when we give in to a falsehood. It is a delicate spiritual fabric, if I may say so, that we weave in our pre-earthly existence, which then contracts and forms the image of our physical body. One might say that this physical body is connected to our pre-earthly existence by many threads, and that surrendering to a falsehood severs those threads. The mere intellectual consciousness—which is so characteristic of human beings today, at the beginning of the age of the conscious soul—does not perceive how something is torn apart in the manner just described. That is why people today succumb to so many illusions regarding the connections within which they actually stand in their existence in the world.

[ 4 ] Today, people generally view what happens to them in terms of their physical health as merely a physical matter. But it certainly affects the physical body—specifically, the constitution of the nervous system—when a person severs the ties with their pre-earthly existence in this way through devotion to untruth. The fact is that through the sensation a person has of their physical body, they actually experience their spiritual sense of being in the world. Having this spiritual sense of being within oneself depends on the fact that the threads connecting the physical body to pre-earthly existence have not been severed. If they are severed, then the human being—unconsciously—must create a substitute for his healthy spiritual sense of being, for his sense of existence. And then he is actually compelled to attribute a sense of being to himself based on various conventional judgments—as I said, he does all this unconsciously—judgments that have become established in this way. But humanity has gradually fallen into an inner insecurity regarding this sense of being as well, an insecurity that extends right down into the physical body. For is this pure spiritual sense of being—which we find all the more in humanity the further back we go in history—still strongly present today?

[ 5 ] Just consider all the ways in which people today often want to be something—anything but defined by their original inner spiritual life! They want to be something by, let’s say, receiving this or that title based on their profession. They want to be, say, a secretary or an actuary, and then believe that if convention designates their essence by such a title, then that is what they are—whereas what really matters is that a person can attribute this sense of being to themselves from their inner feeling, quite apart from all external appearances.

[ 6 ] But what anchors a person in their sense of being? You see, here in our earthly existence, we actually live in a world that is merely a reflection of true reality. We can only truly understand even this physical world if we view it as a reflection of true reality. But we must feel true reality within ourselves; we must feel our connection to the spiritual world. We can do this only if everything that binds us to our pre-earthly existence remains intact.

[ 7 ] And all of this is reinforced by—if I may put it this way—humanity’s preference for unconditional truth and truthfulness. Nothing reinforces humanity’s original, genuine sense of being as much as the sense of truth and truthfulness. Feeling obligated to first examine the things one says, feeling obligated to first seek out the boundaries within which one can say them—this contributes to the true inner consolidation of a sense of being worthy of humanity. And this sense of being is precisely connected to the fact that we feel spirituality within our physical body—so that we must acknowledge a close kinship between our physical body and what constitutes the ideal of truth.

[ 8 ] Our etheric or life body—this body of formative forces—as I have also explained in lectures that have only recently been given again—we acquire only a short time before descending from pre-earthly existence into earthly existence. We, so to speak, draw together the forces of the etheric world to form our own etheric body. With regard to this etheric body—if I may put it this way—earlier epochs of human development were better off than humanity today. Today’s humanity has little sense of this etheric body. On the contrary, there is a tendency to mock the reality of this etheric body. Now, however, the sense of this etheric body is once again strengthened through the experience of beauty.

[ 9 ] When truth and truthfulness become a genuine experience, we are, in a certain sense, truly present within our physical body. When we develop a true sense of beauty, we are truly present within our etheric body, or body of formative forces. Beauty is just as closely connected to our etheric body as truth is to our physical body.

[ 10 ] The best way to understand what I’m saying here is to think about the significance inherent in something truly beautiful that is created through art. And what I have to say here actually applies to all the arts. When you have a single person before you, as he truly appears before us in the flesh, you know that you have before you one person among many. A single human being actually has no meaning at all without the many who must be present in his surroundings. He belongs to the many, and the many belong to him. One need only consider how little root the physical, earthly human being has in existence without the others. But when we—whether through sculpture, painting, or drama— that is, through art, we strive to create something self-sufficient, something that is self-contained, something that, in a sense, already carries a whole world within itself—just as the human being, in his etheric body, actually carries the whole world within himself, for he draws together the etheric forces from the whole world in order to form his etheric body within earthly existence.

[ 11 ] In earlier times, humanity had a keen sense of beauty—albeit based on their own conception of it; nevertheless, they had a greater appreciation for beauty than people do today. But the fact is that a person cannot truly be human in the full sense of the word unless they have an appreciation for beauty. For to have an appreciation for beauty means to acknowledge the etheric body. To lack an appreciation for beauty means to disregard and fail to acknowledge the etheric body.

[ 12 ] Modern people are completely unaware of all this. When the ancient Greeks approached their temples, or when they even caught sight of a statue of a god within the temple, they felt a warmth, and they sensed within themselves, as it were, something like an inner sunlight. And he even felt within himself something like a kind of endowment with forces radiating from his being, which shone into his individual organs. A Greek who entered his temple and beheld the statue of the god would say from the depths of his heart: “I never feel the shape of my fingers all the way to their outermost tips as clearly as when the statue of the god stands before me.” I never feel how my forehead arches over my nose; I never feel that from within as clearly as when I enter the temple and the statue of the god stands before me. Innerly moved, innerly warmed, enlightened—indeed, one might say, feeling as if endowed by the gods—this is how the Greek experienced beauty. But this was nothing other than a sensation felt in the etheric body. And the Greek had a very different feeling toward ugliness than a modern person does. A modern person feels ugliness, at most, in a very abstract form—one might say, if one wants to pinpoint it—through the face. For the Greeks, ugliness sent a chill through their entire body, and in the face of extreme ugliness, they got goosebumps. This real feeling of the etheric body is something that earlier times truly still possessed in the most eminent sense. In the course of human development, human beings have simply lost a part of their humanity. All these things I have just spoken of remain, in fact, unconscious to modern human beings—who, after all, tend entirely toward their heads, because the rationalistic intellect, abstract thought, has its seat precisely in the head—all that which was once experienced in this way remains, in fact, unconscious to modern human beings.

[ 13 ] It can be said that, through enthusiasm for truth and sincerity, human beings develop, at least in the depths of their subconscious, a sense of a pre-earthly existence. And an age that has no sense of humanity’s pre-earthly existence also lacks a true sense of truth and sincerity. But it is precisely a vigorous and strongly developed sense of truth that connects us deeply to this pre-earthly past and, through more intimate experiences of earthly life, actually makes us feel a certain sadness. An inner life that is true to itself, and which at the same time develops a strong enthusiasm for truth and sincerity, will always—especially when it is living in this very enthusiasm for truth and sincerity—feel a certain sadness toward the present, and can only be comforted by the radiance and warmth of the sense of beauty within the soul. Through beauty, we in turn become joyful in the face of the sadness that actually always overwhelms us when we develop that great enthusiasm for truth and sincerity—an enthusiasm that always, even if only in an intimate, subtle way, tells us: “Ah, truth is really only found in pre-earthly existence; here in this earthly world, we have only an echo of truth.” By leaving the pre-earthly world, we have in fact lost our true immersion in the very substance of truth. It is only through our enthusiasm for truth and sincerity that we can truly maintain our connection to pre-earthly existence.

[ 14 ] Through a genuine, true sense of beauty, human beings, in a sense, reconnect here in their earthly existence with their pre-earthly existence. And one should never underestimate the importance of beauty in all education, in all external culture and civilization. A cultural world filled only with hideous machines and smoke, with ugly smokestacks, and devoid of beauty—that is a world that refuses to establish a connection between human beings and their pre-earthly existence, a world that, in a sense, tears people away from their pre-earthly existence. One can say—not merely by way of comparison, but in complete truth—that a purely industrial city is a delightful abode for all those demons who wish to make people forget that they have a pre-earthly existence in the spiritual realm.

[ 15 ] But when a person devotes himself to beauty, he must pay the price that beauty—precisely in terms of its beauty—is not rooted in reality. For example, the more beautifully we render the human form—say, in sculpture or painting—the more we must admit to ourselves that this does not correspond to an external reality in earthly existence. It is, in a sense, merely a consolation through beautiful appearance, and therefore a consolation that is actually sufficient only until the moment we pass through the gates of death.

[ 16 ] Yes, this spiritual world, in which we are fully immersed during our pre-earthly existence, is always there. We need only reach out our arm: we reach out into the world, which is the spiritual world, in which we exist during our pre-earthly existence. But even though this world is always there, human beings actually have a connection to it only at the deepest level of the unconscious when they are filled with enthusiasm for truth and sincerity. And it is, I would say, a connection to earthly existence when human beings are moved by the beautiful and by beauty.

[ 17 ] But for a human being to be true means, in a higher spiritual sense, that he must not forget that he lived in the spiritual realm during a pre-earthly existence. For a human being to be inspired by beauty means that, in their soul experience, they should at least create—even if only in their imagination—a reconnection to the spiritual realm of their pre-earthly existence. But how does a human being develop a real power that leads them directly back into that world from which they emerged simply by virtue of their human existence, having descended from their pre-earthly existence into earthly life?

[ 18 ] He attains this strength when he fills himself with kindness, with that goodness that first and foremost reaches out to other people, with that goodness that does not stop at merely knowing oneself, merely being interested in oneself, merely feeling what lies within one’s own being—with that goodness that can carry one’s own soul life over into the uniqueness of the other, into the essence of the other, into the other’s experience. This goodness represents a sum of forces within the human soul. And these forces are of such a nature that they truly permeate the human being with something by which he was permeated—in his full humanity—only in his pre-earthly existence. If a person, through the beauty in the image, reconnects with the spirituality from which they emerged through their earthly existence, then that person, through their earthly existence, joins their pre-earthly existence by being a good person. And a good person is precisely one who can carry over their own soul life into the soul life of another. And, fundamentally speaking, all morality—all true morality—depends on this carrying over of one’s own soul life into the soul life of another. Morality is that which is indispensable for maintaining a genuine social structure of earthly humanity.

[ 19 ] But while, on the one hand, this morality manifests itself in the most significant impulses of the will, which then become reality in lofty moral actions, this moral aspect in the human being nevertheless begins as an impulse that permeates and grips the soul—an impulse whereby a person can be moved when they empathize with the worry lines on another’s face, and when at least their astral body, upon seeing those worry lines, takes on those same lines itself. For just as the sense of truth and sincerity manifests itself in the proper embodiment within the physical body, and just as the passion for and experience of beauty reveal themselves in the etheric body, so too does goodness live fully within the human astral body. And the astral body cannot be healthy, cannot be properly anchored in the world, if a person is not able to imbue it with that which springs from goodness.

[ 20 ] Truth is related to the physical body, beauty is related to the etheric body, and goodness is related to the astral body. This brings us to something concrete in contrast to the three abstractions of truth, beauty, and goodness, and we can relate to the true nature of the human being what is instinctively meant by these three ideals.

[ 21 ] The point is that these three ideals are actually intended to express the extent to which human beings are capable of realizing the fullness of humanity within themselves. He is capable of doing so when he embodies the sense of truth and truthfulness in a human way—and not merely in a conventional or natural way—within his physical body.

[ 22 ] However, human beings can only bring about a life worthy of their full humanity if, through their sense of beauty, they are able to increasingly transform their etheric body into something living. It must be said: One does not have the proper sense of beauty if, upon seeing or contemplating beauty, one does not actively feel within oneself something of the kind I have described as natural, as the Greeks understood it. Yes, my dear friends, one can merely stare at beauty, or one can experience it. Today, the reality is that most people merely stare at beauty. In that case, nothing stirs within the etheric body. But merely staring at beauty is not experiencing it. The moment beauty is experienced, however, the etheric body is stirred as well.

[ 23 ] One can do good, first, because it is human nature to do good; second, because one might be punished for doing something very evil; third, because other people will respect one less if one does evil, and so on. But one can also do good out of a true love of the good, in the sense that I described decades ago in my Philosophy of Freedom. Such an experience of the good inherent in human beings always leads to the recognition of the human astral body. And in truth, one only truly understands what the good is all about when one senses something of the astral body within human beings. Otherwise, it always remains merely an abstract understanding or abstract talk about the good, if enthusiasm for the good—for the genuine, true good, for the good grasped in love—does not lead to an experience of the astral body.

[ 24 ] Thus, the experience of the good is not merely, as with the beautiful, a kind of connection to pre-earthly existence in the realm of the imagination—which then ceases when a person passes through the gate of death—but rather a real connection to the world that, as I said, is always there; we need only reach out our hand. But in actual existence, human beings are separated from it. The experience of the good is a genuine, real connection that points directly into the world that a person enters once they have passed through the gate of death. In what a person practices here on earth—when they live in the true good—there are forces that endure beyond the gate of death.

[ 25 ] Essentially, the sense of truth and truthfulness—if it exists at all—lies within us as a legacy from our pre-earthly existence. Essentially, the sense of beauty lies within us—if it is there—because we wish to have at least an image of our pre-earthly connection to the spiritual realm in our earthly existence. And in truth, the necessity lies within us not to cut ourselves off from the spiritual realm, but to maintain a genuine connection to it through the goodness we develop within ourselves as a human force.

[ 26 ] For human beings, to be true means to be in harmony with one’s spiritual past. For human beings, to find meaning in beauty means not to deny the connection between the physical world and the spiritual. For human beings, to be good means to sow the seeds for a spiritual world in the future.

[ 27 ] One might say that the three concepts of past, present, and future—insofar as they are integrated into fully human life—acquire, when grasped in their concreteness, a meaningful content through the other concepts: truth, beauty, and goodness.

[ 28 ] The insincere person denies his spiritual past; the liar severs the ties between himself and his spiritual past. The philistine who scorns beauty wants to establish a place for himself on earth where the sun of the spirit does not shine upon him, where he can, so to speak, wander about in spiritless shadow. The person who denies the good is in fact renouncing his spiritual future, and yet he wishes that this spiritual future might still be granted to him in some other way, through some external means.

[ 29 ] It was indeed a deep instinct when the three ideals of truth, beauty, and goodness were identified as the three greatest ideals of human endeavor. But in fact, it is only in our time that we are once again in a position to give true substance to these ideals, which have almost become empty words.

[ 30 ] Well, my dear friends, tomorrow I will continue speaking on the basis of what I have now explained about truth, beauty, and goodness.