The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] I said yesterday that, although discussing specific karmic connections is somewhat risky, I would nevertheless like to explore such karmic connections here as examples, building on the figures whose biographical details I presented to you yesterday. Later on, we will also be able to examine less representative figures from a karmic perspective, but I would like to choose such figures for now because they can vividly illustrate how, through repeated phases of existence in the karmic course of human life, the overall development of humanity then continues. In today’s civilization, we speak of history as a continuous stream of events; we describe things in such a way that we relate what is happening in the 20th century to the 19th century, what is happening in the 19th century to the 18th century, and so on. It is precisely the fact that it is human beings themselves who carry things over from one historical epoch to the next—that is, that the people living in the present have carried over into this present, from earlier historical epochs, that which lives and exists today—that gives reality, that gives life, and that provides a true, inner, real connection within historical life.

[ 2 ] If there is only cause and effect, there is no real connection. When human souls pass from an ancient era of Earth into more recent eras, into ever-new earthly lives, then a real connection enters into the development of humanity. One can truly grasp the significance of this real connection precisely by observing such personalities—those whom we can look to because they are representative figures.

[ 3 ] And so yesterday I began by mentioning the so-called “Swabian Vischer,” the aesthetician Friedrich Theodor Vischer, and described him to you to some extent. Well, I said that I would choose only those examples for which I actually have the research available. These investigations are precisely those of direct perception—those conducted using the spiritual means already discussed, which can be read about in anthroposophical literature. And that is why, when discussing such matters, no other method is possible than a kind of narrative approach. For only that which arises from direct perception can be communicated in this field. And the moment one refers from an earthly life to a previous one that lies in the past, all intellectual understanding ceases. There remains only the possibility of observation. There remains a final remnant of intellectual understanding when it comes to relating an earthly life to the last experience between death and this birth—that is, relating the earthly life to that from which it directly emerged, to the spiritual-soul aspect prior to the descent to Earth; this can be done to a certain extent through the intellect. Tracing one earthly life back to another is possible only in narrative form, for here it is only contemplation that is decisive. And whoever is now in a position to look upon such a personality as Schwaben-Vischer was, and to grasp that which lives as the eternal within such a personality—that is, that which passes from one earthly life to the next—can, if he, I might say, traces the right currents back through the entire earthly life, see such a personality emerge in an earlier earthly existence. Admittedly, in terms of research, one first goes back to the pre-earthly experience. But now, in this presentation, I would like to treat this going back to the pre-earthly experience as secondary for these three personalities and first draw attention to how, behind the present earthly life of such a personality, the previous earthly life emerges.

[ 4 ] If one wishes to investigate such matters, one must certainly be free of all prejudice. If, simply because one holds this or that view about a person’s present earthly life or about their last earthly life, one imagines one can rationally conclude, “Since he is like this now, he must have been such-and-such in a previous earthly life”—if one forms such judgments, one is already on the wrong track, or at least one can easily go astray. It would be just like forming such a judgment rationally from one incarnation to another as if you were in a house for the first time: you look out the north windows, see trees outside, and now you want to deduce from the trees you see through the north windows what the trees in front of the south windows look like. You simply have to go over to the south-facing windows, look at the trees there, and approach them with complete impartiality. In the same way, you must truly set aside all intellectualistic reasoning when it comes to comprehending those imaginations that simply exist as the imaginations corresponding to earlier earthly lives for such personalities.

[ 5 ] In the case of Schwaben-Vischer, one is led back to the next decisive incarnation—in between there may have been one or two insignificant ones, perhaps spent in shorter earthly lives, but that is not important now—to that incarnation in which his present earthly life—“present” in a broader sense, since he died in the late 1980s—that is, his last earthly life—was karmically prepared. This incarnation dates to around the 8th century A.D. Specifically, he is seen as a member of those Moorish-Arabic peoples who crossed over from Africa to Sicily during this period and also engaged in battles with those who came down to Sicily from the north.

[ 6 ] The essential point is that this individuality I am speaking of here received, in that preceding, defining incarnation, an entirely Arab education—an Arab education in every detail—and indeed in such a way that this Arab education encompassed everything that, I might say, is artistically—and perhaps also non-artistically—inherent in Arab culture, but at the same time encompassed all the energy with which Arab culture penetrated Europe at that time, and, in particular, encompassed a sense of human solidarity with a fairly large number of other people belonging to the same Arab population.

[ 7 ] This individual, who later lived in the 19th century as Friedrich Theodor Vischer, sought close ties in the 8th century with many people belonging to the same Arab ethnic group and the same Arab culture—people who, even then, had already come into close contact with Europe, made persistent attempts to settle in Sicily, and had to endure fierce battles, that is to say, it was actually the Europeans who had to endure those hard struggles alongside them. This individuality participated extensively in such struggles. And one can say that he was a brilliant personality—brilliant in the sense that brilliance was understood at that time.

[ 8 ] Well, that’s the first point: this individuality in the 8th century. But the story doesn’t end there. When this personality passes through the gate of death and continues to live the life between death and a new birth, there is indeed a close communion, particularly with those souls with whom one was together on earth. These, then, are the ones about whom I was just able to tell you that the individuality in question sought closer social connections with them. But precisely among human beings—it is difficult to find expressions in language, which is of course shaped for earthly conditions, to characterize these supersensible things—with whom our individuality was connected, after both it and the others had passed through the gate of death; among these people, throughout the centuries that followed right up into the 19th century, there existed a spiritual bond, a spiritual connection.

[ 9 ] You will have gathered from the lecture on karma that I gave eight days ago that what happens on Earth is first experienced by the beings of the highest hierarchies—the Cherubim, Seraphim, and Thrones, and that the one who lives out his life between death and a new birth looks down—looks down upon a spiritual-soul heaven—just as we look up toward heaven. There, I told you, the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones experience what will then become our destiny when we descend once more—what we will realize in accordance with destiny.

[ 10 ] Now, in those contexts that arise in the spiritual world, this entire society—which was, of course, now a spiritual society into which that individuality was woven—experienced that, throughout the centuries, they had to preserve humanity’s progress without being influenced by Christianity. What I am saying here will seem extraordinarily strange to you; for people tend to imagine that world government is as simple as the way human beings want to have everything and want to dictate everything. But world government is not like that; rather, while on the one hand the most powerful impulse is imbued into the entire development of the Earth through the Mystery of Golgotha, on the other hand there is also the necessity not to allow what existed in the Earth’s development prior to the Mystery of Golgotha to perish immediately, but to let it continue to flow, that is, not what I would call anti-Christian, but rather non-Christian—that which is entirely indifferent to Christianity—to be allowed to continue flowing through the centuries.

[ 11 ] And the task of carrying this current forward for Europe—in a sense, of extending the pre-Christian era into the centuries of Christianity—fell to a number of people who, in the 8th and 7th 8th centuries, were born into the Arab world—which was not immediately Christian, yet was not as backward as the ancient pagan religions, but had, after all, moved forward in a certain direction over the centuries. A number of souls were born into this environment; they were now to carry forward into the spiritual world—unaffected by earthly circumstances—that which the human spirit can know, feel, and perceive, apart from Christianity. They were, so to speak, to encounter Christianity only later, in subsequent epochs of Earth’s development. And this is truly something extraordinarily significant, something profoundly magnificent—to see how a relatively large group now lives on in the spiritual realm, separate from the development of Christianity, until, in the 19th century, the majority of these souls descended into earthly incarnation. Well, these were, of course, different individuals—individuals with the most diverse aptitudes.

[ 12 ] Friedrich Theodor Vischer, known as the “Swabian Vischer,” was one of the first souls to descend from this society in the 19th century. And he was, in fact, deprived—severely deprived—of the opportunity to learn much about Christianity at all. In contrast, when he was still in his pre-earthly existence, he had the opportunity to draw inspiration precisely from those spiritual leaders of humanity who, although they were more or less close to Christianity, had developed their worldview and their life impulses in a way that was not strictly Christian in an inner sense.

[ 13 ] It is, of course, paradoxical to speak of these things as one would of earthly matters, but as I said, I am willing to take that risk. For a soul such as the one we are now considering, passing through this incarnation in the 7th, 8th century was a particularly good preparation for growing together with souls in the spiritual world—such as the soul of Spinoza or others like him, namely a large number of non-Christian cultural figures who died in those centuries and ascended into the spiritual world, including, in particular, Kabbalistic cultural figures.

[ 14 ] And thus prepared, this soul—the others arrived only a little later—entered earthly existence in the 19th century. The others all became, precisely because they arrived a little later, “bearers of the scientific mindset in the second half of the 19th century.” For indeed, my dear friends, this is the secret behind the peculiar development of scientific thought in the second half of the 19th century: that almost all the bearers of this more originally thinking and feeling scientific current in the second half of the 19th century were, in their previous earthly life—their defining earthly life— were Arabs, companions of that individuality who then descended as Friedrich Theodor Vischer. It is just that Friedrich Theodor Vischer—in a sense, like a premature birth of the soul and spirit—descended earlier.

[ 15 ] This is also deeply rooted in his karma through his connection to those souls with whom Hegel had a connection before he descended into earthly life. Friedrich Theodor Vischer, too, had already been connected to these souls in the spiritual realm. This exerted an influence on him through his particular individual orientation, especially with regard to what Hegelianism represented on Earth. His Hegelianism prevented him from developing a worldview that was more or less entirely materialistic and mechanistic. Had he been born somewhat later, like his other spiritual companions, he would have moved in a thoroughly ordinary materialistic direction with his aesthetics as well. Thus, he was spared this fate by what he had experienced in his pre-earthly life and by his earlier descent. But he could not hold on to it either. That is precisely why he wrote this scathing critique of his own aesthetics—because it did not entirely correspond to his karma, but rather marked a turning point in his karma. It would have been entirely in keeping with his karma to be born among the people of the second half of the 19th century who were decidedly of a natural-philosophical disposition—those who were his companions in his previous earthly life and belonged to the Arabist movement—and to share the same line of thought as them.

[ 16 ] Now the peculiar thing happens: Due to a twist in his karma—which will be balanced out in Friedrich Theodor Vischer’s later earthly lives—he initially becomes a Hegelian; that is, he is torn away—albeit predestined by his pre-earthly existence, but not by his earthly karma—from the straight path of his karma. But at a certain age, he can no longer bear it. He must return to his karma. He renounces his five-volume work on aesthetics, finding it immensely tempting to construct aesthetics the way the natural scientists want it. He had approached his first aesthetics from the top down, starting with the principles and then moving on to the sensory. He himself criticizes this to the very core. He now wants to build his aesthetics from the bottom up, starting from the facts and gradually ascending to the principles. And we see an immense struggle; we see how he works at the destruction of his own first aesthetics. We see his diverted karma, and how he is cast back into his true karma—that is, reunited with those with whom he was a comrade in a previous earthly life.

[ 17 ] And it is truly profoundly significant to see how Friedrich Theodor Vischer never actually finishes this second phase of his aesthetics, and how a certain chaos creeps into his entire intellectual life. I have also told you about the philistine attitude—this peculiar philistine behavior—in relation to Goethe’s Faust. All of this creeps in because he feels insecure and yet wants to return to his old comrades. One need only consider how powerfully the unconscious works in karma—this unconscious, which, of course, becomes a conscious element for a higher level of perception. But one must be clear about this: how certain philistine natural scientists hated Goethe’s Faust! Do you recall the remark I quoted to you yesterday from Du Bois-Reymond: that Goethe would have been wiser to have Faust invent something, rather than have him conjure up spirits, conjure up the Earth Spirit, then bring him together with Mephisto to seduce girls and not marry them? Yes, all of that is actually trivial to Du Bois-Reymond, and his point is that Goethe should have portrayed a hero who invents the electrostatic machine and the air pump! — Certainly, that would then have provided proper social standing; after all, the character in question could even have become mayor of Magdeburg in the process. And above all, it would have been necessary not to have the Gretchen tragedy—that scandalous one—but rather to have a proper bourgeois wedding, for example, instead of the dungeon scene. Well, certainly, from a certain point of view, it does have its justification, of course; but Goethe most certainly did not mean that.

[ 18 ] Isn’t it true that Friedrich Theodor Vischer was no longer entirely safe once he had experienced, as I said, this turn of karma? But it kept drawing him back again and again, and for his unconscious—even though he was a free spirit—it was always a delight to hear the philistines railing against Goethe’s Faust. That, of course, makes him witty; it’s like a snowball fight back and forth. And it is precisely when one observes a person in those areas where one can approach them more through intuition that one gains the imaginative insights that must lead one behind the scenes of sensory existence. That is what one brings to light.

[ 19 ] There is, for example, a fine illustration. On the one hand, there are the first-order philistines, such as Du Bois-Reymond: Goethe should have portrayed Faust as the mayor of Magdeburg, had him invent the electrostatic machine and the air pump, and had him marry Gretchen—aren’t they the first-order philistines! Well, that’s in the subconscious because there’s a karmic connection there. Those were all Moorish-minded people, too—the ones deeply involved in Arabism alongside Friedrich Theodor Vischer. Well, it was appealing to him; he felt a kinship, but he wasn’t quite like that either; in the meantime, he had been influenced by other currents that had diverted his karma. And so, when the first-order philistines hurled their snowballs at him, he threw them back and said: “Someone should write a dissertation, for example, on the connection between Christiane von Goethe’s frostbite and the symbolic, allegorical, and mythological figures in the second part of Faust.” Isn’t that brilliantly philistine—second-order philistinism?

[ 20 ] To consider these things in terms of their value—that is what leads one away from the merely intellectual and brings one closer to intuition. Well, I wanted to give you a preliminary indication—I will return to these matters later—of how one can understand this one earthly life in light of previous earthly lives.

[ 21 ] For me, the figure who walked around Stuttgart was, in fact, of immense, profound significance. I described him to you yesterday: the wonderful blue eyes, the somewhat reddish-brown full beard, holding his arms in that way—I described that figure to you. You see, this vision I have just pointed out to you was there, but the physical stature of the Swabian fisherman—as he walked around Stuttgart—did not match it, for even to an occult eye he really did not look like a reincarnated Arab. And I let the matter drop again and again, because one does indeed become—I cannot say skeptical, since the visions are there—but one does become suspicious of them. One wants them confirmed in the most decisive way. I let the matter drop again and again until the mystery resolved itself in the following way:

[ 22 ] This man—he was also a man in that incarnation—regarded those people who came toward him from the north, specifically from Sicily, as his ideal. Now, in those days, the possibility of, so to speak, taking on the form of a person one particularly admired was especially high. And so, in his next incarnation, he took on the form of those he had fought against. That is what, as I said, brought about the solution to the riddle in terms of his stature.

[ 23 ] Yesterday we brought a second figure to the forefront of our minds, Franz Schubert, in connection with his friend and patron, Baron von Spaun, and in connection with his elemental nature, which on the one hand—in such rare cases as the one I have presented to you—could flare up and turn him into a brawler, and which on the other hand was extraordinarily tender, like a sleepwalker who wrote down his most beautiful melodies upon waking in the morning. It is extremely difficult to form a picture of this personality. But it is precisely the connection with Spaun that provides a picture in this case. For with Franz Schubert, if one—if I may use the expression—seeks to find him retrospectively in the occult realm, one has the feeling—if I may put it trivially—that Schubert always slips away when one tries to go back to his previous incarnation. It is not easy to return; he slips away.

[ 24 ] It’s really quite the opposite of the fate—I’d say—of Schubert’s works after Franz Schubert’s death; something that appears to be the antithesis of that. With Schubert’s works—his compositions—the situation was such that, right after Schubert had died, very little was known about him; very little was familiar to people. Then, as the years went by, he became more and more well-known, and it wasn’t until quite late—in the 1870s and 1880s—that new works by Franz Schubert kept appearing year after year. It was interesting because Schubert suddenly became, long after his death, the most prolific composer. New works by him kept appearing. So people kept coming back to Schubert again and again.

[ 25 ] But if one looks back in spirit from Schubert’s life in the 19th century to his earlier earthly existence, the trail goes cold. He is not easy to find.

[ 26 ] In contrast, it is at least possible to find traces of Baron von Spaun relatively easily. And this line leads back to the 8th and 9th centuries as well, but to Spain. Specifically, Baron von Spaun was a Castilian prince who was considered exceptionally wise, who was interested in astrology, astronomy as understood at the time, even reformed and compiled astronomical tables, and who, at a certain point in his life, was forced to flee his homeland and found refuge precisely among the fiercest enemies of the Castilian people of that era—the Moors.

[ 27 ] And there he had to stay for some time after his escape, and there he developed an extraordinarily tender relationship with a Moorish figure who embodied the individuality of the future Franz Schubert. And that Castilian prince would most certainly have perished had this refined soul among the Moors not taken him under his wing and reached out to him at that time, allowing him to continue his earthly life for a little while longer, to the deepest satisfaction of both of them.

[ 28 ] What I am telling you is as far removed as possible from any kind of intellectualistic musing. I have even hinted at what that detour entailed. But this detour does indeed lead one to the conclusion that Franz Schubert was the reincarnation of a Moorish personality—and that such a Moorish personality, a figure from the circle of the Moors, who at that time was, of course, quite far from being able to process music in his soul, nevertheless processed with the deepest inclination precisely all that which, in Arab culture, was of a refined artistic and— I won’t say “intellectual,” but rather “subtle, contemplative” elements of Arab culture—which had been brought over from Asia, passed through Africa, and finally arrived in Spain.

[ 29 ] In that incarnation, this individual developed, above all, that unassuming yet energetic gentleness of soul which, one might say, conjured forth the artistically imaginative, somnambulistic qualities in the next incarnation—the incarnation of Franz Schubert. On the other hand, however, this personality also had to take part in the fierce battles that were now raging between the Moors and the non-Moorish population—the Castilian, Aragonese, and so on. And this is where that restrained emotional streak developed, which then, I might say, emerged only sparingly on special occasions during Schubert’s lifetime.

[ 30 ] And it seems to me that, just as one can only truly understand Friedrich Theodor Vischer’s final earthly life when viewed against the backdrop of his “Arabism,” one will also only grasp the truly distinctive nature of Schubert’s music—namely, the underlying current of many of his song compositions—if one already possesses that perspective—I have not constructed it; it arises from the facts—if one already possesses the perspective: there is something intellectual, spiritual, and Asian that has been bathed for a time in the desert sun, then refined in Europe, then passed through the spiritual world between death and a new birth, and then been reborn in pure humanity, detached from all artificial social contexts, in a poor schoolteacher.

[ 31 ] The third figure I spoke of yesterday—as I said, I’d like to touch on these points for now; we can return to some of them later—the third figure I spoke of, Eugen Dühring, was truly interesting to me for the reason that, as a young man, I had devoted an extraordinary amount of time to studying Dühring’s writings. I was captivated by Dühring’s works on physics and mathematics, particularly his writings New Fundamental Methods and Inventions in Analysis, Algebra, Functional Calculus, and Related Geometry, and by his treatment of the law of corresponding boiling points; I was enthralled by these things. I was furious when reading a book like Sache, Leben und Feinde (Matter, Life, and Enemies), in which he writes a sort of autobiography. It is actually something terribly self-satisfied, but truly brilliantly self-satisfied; not to mention something reminiscent of the most vile pamphlets, such as Die Überschätzung Lessings und dessen Anwaltschaft für die Juden (The Overestimation of Lessing and His Advocacy for the Jews). On the other hand, I was able to admire the “Critical History of the General Principles of Mechanics” as long as the lion wasn’t in it yet—only the lion’s claws. It did seem a bit unpleasant, though—there’s too much in a history of mechanics, isn’t there, about all the gossip, let’s say, surrounding Mrs. Helmholtz—because what really mattered to the person in question was not so much Hermann Helmholtz, whom Dühring reviled so much, but rather the gossip—yes, within Mrs. Helmholtz’s circle. But well; such are the things. Even the most diverse circles engage in idle chatter. Even the most diverse circles of anthroposophists engage in idle chatter. Nevertheless, since a new trend was supposed to begin at Christmas, one can observe various things that are chatted about here and there in anthroposophical gatherings—things that are quite superfluous and, under certain circumstances, could even become unpleasant for the chatters themselves—one can experience this firsthand. But as I said, I have experienced all the nuances of revering, appreciating, criticizing, and getting annoyed with a person through Dühring’s writings. You will understand that one might want to look at the background—at least of the immediately preceding earthly life—to see how something like this developed.

[ 32 ] But here, too, it was not easy, and at first—I don’t want to shy away from mentioning these things—at first, charlatans appeared. After all, whenever one embarks on such investigations, one always encounters all sorts of impressions, sometimes even terrible ones. I myself once sat at a coffeehouse table in Budapest where the reincarnated Joseph II, Frederick the Great, the Marquise de Pompadour, Seneca, the Duke of Reichstadt, and Marie Antoinette were gathered—and then Wenzel Kaunitz joined them later that evening. They were at that coffeehouse table—that is to say, the people considered themselves to be those figures; they believed that was who they were. I mean, something like that always comes up when people start pondering, or begin to approach the matter with some kind of clairvoyant nonsense, or the like. As I said, charlatans easily emerge, because sometimes it really is a matter of starting from the most defining moment in a person’s life—that is, in a specific earthly life—in order to be properly guided back. And with Dühring, I couldn’t manage for a long time to find any such defining moment.

[ 33 ] So I did the following. I focused on what I initially found most appealing about him: namely, his mechanistic-materialistic worldview, which—in a certain sense, at least—is actually intellectual and spiritual. I considered how all of this relates to a finite spatial world and a finite temporal world, and so I reconstructed Dühring’s entire worldview. That’s easy enough to do. But when you take this approach and look back at earlier incarnations, you end up with countless incarnations—and, once again, confusion. Yes, one finds nothing; countless incarnations arise, which of course do not and cannot exist in such numbers: they are mere reflections of the present incarnation. For just as if you have a mirror here in a room and another there, you see an endless reflection stretching into infinity. That’s when it occurred to me to form a clear mental picture: What, when thought through clearly, does Dühring’s worldview actually look like? I’ll now set aside everything that consists of spiteful criticism, ranting, or other trivialities; I’ll set all that aside and focus on the grand aspects—which, as a worldview, I still find thoroughly repugnant, but which, due to the way Dühring presented them, I found appealing—I vividly imagine them. But now I’m setting out to form a clear picture of the reality in Dühring’s case. After all, from a certain year onward, he sees it all as a blind man! A blind man simply doesn’t see the world at all! He therefore imagines it differently than someone who can see. And in fact, the ordinary—I’d say—everyday materialists, everyday mechanists, differ from Dühring. Compared to them, Dühring is a genius. Really, all these people who have constructed worldviews—the fat Vogt, Büchner, Moleschott, Spiller, Wießner, whatever their names may be, right? Twelve dozen is just twelve dozen—all of that is still something different from the way Dühring constructs this worldview. One can also see that he already had the inclination, the impulse, toward a particular form of this worldview when he could still see, and that this worldview actually only suited him once he could no longer see, once the space around him had grown dark. For everything from which Dühring constructed his world actually fits into that dark space. It is incorrect to imagine that this was created by someone who could see.

[ 34 ] Now imagine this: with Dühring, it is an immense truth—as I said, others have also constructed such worldviews; there are one hundred forty-four out of twelve dozen such people who construct such worldviews—but with Dühring it is different; with Dühring, it is a truth: The others see and construct worldviews like the blind; Dühring is blind and constructs his worldview like a blind man. This is something incredibly striking. And once you realize this, you look at this man and know: Here was someone who, in terms of his inner spiritual development, was like a blind man, who now becomes mechanistic precisely because he is blind. Then one finds him again—and here two incarnations come into consideration—one finds him in the midst of that movement in the Christian East as someone who, around the 8th or 9th century, alternately advocates the removal of all imagery, becomes an iconoclast, and then restores the images to their rightful place. In Constantinople, in particular, this struggle over a religion with images versus a religion without images unfolds. There we now find the later Dühring—as an individual—as a man who storms ahead with all his enthusiasm for a cultural life free of images, with the true nature of a mercenary. And I would say that, purely in the physical struggle, one now sees in him everything that later comes to light in his expressions.

[ 35 ] Something struck me as incredibly interesting: In the second little volume of Julius Robert Mayer’s work, there’s a peculiar word. It really brings the whole thing to life! As an iconoclast, Dühring had a special way of wielding his saber—that peculiar curved saber, which was already gradually taking shape back then. I found a connection—don’t you think it really comes down to these vivid details?—with a word in the Julius Robert Mayer book. It’s a chapter titled “Schlichologisches”—Schlichologisches in German university life and so on! Where pranks are played, where one sneaks in from the side: Schlichologisches!

[ 36 ] Just as he coined the lovely term “Intellektuaille”—a play on “Kanaille”—so he coins “Schlichologisches.” He invents the most diverse array of words. As I said, one can learn a great deal from such seemingly minor details. And as paradoxical as it may seem, one cannot truly grasp the connection between different earthly lives unless one has an eye for seeing meaning in symptoms. Anyone who cannot infer a person’s character from the way they walk or the way their feet strike the ground will not easily make progress in matters such as those I am now presenting. One must be able to see the very way in which this individual wielded his saber back then reflected in the words he subsequently coined.

[ 37 ] And now it is precisely this Dühring who used to rail so much, especially against the learned “mis-educated” scholars! He said he would be quite happy if he no longer had to use any terms that reminded him of the old scholarly tradition. He wants no logic, but an anti-logic; no Sophia, but an anti-Sophia; he wants no science, but an anti-science. In fact, what he would like best is to make everything “anti”; he states this explicitly. Now, this man, who railed so fiercely against all scholarship, was—in the incarnation that lies just behind this mercenary-like iconoclastic incarnation, that is, in the incarnation behind it—still a true Greek Stoic philosopher within the school of the Greek Stoics. In ancient times, Dühring himself was precisely what he rails against most: in his third, second-previous incarnation, he was indeed a philosopher—specifically, a Stoic philosopher—that is, one of those philosophers who withdrew from earthly life.

[ 38 ] But it had occurred to me right away back then: An enormous number of thought patterns found in Dühring can also be found among the Stoics! It’s just not always that simple! An entire seminar could devote its dissertations to the form of thought among the Stoics and in Dühring.

[ 39 ] So we first arrive at the age of iconoclasm—around the 9th century in Eastern Europe, where Dühring was, in fact, an iconoclast—and then go back to the 3rd century B.C., to the ancient Stoic era of Greek civilization.

[ 40 ] And now it is truly shocking once again: the Stoic, who becomes unassuming in life, who withdraws from that which is not immediately necessary for life, who resigns himself—who, in the course of the second-to-last spiritual life, resigns himself to the loss of sight in earthly life. And in this, he becomes true to himself. And it is he, then, who portrays the blindness of the modern worldview in a magnificent way.

[ 41 ] Whatever one’s stance on Dühring’s worldview, the tragic and shattering reality is that Dühring, as a person, embodies the truth of the 19th-century worldview, and Dühring expresses this truth through his very being. This Stoic, who did not want to look at the world, went blind; this iconoclast, who wanted to destroy images, cannot tolerate any image at all, shapes literary history, and reduces poetry to what it has become in his two books on literary giants—where not only Goethe and Schiller are excluded, but where, at most, Bürger still plays a certain role. There, what is otherwise a lie becomes true. For otherwise, people claim: The mechanism, the materialism of the second half of the 19th century—that sees! No, that is a falsehood; it does not see—it is blind—and Dühring portrays it in its truth!

[ 42 ] Thus, a prominent figure, viewed correctly in his or her context, simultaneously embodies the world-historical karma—the karma that civilization itself possessed in its worldview of the second half of the 19th century.

[ 43 ] We'll talk more about these things next time.