The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eleventh Lecture

[ 1 ] In the last few lectures I gave here, my aim was to show you, from a certain perspective, how a kind of materialistic flood made itself felt in the evolution of humanity in the mid-19th century, and how it was sensed from various quarters, so to speak, that such a materialistic flood had not yet existed in this form in the history of human development, and that the way it arose—which we have, of course, characterized—was of a certain significance. On the other hand, I tried to convey the sense that people must arm themselves in order to nevertheless follow, in the appropriate manner, the course of development once mapped out for humanity.

[ 2 ] Now, especially in my recent lectures, I have shown you how efforts have been made from various quarters—which are, so to speak, involved in the further development of those goals of human culture connected with Spiritual Science—to incorporate into the course of human development something they deemed necessary in order to show humanity that something new must indeed be added to the old. Certainly, much more could be said on this subject, and in time there will be opportunities to discuss many other aspects in this vein, for we will have to present various pieces of evidence to support what we have so far presented primarily in a narrative form. Today, however, I would like to point out that even in the outer spiritual life around the middle of the 19th century, it became evident in many respects that people sensed they were standing at a truly important juncture. In the outer spiritual life—that is, in what finds expression in the various philosophical movements, in the literary movement, and the like—much could be cited regarding what I would call a convulsive element that had become intertwined with the course of human development. Since so much could be cited, one can, of course, only single out a few examples.

[ 3 ] In order to shed light on the course of human development, I would like to take two examples from European literary life as a starting point today. These examples are intended to show us how a sense existed in people’s hearts and minds that, in a sense, something significant was taking place in the invisible worlds. One such example is Gutzkow’s novel *Maha Guru*, *The Great Guru*, and a second example—curiously, this second example was written at the same time as *Maha Guru*—is the extraordinarily significant drama that concludes with the cry: “You have triumphed, Galilean!”—and which, as far as I can tell from what I know of it, marks a particular high point in 19th-century Polish literature.

[ 4 ] It is curious that Gutzkow—a young free spirit in his twenties at the time, in the 1830s—chose this subject matter to allude, as it were, to many of the currents of thought and life of the era, and that he chose as his subject a man who would later become the Dalai Lama in Tibet: the “Maha Guru,” the Great Guru, as he called him. Let us briefly consider this portrait of the times—one that seems so distant from European conditions yet is, in reality, so infinitely close to them: the “Maha Guru,” who appeared in the 1830s, just as the dawn of the materialistic age was breaking.

[ 5 ] One of the main characters in the novel *Maha Guru* is a “god-maker.” What, then, is a god-maker in Tibet? It is someone who fabricates, or creates, gods; that is, he shapes gods out of all kinds of materials—just as we work with modeling clay today— gods in accordance with the traditions strictly prescribed in the Tibetan canon. These details must be exactly right: the proportions prescribed for facial features, the dimensions of the hands, and the poses they assume. Everything must be perfectly accurate. Our hero—one of the heroes of the novel—comes from an ancient lineage that has always made the crafting of gods its special profession, and he understands his craft exceptionally well. He is famous far and wide as a god-maker; his gods are purchased throughout the entire Tibetan Empire. Now, while crafting one of the principal gods, something truly terrible happens to him. Of course, one must put oneself in the heart and mind of a Tibetan if one wishes to understand the full force of the word “terrible” in this context. And when one places oneself in the heart of a God-fearing Tibetan, what happened to this god-maker is indeed a terrible thing. What happened was that, on one of the principal gods, the distance between the nostrils and the upper lip turned out slightly different than it should have been—he had shaped it somewhat differently than prescribed by the canon. So this was something truly dreadful and very serious. He thus deviated from the ancient, venerable canon and made the distance between the nostrils and the upper lip slightly greater than prescribed. In Tibet, this is a terrible sin, something truly dreadful—almost, or perhaps just as, dreadful as if someone in the West today were to stand before any orthodox community and claim that two “Jesus boys” were necessary to accommodate the Christ within Jesus, or if he were to speak of a capacity for knowledge that transcends ordinary cognition; people would say of him that he is leading his followers astray into all sorts of clairvoyant experiments and the like, and such teachings are dismissed as fanciful. That is how things are done today. But in the era in which our novel is set, it was a similarly grave offense that the nostrils of the chief deity had been placed too far from the upper lip during its creation. Only the punishments were different. Today, at most, one gives lectures brimming with inaccurate information and faces other, milder measures. Back then, however, in that region, the god-maker had to be brought before the high Tibetan Inquisition tribunal, before the fearsome Council of Black Inquisitors. This is how one might describe it using terms common in Europe.

[ 6 ] Now—in Tibet, a police force is unnecessary; people obey of their own accord. When they are told that a stranger has ridden in without a horse, or that they must appear before the Black Inquisition Tribunal, there is no need to go and fetch them—now our “god-maker” had to set out and turn himself in. He set out with his brothers and also with his charming daughter, who was a very special kind of Tibetan beauty. For many years, this daughter had helped him in a devoted and understanding way with her mastery of the Tibetan canon and had proven herself to be an exceedingly charming person. The brothers had to come along because they were jointly responsible for his deed.

[ 7 ] The caravan has now set out for Lhasa so that the sinner can be brought before the Black Tribunal. When they had traveled a good distance from their homeland toward Lhasa, they encountered a strange, noisy, dancing, whistling procession of people playing all manner of instruments, led by a shaman, who was also on his way to Lhasa. Now this man was an acquaintance, a childhood friend of the God-Maker’s daughter; he knew this entire caravan, whose leader was in fact our God-Maker, who—deeply burdened by guilt over his falsely fabricated god—was on his way to Lhasa to face judgment. The shaman specifically drew his attention to the danger of his situation, saying: “It would be good if the Vice-Dalai Lama were still there, but it could also be that the real Dalai Lama has already been found and is already ruling Tibet from Lhasa.” Then, under certain circumstances, things might turn out even worse for him. For the deputy ruler might, under certain circumstances, still grant mercy in lieu of justice, but if the new Dalai Lama were already there, then there would be no way of knowing whether full justice would not have to be served. And if one has violated the canon as severely as the “god-maker” did—with the nose positioned at an incorrect distance from the upper lip—it goes without saying that this carries the death penalty.

[ 8 ] So the sinner learns that one may be close to finding the Dalai Lama, the Maha Guru. What does that mean in Tibet? You see, in Tibet people are well aware that the soul of the great Bodhisattva who reigns over Tibet passes from body to body. When a Dalai Lama dies, a new Dalai Lama must be sought, and this process must be conducted in the most democratic manner, for the Tibetan constitution is highly democratic. There is no hereditary succession of titles, nothing that would be passed down biologically from father to son. According to Tibetan beliefs, this is entirely contrary to the dignity of the Dalai Lama. So when a Dalai Lama has died, the clergy must set out to find a new Dalai Lama, and every young boy must be examined, for even in the poorest family, the great soul might have been reincarnated. The entire country must be searched, and every boy in every home and on the street is presented for inspection; depending on whether he exhibits this or that sign, or displays this or that behavior—which, in the opinion of the local priests, indicates the necessary wisdom—he has a chance of being recognized as the Dalai Lama. The one who exhibits the most signs is believed to be the great soul of the Bodhisattva, who has incarnated in this boy, and he is then recognized as the Dalai Lama. In the meantime—that is, while the search for the incarnation of the deity in human form is still underway—a Vice Dalai Lama must administer the country for the time being.

[ 9 ] Gutzkow goes on to say: So there were already rumors that the new Maha Guru or the new Dalai Lama might be crowned or installed in his special office in Lhasa. And here I must interject a little story that Gutzkow tells. He tells it in a slightly different way, but we just want to conjure up an image of his “Maha Guru” in our minds.

[ 10 ] The charming girl was traveling with her father, the sinner. According to Tibetan custom, his other brothers are also fathers, because a form of polygamy exists there. When a man marries in Tibet, his brothers also marry the same woman at the same time. The father’s brothers are therefore also fathers, though only one is the chief father. — The caravan is beautifully depicted in the *Maha Guru*: the fathers are lined up in front, as if in a circle, then the chief father—in this case, our sinner—and the charming girl, the sinner’s daughter. When she was still small—a child who had only just begun to help her father—this daughter of the sinner had a childhood friend with whom she enjoyed playing, by Tibetan standards; she had been very fond of him at the time and still remembered him fondly. The chief shaman of the shouting, trumpeting procession had also been among her childhood playmates, and this shaman was, in turn, a brother of the girl’s aforementioned childhood playmate. I had to include this so that what follows will be easier to understand.

[ 11 ] Now the entire caravan sets out for Lhasa, and as they enter the city, they hear that the new Maha Guru, the new Dalai Lama, has already been installed in his office. First, however, we are informed that our great sinner—who made the distance between the nose and upper lip of one of Tibet’s principal deities too long—is being brought before the Black Tribunal. During the dreadful trial that took place, it turns out that this is a sin that can be atoned for by nothing other than death. Meanwhile, the sinner and his family are thrown into prison so that a further trial can take place later, in which all of this man’s sins are to be revealed. I must expressly note that, up to that point, his only sin had been that, in depicting the chief god, he had made the distance between the nostril and the upper lip barely one millimeter too long. But there, that is already a sin worthy of death.

[ 12 ] It now turns out that, amid great fanfare, the new Dalai Lama is first inaugurated into office. We are introduced to all sorts of Tibetan customs, as well as to all manner of goings-on at the court in Lhasa. Detailed descriptions are given of these events, and much is said about them. Among those present—in his capacity as a Chinese envoy to the court of Lhasa—was a man who had a charming young sister and who held a special rank among the mandarins. He was in the sixth rank but hoped to rise higher soon; his particular aspiration was even to receive the Order of the Peacock Feather. But now, while this Chinese envoy is pursuing his dreams—the boldest of which is to acquire the high Order of the Peacock Feather—the new Dalai Lama has been installed in his office. The new Dalai Lama knows that he created the sun, the moon, the stars, the lightning, and the clouds, as well as the plants and the stones, and he explains to those who are now paying their respective visits how he did this—how he is the creator of all that is visible in the vast universe, and also of that which is invisible. Thus, he is the creator of the visible world, as well as of what is considered to be the invisible worlds that are part of the visible world.

[ 13 ] There are now two factions in Tibet. There are factions elsewhere as well, but these two are even more intimately connected with the entire time-honored spiritual development of humanity. These two factions, which include the priesthoods of various sects, are usually identified by the headdresses they wear. One faction is called the Yellow Hats, and the other, the Red Tassels. These are in constant conflict with one another. In our language, we would say—and this is truly intimately connected with the spiritual there—that the Yellow Hats are associated with the Luciferic element of life, while the Red Tassels are more closely associated with the Ahrimanic element. This permeates their teachings, but also their actions. Thus, the teachings and actions of the Yellow Hats are shaped and structured in such a way that the Luciferic element prevails within them, while in everything the Red Tassels accomplish, the Ahrimanic element prevails more strongly. It follows from this—and explaining to you why this follows would take us too far afield—that the Red Tassels place their main emphasis on ensuring that the Dalai Lama of Lhasa is regarded as the rightful god who brought forth plants, animals, and human beings. They have an interest in ensuring that the new Dalai Lama is found and that everyone in the country believes he is the rightful god, whereas the Yellow Hats, once the Dalai Lama has been found and is seated on the throne, are constantly outraged by this. For in Tibet, besides the Dalai Lama, there is a Teschu Lama who is more widely recognized by the northern Tibetans and the Mongol tribes; he thus exists alongside the Dalai Lama and spends his entire life striving to overthrow the other and place himself on the throne. The Yellow Hats, therefore, are those who support the Teschu Lama and seek to place him on the throne.

[ 14 ] The one who embraced the ideal of the Order of the Peacock Feather now saw: a new Dalai Lama had arrived. China, his country, exercised a kind of oversight over Tibet. But the Teschu Lama wants to challenge the other for the throne, and there is room for intrigue. And he is now orchestrating such intrigues. He arranges a sort of caravan, a sort of military campaign, to go to the Teschu Lama and strengthen his power. But in reality, his aim is not to see the Teschu Lama ascend the throne; rather, he wants the Chinese regime to be able to tighten its grip. Amid all the confusion that ensues, it turns out that the charming girl—the daughter of our sinner—has managed to escape from prison. And what must never happen does happen—what should be completely out of the question occurs: in the garden where only the god, the Dalai Lama, is allowed to walk, she discovers the Dalai Lama, and lo and behold, the Dalai Lama was her childhood playmate, the one who one day was no longer there, who had suddenly vanished, and who had since been raised to become the Dalai Lama. He was now the Dalai Lama, and he discovered this girl, the daughter of our terrible sinner. A rather interesting dialogue now unfolds. And you can imagine what kind of situation might arise when the childhood friend, who had dearly loved her childhood playmate, encounters this playmate, who is convinced that he created the sun, the moon, and the stars—and the childhood friend is not averse to believing in her god to a certain extent. But it so happened that the priests discovered this terrible thing and threw the girl back into prison. The Dalai Lama, however, sits on his soft silk cushion and among his other belongings, continuing to meditate on how he directs the lightning and the clouds and how he has brought forth and continues to sustain the other things connected to the visible world.

[ 15 ] Later in the novel, we are once again brought before the Black Tribunal. A terrible scene unfolds, because our sinner—who at first had nothing on his conscience other than having made the distance between his nose and upper lip one millimeter too long—now appears as a major criminal. For he had, in the meantime, gone mad in prison; he had taken—as we would say—some modeling clay and fashioned the most bizarre gods. Now just imagine: a Tibetan tribunal must bring in a whole host of gods that he had made incorrectly in prison! That is a terrible thing. A howl of indignation arises, no matter how he tries to defend himself. For all around are the judges, and in the wide galleries the people; and the judges are all monks who tell the people just how long the nostrils must be, how large each line on each god may be, how much larger a god’s belly may be than that of an ordinary person, and all the other ways this man has sinned with the gods he fashioned in prison. This is a terrible thing. He is being torn to pieces, quite literally, by the fanatical judges of the Inquisition tribunal. The great sinner and his entourage—including his charming little daughter, whose particular charm lies in the fact that her feet are not too small, thus deviating from the Eastern custom of having feet that are too small—and she is a charming creature in every other respect as well—are thrown back into prison. But the entourage of the man aspiring to the Order of the Peacock Feather causes confusion in Lhasa, and in this confusion a fire breaks out, and the very house in which the girl is inside goes up in flames. She appears high above amid the smoke and flames at the very moment the Dalai Lama and his brother are passing by below. At the right moment, the human heart of the god, the Dalai Lama, stirs. Now he does not send thunder and lightning to the rescue, but instead throws himself into the flames, rescues the girl, and brings her down. The shaman, his brother, who knows everything, helps him escape. The Dalai Lama flees with the girl to a secluded mountainous region, together with his brother; the Teschu Lama of the Yellow Hats is installed in his place. So the girl goes with the Maha Guru and his brother, the shaman—for according to Tibetan custom, when one marries, the other marries as well—and now he is married to the lovely girl. The shaman dies after only a year. The good Dalai Lama, however, lives to a very old age. He thus becomes his wife’s only husband, and that has been the case for a long series of years, since the shaman died shortly thereafter. He even outlives this wife, becoming a completely lonely old man; he has long since given up the belief that he controls lightning and thunder, that he created mountains, forests, and rivers, and that the sun, moon, and stars move in their orbits according to his will. In his old age, he becomes a yogi. He seeks to absorb the wisdom through which his soul ascends into the spiritual worlds. He stands on one leg, the other coiled around it like a snake, one hand extended backward, the other raised upward: this is how he now stands, moving only his lips. People from the valley bring him food; but he no longer leaves this position. Grasses and vines grow around him, and thus he awaits death. — This final scene is depicted in a remarkable way in the novel. It describes how the man who was made the Dalai Lama actually finds his God in old age, and how his soul dissolves into those elements he sought to understand and which, for a certain period of his life, he believed he had created.

[ 16 ] It is a very curious literary work, a product of the 1830s, in which a relatively young man describes, with great insight, the customs that exist in Tibet, that remarkable land: it is that which, in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, could only remain of various things that existed in a completely different way in the fourth, the main Atlantean period of our Earth’s evolution. What is significant—and significant, at least outwardly, at first glance—is that such a novel could have come into being during this era, that a human soul felt the need to create something that can, in fact, only be understood if one at least has a sense of the entire course of human development, including its spiritual aspect. At least in Europe, one senses that in this remarkable country, in many Tibetan customs that seem grotesque to us, there is a most faithful reflection—albeit in caricature—of what existed quite differently in the Atlantean world. This is the outwardly significant aspect, in addition to the fact that this novel was able to come into being at that time, when, so to speak, attention was drawn to that country where one can most clearly see how even in the so-called “yellow caps” and “red tassels” the Luciferic and Ahrimanic elements—with which the inhabitants of Atlantis, particularly during the fourth Atlantean epoch, were intimately familiar with—and with which they worked and interacted. But there is something else that is of inner significance in this *Maha Guru*.

[ 17 ] What is truly significant is what we can bring to mind when we once again recall the moment when the trial takes place before the aforementioned black Inquisition tribunal. There, our sinner delivers a remarkable speech in his own defense. We already know that he invented countless gods while in prison; but he invented them in a state of madness—he had gone mad. It is beautifully described how the madness was already taking shape on the journey to Lhasa, how it then spread more and more, and finally erupted just as I have already described. Now, having gone completely mad, he invents all sorts of gods that violate the canon in the most appalling way.

[ 18 ] In doing so, we learn what Gutzkow has elaborated in a remarkably beautiful and apt manner regarding the Tibetan canon; but we also learn something quite remarkable. This great sinner is characterized to us in roughly the following way. He inherited from his fathers and grandfathers—as one must always say when speaking of Tibet—the practice of inventing gods. Always, always, the gods he created were such that everything lined up perfectly; every distance and arrangement of the limbs was correct, the distance between the upper lip and the nostrils was correct, and so on. Never, never had it happened to him that the distance between the nostrils and the upper lip had become even a tiny bit too great. But then it happened to him once, and now he had to face his death. Yet as a madman—that is, in a state where his soul has already partially left his body—he uses his body to create utterly heretical gods. And now he delivers a long speech in his own defense—he, who himself has absorbed nothing of art except what is prescribed by the canon—for the gods were always fabricated according to the canon—a speech in which he develops artistic principles out of his madness. It is a deeply moving scene for anyone who understands such things. So for this man, as long as he was intact with his four bodies, the only mistake he could make was the slightly larger gap between his nose and upper lip. But now, after the astral body and the etheric body have detached from the physical body, he becomes an artist and works with grotesque-artistic principles. The Inquisition does not understand this and believes that he has allied himself with evil to destroy the works of the gods.

[ 19 ] Much of what I have said about the human soul straying into one abyss or another comes to mind when one reads the poignant scene before the Inquisition tribunal in Gutzkow’s work. So it also came to mind for this young man: how a time might come when people would no longer be able to find their balance. And now he places such people within a Tibetan religious community, because—for the novelist, of course—these questions can be explored most intensely when contrasts clash sharply, and because in this way he can show how art suddenly emerges; art emerges from the human soul that has strayed into the abyss, from the human soul that has come close to Lucifer in order to save itself from the Ahrimanic clutches of the red-tasseled figures who stand as judges of heretics. From this we see art springing forth. It is a wonderfully profound law that is being pointed to here—the connection between human beings and the spiritual world and its abysses: the Luciferic and Ahrimanic worlds.

[ 20 ] Before I continue this line of thought, I would like to make a few remarks about Krasinski’s Polish play—the one that concludes with the words: “You have triumphed, Galilean!” and of which Mickiewicz provides a partial translation in his Paris lectures under the title: “La comédie infernale.” I expressly note that I am not in a position to judge the play artistically, because I am familiar only with its idea and intention. Based on the beautiful description Adam Mickiewicz gave of this play in his Paris lectures in 1842, I can speak only of the play’s idea and intention and say nothing about its artistic merits—only about its idea and intention. You must bear this limitation in mind. And one can indeed speak of the drama in this way, for Mickiewicz analyzed it precisely in terms of its concept and intent. These are such excellent essays in French that one can readily convince oneself of the grandeur and significance of this drama by delving into Mr. Mickiewicz’s writings. This becomes even more apparent when one reads the beautiful preface to this drama—reproduced by Mickiewicz—which discusses the spirit of poetry, and one becomes convinced that one is dealing with a drama that has emerged from the deepest depths of the human soul. In a marvelous way, the mysteries of the human soul are explored in this drama. Before us stands a Polish count as the main character; speaking to him from left and right, turning toward him, are good angels and evil angels, some of whom seek to guide humanity toward the good side of evolution, while others seek to lead it toward the dark side of evolution. The relevant scenes have been translated into French and demonstrate how, with marvelous simplicity, the Polish poet sought to portray these relationships between the spirits from the hierarchy of the Angeloi and our hero, the Polish count.

[ 21 ] Then we learn about the count’s family life. The count’s family life has suffered because of his entire personality. The Count lives entirely in the past—a past that extends into his personal life, into the past of humanity, into the past of what has shaped human evolution up to that point; but also in the past that belongs to him amidst his ancient Polish lineage, amidst the images of his fathers and ancestors. He pays little attention to the present, and so he cannot find a connection with his wife. But within what lives in him as hereditary heritage—which, I might say, has been transplanted into him through the refined blood of many generations—there also lives, in a refined form, an extraordinarily spiritual disposition, a sense for the worlds that hover entirely above the earthly realm, a wholly spiritual sensibility. And so it is that he cannot find a connection with his wife. He lives only in the spirit; he lives in such a way that those around him perceive him as a prophet gifted by God. His wife has just given birth to a son. We are then led to the baptism of his child; but he himself is not present. He cannot find a connection with what is earthly. Because of this baptism and everything associated with it, the woman—the child’s mother—goes mad. He, the count, had gone away, and when he returns home after the baptism, he learns that his wife has been committed to an insane asylum—what we would call a sanatorium today.

[ 22 ] Strange—once again we are confronted with a character whose humanity is fraying. We learn what words the woman spoke just before she lost her mind during the child’s baptism. When the time came for the child to be baptized, the woman grasped the idea of the misfortune that surrounded the child—that she had not, with her talents and her entire humanity, been able to measure up to the way her husband lived in the spiritual world, and that she could not have given birth to a child who would have been able to live sufficiently in the spiritual worlds for the father to love him. And with all the strength of her soul, with all her longing, she wants to penetrate the spiritual worlds to bring down for her son whatever can be found there. She wished she could bring everything from the spiritual world to give the child a spiritual disposition. This very act of “bringing down” spiritual endowments for the child drives her mad. So she is, as we would say today, taken to a sanatorium.

[ 23 ] There, the old count seeks her out; he finds her, and she speaks with him. And now she utters some wonderfully moving words. She first announces that she intends to bring from the spiritual worlds, for the child’s sake, those powers that will make it possible for the father to love him, and then she speaks wonderful words, something like the following: I can penetrate all worlds; my wings soar into all worlds; I will gather all that dwells and shines in the spiritual worlds to instill it in my child, and I will gather all that lives in the light of the spirit and in the world of the spheres to shape the child’s soul so that the child may become a poet. —- One phrase takes us particularly deep into the poet’s intuitive imagination, into the spiritual worlds, where the poet has the old count—who has just heard that his wife has gone mad—say: “Where does her soul dwell now?” Amid the howling of madmen! This serene spirit, who lived in awe of the universe, has been darkened. She has sent her thoughts into the desert to seek me!

[ 24 ] Then the father goes to see the child. The child was born physically blind but has become clairvoyant, and speaks of his mother. The child remains blind at first, and—some time after this scene—the count utters some strange words. For the mother has, in the meantime, died. The child tells the father that its soul can always rise, as if on wings, to where the mother is—the mother it has never known. And so the child recounts, as it describes how it looks into the spiritual world, what the child naturally has not heard, but what the father learned from the madwoman as her last wish. Then the count utters another strange remark—strange to one who can gain insight into these matters through Spiritual Science: “Is it possible that someone who has passed through death retains in the spiritual world, for a time, the ideas they last held here before passing through the gate of death?”

[ 25 ] Thus we see how mother and child physically collapse, and how they are carried into the spiritual world in a certain abnormal, atavistic way. Surrounding the count, who lives entirely in the past with his spirit, they collapse, yet in an atavistic way they are carried into the spiritual world.

[ 26 ] One cannot help but find an inner connection between the atavistic being carried into the spiritual world of those close to the Polish count, and the way the “god-maker”—that great sinner in *Maha Guru*—is swept into it; he who describes his art, who conjured up an entirely new world of gods when he had gone mad and physically collapsed. One hears the cry of humanity almost more clearly in the Polish drama than in “Maha Guru”: What will become of us if human souls cannot receive the teachings from the spiritual worlds in a true and pure form? What will become of humanity in the future? Must people physically break down in order to enter the spiritual world?

[ 27 ] Those who were serious had to pose these grave questions to fate. And especially when one reads the preface to this *Comédie infernale*, one gets a sense that the Polish poet’s soul was deeply preoccupied with the very questions I have just raised. There is perhaps no finer, more intense depiction of this tragedy in poetry than that found in this preface to the “Comédie infernale.”—Then, as the story unfolds, the count—who has thus witnessed his family crumble around him—is contrasted with a figure whom the poet presents to the world as a powerful personality who wants nothing to do with the past; internally a thoroughly Tatar-Mongolian character, externally a figure who has embraced the socialist teachings of Fourier, Saint-Simon, and others, and who is determined to do everything in his power to destroy what exists and to give humanity a new social life. He says: What exists—the world in which the Count lives—must be thoroughly wiped off the face of the earth. - People are made aware of this violent man who wants to destroy everything, who cannot bear that things are as they are. And a struggle unfolds between the bearer of the past and the bearer of the present—a struggle of great intensity, which is brilliantly depicted. The individual scenes, as rendered in French, are such that one can certainly speak of them in this way.

[ 28 ] Then we are also presented with a conversation, a dialogue between the violent man and the old count—a dialogue that can only be conducted by people in whose souls two destinies live and stand opposed to one another: the fate of one world against the fate of another. A struggle unfolds in which even the old count appears alongside the clairvoyant child. And so it turns out: the child perishes, the old Polish count perishes, and the man of violence has triumphed. The servants, the count’s entire retinue, are destroyed. What was old has been overcome; the man of violence has the upper hand; the present has triumphed over the past.

[ 29 ] The description of the battlefield is truly magnificent. Then we are presented with another scene: After the battle, the man of violence stands there with a friend; he looks up at the sky—or perhaps, more accurately, at a rock behind which the sun is setting and which the setting sun is gilding—and suddenly he has a vision. The friend sees nothing out of the ordinary, only the rock glowing in the sun; but the man of violence—who has borne so much on his soul, who has also been impressed by a man who has experienced as much in his life as the old count—stands there and sees the image of Jesus Christ appear on that mountain peak.

[ 30 ] From this moment on, he knows that neither the old count—the representative of the past, who has reached only as far as an atavistic existence in the spirit—could save the past that is crumbling around him, nor that he, who lives in the present world, will emerge victorious. He realizes that a struggle will unfold, but that neither of these two may prevail—neither the past, which, in terms of life in the spiritual world, can only reach the level of atavism, nor the present, represented by the man of violence. The present, built upon the teachings of Fourier and Saint-Simon, mocks the angels and the teachings of God. Christ Jesus, who now appeared to him, shows him: Victory lies neither on one side nor on the other, but in that which stands above both. — And what the man of violence now beholds above the rocky crag bathed in sunlight—Christ Jesus—leads him to say: “You have triumphed, Galilean!” So the man of violence cries out and falls down dead. This great tragic outcome arises from that which is higher than the two currents so magnificently pitted against one another in this drama. In this—as is evident from the individual scenes—wonderful drama of Polish literature, we encounter a significant manifestation of Polish messianism. We see how, with the advent of the modern era, people are compelled to ask profound questions about the fate of their people.