The Rudolf Steiner Archive

10. The Soul and Moral Human Dignity in the Light of Spiritual Science (Anthroposophy)

[ 1 ] In yesterday’s lecture, I already pointed out how, under the influence of the newer worldview shaped by the natural sciences, a certain uncertainty had to arise among humanity regarding the question: How do the events of the world—which the natural sciences present as simply a necessity of nature—relate to the validity and significance of moral human values?

[ 2 ] The scientific worldview has, in fact, increasingly come to emphasize that everything that happens in the world occurs as a necessity dictated by the laws of nature. And it has increasingly come to include within these natural laws only those phenomena that, in essence, have nothing to do with the moral human being. And so we have seen the emergence—actually quite clearly only in the middle of the 19th century—of a scientific worldview, pieced together from the various findings of scientific thought, which initially states, with regard to our Earth and all that belongs to it: that this Earth is a part of a general system—our solar system—and that it emerged along with it from a kind of primordial nebular state, coalesced from it, and separated itself over the course of time. Then the beings of the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms arose, and through the perfection of the animal form, so did humankind. As the natural law-governed necessity of the interplay of forces—which has guided the course of the world up to this point and into its present form—continues, what is now inhabited by humans as Earth will one day be devoid of humans, devoid of animals, and devoid of plants; it will once again disappear into the general process of the universe.

[ 3 ] Certainly, anyone who strongly feels what natural science represents as an authority for people today will hardly doubt that this worldview holds a certain exclusive significance. Indeed, there will be many—especially among today’s educated people—who will insist that anyone who refuses to acknowledge the significance of this worldview is making a fool of himself.

[ 4 ] However, among those who make such a fool of themselves are people whose voices carry considerable weight. In previous lectures here, I have already drawn attention to how the insightful art historian Herman Grimm points out in his book on Goethe just how little this worldview corresponds to the original, elemental sensibility of human beings. He goes so far as to say that the sight of a bone around which a hungry dog circles is more appetizing than this worldview. It will be somewhat difficult for future historians of humanity to explain the madness of the age that led to this Kant-Laplacean theory.

[ 5 ] Certainly, such a thing is regarded today as amateurishness, dilettantism, and so on. What has been established by the natural sciences swells, as it were, into a worldview—a complete picture of the world—and then asserts itself in this way. And we are left to ask: How does the voice of the moral ideal—the voice of conscience, which is, after all, audible within the human being—stand in relation to such a worldview, which in a certain sense claims exclusivity? How does this voice—the voice that urges us to do this and refrain from that, the voice that tells us this is good and that is evil—stand in relation to such a worldview? How does the whole of moral life fit into this worldview?

[ 6 ] I have met many people who view this moral life as a kind of fleeting smoke that rises—actually, the illusion of smoke—arising from natural scientific processes, which fills people with an illusion for a time, only to disappear forever. And if one is completely honest, how could one think otherwise than that what arises in the human mind, after humans have evolved from lower animal forms over the course of millions of years—how could one think otherwise than that what arises in the human mind as ideals will, in turn, vanish without a trace when the Earth reverts to the state into which it dissolves in the general course of the universe? It would simply have been an episode that humans had set moral ideals for themselves. Humankind would have acted under the influence of these moral ideals. All these moral ideals would have meant nothing more than that they were illusory bubbles that had risen, according to which humankind had organized its life, and which would have no further consequences for the development of the world.

[ 7 ] I know how many objections are still raised today from a materialist perspective against such a full-fledged application of this worldview. But there is something that must also be addressed in response to the objections raised by materialists today when one says to them: Your worldview—your worldview derived solely from the natural sciences—actually reduces human moral worth to nothing more than an illusory bubble.

[ 8 ] Let’s take a look back at the time when the scientific worldview emerged in the civilized world with full vigor and passion. It was around the middle of the 19th century, when, I would say, not as lethargically and inconsistently as today, but with full fervor, the materialists hammered home the idea that—based on the notion that everything is ordered exactly as physics, chemistry, and biology dictate—this was the basis from which they conceived of moral values; I would like to offer a few examples of this that may no longer be sufficiently well-known today. You see, in the era when materialism—I might say—swept through European civilization in the vigor of its youth, there was a historian named Hellwald; he wrote a cultural history from the standpoint of the scientific worldview. Drawing the true, inevitable conclusion from this scientific worldview, he told himself: Moral ideals—indeed, all human moral ideas—are illusions. How can one conceive of any objective justification for moral ideas in light of the necessary course of events, as assumed by chemistry and physics? But people have always had moral ideas. This simply must be explained scientifically, says the cultural historian Friedrich von Hellwald. For the time being, however, he expresses himself on moral ideals from a purely scientific—that is, from the natural-scientific—point of view. I would like to demonstrate this manner of expression with an example. He says: “The task of science is to destroy all ideals, to prove their hollowness and futility, to show that belief in God and religion are delusions, and that morality, love, freedom, and human rights are lies.”

[ 9 ] You see, this is how people spoke when they believed that scientific causality was the only worldview to be upheld—at a time when this idea had just taken root in people’s hearts, when they did not approach these matters with cold indifference or inconsistency.

[ 10 ] But, says the same historian, why did people invent these moral ideals, which are, after all, meaningless? Science attests to their meaninglessness. Because, he says, people needed them; in the struggle for existence, they needed them. If one harbors moral illusions—if one believes in the delusion of moral ideals or ideals of truth—one fares better in the struggle for existence than if one does not believe in these illusions. That is why these illusions arose. That is why people embraced these moral ideals. They were the right means in the struggle for existence.

[ 11 ] That was the logical consequence of the last third of the 19th century! It is something that still lingers in people’s souls; but souls today are no longer as consistent as those of the people of that time, and therefore today’s souls do not admit to the logical consequence that lies within it: Either I accept the Kantian-Laplacian or a similar view of nature, in which case I must declare moral ideals to be illusions and lies, or else I must tear down what is merely a scientific worldview.

[ 12 ] Yes, people were more consistent back then. I’d like to read you another excerpt. A woman wrote to Moleschott, one of the leading scientists shaping the worldview of that time. At that time, this lady wrote the following about her view regarding the moral value of human beings: “The moral standard for every human being lies solely in their own nature, and is therefore different for everyone. What are excesses and passions in and of themselves? Nothing other than a greater or lesser degree of a fully legitimate instinct.” And the lady goes on to write: “I love humanity as it is, and even the thief and the murderer have been taught by his doctrine”—she means Moleschott’s doctrine—“to respect me and recognize my human rights. Within the realm of human dispositions, everything that makes both the thief and the merchant is fully justified. Cunning and craftiness, combined with the drive to acquire, are here as there merely a combination with other mental faculties—the animating principle. Everything that enters life has, by virtue of that entry, also acquired the right to live. That is why I must say it once more: Even the person who has become a thief brought with him the right to fulfill his nature and to make it all-encompassing, and in this way can be nothing but a powerful, moral nature. And just as with the thief, so it is with every vice-ridden person, even the one who has become a murderer. The latter can attain the fulfillment of his humanity only by satisfying his lust for murder.”

[ 13 ] Ladies and gentlemen, she was not a revolutionary; she was a very respectable, middle-class-minded lady who, in the early days of that worldview—which is essentially still held today, though it is simply not taken seriously—took that worldview seriously enough, and who simply believed: if one thinks the way most people still do today with regard to the scientific worldview, then one must think about human moral worth the way she does. It was a deeply felt inner obligation on the part of such a personality toward the conviction I have cited here—a conviction that, in essence, leads to the dissolution of all striving for truth, to the dissolution of all ideals, and offers absolutely no basis for conceiving of human moral worth as anchored in the world in any way.

[ 14 ] I have read these examples to you—and there are many more—so that you may see how it came to be that what is happening in Europe today has taken root in people’s souls. Is it any wonder that the mood you know all too well is sweeping across Europe today, when this mood was born precisely among those people who thought and felt consistently and who held this worldview around the middle of the 19th century and at the beginning of the last third of the 19th century?

[ 15 ] It is indeed the case that modern human beings, in the half-heartedness of their souls, simply refuse to admit that they ought to think this way about moral human dignity unless they revise their worldview—the one imposed on them by those who shape worldviews with a scientific mindset. This is the profound gravity of all those questions that arise when we seek a new structure for our worldview. This is what weighs so heavily on the souls of those who see in Spiritual Science—which I spoke to you about again yesterday—something that must necessarily be integrated into the current course of human development and that of the near future. Only in this way can we expect human moral worth to gain a firm foothold—truly gain a firm foothold—and for the scientific worldview itself to be enriched by Spiritual Science, by the knowledge of the spirit.

[ 15 ] It is indeed the case that modern human beings, in the half-heartedness of their souls, simply refuse to admit that they ought to think this way about moral human dignity unless they revise their worldview—the one imposed on them by those who shape worldviews with a scientific mindset. This is the profound gravity of all those questions that arise when we seek a new structure for our worldview. This is what weighs so heavily on the souls of those who see in Spiritual Science—which I spoke to you about again yesterday—something that must necessarily be integrated into the current course of human development and that of the near future. Only in this way can we expect human moral worth to gain a firm foothold—truly gain a firm foothold—and for the scientific worldview itself to be enriched by Spiritual Science, by the knowledge of the spirit.

[ 17 ] You see, it is only a small sample, but it is precisely a sample of how Spiritual Science does not seek to lose itself in a fantasy world, how it does not rise into a mystical mist, but rather how it points directly toward an understanding of reality, how it reveals what works within the human organism as spiritual and soul-related forces during the first seven years. This Spiritual Science, after all, is what first teaches us to recognize the human organism! That is precisely the fate of materialism: that it cannot recognize matter, that it tells us nothing about matter. Spiritual Science tells us precisely such things about matter as I have just indicated in the workings of that which later becomes the movement of thought within the human organism up to the age of seven. If one could go into the details, the concrete aspects, one would see how the spiritual-soul forces work on the human organs—the liver, lungs, kidneys, and so on. Spiritual Science will bring true understanding of precisely these material processes, because it is able to explain these material processes from the spiritual perspective.

[ 18 ] If, as a spiritual researcher, one continues to develop the method through which one can enter the spiritual world, then one must, through meditation—as I indicated yesterday—further develop that which has separated itself in the seventh year as thinking activity and as imaginative activity. Then one must work inwardly with thoughts as intensely as thought works during the first seven years of life—not merely conjuring thoughts into consciousness, but with the power of thought working so strongly within the organism that it ultimately leads to the formation of teeth from within the organism. If one works one’s way through meditation into such intensified thinking and imaginative activity, then one also notices the difference between this kind of thinking—which then brings one directly into the perception of the spiritual world, allowing one to recognize immediately how the human being has descended from a spiritual-soul realm through birth into physical existence—and one can then compare what one has, so to speak, I would say, artificially achieved through meditation, with what ordinary human thinking is.

[ 19 ] Isn't it true that in this way we have come to understand what ordinary human thinking consists of—the kind of thinking that people engage in during daily life and in conventional science? People engage in this kind of thinking; but they cannot possibly know what this thinking actually consists of. One only begins to recognize what this thinking consists of when one can contrast it with thinking that is free from the body, that is not bound to the brain, that takes place in the purely spiritual-soul and etheric realms—a kind of thinking that can only be acquired through meditation. Only then does one have the ability to compare; only then can one contrast ordinary human thinking with this entirely body-free thinking. It is important to be able to do this, for only then does one gain a true scientific understanding of the full significance of the human soul.

[ 20 ] You see, it is an extraordinarily significant experience one has when one is finally able to grasp thinking in its bodiless state and compare it to what thinking is like when it is bound to the brain as ordinary, everyday thinking. One then sees, with regard to thinking, the difference that exists between humans and animals. Much has been speculated about this difference between humans and animals—namely, much has been speculated by modern science. But one can only recognize what this difference consists of through such a comparison as I have just indicated.

[ 21 ] And if one asks: Yes, what gives rise to ordinary thinking as opposed to body-free thinking, which is directly linked to the human soul’s being in that it takes place solely in the spiritual-soul realm—what, then, one might now ask, from the perspective of this body-free thinking, does ordinary thinking consist of? This ordinary thinking is entirely bound to the brain. There must be some aspect of organic organization through which this ordinary thinking takes place. Body-free thinking, which is acquired through meditation, does not require this nervous apparatus. Ordinary thinking requires this nervous apparatus. Human beings possess this nervous apparatus only because their organization is not driven to the same extreme as that of animals. The animal, so to speak, advances with its animal organization to a certain point and hardens to a certain point. At the beginning of life, human beings do not go as far in this hardening, this ossification, this sclerotization of the soul life as animals do at the beginning of their lives. But throughout life, human beings develop this hardening. For what is expressed in the hardening of the organism—in that the permanent teeth appear as pure products of hardening—continues in ordinary, everyday thinking as well; it is just that these are not teeth, but much milder, so to speak, insertions into the organism that in turn dissolve. But this thinking—this ordinary thinking—consists precisely in the fact that, in the ongoing process, human beings continually kill off that which arises within them: the sprouting, budding life. What becomes evident is that within us, the thought—which has an earlier reality than the teeth—constantly shoots out of the organism as temporary phenomena, and that this shooting out dissolves again into sclerotization, into ossification. Thinking consists precisely in the fact that, with regard to our head system—our nervous-sensory system—we constantly carry death within us.

[ 22 ] This is precisely what I have already pointed out here in other contexts. Our thinking consists in the fact that, through our own inner activity within the ongoing process of time, we carry out what the animal is predisposed to do from the very beginning: the process of sclerotization, the process of ossification, the process of death, which we bring into our organism. From the perspective of body-free thinking—which one has acquired through meditation—one observes this continuous dying, without which ordinary human thinking cannot proceed. And this dying is only continually counterbalanced by the fact that, in turn, vitalizing forces surge upward from the rest of the organism—from the blood and heart—into the head, which is inclined toward continual dying. In human beings, precisely because they are thinkers, there is a constant struggle between dying and living. And what occurs at the end of physical life—that singular moment of death—is simply the synthetic synthesis of what is always happening on a small scale. We are constantly dying from within our sensory-nervous system; only this dying is constantly counteracted. Only when the rest of the organism—not merely the organism of the head—no longer has the ability to counteract this dying, only then do we truly die. Death is not something that simply befalls a person once; death is a continuous process. And it is to this death that we owe our ability to think. Because we incorporate death into ourselves through thinking, first of all, this thinking exists within us at all, and secondly, we learn to recognize what the dead actually are in substance.

[ 23 ] Once one has developed a thinking that is free from the body and cultivated through meditation, one first turns one’s attention to the other kind of thinking, sees how it continually mineralizes and ossifies human substance, and comes to understand the process of mineralization. By coming to know within the human being a mineral element purely as the product of thought—filling the human being, filling him with the dead—one comes to know the mineral kingdom within oneself. And by raising one’s own thinking above the level of death, by awakening it within oneself, by experiencing that something within us must die in order for thoughts to arise—by experiencing this—one also learns to recognize the mystery of the universe. One learns to recognize what this mineral kingdom out there actually means. This mineral kingdom of the world outside of humanity—one learns to recognize it only by recognizing the mineral kingdom bound to thinking within the human being itself. True knowledge of the world comes only through an intimate knowledge of the human being. And by seeing how something dies within the human being, one escapes the prejudice that, as the sharpest, most intense prejudice, crept into the nineteenth century and has remained to this day; thus, I would say, caught up in a vile suggestion, humanity stared at the mineral world with its causality. After all, they knew nothing within themselves that could have taught them the essence of this mineral world. They could tell themselves nothing other than: This world was once a cosmic nebula, a Kant-Laplacean primordial nebula. From it emerged the planetary system, the Earth; from it everything else developed, and this will continue indefinitely. This becoming, this causal process, is something eternal; within it, moral human values are bubbles that rise to the surface—and moreover, bubbles that consist solely of illusions. If one learns to recognize this mineral realm by learning to recognize it within oneself, then one learns to see through its true nature in the outer world. One sees within oneself how the mineral realm is a continuous process of dying. And one no longer constructs the external worldview in the old way; rather, one now knows how this external worldview is actually constructed under the preconception of science. It is constructed in a very ingenious way, as we have already pointed out: One could, for example, track the changes in the human heart over five years and would find that the human heart today is something different than it was five years ago. One could then continue to observe what it is like after another five years, and could then calculate what it will be like after three hundred years—it simply won’t be there anymore, but the calculation can be very sound and accurate. This is how geologists calculate, and how astronomers calculate what the Earth would look like millions of years from now. The Earth will be just as absent then as the human being, as a physical human being, will no longer be present after three hundred years. And just as the human heart was not present three hundred years ago, so too was the Earth not present at the time for which geologists are making their calculations!

[ 24 ] One learns to recognize this by coming to know the nature of the mineral kingdom within the human being itself, following the path I have indicated to you. But once you have come to know the essence of the mineral kingdom in this way, you will realize: Just as the mineral kingdom sinks into the earth without the entire earth sinking, so too does that part of the human being which has ossified cease to exist at death, without the whole human being ceasing to exist in a soul-spiritual sense.

[ 25 ] And further: Just as one can advance thinking through meditation, so too can one advance human feeling; just as one can, in a certain way, make human thinking clairvoyant, so one can make human feeling clair-sensitive, so that one may also enter the spiritual world through human feeling. And just as one comes to know the mineral kingdom through thinking in the way I have just indicated, so, by making feeling free from the body and being able to look back at everyday feeling as it is bound to the human glandular system, one learns to recognize how this everyday feeling is bound to a process in the organism similar to the plant process in the external world.

[ 26 ] And once again, one comes to understand the nature of the plant process in the external world. And one comes to recognize—which seems very paradoxical to people today—that the plant kingdom has a longer existence than the mineral kingdom, that the plant kingdom is also older than the mineral kingdom. People today have no mental image of anything other than that the plant kingdom grows out of the mineral realm. They would do well to observe how something distinctly mineral—coal—grows out of the plant kingdom! Starting from there, they would be able to see how everything mineral that exists today is a secretion, a result of an original plant form, and how the plant kingdom will have a longer existence than the mineral kingdom.

[ 27 ] Just as one can free thought and feeling from the body, so too can one free the will. And once one attains this will free from the body—I also spoke about this yesterday, explaining how one attains this will free from the body: through a particularly suitable, intensive process of self-education, through self-understanding, through self-discipline—then one learns to recognize the special nature within the human being that is related to the animal kingdom. Then one also learns to recognize the nature of this animal kingdom. But also how the plant kingdom, in turn, is a separation from the animal kingdom; how the animal kingdom is older than the plant kingdom, having separated the plant kingdom from itself; how it will endure longer; and how the plant kingdom will disappear before the animal kingdom does. Of course, not in the physical animal forms as they exist today, but in the animal beings embodied in this physical realm.

[ 28 ] And only then do you gain a true insight into the human world. Then one gains such an insight into this human world that one says to oneself: It is indeed the human being who has grown beyond all these kingdoms, because, just as the plant kingdom has separated itself from the mineral kingdom and the animal kingdom from the plant kingdom, so too has the human being separated the animal from within himself; he is older than the animal kingdom and endures longer than the animal kingdom. First the mineral kingdom perishes, then the plant kingdom, then the animal kingdom. Then what remains of humanity—which we came to know by observing what arose from the death of the mineral kingdom, what arose from the death of the plant kingdom, and what arose from the death of the animal kingdom—will be present when the other three kingdoms have disappeared. — What, then, will arise from our Earth, from our earthly existence? The one who comes to know humanity can already recognize this now. He sees how thinking, how thoughts—and moral ideals are thoughts—how these rise from the grave of the ossifying part of the organism within us; thus, one day, only that which humanity has brought forth will remain. When that which belongs to the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the animal kingdom has vanished, what will emerge from all that which has perished is precisely what humanity has drawn forth by overcoming the dead mineral kingdom, by overcoming the plant kingdom, and by overcoming the animal kingdom. And we are reminded that what we today cultivate as moral ideals will, in our embryonic thoughts, shape the world when all that is contained in today’s mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms has vanished. We now relate to the world as we must when we look at a plant: There it grows upward, forming leaf after leaf; but the small seed that will become the new plant is already present within it. The old foliage falls from the plant; the petals—none of that has any significance for what follows. We stand in the world as human beings within it. We see how what will one day be an earthly process is already taking place within us. We see how a mineral kingdom forms within us because we think, how a plant kingdom forms within us because we think, how an animal kingdom forms within us because we think. Triumphant over all of this is that which develops within us as thinking, feeling, and willing. Thus the seed is sown. We need only have the ability to know that that from which this seed develops falls away—just as the petals and stem leaves fall away—and that this very process gives rise to the seed of a new world.

[ 29 ] The enemy of this recognition emerged in the 19th century, when people could not form any other mental image than this: that mineral processes contain within themselves a substantiality that is constant. People spoke of the constancy of matter and of force. At the very moment these dogmas were established, at that very moment, the mineral realm is something; at that very moment, one fails to realize that this mineral realm is doomed to perish, that later the plant realm is doomed to perish, that later the animal realm is doomed to perish, and that from this entire grave, it is not nothingness that will rise, but rather that which we humans carry within us today.

[ 30 ] Yes, this Earth, with everything in the three realms upon it, will perish. But that which we are already developing within ourselves today, and to which we ascribe moral human worth—that is the seed of a new Earth, the seed of a new world existence. We do not regard moral human worth as an illusory bubble rising up—because we realize how everything around us, just as the leaves of a plant fall off, so too does everything else fall away from the earth; yet what we carry within us as moral human worth develops as a seed. We need only overcome such mental images as the prejudice regarding the constancy of matter, the constancy of force—these dreadful dogmas that natural science implanted in the 19th century because it had no inkling of what a human being can come to know when he soars toward spiritual knowledge and then experiences it within himself, in the microcosmic, in the human: the death of the mineral kingdom, over which triumphs the thought that can develop only as we continually die, just as the new plant seed can develop only as the old plant leaves die off and the seed triumphs over the old plant leaves. Our moral human nature, our moral human worth, is the triumphant force over that which perishes in the other kingdoms—in that part of ourselves that also belongs to these other kingdoms.

[ 31 ] Here we see how moral worldviews intermingle with scientific worldviews. Here we see how the scientific worldview deals with that which is dying in the world, while the ethical worldview deals with that which is now sprouting as a new world within this dying process. Here the awareness arises within us that, by building an ethical world with ideals, we are working on the seed of a future world. Here, the moral value of the human being is placed on the same level as natural processes. But here, natural processes are pushed back within their limits—this observation of nature, which in any case arrives at its conclusions by bringing people into clinics and conducting examinations on cadavers. Natural science conducts its investigations on the dying. It also arrives only at insights concerning the dying. But that which the clinician cannot carry into the morgue, that which cannot be dissected—that which triumphs over what is to be dissected—that is what is already building a new world as human moral value.

[ 32 ] You see, the task of Spiritual Science is, if I may put it that way, to break down the presumptions of the scientific worldview. For Spiritual Science sees clearly and unambiguously: Yes, it is true—either one rejects this scientific worldview—not natural science itself, with its established results, of course—one rejects this scientific worldview, or else one must reject the moral value of the human being. It is only because people today are so inconsistent and aloof that they fail to realize they must resolve, in order to save the moral value of the human being, to embrace a worldview based on Spiritual Science. Humanity fails to realize this because it wants to hold on to the worldview that today is based solely on a naturalistic outlook. But then it would have to speak as Mathilde Reichardt once wrote to Moleschott, the materialist natural scientist: “That is why I must say it once more: Even the person who has become a thief brought with him the right to perfect his nature and make it all-encompassing, and in this way can only be a powerful, moral nature. And just as with the thief, so it is with every vicious person, even one who has become a murderer. The latter can attain the fulfillment of his humanity only by satisfying his lust for murder.” Either one speaks in this way—and thereby acknowledges the validity of natural science as a worldview while denying it any moral human value—or one turns to Spiritual Science.

[ 33 ] There is a third option. One might say: I am indifferent to all worldviews; I would rather sleep through my existence in this world in an instinctive manner. Certainly, this third option is also possible. Many people do this today. Anyone who seriously wants to come to terms with themselves and their relationship to the world can only follow one of the paths described. That is how things stand today. The decision is there. Natural science has matured into a worldview. One does not preach theoretically—as Mathilde Reichardt, the cultural historian Hellwald, and others have done—that the thief or the murderer can only become a fully realized human being by acting out their impulses, because natural causality operates within them in exactly the same way as it does in so-called honest people. One does not preach this theoretically. But what lives on in this mindset is sweeping through Europe. It has shaped the last five to six years. It will continue to have an effect. Europe is being barbarized; or Europe must realize that it cannot build a worldview based solely on the natural sciences.

[ 34 ] That may sound fanatical today; that may sound radical today. Let each person search their own heart and ask themselves—but let them ask seriously enough—and I do not believe that such seriousness could yield any other answer. And then let us look at a worldview that seeks to reclaim moral human dignity from the essence of the soul—just as it is compelled to seek moral human dignity anew from the spirit—and that must break with what have become the most manifold prejudices of our time: the constancy of energy, the constancy of substance, and so on. Consider this Spiritual Science: it must adopt an entirely different way of forming mental images, an entirely different way of relating to the world. Through this, it comes to regard that which is seemingly only thought—that which is seemingly nothing but a highly diluted thought that flits by and vanishes—as the seed of a new reality, once the entire earth has disappeared. This Spiritual Science will be perceived by those who take the matter seriously as a necessity of our time. But it must also be perceived as a necessity by the religious, by the truly religious people of our time. Our time needs the ability to comprehend how something spiritual can take its place within this physical world.

[ 35 ] Now let us consider what a person steeped in modern education can say about the event at Golgotha. He cannot help but say of the event at Golgotha: Well, throughout the entire period preceding this event at Golgotha, it must have been prepared for in the course of earthly events; then it happened. Then it had its consequences. It must be embedded within the chain of causes and effects. For where would someone standing within today’s educational framework—which is based solely on the natural sciences—find the possibility that, with the event at Golgotha, something entirely new entered the Earth, only to continue shaping itself as the Earth evolves further! Solely by understanding that within the innermost life of the human being—the actual world of thought—there is something that endures beyond this Earth and all its realms; solely by understanding this—that there is something on Earth that is not exhausted in the intellectual exterior, in the sensory exterior, that triumphs over this Earth, that, in its very substance, transcends the earthly—only then is one also able to look upon that Being, that spiritual Being, who, through the Mystery of Golgotha, has entered into the Earth and, as Christ Jesus, gives the Earth its deeper meaning.

[ 36 ] Today it is necessary to approach what kindles Spiritual Science within the human being: the Mystery of Golgotha and the mysteries of Christianity. For today, Christianity must be understood spiritually. Let us consider the materialists: Just as they deny the moral value of the human being—if they are consistent—so Christianity must seem absurd to them. People cannot remain at the level of the old traditional creeds, for if you look, for example, at the representatives of the Catholic Church, you will see that when these very representatives become scientists, they practice the most materialistic form of science! You can look at those who, as Catholic priests, become scientists: they do not want to bring the spirit into science. They specifically want to keep science safe from the intrusion of the spirit, for they wish to preserve the old traditional forms in spirit. They fear the new discovery of spiritual substantiality; they flee from it. There is nothing to be gained from that either. — And if we look at the Protestant forms of interpreting Christianity, we see how powerfully the scientific worldview weighs down on this newer Protestant theology: They cannot place the event of Golgotha within the context of what happens in the world! That is why they say that one must understand Jesus Christ solely in terms of his moral qualities, in terms of the ethos he introduced. — But then, in turn, this ethos is completely up in the air if it is not anchored in a worldview based on Spiritual Science.

[ 37 ] Anyone who recognizes the dangers facing Christianity today will have to admit: Christianity, more than anything else, depends on turning to Spiritual Science to gain insight into its very core—into the mystery of Golgotha itself. For just as Spiritual Science points to where the seed of the future Earth lies, so too does it point to where the forces are that have become connected to the Earth without having been directly present in the pre-Christian Earth. One can only grasp the spiritual nature of the Mystery of Golgotha if one has first struggled, through Spiritual Science, to attain a spiritual understanding at all. Precisely those who are serious about Christianity should appeal to Spiritual Science for the sake of saving Christianity. So, too, will those who take Christianity—and religion in general—seriously.

[ 38 ] Why, then, do people in this purely scientific age still have moral ideals? This, in turn, can be taught to us by voices such as those of Hellwald and Mathilde Reichardt, though their number could be increased by many others. They teach us: The task of science is to destroy all ideals, to prove their hollowness and futility, to show that faith in God and religion are delusions, that morality is a lie, and so on. — That is what one would actually have to say from a purely scientific worldview, if one were not too cowardly to do so!

[ 39 ] From such a standpoint, Christianity cannot be saved. The only way to lay the groundwork for Christianity once again is for Spiritual Science to make it possible to look into the spiritual realm itself—to look so deeply that this spiritual life is recognized as reality and not as illusory bubbles to which one surrenders only because one needs them in the struggle for existence. No, not because one needs the spiritual in the struggle for existence, but because it is brought forth with a necessity from our world, just as the seed of the new plant is brought forth from the old with a necessity! But only when one realizes that the old is not subject to the constancy of energy or the indestructibility of matter, but that all material things fall away just as the leaves of a plant fall away, and that the spiritual is the seed of what is to come, just as the plant seed brings forth the new plant. Only when one recognizes this spiritually driven necessity does one reach the sources from which human worth is generated, where moral human worth, in turn, lives on. What remains as moral ideals for people of the ilk of Mathilde Reichardt, Hellwaid, and others is merely a conventional clinging to inherited ideals. Had such ideals not been passed down from the views that carried us from the 19th into the 20th century, they would never have been attained! Fertile ground for moral ideals will, in turn, be found solely in what Spiritual Science provides as such ground.

[ 40 ] For all these reasons, Spiritual Science truly does not believe it acts out of the mere subjective needs of its adherents, but rather believes it acts out of the necessity of the times. — How it must act out of the necessity inherent in the character of today’s peoples of the Earth—how these peoples are constituted today in terms of their souls and their external cultural conditions—is what I would like to speak about tomorrow: how, as I would like to say, I might say, this spiritual biography and history of the Earth—as a necessity—what I attempted to demonstrate today through the nature of the human soul in relation to moral human worth—we must turn our gaze toward the dawn of a new spiritual life. For only when we find this path to the spirit will we also rediscover the sources of moral human worth; only then will we no longer need to despair that one day the entire Earth will be a desolate grave, and not even a memory will remain of what once lived as moral human values within the soul.

[ 41 ] Spiritual Science shows that moral human values are rightly rooted in the soul, because future worlds create their seeds precisely within human souls through moral human values. Today’s moral human values are the natural values of future worlds. Just as we look into the natural values of today and see the results of past worlds, so too do we see in what arises deep within our hearts the dawn of new worlds. Spiritual Science does not speak of eternity in abstract terms. For whatever lives in this eternal becoming, in this process of change—so that it emerges naturally from the moral and in turn carries within its bosom the moral for future worlds—whatever lives in this changing course of time possesses the life of eternities. And thus, because the seed of eternities rests within the human soul, the human soul possesses its true eternity.