The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. Who is Allowed to Speak Out Against the Decline of the West? A Second Contemporary Address

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! In one of my recent lectures here, I already referred to a significant contemporary literary publication—a literary publication that even someone who otherwise has no particular fondness for having too much to do with what is commonly called “literature” may well mention, as is the case with the one speaking to you here. He wishes to engage with the roots of practical life, with the forces that shape this practical life; he wishes to engage with everything that, from the spiritual realm, shapes this practical life—with everything that approaches the human mind, heart, and soul in a direct, elemental way and strengthens people for life. He wishes to have as little to do as possible with what is regarded today as “literature.” But regarding the book—as you may have surmised from the wording of today’s lecture title—regarding Oswald Spengler’s book *The Decline of the West*, even someone who, at first glance, does not particularly love literature as such may speak about it. For one can say: Precisely regarding what every person today—whose soul is not truly asleep—must sense as forces of decline, as immensely powerful forces of decline, as terrifying forces of decline in our cultural and civilizational life—precisely regarding this decline, it is precisely these manifestations of decline that Oswald Spengler has addressed in his book in a language that, first of all, resonates so characteristically with the entire spirit of our time, and secondly, resonates in particular with the Central European, with the German spirit. In this book by Oswald Spengler, nothing less is attempted than to prove the necessity of this decline of Western culture—to prove it by every means, one might almost say with all the sophistication of contemporary scholarship—yes, a scholarship that a genius like him distills from the present as a new form of scholarship, so that Oswald Spengler’s book, I would say is not a theoretical work, not a literary one, but a book that speaks of facts—facts arising directly from the spiritual life of the human mind in the present—yet speaks in such a way that the very ideas of this book influence the actions of those who receive them. And the fact that many people are embracing these ideas from Oswald Spengler’s book is evident from the simple fact that, even though the book comprises 615 pages, well over 20,000 copies have already been sold. Anyone who has ever dealt with such questions knows what it means for a book to sell 20,000 copies in relation to the number of potential readers. One can certainly say that, among the intellectual matters one must grapple with today if one wishes to delve even slightly into the undercurrents of contemporary cultural and civilizational life, two books rank among the most significant for us Central Europeans: first, this book by Oswald Spengler, *The Decline of the West*, and second, a literary work that has perhaps not yet received much attention: the book *The Economic Problems of the Proletarian Dictatorship*. This book has just been published by the Viennese cooperative publishing house “Neue Erde,” written by the man who, as chief economic commissar—that is, as minister for economic affairs during the establishment of the Hungarian Soviet dictatorship—summarized his principles and experiences in this book following his escape and internment in Austria. One might say: These two books shed a terrible light on what lies in the undercurrents of contemporary intellectual and even working-class life.

[ 2 ] Oswald Spengler is a man who, in his *The Decline of the West*—the seeds of which, he states, were sown as early as 1911, that is, even before the onset of the catastrophe of the World War—to point out how our Western culture contains within itself forces of decline, and how it necessarily reveals itself as a culture in decline precisely through its characteristic manifestations. To Oswald Spengler, this culture appears so clearly to be a culture in decline that he must prophesy that, by the beginning of the third millennium, it will have reached its end, just as the ancient Persian, ancient Egyptian, ancient Babylonian, ancient Greek, and ancient Roman cultures once reached their ends. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is not the assertion of a man acting on the basis of a superstitious prophecy; it is not the claim of a man who indulges in arbitrary fantasies; it is the assertion of a man who has mastered the scientific spirit of the present in a truly outstanding manner. Precisely because of the genius of the author’s personality, because of his universal mastery—one might say—of twelve to fifteen contemporary sciences, and because of his courageous exploration of all the implications of these sciences for practical and historical life, this book must be regarded as a wealth of achievements, not merely as a single achievement. Everything I have just said must be said about this book on the one hand. But on the other hand, it is a terrifying book. Is it not a terrifying book that, with the full weight of the scientific apparatus available today, brilliantly proves that the signs of decline must inevitably lead to the downfall of this Western culture with the dawn of the third millennium —these signs of decline, within which we live, which blazed to their fullest in the war-torn global catastrophe and which now continue, even if they go unnoticed by slumbering souls?

[ 3 ] One must, at least to a small extent—and this is what we will do by way of introduction—examine the entire manner in which Oswald Spengler arrives at his conviction regarding the inevitability of the decline of the West if one is to answer the question that is actually the subject of my reflection today: Who, then, is entitled to speak out against *The Decline of the West*?—for one must not speak out against Spengler’s book lightly. To speak out against it lightly would mean recklessly disregarding the author’s serious scholarly credentials; it would mean refusing to even consider what he has conscientiously drawn from the phenomena of contemporary life. And I believe that many who really ought not to have spoken out against Oswald Spengler’s book have already done so. Oswald Spengler first appears in his book as a historian. He says it himself: he had noticed the signs of decline—as mentioned—even before the catastrophe of the World War. He wanted to gain clarity about the actual causes, about the nature of these signs of decline. He was thus one of those figures whose soul was weighed down by these signs of decline, while the vast majority of the population—especially the so-called intelligent class—was still talking about how far we had come and how we intended to carry what we had achieved to every nook and cranny of the world —after all, it had become clear to us just how much strength we actually possessed to truly carry out into the world what we believed we had to carry out. Oswald Spengler himself describes how, upon observing the signs of decline in the present, he came to realize that one cannot truly speak properly about these signs of decline without addressing the entire history of the West—namely, the ideas that live within Western culture and how we are able today, precisely through historical reflection to bring these ideas to life within us and translate them into action. And so Oswald Spengler’s reflection expanded into a comprehensive historical work that seeks to thoroughly explore the entire foundations of Western thought, feeling, and sensibility. Oswald Spengler concludes that the scientific approach, which has become common in recent centuries and has indeed gradually been applied to history as well, that this scientific approach — as we have often emphasized here from the perspective of anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science — has permeated all thinking, feeling, and willing among those segments of humanity that are at all considered to be progressive. But it is precisely in history—in that which the [scientific approach to] history does not provide, in its failure to shed light on the actual causes of historical events—that it becomes clear to Oswald Spengler just how misguided the entire historical perspective has become over the past few centuries up to the present. This, ladies and gentlemen, is truly not without significance for the present day in a practical sense as well, for we shall see later how, in the broadest circles, reality is to be shaped precisely on the basis of these historical prejudices. We will use a characteristic example—that of Eugen Varga, the Hungarian Chief Economic Commissioner of the Soviet Republic—to show how what Oswald Spengler pursues as historical thinking actually seeks to become practical reality. If what Oswald Spengler very clearly points out encompasses only forces of decline, then the mode of observation and thought that makes use only of the thoughts and ideas arising from this view of decline must, even in the realm of the social organism, produce only manifestations of decline.

[ 4 ] In a person such as Professor Eugen Varga, the way of thinking that Oswald Spengler believes is the very foundation of what, with the dawn of the third millennium, is bound to lead to the decline of the entire Western world has been incarnated, has become flesh. If one simply takes what is observed there as signs of decline, condenses them at an accelerated pace into a socialist program, and then presents it to the world with the energy of a Professor Eugen Varga, then in a short time one will also bring about something that will lead to decline. One brings this about—that is, one creates the seed of a social structure of decline. Eugen Varga created such a social structure in Soviet Hungary; the comrades of Professor Eugen Varga—the Lenins and Trotskys—are creating such structures of decline in Eastern Europe. This is spreading more and more across Asia. But this means nothing other than: One observes the signs of decline in the cultural progress of the West, injects them into the social organism, and then one need not be surprised when these phenomena—which a scientist has proven lead to the decline of the entire West—when these phenomena, concentrated as socialist ideas, lead in a short time to the decline of that which one purports to want to build. That is why these things are indeed connected: Oswald Spengler’s reflections and Eugen Vargas’s experiences. And it is certainly time for anyone who seriously engages with the affairs of the present to address them from a practical perspective; it is time for them to approach—I would say through the gateways found in such public outbursts and revelations—that which makes possible a genuine understanding of the actual necessities for an ascent, for a resurgence of our declining Western culture and civilization. For certainly, at first, souls are indifferent to the signs of decline. But on the other hand, it must not be concealed that it is a form of public frivolity to refuse today to turn one’s gaze toward phenomena such as those referred to here, but instead to seek salvation in decades-old programs and to believe that one can bring about anything other than decline with these programs and ideas. It is a cultural frivolity, it is a political frivolity, which is being practiced on a massive scale today, when one fails to turn one’s gaze toward such phenomena.

[ 5 ] Oswald Spengler then became acquainted with what I have often referred to here as “Goetheanism”; he became acquainted with Goethe’s method of observing nature, as opposed to the natural sciences, which are universally practiced as the official discipline at universities and radiate from there to lower levels of education, and which—[through their application to historiography]—have turned history into a caricature. And what does he feel compelled to do upon becoming acquainted with Goethe’s method of observing nature? He feels compelled to apply this Goethean method to history—though, of course, in the way he believes it must be applied to historical phenomena. Goethe’s method is vastly different from what is today the official scientific approach. Goethe does not view nature in such a philistine, mechanical, or pedantic way—as a mere chain of cause and effect; rather, as he ascends into the realm of living beings, he observes how a living being lives out its genesis, its birth, its youth, its maturity, its old age, and its death. And one need only read his 1790 treatise, his attempt to explain the metamorphosis of plants, to see for oneself how Goethe observes the plant’s development from the root outward, from leaf to leaf, as it ascends toward bloom and fruit, to see how he views nature in its living development, how every leaf is the symbol of a different form, and how the primordial organ is merely metamorphosed into the petal, the stamen, and even the seed. Inspired by this Goethean morphology—this theory of the form-giving of living beings—Oswald Spengler sets out to examine the historical development of humanity itself according to the model of Goethe’s ideas about organic nature. He then comes to view [cultures] in the same way one views the development and growth of an organic living being—a plant, an animal, or even a physical human being—observing the birth, growth, maturation, aging, and death of cultures; and he observes the birth, growth, maturation, aging, and death of Persian, Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, and Roman cultures; he observes them by examining the individual manifestations of these cultures in the same way that Goethe examined the individual organs of a living being. And he now examines what Western civilization has produced thus far; he compares—just as one who studies living beings compares one living being with another—he compares what Western civilization has produced thus far with what Greek, Roman, and other civilizations produced in ancient times up to a certain point in their development. And then he can determine where Western culture stands today, because one can compare its current stage with the corresponding stages of Persian, Egyptian, Greek, and other cultures; one can determine when Western culture will decline, because one knows how long it took for the ancient cultures to decline.

[ 6 ] All of this bears fruit because Oswald Spengler breaks with the philistine method of viewing history, and he has the courage to break with it; he has the courage to say what history has become in its attachment to mere scientific ideas; he has the courage, for example, to say: The traditional approach to history has kept the formal study of history at a level that would have been a source of shame in other sciences. - Why does he say this? Because he believes it is necessary not to apply to history the dead method that is suitable for the mineral kingdom and other inanimate things, but rather to apply a living method to history by comparing one cultural form with another. Admittedly, one must then be a person of such universal knowledge as Oswald Spengler; one must be capable of comparing the achievements of the most diverse fields of science, art, and technology across the most varied eras and cultures; for example, one must be able to compare the architectural style of a given cultural period with methods in optics, chemistry, and so on—that is, one must have a comprehensive view of what has actually happened, and Oswald Spengler possesses this view, just as one who has fully mastered the scientific spirit of the present does. Thus he can make comparisons—just as the eye can compare one plant with another, or one animal with another—he can compare, for example, what the mathematician creates in a given cultural period with what the musician creates; he can compare what the physicist accomplishes at the laboratory bench with what the socialist agitator, during the same period, designates as a cultural form; he can compare what the chemist says with what the painter conjures up on the canvas. That is to say, he can truly apply a morphological approach: He can compare, he can shape the comparison, the analogy, as he believes, into a scientific method; and from this application of comparison and analogy—which others use merely as if on a leash of the imagination—he discovers rigorous methods for inferring the deeper causes from the superficial events of history, which are usually considered in isolation. He does this in his own way, and it is interesting to see what conclusions Oswald Spengler reaches with his genius, his knowledge, and his courage. He truly manages to transcend what history has actually become today in the hands of those who, for the most part, treat history from the standpoint of some political party without even realizing it. How today’s historians themselves mock—even in front of their middle school students—the fact that, in the time of Herder and Goethe, people portrayed a Brutus, a Caesar, a Mark Antony, an Alexander, and a Pericles in the way they needed them for their ideals—just as they needed some ideal personality to present them either in their excellent, angelic, or even villainous nature. Today’s historians believe they have moved beyond, in their historical analysis, all that was brought into the historical perspective from the personal and human realms at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries. Oswald Spengler rightly throws this in their faces: “They mock historians of the Goethe era when they express their political ideals by writing a history of antiquity and using the names of Lycurgus, Brutus, Cato, Cicero, and Augustus—whose acquittals or condemnations they employ to mask their own agenda or personal enthusiasm—but they themselves cannot write a single chapter without revealing which political party their morning newspaper belongs to.” One must often characterize what lives in the consciousness of contemporary people—especially intellectuals, even those who seem to stand at the pinnacle of scholarship—exactly as Oswald Spengler has characterized it here.

[ 7 ] And Spengler observes many other things as well. Spengler notes, for example, how little of what has recently been perceived as—I would say—the absolute truth about a particular phenomenon has actually been drawn from the depths of the events themselves. Oswald Spengler, for example, draws attention to all the hype that arose around Ibsen’s *Nora* at the time. Those respectable middle-class people, who belonged precisely to this milieu and knew only this milieu—from which something like Ibsen’s *Nora* emerged—believed they could bring the entire problem of womanhood into their own sphere. Oswald Spengler says: How comical Ibsen’s women’s issues seem when, instead of the famous Nora, one considers, for example, Caesar’s wife. Do they not realize that, at the very core, they are focusing on something rather meager: the woman who does not transcend the bourgeois boundaries between 1850 and 1950—for by then she will have vanished? It is already quite something when a contemporary figure, who must be taken seriously—such as Oswald Spengler—hurls these truths in the faces of people who, I might say out of sheer delight in their own education—often, whether implicitly or explicitly, in a peculiar way, shower themselves with self-praise and self-satisfaction over how wonderfully much they know about the world’s deepest secrets, and who have no inkling that these secrets are nothing other than the European superficialities between 1850 and 1950.

[ 8 ] It would be terrible if the present were unable to muster anything to effectively counter Oswald Spengler’s formidable body of work. And so, my esteemed audience, it is necessary to point out certain things that have been put forward here in Stuttgart for a number of years—indeed, I may even say for decades—from the perspective of anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. You see, attention has often been drawn here to a significant fact—namely, that the way in which natural science has influenced the Western cultural process over the last three to four centuries is, in fact, viewed entirely incorrectly. It is believed—and this is a prevailing belief in the widest circles, especially among scholars—that natural science emerged through Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, and so on, and that one must learn from it how to penetrate reality. It is believed that one must train one’s thinking through the natural sciences, for in them one can see how correctly and precisely one thinks, and therefore one must view everything else that arises in life according to the model of this approach.

[ 9 ] Reflections from the perspective of Spiritual Science lead to a different insight. These reflections from Spiritual Science do what—I would say—Oswald Spengler, albeit in a superficial way, falls into based on his own merely superficial observations of Goetheanism; they do so in a deeper way. Long before anyone could even speak of the name Oswald Spengler, attention was drawn here to something else in the most fundamental foundations of the entire development of Western culture. It was pointed out that what has indeed taken place in the development of this Western culture over the last three to four centuries can only be understood if one gains a true overview of the course of the entire history of humanity from a perspective of Spiritual Science. It has also been repeatedly pointed out here in public lectures how fundamentally different in character—one must go back as far as the 7th or 8th millennium to find it—was an ancient Indian culture, as I have called it in my *Secret Science*. I have pointed out how different in character such an ancient Indian culture was, just as an ancient Persian, an ancient Egyptian-Babylonian, and a Greco-Latin culture were different, and how, after these cultures had been born, had come of age, matured, and died, our present-day culture emerged—the fifth cultural epoch following the great Atlantean catastrophe—our present-day culture, about which people speak in the most varied ways. And once again it was shown how, within this present-day culture of ours, since the middle of the 15th century, the intellectualistic element, the element of the intellect, has been on the rise, and how, in the development of humanity, the rise of this intellect—for previously the intellect had not been regarded as humanity’s preeminent faculty of knowledge—how the rise of this intellect signifies something special for the entire upbringing of humanity, particularly in the West.

[ 10 ] Ladies and gentlemen, when one considers the entire configuration—precisely what Oswald Spengler strives for but fails to achieve—the morphology of earlier cultural epochs from a Spiritual Science perspective, one realizes: These ancient cultures produced something great, mighty, and awe-inspiring as they were born, grew young, matured, aged, and died. But what our culture is called to do—what it must bring to the surface of external cultural life from the deepest depths of the human soul—is the maturing of the true power of freedom within the human being. That is why, in the early 1890s, I attempted to portray in my book *The Philosophy of Freedom* that which must well up from the depths of human soul life. After this experience of freedom—after experiencing freedom in pure intellect, for freedom can be experienced in nothing else—although other aspects of the human being are also valuable—freedom can be experienced only in pure thinking and then radiate out to the rest of the human being. Humanity had to cast off everything that it had previously brought to the surface out of instinct—as if it were knowledge—in the form of mysticism, occultism, and theosophy; humanity had to cast all of that aside. It is impossible today to attempt to reawaken or revive what humanity has acquired in the form of ancient astrology, mysticism, theosophy, and gnosis—knowledge that was certainly useful in its time. What is incumbent upon us today is to draw out, from the present stage of humanity’s development, precisely that which leads to a consciousness of freedom: the grasping of the human being through pure thought. But when one grasps this human being through pure thought, then a wholly new spiritual world must be born out of this thinking. Never in ancient cultures was that which we have handed down as spiritual treasures and spiritual insights born out of pure thinking. Only in our time can a true understanding of the spirit be born out of pure thought, for this understanding of the spirit must be born out of pure thought, because only in this way can human beings, throughout the entire course of human development, simultaneously mature toward freedom—toward the true sense of freedom that is now rightfully theirs in the development of the Earth. And everything we are experiencing today as a terrible present reality, as signs of decline, stems from this: Because humanity must seize, from the very depths of its soul life, the crystal-clear lucidity of thought to conquer freedom, and because humanity must mature into the strength necessary for this, the old realities are falling away from it; they are falling away from it for the time being, entering a phase of decline, and the path must be sought by which, from the crumbling ruins of the old cultural life, the human will rises—a will that is luminously permeated by pure thinking and thus grows toward freedom.

[ 11 ] To win our freedom, to find our true selves deep within, we must give birth—from within—to human greatness out of the chaos and the ruins of external life. That is why humanity initially lost sight of what could truly and essentially govern external life, and precisely at a time when there was a pressing need to awaken a consciousness of freedom, all that emerged was a lifeless natural science. And what emerged as natural science was not something from which one could learn truly progressive thinking, but rather something that overwhelmed humanity as a weakness. The fact that humanity must attain freedom is revealed as a weakness in the natural scientific perspective. Natural science has become weak because its energy must be directed toward another sphere. Natural science itself has taken shape out of the educational forces inherent in human beings. How natural science has come to be is connected to the forces at work in human development. It is not the case that these forces must learn from what natural science has become.

[ 12 ] Now Oswald Spengler brings this up: One cannot, after all, penetrate the historical process using the ideas produced by the natural sciences. What really matters is that comparison is necessary in order to move from the outward appearance of historical events to the deeper, inner processes. But—and we must take this sharply to heart: Yes, Oswald Spengler perceives what is lacking in today’s approach to history, what is lacking in the approach of all humanity; he perceives this sharply and clearly, and he even realizes that only the approach that has come to light in Goetheanism could provide a way out of all the limitations of the natural-scientific approach. But Oswald Spengler is a mind who—despite his universal mastery of contemporary sciences—is deeply entrenched, not in the mode of thinking generated by the natural sciences, but in the mode of thinking that the natural sciences have generated since the mid-15th century; and he cannot evolve toward that which, from the depths of the human soul, could now overcome this scientific way of thinking. Thus, Oswald Spengler has brilliantly arrived at the negative [realization]: Yes, if we allow science to become our way of life, we will only bring about decline. He goes on to assert: What does today’s science give us? It gives us proof that the West, with its current culture, must come to an end at the beginning of the third millennium. — But he is still unable to overcome within himself what led to the natural sciences in the first place. One must concede that he is right: with the ideas that underlie scientific knowledge, one can only arrive at unproductive social ideas in the present day. One must rise to the level of comparison, image, and allegory in order to recognize the deeper historical forces from them. But if the comparison, the allegory, is not to be merely a figment of the imagination, and the image not merely a product of the imagination—if image and comparison, allegory and symbol, in Spengler’s sense, are not to be merely something created by the imagination—then a real force must rise from the soul, a force that does not rise in Oswald Spengler. These real forces—the methods by which one attains knowledge of the higher worlds, as have been described here—must be developed if one wishes to seriously employ images, allegories, symbols, and symptoms, as Oswald Spengler uses them, in the examination of world events. In other words: Oswald Spengler is a person who strives to move beyond this mode of observation because he senses the inadequacy of the current approach to human development; he knows that other forms of thought must be applied, above all to history, but he does not wish to apply these forms of thought by summoning from within himself the power that alone is permitted to apply them. For this must be said: When someone applies images, allegories, imaginations, and symbols to the historical perspective, if he remains at the level with which we are born—if he does not develop within himself the spiritual powers of knowledge of which anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science speaks—then he remains a mere player with allegories, a fantasist in the historical realm. This means: What Oswald Spengler advocates as his method must not be applied from his intellectual standpoint, but may only be applied once one has risen to that which has already been described here as imaginative, inspirational, and intuitive knowledge.

[ 13 ] Oswald Spengler wants to apply methods to the historical perspective that are still permeated by the old scientific way of thinking, even if not by the scientific spirit. And Oswald Spengler is one of those who gets red in the face when people speak of what anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science must describe as the only way out of the decline of the West. To Oswald Spengler, what is created, for example, in terms of social orientation from this anthroposophically oriented underground movement, seems like “salon communism” and the like. In other words, Oswald Spengler displays genius in terms of his personal intellectual power and demonstrates universal thinking and insight across a wide range of sciences, but at the same time he also exhibits the utmost narrow-mindedness when it comes to developing the very spiritual powers that are necessary to apply his method in a fruitful way.

[ 14 ] Ladies and gentlemen, only when one understands this can one speak out against what Oswald Spengler has argued regarding the Decline of the West. Only then can one say: Indeed, you are right; the cultures that have emerged in the course of historical development must be viewed in such a way that one observes their birth, their youth, their maturation, their aging, and their death. - Indeed, if we view cultures in this way, then our own culture, too, appears in such a way that we must attribute to it the decline Oswald Spengler had in mind. But then we see only one culture next to another, like one plant next to another, like one animal organism next to another; we then gain nothing of what we would gain by viewing them from a perspective of Spiritual Science.

[ 15 ] When we view cultures from a Spiritual Science perspective, we look back to the first culture, the ancient Indian culture—I have discussed this in my lecture on the historical development of humanity—and we find that what human beings produced at that time from their own consciousness was primitive, entirely elementary, and simple. But at the same time, we find that what human beings were able to bring forth from their own powers of consciousness was imbued with an awe-inspiring primordial wisdom. We look back and find the earliest cultures at an elementary stage of development; but when we understand the primordial wisdom that lives within these cultures, we literally kneel in awe before what has permeated these ancient cultures. And as we proceed further, we find these earliest cultures superseded by other cultures. We find that the primordial wisdom has already diminished, while what human beings consciously produce is already more advanced, and so on, more and more, until we find a complete drying up of primordial wisdom in our own culture, particularly since the middle of the 15th century. This is even evident outwardly. It is nonsense for people to believe that they can understand scientific thinking from the 10th and 11th centuries. No, they cannot understand it, for a completely different language is spoken then than today; one must first become acquainted with the way of thinking of that time, which has changed thoroughly. Therefore, that which these earlier cultures— albeit instinctively, so masterfully embodied in primordial wisdom that one culture could emerge from another—that the ancient Indian culture could pass on the seed of primordial wisdom to the ancient Persian culture, which in turn could pass it on to the ancient Egyptian culture, and that culture in turn to the Greco-Latin culture, and so on. We have advanced—because of our sense of freedom—toward a development of pure intellect, of pure thought, but we have lost the ancient, instinctive primordial wisdom.

[ 16 ] If, like Oswald Spengler, we view nature solely from its outward appearance, then we must speak as Oswald Spengler spoke of the Decline of the West. And we may speak out against this Decline of the West only if we have the courage to tell ourselves: The old, instinctive spiritual wisdom has dried up, but a new spark is already smoldering in our hearts; from what we have acquired as intellect, we are giving birth to a new spiritual life that can permeate our inner being and lead to new cultural achievements. We do not merely believe, but we know: within us lies the seed of futures—not merely of one future—and there we come to understand how what has unfolded in history must be viewed quite differently than Oswald Spengler views it. We see, for example, how the ancient Greco-Latin culture, which came up from the south, is drawing to a close; it carried Christianity over from the East, preserved the mystery of Golgotha at first, and then—what became of this mystery of Golgotha? People still understood it back then because a remnant of primordial wisdom remained; they understood what constituted the origin of Christianity. Then the Germanic peoples came from the north; they absorbed what the aging peoples—who had reached maturity and were now dying—had developed; they absorbed it into their young blood and reshaped it. These Germanic peoples were the last who could still absorb primordial wisdom. Within their bosom, humanity then developed—a humanity in which this primordial wisdom has dried up and which will bring forth a new spiritual life from the power that must be generated within itself. If this new spiritual life is not brought forth, then Western culture will descend into barbarism.

[ 17 ] Today, it is not a matter of looking at the outside world and saying: “I believe there will still be enough forces out there to rekindle this declining life.” —- It is not a matter of standing by with a dormant soul and waiting until this or that appears here and there in the outside world; that leads to decline. And Oswald Spengler is right in his argument, even if the historians he mocks point out countless errors in his work; but when it comes to those who, drawing on a new spiritual life, speak out against the Decline of the West, he ceases to be right. He ceases to be right in the face of those who say: Yes, everything in the external world may be declining and will decline. But we can find something that was not there before: We can, through our will—if we illuminate it with pure thoughts—build a new world, a world that cannot be seen today, but which one must will. And one has the strength for such a will only if one seeks to permeate and realize this will through that which can be gained through spiritual knowledge—as a strengthening force, as an impulse for this will—along paths that have often been described here. — And that is why today we do not appeal to the vague belief that there have always been forces, time and again, that have brought forth new cultures. No, today we must agree with Oswald Spengler: Yes, the facts prove decline, and Oswald Spengler merely summarizes the facts as evidence. One must agree with him unless one has the certainty that the will—kindled by the spirit of which anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science speaks—will not refute theories, views, concepts, or ideas that are false, but will combat the facts of decline through its own sense of reality. Today we do not have theories to refute, nor false views to refute; today we must overcome the facts from a place of truth. That is the only thing that justifies speaking out against the Decline of the West. And this shows us at the same time how to understand an idea such as Oswald Spengler’s—the idea that the Western, Central European peoples, with all that they have produced, are already at an end, and that the Russian population —as I have said time and again long before Oswald Spengler—contains the core, the true seed of the future of Europe; that is correct—Bolshevism, of course, offers the opposite; it is what will destroy the Russian people. But how does Oswald Spengler envision the course of the future? He imagines that this Western culture will disappear and that what is rising in Russia will then take the place of what currently exists in Central Europe. — No, once one has grasped the core of anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science, one says something different; one says: Just as the Germanic peoples received the core of Christianity in their own way—and just as they could not have developed anything from their own youthful vitality had the mystery of Golgotha not appeared from the south—so must this Central Europe become the counter-radiance to the culture coming from the East, which we ourselves develop from a new spiritual life. It is not a matter of a “Russian-ness”—foreign in the sense of Oswald Spengler—flooding Western and Central Europe with something that is then young in contrast to what has died. No, the point is that this Russian spirit must find something that we ourselves create as a new spiritual life—something that this Russian spirit must receive in the same way that the Germanic peoples, with their youthful vitality, received the Mystery of Golgotha. The future—even that of those who fear the future—depends on our not perishing in the “Decline of the West,” but rather on our bringing the immortal part within us to full development through a new spiritual life; only those who speak of such a thing may speak out against the “Decline of the West.”

[ 18 ] Therefore, wherever these old ideas live on today—where they are preserved, especially when they develop into socialist theories—it becomes evident that people are not merely observing this decline, nor merely allowing it to happen, but are actively fostering it. And in this regard, it is extraordinarily interesting to see how the Minister of Economic Affairs in Soviet Hungary, Professor Eugen Varga, gained the insights he describes in his book *The Economic-Political Problems of the Proletarian Dictatorship*, which has just been published by the Vienna-based cooperative publisher “Neue Erde.” He describes there how, according to his principles, he is roughly the kind of Marxist that Lenin and Trotsky are—albeit in an even more radical form—and with these forces, which are taking shape with bull-like tenacity, he now intends to establish an order—an economic order—in Hungary. I want to highlight in just a few brief strokes how, on the one hand, he is a true Marxist. He believes: If one makes the world Marxist, it will become real; therefore, I will first make Hungary Marxist and real. He knows that it was the urban industrial proletariat that upheld Marxist ideas, and he knows that what he seeks to establish can only be born from the ideas to which the urban industrial proletariat is committed. But he must make one thing clear right away; he says: Yes, the entire belief of this urban proletariat is that the future depends on the practical realization of Marxist ideas. But if such measures are implemented, the urban population—and with it the urban industrial proletariat—will be the first to become destitute and miserable. The only ones who will come out ahead are the farmers out in the countryside; if things are organized the way we want to organize them, they may fare somewhat better; for the proletarians in the cities, however, the immediate prospect is only impoverishment, skyrocketing prices—in short, ruin. — How, then, does Professor Eugen Varga, as a true Marxist, justify this? He says: The greatness of an ideal is shown by the fact that one is willing to go hungry for it. — But if the ideal has promised people that, once fulfilled, they will not have to go hungry, then it is questionable whether they would really be so willing to go hungry if it fails to materialize. And Varga should have waited to see whether [it would turn out that] his Council Republic of Hungary would have collapsed for internal reasons. He does, however, have the excuse that this did not happen because he can point to the Romanian incursions and other external factors; and so he finds all sorts of other things that he cites as his experiences.

[ 19 ] And it is particularly interesting to point out these phenomena because we are dealing with someone who was able to become a practitioner—someone who could demonstrate how the dogmatic theories that are considered practical actually prove to be reprehensible and pernicious when one attempts to apply them to reality. And so Professor Eugen Varga, too, has many fine things to say about his Marxism. But he also describes how he deploys his works councils, how everything is elected from among the working class, how positions in the factories—such as those of foremen—are filled, and so on. He says: One must avoid the old bureaucracy in the process. — Yet what he describes is bureaucracy. But he says: “What currently appears to be a massive problem will all turn out to be wonderfully beautiful in the future.” He goes on to say: “Yes, people are indeed having terrible experiences at present; for those who have been elected to supervise the enterprises just loiter around and argue endlessly, while the others—who are supposed to be working—feel that they themselves should all be elected to the supervisory positions, because this loitering and arguing strikes them as a very special ideal.” - This, then, is what Professor Eugen Varga, the architect of the council dictatorship in Hungary, describes. He does not realize that in a single sentence, on page 47 of his book, he articulates a significant truth. I confess to you quite frankly and openly that his book strikes me as an extraordinarily interesting phenomenon of the present, because in Professor Eugen Varga, what Oswald Spengler regarded as signs of decline are transformed into socialist ideas. The force of decline is already present in his ideas, so that through people like Professor Eugen Varga, this force of decline is instilled in people. If one leaves culture to its own devices, if one sets out to impose such ideas in such fields—as Lenin, Trotsky, and others do in the East and in Asia—then one is driving society headlong toward ruin, so that history then hurtles at breakneck speed toward complete destruction. Thus, a book by a man like Eugen Varga—who claims to be a practitioner yet incorporates the theory of the decline of the West into his practice—is of cultural-historical interest to me, for this book is not merely literature; it is something that gives expression to a life of action.

[ 20 ] But what exactly is so interesting about it? I have to say: As interesting as the book is—what actually interests me the most is just a single sentence found on page 47 of Professor Eugen Varga’s book. That sentence actually surprised me. In it, he describes how he formed his works councils, how the production commissar is at the top, and how the individual commissars are exactly as a true Marxist has formed his mental image of them to be. These production commissars serve as intermediaries between the works councils and the Supreme Economic Office. Now, on page 47 of his book, there is a curious confession regarding these commissars. You see, there he says: This system—he means his council system—meets all four of the above-mentioned requirements, provided that the person serving as production commissioner is the right one. - Well, ladies and gentlemen, if one places the right people in all positions, then there is no need to put socialist ideas into practice, because all the requirements will be met by those very people. Thus, from a corner of the reflections of this abstract theorist who wishes to be a practitioner, what he certainly did not want to admit deliberately leaps out. His four demands are: 1. the councils must be elected from among the working class; 2. the establishment of economic commissariats; 3. that the whole system not be bureaucratic; and 4. that all individuals, including teachers, must be politically reliable. These demands will be met—when? When the person serving as commissar is the right one. - Professor Eugen Varga’s economic system will, of course, only consider a commissar reliable if he is just as much a Marxist and Leninist as Varga himself. There you can see how these people reckon with reality. They do not merely portray people—as historians portray the heroes of old, such as Alexander or Pericles—according to the political concepts found in their morning newspaper; no, they wish to shape people according to what their morning newspaper contains. Here we have what Oswald Spengler identifies as the main cause of decline, transposed into the most immediate practice—and the very essence of that practice is simply overlooked. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what leads to an answer to the question: Who is qualified to speak out against the Decline of the West?

[ 21 ] We live in a time when only those who feel in their souls that there is a spiritually oriented science capable of kindling the will—thereby giving rise to forces that did not exist before—are permitted to speak out against the decline of the West. Those who consider only the forces that existed previously—such as Oswald Spengler—or those who act from the outside—such as Professor Eugen Varga—can either see only the decline or must bring it about themselves. Who is permitted to speak out against the decline of the West? The one who is permitted to speak out against the decline of the West is the one who calls for human action that springs from a newly born spiritual life. — This is how the question must be answered clearly and unequivocally today, and this is what the anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science has been attempting to do for years.

[ 22 ] As I observed the results of the instruction in the individual classes toward the end of the school year at the Free Waldorf School, I could see—as I have already mentioned to some extent—how, for example, Dr. Stein introduced history to the 7th and 8th grades by drawing on the observation of the emerging spiritual life to foster a will that stands in contrast to the waning forces. I have mentioned other examples of how the good fruits of our Spiritual Science shine into the Waldorf School. I would just like to point out today that people on the outside scoff, especially when we speak—as we must from the perspective of Spiritual Science—about the human soul and spirit alongside the body. But one need only see, for example, how in the 5th grade under the guidance of Miss von Heydebrand, the children are introduced—albeit in a form appropriate for children—to what anthroposophy derives from anthropology, which awakens in the children an idea of the real, concrete form of the human soul and spirit. There, life pulses into the children; there is none of the tedium found in today’s anthropological concepts that are otherwise presented to children; and because the insights are drawn from true life, true life is also stirred within the young. The only requirement is that the teacher be able to adapt what emerges from anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science to the specific age group.

[ 23 ] And so it may also be said: At the time when the Mystery of Golgotha made its impact on the development of the Earth, it was understood using the remnants of the old, instinctive Spiritual Science—as I have often explained in my lectures—; today, it must be understood through the emerging, new Spiritual Science. Then Christianity itself will experience a rebirth; only then will Christianity be understood once more, for under the influence of theologians, Christianity has degenerated into materialism. But instead of seriously addressing how Christianity itself must be rediscovered out of a renewed spiritual life, theologians are appearing today—forgive me for bringing this up as well—theologians who [oppose anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science]. If one were to read all the literature against anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science today, one would come to no other conclusion, but it is sometimes interesting to take a look at the titles of the writings that appear there. For example—I don’t know if any of you are familiar with this fine publication—there is *Die neue Kirche* (*The New Church*), published on behalf of the Hamburg People’s Church Representation by Pastor Franz Tügel and Dr. Peter Petersen. Inside, in Issue No. 15 from 1920, there is an article titled “Theological Direction, Dr. Steiner, and the Devil.” And on page 232 we find the following sentence: “At most, one might still imagine that a Catholic might become a student of Steiner...” —such things spring from today’s culture; people should just take a moment to consider what the Catholic clergy hurls at anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science, but here a Protestant is speaking, and so the author believes that this Spiritual Science, well, might still be acceptable to Catholicism—“... there are connections that one can understand; but how a Protestant—at least a conscious one, imbued with the spirit of the Reformation—could join him is completely incomprehensible. In Steiner’s school, everything is a matter of faith—of holding something to be true! And Schaeder rightly points out that all the exercises recommended by Steiner boil down to legalism and moralism. For me, there is no doubt: Luther would have condemned Steiner’s teachings to the devil in his own words; he would also have strongly emphasized how thoroughly un-German they are. He would have warned his Protestant church against this false prophet.” Now I would like to ask: Are the exercises I recommend supposed to amount to lawlessness and immorality? For that is precisely what is emphasized here as something particularly terrible—that the exercises I recommend amount to legalism and moralism. Well, much is written in such a tone today.

[ 24 ] However, there is also another tone in which—one cannot exactly say—it is written. For example, Professor Fuchs of anatomy in Göttingen—whom I have already mentioned here—managed, through a clever distortion in newspaper articles, to claim that anthroposophy is not scientific. He proved nothing more than that, as a scientist of our time, he can regard as science only what happens to fit into his own conception of science, and he does not regard as science anything that does not fit that conception. In other words, he acts just as those did who, when Copernicus appeared on the scene, regarded him as unscientific because he did not teach what they taught the faithful in the church. In medieval times, the Grand Inquisitors came from the ranks of the church; today they may come from the ranks of university professors and be named Fuchs; and his followers are prepared in such a way that they pull all sorts of weapons out of their pockets—such as children’s trumpets and rattles, and house keys used to whistle—whenever a Dr. Stein and a Dr. Kolisko speak about anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science. One cannot say that these people actually listened to the speeches that were given there; for otherwise they would have had to conjure up the children’s trumpets and rattles—and whatever else they had—only after hearing the “bad” arguments of Dr. Kolisko and Dr. Stein. But it was not their intention to listen to the arguments of Dr. Stein and Dr. Kolisko; their intention was to shout down something in the same way that, in medieval times, other means were used to denigrate what these people today venerate as progress. One must have the courage to look unreservedly at such a mindset. And one needs nothing more than to look at the numerous sleeping souls of people who do not want to look at the manifestations of spiritual life, who wish to remain asleep in the face of these manifestations. Then one must—even regarding the supersensible—say what a Viennese man writes about his Vienna, what he writes about what he loves there—even if it is not particularly well written, it is still something like self-knowledge. After this young Viennese man draws attention to his own youth and brings it into connection with what is developing—as he puts it—into a healthier spirituality, he writes in the *Wiener Sonn- und Montagszeitung*, No. 29, dated July 19, 1920:

[ 25 ] The intellectual situation in the German Danube regions seems to me to be even less encouraging than the economic and political one. We have pretty much the cheapest and most shallow variety of socialism, the oldest and long-surpassed form of philosophy—characterized by free-thinking debauchery and banal historical concepts; alongside the most uninspiring method of pitting knowledge against belief; alongside religiously dressed-up blanket intolerance; alongside the most uncritical eagerness to fall for all manner of noisily embellished artistic trinkets, an admirable loquacity, and a sentimental preference for the self-evident; alongside brilliant traits, dampened by a warm-hearted lack of talent tacitly agreed upon among intellectuals, who regard the half as the whole and the whole as the half, and above all, a considerable sort of vanity that, puffing itself up, says to others: “You’re not telling me anything! I myself am both mediocre and educated!” It is hardly surprising that, embedded in this kind of intellectual climate, even the mildest and most indistinct form of occultism is precisely the most popular here. A broad, murky stream of sentimentality flows through this city, and on its banks all manner of truisms flourish abundantly.

[ 26 ] Well, my esteemed audience, one can certainly say that a certain kind of spiritualism prevails here, one that allows the most idiotic form of occultism, the silliest spiritualist drivel, to flow freely—that, my esteemed audience, goes without saying! I don’t want to—since it’s already too late— —point out that there might also be other places besides Vienna where this frivolous, shallow current finds its audience and where people remain oblivious to what is absolutely essential: the reawakening of those forces that must stir within the human heart if we want the dawn to replace the twilight. But if we can recognize the error—just as, on the one hand, brilliant minds like Oswald Spengler can demonstrate the decline of what currently exists, and, on the other hand, people like Professor Eugen Varga reveal currents of decline through their actions—then we—if we have the capacity to awaken in our souls— then we will indeed be able to look upon the spiritual current that, as an anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science, seeks to instill in the will of human beings that which can be born from the light of supersensible knowledge. And then, then we will gain a new understanding of the words of Christ: Heaven and earth may pass away, but my words will not pass away. - We will then say: Yes, everything that is accessible to Oswald Spengler’s eyes, and everything toward which social reforms such as those of Professor Eugen Varga seek to move—all that will pass away. But that which is born of a truly new spirit will dominate the future, for it does not merely believe in some indeterminate forces lying somewhere out there that will help bring about a new culture—as they have helped in the past—but it seeks to kindle new forces through one’s own will, the deepest inner will of the human being itself, which one holds in one’s own hands in freedom. Thus we speak out against the decline of the West, not merely because we trust in the future, but because we want to bring about a future that we can already glimpse. Just as one sees the future plant in the seed of the old, so we want a future that we already perceive as a seed within ourselves. The future will come to pass, if only we will it, against all forces of decline. Anthroposophically oriented Spiritual Science is directed toward the will, not toward idle contemplation, and from this standpoint it seeks to justify speaking out against the decline of the West.