The Rudolf Steiner Archive

First Lecture

[ 1 ] It is my opinion that this course is a discussion of what is necessary in order to truly advocate for the movement for anthroposophy and threefolding, as it is understood today. The course will therefore not be structured as a general public speaking course or anything of the sort, but rather as a kind of orientation course for individuals who have made it their mission to work in the direction indicated.

[ 2 ] People who simply accept what comes from anthroposophy as a kind of message will not be able to gain much from this course. After all, we certainly need effectiveness within our movement at the present time. This effectiveness seems difficult to ignite. It seems difficult to spread the understanding that this effectiveness is truly necessary in our present situation.

[ 3 ] This will therefore not be a formal course on public speaking, but rather a focus on precisely what is necessary for someone who wishes to fulfill a very specific task—namely, the one just mentioned. In general, there should be no place for idle chatter within the anthroposophical movement. After all, it is precisely the hallmark of our present-day culture and civilization that people generally talk idly about things, that concrete tasks are rarely grasped, and that people tend to take a greater interest in idle chatter in general.

[ 4 ] Therefore, in this course, I will not be addressing the topics I will be analyzing in terms of how they can serve as information; rather, I will attempt to treat them—and this must certainly be the case in an introductory course such as this, since it is intended to serve as a foundation for a specific task—in a way that allows them to be incorporated into oral discourse. And I will approach this oral presentation in a way that takes into account the fact that the person undertaking such a task is not speaking within a context where interest already exists, but rather is delivering one, two, or three lectures through which they must first arouse that interest.

[ 5 ] So it is in this very specific sense that I would like to structure this course. And even the general points I will discuss today are intended to be understood in this very concrete sense, so that it would be inaccurate to present what I say today or in the coming days—as is common practice today—as abstract statements. Today I will be discussing the formal aspects.

[ 6 ] Whenever one sets out to convey something to others through spoken language, there will naturally be an interaction between the person who has something to communicate, to inspire, or to stir up, and the people who are listening to him. An interplay of soul forces takes place. And it is to this interplay of soul forces that we wish to direct our attention first.

[ 7 ] These soul forces are indeed active in thinking, feeling, and willing, and never is a single soul force active in a human being on its own in abstract form; rather, the other soul forces play a role in each individual soul force, so that when we think, feeling and willing are always at work in our thinking as well, just as thinking and willing are at work in our feeling, and thinking and feeling are at work in our willing. Nevertheless, one can only view the soul life—including its interaction among human beings—by taking into account this tendency, on the one hand, toward thinking and, on the other, toward willing. And here, in keeping with our task for today, we must say: What we think is of no interest to anyone; and anyone who believes that his thoughts—insofar as they are thoughts—are of interest to anyone will not be able to set himself the task of public speaking. — We will have to speak about these things in greater detail later. — And the will—which we might wish to stir in an assembly or perhaps even in just one other person—that is, the will we might wish to imbue our speech with—annoys people; they instinctively reject it.

[ 8 ] When addressing people rhetorically, one is initially dealing with the workings of various instincts. People are not interested in the thoughts one develops within oneself; they are annoyed by one’s desires. So if, for example, someone were urged to desire this or that, we would first provoke their annoyance, and if we were to unfold our most beautiful and brilliant thoughts before people as if in a monologue, they would walk away. This must be a fundamental principle for the orator.

[ 9 ] I’m not saying that this is the case when we’re describing, say, a general conversation among people, a coffee party, or something similar. For I am not talking about how these things should be characterized, but rather about what should inspire us, what should live within us as the true motivation for speaking, if speech—in the sense I mean here—is to have a purpose. The maxim one sets for oneself—“Our thoughts interest no audience; our desires annoy every audience”—need not be a characterization.

[ 10 ] Now we must take into account that when someone speaks, they usually do not speak solely from the essence of speech itself, but rather from all sorts of situations. They may be speaking in connection with some matter that has already been discussed or described for weeks in the very place where they are speaking. Naturally, they encounter a very different kind of interest than when they have to utter a first sentence that touches on something that has not in the least occupied their listeners’ minds until now. When someone speaks here at the Goetheanum, it is, of course, quite different from when they speak in a tavern in Buchs. I even think I can set aside the fact that here at the Goetheanum one might be speaking to people who have been engaged with the subject matter for quite some time—who have read or heard something about it—whereas that might not be the case in Buchs. I am referring to the entire setting: the very fact that one enters a building like the Goetheanum makes it possible to address the audience in a completely different way than when speaking in a tavern in Buchs. And so there are countless circumstances from which one speaks, and these must always be taken into account.

[ 11 ] But this is precisely why, especially in our time, it is necessary to orient ourselves a little toward what should not be, rather than toward what should be. Let’s take the most extreme case: A truly average professor is supposed to give a speech. He is initially preoccupied with his thoughts on the subject; and if he is a truly average professor, he is also convinced that these thoughts he is having are, in fact, the very best in the world on the subject in question. Nothing else interests him at first. He writes these thoughts down. And of course, when he puts these thoughts on paper, they are well put on paper. Then he tucks this manuscript into his left side pocket, goes—whether to the Goetheanum or to the tavern in Buchs—finds some lectern set up at the proper distance from his eyes, places the manuscript on it, and reads from it. I’m not saying that everyone does it this way, but it is a common occurrence and one that is nonetheless characteristic of our present time, and it points to the dread that people can feel today when it comes to speaking. It is the very situation one should abhor the most.

[ 12 ] And since I have said that our thoughts are actually of no interest to anyone, and our desires actually annoy everyone, it seems that what matters is feeling; it therefore seems that a particularly significant development of feeling must underlie speech. So even such feelings—though perhaps of a distant, yet in a certain sense fundamental significance—will be important: that we have acquired the proper revulsion toward this extreme case. I once heard a lecture by the famous Helmholtz at a large gathering, which was, however, delivered in this manner: he pulled the manuscript out of his left side pocket—and read it! Afterward, a journalist came up to me and said: “Why wasn’t this lecture actually printed and a copy handed out to everyone who was there?”—and Helmholtz would then have gone around and shaken everyone’s hand! — That gesture might have been more valuable to the audience than the dreadful ordeal of sitting on hard chairs, to which they were condemned, just to have something read aloud to them over a longer period than it would have taken them to read it themselves. Most of them, if they had wanted to understand it, would have needed a very long time to do so anyway; but even briefly listening to it did them no good.

[ 13 ] One really must give serious thought to all these specific matters if one wants to understand how the art of speaking can be pursued with truth and honesty.

[ 14 ] At the Philosophers’ Congress in Bologna, the most significant speech was presented in such a way that three copies in each of three languages were placed on every chair. One had to pick it up first in order to sit down on the empty chair. And then the speech—which lasted a little over an hour—was read aloud from these printed copies. Through such a process, even the most beautiful speech ceases to be a speech, for understanding through reading is something fundamentally different from understanding through listening. And these things must certainly be taken into account if one wishes to engage with such tasks in a lively and meaningful way.

[ 15 ] Certainly, even a novel can move us so deeply that we shed tears at certain points. I am, of course, referring to a good novel, but it can only do this at certain points—not from beginning to end. But what actually happens when we read that causes us to be moved by what we read? When we are moved by what we read, we have a certain task to perform that is very closely connected to the innermost core of our human being. For those who cannot read are unable to perform this task at all. An inner process takes place when we read. This process consists in the fact that, as we direct our gaze to individual letters, we are truly applying what we have learned about combining letters in order to derive meaning from this act of looking, combining, and reflecting. This is a process that takes place in our etheric body during the act of taking in information, and it still heavily engages the physical body in the process of perception.

[ 16 ] But all of this simply falls away when one is merely listening. When one is merely listening, none of this activity takes place. Yet this entire activity is, in a certain way, connected to the process of taking in a thing. A person needs it if they want to take in a thing. They need the active participation of their etheric body—and to some extent even their physical body—not merely in the sense organ, that is, the ear, but they also need such a lively soul life while listening that this soul life is not confined to the astral body, but sets the etheric body vibrating, and this etheric body then causes the physical body to vibrate as well. For what must take place as an active process during reading must also develop while listening to a speech—but, I would say, in a completely different form, because it cannot exist in the same way as it does during reading. And what is expended in reading is transformed feeling—feeling that has been pushed down into the etheric body and the physical body, where it becomes power. Even in the most abstract speech, we must be able to muster it as feeling, as emotional content.

[ 17 ] It is indeed true that no one is interested in our thoughts as such, that our impulses of will annoy everyone, and that only our feelings constitute what, in the proper sense of the word, naturally determines the impression and effect of a speech.

[ 18 ] This raises the most important question: How can we, in our speech, convey something that is sufficiently powerful—without being intrusive, since otherwise we would be hypnotizing or suggesting—to evoke such an emotional tone, such an emotional impact?

[ 19 ] There can be no abstract rules that teach you how to speak with feeling. For anyone who has sought out such rules in all sorts of guides—rules for speaking with feeling, for speaking impressively—will inevitably give away that their speech certainly does not come from the heart, that it originates from somewhere entirely other than the heart. And in fact, every speech ought to come entirely from the heart. Even the most abstract speech should come from the heart, and it can. And that is precisely what we must discuss: how even the most abstract speech can indeed come from the heart.

[ 20 ] We just need to be clear about what is actually going on in the listener’s mind when he is listening to us. Not when he is listening to us and we tell him something he is eager to hear, but when we expect him to listen to us as a speaker. After all, it is always, in a sense, a kind of attack on our fellow human beings when we launch into a speech directed at them. And this, too, is something we must be fully aware of—that it is an attack on the listeners when we launch into a speech directed at them.

[ 21 ] Everything I say—and I must keep adding this in parentheses—is to be understood as a maxim for speakers, not as a description of social interaction or anything else; it is to be understood as a maxim for speakers. If I were speaking in the context of social interaction, I naturally could not formulate the same statements. I would be spouting nonsense. For when one speaks in concrete terms, a statement such as “Our thoughts are of no interest to anyone” can be either very wise or utter nonsense. Everything we say can be either foolish or wise in the broader human context; it all depends on how it fits into that context. Therefore, a speaker needs things quite different from instructions on the formal art of rhetoric.

[ 22 ] The point, then, is to recognize: What actually influences the listener? Sympathy and antipathy are at work within the listener. These make themselves felt, more or less unconsciously, when we address them with a speech. Sympathy or antipathy! But at first, they certainly feel no sympathy for our thoughts. Nor for our impulses of will—for what we, so to speak, want from them, or for what we seek to urge them to do. To elicit sympathy or antipathy toward what we say, one must have a certain understanding if one wishes to approach the art of public speaking in any meaningful way. Sympathy and antipathy actually have nothing to do with thinking or the will; rather, they operate here in the physical world solely through the emotions, through the emotional realm. And a conscious understanding on the part of the listener regarding sympathy and antipathy has the effect of blocking our path to them—this understanding of sympathy and antipathy must be something that, especially during the speech, does not enter the listener’s consciousness at all. And striving to elicit sympathy or antipathy has the same effect as if we were taking each step so that the ground we step on is our other foot—as if we were always stepping with one foot onto the other. That is roughly how it works in a speech when we try to influence the listener’s sympathy or antipathy. We must have the most subtle understanding of the listener’s sympathy and antipathy, but during the speech itself, we must not care in the slightest about their sympathy or antipathy! We must incorporate everything that influences sympathy and antipathy—if I may put it that way—indirectly, through preparation, into the speech.

[ 23 ] Just as there can be no abstract instructions for painting or sculpting, there can be no abstract rules for speaking. But just as one can inspire the art of painting, so too can one inspire the art of speech. And it is simply a matter of taking the ideas that can be put forward in this regard completely seriously.

[ 24 ] To start with an example, let’s consider a teacher speaking to children. In reality, very little about how a teacher speaks in the classroom depends on the teacher’s genius or wisdom. Whether we can teach mathematics or geography well depends only in the very, very slightest degree on whether we ourselves are good at mathematics or geography. We can be an excellent geographer but a poor teacher of geography, and so on. The quality of teaching—which, after all, consists largely of speaking—depends on what one has once felt and experienced regarding the subjects one is to present, and on what feelings are reawakened by having the child in front of one. That is why, for example, the pedagogy of the Waldorf School boils down to an understanding of human nature—that is, an understanding of children; not an understanding of children mediated by abstract psychology, but one based on a fully human comprehension of the child, to the extent that one is led, through a feeling intensified to the point of immediate, loving devotion, to empathize with the child. Then, from this empathy one feels toward the child, and from what one has oneself once felt and experienced in relation to what one has to convey—from all of this, the manner in which one must speak or act arises quite instinctively.

[ 25 ] For example, it’s completely useless to teach a stupid child by applying all the wisdom of the world that you yourself possess. Wisdom only helps with a stupid child if you had it yesterday and used it to prepare. At the very moment you’re teaching the stupid child, you must have the genius to be just as stupid as the child yourself, and only have the presence of mind to remember the way you were wise yesterday while preparing. You have to be able to be silly with the silly child, useless—at least in spirit—with the useless child, well-behaved with the well-behaved child, and so on. As a teacher—I hope this word doesn’t arouse too much antipathy, because it’s too strongly oriented toward thought or will—one really must be a kind of chameleon if one wants to teach properly.

[ 26 ] For example, I really liked what some Waldorf teachers, drawing on their ingenuity, have come up with to improve discipline. For example, when the children start writing little notes to each other and passing them around while our friend Walter Johannes Stein is teaching a lesson on Jean Paul, he doesn’t begin with admonitions or the like; instead, he goes over, observes the situation with great patience, and then makes a teaching interlude: he inserts a very short chapter on the postal system into the lesson! That works much better than any admonitions. The letter-writing during class then stops. This, of course, depends on seizing the moment in a very concrete way. But one must, of course, possess this presence of mind. One must know that the sympathies and antipathies one seeks to arouse run deeper than one usually thinks.

[ 27 ] And so it is extremely important that the teacher—especially during preparation, whenever he is to cover a chapter in class—fully recall how he himself approached that chapter when he was the same age as his students, and how he felt at that time. Not so that they can become pedantic again and, the next day when they teach it, try to force themselves to feel that way all over again! No, it is enough if this feeling is brought to mind during preparation, if it is relived during preparation. And then it is simply a matter of working the next day with the insight into human nature just described.

[ 28 ] So here, too, the point is that we ourselves find within ourselves the ability to shape the material for discussion—which, as I said, is part of the curriculum—based on our feelings.

[ 29 ] The best way to bring home how things can affect us is to also take the following to heart: If, then, something emotional is to have an effect in what pulsates through our speech, we naturally cannot speak thoughtlessly—even though our thoughts do not really interest our listeners—nor can we speak without will—even though our will annoys them; we will even very often want to speak in such a way that it penetrates people’s volitional impulses, so that as a result of our speech, our fellow human beings will do something. But in any case, we must not structure our speech in such a way that we become boring to our listeners through the content of our thoughts and unlikable to them through the impulse of will we seek to impart.

[ 30 ] Therefore, the point will be for us to work out our thoughts about the speech entirely on our own, as long as possible before we deliver it—that is, to have first worked out the intellectual aspects completely on our own. This has nothing to do with whether we then speak fluently or stumble over our words. The latter, as we shall see, depends on entirely different circumstances. But what must, so to speak, operate unconsciously in the speech depends on the fact that we have settled the content of our thoughts with ourselves much, much earlier. We must have worked out in advance the inner monologue—which should be as vivid as possible—that inner monologue which takes shape in such a way that, during this preparation, we engage in a back-and-forth of argument and counterargument with ourselves, anticipating as many objections as possible. For it is only by experiencing our speech in this way in our thoughts beforehand that we take the sting out of our speech—the sting it would otherwise have for the audience under any circumstances. We must, so to speak, “sweeten” our speech by having already worked through the “sour” aspects of the train of thought and the logical development beforehand—but in such a way that we do not formulate the literal content of the speech, that we have no idea —I must, of course, speak in general terms; things cannot, of course, be taken to such extremes—that we have no idea, when we begin to speak, how we will formulate our sentences. The content of our thoughts, however, must be settled. To have the verbatim wording ready for the entire speech is something that, after all, can never lead to a truly good speech. For that comes very close to having it written down, and we need only create a mental image of what it would be like if instead of us there were a phonograph standing there, which would reproduce the matter on its own; then the difference is even smaller between having it written down and the machine that reproduces it. But if we have formulated a speech in advance so that it is worked out in such a way that it can be spoken by us word for word, then we are not very different from a machine into which we have wound the tape and which we then play back. There really isn’t much difference between listening to a speech that is delivered word for word exactly as it was prepared, and reading it—except that when reading, the speaker does not constantly interrupt you, whereas when listening to a speech that has been memorized and is delivered word for word, the speaker does indeed constantly interrupt you. Mental preparation, therefore, is carried out properly by ensuring that it precedes the delivery of the speech—until one has achieved absolute clarity within oneself, though only in thought. One must be fully prepared with what one intends to present.

[ 31 ] However, there are some exceptions for ordinary speeches delivered to an otherwise unfamiliar audience. For if, when speaking to such an audience, one begins right away by presenting—from the very first sentence—what one has, so to speak, meditatively worked out in one’s mind, under the immediate, if I may put it that way, inspiration, then one is not really doing the listeners any favors. At the beginning of a speech, one must allow one’s personality to come through to some extent; at the start of the speech, one must not immediately suppress one’s personality entirely, because—I would say—the vibrancy of emotion must first be stirred.

[ 32 ] Of course, one doesn’t have to go about it quite the way, for example, Michael Bernays—a professor of German literary history who was once very famous in certain circles—did. When he once came to Weimar to give a lecture on Goethe’s *Theory of Colors*, he wanted to structure his opening sentences in such a way that they would indeed engage the audience’s emotions in a very, very intense manner—though in a different way than he intended. He arrived in Weimar a few days early. Weimar is a small town; there, you can go around talking to the people—some of whom will be in the hall—and build up excitement for your speech. Those who hear it firsthand then tell the others, and by the time you give the speech, the entire hall is actually “in the right frame of mind.” So Professor Michael Bernays really did walk around Weimar for a few days, saying: “Oh, I haven’t been able to prepare for this speech; the Genius will inspire me with the right words at the right moment. I’ll wait to see what the Genius inspires me to say.” — Now he was to deliver this speech in Weimar’s “Erholungssaal.” It was a hot summer day. The windows had to be opened, and right outside the windows of this “Erholungssaal” was a chicken coop. Michael Bernays stood there and waited until the genius began to inspire him. For the whole of Weimar knew: The genius must come and must inspire Michael Bernays’s speech. And lo and behold, at that very moment, as Bernays was waiting for the Genius, the rooster outside began to crow: Cock-a-doodle-doo! — Everyone knew: Now the Genius had spoken for Michael Bernays! — Emotions were strongly stirred, though in a different way than he had intended. But there was already a certain atmosphere in the hall.

[ 33 ] I’m not saying this to tell you a nice anecdote, but because I need to point out the following: The main part of the speech should already be structured in such a way that it has been thoroughly thought through and then formulated freely. But the beginning is actually meant to make you look a little ridiculous, because that puts the audience in the right frame of mind so that they’ll be more inclined to listen to you. If you don’t make yourself look just a tiny bit ridiculous—though in a way that isn’t very noticeable, so that it only takes place in the subconscious—then you simply can’t captivate your audience properly when you have to give a single speech somewhere. Of course, it shouldn’t be overly exaggerated, but it does have a sufficient effect on the subconscious.

[ 34 ] What one should actually do for every single speech is this: formulate the first, second, third, fourth, and at most the fifth sentence verbatim. Then one moves on to what is structured and organized in the manner I just indicated. And the conclusion, in turn, should be worded verbatim. For at the end, if one is a true orator, one should always have a bit of stage fright; one should always harbor a secret fear of not being able to find one’s final sentence. This is necessary to add color to the speech. You need this to captivate the hearts of your listeners at the end—that you’re a little anxious about finding the final sentence. So that, after you’ve delivered your speech while sweating, you can address this anxiety in the right way, add this to all your other preparations: memorize the exact wording of the last one, two, three, four—at most five—sentences. So a speech should really have a framework: the wording of the first and last sentences, and in between, the speech should be free-flowing. As I said, I’m stating this as a maxim.

[ 35 ] Now, some of you might say: Yes, but what if someone just can’t speak that well?—That doesn’t mean we should immediately conclude that the situation is so bad that they shouldn’t speak at all. After all, it’s perfectly natural for people to speak a little better or a little worse, so one shouldn’t let that deter them from speaking just because they can’t meet all the conditions. But one should strive to meet these conditions by making the principles we can develop here the guiding principles of one’s life. And then there is, after all, a very good way to become at least a tolerable speaker, even if one is not a speaker at all to begin with—even if one is the very opposite of a speaker. I can assure you that if someone has made a fool of themselves fifty times, the fifty-first time it will work out, precisely because they have made a fool of themselves fifty times. And for those for whom fifty times isn’t enough, they can take on a hundred more—but it will work at least once, provided one isn’t afraid of making a fool of oneself. Of course, the final speech before death will never be good if one has shied away from making a fool of oneself beforehand. But at least the final speech before death will be good if one has made a fool of oneself while speaking countless times before. That’s also something one should actually always keep in mind. And one will undoubtedly develop into a speaker. For one needs nothing to be a speaker except for people to listen to you, and to ensure, so to speak, that you don’t come too close to them—that you truly avoid anything that might offend them.

[ 36 ] Just as one is accustomed to speaking in social situations when talking to another person, one will not be able to speak that way in a public speech or, indeed, in any speech delivered before an audience. At most, one may occasionally insert sentences such as those used in everyday conversation. For it is good to be aware that the way one typically phrases things in everyday life is, as a rule, either a bit too refined or a bit too coarse for a speech delivered before an audience. It is generally not entirely appropriate. The way one chooses one’s words in everyday life when addressing another person—which varies—always oscillates between being somewhat crude and being somewhat untruthful or impolite. Both must be strictly avoided in a speech delivered before an audience and used only, so to speak, in parentheses. The listener then has the subtle feeling that while the speaker usually speaks the way one does in a formal speech, he suddenly addresses you directly; he speaks as if in a conversation. In doing so, he intends either to hurt us a little or to come across as overly sweet.

[ 37 ] But we must also incorporate the element of will into our speech in the right way. And that, in turn, can only happen through preparation—but the kind of preparation that applies one’s own enthusiasm to thinking the matter through, that lives with the subject, so to speak. What do I actually mean by that? You see, first you’ve finished with the content of the thought. You have made it your own. Now the next part of the preparation would be this: You listen to yourself inwardly, as it were, as you present this content of thought. You begin to listen to your own thoughts. They do not need to be formulated word for word, as I have already said, but you begin to listen to them. That is what puts the element of will in the right place—this inward listening to oneself. For by listening to ourselves inwardly, we develop enthusiasm or aversion, sympathy or antipathy at the right moments, as these must be linked to what we are conveying. What we experience in this way—through the will—also enters into our will and manifests, when we speak, in the variation of our tones. Whether we speak intensely or more softly, whether we emphasize more brightly or more deeply, this stems solely from our feeling through and willing through the content of our own thoughts during meditative preparation. And what we have in our thinking, we must gradually use to form a picture of the structure of our speech. Then thinking is also present in speech—not in the words themselves, but between the words—in how the words are shaped, how the sentences are structured, and how the overall composition is arranged. The more we are able to reflect on the “how” of our presentation, the more strongly we influence the will of others. For people accept precisely what we imbue in the phrasing and composition of our speech.

[ 38 ] If we go up to them and say: “Each of you is, at heart, a bad person who won’t do everything tomorrow to bring about the threefold social order”—that annoys people. But if we present the rationale for the threefold social order in a speech that is naturally composed and internally structured, so that it is perhaps even a kind of intimate threefold division in itself—but especially if it is structured in such a way that we ourselves are convinced within our own hearts of the necessity of the threefold division, convinced with all our feelings and all our impulses of will—then that has an effect on people; then it has an effect on people’s will.

[ 39 ] The techniques of thought development that we have applied to turn our speech into a work of art have an unnoticed effect on people’s will during the speech; what springs from our own will—what we ourselves want, what inspires us, what captivates us—has a much greater effect on the listeners’ thinking; that stimulates their thoughts much more easily. Therefore, a speaker who is enthusiastic about his cause is easily understood. A speaker who crafts his speech artistically will be better able to stir the will of his listeners. But the supreme principle, the supreme maxim, must surely be this: that we never deliver a speech unless it is well prepared.

[ 40 ] Yes, but if we are now forced to give a so-called impromptu speech—if, for example, someone addresses us and we have to respond immediately—we certainly can’t turn back time to the previous day just to ponder the reply and recall it, as I just suggested; that’s simply not possible! — And yet it is possible! It works, in fact, in such a way that we are absolutely genuine precisely in such a moment. Or we are attacked in such a way that someone comes at us so terribly rudely that we have to respond immediately—then that is already a powerful emotional fact. So the feeling is already stimulated in a corresponding way. There is a substitute here for what we otherwise need to bring to life—with enthusiasm and so on—the mental image we first create in our thoughts. But then, when in such a moment we say nothing other than what we, as whole human beings, can say at any given moment—when we are attacked in this way—then we are, after all, prepared in a similar way.

[ 41 ] It is precisely in such matters that the overarching decision is simply, simply, simply to be true. As a rule, all the conditions for understanding are present in such cases—unless the challenge lies in the fact that we are being challenged in a discussion. I’ll come back to that later. For what is actually at stake here is not giving speeches at all, but doing something entirely different—something that will be particularly important for us if we are to successfully complete this course. For, in order to work in the sense I indicated at the beginning today, we will not merely have to give speeches, but we will also have to hold our own—and, of course, our own as well—in the discussion. And so this, too, must certainly be discussed—and discussed at great length. Now, above all, I ask you to consider what I have said today from the perspective that it perhaps points a little to how difficult it is to master the art of public speaking. But it is particularly difficult when one is not only to speak but even to speak about speaking. Just imagine if one were to “paint painting” or “sculpt sculpting”! So, the task is not exactly easy. But we will try to accomplish it in some way over the next few days.