Human Evolution E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Returning from travels in war-torn Europe, Steiner gives a stark impression of the conditions of the time, encouraging esoteric work as a counter to the world-situation. Steiner analyses the gulf between contemporary culture and science – which he says are characterized by 'narrow-mindedness, philistinism and ineptitude' – and a scientific approach to the spirit. The wealth of spiritual thoughts and knowledge in these lectures remain as relevant today as they did when they were first delivered.

Leseprobe

HUMAN EVOLUTIONA SPIRITUAL-SCIENTIFIC QUEST

HUMAN EVOLUTIONA SPIRITUAL-SCIENTIFIC QUEST

Nine lectures held in Dornach between 17 August and 2 September 1918

TRANSLATED BY SIMON BLAXLAND-DE LANGE INTRODUCTION BY SIMON BLAXLAND-DE LANGE

RUDOLF STEINER

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS CW 183

The publishers gratefully acknowledge the generous funding of this publication by the estate of Dr Eva Frommer MD (1927–2004) and the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain

Rudolf Steiner Press Hillside House, The Square Forest Row, RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2014

Originally published in German under the title Die Wissenschaft vom Werden des Menschm (volume 183 in the Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. Based on shorthand transcripts not reviewed by the speaker, and edited by Johann Waeger, Robert Friedenthal and Susi Loetscher. This authorized translation is based on the latest available edition (1990)

Published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

© Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach 1967, Rudolf Steiner Verlag 1990 This translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishersA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 85584 450 6

Cover by Mary Giddens Typeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan

CONTENTS

Introduction by Simon Blaxland-de Lange

LECTURE 1

DORNACH, 17 AUGUST 1918

The Three Basic Evils of Present-day Human Culture: Narrow-mindedness, Philistinism and Ineptitude

The longing of souls for spiritual life; retarding influences as a result of indolence and languidness. A new understanding of man will arise if the human aspect is thought of together with the ahrimanic and luciferic aspects, as portrayed in the sculptural Group in the Dornach building; inner impulses deriving from the artistic experience involved here. The unbridled nature of intellectual life in our time. What matters is not the intellectual content of ideas but the way that they live in human beings. The three basic evils in present-day human culture in which the transition now taking place from the luciferic to the ahrimanic domains is manifested: narrow-mindedness, philistinism and ineptitude. The means for healing the afflictions of our time lie in spiritual science.

LECTURE 2

DORNACH, 18 AUGUST 1918

The Human Aura. Memory and Love

The physical human being's state of separateness from his earthly surroundings; the involvement of man's soul-spiritual being with the streams of his own inner domain of soul and spirit and with those of the universe. Two poles of man's soul-spiritual nature. The boundary between the normal aura and the universal dimension of the surrounding world. Streaming movements as flashes of light, gestures of encounter and opposition; the forming of boundaries, external and internal barriers. Memory as an inner barrier or wave of obstruction; beyond this zone lies a conscious inner space. The other zone corresponds to the power of love; and beyond this zone is the soul-spiritual aspect of the universe.

LECTURE 3

DORNACH, 19 AUGUST 1918

The Aims of the Initiates of the East, of the West and of Jesuitism. The Demonic Influence of Ahriman upon Mankind through Technology

The two boundary zones of man's soul being. Before the fourth post-Atlantean epoch one of these thresholds was still permeable; the other one will be in the sixth epoch. Something is already now beginning to seep through, rising up from within. This must be harmonized. Eastern and western cultural impulses (Tagore, Wilson). The different aims of oriental initiates and of the initiates of Americanism. The oriental impulse of abandoning the earthly human race. The American impulse of becoming strongly immersed in one's bodily nature. The growth of an ahrimanic, demonic quality within humanity through technology. Salvation through the spirit of Christ and an understanding of spiritual-scientific knowledge.

LECTURE 4

DORNACH, 24 AUGUST 1918

The Threefold Sun Mystery of Ancient Times. The Mystery of Christ Jesus and of the Threefold Being of Man

The natural order and the moral order. The connection of Christ with the Sun mystery. The transformation of man's powers of imagination necessary in order to understand the dualism Christ-Jesus. The mystery of threefold man. Threefold man as a reflection of his archetypal image. The dualism between truth and science and how it may be overcome.

LECTURE 5

DORNACH, 25 AUGUST 1918

The Nature of Threefold Man. The Twelve Senses. Socialism. Apollonius of Tyana

The shape of the head as the physical manifestation of an ancient form goes back to ahrimanic principles; the spiritual aspect of the head is a youthful form. The principles of earthly development are active mainly in the region of the trunk. The luciferic formative principles of the limbs will have their full development only in the Venus existence of the Earth. The human individuality needs to be viewed both from a cosmic and also from a human standpoint. The significance of the subconsciousness, which has become veiled, and whose various stages must in our time once again be recovered by the human consciousness. The senses. Intersection of the streams in the middle region of man's being. Memory, cosmic tableau and microcosmic aura. The inverted senses. The parallel between microcosmic man and the cosmic alternation of day and night. Such concepts which connect the life of nature and spiritual life encompass what can work fruitfully in social and historical life, whereas the mechanistic world-conception has led mankind into chaos.

LECTURE 6

DORNACH, 26 AUGUST 1918

The Human Soul in Relation to the Soul World. The Limbs as Thoughts of the Higher Hierarchies. The Loss of the Spiritual Knowledge of the Old Mysteries

Burning questions which can never be answered with the means available to the modern age, for the imaginative conceptions of spiritual and earthly man have been lost. The deceptive quality of the physical Sun. Empty space and negative materiality; the concept of less than empty. Holes in the brain as a tool of the life of the soul, which comes up against the substance of the brain and is reflected there. After a person's death this then becomes a conscious experience for him. The human aura with its streams that constitute his soul-life, which is formed from the elements of the soul-world. After death a person thereby enters into a certain relationship with the soul-world and the spirit-land. Those elements become free and are transformed; in this way the soul-life is hollowed out and the spiritual life emerges. The conditions of transformation. The idea of metamorphosis can be made fruitful for an understanding of man's transition from one incarnation to another. The physical world exists through the interweaving of the thoughts of the higher hierarchies, of formative thoughts into material thoughts. Such clearly expressed concepts of the old mysteries must be experienced anew through spiritual science. The schematic drawing of the old Pythagorean Schools. The legacy of abstract concepts from ancient Rome through the Middle Ages into modern times. As a result of this man was lost in the nineteenth century, and was rediscovered from the aspect of his animal nature. This situation has created the gulf and the catastrophic realities associated with it. The rudiments for understanding man's spiritual being lie in the ideas of metamorphosis.

LECTURE 7

DORNACH, 31 AUGUST 1918

The Gulf Between Idealism and Realism. The Formation of Language from Cosmic Intelligence

Relationship of morality and ideas with natural events. The illusory nature of the outer physical world. The gulf between idealism and realism and the split inherent in our intellectual life, brought about by the naturalistic way in which we behold the world and the moral nature of our idealism. Our living connection with the cosmic reason or intelligence, discernible in the creative formulation of ideas in language. Its reduction by the dead into its component parts. The place of eurythmy in the whole process of human evolution.

LECTURE 8

DORNACH, 1 SEPTEMBER 1918

The Pythagorean School and the Mendacity of the World at that Time. The Disintegration of Words after Death. The Members of a Dead Person's Being

The appearance of a radical untruthfulness in certain historical epochs; investigation of the context. The Pythagorean School and the world surrounding it. Emergent and destructive forces. The atomizing of words after death. Unveiling of the spiritual significance of death. Disintegration of the inexpressible Name of God. As the word is reduced to the vowels of which it is composed the spiritual element is revealed out of the process of disintegration. As the sound of the word fades away the soul sees the spiritual world shine forth. Spiritualization after death. The members of man's being in the spiritual world between death and a new birth. The orientating and death-bringing cosmic power of the hierarchies. The disenchantment of the soul-realm. The cosmic power of the dissolution of form.

LECTURE 9

DORNACH, 2 SEPTEMBER 1918

Time and Space. The Perspectivity of Time. The Influence of Ahriman and Lucifer upon Man

The nature of time by analogy with space. Man experiences only the image of real time. Earlier periods of time relate to the present in a perspective-like way. The similarity of time to space and its constant link with all that is. In nature Ahriman works from the past. Man follows the course of time and does not notice the perspective of time; the consequence is that ahrimanic powers are able to work within him as a present reality; by this means man separates his present existence from the spiritual domain. That he cherishes ideals is the consequence of the luciferic powers that he bears within him, powers that endeavour to tear him away from nature and spiritualize him. The balance lies in the unconscious regions of man's being; at present it is created through the early death of children and young people. The death of old people makes the physical Earth more spiritual than it would be otherwise. Transformation of human forms from soul-spiritual existence into their earthly human counterparts: of the head as a result of ahrimanic influences, of the limbs through luciferic influences. In the region of the chest: influence of normally evolved divine beings through the living breath. Here is also the dividing wall, our memory, through which in this threefold picture the ahrimanic powers of the head are kept separate from the luciferic powers of the extremities, and prevent a connection between the natural order and the spiritual order from taking place within us.

Notes

Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works

Significant Events in the Life of Rudolf Steiner

INTRODUCTION

It is apparent from a number of statements in the course of these lectures that Dornach was where Rudolf Steiner most wanted to be at this time. The work on the first Goetheanum and the sculptural Group, which he regarded as a wholly constructive deed amidst the chaos that continued to engulf Europe, formed a central part of his creative activity. And yet he had been away from Switzerland—where he had spent the whole of the previous autumn—since 20 January 1918 and only returned to Dornach on or around 12 August, shortly before giving the course of lectures contained in this volume. He clearly considered this year to represent a crucial opportunity to try to influence the cultural and social affairs of the German heartland in such a way that a threefold conception of the social organism based on a spiritual view of man could supplant a determination to mount a military offensive; and it was for this reason that Berlin—where he had journeyed with Marie Steiner on 20 January—was the city to which he constantly returned during this last year of the war and where all the lecture cycles (though not by any means all the lectures) during this period were given.

However, the mustering of spiritual forces that characterized this period of absence from Dornach was also marked by intensive work on producing newly revised and augmented editions of several of his basic books (he did not write any new books during this time). A notable instance of this work concerned the thorough revisions of his major philosophical book The Philosophy of Freedom; but he also produced new editions of Goethe's World View, Theosophy, A Road to Self-Knowledge, The Threshold of the Spiritual World and The Riddles of Philosophy. Just before giving the lectures included in CW 183 he had been working on a new edition of An Outline of Occult Science, which was to appear only in the middle of 1920, not long before the first Goetheanum fully opened as a centre for lectures and courses on 26 September 1920.

This period of outward concern for and involvement with the tragic conflict raging in Europe, coupled with an intense recalibration of the principal source-books of anthroposophy, was reflected in what Rudolf Steiner brought by means of these lectures to his closest colleagues, his ‘home audience’, in Dornach shortly after the middle of August 1918. On the one hand he brings tidings of his travels, his impressions and thoughts, together with a clear, critical judgement of a world in turmoil and bereft of any clarity of direction; and on the other he plunges into a renewed analysis of the esoteric work that this outward world-situation requires from the Anthroposophical Society and the community associated with it. Indeed, the scope of the inner content of these lectures goes so far as to encompass certain essential aspects of the Lessons of the First Class of the School of Spiritual Science, which Rudolf Steiner was to give in the entirely new circumstances of the anthroposophical movement that prevailed in 1924. However, it is doubtful whether his listeners were able at the time to appreciate the full meaning of these deeply esoteric lectures. This observation is prompted by the fact that the blackboard drawings, through which much of the esoteric content was transmitted (somewhat akin to the mantras of the First Class), were not preserved in the form in which they were given. A further issue in this regard is that the integrity of this course as a cycle of nine lectures (as opposed to three groups of three lectures, which is how they were made available until 1967 in German and until now in English) cannot have been clearly perceived at the time. In the brief introductory survey that follows, an attempt will be made to give some idea of the themes running through the entire cycle of lectures.

After an introductory lecture in which Rudolf Steiner gives a stark and incisive impression of the prevailing state of cultural life in the context of the catastrophic conditions of war-torn Europe, together with an indication of the longing for a more spiritual understanding of life (a general diagnosis which, especially in terms of the ‘three basic evils in present-day human culture’ to which he refers, seems no less true today than it was at the time), he plunges in the second lecture without further ado into contrasting the state of separateness that a physical human being experiences with respect to his environment with the active involvement of his aura, or his soul-spiritual being, in his cosmic surroundings; and we are made aware of the inner and outer thresholds within which life in a physical human body is enacted, together with the boundaries that both limit and protect the integrity of this physical human existence. In the third lecture there is a clear presentation of the need in our time to penetrate both these boundaries or to cross the threshold into the spiritual world, while being very fully aware of the immense dangers inherent in, respectively, narrowly eastern and western cultural impulses which would in different ways render further human evolution on Earth impossible (warnings that are even more pertinent in the early 21st century than they were at the time).

With these three lectures as a background, Rudolf Steiner now introduces in the fourth lecture what could be described as the underlying theme of the whole cycle, namely, the dualism, or gulf, between the divine and human world, on the one hand, and the world of nature on the other (or, in the somewhat neater German formulation, between Geiteswissenschaft and Naturwissenschaft), between ideas and ideals and the domain of science and technology, and also between the cosmic Christ and the earthly Jesus; and we are shown by way of a striking image how our threefold human form, which while existing in space also lives in the dimension of time, reflects the full archetypal dimension of man as a spiritual being and therefore also represents the key to overcoming this duality in all its various aspects. (The seminal importance of the research in the previous year that had led, after thirty years of quiet reflection, to Rudolf Steiner's observations regarding the threefold nature of the human soul in relation to the bodily organism can hardly be overestimated.) In the next two lectures this relationship of our threefold human form is placed in the context of, on the one hand, the evolutionary journey of our human individuality from the past through the present and into the far future and, on the other, the soul-world of the human aura as described in the second lecture; and towards the end of the sixth lecture we are presented with a clear analysis of how the understanding of these matters that still resided in the Pythagorean Schools of ancient Greece was lost amidst the abstract concepts developed in ancient Rome and that there was by the nineteenth century a distinct possibility of losing all understanding of man's true being:

These states of consciousness have become more or less veiled since the beginning of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, since 747 BC. The challenge of our time is to summon forth the specific awareness of these various processes of cosmic and human evolution from the general chaos of human consciousness today. [Lecture 5]

This theme of the gulf between what may loosely be referred to as idealism and realism (the world of ideas and the reality of the sense-perceptible world of nature) is then, in the seventh lecture, developed into what is currently an existential reality for a humanity that is confronted by the threat of global warming and the potential destruction of the material Earth which is the foundation of our human existence. Language is referred to as a last living vestige of the true relationship between physical earthly life and the spiritual world that— as soul-spiritual beings—we enter after death; and the eighth lecture develops this theme of the origin of language in relation to cultural evolution in the context of the soul's journey after death in the spiritual world. The concluding ninth lecture contains a lengthy passage of some sixteen pages which demonstrates how a failure to be aware of perspective in the dimension of time is responsible for the obdurate persistence of what Owen Barfield refers to as the ‘idols’ of sense-perceptible phenomena, together with the assumption that human consciousness has always perceived the same world and that something of the nature of an evolution of that consciousness is a figment of the fanciful imagination. The main additional thrust of this lecture is to show how crucial it is that the illusions that Ahriman and Lucifer have (legitimately and with important positive consequences) fostered in human consciousness are overcome in our time and that abstract scientific theories about the nature of reality, on the one hand, and ideas devoid of any capacity to work right into this earthly reality in a spiritually transforming way, must as a matter of urgency give place to a true knowledge of man as a being of soul and spirit as has been described over the course of this whole cycle of lectures. That is to say, there needs to be an awareness that ‘every ideal is a seed for a future event in nature; every natural event is the fruit of a spiritual event [that is, an event wrought by “the divine and human world”] in the past’. Rudolf Steiner also emphasizes that the measures described in the lecture that have hitherto been put in place by the good Gods to maintain some sort of connection between earthly existence between birth and death and the world between death and a new birth will no longer be adequate to prevent a catastrophic parting of the ways.

Running though this cycle of lectures—but especially in the seventh and ninth lectures—is an affirmation of the importance of the contribution that the Anthroposophical Society and the anthroposophical movement can make to this process, together with an awareness that there have been many failures in this respect, especially in connection with a tendency towards sectarianism and dogmatic judgements. What is so striking is that in this and in so many other ways Rudolf Steiner's insights seem no less relevant to our own century than they were to the time when he was speaking.

Simon Blaxland-de Lange, July 2014

LECTURE 1

DORNACH, 17 AUGUST 1918

AS you may imagine, it gives me the deepest satisfaction to be able once more to begin working amongst you on, and in the vicinity of, this building of ours.1 Indeed, anyone who has come in contact with the whole aura of this building today—not only through a deep study of it but even through a more superficial understanding—may become aware that something is associated with this building which has a connection with the most significant and momentous future tasks of mankind. Especially after my prolonged enforced absence2 you may be sure that I have a profound sense of satisfaction to be once again in this place where this building stands as a symbol of our cause.

I should also like to emphasize that, every time that I return after a long absence, I have a particular satisfaction from being able to see how well and how meaningfully the work on this building is being nurtured by the devoted service of those who are actively engaged on it. Especially in these months of my last absence, when work has been undertaken in such difficult circumstances, certain aspects of the artistic work have progressed in an incomparable way and in the spirit that needs to pervade it in its entirety.

But I am also deeply gratified to see that the spirit of our work and of what is coming into being here has led to a real sense of solidarity among many of our friends and a true devotion to what this building embodies. And as one dwells upon this fact, one comes to see that here we have a place which is associated with convictions of such sincerity on the part of a number of friends of our spiritual movement that they give one the assurance that the best impulses of our spiritual movement will flow into the future of humanity, where they are so deeply needed. In the work devoted to this building, there is already something that could serve as a model for all that is intended by what we refer to today as the Anthroposophical Society.3

On the other hand, however, I often have the feeling that the beneficial and essentially good aspect of what is found here in this building as a result of human work and human feeling consists in this building's objective capacity to free what is wanted by our movement from the subjective interests of individual human beings.

Regarding what has just been touched upon here, some remarkable views have been—and are still being—expressed in all societies of this nature, and equally in the Anthroposophical Society itself, which are actually remarkable illusions. People preach a lot about selflessness and universal human love; but this is often merely a mask for certain subtle egotistical interests emanating from individual human beings. It is true that these people do not know that their interests are of a purely egotistical nature, and that as regards their individual consciousness they are in a certain sense innocent; but nevertheless this is how things stand. However, the building demands from a relatively large number of our friends a selfless devotion to something objective, to something standing as a symbol of our cause that is free from any particular personality; and to that extent what is connected with our building can indeed serve as a model for what our movement seeks to become.

My dear friends, when we greet one another again as we are doing today, we should particularly direct our attention to what is fruitful and all-embracing in this spiritual movement of ours; and as we greet one another in this way we need to give serious consideration to the thought that however it may happen—and the manner in which it will do so will depend on the circumstances—mankind will never extricate itself from the terrible blind alley in which it has become lodged in our present age until the resolve is made in some way to seek a starting point for fruitful activity and fruitful deeds within a spiritual movement such as ours. We shall certainly not insist egotistically that the truth is to be found only within our small confined circle; but we need to be conscious that we are members of a circle where it is recognized that man has got himself into his terrible present predicament by neglecting his spiritual substance. We may recognize ourselves as people who are united with those ideas which can alone lead mankind out of the blind alley where it has now arrived.

There is indeed a great deal in the souls of people today that is lacking in clarity. When it has been possible to refresh our understanding here and there of the needs that currently prevail in the view of our spiritual movement, one can say on the one hand: yes, the number of the souls of those who are thirsting for spiritual life in the way that we have in mind has greatly increased. The longing for such spiritual life can well be said to have become infinitely greater; and the attention given to our impulses has also undeniably become greater in recent years, at any rate in those spheres that have been outwardly accessible to me in the last few years and especially in recent months. It is, moreover, not without significance if I point out that such an intensifying and strengthening of this longing of human souls for spiritual life has become very clearly manifest. To be sure, this strengthening and sharpening of the longing for spiritual life is in strong contrast to that terrible confusion from which by far the greater part of mankind is suffering—a confusion which is caused by outworn ideas, or, rather, an outworn absence of ideas, a languidness with regard to any keen, vigorous thought, languidness that derives from the laxity, from the indolence with which intellectual life on Earth has been conducted for many decades. This laxity, this indolence, leads people astray in the longing for spiritual life that they experience today. On the one hand, they have a real longing for spirituality, for strong supersensible impulses. On the other hand, they are fettered by all the old forces that do not wish to withdraw from the scene of human activity but should nevertheless be able to see from the contribution that they have made to this very activity that they no longer have a place there. One might say that this dark impression, that impression of a bilateral cleft, is to be found everywhere.

I have given lectures illustrated with slides in a number of places—in Hamburg, Berlin and Munich—about the Group that will stand at the focal point of our building.4 It has on the one hand been possible to see what powerful impulses enter the souls of those who, because of the circumstances of recent years, have never been able to have a glimpse of what is going on here. A new understanding of man is arising from the very way in which the impulses of Ahriman and Lucifer have been conceived, portrayed and made manifest together with that of Christ through our Group. It grips people's souls when what is thus depicted is presented to them. On the other hand, however, we find everywhere the obstructive influences of the all-pervading remnants of what is old and degenerate in our so-called cultural life.

This could be seen particularly from what one might well call the deeply humorous way in which the lectures were received5 that I gave at the art centre of our friend Herr von Bernus in Munich,6 when I was trying to bring the inner impulses underlying the conception of art that we are unfolding here to a wider public. This did arouse a considerable degree of interest among people; for I gave lectures of this kind in Munich in February and in May and had to give each of them twice. Herr von Bernus assured me that there were so many enquiries that each of the public lectures where I presented the principles of my conception of art, as they have found expression here in the building, could have been given four times over. But if one were looking for agreement, one would of course be less pleased by the critic of a Munich newspaper who exhibited what might be called a highly refined form of humorous baring of teeth. It was particularly amusing, since an inner resentment towards what the writer was unable to understand made itself felt. His sentiments were not so much spoken as spat out, if you may forgive the expression. This was made evident by the very interest aroused by the matters under consideration, where honesty and sincerity came to expression in contrast to what otherwise emanated from this artistic centre (for after all this is Munich, the famous Munich). Thus one could see how in this centre of artistic activity both the most intelligible and the most unintelligible things were said. In this very discrepancy there is an example of how the two streams of which I have spoken to you exist in our present time, and how we need to be conscious that we are involved in a struggle of essential importance for the future of the world.

I am certainly not saying all this because I would in some way aim to have a ‘good press’ when things that matter to us have publicity; for the moment we had a ‘good press’ I would think there must be something wrong, an untruth must have entered into something that we have done.

All these things make us thoroughly aware that it is very necessary for us to stand resolutely on the ground of our cause; for nothing could lead us into greater confusion than if we sought to make any kind of compromise with what the outer world would consider it right for us to do. Only the principles underlying our cause can give us guidance for what we have to do.

There has recently also been an ever-growing interest in a number of places in eurythmy, which while more indirectly connected with the core of our activities is nevertheless inwardly associated with it. And when we who were present remember how eurythmy, for example, was received in one particular place where it had scarcely been seen before and was to an extent a new experience for those who saw it, namely in Hamburg, this reception of something associated with our cause should be recalled with the deepest satisfaction. It was precisely in Hamburg that it was possible to see the deep significance of the impulses which can likewise spring from a cause such as ours. People were there who were actually witnessing a proper performance of eurythmy for the first time. It will also probably become possible to reach a public audience in this way. But in such a situation we must stand on very firm ground and do nothing that is not wholly consistent with our cause. It would otherwise very soon be seen that if things go beyond a certain point people would be rash to suppose that I am prepared to be flexible over matters that I am personally involved with. Most of you already know that I am of course always ready to go along with everyone in every respect where the point at issue is not a matter of principle but where a purely human concern has come to the fore. However, when it is a question of approaching the threshold where a matter of principle would have—even in the smallest degree—to be denied, I shall show myself to be inflexible. Thus at the present time, when there is so much dancing to be seen (for there is dancing everywhere, it is quite dreadful; if you live in a city you could watch dancing displays every evening), if it should be thought—and I have good reason to say this, although I am not referring to any specific instance—that by giving public performances of eurythmy we had the intention of allying ourselves with a journalistic empty-headedness that makes claims for attention, I would protest against this in the most vigorous way possible. A feeling for what is good taste needs to arise solely out of the cause that we share.

Sometimes we also have to remember, especially when we meet one another again, to do what is needful with a fine-tuned will in accordance with our spiritual impulses. These spiritual impulses will have much to fight against. It is no longer enough merely to speak of prejudice, for these forces work too strongly to be encompassed by such a weak term; suffice it to say that these impulses have much to battle with. I have on several occasions referred to the great sickness of our time, which consists in a lack of control over one's thought life. For the activity of thinking is already in itself a spiritual life, when rightly understood. It is because people have so little regard for their life of thinking that they so seldom find their way into the spiritual worlds. Again and again I find it necessary to say from a variety of different aspects that people give an unbelievably great consideration to the mere content of thoughts. But the content of thoughts is what is of the least importance about them. True, a grain of wheat is a grain of wheat, that is indisputable. But even though a grain of wheat is a grain of wheat, when you put it into good, fertile ground you obtain a lush ear of wheat; if you put it into ground that is barren and stony, you either get nothing at all or a very poor specimen. But on each occasion you are dealing with a grain of wheat.

Let us speak of something other than grains of wheat. Instead of a grain of wheat let us say the ‘idea of a free humanity’ which is such a topic of conversation today; thus many will say that the ‘idea of a free humanity’ is the ‘idea of a free humanity’. It is just the same as a grain of wheat being a grain of wheat. But it is a different matter whether the ‘idea of a free humanity’ flourishes in a heart, in a soul where this heart and soul is fertile ground or whether the ‘idea of a free humanity’— exactly the same idea with the same foundation—is being nurtured in Woodrow Wilson's head!7 Just as a grain of wheat cannot flourish if it is sown in stony ground or among rocks, all the so-called beautiful ideas that are put forward in the programmes of Woodrow Wilson signify nothing if they come from this head. Especially this is something that modern man finds infinitely difficult to understand, because he is of the view that people relate to the content of programmes, to the content of ideas. But the content of programmes, the content of ideas, has as little significance as the germinating power of a grain of wheat before it is sown in ground which can offer it suitable conditions for growth.

Thinking in accordance with reality is so vitally necessary for people today; for something else is connected with the unreal thinking of the present, namely that people are surprised by almost all that happens. Indeed, one might ask if there is anything that has not surprised humanity in the last few years. People are surprised by everything, and they will continue to be a lot more surprised than they are now. But they will not have anything to do with what is really going on in the world. Hence it is also impossible to persuade people today to bring any foresight to bear on their affairs.

If one is working with mere ideas, one can from any standpoint substantiate everything by means of anything. If one is working with the mere content of ideas, one can indeed substantiate everything with everything. This is also something that increasingly needs to be gone into more and more deeply, but no one really wants to do this.

Generally when one speaks of such things and gives examples, no one really believes what one says because the examples seem so grotesque. But our whole modern cultural life is fairly buzzing with these phenomena which manifest themselves in such grotesque ways. I know that many of you will not take it kindly if I give you a really unusual idea as an example; but this is what I propose to do.

This concerns a university professor,8 an old well-respected university professor who stumbled upon the fact that, in the course of his long life, Goethe was attracted by various women. So this dawned upon a university professor who had taken on the task of thoroughly studying Goethe's life and the lives of those associated with him. Despite not being a professor at a European university, he has of course made it his business to go about these studies as thoroughly as only a professor at a university in central Europe would normally do: he let the whole gallery of Goethe's ladies pass before his soul in a kind of review in their relationship to Goethe. And what did he discover? I can tell you almost in his very words. He found that each of the women whom Goethe loved for a while during his life can be said to have been a kind of Belgium whose neutrality he violated; and that he then sighed that his heart bled for needing to take advantage of a shining innocence. But he did not forget to assert on each occasion like the German chancellor9 that the realm of violated neutrality would have deserved a better fate but that he, Goethe, could not have done otherwise, since his destiny and the rights of his intellectual life obliged him to sacrifice the one he loved and, even, to offer up the pain of his own heart on the altar of the duty that he owed to his own immortal ego.

I could regale you with many other bizarre ideas from this book. You would ask what purpose this would serve. But there is a good reason for this, for you find ideas of this sort all over the world today. The ideas of people today are of this nature. And it is not for nothing that such ideas should manifest themselves in literature where the essence of human thinking appears; for this view is represented by Santayana, a professor at Harvard University in America, a well-respected Spaniard who is, however, completely Americanized. His book was written during this present catastrophe, and its French edition was introduced by Boutroux,10 who had given a great eulogy of German philosophy in Heidelberg shortly before the war. This book is called Egotism in German Philosophy [Rudolf Steiner referred to it by the title of its French translation] and its publication was no chance event but is entirely characteristic of present-day thinking; for with a similar ease displayed by Professor Santayana in comparing the violation of Belgian neutrality with Goethe's behaviour towards a number of women do these people of today form a binding connection with what is furthest removed from their true nature. The fact is that, if you really take notice of what is going on, this thinking confronts you in all realms of so-called modern science.

It is the task of those spiritual impulses to which our anthroposophically oriented science of the spirit is dedicated to combat three basic evils in the present so-called culture of present-day humanity. It has no choice but to fight against these three basic evils. One of these basic evils manifests itself in the realm of thinking, another in the realm of feeling, and the third in the realm of the will.

In the realm of thinking we have gradually reached the point where people are only able to think in the manner of a thinking that is bound to the physical brain. But this thinking which is so closely wedded to the physical brain has no wish to soar freely to the spiritual domain and is condemned in all circumstances to be narrow-minded and limited. The most significant symptom of modern scientific thinking is narrow-mindedness, limitation of outlook. To be sure, great things can be achieved in this limited domain, as exemplified by modern science. But no element of genius is needed for science as it is conceived of today. This narrow-mindedness, limitation of outlook is what must be challenged in the intellectual realm. Today my intention is merely to present in outline what we shall speak of later in greater detail.

In the realm of feeling the situation is that people have gradually arrived at a certain philistinism—this is the only word for it: pettiness, Philistinism, being confined to certain limited circles. This is the main characteristic of the philistine, that he is incapable of being interested in the wider affairs of the world. Parish-pump politicians are always Philistines. Of course this cannot suffice in the realm of spiritual science, for here one cannot limit oneself to a narrow circle. There is even a need for us to be interested in what lies beyond the Earth and, hence, in a very wide circle indeed. It does of course annoy people if someone merely suggests the idea of wanting to know something about wider matters such as the Moon, Sun and Saturn.11 But philistinism needs to give way in all areas to non-philistinism if spiritual science is to be able to make any mark. Sometimes this is not an easy matter, for it requires an ability unreservedly to face up to the matter at hand and, moreover, in an unprejudiced way.

Recently something rather awkward happened in our midst; but I prevented any serious development of what was potentially present in the situation. As you will recall from my lectures in Zurich last year,12 among various examples I gave then of how Darwinism can be overcome through scientific investigation itself I referred to the excellent book by Oscar Hertwig,13Das Werden der Organismen (‘How Organisms Come Into Being’). Both now and whenever I have had the opportunity I have mentioned this outstanding book. Very soon after this book was published there appeared a shorter book14 by this same Oscar Hertwig, where he speaks about social, ethical and political life; and I then thought to myself that it could well happen that some of our members, having heard that I said that Oscar Hertwig's book Das Werden der Organismen is a very fine book, will believe that I regard Oscar Hertwig as an infallible authority. This second publication by Oscar Hertwig is a worthless book, one written by someone who is unable to put together a single coherent thought in the realm of social, ethical and political life. I feared that some of our members might have judged that this book had some merit simply because its author was the same Oscar Hertwig. So I had to anticipate any possible problems by taking hold of any opportunity to draw attention to the fact that I consider this second book by the same author who had written a first-rate scientific book to be a worthless piece of foolish nonsense written by a man who lacks the capacity to speak of what he is addressing here.