Let us
now approach the problem which lies before us in these lectures
once more from another starting-point. For in spiritual science
it must be so: we must always seek to encompass a problem and
approach it from many different aspects.
Broadly speaking, one thing especially must strike us when we
consider such a life as Goethe's. It is a great riddle in human
evolution, even when we take into account repeated earthly
lives and their effect in moulding the life of man. How is it
that isolated individuals like Goethe are able to produce such
wonderful creations out of their inner life? We think
especially of Goethe's Faust. How is it that a single human
being' can have so great an influence on the remainder of
mankind through his creations? How does it come about that
single individuals are thus lifted out of the remainder of
mankind, summoned, as it were, by universal
destiny, to do such mighty works? We will compare the life and
work of every man with these great lives and works, and ask
ourselves: What can we tell by this difference between the life
of any individual and the lives of great men so-called?
This
is a question we can only answer if we consider life a little
more' in detail by the means which spiritual science affords.
All that a man can perceive to begin with, especially with the
knowledge of our time, is calculated to conceal certain truths,
keeping them far removed from the free and open vision of
mankind. This too makes it necessary for us to begin to
speak of many things in connection with spiritual science,
which alone will enable us to understand them
rightly.
In
spiritual science, as you know, we describe the human being as
follows. Man, we say, as he appears to us in life, consists of
the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body and the
Ego. We then characterise the alternating conditions of
sleeping and waking. In waking life, we say, the Ego and astral
body are inside the physical body and the etheric, in sleep
they are outside.
For an
initial understanding of the matter that is enough, and it is
quite in accordance with the spiritual-scientific facts.
But the point is that in thus describing it we are giving only
a portion of the full reality. We can never comprehend the full
reality in one description. Whatever we describe, it is always
only part of the full reality, and we must look for light from
other quarters, rightly to illumine the partial reality which
we have thus described.
In
general, it is so: sleeping and waking represent a kind of
cyclic movement for the human being. Strictly speaking, it only
applies to the head when we say that the Ego and astral body of
man are outside the physical and etheric body during sleep. In
actual fact, precisely because they are outside the physical
and etheric head of man, the Ego and astral body in sleep are
acting all the more vividly upon the rest of man's
organisation. During sleep—when the Ego and astral body
are working- upon man as it were from without—all that is
not 'head' in man, but the remainder of his organisation, is
subjected to a far stronger influence by the Ego and the astral
body, than it is in waking life. Indeed, we may truly say, the
influence which the Ego and astral body wield over the head of
man in waking life, —this influence they wield over the
remaining organism during sleep. In a certain sense we may
compare, notably the Ego of man, to the Sun. When it is day
with us, the Sun is shining on our regions of the Earth. When
it is night, the Sun is not merely out yonder; it actually
illumines the other side of the Earth, making it daytime
there. So in a certain sense it is the 'day' in our remaining
organism, when for our sense-perception, which is mainly
bound to the head, >t is the night-time. And it is night for
our remaining organism when it is day-time for our head. For
when we are awake the remainder of our organism is more
or less withdrawn from the Ego and from the astral body. This
too must be added, to illumine the full reality and so to
understand the human being in his totality.
To
understand what I have just said, we must however also realise
the connection of the soul and the physical being of man
in the following respect. I have often emphasised that the
nervous system of the physical body is a single organisation.
It is mere nonsense, not even justified by external anatomy, to
divide the nerves into 'motor' and 'sensory.' The nerves are
all of one kind, and they all have one function. The so-called
motor nerves differ from the so-called sensory nerves only in
this respect: the sensory nerves are so arranged that they
serve for our perception of the outer world, whereas the motor
nerves, so-called., enable us to perceive our own body. A motor
nerve is not there to enable me to move my hand. That is
mere nonsense. It is there to enable me to perceive the
movement of my hand, that is, inwardly to perceive, whereas the
sensory nerves are there to help me perceive the outer world.
That is the only difference.
Now
our nervous system, as you know, has three distinct members:
first there are the nerves whose chief centre is in the
brain—nerves, therefore, which are centred in the
head. Then there are the nerves which are centred in the spinal
column, and lastly, there are the nerves which we include in
the so-called sympathetic system. These, in the main, are the
three kinds of nerves which man possesses. Now the point
is for us to recognise the relation between the three kinds of
nervous systems and the spiritual members of man's
organisation. Which is the most advanced, as it were the
most refined member of the nervous system, and which the least
advanced?
It
goes without saying—those that come from the ordinary
scientific outlook of to-day will answer—the
nervous system of the brain is of course the most refined, the
highest; for it distinguishes man from the animals. But it is
not so in reality. The nervous system of the brain is connected
in the main with the organisation of our etheric body.
Needless to say, there are more far-reaching relationships on
every hand, and our brain system also has its relations to the
astral body and the Ego. But these relations are secondary. The
primary, the most original relations are those between our
brain-nervous-system and our etheric body. This does not affect
the other aspect which I once explained, namely that the whole
nervous system has come into being with the help of the astral
body. That is an altogether different matter and should be kept
distinct. In its original plan and predisposition, it was
brought about during the old Moon epoch. But it has gone on
evolving, and other relationships have entered in since
its prime formation. And so in fact, our brain-nervous-system
has the most intimate and important relations with our etheric
body. On the other hand, the nervous system of the spinal
column has the most intimate and primary relations with the
astral body, such as we have it in us now. Finally, the
sympathetic nervous system is related to the Ego, the real Ego
of man. These are the primary relationships, as we now
have them.
Bearing this in mind, we shall readily conceive that there is a
peculiarly vivid relationship in sleep between our
Ego and our sympathetic nervous system. This system, as you
know, is mainly spread out in the abdominal organism, and with
its strands it envelopes the spinal column from without ... Now
these relations between the Ego and the sympathetic system are
loosened during our day-waking life. They are still there, but
they are loosened. In sleep they are more intimate. Moreover,
the relations between the astral body and nerves of the spinal
column are more intimate in sleep than in our day-waking life.
Thus we may say: during our sleep the most intimate
relationships arise, between our astral body and the nerves of
our spinal column, and at the same time between our Ego and our
sympathetic nervous system. In sleep, with our Ego we live more
or less intensely in connection with our sympathetic system.
Once the mysterious world of dreams is more accurately studied,
what I am now saying out of spiritual- scientific research will
soon be recognised.
If you
bear this in mind, you will find the way over to another most
essential thought. Something deeply significant is given to our
life inasmuch as there is this rhythmic alternation, for
example, in the living-together of the Ego with the sympathetic
and the astral body with the spinal nervous system—a
rhythmic alternation which is really identical with that
between sleeping and waking. It will not appear altogether
surprising to you, if we now assert: Inasmuch as the Ego is
well inside the sympathetic system and the astral body well
inside the spinal system during sleep, man with respect to his
sympathetic and his spinal nervous system is awake in his sleep
and asleep in his waking life.
Only
this question may perhaps be raised at this point: How is it
that we know so little of this wide-awake activity which is
said to be unfolded during our sleep? Well, you must bear in
mind how man has come to be. It was only during the present
Earth- evolution that the Ego took up its abode in man. The Ego
is in fact the 'baby' among the members of our human being. If
you bear this in mind you will be less surprised that this Ego,
in its life, cannot yet bring to consciousness what it
experiences in the sympathetic nervous system during
sleep, while it can well bring to consciousness what it
experiences when it dwells in the fully perfected head. For the
head, as you know, is in the main the outcome of all the
impulses that worked throughout the old Moon and Sun and so on.
What the Ego can bring to consciousness depends on the
instrument it is able to use. The instrument it uses in the
night is still comparatively tender. In former lectures I
have explained that the remainder of man's organism was not
evolved until a later time. Only at a later time was it added
to the more highly perfect head-organisation. It is in fact a
mere appendage of the latter. We say that in his physical body
man has gone through the long stages of evolution from old
Saturn onward, — but in reality we can only say this of
the head. What is attached to the head is to a large extent a
subsequent creation—Moon-creation, nay, no more than
Earth-creation. Hence we are scarcely conscious, to begin with,
of the vivid life which is unfolded in our sleep, the organic
source of which is chiefly in the spinal column and the
sympathetic system. But this life is therefore no less vivid,
nor is it any the less important to us. Just as we say, In
waking life man must be able to rise into his senses and his
brain- system, so we may say with equal truth, In sleep he must
be enabled to descend into his sympathetic system. No doubt you
may reply, How complicated this makes it, —how it
confuses all that we have learned hitherto. But man is a
complicated being. We cannot understand him unless we
receive with open mind these complications of his nature.
And
now imagine, happening- with any human being, what I described
in Goethe's case. The etheric body is loosened. When the
etheric body is loosened, quite a different relationship arises
in waking life between the soul- and-spirit and the
physical-organic nature of man. He is placed, as I showed in
the last lecture, on a kind of insulating stool. But such an
effect necessarily involves another. It is very important to
bear this in mind. Such a relationship cannot take place
one-sidedly. Broadly speaking, we may say: Through the
loosening of the etheric body the entire waking life of man is
influenced; but this cannot happen unless his sleeping life is
influenced at the same time. In such a case as Goethe's
the consequence is simply this: The human being comes! into a
less close relation to the impressions on his brain, and
thereby, even in his waking life, he comes into a stronger and
more intimate relation to his spinal and his sympathetic
nervous systems. This too was the effect of Goethe's illness.
He developed, as it were, a looser relation to his brain, and
at the same time a more intimate relation to his sympathetic
and spinal nervous systems. Now we may ask, generally speaking,
what will be the result of this? What does it signify for the
human being to come into a more intimate relation to his
sympathetic and spinal nervous systems?
The
fact is that he thereby comes into a quite different relation
to the outer world. We are indeed always in a very intimate
relation to the outer world, —we only do not observe how
intimate it is. How often, for example, have I drawn your
attention to this: The air which you carry within you at one
moment, is outside you in the next moment, and another air is
then inside you. What is now outside you, will, in the
very next moment, have the form of your body; will have united
itself with your body. The human organism is only apparently
separated from the outer world. In reality it belongs to the
whole outer world. When therefore such a change arises in its
relation to the outer world, this will soon make itself felt
very strongly in the whole life of man.
Here
you may say: 'Surely the result would be that the lower
nature of a man like Goethe would come into play with unusual
intensity. For that which is connected with the spinal column
and the sympathetic nervous system, is generally thought of as
man's lower nature, and in this case the forces have withdrawn
from the head and come more closely into connection with
the sympathetic and the spinal nervous system.'
But we
only begin to understand the matter when we fill ourselves with
the perception that what we call 'understanding' or
'Intelligence' is not so closely bound to our individuality as
we are wont to assume. These are things of which our present
time has the most incorrect ideas, —naturally
enough, according to its fundamental notions. These are
the things which it is least able to tackle—a fact which
emerged recently in the somewhat dense and idiotic way in
which even the great scholars of our time received the alleged
sensational discoveries and experiences with learned animals:
dogs, monkeys, horses and the like. You know how suddenly the
news went out into the world, about the learned horses, who
were able to speak and to do all kinds of other things besides.
Or of the learned dog which made such a sensation in
Mannheim. Or of the learned monkey in the Frankfort Zoo, which
was taught arithmetic and other arts, the details of which one
would rather not explain in polite society. For by contrast to
the remaining members of his tribe, the Frankfort chimpanzee
learned to behave, with respect to certain human
functions, not in the way monkeys generally behave, but like a
human being. I will not pursue the matter any further.
Now
all these things gave rise to great astonishment, not only
among the ordinary public, but in the most learned circles.
Even the most learned folk were quite enraptured when they
heard, for instance, how the Mannheim dog had written a letter,
after the death of a dear relative, of how the dear relative
(the offspring of the dog) would now be with the
archetypal soul, and what sort of a time it would be
having, and so on ... It was really a most intelligent letter
which the dear dog had written. Well, we need not concern.
ourselves with the peculiarly complicated intelligence which
was shewn in other matters. Let it suffice that all these
animals performed sums of arithmetic. People afterwards spent
much time investigating what such animals could do. In
the case of the Frankfort monkey a strange discovery was made.
When a sum was laid before him, which he was expected to work
out to a certain number as the answer, he would point to, the
required number. A series of numbers being placed side by side
before him, he would point to the correct answer, for
instance, of an addition sum. Alas, eventually they
discovered that the learned monkey had simply grown
accustomed to follow the direction of his trainer's look. Some
who had formerly been astonished now declared: There is
not a trace of intellect; it is all in the training.
Indeed, it was only a more complicated instance, as when
a dog fetches a stone you throw. So did the monkey pick out of
a series of numbers the one to which—not the line
of throw this time, but the line of vision of his trainer was
directed.
Undoubtedly, on a closer investigation similar results
would emerge in the other cases too. There is only one thing
which must surprise us, namely, the fact that people are so
astonished when animals occasionally perform these seemingly
human feats. For after all, how much more spirit, how much more
intelligence—taking intelligence
objectively—is needed to achieve what is already so well
known to us in the animal kingdom! I mean what the creatures do
out of their so-called instinct. Things of untold
significance are done in this way. Deep and profound
relationships are here contained, which truly make us
marvel at the Wisdom which everywhere holds sway, wherever the
world's phenomena appear before us. We have Wisdom not only in
our heads. Wisdom surrounds us everywhere, like light.
Wisdom is working everywhere, and through the animal creatures
also.
Incidentally, these unusual phenomena can only astonish
those who have not entered seriously enough into the
developments of modern learning. As to the men who write such
learned dissertations nowadays about the Mannheim dog or other
dogs, or about the horses or the Frankfort monkeys or the like,
—I should like to read them a passage from Comparative
Anatomy, by Carus, published as early as 1866. Nor is this
by any means an isolated instance. And since they will not
listen to me, I will read the passage to you now. Carus says,
on page 231: "When a clog for instance has long been treated
with tenderness and consideration by its master, these human
qualities are impressed upon the animal, objectively, although
it has no sense for the concept of goodness as such.
These qualities become amalgamated with the sensible image of
the human being, whom the dog sees so often. They cause the dog
to recognise the man as the one who has shown it kindness in
the past; even without the sense of sight, merely by smell or
hearing it will know him. If therefore some injury is now done
to the man, or if he is only made unable to show the dog
further kindness, the creature feels it as an evil done to
itself and is moved to wrath and vengeance. All this takes
place therefore without any abstract thinking, merely by the
sequence of one sense picture on another.' (It is
undoubtedly true that for the dog one sense picture follows
another in this way, but at the same time, intelligence and
wisdom hold sway in the whole process.) 'It is, however,
wonderful how near this interweaving, separating and re-
associating of images of the inner sense can come to actual
thought, and how like it can be in its effects! Thus I once saw
a well-trained white poodle' (not the Mannheim dog, —the
passage was written in 1866!) 'which rightly selected and put
together the letters of the words which were recited to it. Or
again, the animal seemed to solve simple sums of arithmetic by
carrying the several figures, written (like the letters of the
alphabet) on separate sheets of paper. Or again, it seemed able
to count how many ladies there were in the room, and so on. Had
it been a question of any real understanding of number as
a mathematical concept, all this would have been
impossible without true thought and reflection. But
in the end it was found that the dog had been trained to
perceive a very slight sign made by its master, and
accordingly to pick out of the row of papers, along which it
went up and down, the leaf with the right letter or number.
Then, at another equally silent signal (like the flicking
of the thumb nail with the nail of the fourth finger), it would
lay the paper down again in another row and thus achieve the
apparent miracle.'
So you
see, not only has the phenomenon itself long been known,
but even the solution, which the learned folk are rediscovering
to-day, because they do not concern themselves with what has
already been achieved in the development of science. Only so
can these things come about, and they bear witness to the
advancement not of our science but of our ignorance. On the
other hand, the following comment has quite rightly been made.
Such explanations as are given nowadays are certainly
naïve, for, as Hermann Bahr has rightly said, Here comes
Herr Pfungst and proves how these horses will react to the
slightest signs, which the men who train them are quite
unable to perceive—signs which they make
unconsciously and which he himself was only able to
perceive when he had spent a long time in his
psychological laboratory, constructing the1 apparatus to
perceive the minutest play of features. And as Hermann Bahr
goes on to say, it is a strange conclusion. Only the horses are
clever enough to observe such play of features, while a
University lecturer needs many years—I think it was ten
years or even more—to contrive the apparatus to perceive
them.
There
is of course a fragment of truth in all these things. But we
must only consider them in the right way. Then we shall see
that they can only be explained if we imagine objective Wisdom,
objective Intelligence, implanted in the things of the world,
just as it is in the instinctive actions of animals. We must
imagine the animal included in the whole 'circuit' of objective
Wisdom-relationships flowing through the World. We must not
have the limited idea that Wisdom came into the World merely
through man. We must think of Wisdom holding sway throughout
the World, while man is only called upon through his peculiar
organisation to perceive more of the Wisdom than the
other creatures do. That is the difference between man and the
other creatures. He, by virtue of his organisation, can
perceive more of the Wisdom than they can. Nevertheless, the
other creatures, through the Wisdom that is implanted in them,
can perform functions as wise as men, —only that they are
filled with Wisdom in another way. For one who studies
the world in real earnest, the abnormal phenomena of Wisdom's
working are indeed far less important than those that are
constantly spread out before our eyes. These are far more
significant. If you bear this in mind, you will no longer
find the following so unintelligible. The animal is
harnessed into the universal Wisdom so as to be connected
with it quite instinctively, —far more so than the
human being. The animal's route is, as it were, mapped out for
it far more exactly than man's; man has been left far more free
play. By this very means it is made possible for man to save up
certain forces for his conscious knowledge of the world's
relationships.
The
most important thing is this: In the animal—especially
the higher animal—the physical body is harnessed in the
same World-connections, in which man is only harnessed with his
etheric. Therefore, while man knows more about the
World-relationships, the animal lives within them more
closely, more intimately, — is more deeply contained in
their circuit.
Think,
therefore, of this objectively prevailing Intelligence, and say
to yourself: All around us is not only light and air, but the
prevailing Intelligence is everywhere. We move not only
through the space of light, but through the space of Wisdom,
filled with the all-prevailing Intelligence. Now you will
estimate what it may mean for a man to be connected with
the Universe—not in the ordinary way but in another way,
with respect to the finer conditions of his organs. In normal
life man is connected with the spiritual relationships of
the Universe in such a way that the connection between the Ego
and the sympathetic nervous system, and that between the astral
body and the spinal nervous system, is to a large extent broken
in his day-waking life. Because the connection is thus
weakened, man in his ordinary normal life pays little heed to
what takes place around him—what he would only be able to
perceive if he actually perceived with his sympathetic
nervous system just as he ordinarily perceives
through his head.
Now in
a case like Goethe's, because the etheric body is
withdrawn from the head, the astral body is brought into a more
living relation to the spinal nervous system, and the Ego to
the sympathetic system. Such a human being, therefore, comes
into far more living intercourse with that which is always
going on around him, which in normal human life is veiled from
us inasmuch as we only enter into relation with our spiritual
environment when we are asleep at night. In this way you
will understand how such things as Goethe described
were, for him, real perceptions. Of course they could not
be so brutally clear and bright as the perceptions we receive
from the outer world through our senses. Nevertheless,
they were brighter than the perceptions a man ordinarily
has of his environment where it is spiritual. What then did
Goethe perceive most vividly in this way? Let us make it clear
to ourselves by an example.
Goethe, by his peculiar Karma—by complications of Karma,
as I have indicated—was destined to grow into the
life of learning, not like an ordinary scholar, but in
quite another way. What did he experience in this way?
For
long centuries past, a man who grows into the life of
scholarship and learning has had to experience a peculiar
duality. It is more hidden today than it was in Goethe's
time. But everyone experiences a certain split, inasmuch as in
all our recorded learning we have before us an immense
field wherein we find what has been preserved, more or
less, from the fourth Post-Atlantean epoch. It is preserved in
terminologies, word-systems which we are obliged to put up
with. Far more than we imagine, we burrow in mere words. This
has indeed become less flagrant in the 19th century,
inasmuch as countless experiments have now been made.
When we grow up into the life of knowledge we see far
more than people used to see. And so, to some extent at least,
such sciences as Jurisprudence have fallen from the very high
throne they used to occupy. But when Jurisprudence and Theology
still occupied their very lofty thrones, much that a man had to
absorb as heritage from the fourth Post-Atlantean epoch
was an immense system of words. That was what one had to enter
into, to begin with. But alongside of it, what was
emerging from the real needs of the 5th Post-Atlantean epoch
was making itself felt increasingly, —the immediate
life which springs from the great achievements of modern time.
A youth who is merely driven forward from class to class may
not feel it consciously, but one like Goethe felt it in the
highest degree. I say again, one who is merely crammed from
class to class does not feel it consciously, but he
undergoes it none the less. Here we are touching on a real
secret of modern life. Take the students who go through
their University curriculum. Of course, we can fix our
attention on what they actually go through, what they
themselves know of it; but that is not all. Their inner life is
something very different. They who thus experience the
interwoven strata of the 4th and 5th Post- Atlantean epochs,
—what if they only knew what a certain member of their
being, all unawares, is doing within them? They would have
quite a new understanding of what Goethe as a young man
secreted into his Faust. For unconsciously, countless
individuals who enter the modern life of education
are undergoing this.
Through all that Goethe developed in himself by virtue of his
special Karma, the human beings whom he came near during his
youthful years were to him something quite different from what
they would have been to him, had he not had this special Karma.
He felt how the human beings, with whom he was growing up, must
somehow be benumbed in order not to experience the Faustian
life within them in its full reality. They must have it
benumbed. This experience he had. For what was living so
mysteriously in his fellow-men made an impression
on him, such as is ordinarily only made by one human being on
another when intimate relationships arise, —I mean
when love arises between the one and the other.
For when this happens, even in ordinary life the connection of
the Ego with the sympathetic nervous system, and of the astral
body with the spinal nervous system, is powerfully at work.
However unconsciously, a peculiar activity here comes
into play. In ordinary life, it only happens in this
relationship of love. For Goethe it arose in a far wider
circle. He had an immense sympathy and compassion, more or less
subconscious, with these poor fellows who did not know what
their inner life was passing through, while outwardly they were
being driven from class to class, from examination to
examination. All this became in him a rich
experience. Now experiences become ideas. Ordinary
experiences become the ideas of everyday life. These
experiences became the ideas which Goethe thundered forth
into his Faust. They are simply the experiences he
underwent in wide circles around him, because the life of his
sympathetic and spinal nervous systems was called, as it were,
into greater wakefulness than usual. This was the other pole as
against the damping-down of his head- life. But this tendency
was already there in him from boyhood. We can see it from the
descriptions he gives. He describes, for instance, how in his
piano lessons not only the part of the human being which is
otherwise concerned but his whole human being was brought
into activity. Goethe, in fact, entered into communication with
Reality far more intensely with his whole human being than
others are wont to do. Therefore, we may truly say, Goethe was
more awake by day than other men. So it was in the youthful
time when he was working at his Faust. For this very
reason he needed what I described in the last lecture as
the period of sleep in the ten years at Weimar. This, too, was
necessary—it was once more a 'damping-down. '
Thus
Goethe was drawn into the Wisdom-filled working — the
purely spiritual working — of the World around him, far
more consciously than other men. He perceived what was living
and weaving mysteriously in the human beings around him. Yet
man is always standing in the midst of this. What is it in
reality? Placed into the world as we are in the ordinary crude
waking life, we are placed into it with our Ego; we are
connected with it through our senses and our every-day ideas.
But as you have seen, we are really connected with it far more
intimately than this. For our Ego is in an intimate
relation to our sympathetic system, and our astral body to our
spinal system, and by virtue of this relation we have a far
deeper and fuller connection with our environment than we have
by virtue of our senses-system, our head. And now consider: Man
needs this rhythmic alternation. His Ego and his astral body
are in the head during his day-waking life and outside of it
during his sleep. Inasmuch as they are outside the head during
sleep, they develop a vivid inner life together with this other
system, as I described before. The Ego and astral body need
this alternation of diving down into the head, and going out of
it. When man is outside the head with his Ego and his astral
body, he develops not only the intimate relation to the rest of
the body through the sympathetic and the spinal nervous system.
For on the other side he also develops spiritual relations to
the Spiritual World. Corresponding to this active
living-together with the spinal and with the sympathetic
nervous system, we have an active living-together in soul and
spirit with the Spiritual World. At night the soul-and-spirit
is outside the head, and consequently unfolds this vivid life
in the remaining organism. Conversely we must say that in the
day-waking life, when the Ego and astral body are more in the
head, we are living together spiritually with our surrounding
spiritual environment. We dive down, as it were, into a
spiritual inner world in our sleep; but on awakening we plunge
into a spiritual world around us.
In a
man like Goethe this living- together with the spiritual
environment i.s only more alive; he dreams it—he is like
a man who, instead of 'sleeping like a log,' dreams in his
sleep. It is rare for a man to dream thus consciously
during his waking life. People like Goethe, however, do come
into a kind of dreaming during their waking life. What for
ordinary men remains unconscious, thus becomes for them, so to
speak, the dream-woven forming of life.
Here
then you have a more precise description of the matter. Of
course you may now deduce from it a rather conceited notion,
for you may say to yourselves: If that be so, we could all of
us write Fausts, for we experience Faust
inasmuch as in the daytime we penetrate into the
surrounding world and live together with it. That is
quite true; we do experience Faust. Only we experience
it as we generally experience the other pole during the
night, with our Ego and our astral body, when we are not
dreaming. Only Goethe did not experience it thus
unconsciously; he dreamt the experience, and was therefore able
to express it in his Faust. Goethe dreamt the
experience. What men like Goethe create is related to what
ordinary men experience unconsciously, like dreaming and
deep sleep are related on the other side of life. It is no
different —this is the full reality! Like dreaming
and deep sleep, —so are related the creations of the
great spirits to the unconscious creations of other
men.
Some
things may still remain a riddle, even now. Nevertheless, you
can here gain some insight into a fact which is deeply
connected with the life of man, —which we may
characterise somewhat as follows. Undoubtedly we could always
tell a very great deal of the relation of our Being to the
surrounding World if we were able to awaken, to- the level of a
dream, our connection with the surrounding World. We need only
awaken to the level of the dream; then we should
experience immense things and be able to describe them,
too. But this would have a peculiar effect. Think what would
happen if—to put it tritely—all men were so
conscious as to be able to describe what is in their
World-environment. If, for example, all men could
describe experiences expressible like those of Goethe which he
expressed in his Faust, where should we get to? What would
become of the World? Strange as it may sound, the World would
come to a standstill! The World could not go on. The moment all
human beings were to dream in the way a poet like Goethe dreamt
his Faust, —the moment every one were to dream his
connection with the outer World—human beings would spend
in this way the forces they evolve out of their inner life, and
human existence would in a certain sense consume itself. You
can gain a feeble idea of what would happen if you consider the
devastating effects which are already taking place
because so many people —though they do not really
dream— imagine that they dream, and go about parroting
the reminiscences which they have picked up elsewhere. What I
mean is that there are far too many 'poets.' Who does not
believe himself to-day a poet or a painter or the like? The
World could not exist if it were so, for all good things have
their disadvantages, all good things cast their
shadow.
Schiller, too, was a poet, and he dreamt many things in the way
I just described. But what would happen if all men, who like
Schiller were prepared in their youth to become doctors,
hung up their medicine on a peg as Schiller did, and (since
they would need support) were appointed Professors of History
by wire-pulling from above, without ever having studied History
in the proper way? What would happen, even if like Schiller
they gave very stimulating lectures? After all, the students of
Jena did not really learn what they needed to learn at
Schiller's lectures. Indeed, by-and-bye Schiller let them drop
and was very glad that he need no longer hold the lectures.
Imagine that it happened so with every would-be Professor or
Doctor! … All good things cast their shadow, that goes
without saying. The World mu.st be preserved from coming to a
standstill. Therefore, not all men can 'dream' in this way. It
may sound trite to put it so, but it is a profound
truth-—so deep that we may call it a truth of the
Mysteries. For the forces with which ordinary human beings
dream must still be used in the outer World to other ends,
—namely to create the foundations for the further
evolution of the Earth, which would indeed come to a
standstill if all men were to dream in this way.
We
have now arrived at a point where a very strange thing emerges.
What are these forces in men really used for in the World? If,
looking with the eyes of Spiritual Science, we ask what they
are used for—these forces of which you might say at
first, 'If only they were used for dreaming in every human
being!' —what do we find that they are used for? (For in
effect they are not spent in dreaming but in deep sleep.) They
are used in all that is poured out, for the evolution of
mankind, in the manifold work of human callings and
professions. All this is poured into the multitudinous labour
of our several callings.
Compared to such work as Goethe did in his Faust or
Schiller in his Wallenstein, our work at our several
callings in life is like deep sleep compared to dreaming.
In our work at our particular calling we are asleep. This will
sound strange to you, for you will say: That is just where you
are wide awake. No, in this idea there is a great illusion. Man
is not engaged with full waking consciousness in that which is
actually brought about through his work at his life's calling.
True, some of the effects of his calling upon his soul are
brought home to his waking consciousness. Nevertheless, men
know nothing of what is actually present in the whole texture
of work, in craft and calling anfd profession, which they are
constantly weaving about the Earth. It is indeed
astonishing to find how these things hang together.
Hans Sachs was a shoemaker and a poet; Jakob Boehme was a
shoemaker and a mystical philosopher. In these cases, by
a special constellation as it were—of which we may
yet have opportunity to speak—we have 'sleeping' and
'dreaming' alternately, passing from one into the other.
What
signifies—in such a man as Boehme—this interplay,
this alternating life in the labour of his calling (for
he really did make shoes for the brave men of Görlitz) and
in his writings of a mystical and philosophic character?
Some
people have strange views about these things. I have told you
what we found on one occasion when we were at Görlitz. One
evening before my lecture—I was about to
lecture there on Boehme—I fell into
conversation with a master of the local Grammar School.
We spoke of the statue of Jakob Boehme, which we had just seen
in the park. The people of Görlitz, as were told, called
it, 'the cobbler in the park.' We remarked that the statue was
beautiful. But the schoolmaster did not think so. Boehme, he
said, is made to look like Shakespeare. One does not see
that he is a cobbler. If you are going to make a statue to
Jakob Boehme, he opined, you ought at least make him look like
a cobbler.
Well,
we need not concern ourselves with such an opinion. When a man
like Jakob Boehme was writing down his great ideas in mystical
philosophy, this was an outcome of something which can only
have come into existence when Man was being gradually
built up through the Saturn time, the Sun time, the Moon time
and on into the Earth-epoch, —when, as we might say, a
broad stream was flowing onward which in the last resort
came to expression in this work of Jakob Boehme's. It is only
by special karmic relationships that this broad stream can so
express itself in an individual. Altogether, for the very
existence of the human being upon Earth, all that has gone
before, through the old Sun and Moon time, is necessary. So,
too, needless to say, all this was necessary to create what was
there in Jakob Boehme. (Only it was necessary here in a
peculiar way.)
But
then again, Boehme set to work and made boots and shoes for the
worthy folk of Görlitz. How are these things connected?
Undoubtedly, the fact that a man could acquire the skill for
making boots and shoes is also connected with the same broad
stream. But when the shoes are finished, they leave the man,
and in the effects which they then have, they have no more to
do with his skill and craftsmanship. Now they have to do with
the protecting and warming of feet, and so forth. They go their
way, independently, and here, too, they fulfil certain
functions. They are loosed from the man, and what they now
bring about out there in the world, will only have its effects
at a later time. For it is only a beginning. The thing is now
as follows: — [At this point in the argument the reader
must imagine Dr. Steiner drawing on the blackboard as he
speaks.]
Suppose I draw the initial cosmic activity which eventually led
up to Jakob Boehme's mystical philosophy in this way. I out the
very first beginning here. (See the drawing.) Then I must
put the first beginning of his cobblery here. This
streams on, and in the future Vulcan evolution will have
reached the same perfection which has now been reached by what
took place from Saturn evolution onward and flowed into his
work as a mystical philosopher. This is an end; his
mending of shoes is a beginning. We say, the Earth to-day
is Earth, —and so of course it is. But if we could follow
it back even beyond Saturn, then we should say: With respect to
certain things the Earth is 'Vulcan.' We should then have to
assume 'Saturn' at this point (in the drawing). Taken in this
way, everything is relative. So we may also say: The Earth is
Saturn, and Vulcan as it were is Earth. That which is done on
Earth in Jakob Boehme's labour at his calling—not in his
free production which goes beyond his 'job,' but what he does
as his life's calling—that is the starting-point of
something which on Vulcan will be as far advanced as that which
was achieved on Saturn is now, on the present Earth. For Jakob
Boehme to be able to write his mystical philosophy on
Earth, something had to be done on Saturn, analogous to
what he himself does in his cobbling. And this again he
does, in order that in the future Vulcan evolution
something may be done analogous to his writing of mystical
philosophy on Earth.
A
remarkable truth lies hidden here. That which on Earth we often
value so little, —we value it little because it is the
starting-point of what we shall only value in the future. It is
natural for men to be far more intimately connected, in
their inner being, with the past. They must first grow together
with what is now in the beginning. Therefore, they are often
far less fond of it than of what comes over to' them from the
past. As to the whole range of those things into which we must
yet be placed during this Earth-epoch in order that something
of significance may come into being upon Vulcan, the full
consciousness (which we have already upon Earth for such a
thing as the philosophy of Jakob Boehme) will only arise when
the Earth has evolved on through the Jupiter and Venus to the
Vulcan time. Hence what is truly significant in man's
external labour is wrapped in unconsciousness
to-day, even as man was wrapped in unconsciousness on
Saturn. For it was only on the Sun that he developed
sleep-consciousness, and on the Moon dream-consciousness, and
on the Earth waking-consciousness, with respect to his present
conditions.
And go
man really lives in deep sleep- consciousness with respect to
all those things into which he enters when he places himself
into any calling or profession. For it is just through
his calling that he creates the future values. Not through what
delights him in his calling, but through what unfolds without
his being able to enter into it. If a man is making nails and
he goes on and on, making nail after nail—well, my dear
friends, naturally enough, to-day it gives him no great
pleasure. But the nail goes on its way. It has its proper task.
He concerns himself no longer with what happens to the
nail; he does not follow up every nail that he manufactures.
Nevertheless, all that is there veiled in the unconsciousness
of deep sleep, is destined to come to life again in the
future.
Thus,
to begin with, we have been able to place side by side what the
ordinary human being does—even the most insignificant
labourer at his calling—side by side with what
appears to us as the highest achievements. The highest
achievements are an end; the least significant labour is always
a beginning. I wanted to place these two conceptions side
by side to start with. For we cannot understand the way man is
connected with his calling through his Karma, if we do not know
already in a wider way how a man's work in life (with which he
is often connected quite externally) is related to the whole
cosmic evolution in the midst of which the human being stands.
So we shall presently go forward to work out the real
Karmic question of a man's calling or profession. I had
to give you these conceptions to begin with. For we must first
gain, as it were, a universal concept of what flows from man
into his calling.
Moreover, all these things are calculated very strongly
to mould our moral feelings in the right direction. For our
valuations are often incorrect because we do not envisage
things in the true way. A grain of corn may often seem most
insignificant when we see it lying there beside the beautiful
unfolded flower. Nevertheless, the flower of a future
evolution lies hidden in the grain of corn. And so I wanted to
explain to you to-day, in connection with human work, how
seed and flower are related in the evolution of all
mankind.
[Printed bv The Blackfriars Press, Ltd., 32 Furniyal Street,
Ilolborn, London, E.CU, iind published by the Anthroposophical
Society in Great Britain, 4G Gloucester Place. W.I.]
|