OU will have seen how intricate are the deeper problems
of destiny in human life. The fact is brought home to us when we attempt
to approach them by the paths which spiritual science opens out.
Many another thing will yet be necessary to enable the man of
the present time to enter rightly into these questions, and
thus to lead him to a fruitful grasp, a really practical hold
on life. Considering the complicated problems into which we are
now trying to find our way, we must explore many a
side-track so as to understand the difficulties which confront
us here especially. In a certain sense we are all of us a
product of the thinking of the present time. So many of us
believe ourselves to be unbiased in our thought; but it is
always well to be unsparing in self-knowledge and
self-criticism, and most of all with respect to the virtue of
‘unbiased thought.’
It
is often very difficult to discuss these matters, for language
itself is obstinate when we try to elaborate ideas according to
reality. A concept, elaborated — drawn forth, as it were,
— from the rich store of occult science, may easily
appear to lead in quite a different direction from what is
really meant. In this way many a misunderstanding can
arise. Nowadays one may often make a certain observation,
especially when people are discussing the biography, the human
life, of great or outstanding personalities. Let me give one
example. A booklet has just been published here in Switzerland
about Friedrich Theodor Vischer, author of Auch Einer
and of a large treatise of Æsthetics, of whom we
spoke the other day in a different connection. This book
describes the life of the distinguished Swabian with genuine
interest and real devotion. ‘Vischer with a V’ as he is
nicknamed was indeed a man of sterling qualities and of a good
spirit — diligent and productive withal. I give him
here as an example of certain things which we will now
consider, as to the problems of human destiny. We might equally
well have chosen some other example.
‘Vischer with a V’ was a true Swabian, living and thriving in
the 19th century. In the recently published biography we are
told how he grew out of straitened circumstances, — how
through the poverty of his family he had to be educated in the
charity school at Tübingen, and so on. And at the
very outset we are told how even the grammar school education
which he thus received was limited and narrow-minded. The boys
learned Latin thoroughly and were afterwards introduced
to the Greek authors too. But at a late age they were still
quite ignorant of their home country — for
instance, Into what river does the Neckar flow? They had never
even seen a map ... and so on. Many such faults in the
educational system are cited.
Now
let us consider the matter well. ‘Vischer with a V’ grew up to
be a great man in some respects, and he achieved great work. He
grew to be a famous man. We want to understand,
therefore, how he became what he was. How did he become the
specific individuality who stands there in history as Friedrich
Theodor Vischer? The fact that he had not seen a map until he
reached a certain age was indeed not without importance;
for if he had, a certain trait in his character would have been
absent. And many another thing which is sharply criticised in
this book was equally necessary. Look at it from a larger
aspect and in the long run we shall say, The soul of Friedrich
Theodor Vischer, descending from the spiritual worlds,
hit upon this milieu and no other — by an unfailing
choice. He wanted to have an education which would make it
possible for him not to see a map for so and so long. He wanted
to have the Neckar — the little river of his home country
— for a long time before him, and yet not know into what
river it flows. Study Friedrich Theodore Vischer and you will
see: All his queer cranks and eccentricities — and he had
plenty of them — are an integral part of his greatness.
Thus it is quite unsuitable, in writing his biography, to blame
the schools which made him what he was.
Some one may say at this point, Now he is trying to tell us
that schools which fail to show their children any maps are
after all excellent schools. No, that is not the point. Such a
retort would be unjust. But for ‘Vischer with a V’
it was good so; it had to be.
We
have experienced this sort of thing often enough in the 19th
century, and on a larger and larger scale in our own
days. Famous natural scientists have arisen to protest against
the existing system of education, demanding the
introduction of far more science into the schools. And when one
asked these gentlemen, ‘Well, but you yourselves went through
the existing system, is it so bad after all?’ — one
generally got no answer. Let us make no mistake about it.
Everything has at least two aspects, — indeed it has
often many more than two.
What does it mean when a biographer — in this case it is
a woman — sets to work and forms her ideas in such a way
as to write down what I have just cited. It can
contribute nothing to an understanding of the personality
in question. Forming ideas like that, one simply cuts as with a
knife — only one does it in the mind — cuts into
the living being one is treating. If one had not this
impulse to ‘cut’ with one's ideas, one would describe with
loving interest what the school was like, — in all its
narrowness — how it brought forth this individuality.
But no, one cuts and criticises. To criticise is indeed very
largely to ‘cut.’ What is the origin of this?
It
is due to a specific human quality — a quality very
widely spread, especially in the thought-system of the present
time, and that is cruelty. Only it is rooted in the
subconscious life and people are unaware that they possess it.
Because the people of our time have no courage to practise
cruelty externally, they practise it in their
concepts and ideas. In many a work of our time we can
feel this latent cruelty in the whole manner of exposition. In
much that is done and said in our time we can perceive it. It
is far more widespread in the foundations of human souls
than we imagine.
I
have told you how they are wont, in certain schools of
so-called ‘black magic,’ to acquire the black-magical qualities
they need by causing their pupils, to begin with, to cut into
the living flesh of animals. Certain qualities of the
soul are thereby developed. Not everyone can do that in the
present time; but many a one finds satisfaction for
the same craving in his system of thoughts and concepts,
where it produces — not indeed black magic, but the
civilization of our time. Let us make no mistake about it. Much
in our time is permeated with this quality. Only by observing
such things as this can we gain a really unprejudiced
grasp of the world in which we find ourselves ... Only so, and
not otherwise — not by any means.
Now
in the present time certain beginnings have decidedly been made
towards a true perspective of the conditions of the fifth
post-Atlantean age. We cannot understand this age if we merely
criticise it, giving ourselves up to an abstract idealism; ...
if we fail to bear in mind, for instance, how all that appears
in our time as mechanism, mechanical civilization, belongs with
absolute necessity to the 5th post-Atlantean age. Merely to
criticise and denounce the mechanical qualities of our age, is
senseless.
Certain beginnings, as I said, have indeed been made, towards a
human understanding — however limited — of what
inspires the fifth post-Atlantean age already now, and will do
so increasingly. Hitherto, however, few concepts and
ideas have been found, adequate to the realities of this fifth
post-Atlantean age. Moreover, people are too little inclined to
study the works of those who have made a real attempt to grasp
the conditions of the age. They will have to be studied; and in
many respects, these efforts especially will have to be followed
up by a true and vigorous spiritual-scientific movement.
There is, for instance, a distinguished poet of the fifth
post-Atlantean age, whose poems are truly vibrant with the life
of the age. I refer to Max Eyth — a man who ought to be
well known. He is a true poet of our age. He, too, was a
Swabian — son of a Swabian schoolmaster, who wanted his
son also to be a schoolmaster. Karma, however, had a different
intention, and at an early age Max Eyth turned to a
technical career. So he became a thoroughgoing engineer, and
subsequently went abroad — to England, where he devoted
himself to the manufacture of steam ploughs. Indeed, he became
the poet of the steam plough. The warm and loving heart with
which he sings the praise of this strange beast of modern time
— the steam plough — that is the true poetry of our
age. Strange things are interwoven in his heart. On the one
hand Max Eyth is a man absolutely devoted to the technics and
machinery of modern time. On the other hand, he is receptive to
all that a modern man's intelligence will understand if he
finds his way with open mind into those things which can be
opened out, if this intelligence is trained in the mechanical
and materialistic concepts of the fifth post-Atlantean age. For
instance there is one of the novels of Max Eyth, where —
for the rest — he deals with the purely modern life of
Egypt. (He worked a lot in Egypt, whither the English Society,
in whose employ he was, exported their steam ploughs, which he
had to test and put into action on the spot.) In one of his
novels on this subject, he describes how the pyramids are built
after a certain system. If we calculate certain relationships
(we find this in the appendix to the novel) we discover the
number π, with which the double radius of a circle
must be multiplied to get the circumference. We find it,
true to at least thirty places of decimals! You know how it is
— 3.14159 and so on. But it goes on ad infinitum
— many, many decimals. Now one might easily imagine this
number π to be the result of comparatively
recent discoveries. Max Eyth, however, finds that the
Egyptian priests must have known it in very ancient times, even
to the thirtieth or fortieth place of decimals. For they
thereby determined the proportions according to which they
built the pyramids. Engineer that he was, there was revealed to
Max Eyth much that lies deeply hidden in the old
pyramid-construction. And this enabled him to point out
that our civilization has in reality a twofold origin. There is
its origin in ancient times, when people based themselves on
quite another science — a science connected with the old
atavistic clairvoyance which subsequently disappeared and
must be found anew in our own time. But another thing, too, you
will find in Max Eyth; and — inconspicuous as it may seem
— this is the great importance. Among his poems, some of
which are collected in the volume Hinter Pflug
und Schraubstock (‘Behind the Plough and the
Lathe’) there is one which raises a great riddle, as it were,
of life and fate. He describes an engineer — a builder of
bridges. Magnificently he describes the faculties he has,
— how he is able to build his bridges. This engineer,
however, is — as we might say — a rather flighty
man of genius. He builds a certain bridge. Once more, it is
magnificently described. He himself is in the first train to
cross it. But he made one slip in the construction, and
when the first train goes over, the bridge collapses and he is
killed. There we have a tremendous Karmic question — not
of course answered, but thrown up. We see how the modern man
approaches these great questions of destiny. Here we have a
man, brilliant in his profession, losing his life at a
comparatively early age even through his profession —
ruined by the very work which he himself created. This poem, I
would say, stands before us with a mighty question; and these
are the very questions to which spiritual science will
seek the answers.
Of
course, such things occur in life in manifold variations. Here
we have described a case which shows us the fulfilment of
Karma, as it were, with the greatest acceleration — with
the greatest speed. But let us assume (it is of course only an
hypothesis, for when such a thing occurs, Karma works itself
out with necessity) — let us assume as an hypothesis what
might have happened in another case. Suppose the man had not
been in the first train, but had been sitting quietly at home
at his fireside. Well, he might have got two years imprisonment,
but scarcely any more would have happened to him in this life
between birth and death. How would it then have been?
That, you see, is the great question. The same thing
which would have brought death into his Karma — death
which he suffered by his own work — must find its way
into his Karma inevitably, whatever happens. The man who does
not get it here, will get it in his life between death and a
new birth. Somehow, the experience must be undergone.
Such an experience may be undergone with
acceleration, as in the case Max Eyth describes, or on
the other hand it may extend over long spaces of time. Thus
will the fifth post-Atlantean age engender great and
important questions of fate, out of the immediate reality of
life. The very conditions of life in this age will bring it
home to many individuals. Riddles are being set by life
in a new way; it was not so at all in former epochs.
We
can well observe it, if we consider those individuals of
our time who are gifted, in a way, with clear, light-filled
intelligence. In their artistic creations they are looking
already now for quite other complications of life than were
looked for in former epochs. Moreover, it is often just the
ones who stand in the practical vocations of today, who
discover these significant complications of life. In a certain
respect the books of Max Eyth are most instructive. In the
first place, he is a really great and gifted poet. And
secondly, being an altogether modern man, he creates right out
of the requirements of modern life.
It
is not without interest (let me make this remark, once more, in
parenthesis) — those who read Max Eyth can learn by
purely external reading many a fact which theosophists in
their turn might find it important to know — all manner
of things, for instance, connected with the life of the
first President of the Theosophical Society, Colonel Olcott.
All this is hidden in Max Eyth's descriptions. For he was in
America at a time when Olcott was up to all manner of things
over there. In short, social Karma too is brought home to us if
we do not scorn to make ourselves to some extent
acquainted with this very modern spirit.
All
in all, it is a peculiar fact. Eyth was a man of genius;
sometimes, however, people who are not exactly ‘men of
genius,’ but whom the fifth post-Atlantean age — with its
mechanisms of life — has moulded and produced,
perceive with astounding clarity the intricacies of
this modern life, through the peculiar form of their
intelligence.
For
instance, there is a modern lawyer, known to myself and to
others. At least he was a lawyer in his youth — at a
period of life when this profession is generally
un-remunerative. He was a gifted thinker, observing the things
around him without prejudice, and his outstanding ability made
no little impression on his superiors, — as I suppose
you would call them — not so much for his real clarity
of vision, but because he was useful to them, being a good and
expeditious worker. Well, having done excellent service as an
‘actuary’ or ‘assessor’ —
whatever they call these official posts — he was
promoted to a ministry of state. Here, too, he proved an
excellent worker, albeit one who observed everything with open
eyes. And so on one occasion he was given an important
commission. He was to prepare a Report on school and
educational matters, and his instruction was: the gist of the
report should be to recommend the transition to a kind of
‘Liberal’ system. This idea pleased him, and —
clear thinker that he was, seeing through the facts, — he
produced a very good report, a really excellent plan of reform.
Scholastic affairs were to be ‘liberalised’ and
given a more modern form. Meanwhile, however, while he
was making the report, the Government policy had changed and
they now wanted a reactionary report. So his superior
said, Your report is so excellent, I doubt not you could make
an equally good reactionary one. Will you not now prepare me a
reactionary Report? To which he answered, No, I cannot. —
Cannot, how so? No, this represents my conviction! What,
— your conviction? ... The superior, in short, was very
angry. After all, he realised, this man is no good. (For surely
we can have no use for a man who, not content to be a good
worker, even has his own convictions!) Nevertheless, he
was an excellent jurist and a first-class worker. What
does one do in such a case? He has proved his ability in all
directions and is well known as a good jurist. Well, one tries
somehow to promote him. When people prove their ability so
well, one must somehow keep them quiet and content. And
so, with a little wire-pulling behind the scenes (as the saying
goes), one day — I think it was at a game of skittles
— as if by chance, a secretary of a big Theatre met him.
The secretary said, You know the post of Director in the
Theatre is vacant? Well, the said man — being a lawyer by
profession and hitherto a civil servant in a ministry of state
— naturally had no suspicions when he was told this
interesting piece of news. But when they had finished their
game, the other said to him: Come with me now to the Cafe, and
I will explain the matter more in detail. Would you not like
the job yourself? At the moment we are without a Director at
the Theatre. No doubt we could choose some man or other, but we
cannot tell whether he will want the post under the prevailing
conditions. The other, being well-informed and very much on the
spot in such matters of administration, answered: He must
accept! He must be willing, and if he is not — you simply
commandeer him.
The
end of the matter was, the post was offered to himself. But
there was one difficulty. There was a very famous actress at
the theatre, whose favour the Director must, of course, enjoy.
Well, said the secretary, cannot you somehow earn her favour?
‘Oh, well, if that is all! ... True, I have only been to the
theatre seven times in my whole life. But while I am about it,
if I do undertake to become a theatrical Director, I shall
somehow manage to earn the favour of this actress. Can you not
tell me what she likes to eat?’ Well, the secretary happened to
know. It was Mohnbeugerl — some kind of
poppy-seed cakes. That was a fine solution. ‘We will drive to
the confectioner's at once,’ he said, ‘and order a large
consignment of poppy-seed cakes.’ Sure enough, early the next
morning they were delivered at the actress's house. In the
afternoon the secretary had to call on her — to sound her,
as the saying goes. ‘We would like to make this man Director,’
he said, ‘What do you think about it?’ He knew that
she was very influential. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘True,
I know nothing of him, but hitherto nothing but good has come to me
from him.’ Now, therefore, things were so far arranged that he
could become Director of the Theatre. But there was also the
critic to be considered — the most famous critic of the
town. He too must be won over. And he always wrote the most
dreadful stuff ... till one fine day he too was changed in his
attitude, so that at least he no longer wrote about him quite
unfavourably, albeit not exactly with good will. How was it
brought about? I am telling you no fairy tales; this actually
happened. I will only characterize it briefly. The important
personage of the Theatre — he who was even higher than
the Director — did not know what to do. The Director was
there; nay, more, he was making good, for he proved just as
efficient as Director of the Theatre as he had been in his
other jobs. But the head personage was at his wits' end. We
cannot dismiss the Director who has only just been appointed;
and yet, the critic is constantly running him down. What
did he do? He invited them both to dinner (not letting either
of them know that the other was coming) and served them with
excellent (wines. The Director was able to drink and drink and
drink. So was the critic, but only to a certain extent. His
capacity was less than the Director's. And so it came about
that one fine morning very early — I think it was at five
o'clock — the Director rings the front-door bell at the
critic's flat and insists that he must speak to the critic's
wife in person, — he has something most important
to deliver, which he has left at the bottom of the stairs.
Well, she put on her dressing gown and thereupon he brought
her husband as a ‘pretty pile of woe,’ — handed
him over in a rather limp condition. From that day onward, the
criticisms were a little better. Afterwards, having been just a
little too bold as Director of the theatre (in the view of his
superiors once more) he was ‘promoted’ again into the
sphere of jurisprudence.
Now
this man has written an excellent description of all that
he saw in his work. I only wished to point out how such people
especially, who come out of the immediate life of the present,
are often able to characterise it very significantly.
There is another interesting case — a man not unlike the
one of whom I have just told you, though, if I may say so, he
was a little superior to him in style. He wrote many things
during his life. But shortly before his death (all these men
are dead by now!) he wrote an interesting narrative, a short
story, a typical work of art of the present time. How does one
write short stories nowadays, according to the prevalent taste?
On no account must anything really ‘spiritual’
be contained; or if it is, it must emerge with the utmost
clarity that the reader may believe it or not, as he pleases,
and at any rate — he will do better to treat it as a
fairy tale. I will describe the subject matter, which
this man chose out of life of the present.
The
hero is, once more, a lawyer by training and profession. He
advances comparatively far in the circles in which the man of
whom I spoke just now was living for so long. All this can, of
course, be described. We describe how he goes through the
several stages in the career of jurisprudence,
experiencing this and that, such and such complications. Then
again — for needless to say, this too is modern and
correct, — we can weave a love-story into the plot. We
can describe how some exotic maid arrives, accompanied by her
mother. The high official of the law falls in love with her.
And now, some story of espionage forms part of the plot, which
he himself — as judge or public prosecutor —
has to treat. And the affair is somehow connected with
the girl with whom he has fallen in love, and this brings him
into dire conflict. In the end you can describe, quite
realistically, how he comes to commit suicide.
But
the author to whom I now refer did not do it so. He wove the
following very significant theme into his story.
Outwardly, the plot is almost exactly like the one I just
related. But in addition he describes how this official of the
law read Schopenhauer and other Philosophers. And he read
Philosophy so as to unite it — if I may say so —
with his own individual being, right down into his nervous
system. Now he is a first-class lawyer. What does it mean to be
a first-class lawyer, as judge (or public prosecutor)? It
means, to devise all manner of clever points, completely to
entangle the accused. (And as defender? Then he must be well up
in all the clever points and cute devices of defenders.) This
lawyer, in a word, is extraordinarily clever; and he
condemns a man in circumstances similar to those I just
described. But the accused, during the proceedings, behaves in
an extraordinary way — demonically, one might say.
Especially his look remains quite unforgettable to those who
witnessed it. In the end, needless to say, he is locked up. And
the whole affair somehow involves the girl with whom the
‘judge’ in question falls in love. The man is condemned
to 20 years' penal servitude. And he is ailing ...
The
‘judge’ is very well described in this short story.
One night after the case is over (which in the general opinion he
conducted brilliantly), — meanwhile, he has not given the
convict another thought — one night at twelve
o'clock, he awakens (this will no doubt be more or less
correct) and remains in a half-sleeping state. About two there
is a knock at the door of his bedroom. In comes the convict
himself. Imagine the judge's situation. But he falls
again into a half-slumbering condition, and when he
awakens it is day. Now he is dreadfully afraid. He goes into
the law-courts. He hears nothing; only once, as he is walking
along the corridor, he hears the name of the convict called. It
gives him an awful fright. He resolves once more to study the
records of the case. He has them given to him; but for three
weeks he leaves them on one side. Till finally the fact emerges
in a conversation: On a certain night at two o'clock the
convict died in prison. It was at the very minute — the
judge is afterwards able to ascertain, — at the
very minute when he visited him in his bedroom.
Such is the plot of the short story.
Hofrat Eisenhardt
is the title. Eventually he dies by suicide.
Hofrat Eisenhardt,
by Berger, — an
altogether modern story, showing by other descriptions also,
which occur in it, how well the author was acquainted with many
attempts of recent times to penetrate into the secrets of
occult life. From this point of view alone, the story is
excellently written. And now there is a strange thing. This
Berger is not the same man whom I described to you before. I
gave him only as an instance of a man who looks around him with
clear and open vision, and well describes what is the very
nerve of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. But as his colleague,
as it were, in the same profession, I wanted to cite the
instance of this Berger — Alfred, Baron von Berger, is
his full name — who wrote the brilliant story,
Hofrat Eisenhardt.
From the whole way in which it is
written, one can see: The man is well acquainted with the many
efforts of modern times to enter into the spiritual world.
Throughout his life, Alfred Baron von Berger was an author; he
wrote many things. But he did not publish this story till he
had reached a post from which no further advancement was
possible. Indeed, ‘by chance’ as one would say, he
published it very shortly before his death. All this is
significant. For it shows us how the men of our time — if
they want to ‘get anywhere,’ as they say, in outer life,
— do not do well to tamper with such questionable
matters. On the other hand, it also shows us how it is the real
striving of the men of our time to penetrate into the
mysterious aspects of existence, which will indeed impress
themselves upon us more and more, for they confront us with
great and important riddles.
If
we wish to study the problems of destiny without prejudice, we
must above all acquire free and open vision. We must try
— if you will forgive the hard saying — not to
sleep our way through life, but to look about us. Let me tell
you, as it were symbolically, what is the point. Suppose this
is one stream of life, this the second and this the third.
Life, as you know, consists of many streams, crossing one
another in the most manifold directions, — the life of
the individual, the life of human groups, even the life of all
humanity on Earth. The concepts which predominate to-day
are generally too easy-going to unravel the tangled threads of
life. Very often it is necessary to focus our gaze on one point
and then again on quite another, so as to bring precisely these
two points into relation — looking at them both together.
We
must envisage the right facts. Then and then only do we find
the searchlights which illumine life's situations. Now you will
ask me, How can such a thing be done? Yes, that is just the
question. Study spiritual science in the right way, and you
will discover by Imagination those points in life which you
must see together, in order that life may be revealed to you.
Otherwise you will be trying to study life, observing event
after event and understanding nothing of it, like the
present-day historians, who draw the threads from event to
event, but fail to understand. For the real point is to study
the world on a symptomatic basis. This, above all, will be more
and more needful, to study the world symptomatically, that is
to say, to turn our vision in the right directions and draw the
connecting links. Especially when it is a question of
concretely studying Karma, especially then is it necessary to
be able to see things symptomatically. In the study of Karma
there is very much to confuse us, for in effect there is
so much that allures us.
This symptomatic study, certain occult societies of our time
have tried to keep as far as possible away from mankind. I have
already told you how there have remained over, from very
ancient institutions, certain brotherhoods which call
themselves occult, — notably in the West of Europe.
Within these occult societies the study of human character has
been pursued, with the definite object of using human
characters in the right way — with the object of being
able to get hold of them properly. And many means have been
adopted to withhold from the remainder of mankind this
knowledge, which has been studiously cultivated — if I
may put it so — within the walls or within the gates of
such societies. It will be one of the most interesting things
when the connection is exposed between the occult endeavours of
certain societies of our time and the events of public
life; when the threads are revealed which pass from certain
occult communities to the events of our time, and when their
methods are unveiled. For those who worked out of such occult
societies knew how to reckon with human characters, taking the
threads of their Karmas in hand and guiding them —
without the knowledge of those concerned. In the
Theosophical Society many attempts were made but they were mere
attempts; they did not get beyond the amateurish stage. For
they were not so skilled as in these other societies. Of course
it is difficult to speak about these things, especially to-day,
when an objective characterization is not only accused of
prejudice, but is even forbidden by the law. It is difficult
— nay, in certain respects quite impossible, to
speak about these things. Nevertheless they must be
hinted at, in one way or another. For it will not do for people
simply to go on living in their time, playing their part in all
that enters from the Karma of the age into the unconscious life
of human souls, and then — while they go on living
in this vague and nebulous conditions which prevails
— claiming at the same time to cultivate spiritual
science, which requires a clear and unprejudiced mind. In
certain matters, Truth must prevail when it becomes a
question of the real things of the occult world. The point is,
there must be the real Will to Truth. This Will to Truth finds
much resistance, in our time above all, for the sense of Truth
has gradually become lost to men. Think only of this: in the
public life of our time it is generally not a question of
getting at the Truth, but rather, of repeating what will suit
one side or another, according to the prevailing group-prejudices.
Again and again, we come up against the subjects of which it is
impossible to speak. And yet, it would be so necessary to do
so. This very fact I beg you clearly to envisage. Here, too, we
must make no mistake about it; it is so. You may ask, What have
these things to do with the question of Karma which we are now
treating? They have very much indeed to do with it, and we must
try to enter still more into some of these things if we desire
at length to reach the goal which we are seeking in this course
of lectures.
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