3rd January, 1919 Dornach
It has often had to be
emphasised here that when the truths of Spiritual Science are put into
words it is very easy for them to be misunderstood in some direction.
I have spoken to you also of the very varied reasons for this ready
misunderstanding of the knowledge and conceptions of Spiritual Science.
It must frequently be repeated that naturally it is very easy to find
here or there, among those who have had little opportunity for acquiring
spiritual depth, that statements concerning Spiritual Science are made
on insufficient grounds, and so on. It is also extraordinarily easy
when the facts of Spiritual Science are given out to say: “How
does so and so know that; where does he get his knowledge?” —
when these same people are not even willing to investigate the origin
of facts they themselves often advance concerning it and form their
judgment entirely in accordance with their own knowledge. It is not
difficult to say: “How can he know that? I don't know it”
and then to declare in a high and mighty way: “What I do not know
no one else knows, others can at best only believe it.” Such a
judgement comes about merely because one refuses to go into the sources
from which, particularly at the present time, the knowledge Spiritual
Science has to be drawn.
Among the misunderstandings
arising in this way we may include the belief that Spiritual Science
wishes to pronounce sentence, sentence of wholesale extermination, upon
all the striving of the age, in so far as this striving proceeds from
personalities outside the pale of Spiritual Science. Here too lies mere
misunderstanding. Spiritual scientists who seriously and adequately pay
heed to present world conditions are very ready to enter into the attitude
of mind, the mood of soul, of their contemporaries, and will ask themselves
the question: “What is going on in the souls of my seriously minded
contemporaries in the direction where we have to look for the improvement
of much that both deserves and needs to be improved?” What, however,
must above all be borne in mind as a particularly striking fact at present
is that just in the case of those who make the most earnest endeavours,
there is often a refusal to enter upon concrete knowledge of the spiritual
world, recognition of the spiritual
world, which can appear to men as a reality and not merely as something
to be disclosed through a sum of concepts. Today most men prefer to
remain with their experiences altogether in the sense world, and at
best they allow that a spiritual world can be disclosed by means of
concepts and ideas. They do not want to set out on an investigation
where there is any question of penetrating to the spiritual world in
actual experience. This aversion to spiritual reality is a characteristic
feature of our time; it it is a feature of our time to which attention
must be paid particularly by those of us who try to take our stand on
the ground of spiritual Science.
By quoting to you from the
thoughts of Walther Rathenau, (see Z-269) I have recently shown that
the spiritual scientist is indeed able really to appreciate the direction
modern thought is taking, within the limits, that is to say, of what
is estimable in this thought. But the rejection of the really spiritual
that should arise in our time is nevertheless extraordinary. This rejection
can be fully experienced when one pays heed to what is being thought.
To many people this has appeared as the most shattering feature of the
present world situation. For there are men who understand how to estimate
all the seriousness of the present time, who have for some time understood
how to estimate it. Here too I beg you, my dear friends, not to consider
this the superior attitude of a number of anthroposophists; I beg you not
to suppose that Anthroposophy as such is claiming to judge the seriousness
of the times better than people outside the Anthroposophical Movement.
For one could wish that many more inside the Anthroposophical
Movement would feel moved by what is so critical in the present state
of the world. Within our own ranks today far too many are to be found
who in spite of the seriousness of the times have no mind to face up
to this seriousness, preferring to be occupied with their own worthy
selves instead of being aroused to some interest in the great questions
pulsing throughout mankind.
At the outset of our
considerations today, I will take an example that may be said to have come
my way by chance; if the word is not misunderstood, and there is no need
for any misunderstanding. It is an article which, it is true, is out of
date today since it was written when the so-called war was still in full
swing. Thus the article is not up to date. Also it is not exactly
impressive in other ways, for most of the things discussed are treated
very one-sidedly. But it comes from a man — and this can be seen
from the whole character
and way of writing — who is giving his most earnest thought to what
should now happen, and what the world has to expect from the events.
This article gives a picture of the gradual trend of behaviour on the
part of the western powers, the central powers, the eastern powers,
during the catastrophe of these last years. Although in a one-sided
way, it shows the great dangers from this catastrophe threatening both
present and future. The writer has a certain world-outlook. He considers
the world not only from the point of view of land frontiers; the world
from the point of view of frontiers is also discussed among men today,
and if they can satisfy themselves that some particular thing does not
happen within their own territory, they make their mind easy. The author
of this article has a wider outlook than that of the village pump, he
grasps something of world perspective. And in the summing up of his ideas
we come to a very remarkable passage. He says; “A fearful destiny
beckons to the white races which seems to me an absolute certainty unless
a period of the supremacy of great wisdom succeeds that of passion and
delusion. For some time we have actually been living in an age very similar
to that of the migration of peoples. The tempo has been tremendously
increased by the world war. What corresponds to the German races who
invaded the civilised lands of olden times from outside, are the rapidly
rising lower classes of the people who both in blood and cultural heritage
are very different from those who previously held the power. This migration
of peoples — it is better to refer to it thus than to call it
a war — is good in so far as it necessitates a widening, a widening
of the cultural basis and a raising of levels as a whole. But this would
be very dangerous were it to come about too rapidly. And this danger
will be increased the longer the world war lasts.”
The article is now out of
date. The danger has not diminished, but since all his arguments were
based on the then existing thirst for war, they are now superannuated.
For us here, however, the first part of what I read out must be of special
interest — “a fearful destiny beckons to the white races and
seems to me an absolute certainty unless a period of the supremacy of great
wisdom succeeds that of passion and delusion.” For, as an abstract
truth, this is in fact undeniably right. And when anyone expresses the
opinion that the only salvation for mankind lies in turning to a supreme
science of wisdom and not to any other political or social quackery,
we must give recognition to such a fact, such a tendency of thought.
At the same time, however, we may not forget that just those men who,
it must be admitted, are deeply moved by the earnestness of the times,
when it comes to saying: In what do these wise ideas consist that are
to succeed the old deluded ideas? It is just such men who immediately
fall back on any kind of deluded ideas that have become mere fine words.
That is the tragedy, the fearful destiny, of our time, that men indeed
became alive to the fact that it is necessary to turn to the spirit,
and are then overcome by fear and anxiety when they should turn to it.
Then they are at once ready, once more to seize upon the old delusive
ideas which have driven mankind to the present fearful destiny. My dear
friends, we need only take this example of a widespread tendency in
ideas. Were you to ask a law abiding upholder of the Roman Catholic
Church whether he was inclined to the belief that the old conceptions
have brought us to this time of catastrophe and that they must be got
rid of, do you think that he would really be disposed to recognise the
necessity for reshaping the ideas that were unable to save men from
this dreadful catastrophe? No! He would say that were men to turn again
in the right way to Roman Catholicism they would at once became happy.
And the reflection would not even enter his head that they have had 1900
years in which to practise their Roman Catholicism and yet have fallen
into the catastrophe, that the least we must learn from the catastrophe
is the need for a fresh impulse. This is only one example among many.
Particularly where this point is concerned it is above all necessary
frankly to focus attention on existing conditions.
You see today even for a
recognised member of some church or other it is easy to say that Haeckelism
or materialism is devil's work and must be rooted out lock, stock and
barrel. This is the reverse of what is able to lead men to a sound attitude
of soul. Yes, my dear friends, it is very easy to speak thus but when it
stops there and no investigation is made into the conditions in question,
it is impossible to arrive at any sound solution for the present time, much
less for the near future. For if you take any world outlook materialist
in feeling and ask yourself: where does it come from historically? If you
really wish to get to the root of this, in the end you will be unable to
help saying that fundamentally it comes from the way in which Christianity
has been preached during these 1900 years by the various Christian
churches. Those whose insight goes deeper know that Haeckel's
doctrine would have been impossible without the preceding Christianity
of the churches. There are people who have remained at the standpoint of
the church, as it was, let us say, in the Middle Ages; they continue to
uphold the ideas professed by the church in medieaval times. Others have
developed these ideas. And among those who have developed them is, for
instance, Ernst Haeckel. He is a true child of the conceptions fostered
through the centuries by the various churches. This has not arisen outside
the church; in the fullest sense it has originated entirely within the
teachings of the church itself. Certainly the connections of these things
will only be recognised aright if one is endowed by Spiritual Science with
a little insight to give one clear vision.
Today, therefore, I want
to dwell on one particular point, though some of you may say it is too
difficult, but nothing ought to be too difficult for us and we are meant
to gain insight.
Now look — if today
you read philosophically inspired writings of well-educated learned
Catholic men you will find, in all passages where a certain point comes
into question, a quite definite outlook developed; and it may be said
that you find this outlook developed try the very best of these scholarly
Catholics. In passing I should like to point out that I am not at all
in the habit of undervaluing the literary training of the Catholic clergy
for example. I quite realise (and I have spoken of this in my book Vom
Menschenrätsel) the superior schooling shown in the philosophical
writings of many Catholic theologians, compared with the writings of
those men of philosophical learning who have not made a study of Catholic
theology. In this respect one must own that the literature, the theological
literature, of protestant learning, of the reformed churches, lags far
behind the excellent philosophical training of Catholic theologians.
Through their strict schooling these people possess a certain ability
to form their concepts really plastically. They have what the famous
men of non-Catholic philosophical literature, for instance, have no
notion of, that is, a particular faculty of seeing into the nature of
a concept, the nature of an idea, and so on. To put it briefly, these
people are scholarly. One need not even take one of Haeckel's books,
one can take one of Eucken's, to confirm this playing about with concepts,
this dreadful treatment of the most important concepts, a treatment
merely on the level of a cheap novelette! Or, to give another example,
we might take one of Bergson's books that always promote the feeling
that he is catching hold of concepts but is unable regally to come to
grips with them — like the famous Chinaman who wanting to turn round
always catches hold of his pigtail. This absolute confusion in the world
of concepts, shown by the people who lack training is never to be found
when you come to the philosophical literature of the Catholic Clerics.
Thus, for example, in this connection, a book like the three volume
History of Idealism by Otto Willmann, a thorough going Catholic
who makes his Catholicism evident on every opportunity, takes a much
higher place than most of what is written in the realm of philosophy
on the non-Catholic side. All this may be quite well recognised while
still taking the standpoint that must be taken in Spiritual Science.
An inferior spirit may decide differently in this matter, may perhaps
be of the opinion that because good schooling is shown, the whole thing
is of more value.
In this polished Catholic
philosophical literature one point will always confront you, a point
that has an extraordinary way of hoodwinking the modern thinker. It
is the point that always comes into evidence when there is question
of the difference between man and animal. I think you will agree that
the ordinary readers of Haeckel, the ordinary upholders of Haeckel,
always proceed to minimise the difference between man and animal as
much as possible, to arouse as much belief as they can that men as a
whole is only to a certain extent a more highly developed animal. This
is not done by the Catholic men of learning but they always bring forward
something that appears to them as a radical difference between animal
and man. They raise the point that the animal gets no further than the
ordinary conception it acquires of an object by first smelling it, of
another object by smelling that or inspecting it, and so on; that the
animal always stops at mere detailed, unindividual ideas, whereas man
has the capacity for forming deduced abstract concepts and of summing
things up. This is indeed a fundamental difference, for when the matter
is grasped in this way man is really definitely distinguished from the
animals. The animal noticing only details cannot develop what is spiritual;
abstract concepts must live in the spiritual. For this reason one has
to recognise that in man there lives a soul specially adapted for forming
abstract concepts; whereas the animal with its particular kind of inner
life has no power of forming these abstract concepts.
Whoever an this point keeps
in mind the corresponding Catholic statements will say to himself: Here is
something tremendously significant, that through good philosophical
training on this decisive, fundamentally decisive, point, the distinction
can be shown between man and animal. Modern men do not in the least
appreciate the significance of such a matter. When, for instance, the
uproar was set going for which Drews was responsible, namely,
the discussion
whether Jesus ever lived, when at that time a great gathering took place
in Berlin about the problem “Did Jesus ever Live?” the Catholic
theologian Wasmann [ Note1 ] also spoke. Naturally
he could only say things that the others considered very reactionary.
But in spite of the fact that speeches were made at the time by the
shining lights of protestant theology in Berlin strictly speaking in
those speeches only two utterances, and what supported them, seemed to
me really on a better level, not on a present-day level but on a rather
higher level. One was an exposition launched by — now I do not wish
to say anything derogatory, I am actually praising the man — a
learned idler of the first water. (I don't think I can praise him more
than by calling him a learned idler of the first water.) Through his
intellectuality and the special information he possessed on the most
varied subjects, through his great knowledge, the man might have been
able to do a great deal. But when I had something to do with him —
eighteen, nineteen years ago for fifteen years he had been writing a
Revision of Logics and I think he must have been writing it ever since,
for in the meantime I have never come across this Revision of Logic.
At that time he said something that is quite correct — at the
present time men actually become quite frightening when they begin to
think — that is they were quite frightening then. One need listen
to only two or three propositions, either in a scientific or non-scientific
talk, and immediately the most terrible lack of logic can be observed.
What (said he) men must observe so that they do not arrive at the most
horrible delusive conceptions usual nowadays, can be written on a quarto
sheet (so he thought); it is only necessary to take note of this quarto
sheet. I am sure I do not know if he will present this quarto sheet
as his Revision of Logic! As I said, this Revision of Logic had then
gone on for fifteen years since when eighteen, nineteen years have passed;
I do not know how for it has got by now. But I want to give him a word
of praise by calling him a witty, intelligent do-nothing, because I
mean by this that were he not a witty do-nothing ha could do tremendously
much. At that time he said something very fine: The Catholic Church
one day had to hear that the comets which consist of nucleus and tail
are heavenly bodies like the others and move in accordance with laws
like other heavenly bodies. As in face of existing facts it could no
longer be denied that comets are also heavenly bodies, the Catholic
Church decided to allow that the laws of celestial space should also
be applied to comets; but they first gave way only where the nucleus
was concerned and not the tail. Now in this he was wanting to express
merely symbolically that as a rule the Catholic Church is prone only
to yield to absolute necessity just as it was not until 1827 that it
allowed its adherents to recognise the Copernican world-outlook. But
when the Church had to give way to what was most necessary it did at
least hold back the tail in the matter! This is an observation which
I found highly descriptive of the situation.
The other observation,
however, was made by the investigator of ants, the Catholic Wasmann, who
not only does excellent work with ants but is a well-trained philosopher
as well. He said: “Really gentleman you can not understand me
in the least for none of you knows in reality how to think in terms
of philosophy. No one who thinks philosophically talks as you do!”
And in point of fact he was quite right. There is no doubt that he hit
the nail on the heed. Now there is a neat little publication by Wasmann
concerning the difference between man and animal which puts forward
in clear outlines what I have just now indicated, that is, man's faculty
to think really in abstract concepts, a faculty which the animal certainly
is not supposed to possess. This is something extraordinarily deceptive,
my dear friends, for in a certain way it is convincing for anyone who
has schooled his thinking to the point of being able to grasp the whole
bearing of such an assertion.
But now let us look at the
matter from the point of view of Spiritual Science, there the whole
affair will meet you in its true meaning. For you see when we start
from Spiritual Science, from the conceptions and experiences in connection
with it which can be acquired in the spiritual world, we see, on the one
side that without the considerations of Spiritual Science we may arrive
at the delusive statement or which I have just spoken, and that it must
actually hold good for anyone who will not become a spiritual scientist
just because he has had a good training in philosophy. This is seen on
the one hand. On the other hand one sees the following — sees
it simply by observing things in the world — that when with the
hypotheses of Spiritual Science man and animal are compared, it becomes
apparent that man confronts the objects in the world in a series of
single observations afterwards forming abstract concepts by all manner
of thought processes in which he reunites what he has seen as separate
entities. It may also be admitted that the animal does not possess this
kind of abstraction, it does not practise this activity of abstraction.
The curious thing is, however, that the abstract concept is not lacking
in the animal, that, in its soul the animal is actually living in the
most abstract concepts which we men only form with much difficulty,
and that the animal does not see things separately as we do. Where we
excel is just in our freer use of the senses and in a quite definite
kind of co-operation between senses and inner emotions and will-impulses.
We have that advantage over the animal. The sureness of instinct possessed
by animals rests on the very fact that the animal from the start lives
with those abstract concepts that we have first to form. We differ from
animals in the emancipation of our senses and in their freer use where
the outer world is concerned, also in being able to pour will into our
senses which the animal is unable to do. What we men do not have but
must first acquire, namely, the abstract concept, is just what the animal
does have, strange as it may seem. It is true every animal has only
a limited sphere but in this sphere it has this kind of concept, however
odd this appears. Man's attention is directed to one dog, two, three
dogs, and he then forms the abstract concept “dog”. The
animal in this sphere has the same abstract concept “dog”
that me have, it has the quite exact concept without needing to form
it. We have first to form it which the animal has no need to do. The
animal, however, has no capacity for distinguishing with precision one
dog from another or for giving it any precise individuality through
sense-perception.
Thus you see, my dear friends,
if we do not acquire the faculty for going into the real facts through
Spiritual Science, we deceive ourselves in a certain respect concerning
what is most essential. We believe because men must develop the capacity
to form abstract concepts that through such concepts we are to be
differentiated from animals who do not possess this capacity. But the
animal has no need of the capacity, since it has abstract concepts to
start with. The animal has an entirely different kind of sense-perception
from that of man. It is just the outer sense-perception that is quite
different.
In this connection a most
profound change in human conceptions is needed. For men have informed
themselves about all kinds of scientific concepts that have become popular
today. Wither they have learnt them in some school through direct tuition
or they have received the information from any doubtful source: what
I am referring to is those newspaper articles that circulate scientific
conceptions throughout the world. Men are under the domination of these
scientific conceptions. Where what I have been referring to is concerned,
men are absolutely dominated by what I might call an instinctive bias
towards the belief that animals really see their environment in the same
way as men do. When a man takes his dog for a walk he instinctively
believes that the dog is seeing the world in the same way as he does
himself, that the dog is seeing the grass, the wheat, the stone in the
same colours as he does. He also thinks — if he can think at all
— that he can deal in abstractions and therefore has abstract
concepts which, however, the dog doesn't have; and so on. Yet it is
not so. This dog
running beside us is living just as much in abstract concepts as we
are. In fact he is living in them with greater intensity. And he has
no need to acquire them, for from the start he is living in them to
a high degree. It is not the same however, with external perception;
which gives him quite a different picture. You need only be attentive
to certain things that can be observed in life. These are certainly
not always taken sufficiently in earnest. I could give you quite a number
of examples to show you in this direction how men from pure instinct
think upside down. For instance I was once going down a street in Zurich,
I think it was, after a lecture held at the evening meeting of one of
our Groups. A coachman was waiting there whose horse refused to answer
to the rein and showed signs of shying. The coachman said it was afraid
of its own shadow. He of course saw the horse's shadow thrown on the
wall by his lamps and supposed that the horse saw the shadow just as
he did. Naturally he had no inkling of what was going on in — can
I say — the horse's soul, nor what was going on in his own soul.
He sees the horse's shadow but the horse has a vivid sense of being in
that bit of space in the etheric body where the shadow is formed. This
is a quite different process of inner perception — a very different
process. You see, you have here the collision between the old way of
thinking back to the most elementary, the most instinctive perception
of naive men, and what must come into men through the new Spiritual
Science. It is true you will first seriously have to take stock of what
lies at the root of this. For with regard to such things the crass
materialism of a Vogt or Moleschott, a Clifford or Spencer, and so on,
differs far less from the handed down creeds of individual religions than
does the new way at thought underlying Spiritual Science. Today certain
materialists actually think that there is not much difference between man
and animal. They may same time have also heard it ring out (even if the
bells were not ringing together) that man can form abstract concepts
which nevertheless
are different from the usual conceptions of the senses. But they say
to themselves: Abstract concepts! Perhaps those are nothing very important,
nothing very essential; fundamentally men do not differ from animals.
Modern materialism as a whole is actually the creation of Church creeds.
This must be faced in all seriousness and it will then be seen that
it is a question of a fresh kind of conception for the soul of man if
we are not to prefer going back to the old conceptions with the idea
that all will then soon go well!
But can we say that men
are able simply to forbear from turning to the real life of the spirit
and at the same time go on? No those are quite right who says “a
fearful destiny is beckoning to the white man which seems to me absolutely
certain unless a period of the supreme rule of wisdom succeeds that
of passion and illusion.” People should recognise, however, that
the greater part of the scientific conceptions throughout the world
today fall under the category of illusion. This should be thoroughly
understood. In their stream of development men have come to the point
which we have often described by saying that, since the fifteenth century,
mankind has been in the epoch of the consciousness soul. And this
development of the consciousness soul takes place in the way I have
often described. Let us look at very important characteristic in the
development of the consciousness soul.
Last time indeed I pointed
out to you that everything perceived by the spiritual investigator,
that is to say, everything lying in mankind's development which is raised
by him into consciousness, even when not recognised, goes on in man's
subconscious. Men go through certain experiences while developing towards
the future. They go through these experiences unconsciously When the
do not draw them up, bring them into consciousness, as they are meant
to do in this epoch of the development of the consciousness soul. But
it is just in this epoch that much that would rise in man's subconscious
is thrust back again.
Among other things there
comes to man in an ever greater degree a certain part of that experience
which may be called “the meeting with the Guardian of the
Threshold”. Undoubtedly, my dear friends, if men with to enter the
spiritual world in full consciousness, to develop Imagination, Inspiration,
Intuition, they must enter the sphere of the supersensible world with
fuller experiences, with quite different experiences. It might be said
they must pass the Guardian of the Threshold with greater thoroughness
than the whole mass of mankind are obliged to do in the course of this
epoch of the consciousness-soul. Up to a certain degree, however, by the
end of the development of the
consciousness-soul man must in some measure have passed the Guardian
of the Threshold. He can let this happen the easy way by passing in a
state of unconsciousness. But Spiritual Science is there to prevent this
happening. It has to draw attention to what is now taking place in the
evolution of mankind. Whoever holds people back from Spiritual Science
is doing no less than forcing them not consciously but unconsciously
to approach the Guardian of the Threshold who appears on mankind's horizon
in this particular epoch.
To put it differently. From
about 1413, for the 2160 years that the epoch of the consciousness soul
lasts, mankind in one incarnation or another will have to pass the Guardian
of the Threshold and, if only partly, go through what can be experienced
in connection with the Guardian. Man can be forced by materially minded
men to pass by unconsciously or he can in freedom make the resolve to
listen to Spiritual Science and thus experience something in passing
the Guardian of the Threshold, either through his own vision or through
sound human understanding. And in thus going by the Guardian of the
Threshold something will be experienced that enables men to form correct,
pertinent conceptions about the concrete supersensible world — above
all conceptions enabling them to direct this conceiving, this thinking,
in a certain free, unprejudiced direction conducive to reality.
To make thinking in accordance
with reality so that it can actually enter into the impulses lying in
events and does not live merely in abstractions like modern science, which
has knowledge only of external processes — I have often described
this as the greatest achievement of Spiritual Science. To know certain
things about the spiritual world is becoming a necessity for men. And
through this they must be able to judge their position in the world
from the point of view of a spiritual horizon, whereas their judgment
now has only a physical horizon. You are already judging something in
a new and right way when, for instance, you bring the thoughts to fruition
in you that animals do not lack abstract ideas but actually live in
those that are very abstract, and again, that man is differentiated
from the animal by the development of his senses which are freed from
the narrow connection with life in the body. It is only through this
that one arrives at suitable conceptions concerning the difference between
man and animal. This is outwardly expressed by the organisation of the
senses in animals standing in a very pronounced relation to the whole
life and organisation of the body. The bodily organisation in the animal
extends very considerably into the senses.
Let us consider the eye.
It is quite well known to natural scientists that the eyes of lower
animals have in them organs filled with blood (take as example, the
habellifom and ensiform processes) which in a living way establish a
relation between the inner eye and the entire organisation: whereas
the human eye has no such organisation, being much more independent.
This growth of independence in the senses, this emancipation of the
senses from the organisation as a whole, is something that only arises
in the human being. For this reason, however, the whole world of the
senses is much more in connection with the will in man than in the animal.
I once expressed this morphologically in a different way drawing your
attention to the same fact from a different point of view, as follows.
If we take the threefold organism, the organs of the extremities, breast,
head, and if I draw it as a diagram, in the animal this is the head
organism, this the breast organism and this the organism of the extremities
(see diagram). The head is immediately above the
earth, the earth is under the head organism in all animals, approximately
of course, according to the nature of the being. The spine is above
the earth's axis or the radius of the earth.
In man his head stands on
his own breast organism and extremities organism. In man the breast
organism is under the head organism, as in the primal the earth is under
the head organism; man stands with his heed on his own earth. In the
animal there is a separation between the will-organism that is, the
extremities organism, the rear extremities, and the head. In man the
will, the will-organism, is inserted directly into the head and the
whole into the radius of the earth. For this reason the senses are,
as it were, flooded by the will and this is characteristic of man; thus
he is in reality distinct from the animal because his senses are flooded
by the will. It is not the will but a deeper element that flows through
the senses in the case of the animal; thus there is a more intimate
connection between the organisation of the senses and the organism as
a whole. Man lives far more in the outer world, animals live far more
in their own private world. Man in his use of the tools of his senses
liven much more in the external world.
Now consider, my dear friends!
We are at present living in the age of the consciousness soul; and what
does this mean? It means, as I have shown you several times, that we are
pressing towards a time when consciousness will become a mere reflection,
when only reflected images will be present in consciousness; for the
age of the consciousness soul is also the age of intellectuality. (see
Lecture IV) And in this intellectual age man actually first arrives
at developing his faculty for abstraction to an absolute art. In this
age of intellectualism and materialism the most abstract concepts are
formed.
Now we may think of two
people; one a well trained philosopher, as well trained as Catholic
theologians are. Holding his particular views this man ought to say
what he will not sir recognising the dilemma in which we find ourselves
because centuries of Christianity have brought about materialism; this
he finds unpleasant. He must, however, actually Bays man in the age
of the consciousness soul can best form abstract concepts, and in this
way has raised himself as far as possible above the animal.
But the spiritual scientist
may also come along and sort what is characteristic of man in this age
of the development of the consciousness soul is his particularly strong
faculty for being able to form abstract concepts. Where does this take
him? It actually takes him back into the animal kingdom. And this explains
a very great deal. It also explains to you how the fact of man being
prone to get as near animals as he can, arises just because he there
meets the abstraction of the concept. Moreover it makes clear to you
something else that arises frequently today in the carrying on and conduct
of life. Science will become increasingly abstract and man in his social
life will increasingly wish to live like beasts of the field, simply
attending to his most ordinary needs, hunger and so forth. The spiritual
scientist shows up the inner connection between the faculty for abstraction
and the animal nature. At all events man roes through the experience
of this inner connection in the age of the consciousness soul. If he
is hindered in the way already described, he goes through the experience
unconsciously. Innumerable human beings go through What the depths of
their soul tells them: you are becoming more and more like an animal
and just by going forward you will become ever more so. Man will have
this fright on his path of progress. It is this too that causes men
to keep so willingly to the old conservative concepts.
Should this be? And should
this unconscious appearance of animal nature hold man back from going
forward when he comes to the Guardian of the Threshold? No, this should
not happen — but something else has to take place. By going beck
during his apparent progress, this backsliding of of man's must so happen
that it is not simply a matter of going forward and then back (as it
certainly would be were man to develop only a faculty for abstraction),
for then man would come back to the earlier stages of his development,
he would return altogether to the animal. No, there must be a going
backward, but like this (see diagram); an advance
must take place, a going upward that must lead into the spiritual.
What we lose by entering into
abstractions we must deprive of power by filling our abstract reflected
images with the spiritual, by taking up the spiritual into our
abstractions. By that we go forward. Man, in front of the Guardian of
the Threshold is consciously or unconsciously faced with the formidable
decision either through abstract concepts to become more animal than the
animal and, to quote Goethe's
Faust
‘rub his nose in any filth’; or, on
the other hand, the moment he enters abstraction to pour into his abstract
concepts what streams out of the spiritual world in the way we have
described during these last days. (see Z-269) Then man will begin to
estimate rightly his place in the world, for then he understands how
he is caught up in evolution. Then he knows why in a Certain point of
this evolution — just through abstractions, the danger threatens
him of sinking back to the animal. When man in primitive culture epochs
stood at the animal stage He was distinguished from the animal not by
his abstract concepts but by his senses. The animal had better abstract
concepts. It is only now that man can develop abstract concepts at need,
animals have much better ones. Once I gave another example of this when
I said: How long ago in evolution is it since man tried to make paper?
The wasp has been able to do it in building its nest, for millions of
years! And just look at what comes to light through animals in the way
of active, effective understanding, in wisdom, intellectuality and the
faculty for abstraction, even though it appears one-sidedly in the various
animals! Men foolishly call this instinct; but when you look into the
matter, my dear friends, you will know that there are very few men indeed
today who with all their faculty for abstraction come so far with this
faculty that they get beyond the one sidedness of the present animal
types.
Thus man is placed before
this important decision, either to return to the animal condition, in
a very great measure to be “more animal than any animal”
to use Mephistopheles' expression from Faust — Ahriman
Mephistopheles would like to attain this in man — or he must accept
the spiritual. (See Lecture V.)
A certain intensity of
conception is indeed necessary if man wishes to know what is indicated for
him in the progress of time, in the necessities brought about by time. Here
man must go deep into world-evolution. And he must not shrink from
preparing himself through the concepts of Spiritual Science for the more
difficult concepts, the concepts bearing reality. For it is natural, when
for the first time anyone hears the kind of things I have been saying
today, for him to say: This is pure madness! — That is quite easy to
understand. But, my dear friends, we can also imagine that some one may
regard very much of whet has been done for years by the clever as pure
madness, and accordingly hold the great majority to be mad. But then he
would be able to understand why this great majority should take him
— an exception — for a madman. For in a company of madmen it
is not themselves they hold to be mad but the clever people.
By reason of this, man learns
however to make his whole perception of the world fruitful. He learns
to make fruitful just what in reality has always distinguished him from
the animal. Strictly speaking man is thoroughly unobservant about his
own faculties, and he will become so increasingly if he develops only
intellectuality in the age of the consciousness soul. If we go back
to earlier ages we frequently find among talented men that they still
had a certain sense also for their surroundings. If we take the conceptions
that these men of old formed about certain animals, for example, these
are often full of good sense. The conceptions in modern books on Zoology
from the standpoint of abstractions are often quite honest and worthy
of recognition, but full of sense, my dear friends, they certainly are
not. I should like to ask you, in the first place, whether among the
conceptions given out today in schools there are really any capable
of leading you into the actual life of the animals? Moreover do not
men today notice the timid gaze with which whole herds, whole groups of
animals look out into the world — the timid, intimidated gaze? O, we
shall learn to see it again when through our faculty of abstraction we
have been driven to the Guardian of the Threshold, and are able once more
to have sympathy with the animal — not the sympathy often produced
artificially but a sympathy corresponding to to an elementary inner
experience. It can be said that a peculiar intimidation, as it were,
a timid outlook upon the world, is widespread among all the higher animals,
all the warm-blooded animals. I was walking once with a university man
and at a certain place on our way we saw deer, stags, scampering away
from anything and everything. This man said to me: “Something
must be the reason for this; formerly men must have tormented animals,
shooting them and so on, so that the animal souls have become accustomed
to fear men.” But there are other things besides men that animals
fear.
Thus people look for the
reason why certain animals are afraid. There is no need to look for
the reason, my dear friends. Fear is, of course, a quite general universal
characteristic of animals. When animals are not afraid it is just because
they have been trained and given different habits in some particular
way. Fear is innate in the animal because the animal has in a high degree
the faculty for abstraction, for abstract concepts, and lives in them.
For you must realise that the world you acquire after long study, when
you have learned to live in the abstract — this is the world in
which the animal lives. And the world here in which man lives in his
senses is for the animals, in spite of animals possessing senses, for
them far more unknown than for man — and man himself has fear of
the unknown. This is thoroughly in accordance with deep truth, The animal
gases into the world with timidity; this has definite import. Recently I
have spoken of it in an article on “The Ahrimanic and Luciferic in
the Life of Man” in the recent number of the publication “Das
Reich”: men are afraid in face of spiritual life; how is it that
they become so afraid? It comes about by their having at the present
time to meet the Guardian of the Threshold in the subconscious. There
they come to the decision of which I have spoken; there they approach
the animal. The animal is afraid, the animals are going through the
region of fear. The connection is thus. And the condition of fear will
increase more and more if men do not take serious pains really to learn
about, really to take to themselves, the world they have to meet —
the spiritual world.
There are only quite a few
men in these days into whom something of former atavistic conceptions
of world reality have penetrated through the general illusive conceptions.
When the animal is observed in its whole connection with the development
of nature, when its organisation is looked at in relation to the ordering
of nature, what exactly is the animal? You see when the old Moon evolution
was in existence, in regard to outer organisation there was still no
differentiation between the higher animals and man of today. The
differentiation is a product of earth evolution only. Man has gone through
the normal evolution of the earth, but the animal has not; the animal dried
up, as it were, during the Moon evolution. Its organisation does not fit
in with earth evolution, whoever has seen into this — in modern
times a few people, Hegel among them, have instinctively seen into this
— whoever has done so can answer the question: what exactly is the
animal in the form of its organisation? Nature becomes sick and the
sickness of nature is the animal, especially the higher animal. In the
animal organisation there holds sway the sickness of nature, the sickness
of the whole earth. This development of disease in the earth, this
unhealthy falling back into the old Moon evolution, is the higher animal
nature, not so much the lower animals but those that are higher. But this
also is something that, in the decisive moment of passing the Guardian of
the Threshold, man meets unconsciously unless he wills to do so
consciously.
And if you compare what
I have just been saying with the different ways in which the American
West, the European centre, and the East meet the Guardian of the Threshold
of which I spoke in lectures some time ago, (see R. XLVII) if you compare
these you will see how it is possible to get one's bearings where what is
happening to mankind on earth is concerned, if only one will go right into
these things. Then it will be grasped that in admitting these conceptions
man would really arrive finally at thinking differently about himself
and his relation to his fellows. Today all serious people should at
some time consider the question that can arise in such a sentence as
the one referred to: “It seems to me a certainty that a fearful
destiny beckons to the white races unless a period of the supreme dominion
of wisdom succeeds that of passion and delusive conceptions.” Where
these wise conceptions are to be found, how they are to be obtained
— these questions Spiritual Science is quite ready to answer
(see R. 40) — And Spiritual Science, my deer friends, would like to
give the answer to the most important questions of the day. And when
anyone comes who feels as deeply as this man what is necessary for the
times, he may be told: If you wish no longer to be afraid that a fearful
destiny is beckoning to white men, then begin to observe the world and
its phenomena in the way of Spiritual Science!
Diagram
Notes:
1. Erich Wasmann, born 1859
in Meran, became a Jesuit and late a priest. He investigated the
life of Ants and among other works wrote The Souls of Men and
Animism 1904.
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