Yesterday
I have tried to explain to you that, from the middle of the
nineteenth century onwards, the sensualistic or materialistic
world-conception was gradually approaching a certain culminating
point, and that this culminating point had been reached towards the
end of the nineteenth century. Let us observe how the external facts
of human evolution present themselves under the influence of the
materialistic world-conception. This materialistic
world-conception cannot be considered as if it had merely been the
outcome of the arbitrary action of a certain number of leading
personalities. Although many sides deny this, the materialistic
conception is nevertheless based upon something through which the
scientific convictions and scientific results of investigation of the
nineteenth and early twentieth century have become great. It was
necessary that humanity should attain these scientific results. They
were prepared in the fifteenth century and they reached a certain
culminating point, in the nineteenth century, at least in so far as
they were able to educate mankind. And again, upon the foundation of
this attitude towards science, nothing else could develop, except a
certain materialistic world-conception.
Yesterday
I did not go beyond the point of saying: The chief thing to be borne
in mind has become evident in a positively radical manner, at least
in the external symptoms, in what may be designated as Haeckel's
attitude towards those, for instance, who opposed him in the last
decade of the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century.
What occurred there, and what had such an extraordinarily deep
influence upon the general culture of humanity, may be considered
without taking into consideration the special definition which
Haeckel gave to his world-conception, and even without considering
the special definition which his opponents gave to their
so-called refutations. Let us simply observe the fact that, on the
one hand, we have before us what people thought to win through a
careful study of material processes, rising as far as the human
being. To begin with, this was to be the only contents of a
world-conception; people believed that only this enabled them to
stand upon a firm ground. It was something completely new in
comparison with what was contained, for instance, in the medieval
world-conception.
During
the past three, four, five centuries, something entirely new had
been gained in regard to a knowledge of Nature, and nothing had been
gained in regard to the spiritual world. In regard to the spiritual
world, a philosophy had finally been reached, which saw its chief
task, as I have expressed myself yesterday, in justifying its
existence, at least to a certain extent. Theories of knowledge were
written, with the aim of stating that it was still possible to make
philosophical statements, at least in regard to some distant
point, and that perhaps it could be stated that a super-sensible
world existed, but that it could not be recognised; the
existence of a super-sensible world could, at the most, be assumed.
The
sensualists, whose cleverest representative, as explained to you
yesterday, was Czolbe, the sensualists therefore spoke of something
positive, which could be indicated as something tangible. Thus the
philosophers and those who had become their pupils in popularizing
things, spoke of something which vanished the moment one wished to
grasp it.
A
peculiar phenomenon then appeared in the history of civilisation;
namely, the fact that Haeckel came to the fore, with his conception
of a purely naturalistic structure of the world, and the fact that
the philosophical world had to define its attitude towards, let us
call it, Haeckelism. The whole problem may be considered, as it were,
from an aesthetic standpoint. We can bear in mind the monumental
aspect it is indifferent whether this is right or wrong
of Haeckel's teachings, consisting in a collection of facts which
conveyed, in this comprehensive form, a picture of the world. You
see, the way in which Haeckel stood within his epoch, was
characterised, for instance, by the celebration of Haeckel's sixtieth
birthday at Jena, in the nineties of the last century. I happened to
be present. At that time, it was not necessary to expect anything new
from Haeckel. Essentially, he had already declared what he could
state from his particular standpoint and, in reality, he was
repeating himself.
At
this Haeckel-celebration, a physiologist of the medical faculty
addressed the assembly. It was very interesting to listen to this man
and to consider him a little from a spiritual standpoint. Many people
were present, who thought that Haeckel was a significant personality,
a conspicuous man. That physiologist, however, was a thoroughly
capable university professor, a type of whom we may say: If another
man of the same type would stand there, he would be exactly the same.
It would be difficult to distinguish Mr. A from Mr. B or Mr. C.
Haeckel could be clearly distinguished from the others, but the
university professor could not be distinguished from the others. This
is what I wish you to grasp, as a characteristic pertaining more to
the epoch, than to the single case.
The
person who stood there as Mr. A, who might just as well have been Mr.
B or Mr. C, had to speak during this Haeckel celebration. I might say
that every single word revealed how matters stood. Whereas a few
younger men (nearly all of them were unsalaried lecturers, but in
Jena they nevertheless held the rank of professors; they received no
salary, but they had the right to call themselves professors) spoke
with a certain emphasis, realising that Haeckel was a great
personality, the physiologist in question could not see this. If this
had been the case, it would not be possible to speak of A, B and C in
the same way in which I have now spoken of them. And so he praised
the colleague Haeckel, and particularly emphasized
this. In every third sentence he spoke of the colleague
Haeckel, and meant by this that he was celebrating the sixtieth
birthday of one of his many colleagues, a birthday like that of so
many others. But he also said something else. You see, he belonged to
those who do nothing but collect scientific facts, facts out of which
Haeckel had formed a world-conception; he was one of those who
content themselves with collecting facts, because they do not wish to
know anything about the possibility of forming a conception of the
world. Consequently, this colleague did not speak of Haeckel's
world-conception.
But,
from his standpoint, he praised Haeckel, he praised him exceedingly,
by indicating that, apart from Haeckel's statements concerning the
world and life, one could contemplate what the colleague
Haeckel had investigated in his special sphere: Haeckel had prepared
so and so many thousands of microscopic slides, so and so many
thousands of microscopic slides were available in this or in that
sphere ... and so on, and so on ... and if one summed up the various
empirical facts which Haeckel had collected, if these were put
together and elaborated, one could indeed say that they constituted a
whole academy.
This
colleague, therefore, had implicitly within him quite a number of
similar colleagues for whom he stood up. He was, as it
were, a colleague of the medical faculty.
During
the banquet, Eucken, the philosopher, held a speech. He revealed (one
might also say, he hid) what he had to say, or what he did not wish
to say, by speaking of Haeckel's neck-ties and the complaints of
Haeckel's relatives when they spoke more intimately of papa,
or the man, Haeckel. The philosopher spoke of Haeckel's untidy
neck-ties for quite a long time, and not at all stupidly ... and this
was what philosophy could bring forward at that time! This was
most characteristic ... for even otherwise, philosophy could not say
much more; it was just an abstract and thorny bramble of thoughts. By
this, I do not in any way pass judgment or appraise, for we may allow
the whole thing to work upon us in an aesthetic way ... and from what
comes to the fore symptomatically, we may gather that materialism
gradually came to the surface in more recent times, and that it was
able to give something. Philosophy really had nothing more to
say: this was merely the result of what had arisen in the course of
time. We should not think that philosophy has anything to say in
regard to spiritual science.
Let
us now consider the positive fact which is contained in all that
I have explained to you; let us consider it from the standpoint
of the history of civilisation.
On
the one hand, and this is evident from our considerations of
yesterday, we have within the human being, as an inner development,
intellectualism, a technique of thinking which Scholasticism had
unfolded in its most perfect form before the natural-scientific
epoch. Then we have intellectualism applied to an external
knowledge of Nature. Something has thus arisen, which acquires a
great historical significance in the nineteenth century, particularly
towards its end. Intellectualism and materialism belong
together.
If
we bear in mind this phenomenon and its connection with the
human being, we must say: Such a world-conception grasps above all
the head, the nerve-sensory part of what exists in the human being,
in the threefold human being, namely the nerve-sensory part, with the
life of thoughts, the rhythmical part, with the life of feeling, and
the metabolic part, with the life of the will. Hence, this
nerve-sensory part of the human being above all has developed during
the nineteenth century. Recently, I have described to you from
another standpoint, how certain people, who felt that the head of
man, the nerve-sensory part of man had been developed in a particular
way through the spiritual culture of the nineteenth century, began to
fear and tremble for the future of humanity. I have described this to
you in connection with a conversation which I had several decades ago
with the Austrian poet, Hermann Rollet. Hermann Rollet was thoroughly
materialistic in his world-conception, because those who take science
as their foundation and those in whom the old traditional thoughts
have paled, cannot be anything else. But at the same time he felt
for he had a poetical nature, an artistic nature and had published
the beautiful book, Portraits of Goethe at the
same time he felt that the human being can only grow in regard to his
nerve-sensory organisation, in regard to his life of thoughts. He
wished to set this forth objectively. So he said: In reality, it will
gradually come about that the arms, feet and legs of the human being
shall grow smaller and smaller, and the head shall grow larger and
larger (he tried to picture the approaching danger spatially),
and then ... when the earth shall have continued for a while in this
development, the human being (he described this concretely) shall be
nothing but a ball, a round head rolling along over the surface of
the earth.
We
may feel the anxiety for the future of human civilisation which lies
concealed in this picture. Those who do not approach these things
with spiritual-scientific methods of investigation, merely see
the outer aspect. If we wish to penetrate through the chaos of
conceptions which now lead us to such an evil, we should also
contemplate things from the other aspect. Someone might say: What has
come to the fore as a materialistic world-conception can only be
grasped by a small minority; the great majority lives in traditional
beliefs in regard to the feelings connected with a world-conception.
But this is not the case on the surface, I might say, in
regard to all the thought-forms connected with what the human beings
thinks within his innermost depths in regard to his environment and
the world. In our modern civilisation we find that what is contained
in Haeckel's Riddles of the World, does not merely live
in those who have found a direct pleasure in Haeckel's Riddles
of the World, perhaps least of all in these men. Haeckel's
Riddles of the World are, fundamentally speaking,
merely a symptom of what constitutes to-day the decisive
impulses of feeling throughout the civilised international world.
We
might say: These impulses of feeling appear in the most
characteristic way in the outwardly pious Christians, particularly in
the outwardly pious Roman Catholics. Of course, on Sundays they
adhere to what has been handed down dogmatically; but the manner in
which they conceive the rest of life, the remaining days of the week,
has merely found a comprehensive expression within the materialistic
world-conception of the nineteenth century. This is altogether the
popular world-conception even in the most distant country villages.
For this reason, we cannot say that it can only be found among a
dwindling minority. Indeed, formulated concepts may be found there,
but these are only the symptoms. The essential point, the reality, is
undoubtedly the characteristic of the modern epoch. We may study
these things through the symptoms, but we should realise: When we
speak of Kant, from the second half of the eighteenth century
onwards, we merely speak of a symptom which pertained to that whole
period; and in the same way we merely speak of a symptom, when we
mention the things to which I have alluded yesterday and which I am
considering to-day. For this reason, the things which I am about to
say should be borne in mind very clearly.
You
see, the human being can only be active intellectually and he
can only surrender himself to the material things and phenomena
(within, they are undoubtedly the counter-part of
intellectualism) during the daytime, while he is awake, from the
moment of waking up to the moment of falling asleep. Even then, he
cannot do it completely, for we know that the human being does not
only possess a life of thoughts, the human being also possesses a
life of feeling. The life of feeling is inwardly equivalent to the
life of dreams; the life of dreams takes its course in pictures; the
life of feelings, in feelings. But the inner substantial side is that
part in man which experiences the dream-pictures; it is that part
which experiences feelings within the human life of feeling. Thus we
may say: During his waking life, from the moment of waking up to the
moment of falling asleep, the human being dreams awake within his
feelings. What we experience in the form of feelings, is permeated by
exactly the same degree of consciousness as the
dream-representations, and what we experience within our will,
is fast asleep; it sleeps even when we are otherwise awake. In
reality, we are only awake in our life of thoughts. You fall asleep
at night, and you awake in the morning. If a certain
spiritual-scientific knowledge does not throw light upon that
which takes place from the moment of falling asleep to the moment of
waking up, it escapes your consciousness, you do not know anything
about it within your consciousness... At the most, dream-pictures may
push through. But you will just as little recognise their
significance for a world-conception, as you recognise the importance
of feelings for a world-conception. Human life is constantly
interrupted, as it were, by the life of sleep. In the same way in
which the life of sleep inserts itself, from the standpoint of time,
within man's entire soul-life, so the world of feelings, and
particularly the world of the impulses of the will, inserts itself
into human life. We dream through the fact that we feel; we sleep
through the fact that we will. Just as little as you know what occurs
to you during sleep, just as little do you know what takes place with
you when you lift your arm through your will. The real inner forces
which there hold sway, are just as much hidden in the darkness of
consciousness, as the condition of sleep is hidden in the darkness of
consciousness.
We
may therefore say: The modern civilisation, which began in the
fifteenth century and reached its climax in the nineteenth century,
merely lays claim on one third of the threefold human being: the
thinking part of man, the head of man. And we must ask: What
occurs within the dreaming, feeling part of the human being, within
the sleeping, willing part of the human being, and what occurs from
the time of falling asleep to the time of waking up?
Indeed,
as human beings, we may be soundly materialistic within our life
of thoughts. This is possible, for the nineteenth century has proved
it. The nineteenth century has also proved the justification of
materialism; for it has led to a positive knowledge of the material
world, which is an image of the spiritual world. We may be
materialists with our head ... but in that case we do not control our
dreaming life of feeling, nor our sleeping life of the will. These
become spiritually inclined, particularly the life of the will.
It
is interesting to observe, from a spiritual-scientific
standpoint, what takes place in that case. Imagine a Moleshott, or a
Czolbe, who only acknowledge sensualism, or materialism with their
heads; but below, they have their will, the volitive part of man,
with its entirely spiritual inclinations (but the head does not know
this); it reckons with the spiritual and with spiritual worlds. They
also have within them the feeling part of man; it reckons with
ghostly apparitions. If we observe things carefully, we have
before us the following spectacle: There sits a materialistic
writer, who inveighs terribly against everything of a spiritual
nature existing within his sentient and volitive parts; he grows
furious, because there is also a part within him, which is
spiritualistic and altogether his opponent.
This
is how things take their course. Idealism and spiritualism exist ...
particularly in the subconsciousness of man's will, and the
materialists, the sensualists, are the strongest spiritualists.
What
lives in a corporeal form within the sentient part of man? Rhythm:
the circulation of the blood, the breathing rhythm, and so forth.
What lives within the volitive part of man? The metabolic processes.
Let us study, to begin with, these metabolic processes. While the
head is skillfully engaged in elaborating material things and
material phenomena into a materialistic science, the metabolic part
of man, which takes hold of the complete human structure, works out
the very opposite world-picture; it elaborates a thoroughly
spiritualistic world-picture, which the materialists, in particular,
bear within them unconsciously. But within the metabolic part of man,
this influences the instincts and the passions. There it produces the
very opposite of what it would produce if it were to claim the whole
human being. When it permeates the instincts, ahrimanic powers get
hold of it, and then it is not active in a divine-spiritual sense,
but it is active in an ahrimanic-spiritual sense. It then leads the
instincts to the highest degree of egoism. It develops the instincts
in such a way that the human being then merely makes claims and
demands; he is not led to social instincts, to social feelings, and
so forth. Particularly the individual side becomes an egoistic
element of the instincts. This has been formed, if I may use this
expression, below the surface of the materialistic civilisation; this
has appeared in the world-historical events, and this is now
evident. What has developed below the surface, as a germ, what has
arisen in the depths of man's volitive part, where spirituality has
seized the instincts, this now appears in the world-historical
events. If the development were to continue in this consistent way,
we would reach, at the end of the twentieth century, the war of all
against all; particularly in that sphere of the evolution of the
earth in which the so-called civilisation has unfolded. We may
already see what has thus developed, we may see it raying out from
the East and asserting itself over a great part of the earth. This is
an inner connection. We should be able to see it. In an outward
symptomatic form, it reflects itself in what I have already
explained, in what others have also remarked. I have said that
philosophical systems, such as those of Avenarius or Mach, are
certainly rooted, in so far as the conceptions permeate the head, in
the best and most liberal bourgeois conceptions of the nineteenth
century... They are sound, clean people, whom we cannot in any way
reproach, if we bear in mind the moral conceptions of the nineteenth
century; nevertheless, in the books of Russian writers, who knew how
to describe their epoch, you may read that the philosophy of
Avenarius and of Mach has become the philosophy of the Bolshevik
government. This is not only because conspicuous Bolshevik agitators
have, for instance, heard Avenarius at Zurich, or Mach's pupil,
Adler, but impulses of an entirely inner character are at work there.
What Avenarius once brought forward, and the things which he said
can, of course appear to the head as altogether clean, bourgeois
views, as a praiseworthy, bourgeois mentality, but in reality it has
formed the foundation of what has kindled instincts in a spiritual
manner within the depths of humanity and has then brought forth the
corresponding fruits; for it has really produced these fruits. You
see, I must continually call attention to the difference between
real logic, a logic of reality, and the merely abstract logic of the
intellect. Not even with the best will, or rather, with the worst
will, can anyone extract out of the philosophy of Avenarius or
of Mach the ethics of the Bolsheviks, if we may call them
ethics; this cannot be deduced through logic, for it follows an
entirely different direction. But a living logic is something quite
different from an abstract logic. What may be deduced logically, need
not really take place; the very opposite can take place. For this
reason, there is such a great difference between the things to which
we gradually learn to swear in the materialistic epoch, between
the abstract thinking logic, which merely takes hold of the head, and
the sense of reality, which is alone able at the present time to lead
us to welfare and security.
At
the present time, people are satisfied if an un-contradicted logic
can be adduced for a world-conception. But, in reality, this is
of no importance whatever. It is not only essential to bear in
mind whether or not a conception may be logically proved, for, in
reality, both a radical materialism and a radical spiritualism,
with everything which lies in between, may be proved through logic.
The essential point to-day is to realise that something need not be
merely logical, but that it must correspond with the reality, as well
as being logical. It must correspond with reality. And this
corresponding with reality can only be reached by living together
with reality. This life in common with reality can be reached through
spiritual science.
What
is the essential point in regard to the things which I have explained
to you to-day? Many things are connected with spiritual science, but
in regard to what I have said to-day it is essential to bear in mind
that knowledge should once more be raised from depths which do not
merely come from the head, but from the whole human being. We might
say: If a human being, who in the more recent course of time has
undergone a training in knowledge, if such a human being observes the
world, he will do it in such a way that he remains inside his own
skin and observes what is round about him outside his skin. I would
like to draw this as follows: Here is the human being.
Outside, is everything which forms the object of man's thoughts. (A
drawing is made.) Now the human being endeavours to gain within
him a knowledge of the things which are outside; he reckons, as it
were, with a reciprocal relation between his own being and the things
which are outside his skin. Characteristic of this way of reckoning
with such a reciprocal relationship are, for instance, the logical
investigations of John Stuart Mill, or philosophical structures
resembling those of Herbert Spencer, and so forth.
If
we rise to a higher knowledge, the chief thing to be borne in mind is
no longer the human being who lives inside his own skin ... for
everything which lives inside his skin is reflected in the head, it
is merely a head-knowledge ... but the chief thing to
be borne in mind is the human being as a whole. The whole human being
is, however, connected with the whole earth. What we generally call
super-sensible knowledge is, fundamentally speaking, not a relation
between that which lies enclosed within the skin of man and that
which lies outside the human skin, but it is a relation between that
which lies within the earth and that which is outside the earth. The
human being identifies himself with the earth. For this reason, he
strips off everything which is connected with one particular place of
the earth: nationality, and so forth. The human being adopts the
standpoint of the earth-being, and he speaks of the universe from the
standpoint of the earth-being. Try to feel how this standpoint is,
for instance, contained in the series of lectures which I have
delivered at the Hague, [What is the Significance of an Occult
Development of Man for His Involucres and for His Own Self?]
where I have spoken of the connection between the single members of
man's being and his environment, but where I really intended to
speak of man's coalescence with his environment where the
human being is not only considered from the standpoint of a certain
moment, for instance, on the 13th of May, but where he is considered
from the standpoint of the whole year in which he lives, and of its
seasons, from the standpoint of the various localities in which he
dwells, and so forth. This enables man to become a being of the
earth; this enables him to acquire certain cognitions which represent
his efforts to grasp what is above the earth and under the earth, for
this alone can throw light upon the conditions of the earth.
Spiritual
science, therefore, does not rise out of the narrow-minded people who
have founded the intellectual and materialistic science of the
nineteenth century, with the particular form of materialism which has
unchained unsocial instincts; but spiritual science rises out of the
whole human being, and it even brings to the fore things in which the
human being takes a secondary interest. Although even spiritual
science apparently develops intellectual concepts, it is
nevertheless able to convey real things which contain a social
element in the place of the anti-social element.
You
see, in many ways we should consider the world from a different
standpoint than the ordinary one of the nineteenth century and of the
early twentieth century. At that time it was considered as
praiseworthy that social requirements and social problems were so
amply discussed. But those who have an insight into the world, merely
see in this a symptom showing the presence of a great amount of
unsocial feelings in the human beings. Just as those who speak a
great deal of love, are generally unloving, whereas those who have a
great amount of love do not speak much of love, so the people who
continually speak of social problems, as was the case in the last
third of the nineteenth century, are, in reality, completely
undermined by unsocial instincts and passions.
The
social system which came to the fore in Eastern Europe is nothing but
the proof of every form of unsocial and anti-social life.
Perhaps I may insert the remark that anthroposophical spiritual
science is always being reproved that it speaks so little of
God. Particularly those who always speak of God reprove the
anthroposophical spiritual science for speaking so little of God. But
I have often said: It seems to me that those who are always speaking
of God do not consider that one of the ten commandments says:
Thou shalt not take the name of God in vain ... and that the
observance of this commandment is, in a Christian meaning, far more
important than continually speaking of God. Perhaps, at first,
it may not be possible to see what is really contained in the things
which are given in the form of spiritual-scientific ideas, from out a
spiritual observation. One might say: Well, spiritual science is also
a science which merely speaks of other worlds, instead of the
materialistic worlds. But this is not so. What is taken up through
spiritual science, even if we ourselves are not endowed with
spiritual vision, is something which educates the human being.
Above all, it does not educate the head of man, but it educates the
whole of man, it has a real influence upon the whole of man. It
corrects particularly the harm done by the spiritual opponent who
lives within the sensualists and materialists, the opponent who has
always lived within them.
You
see, these are the occult connections in life. Those who see, with a
bleeding heart, the opponent who lived within the materialists of the
nineteenth-century, that is to say, within the great majority of men,
are aware of the necessity that the spiritualist within the human
being should now rise out of subconsciousness into consciousness. He
will then not stir up the instincts in his ahrimanic shape, but he
will really be able to found upon the earth a human structure
which may be accepted from a social standpoint.
In
other words: If we allow things to take their course, in the manner
in which they have taken their course under the influence of the
world-conception which has arisen in the nineteenth century and in
the form in which we can understand it, if we allow things to take
this course, we shall face the war of all against all, at the end of
the twentieth century. No matter what beautiful speeches may be held,
no matter how much science may progress, we would inevitably have to
face this war of all against all. We would see the gradual
development of a type of humanity devoid of every kind of social
instinct, but which would talk all the more of social questions.
The
evolution of humanity needs a conscious spiritual impulse in order to
live. For we should always make a distinction between the value which
a particular wisdom, or anything else in life, may possess in itself,
and its value for the evolution of humanity. The intellectualism
which forms part of materialism has furthered human development in
such a way that the life of thoughts has reached its highest point.
To begin with, we have the technique of thinking contained in
Scholasticism, which constituted the first freeing deed; and
then, in more recent times, we have the second freeing deed in
natural science. But what was meanwhile raging in the
subconsciousness, was the element which made the human being the
slave of his instincts. He must again be set free. He can only be
freed through a science, a knowledge, a spiritual world-conception,
which becomes just as widely popular as the materialistic
science: he can only be set at liberty through a spiritual
world-conception, which constitutes the opposite pole of what
has developed under the influence of a science dependent solely upon
the head. This is the standpoint from which the whole matter should
be considered again and again; for, as already stated, no matter how
much people may talk of the fact that a new age must arise out of an
ethical element, out of a vivification of religiousness, and so
forth, nothing can, in reality, be attained through this, for in so
doing we merely serve the hypocritical demands of the epoch. We
should indeed realise that something must penetrate into the human
souls, something which spiritualises the human being, even as far as
his moral impulses, his religious impulses are concerned, which
spiritualises him in spite of the fact that, apparently, it speaks in
a theoretical manner of how the Earth has developed out of the Moon,
the Sun and Saturn. Just as in the external world it is impossible to
build up anything merely through wishes, no matter how excellent
these wishes may be, so it is also impossible to build up anything in
the social world merely through pious sermons, merely by admonishing
people to be good, or merely by explaining to them what they should
be like. Even what exists to-day as a world-destructive element, has
not arisen through man's arbitrary will, but it has arisen as a
result of the world-conception which has gradually developed since
the beginning of the fifteenth century. What constitutes the opposite
pole, what is able to heal the wounds which have been inflicted, must
again be a world-conception. We should not shrink in a
cowardly way from representing a world-conception which has the power
of permeating the moral and religious life. For this alone is able
to heal.
Those
who have an insight into the whole connection of things, begin to
feel something which has really always existed where people have
known something concerning real wisdom. I have already spoken to you
of the ancient Mystery-sites. You may find these things
described from the aspect of spiritual science in the
anthroposophical literature. There, you will find that an ancient
instinctive wisdom had once been developed, and that afterwards it
transformed itself into the intellectualistic, materialistic
knowledge of modern times. Even if, with the aid of the more exoteric
branches of knowledge of ancient times, we go back, for instance,
into medicine, as far as Hippocrates, leaving aside the more ancient,
Egyptian conceptions of medicine, we shall find that the doctor was
always, at the same time, a philosopher. It is almost impossible to
think that a doctor should not have been a philosopher as well, and a
philosopher a doctor, or that a priest should not have been all three
things in one. It was impossible to conceive that it could be
otherwise. Why? Let us bear in mind a truth which I have often
explained to you:
The
human being knows that there is the moment of death, this one moment
when he lays aside the physical body, when his spiritual part is
connected with the spiritual world in a particularly strong way.
Nevertheless this is but a moment. I might say: an infinite
number of differences is integrated in the moment of death, and
throughout our life this moment is contained within us in the form of
differentials. For, in reality, we die continually! Already when we
are born, we begin to die; there is a minute process of death in us
at every moment. We would be unable to think, we would be unable to
think out a great part of our soul-life and, above all, of our
spiritual life, if we did not continually have death within us. We
have death within us continually, and when we are no longer able to
withstand, we die in one moment. But otherwise, we die
continually during the whole time between birth and death.
You
see, an older and more instinctive form of wisdom could feel
that human life is, after all, a process of death. Heraclitus, a
straggler along the path of ancient wisdom, has declared that
human life is a process of death, that human feeling is an incessant
process of illness. We have a disposition to death and illness. What
is the purpose of the things which we learn? They should be a kind of
medicine; learning should be a healing process. To have a
world-conception should constitute a healing process.
This
was undoubtedly the feeling of the doctors of ancient times, since
they healed upon a materialistic basis only when this was
absolutely necessary, when the illness was acute; they looked
upon human life itself as a chronic illness. One who was both a
philosopher and a doctor, also felt that as a healer he was connected
with all that constitutes humanity upon the earth; he felt that he
was also the healer of what is generally considered as normal,
although this, too, is ill and contains a disposition to death.
You
see, we should again acquire such feelings for a conception of the
world; a world-conception should not only be a formal filling of the
head and of the mind with knowledge, but it should constitute a real
process within life: the purpose of a world-conception should be that
of healing mankind.
In
regard to the historical development of our civilisation, we are
not only living within a slow process of illness, but at the present
time we are living within an acute illness of our civilisation.
What arises in the form of a world-conception should be a true
remedy; it should be a truly medical science, a cure. We should be
permeated by the conviction that such a world-conception should
be really significant for what rises out of our modern civilisation
and culture; we should be filled with the conviction that this
world-conception really has a true meaning, that it is not merely
something formal, something through which we gain knowledge,
through which we acquire the concepts of the things which exist
outside, or through which we learn to know the laws of Nature and to
apply them technically. No, in every true world-conception there
should be this inner character intimately connected with man's being,
namely, that out of this true world-conception we may obtain the
remedies against illness, even against the process of death; the
remedies which should always be there. So long as we do not speak in
this manner and so long as this is not grasped, we shall only speak
in a superficial way of the evils of our time, and we shall not speak
of what is really needed.
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