VIII
I
said yesterday that although it is a somewhat hazardous venture to
speak of individual karmic connections, I intended to do so, and that
I would take as examples the personalities of whom I gave you certain
biographical details. Later on we shall also be able to study the
karma of less representative personalities, but I have chosen, in the
first place, examples which show clearly how in the karmic course of
repeated phases of existence, the evolution of mankind as a whole
goes forward. In modern civilisation we speak of history as if it
were one continuous stream of happenings: events of the 20th century
are related to events of the 19th century, these again to events of
the 18th century, and so on. That it is men themselves who carry over
things from one epoch of history to another, that the men now living
have themselves carried over from earlier epochs what is to be found
in the world and in life at the present time — this knowledge
alone brings reality to light and reveals the true, inner connections
in the historical life of mankind.
If
we speak merely of “cause” and “effect,” no
real connection comes to light. The connecting threads running
through the evolution of humanity are woven as human souls pass over
from epochs in the remote past to more recent times, entering again
and again into new incarnations on the earth.
These
connecting threads can be perceived in all their significance when we
study really representative personalities.
In
the lecture yesterday I spoke, firstly, of the aestheticist Friedrich
Theodor Vischer, the “Swabian Vischer” as he is called,
telling you something of his character. I said that I shall choose
only examples that I have actually investigated. These investigations
are a matter of vision, and are pursued by means of the spiritual
faculties of which I have spoken so often and about which you can
read in anthroposophical literature. Accordingly the only possible
way of describing these things is that of narrative, for in this
domain it is only what presents itself to direct vision that can be
communicated. The moment we turn from one earthly life to an earlier
life in the past, all intellectual reasoning comes to a standstill.
Vision alone is the criterion here. A last vestige of intellectual
understanding is possible when it is a matter of relating earthly
life to the last phase of existence between death and rebirth from
which it has directly proceeded — that is, to the life of
soul-and-spirit just before the descent to earth. Here, up to a
point, an intellectual approach is possible. When, however, it is a
matter of showing the relation between one earthly life and a
preceding incarnation, this can be done only in the form of
narrative, for vision is the sole criterion. And if in contemplating
a personality like Friedrich Theodor Vischer one is able to apprehend
what is eternal in him — what passes over from one earthly life
to another — then such a personality as he was in an earlier
incarnation will emerge into one's field of vision, provided always
that the right currents can be found in the whole series of earthly
lives. Investigation leads back, first of all, of course, to the
pre-earthly experiences. But in speaking now I shall give second
place to these pre-earthly experiences and indicate how, behind the
earthly lives of the three personalities in question, their previous
incarnations can be perceived.
In
undertaking such investigations it is absolutely essential to get rid
of all preconceived notions. If, because of some opinion or view we
may hold concerning the present or the last earthly life of a human
being, we imagine that it is justifiable to argue intellectually that
because of what he is now, he must have been this or that in an
earlier incarnation — if we make judgments of this kind, we
shall go astray, or at any rate it will be very easy to go astray. To
base an intellectual judgment of one incarnation upon another in this
way would be just as if we were to go into a house for the first
time, look out of the windows facing north, and seeing trees outside
were to conclude from these trees what the trees look like from the
windows facing south. What must be done is to go to the south
windows, see the trees there and look at them with entirely unbiased
eyes.
In
the same way, all intellectual reasoning must cease when it is a
matter of apprehending the Imaginations which correspond to the
earlier earthly lives of the personalities in question.
In
the case of Friedrich Theodor Vischer, one is led back to the last
incarnation of importance — in the intervening time there may
have been one or another unimportant or possibly brief earthly life,
but for the moment that is of no consequence — one is led back
to the incarnation in which the karma of his present life was
prepared — I mean “present” in the wider sense, for
as you know, Vischer died at the end of the eighties of the 19th
century. The incarnation in which the karma of his latest earthly
life was prepared lies somewhere about the 8th century A.D.
We see him among the Moorish-Arabian peoples who crossed over at this
time from Africa to Sicily and there came into conflict with the
peoples who were making their way down to Sicily from the north.
The
essential point is that in this previous incarnation of importance,
the individuality of whom I am speaking had received a thoroughly
Arabian education, Arabian in every detail, containing all the
artistic, perhaps also the inartistic elements in Arabism; it was
characterised, too, by the vital energy with which in those days
Arabism forced its way to Europe; and, above all, it brought this
individuality into close human relationship with a large number of
other men belonging to the same race.
This
individuality, who afterwards lived in the 19th century as Friedrich
Theodor Vischer, tried in the 8th century to establish close
comradeship with many men belonging to the same Arabian stock and the
same Arabian culture, who had already made strong contacts with
Europe, were endeavouring to establish themselves in Sicily, and had
to face heavy fighting; or rather it was really more the Europeans
who had to face the fighting. The individuality we are considering
took a full share in these conflicts. One may say that he was a
person of genius — in the sense in which genius was conceived
in those times. This individuality then, is to be found in the 8th
century A.D.
Then
he passes through the gate of death into the life between death and
rebirth, during which there is naturally intimate fellowship with the
souls with whom one has been together on earth. Here, in the
spiritual world, were the souls with whom this individuality had
tried, as I have just told you, to establish close relationship.
Now
between these human beings — in language that has been coined
for earthly relationships it is difficult to find expressions for
describing super-sensible conditions — between the human souls
with whom this individuality was now together, after he and they had
passed through the gate of death, there existed through all the
following centuries, right into the 19th century, a spirit-bond, a
spiritual tie.
You
will have understood from the lecture I gave here a week ago that
what takes place on earth is lived through in advance by the Beings
of the highest Hierarchies, by the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones,
and that a human being who is passing through the life between death
and a new birth looks down to a heaven of soul and spirit as
we look up to the heavens. There, in that heaven of soul and
spirit, the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones live through what
subsequently becomes our destiny, what is brought to realisation as
our destiny when we descend again to the earth.
Now,
in the conditions obtaining in the spiritual world, it was foreseen
by the souls belonging to the community into which the individuality
we are studying had been drawn, that through the coming centuries it
would be their destiny to preserve a line of progress that would be
quite uninfluenced by Christianity. What I am now saying will seem
very strange, for the idea often prevails that the ordering of the
world is as simple as we humans like to have it in everything we
arrange ourselves. But the ordering of the world is by no means so
simple. While on the one hand the mightiest of all impulses poured
from the Mystery of Golgotha into the whole of Earth evolution, on
the other hand it was necessary that what had been contained in
earthly evolution before the Mystery of Golgotha should not be
allowed at once to perish; it was necessary that what was, I will not
say “anti-Christian” but “non-Christian,”
should be allowed to stream on through the centuries.
And
the task of sustaining this stream of culture for Europe — as
it were of enabling a phase of culture not yet Christian to continue
on into the Christian centuries — fell to a number of
individuals who were born into Arabism in the 7th and 8th centuries
A.D. Arabism was not, of
course, directly Christian, but neither had it remained as backward
as the old heathen religions. In a certain direction it had made
steady progress through the centuries. A number of souls born into
this stream were to carry forward in the spiritual world, untouched
by the conditions prevailing on earth, that which the spirit of man,
separated from Christianity, can know, feel and experience. They were
to encounter Christianity only later, in later epochs of earthly
evolution. And it is in truth an experience of shattering grandeur,
full of deep significance, to see how a large community lived on in
the spiritual world removed from the development of Christianity,
until in the 19th century the majority of these souls came down to
incarnation on earth. As you may suppose, they were very different
individualities, with every variety of talent and disposition.
Friedrich
Theodor Vischer was one of the first souls from this community to
descend in the 19th century. [Vischer was born in 1807 and died in
1887] And he was as remote as can be from any possibility of direct
experience of Christianity.
On
the other hand, while still in his pre-earthly existence, he was able
to receive impulses from those leading spirits who had been more or
less near to Christianity but whose views of the world and conceptual
life had developed in a direction not primarily and
intrinsically Christian.
For
a soul such as the one we now have in mind, the incarnation in the
7th/8th century was an especially good preparation — (it is of
course paradoxical to speak of these things as one speaks of earthly
affairs, but as I said, I intend to make the venture) — for
coming together in the spiritual world with souls like that of
Spinoza and others of a similar type, and with a large number of
bearers of non-Christian culture, particularly, too, of Cabbalistic
culture, who died during those centuries and came up into the
spiritual world.
Thus
prepared, this particular soul came into earthly existence in the
19th century, rather earlier than the others. All the others, for the
reason that they descended somewhat later, became bearers of the
natural-scientific outlook prevailing in the second half of the 19th
century. For in point of fact the secret of the peculiar evolution of
natural-scientific thinking in the second half of the 19th century is
that well-nigh all the bearers of this stream at that time had been
Arabians in their previous incarnations of importance; they were
companions of the individuality who then came down as Friedrich
Theodor Vischer. But Vischer came down earlier than they — it
was like a premature birth in the sense of soul-and-spirit.
This,
moreover, was grounded deeply in his karma, owing to his association,
before his descent to earthly life, with the souls with whom Hegel
was connected. With these souls, too, Friedrich Theodor Vischer had
been associated in the spiritual world. This expressed itself in a
strong personal bent for what Hegelianism became on earth, and
protected him from growing into a purely materialistic-mechanistic
conception of the world. If he had been born somewhat later, as were
his companions in the spiritual life, he too, as an aestheticist,
would in the natural course of things have headed straight for
materialism. He was protected from this by his experiences in
pre-earthly life and by his earlier descent to earth. But he could
not adhere permanently to this Hegelian influence. And that is why he
came to write the destructive critique of his own aesthetics —
because here was something that was not quite in the line of his
karma but was the result of a deflection of his karma. It would have
been entirely in line with his karma to have been born at the same
time as men who were steeped in the natural-scientific thinking of
the second half of the 19th century, men who had been his associates
in the earlier incarnation, belonging, as he did, to Arabism. His
karma would have led him naturally to the same orientation of
thinking.
The
strange fact is that through a deflection of karma — which will
be adjusted in later earthly lives — Friedrich Theodor Vischer
was torn away from the straightforward line of his karma. This
deflection was determined by his pre-earthly existence, not by his
earthly karma. But when he reached a certain age he could no longer
sustain it; he was impelled to enter right into his karma. And so he
rejects his five-volume work on aesthetics and succumbs to the
temptation of approaching the subject in the way of which the natural
scientists would approve. In his first work on aesthetics he looks
down from above, starting from principles and then passing to
sense-phenomena. This he now criticises root and branch. He wants now
to build from below upwards, starting from material facts and
gradually rising to principles. And we witness a tremendous struggle:
Vischer working at the destruction of his own aesthetics! We see how
karma had been deflected and how he is hurled back into it, led to
those whose companion he had been in a previous earthly life.
It
is shattering in its significance to see how Vischer never really
makes progress with this second work on aesthetics, how a kind of
chaos seems to creep into the whole of his spiritual life. I told you
yesterday about his curiously philistine attitude even towards
Goethe's Faust. It is all due to the fact that he feels unsure
of himself and is striving to get back to his old companions. But we
must remember how strongly the unconscious works in karma. At a
higher stage, of course, it becomes conscious. We must also remember
how deeply certain philistine scientists hated Goethe's Faust!
I told you yesterday what du Bois-Reymond said on the subject: that
it would have been much more sensible of Goethe to let Faust make
some real discovery rather than call up spirits, evoke the
Earth-Spirit, associate with Mephistopheles or seduce young girls and
not marry them afterwards. du Bois-Reymond regards all this as
tomfoolery. According to him, Goethe should have presented a hero who
invents an electrical machine or an air pump! Then there would have
been social propriety about it all and the hero would have become
Mayor of Magdeburg. Above all, there ought to have been no
Gretchen-tragedy, and instead of the Prison Scene a correct and
proper civic wedding! Well ... it is a point of view that is not
without justification; but it was certainly not what Goethe had in
mind!
Friedrich
Theodor Vischer, as I said, was not completely sure of himself after
his karma had been deflected in this way. But something was always
pulling him back, and unconsciously, although he was a really free
spirit, he was always delighted when he heard the philistines running
down Goethe's Faust. He was witty, of course, and clever, and
it was like snowballing going on between them. It is precisely when
one observes things about a human being that are more a matter of
vision, that one lights upon the Imaginations which lead behind the
scenes of material existence.
Truly
it is a grand spectacle! There, on the one side, stand the
philistines of the first order, like du Bois-Reymond and the others,
saying that Goethe ought to have represented Faust as Mayor of
Magdeburg, inventing the electrical machine and the air-pump, and
marrying Gretchen — verily these are philistines of the first
order! Something is at work in the subconscious, because a karmic
connection is in operation here. All these men had been Moors,
associated with Vischer in Arabism. He was attracted by it all, he
felt related to it ... and yet in another respect he was not. In the
intervening time he had come into contact with other streams which
had brought about a deflection of his karma. And now when the
philistines of the first order threw their snowballs, he threw back
his, saying that someone ought to write a thesis on a subject like
the relation of Frau Christine von Goethe's chilblains to the
symbolic-allegorical figures in the second part of Faust!
That, you will agree, is philistinism with a touch of real wit in it,
it is philistinism of the second order!
To
assess these things at their true value is a matter of vision, not of
merely intellectual apprehension.
In
what I have told you of Vischer, my aim, to begin with, was to give
you some indication — I shall return to these things again —
of how the one earthly life can be understood from foregoing earthly
lives.
There
was something extraordinarily significant about the figure of Vischer
going about in Stuttgart. I mentioned to you yesterday the wonderful
blue eyes, the reddish-brown beard, the arms held out in the way I
described. The Imagination of him, however, did not tally with the
physical stature of the Swabian Vischer as he went about Stuttgart,
for even to occult sight he did not look like a reincarnated Arabian.
Again and again I left the matter alone, because one becomes —
I cannot say “sceptical” in regard to one's visions, but
one does become distrustful, one wants to have definite confirmation.
Again and again I let the matter drop, until the riddle was solved in
the following way.
In
the 7th/8th century — that was also a male incarnation —
this individuality regarded the men from the North, especially those
he encountered in Sicily, as his ideal. In those days, as you may
imagine, it was very easy to be carried away by people one greatly
admired. And so he “caught” as it were, his bodily
characteristics in the later incarnation from those against whom he
had once waged war. Here is the solution of the riddle in regard to
his physical stature.
In
the last lecture we considered a second personality, namely, Franz
Schubert, in connection with his friend Spaun, and with his own
volcanic nature which on rare occasions, such as the one I related to
you, could flare up in rage, making him into a thorough brawler; on
the other hand he was extraordinarily tender and sensitive; he was
like a sleep-walker, writing down his lovely melodies directly after
waking in the morning. It was extremely difficult to get a picture of
this personality, but the connection with Spaun gave the clue. For in
the case of Schubert himself, when one looks back in the occult field
and tries to find something definite, one has the feeling that he
gives one the slip — if I may use this colloquialism. It is not
easy to go back to his former incarnation; he eludes one all the
time.
There
is in truth something of a contrast here with the destiny of
Schubert's works after his death. At the time of Schubert's death his
compositions were very little known; only a few people had heard of
him. After the lapse of some years, however, he became more and more
renowned, until in the seventies and eighties of last century, fresh
works of his were published every year. It was very interesting:
suddenly, long after his death, Schubert turned out to be a most
prolific composer. New works of his were constantly appearing.
When,
however, we look back spiritually from Schubert's life in the 19th
century into his earlier earthly life, the tracks disappear; it is
not easy to find him.
On
the other hand it is comparatively easy to find the tracks in the
case of Baron von Spaun. And this line also led back to the 8th or
9th century A.D., to
Spain. He was a Prince of Castile who had a name for being
extraordinarily wise. He busied himself with astrology and with
astronomy in the form current in those days, amending and drawing up
astronomical tables. At a certain time in his life this Prince was
forced to flee from his home, and he found refuge among those who
were actually the bitterest enemies of the Castilian population at
that time, namely the Moors.
He
was obliged to stay here for a considerable time, and he formed a
relationship of great tenderness and intimacy with a Moorish
personality in whom the individuality of the later Franz Schubert was
then incarnated. And this Prince of Castile would certainly have met
with his end had it not been for the tender-spirited personality
among the Moors who cared for him with every kindness. His earthly
life was thus safeguarded for many years, to the great joy of them
both.
What
I am now relating to you is utterly remote from intellectual
deduction in any shape or form. I have indicated the roundabout way
which the research had to take. But along this roundabout way one is
led to the fact that in Franz Schubert we have a reincarnated Moorish
personality, one who had little opportunity of cultivating musical
talent in his life among the Moors, but who, on the other hand,
steeped himself with impassioned longing in whatever was to be found
in the way of art and, I will not say of subtle “thinking”
but rather of subtle “reasoning,” which in the train of
Arabic culture had come from Asia, passed across Africa and finally
reached Spain.
During
that incarnation this personality developed the gentle, unassuming
and yet vital flexibility of soul which quickened to life the poetic,
dreamlike phantasy in the later incarnation as Franz Schubert. On the
other hand this personality was obliged to take part in the fierce
conflicts now again taking place between the Moors and the
non-Moorish inhabitants of Castile, Aragon, and so forth. And this
accounted for the suppressed emotion which like a pent-up stream
burst forth — but only in unusual circumstances — during
the Schubert-existence.
It
seems to me that just as the earlier life of Friedrich Theodor
Vischer can be understood only when one can view it against the
background of Arabism, so the essence of Schubert's music, especially
the undertone of many of his songs, can be discerned only when one
perceives (I have not constructed anything, it arises from the facts
themselves) that there is something spiritual in this music,
something Asiatic which was shone upon for a time by the desert sun,
took on greater definition in Europe, was carried through the
spiritual world between death and rebirth and as something
essentially human, removed from all the artificialities of society,
came to birth again in a penniless schoolteacher.
The
third personality of whom I spoke yesterday was Eugen Dühring.
[Born 1833, died 1901.] I shall give brief indications only, for we
can always return to these subjects again. Eugen Dühring was of
particular interest to me because as a young man I was deeply engrossed
in the study of his writings. I was fascinated by his works on
physics and mathematics, especially by the treatise Neue
Grundmittel und Erfindungen Zur Analysis, Algebra, Funktionsrechnung,
and by his treatment of the law of corresponding boiling points. I
was irritated to distraction by a book such as Sache, Leben und
Feinde which is a sort of autobiography. There is something
terribly self-complacent about it, self-complacent to the point of
genius; not to mention traits which came out in utterly malicious
pamphlets such as Die Ueberschätzung Lessings und dessen
Anwaltschaft für die Juden. On the other hand I could admire
Dühring's History of Mechanics as long as the lion
was not in evidence, but only the lion's claws. There was, however,
one unpleasant impression: for a history of mechanics, too much is
said about all the gossip associated with Frau Helmholtz; abuse is
hurled at Hermann Helmholtz, but the emphasis is upon the gossip that
went on in the circle around Frau Helmholtz. Well ... such things do
happen; gossip goes on in all kinds of circles! ... As I have said, I
experienced every shade of feeling in regard to Dühring and his
writings: respect, deep appreciation, criticism, irritation. And you
will understand the desire to see how these traits had developed
against the background of at any rate the immediately preceding
earthly life.
But
here again it was not easy, and at first — I have no wish to
keep back these things — at first, the pictures were deceptive.
Deceptive pictures arise very easily, because everything often
depends upon starting from what is actually the most significant
feature in some particular life of a human being in order to be led
back along the right path. And in the case of Dühring it was a
long time before I succeeded in finding any really significant
feature.
The
procedure I adopted was as follows. — I pictured to myself
everything about him that appealed to me most, namely his
materialistic-mechanistic conception of the world —
materialistic, but yet, in a certain respect, spiritual,
intellectually spiritual. I turned over in my mind how it all has to
do with a finite world of space, a finite world of time; I
constructed Dühring's whole conception of the world
again for myself. That is not difficult. But when one has done it and
looks back to earlier incarnations, numbers and numbers come into
view and again there is delusion. One finds nothing essential;
countless incarnations appear, but there cannot, of course, possibly
have been so many: they are nothing but reflections of the present
incarnation. It is just as if you were to have mirrors in a room, one
here and another there: you would see numberless reflections. Then I
went on to ponder with all intensity: What is Dühring's
world-conception in reality, expressed in terms of clear thought?
For the time being I left aside all the spiteful criticism, the abuse
and other such non-essentials. I left all that aside and concentrated
upon what is really grand and impressive in a world-conception which,
as such, has always been antipathetic to me, but which, on account of
the way in which Dühring presented it, attracted me. I pictured
all this vividly to myself and then tried to get a clear grasp of the
reality. From a certain age onwards he was totally blind. A blind man
does not see the world, and his mental image of it is quite different
from that of a man with sight. In point of fact, ordinary
materialists, ordinary mechanistic thinkers, are on a different level
altogether from Dühring. In comparison with them, Dühring
has genius. All these men who have evolved conceptions of the world,
Vogt, Büchner, Moleschott, Spiller, Wiessner and the rest —
“twelve to the dozen” as the saying goes — with
them it is a very different matter. The way in which Dühring
builds up his world-conception is utterly different. We can perceive,
too, that the urge to give a certain shape to this view of the world
was in him even before he became blind, and it really tallied with
the fundamental trend of his mind only when he had lost his sight and
space was dark around him. For the principles according to which
Dühring builds up his world-conception belong essentially to
dark space. It is a fallacy to imagine that this was the work of a
man with sight.
But
just think of it. In Dühring this is intrinsic truth.
Other men — twelve dozen of them if you like — have
evolved such conceptions of the world, but with Dühring there is
a difference: with Dühring it is true. The others have sight and
construct pictures of the world as if they were blind; Dühring
is blind and evolves his world-conception as one who is blind.
And that is an astonishing thing! If one realises what it means, if
one observes this man and knows: here is someone who in his
soul-evolution was like a blind man, whose outlook becomes
mechanistic because of his blindness — then one finds him
again. Two incarnations come into consideration here. We find him
associated with the movement in the Eastern Church, about the 8th or
9th century A.D., which at
one period was iconoclastic, bent upon the destruction of all images,
and then, later on, reinstated them. In Constantinople, particularly,
this conflict developed between religion employing pictures and
images, and religion in which none were permitted. And there we find
the individuality who was born in a later age as Eugen Dühring
battling ardently, good fighter as he was, for a cultural life devoid
of pictures and images. Here, manifesting in purely physical
conflict, one can see all that later comes to expression in words.
One
point was extraordinarily interesting to me. A strange word occurs in
the second volume of the work on Julius Robert Mayer. One actually
sees the whole thing! In the earlier incarnation, when Dühring
was engaged in destroying images, he had a special way of brandishing
his scimitar, the hooked scimitar which already then was being tried
out and developed. In the book on Mayer — these things, you
know, often turn on pictorial details — I found a word that
seemed to ring in unison with the scimitar. There is a chapter in
this book entitled Schlichologisches (“trick-ology”).
“Trickology” in German University life and so forth —
getting in from the side by a cunning manoeuvre.
Dühring
coins the word “Schlichologisches,” as well as the
amusing expression “Intellectuaille,” connected
with canaille. He invents all kinds of words. As I said,
details that seem quite unimportant may be very revealing. And
paradoxical as it may appear, one does not really arrive at the
connecting links between different earthly lives unless one has an
eye and a feeling for symptoms of this kind. Anyone who cannot
discern a man's character from the way he walks, how he steps on the
soles of his feet, will not easily make progress in such matters as
those dealt with in the present lectures. One must be able to see the
very swing of the scimitar transferred into words that were coined by
this individuality in his subsequent life.
Dühring
was always heaping abuse on the savants — “men of
unlearning,” as he calls them. He said he would be thankful if
there were no more names to remind him of ancient erudition. He wants
no logic, he wants anti-logic; no Sophia, but anti-Sophia; no
science, but anti-science. He says explicitly that he would like best
of all to make everything “anti.” Now in the incarnation
before the one when he was a rabid iconoclast, this man who so
fiercely abused everything in the way of erudition had belonged to
the School of the Greek Stoics, was himself a Stoic philosopher. In
days of antiquity Dühring was himself one of the kind of men he
now abused so vehemently; in the third incarnation back he was a
professed philosopher, a Stoic philosopher at that, therefore one who
in a certain sense withdrew from earthly life.
What
dawned upon me first of all was that very many of Dühring's
thoughts, or rather the forms in which his thoughts are expressed,
are to be found in the Stoics! The matter is not, of course, as
simple as all that. Indeed a whole course of lectures might be given
on the forms of thought in Dühring and in the Stoics.
Thus
we are led back, first, to the age of iconoclasm in the east of
Europe about the 9th century A.D.,
when Dühring was a rabid iconoclast; then to the 3rd century
B.C., the period of Stoic
philosophy in ancient Greece.
And
now again it is astounding: this Stoic, who makes no demands upon
life, who holds back from everything that is not absolutely essential
to life, renounces earthly sight in the second of the subsequent
incarnations. And in this he brings truth to expression, for he
illustrates in a magnificent way the blindness of the modern
conception of the world.
Whatever
may be one's attitude to Dühring's conception of the
world, the moving tragedy of it is that Dühring personifies what
the world-conception prevailing in the 19th century truly is; he
expresses it through his very make-up as a man. The Stoic, who would
not face the world as it is, becomes blind; the iconoclast, the
destroyer of images, who will not tolerate imagery, makes the history
of literature and poetry into what it became in Dühring's
two volumes on Great Men of Letters, where not only are Goethe
and Schiller put aside but where at most a man like Bürger plays
any definite rôle. Here we have the truth of what is presented
elsewhere in a false light. For men assert that the mechanistic
thought, the materialism of the second half of the 19th century,
sees. There lies the untruth, for materialism does not see;
materialism is blind. And Dühring presents it as it truly is.
And
so a representative personality, viewed in the right light, is an
illustration of world-historic karma, the karma of civilisation as
represented by its conception of the world in the second half of the
19th century.
In
the next lecture we will speak further of these matters.
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