Lecture II
THE HOUSE OF SPEECH.
(Dedication of the Studios where the glass
windows were made.)
Dornach, 17th June, 1914.
Even more than
on the last occasion when I spoke to you about our building
am I reminded to-day of the attitude we must have to this
edifice, dedicated as it is to the cause of Spiritual
Science. The sacrifices of those who have befriended the
cause of Anthroposophy call for a sense of great
responsibility. To-day is a splendid occasion for reminding
ourselves of this responsibility, for the first of our
auxiliary buildings is to be given over to its own tasks. We
can be reminded of this responsibility by studies that arise
naturally out of the tasks before us and the goal we are
striving to attain.
The immediate
use to which these rooms will be put is the production of the
glass windows for our building, and we cannot help being
moved by the thought that our human faculties are not really
mature enough as yet to accomplish the full task before us. I
think it is healthy and good that all our work should be
permeated by the feeling that we have not as yet grown equal
to our task, for only this can enable us to accomplish the
highest that lies within our power. We shall be able to
create the first beginnings of an artistic vesture for
Spiritual Science — to the extent to which our epoch
and our means allow — if we are always pervaded by the
feeling that we are, in truth, little qualified for the full
task. The site on which our building stands is pervaded by an
atmosphere which seems to say: “Do the very utmost of
which your powers and faculties are capable, for you cannot
do nearly enough in comparison with what ought to be
achieved; and even when you have done your very utmost, it
will not by any means suffice.”
When we look at
the site of our building we should be pervaded by an
indefinable feeling — a presentiment that a mighty task
is hovering before us. And more particularly should this be
the case to-day when we are handing over this auxiliary
building to our friend Rychter and his workers, in order that
they may create something that in the fairest sense may be a
living member in the whole organism of our building.
Entering the
room through this door, our feeling will be that we are
indeed blessed, as individuals, in having the opportunity to
co-operate in work like this. And when we think of the
functions of the windows in the building, an atmosphere of
the soul and spirit will hover around us, whispering of the
deep spirituality which we pray may flow like purifying waves
of healing through this room.
When the
building is once ready we shall again and again be conscious
of a feeling which I may perhaps express as follows:
‘How infinitely necessary it is to grow beyond
everything personal, if the forms of this framework for our
Spiritual Science are to have real meaning for us.’
This again is, in a certain sense, the satisfying element in
our building. Our architects, engineers, and all the other
workers may well derive strength from the comforting feeling
that apart from all the cares and troubles which the building
involves, it can itself be for us a wonderful education
— an education leading us above everything personal.
The building demands a great deal more than the expression of
any personal element. As we set about our work, and permeate
the single forms with thought and feeling, we become
conscious of new tasks of which we previously had no inkling.
We feel that a mystery is there around us, calling out to the
highest forces of soul, heart and mind to create something
that transcends personality. This building can teach us how
to fulfil the tasks which arise every day. It brings home to
us a feeling that can ring in such sacred tones in the soul:
How infinitely greater are the potentialities of the Universe
than insignificant human beings! The highest we can create
must be infinitely greater if it is to prove equal to the
tasks before us in the objective world.' All that can ever be
enclosed within the limits of the personal self must be
transcended. The building itself, and the auxiliary house we
have been able to open to-day can be a means of education for
us. Indeed, the more they become a means of education, the
greater understanding we shall have. Already now, as we look
at the incomplete building and at this house, we cannot help
thinking of what our feeling should be as we enter. How often
we shall feel, ‘Ah, if only all human beings could be
led here!’ Do we really deserve so sacred a framework
— a framework we ourselves have helped to create
— if we have any desire to exclude other human beings?
Shall it not rather be our dearest wish to bring all men into
the building? This will certainly be our desire if we realise
the mission that such buildings will have to humanity, if
they find imitators and followers?
Think for a
moment of many buildings erected in our times by clever
architects. Some of them, although they show no signs of a
new style and are not permeated with any new spirituality,
are really creations of architectural genius. Yet they all
have one thing in common. We may admire them from outside and
think them beautiful inside, but they do not make us feel, as
our building will do, that we are enclosed as if by organs of
sense. The reason for this is that these other buildings are
dumb — they do not speak. This is the thought
that I would like to press home to you this evening.
Let us think of
buildings which express all the characteristics of our times.
People pass in and out without in any way growing into their
architecture, forms or art. Everywhere we feel that what
ought to be expressed through the forms of art has to-day to
be communicated to humanity by other means. In the present
age man is more and more compelled to bring about order,
stability, peace and harmony by means of external laws,
decrees or institutions, definitions in words. This implies
no syllable or thought of criticism, for it must be so in our
age. But something must be added to this — something
that signifies the onward evolution of humanity in a
different sense. It is probable that our building will not be
able fully to attain its goal — indeed we are only
aiming at a primitive beginning. Yet if human culture is able
to take what is expressed in our building (in so far as we
fulfil the tasks set us by the higher Spirits) and develop
it; if the ideas underlying such works of art find followers
— then people who allow themselves to be impressed by
these works of art and who have learnt to understand their
language, will never do wrong to their fellow men either in
heart or intellect, because the forms of art will teach them
how to love; they will learn to live in harmony and peace
with their fellow beings. Peace and harmony will pour into
all hearts through these forms; such buildings will be
‘Lawgivers’ and their forms will be able to
achieve what external institutions can never achieve.
However much
study may be given to the elimination of crime and
wrong-doing from the world, true redemption, the turning of
evil into good, will in future depend upon whether true art
is able to pour a spiritual fluid into the hearts and souls
of men. When men's hearts and souls are surrounded by the
achievements of true architecture, sculpture and the like,
they will cease to lie if it happens they are untruthfully
inclined; they will cease to disturb the peace of their
fellow men if this is their tendency. Edifices and buildings
will begin to speak, and in a language of which
people to-day have no sort of inkling.
Human beings
are wont to gather together in Congresses to-day for the
purpose of putting their affairs in order, for they imagine
that what passes from mouth to ear can create peace and
harmony. But peace and harmony, and man's rightful position
can only be established when the Gods speak to us. When will
the Gods speak to us?
Now when does a
human being speak to us? — When he possesses a larynx.
He would never be able to speak to us if he had no larynx.
The spirits of nature have given us the larynx and we make
this gift an organic part of the whole cosmos when we find
the true forms of art, for they become instruments through
which the Gods speak to us. We must, however, first learn how
to make ourselves part of the great cosmos, and then our
desire to lead all mankind through these doors will be the
stronger. Out of this desire — for its fulfilment is
not yet — the longing will develop to work so intensely
for our spiritual movement that this aim may gradually be
attained. Art is the creation of an organ through which
the Gods are able to speak to mankind .... I have
already spoken of many things in this connection. I have
spoken of the Greek Temple and have shown how all its forms
express the fact it is a dwelling place of the God. To-day I
want to add something to this. If we try to understand the
basic nature of the Greek art of building we shall realise
that the very being and essence of the fourth Post-Atlantean
epoch flowed into the Greeks' mode of perception and thence
into their art of building.
What is the
basis of Greek perception and feeling? It is, of course, a
wide subject, but I will only speak of one aspect.
Here (see
diagram) we have the wall surrounding the Greek Temple, with
the horizontal structure resting upon it. When anything rises
above the horizontal it is so constructed that it is upheld
by its own forces which balance each other; just as when, in
building, we place two beams together.
The
presupposition here is that the earth with its gravity lies
beneath. And translating this feeling into words, we may say:
‘In the fourth Post-Atlantean epoch man felt that the
site of the earth was a gift of the God; it was as though
Divine power overflowed into the creations of art.’
Therefore, by means of the forces in the earth given to man
by the Gods, it was felt that gravity could be overcome. In
the Greek Temple man controls the force of gravity and
thereby creates a dwelling place for the God who has given
him the earth.
Neither this
“dwelling-place of the God” nor the later Roman
Temples can be thought of apart from the surrounding land.
The land is part of the Temple itself. A Greek Temple is
complete in itself even if nobody is within it, for its whole
conception is that of the dwelling-place of the God; it is
the sanctuary of the God. Human beings may live for miles
around in the district; if nobody enters the Temple, it
stands there, none the less, complete in itself — a
dwelling-place of the God. In every detail we see how man
expresses in the decorative forms of these dwelling- places
of the Gods all that his feeling of veneration makes him feel
he ought to do for the Gods. In the last lecture I tried to
show you that the motif on the capitals has its origin in a
dance motif — a dance that was performed as homage to
the Gods of nature. And now let us pass on to the forms of
the earliest Christian architecture. One thought in
particular arises within us when we pass from the Greek
Temple to the Church of Christendom. The Greek Temple stands
within its surrounding territory, belongs to the territory.
Human beings are not necessarily within the Temple; they live
around it, outside it. The Temple belongs to the surrounding
territory, is thought of as the altar of the land around it.
The Temple hallows everything, even the trivial daily
occupations of the human beings who live on the land. Service
rendered to the earth becomes a divine office because the God
stands or is enthroned as Lord and participates in the work
on the land and in the pursuits of human beings living around
the Temple. Man feels himself united with the God as he works
on the land. Worship of the God is not yet separated from
service to the earth. The Temple grows out of the human
element, sometimes indeed out of the
‘all-too-human,’ and hallows everything around
it. ‘Earth, be thou strong!’ — This is the
prevailing mood of the fourth Post-Atlatean epoch, when human
beings are still at one with the earth which the Gods have
given into their charge, when the Ego is still slumbering in
a kind of dream consciousness, when man still feels himself
connected with the Group-Soul of the whole of humanity. Then
man grows out of this Group-Soul, becomes more and more
individual, and he separates from the land, from daily life
and activity, the worship he performs in his spiritual
life.
In the early
days of Christianity the feelings of men were no longer the
same as in the Greek age. Looking into the soul of the Greek,
we see him sowing his fields and working at his industrial
pursuits, pervaded by this unshakable feeling: There stands
the Temple with the in-dwelling God and I am near. I may be
carrying out my pursuits and working on the land but all the
while the God is dwelling there within the Temple. Then man
grows more individual, a strong sense of Ego, of
“I” arises within him, and Christendom represents
the emergence of something that had been prepared through the
course of long ages by the ancient Hebrew civilisation. Out
of the human soul arises the need to separate off from the
affairs of everyday life the worship that is offered to the
God. The building is separated from the land and the Church
of Christendom comes into being. The land becomes
independent; the building becomes an entity independent of
the territory; it is an ‘individuality’ complete
in itself. The Greek Temple was still a kind of altar for the
whole territory, whereas the walls of the Christian Church
now form a space set apart for those who are to worship. The
forms of the Churches of Christendom and also of Roman
architecture gradually come to express this individual,
spiritual need of man, and they can only be understood in
this sense. The place of the Greek within earthly existence
was such that he said to himself: ‘I can remain here
with my flocks, carrying out my occupations, doing my work on
the land, for the Temple stands there like an altar for the
whole countryside: the God is dwelling within it.’ In
Christendom, man says: ‘I must leave my work and repair
to this building, for there I must seek for the
Spirit.’ The service of earth and the service of heaven
are separated and the Christian Church more and more assumes
a form where Greek and Roman architecture would no longer be
suitable. It is a form which reveals that the community
belongs to the church; the church is intended to enclose the
community. Then, once again set apart from the community, we
find the house of the priests, of those who teach. An image
of the universe comes into being; the Spirit speaks to those
who seek for the spirit, in precincts where they are enclosed
within walls. The whole world was felt by the Greeks and
Romans in former times in the same way in which the
Christians afterwards felt the precincts of the Church with
its enclosing walls.
And what the
Greek Temple itself had been now became the chancel. Men
sought now for a distinct image of the world whereas formerly
they had taken the world itself and only placed within it,
visible to outer senses, the Temple as the dwelling-place of
God. Gothic architecture is really only a branch of what was
already being prepared. The essential feature of Gothic
architecture is that the weight is taken away from the walls
and placed upon the pillars. What is the origin of this whole
mode of construction, where the weight rests on pillars,
which are so moulded that they are able to bear it? It is
based on a quite different conception from that of the Greek
Temple. When we pass to the pillars of Gothic architecture
which take away the weight from the walls, we are no longer
concerned with the pure force of gravity. Here, man himself
is working. In the Greek Temple it is as though he frees
himself from the earth's gravity and having gained knowledge
of it within the earthly realm, now rises above it. In that
man makes use of the force of gravity, he overcomes it. In
the weight-bearing Gothic pillars we are no longer concerned
with the pure working of the force of gravity; in the Gothic
building the art of handicraft is necessary, of higher and
lower handicraft. The need for the creation of precincts
which enclose the community also gives rise, in Gothic
architecture, to the need for something wherein the activity
of the community plays a part. In the single forms we see a
continuation, as it were, of what the people have learnt. The
art of the hand-workers flows into the forms, and in studying
these forms we see the art of human beings who have
contributed their share, who have worked together. The old
Roman Churches are still edifices which enclose the God. The
Gothic Church is an edifice built by the community to enclose
the God but one where the people have contributed their own
handicraft. They do not only enter the Churches but they
themselves work at the building as a community. In Gothic
architecture this labour of human beings unites itself with
the Divine. The souls of men no longer receive the Divine as
a matter of course; they do not only come together and listen
to the word of the Spirit proceeding from the chancel, but
they gather around the God in their labours. Gothic Churches
are really crystallised handicraft.
We can quickly
pass over what came next, for it really amounted to a revival
of classic architecture. In this connection it is not
necessary to speak of the Renaissance; we will speak of what
the fifth Post-Atlantean epoch demands of us.
Let us consider
the element of weight and support, following it to the point
where it becomes crystallised handicraft in Gothic
architecture.
If we penetrate
this with artistic feeling we realise that here is something
at rest within itself, at rest within the earthly forces. All
the forces of these edifices rest within the earthly element.
The Greek Temple everywhere indicates the force of gravity
and its own union with the earth. In the Greek Temple we can
everywhere observe some manifestation of the force of
gravity. Its very forms reveal a union with the earth.
And now let us
compare the basic form in our building that will confront
everyone even from the outside. I will make a rough diagram
of it. What is the characteristic of this motif?
If you compare it with the Greek Temple you will discover the
difference. The Greek motif is complete in itself. This other
motif, when it is a wall — for instance the separate
perpendicular wall — only has meaning when it is not
merely wall, but when it grows out of the whole. The wall is
not merely wall, it is living, just like a living organism
that allows elevations and depressions to grow out of itself.
The wall lives — that is the difference.
Think of a Greek Temple. Although there are many columns, the whole
is none the less governed by gravity. In our building, however,
nothing is mere wall. The forms grow out of the wall. That is
the essential thing. And when we pass around inside our
building we shall find one plastic form, a continuous relief
sculpture on the capitals, plinths, architraves. They grow
out of the wall, and the wall is their basis, their soil,
without which they could not exist. There will be a great
deal of relief carving in wood in the interior of the
building, and forms which, although they are not to be found
elsewhere in the physical world, represent an onward flowing
evolution. Beginning between the Saturn columns at the back,
there will be a kind of symphonic progression to the
culmination in the East. But the forms are no more present in
the outer physical world than melodies are present there.
These forms are walls that have become living. Physical walls
do not live, but etheric walls, spiritual walls are indeed
living.
I should have
to speak for a long time if I wanted to show that this is how
the art of relief first assumes its real meaning, but I will
only give you an indication of what I really have in mind. A
certain eminent artist of modern times has spoken a great
deal about the art of relief and has said some clever things.
He tells us to think of two panes of glass standing parallel
to each other and between them an intersected figure. We
should then be looking in the direction of the arrow
through the panes of glass at the figure ...
(Dr. Steiner here read a passage from a book) ... The author is
trying to form a conception of what relief really is. But the
conception is built up simply from what the eye perceives, as
he plainly shows when he says that the relief is produced
when one thinks of the background as a pane of glass and that
which lies in front of the pane as shut off by another pane
of glass. He therefore bases his conception of relief on the
eye and in order to make it clear he uses the two panes of
glass on which the whole figure is projected. As against this
conception we have our own which passes over from what is
made visible by glass and projection to that which
lives. We want to make relief a living thing. Relief
has no meaning when one simply designs figures on a wall. It
only has meaning when it calls forth the intuition that the
wall itself is living and can bring forth the figures.
Now there is in
the world a relief which is full of meaning, only we pay no
proper attention to it. There is a certain relief that has
been created in accordance with the true idea — it is
the earth with her plant kingdom. We must, however, pass away
from the surface of the earth into cosmic space before we can
study this relief. The earth is the living surface which
brings forth its creatures from its own being. Our own art of
relief must be based upon the conception that the wall is a
living thing even as the earth brings forth her plants. This
is how a true art of relief is attained. To go beyond this
principle is to sin against the essence of the art of relief.
When we look down upon the great relief of the earth, we see
human beings and animals moving upon it, but they do not
belong to the relief. They can be introduced into the relief,
of course, because the arts can be developed in all
directions, but this is no longer the pure essence of the art
of relief.
Our building
must speak through the forms in its interior, but the speech
must be that of the Gods. Think for a moment of the life of
human beings on the earth, that is to say, immediately on the
surface of the earth. Here we need not draw directly on our
teachings — we need only turn to the Paradise Legend.
If man had remained in Paradise he would have looked upon the
wonderful relief of the earth with her plant kingdom from
outside. He himself, however, was transplanted, as it were,
into this relief. He could not observe it from outside for he
was taken out of Paradise. The speech of the Gods cannot
ascend from the earth to men for the speech of the earth
drowns the speech of the Gods.
If we pay heed to the organs
of the Gods which they themselves created when, as the
Elohim, they gave the earth to man, if we pay heed to the
etheric forms of the plants and mould in accordance with
them, we are creating in the same way as nature created the
larynx in man in order that he might speak — we are
indeed creating a larynx through which the Gods may speak to
us. If we hearken to the music of the forms on our walls
which are the larynx for the speech of the Gods, we are
seeking the way back to Paradise. I will speak of painting in
another lecture. To-day I want to speak of the relief work
and sculpture which will be produced in this house we have
opened to-day. I have tried to explain how relief may become
an organ for the speech of the Gods and on some future
occasion we will speak of how colours become soul-organs for
the speech of the Gods. Our age has little understanding for
the kind of conceptions that must inspire us if we are really
to fulfil our task. The Greek Temple was the dwelling place
of the God, the Church of Christendom the framework around
the community who would fain be united with the Spirit. What
is our building to be? This is already revealed in its
ground-plan and rounded form. The building is bipartite but
the architectural forms of the two sections have equal
importance. There is no difference as in the case of the
chancel and the space for the congregation in a Christian
Church.
The difference in the dimensions of the two sections
of our building merely signifies that in the large cupola the
physical preponderates and that in the small cupola we have
tried to make the spiritual predominate.
This very form expresses aspiration to the Spirit. Every single
detail must express this aspiration to the Spirit, inasmuch as
we are striving to create an organ for the speech of the Gods.
I have said that those who really understand our building fully
will put away lying and unrighteousness; the building may
indeed become a ‘Lawgiver,’ and the truth of this
can be studied in the different forms and in the architraves.
Everything in the building will have an inner value. Every
part of the larynx has inner value; no words could be uttered
if the larynx did not contain a a particular form at the
right place. If, for instance, we were to make an indention
here (see diagram) and think of a kind of roofing over it,
the whole form expresses the fact that this building must be
filled with the feeling of hearts striving together in
love.
Nothing in this
architecture is there for its own sake alone. The one form
leads over into the other; or, if the forms have a threefold
character, the central form is the bridge between the other
two. Here we have a rough sketch of the forms of the doors
and windows.
Now all that
lives in the sculptured forms is three dimensional; relief is
a conquest of the second dimension, surface, which is then
brought into the third dimension. This is not realised if we
merely take the standpoint of an observer or spectator: for
we need a living feeling of how the earth allows the plants
to grow out of her being.
When I come to
speak of the real nature of painting we shall understand the
significance of the connection between colour and the inner
element of soul in the universe. There would be no sense in
painting with colours if colour were not something quite
different from what physics imagines it to be. The principles
of colour as the speech of the soul of nature, of
the soul of the universe, will be the subject of a
later lecture.
I will now
indicate how our glass windows are to represent the union of
the outer with the inner. They will each in themselves be of
one single colour, but different colours will be used at the
various positions in the building. This expresses the
spiritual, musical harmony of the outer with the inner world.
And the single coloured window will only express this harmony
in the thicker and thinner strata of the glass. That is to
say, we shall have surfaces where the glass is thicker, more
solid, and surfaces where the glass is thinner. The light
will shine more strongly through the thinner places in the
windows; it will shine less strongly, and produce darker
colours, through the places where the glass is thicker. The
connection between spirit and matter will be expressed in the
glass windows; but the whole interior will strive to be an
organ for the speech of the Gods. The larynx makes it
possible for man to speak, and in the same way the whole of
our relief-moulding is an organ for the Gods who should speak
to us from all sides of the universe. So that when we make an
aperture for the windows in the walls which allow the Gods to
speak to us, we are seeking the path to the Spirits of the
cosmos. These windows are intended to signify in their
coloured shadings: ‘Thus, O man, thou findest the path
to the Spirit.’ We shall see how the soul is connected
with the spiritual world when it sleeps during the night and
is living outside the body. We shall see the way in which the
soul is connected with the spiritual world between death and
a new birth in the disembodied state. The windows will show
us how, when man approaches the threshold, he becomes aware
of the abyss; the stations on the path to the spiritual world
will be revealed. They will arise as light formations from
the West, revealing to us the mysteries of Initiation. We are
trying to create walls, the forms of which make the wall
themselves seem to pass away. The designs must express how we
pierce the walls, showing us how we find the path to the
spiritual worlds, or traverse these worlds unconsciously,
showing us what our relation to the spiritual worlds must
be.
The Greek
Temple, the dwelling place of the God, and the later edifice,
which was built for the community desiring to be united with
their God, were building-sheaths which enclosed and shut off.
Our building must not shut off anything in the universe; its
walls must live, but live in accordance with truth itself.
Truth flows into the beauty of our relief-moulding. If we had
not been driven out of Paradise we should be conscious of the
' speaking ' relief proceeding from the earth herself in the
plant forms, which grow even above the geological formations
of the mountains and only allow these strata to be bare in
places where it is right that they should be bare. The moment
however when we find in our perceptual life the transition
from the 'repose' where the Gods speak to us, from that
‘repose’ to our own activity, to what we must
do in order to find the way to the Gods — in
that moment we must have movement, inner movement; we must
pierce the wall. We must have these windows which call to our
souls to tread the path to those regions whence the words
expressed by the forms of the walls have proceeded. Then each
one of us will sit within the building and we shall say to
ourselves: “The organs of the great Spirits themselves
are round about us; it is for us to understand the language
spoken though these forms.” But we must understand it
in the heart and not merely be able to grasp it
intellectually.
Those who begin
to, explain' the meaning of these forms are on the wrong
track. They stand on the same ground as those who interpret
the old myths symbolically and allegorically, and imagine for
instance, that they are advancing the cause of Theosophy. A
man who tries to ‘interpret’ the myths and
explain external forms may be clever and ingenious but he is
like one who tries to look under his chin to explain the
symbolism of his larynx. We understand the speech of the Gods
by learning how to listen with our hearts, not by using
intellectual agility and giving symbolic or allegorical
meanings to myths and artistic forms. ‘Here you sit and
the Spirits of the Universe are speaking to you’
— this must become a living feeling within us. When
this becomes a living perception of what the soul must do if
it is to find the way to those regions whence the speech of
the Spirits proceeds, we shall direct our gaze to where the
walls are pierced by the windows; and at those places there
will be revealed to us the mysteries enacted in man as he
consciously or unconsciously treads the path from the
physical to the spiritual.
I have tried to
express the feelings of our hearts and souls to-day when this
house is being given over to the charge of our friend Rychter
and his colleagues for their work. May they feel, as they
receive it, the sacred nature of their task and something of
the holiness of which I have spoken. Up on the hill itself we
are still working at the building which will reveal, to those
who seek, organs through which the Gods may speak to them.
But there must arise in these seekers a holy longing to find
the ways and paths to the realms of the Gods. The work of
Rychter and his colleagues in the rooms of this house will be
taken up the hill and placed in the positions where the walls
are pierced. It will move the souls of those gathered
together in the building at the top of the hill and show them
the path to the Spirit.
May this holy
mood pervade this house; may each drilling in the glass be
carried out with the feeling: ‘Here I have to mould
something that will lead to the realms of the Spirits those
who see it up there in the building. My creations must make
the soul's perception so living that the shadings in the
coloured glass will represent the channels by which the
spiritual worlds are speaking through the forms in the
interior.’ The difficulties may be very great, indeed
there may be only partial success in many cases and in other
cases total failure, but the attitude I have described will
be an unfailing help.
I did not
intend to-night merely to speak of matters which may help to
make art more intelligible. I have spoken as I have because I
pray that something of what I feel may flow from my heart to
yours. I want your hearts to be livingly permeated with a
feeling inwardly vibrant with the sense of the holiness of
this work. We dedicate this house of labour most fitly if as
we leave the doors we concentrate with all the forces of our
hearts on love for the world of man and of spirit, to the end
that the way to the Spirit may be found through what is
accomplished here — to the Spirit whence peace and
harmony can flow among men on the earth. If all our labours
are made living by the Spirit, if all the work on this hill
is filled with the Spirit of Love — which is at the
same time the Spirit of true art — then from our
building there will flow out over the earth the spirit of
Peace, of Harmony, of Love. The possibility will be created
for the work on this hill to find successors; many such
centres of earthly and spiritual peace, harmony and love may
thus spring up in the world. Let us realise the living nature
of our work in this mood of peace and loving harmony, knowing
that our labours flow from the Spirit of Life itself. There
have been dwelling-places of the Gods, sanctuaries of the
community, and there yet will be an organ of speech for the
Spirit, a building which points out the way to the Spirit.
The God dwelt in the Greek Temple; the spirit of the
community may dwell within the Roman or Gothic edifice; but
the world of the Spirit itself must speak through the
building of the future. We have seen the house of
earthly forces and forms arise and pass away in the course of
human evolution; we have seen the house of the union of human
souls arise and pass away in the spiritual evolution of the
earth. It is for us to build the house of speech out of our
love for true art, which is at the same time love for true
spirituality and for all mankind.
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