LECTURE 4
[ Study Guide: Souls of the Nations — Fourth Lecture ]
10th June, 1910.
If we wish to arrive at the relation of the human races to one another,
and at the foundations from which the several peoples spring, we must
take into consideration that man, such as we know him, is in reality
a very complicated being and that only by the co-operative activity
of many, many of the Beings in the universe could his present form
and being come about. We know from the study of Akashic Records and
other observations on the evolution of man, that formerly our earth
itself, before it attained its present condition, had to go through
three other conditions, in the course of which the three so-called
parts of man, the physical body, the etheric or life-body and the
astral body, were gradually established and brought to their present
state. Only during the present incarnation of the earth has man
become capable of taking into himself an ‘ I ’.
These four parts of his being show us all that has happened during
the three or four incarnations of our earth, through its incarnation
as Saturn, Sun, Moon, and through our Earth period itself in so far
as that has run its course hitherto. If you will bring before your
mind all the Beings who have thus worked together, the Spirits of
Will or Thrones, the Spirits of Wisdom, of Motion, of Form, of
Personality, the Archangels, down to the Angels, — and above
the Spirits of Will or Thrones, the Cherubim and Seraphim, —
you will admit that only from a very complicated work could that come
about which makes man's present organization possible. We have
seen that it was not only necessary for so large a number of Beings
and forces of Nature to work together in the cosmos, but that it was
also necessary, if man were to come into being, that at certain
epochs, certain Beings should renounce the normal course of their
evolution and remain behind, in order to affect the organization of
man in a way that would have been impossible in the normal course of
his evolution.
Therefore if we want to understand man, such as he
appears before our eyes to-day, we must look at a wonderful tissue,
woven out of many and various forms. It must be quite clear to us,
that only when we, in a sense, draw this tissue apart and observe the
activity of the several Beings, do we learn to understand how through
the co-operation of these Beings man has come into being. We are then
able to say, that the chief Being who comes into consideration for
the present-day man, is the one who has given him the possibility of
saying ‘ I ’ to himself, of gradually coming to
the consciousness of the ‘ I ’, and we know
that this possibility was first given by the Spirits of Form, those
Beings whom we call Powers, Exusiai. If we listen to the activity of
these particular Beings which they direct to man and ask ourselves
what would happen to him if these Beings alone — and of these
only those who are in normal evolution, — were chiefly to be
active in him, we should find that these are the donors of the
‘ I ’-organization. If we consider them
according to their own nature, we find that their chief interest lies
in bringing to man his ‘ I ’. But now what
these Beings have really to accomplish in man, only actually comes
about in the life of present-day man at a certain age; it can only
appear at a certain age.
If you remember what has been said about the education
of the child from the standpoint of spiritual science, you will admit
that man, in the period between his physical birth and the changing
of the teeth, that is up to his seventh year, principally develops
his physical body. These Spirits of Form have no particular interest
in the development of this physical body, for this is, on the whole,
a repetition of what happened to man on the old Saturn, and which has
already often been repeated, and which after the last physical birth
and up to the seventh year, has for the present been repeated up to
last time in a particular way. Then comes the time from the seventh
to the fourteenth year, i.e., up to puberty. That too is a stage in
which the Spirits of Form take no particular interest; for that is a
repetition of the old Sun-period, and the Spirits of Form wished to
set to work with their chief activity, that of bestowing the ‘ I ’,
only during the condition of the Earth-life. We then come to the
third age, which runs its course between the fifteenth and
twenty-first or twenty-second year. During this time the astral body,
which normally belongs to the Moon-evolution, evolves in man as a
repetition. There too, those Spirits of Form who are evolving
normally still have no interest in man. So that we must say: the
three ages of man which precede the actual birth of his ‘ I ’,
which only comes in about his twentieth year, have no direct interest
for the Spirits of Form. They only intervene, out of their own
nature, one might say, somewhere about the twentieth year of life: so
that, if you come to think of it, you will no longer find it very
strange, that so far as the actual intentions of the Spirits of Form
are concerned, man need only come into existence in the condition in
which he is to be found somewhere about his twentieth year. All that
is developed in man before that time, is in reality to those Spirits
of Form a kind of embryonic state, a sort of germinal condition, and
if I may be allowed to speak somewhat metaphorically I might say,
that these Spirits of Form who have developed themselves normally
would far prefer everything to go on with a certain regularity, and
that no one should till then have dabbled in their handiwork. If no
one interfered with these Spirits of Form until the twentieth year,
then, in the first seven years of his life man would have had the
consciousness belonging to the physical body; that as a matter of
fact is a very dim state of consciousness such as is possessed by the
mineral world. In the second stage, in the time between his seventh
and his fourteenth year, he would have a sleep consciousness. From
his fourteenth to his twentieth year, he would be very active
inwardly, but he would live in a sort of dream-consciousness. Only
after this consciousness as a Moon-being, at about his
one-and-twentieth year, would man really wake up. Then only would he
arrive at the ‘ I ’-consciousness. If he
followed a normal development he would only then come out of himself
and survey the outer world in that representation of it which is the
one familiar to us.
So you see that in reality, if we only take into
consideration the activity of the Spirits of Form, man attains his
present-day consciousness much too soon, for you know that in the man
of to-day, this consciousness awakes to a certain degree soon after
physical birth. It would not awake in the form in which it sees the
physical external world clearly and distinctly, if other Spirits who
in reality are Spirits of Motion had not remained behind and
renounced the development of certain capacities which they could have
acquired up to the time of the Earth-evolution if they had not stood
still, so that now, during the Earth-evolution, they might be able to
intervene in a particular way in the development of man. Because they
went through their evolution in a different way, they are in a
position to bring to man earlier that which he would otherwise only
have acquired in his twentieth year or thereabouts. These, therefore,
are spiritual Beings who renounced the possibility of carrying on
their evolution normally up to the Earth-evolution, spiritual Beings
who might have been Spirits of Motion during the Earth evolution, but
who remained at the stage of the Spirits of Form and are now active
as Spirits of Form in the Earth-evolution. Thus they are able, during
the Earth-evolution, to bestow upon man that which he is not as yet
in the least ripe for, having still too much to retrieve from an
earlier epoch. They can bestow that which in the normal form of
evolution would have only been bestowed at about his twentieth year.
Thus man comes into existence and receives capacities
from the abnormal Spirits of Form, which he would otherwise only
receive about his twentieth year. All this has very significant
consequences. Just imagine for a moment that this had not occurred.
If these Spirits with an abnormal development were not to interfere,
then man would only come into consideration, as far as the physical
world is concerned, in the condition which is his at about his
twentieth year, that is to say, he would have to be born in this
condition as a physical being and would have to go through quite
different germinal conditions. In fact, through these abnormal
Spirits of Form, the evolution of man is transposed into the physical
world already from birth on, up to the twentieth year, i.e., by about
the first third of our earth life. We must therefore say: The first
third of our earth-life is not directed by the spiritual Beings who
rule the conditions of the earth, but by other abnormal spiritual
Beings; and because these take part in evolution, we therefore do not
possess the form we should have if we were born in the condition we
are in about our twentieth year. Man must pay for this by passing the
first third of his life — the time up to his twentieth year —
under the great influence of these abnormal Beings. During the whole
period of growth man is in reality under the influence of these
abnormal Beings; he has to pay for this when the middle third of his
life has passed away, — which on the whole belongs only to the
normal Spirits of Form, — in that a descending course, a
going-back begins, and his etheric and astral organizations crumble
away. So that life is divided into three parts or portions, an
ascending third, a middle third and a descending third. Man really
only becomes man during his earth life in the middle part, and in the
last third he has to give back that which he received during the
first, or ascending third; in other words he must repay the
corresponding installment. If man had indeed been exclusively given
up to the influences of the normal Spirits of Form, all that happens
to-day up to his twentieth year would have quite a different
appearance, quite a different form. Everything would have happened
quite differently, so that all that is connected with the present
development of man in the first of his three epochs of life is, on
the whole, a premature existence, one that forestalls much that
belongs to the later epochs of life. Through this man has become a
more material being up to the second epoch of his life than he would
otherwise have been. He would otherwise up to that period of his life
have gone through purely spiritual conditions, and would have
descended to the present material densification only at that period
of his development which he goes through in the twentieth, or
twenty-first year of his life, when he finds himself bound to the
earth. Spiritual Science therefore tells us, that if his development
had proceeded in that way, man would really have descended to the
earth only in the condition which he now reaches in his twentieth or
twenty-first year. He would not have been able to go through the
preceding states upon the earth. He would have been obliged to go
through them soaring above the earth, around it.
| Diagram 2 Click image for large view | |
And now you can understand the whole course of human
development through child and youth. You can see, if we take this
straight line (B C) as being the earth-path, that the Spirits of Form
would have intended man to come down only at this point (twenty,
one-and-twenty). Man would have reached the earth only here (B), and
he would have ascended again after his fortieth year (C) and would
have gone through the last third of his life in a spiritualized
state. Through the abnormal Beings man was compelled to descend here
(A) and at once take up his life on the earth. That is the secret of
our existence.
If all this had become what it did not become, that is
to say, if man had gone through the first and last thirds of his life
up above in the periphery of the earth, and had only come down to
earth during the middle part, and had therefore become quite a
different being, he would not have been bound to the earth to the
extent he actually is to-day. If that had happened, then all the
persons who walked on earth would have been of the same form and
nature; all the people who have wandered over the face of the earth
would have had the same form. There would have been only one kind of
human being. That which makes us into beings capable of manifesting
the specific attributes of the various races expressed in all
humanity, is not comprised in the middle third of life. By means of
all that appertains to the preceding age, of all that happens in the
first third of life, we with all our forces are bound to the earth
more than the normal Spirits of Form have intended us to be. For this
reason, however, man has become more dependent on the earth upon
which he lives, than he would otherwise have been. He has become
dependent upon that part of the earth on which he lives, and because
he descends earlier to the earth, — against the intentions of
the Spirits of Form, as one might say, — he becomes dependent
upon that place, because he unites himself to the earth in a state
which is not designed for him. If he had only set foot on the earth
in the middle third of his life, he would have been independent of
whether he did so in the north or the south, in the east or the west.
But because he has become dependent upon the earth, because his youth
is spent in the way we have described, he becomes earthbound, he
becomes a being who is connected with and belongs to the country in
which he was born. He thus becomes dependent upon all the conditions
of the earth belonging to that place, upon the incidence of the sun's
rays, upon the circumstance of whether his birthplace is in the
neighborhood of the Equator in the torrid zone, or in a more
temperate region, upon whether he is born on low-lying land, or on a
high tableland. The respiration is quite different in the plain from
what it is in the mountains. Man therefore becomes altogether
dependent upon the earthly conditions of the place in which he is
born. So we see that man has thoroughly grown together with his
mother-earth through being so closely connected with the place, with
that part of the earth on which he is born; and that he is determined
by those attributes which he thus receives, by the earth-forces
connected with that particular place acting within him. All these
things determine his racial character, and in this indirect way the
abnormal Spirits of Form, — those Spirits of Form, or Powers,
who give what we call our present earthly consciousness, not between
the ages of twenty-one to forty-three but at a different time —
are the originators of the racial differences in mankind over the
whole earth, which therefore depend upon the part of the world in
which a man is born.
Now during this time, which on the whole is under the
ruler ship of the abnormal Spirits of Form, man also acquires the
possibility and the capacity of propagating his species. This
capacity is also acquired during the time in which man is not
entirely under the guidance of the normal Spirits of Form. Hence the
possibility is given that a man should not only be dependent in this
way on the place where he is born, but that the attributes he thus
receives may also be inherited by his successors, and that the racial
characteristics are not only expressed in the influences of the
dwelling-place but also in that which is inherited through the race.
You have here the explanation as to why the race is that which can be
inherited; and we shall understand what is shown by spiritual
science, that only in the past were the racial characteristics
produced by the place in which men were born. That was the case in
the latter portion of the Lemurian epoch and in the first part of the
Atlantean epoch, when man was directly dependent upon his earthly
surroundings. At a later epoch race began to assume the character of
being bound up with heredity and no longer with place. So that in
race we see something which was originally connected with one special
part of the earth and which afterwards propagated itself in mankind
through heredity, but became more and more independent of place.
From what I have just said, you will see in which period
of evolution we can reasonably speak of the idea of race. There could
be no sense according to the real meaning of the word in speaking of
race before the Lemurian epoch, for then only did man descend to the
earth. Before that he was in the periphery of the earth; he then
descended to the earth and the racial characteristics were handed
down by heredity in the Atlantean epoch and on into our
post-Atlantean epoch. We shall see how in our own time it is the
national characteristics that again split up the character of the
race and begin to extinguish it. We shall see all that later.
We must now take care that we do not consider the world
as though evolution were only like a wheel that goes round and round
without beginning or end; the idea of the revolving wheel (which is
developed at length in many mystical views of the world) brings
fearful confusion into the conception of the actual evolution of
mankind. If one thinks of it as if everything moves round a fixed
centre and that it is divided into so and so many races, then one has
really no idea that everything is in a state of evolution, and that
the races are evolving too. Races have arisen and they will some day
die out and be no longer there. They do not repeat themselves for
ever in the same way, as Mr. Sinnett wrongly describes in his
Esoteric Buddhism.
We must look for the beginning of racial
characteristics, of racial peculiarities, in the old Lemurian epoch,
and we must then follow their propagation down into our own times,
but in doing so we must be quite clear, that when our present fifth
epoch of evolution shall have been succeeded by the sixth and
seventh, there will be no question of a condition which we may
describe as race. But if we picture this evolution as always rolling
evenly on, we have only a sort of mill-wheel in our mind, and are far
removed from the understanding of what does really take place in the
world.
We see therefore, how the evolution of races begins only
in the Lemurian epoch, through the activity of the abnormal Spirits
of Form who let the forces of our earth planet set to work at the
spot where a man has to pass the first years of his life; and that
again is carried over in a certain way into his later life, because
man has a memory, through which he remembers even in his later life
the time spent in a really abnormal way on the earth before his
twenty-first year. Man would be a very different being if only the
normal Spirits of Form were active. Through the abnormal Spirits of
Form he is dependent upon the spot on which he lives.
In the manner just described a deviation from the laws
of the normal Spirits of Form came about, so that the place in which
a man lives on earth during a certain incarnation became of
significance to him. We shall more clearly understand these
connections if we consider the following. We may state, in a certain
way, how the subsoil, the ground, radiates its essence upwards and
permeates the human organization, so that man becomes dependent upon
the soil of that part of the earth. In this connection we may
therefore mention certain parts of the earth that are connected with
the historical development of the human being. We shall go into these
conditions more minutely later on. I shall now characterize them in
the abstract.
| Diagram 3 Click image for large view | |
You have here, for instance, a point which lies in
Africa; at this spot there radiate out from the earth, as it were,
all those forces which could affect man particularly during his early
childhood. Later on their influence grows less; hence a man is less
under the influence of these forces, but they nevertheless impress
him very strongly with what comes from them. That spot on the earth
on which a man lives affects him most strongly in his earliest
childhood. It determines his whole life; a man is so entirely
dependent upon these forces, that this spot imprints the
characteristic of his early childhood permanently upon him. That is
more or less a characteristic of all those who, as regards their
racial character, receive the determining forces out of the earth in
the neighborhood of that spot. What we call the black race is
particularly determined by these attributes.
If you now pass on further into Asia, you find a spot on
the earth's surface, where the characteristics of youth are
imprinted permanently on man from the forces of the earth, where the
special attributes of later youth are conveyed to man out of the
being of the earth and give him the racial character. The races which
come into consideration here are the yellow and the brownish races of
our epoch.
If we then go further from the East to the West, we find
towards Europe a point which permanently imprints the latest
characteristics upon man, those which belong to the years following
early youth. It is the point where man is affected by the
earth-forces not already in childhood but later when he passes from
youth to later age. Man is in this way seized by the forces which,
coming out of the earth, determine him; so that, if we picture these
several points, we get a remarkable line. This line still holds good
for our epoch. The spot in Africa corresponds to those forces of the
earth which imprint upon man the characteristics of early childhood.
The spot in Asia corresponds to those which give man the
characteristics of youth, and the ripest characteristics are
imprinted on man by the corresponding spot in Europe. This is simply
a law. As all persons in their different incarnations pass through
the various races, therefore, although it may be argued that the
European has the advantage over the black and the yellow races, we
should not be prejudiced thereby. Here the truth may, indeed be
sometimes veiled, but you see that with the help of spiritual science
we really do come upon remarkable truths.
If we continue this line, we come far to the West, to
America, the region where those forces are active which lie on the
other side of the middle third of life. We come, — I beg you
not to misunderstand what is now being said, it only refers to man in
so far as he is dependent upon the physical organizing forces, not
upon those forces which constitute his essence as a human being but
the forces in which he lives, — we come then to those forces
which have a great deal to do with the decline and death of man, with
what in man belongs to the last third of his life. This line, which
is laid down by law, really does exist, it is a reality, a real
curve, and it expresses the law according to which our earth acts
upon man. The forces which determine man with respect to race take
this course. The American Indians did not die out because it pleased
the Europeans that they should do so, but because they had to acquire
those forces which lead them to die out. Upon the peculiarity of this
line depends that which takes place with the races on the surface of
our earth and that which is brought about by the forces which are not
under the influence of the normal Spirits of Form. Where racial
character comes into consideration they work in this way; but in our
age the racial character is gradually being overcome.
This was preparatory developed even in the very earliest
period. If we were to go back into the old Lemurian epoch we could
find the very first starting-points of racial development in the
regions of present-day Africa and Asia. Then later we see a movement
westward, and if we follow the forces which determine race in the
West, we can observe the decline among the American Indians. Humanity
had to go to the West in order to die as race. To refresh humanity
with the new youthful force, the migration to the East takes place,
which, coming from Atlantis, moves across Europe to Asia. Then a
repetition of the migration to the West takes place. But the
repetition is not now the movement of races, it is a higher stage of
racial development, as it were, the development of the various
civilizations. We can see that, in a certain way, the evolution of
civilizations assumes the character shown by a continuation of the
race line. For instance, we have that civilization which we have
characterized with sufficient admiration already in these lectures,
the old Indian civilization which appeared as the first
post-Atlantean civilization; this we have to describe as
corresponding to early childhood, in which man, as regards his
appreciation of physical nature still sleeps, whilst the
manifestations of a spiritual world work into his soul. The first
Indian civilization is in fact a revelation from above, a
manifestation from spiritual heights, and it was only able to work
into man because he came under the influence of Indian earth, under
which he had already been in times lying very far back. In the
primeval past the physical race-character was determined out of the
earth; now, when they were again present on the same part of the
earth, a quality of the soul, namely, that of the old Indians, is
determined. Through the migration from the West to the East that
youthful freshness came in, which made possible the unique
configuration of mind which characterizes the original Indian
civilization. You will see that a very ancient Indian civilization,
which has not yet been examined and of which the Indian civilization
now known to science is only a successor, can in this way be
explained, namely, that in a certain respect the Atlantean
civilization is repeated in the primeval Indian civilization. Then
when we consider the civilizations which follow consecutively in the
post-Atlantean epoch, we can see that they represent successive
repetitions of conditions gone through earlier in the physical body,
but which through rejuvenation have become quite different. Thus in
the Persian civilization we see one which is in a certain way
connected with what we might call a wrestling-through of the human
being who lives chiefly in the first force of human life, when, with
the forces which originate from the normal Spirits of Form, he is
still under the influences of the abnormal Spirits of Form. This
opposition is contained in the Persian civilization in the
consciousness and in the form of Light and Darkness, of Ormuzd and
Ahriman. The further we come over towards the West, the more do we
see how the attributes of a riper age of civilization are imprinted.
Even although we must admit, that up to our present time the
creations of man are still to a great extent dependent upon the
abnormal forces and Beings of the Universe, we shall nevertheless
find it comprehensible when it is said, that men no longer proceed
towards the West exclusively with attributes of the race, and we can
also understand, that in a certain way the tendency of civilization
is such, that the full freshness of its youth, of its productive
element, declines more and more the further it goes towards the West.
One who observes objectively may see from many things
that the civilization in our own age is also determined in this way
by a fixed law. But people are not inclined to look at things
objectively. If you consider what presents itself, if you consider
that in reality all civilization flows onward, you will then see that
the further we go towards the West, so much the less productive does
the civilization become, and as civilization it approaches its end.
The further West one goes the more do the merely external parts of
civilization bloom, those which do not experience a revival by means
of the youth-forces, but which in a way live on into what belongs to
old age. Hence in the West they will still be able to accomplish much
for humanity in respect to physical, chemical and astronomical
discoveries, and all that does not depend upon the reviving
youth-forces; but that which calls for productive force really
requires a different configuration of those forces which act upon
man.
Let us suppose a man grows up from his childhood to a
certain stage; then only does his spiritual part really blossom
forth. At first he is only a being who grows physically. That which
in the small boy is compressed into a narrow space, must first expand
physically. Afterwards his development is pressed into his inner
being. And thus it is too with mankind in general. We are looking at
a remarkable law when we follow this curve. We find it expressed even
in the continents. We see that in the first place there is a sort of
original beginning of the physical development of man in Africa, that
then the ground upon which humanity develops, is very widely
extended. We find this again in the widely extended continent of
Asia; man there inhabits huge surfaces of the earth.
Now let us glance at the repetition of the race
development in the post-Atlantean civilizations. Just as a man in his
youth looks around him, curious as to his surroundings, so does the
man of the old Indian civilization look out into the world. That is
really connected with the fresh youthful forces, which expand man and
organize his growth in size. Then the spiritual must begin and the
physical must be compressed. Thus we see, that as civilization
advances into Europe, it is remarkable that the space upon which
mankind is spread out, is compressed into smaller dimensions. We
observe that Europe is the smallest continent and that the further it
goes towards the West, the more does it strive towards compression;
it extends into the sea in peninsulas and contracts more and more
towards the West.
All this is connected with the spiritual course of
evolution. Here you are looking in an unique manner into the
mysteries of spiritual evolution. But with the compression towards
the West there is a crisis. It is a crisis through which a more
unproductive element begins to act. Productivity dies out in a
certain way in the peninsulas to the West. This un-productivity is
revealed in what has already been described, namely, that
civilization itself, the further it goes towards the West, assumes a
rigid, senile element. This was always known in the Mystery Schools.
You will understand now why I said, that what I had to communicate
might be rather dangerous, because people might become indignant.
There is a great deal more that may not yet be told, that would help
to make man independent with regard to the higher parts of his being,
in order that he may perceive what comes up out of the earth and
determines the race, and later on determines the character of the
civilization, and which at a yet later age when man returns again to
the spiritual will again become of no importance.
Hence you will understand, that with this whole process
of the evolution of mankind, there is connected the spiritual
evolution which has always been known to those who were initiated
more deeply into the secrets of existence. The correctness of what
has just been said does not depend upon whether one person likes it
and another dislikes it, it depends upon the necessity which exists
in evolution. If a person were to speak against necessity he would
arrive at nothing; for to speak against it means to put hindrances in
the way. Therefore it is only natural that, in a certain way, the
people who go to the country which lies more to the West, must again
obtain refreshment from the East, they must receive an impulse from
the East; but the Central European domain must call to mind its own
productivity, such as existed before the formation of peninsulas.
That is the reason why precisely in Europe, — I mean in the
part embracing our two countries, Scandinavia and Germany, —
man is compelled to reflect upon his own soul-nature, and why on the
other hand we must look precisely in the West for that portion of
humanity which is to receive something from the East. That is deeply
rooted in the whole character of earthly humanity.
You see this repeated even in the development of
Theosophy. We also meet with it again in the fourth post-Atlantean
civilization, among the Romans and the Greeks. It is a fact that the
Romans are in certain respects more advanced than the Greeks, but
they take their spiritual life from the people they conquered, who
lived more towards the East. The law thus revealed verifies itself
more and more, the further the countries lie to the West. These great
truths can only be indicated. They give us that which is in
conformity with the inner character of our mission in every part of
the surface of the earth. You see that we must understand what it is
we have to do, in order to raise ourselves above the general
character of humanity. There lies the great responsibility which one
takes, if one wishes to intervene in the great movement of mankind.
Where the great movement of humanity is concerned, no personal
sympathy, and no personal enthusiasm must play a part, for that does
not come into consideration, but only what is made necessary by the
great laws of humanity. We must recognize this from the great laws
themselves, and not allow ourselves to be influenced by prejudice in
favor of this or the other. That is on the whole the fundamental
character of Rosicrucianism. Rosicrucianism means acting in
accordance with the whole evolution of humanity. If we know the
ground on which we stand, down to the formation of islands and
peninsulas, then we shall realize what feelings must fill us, if we
mean to act in harmony with the evolution of humanity.
Once upon a time, man was led down to the earth by the
abnormal Spirits of Form and united to the various parts of the
earth's surface; and thus were the foundations laid for the
development of the races. Then, however, we see the races
intermingling more and more. We see the development of nations
intervening in the evolution of the races, that is to say, the former
arise out of the latter. We see the evolution of the nations
intervening even in the evolution of the individual human beings. A
great mystery is expressed when it is said who Plato was with respect
to his outer being, with respect to his birth in human form. He was a
man who grew up in the lineage of Solon, who belonged to the Ionian
tribe, to the Greek nation, to the whole Caucasian Race. If we
understand that Plato was a descendant of Solon, an Ionian, a Greek,
a Caucasian, this expresses, if we understand the law underlying it,
a profound mystery. It expresses the mystery which shows us how the
normal and abnormal Spirits of Form cooperate on the wide basis of
the earth planet, those Spirits whose greatest interest is to make
man into an earth-man. Herein is expressed how, by this co-operative
work, the human kingdom is particularized, how then those other
Beings intervene of whom we have already spoken in describing the
characteristics of the several peoples. Each individual in his own
being participates in the co-operative working of all these higher
Beings, of these higher Spirits.
We do not understand the individual man, if we do not
see him in his whole evolution; he has become what he is, through the
co-operation of these Beings. Through a Caucasian Race once being
created on our earth planet, through the mysterious co-operation of
those Spirits of Form who have gone through the normal evolution, and
those others who have gone through the abnormal evolution, the
foundations were laid which made it possible for a Plato to arise.
And because we see the intervention of the abnormal and the normal
Archangels down to the Angels, we see the means which were necessary
to bring forth a Plato, whom we could meet with as a human being,
having a human countenance and possessing very definite attributes of
reasoning, feeling and willing. The folk or nation lies between the
race and the individual.
Thus we had to describe in general to-day the
fundamental conditions leading to the development of race. In the
next lecture we will consider the growing up of peoples out of the
races, the intervention of other Spirits of the Hierarchies, and will
consider their intervention in the work of the Spirits of Form.
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