IV
CULTURAL
QUESTIONS. SPIRITUAL SCIENCE (ART, SCIENCE, RELIGION).
THE NATURE OF EDUCATION. SOCIAL ART.
WHEN we look over the
history of the last few years and ask ourselves how the social
problems and needs occupying the public mind for more than half a
century have been dealt with, we can find only one answer. Although
in the greater part of the civilized world, opportunity to carry out
in practice their ideas of reconstructing social life was given to
people who, after their own fashion, had devoted themselves for
decades to the study of social problems, yet it must be regarded as
extremely characteristic of the age that all the theories and all the
views which are the result of half a century of social work from
every quarter have shown themselves powerless to reconstruct the
present social conditions.
Of late years, much
has been destroyed and, in the eyes of all observant persons, little,
or probably nothing, built up. Does not the question force itself
here upon the human soul: What is the cause of this impotence of
so-called advanced views, in the face of some positive task? Shortly
before the great catastrophe of the World-War, in the spring of 1914,
I ventured to answer this question in a short series of lectures
which I delivered in Vienna before a small audience. A larger number
of hearers would probably have treated what was said with ridicule.
In regard to all the assumptions of the so-called experts in
practical affairs as to the immediate future, I ventured to say that
an exact observer of the inner life of humanity could see in the
social conditions prevailing all over the civilized world something
like an abscess, like a social disease, a kind of cancerous growth,
which must inevitably very soon break out in a terrible manner over
this world. Those practical statesmen, who were then talking of the
“improvement in political relations” and the like, looked
upon this as the pessimism of an idealist. But that was the utterance
of a conviction gained by a study of human evolution from the point
of view of spiritual science, which I will describe to you this
evening. To this kind of research the building known as the Dornach
Building, the Goetheanum, is dedicated. Situated in the corner of the
northwest of Switzerland, this building is the outer representative
of the movement whose object is the study of the spiritual science of
which I speak. You will hear and read all kinds of assertions about
the aims and object of this building and the meaning of the movement
which it is intended to represent. And it may be said in most cases
that the gossip about these things is the very opposite of the truth;
mysterious nonsense, false and senseless mysticism, many varieties of
obscure nonsense are attached to the work attempted by this movement
in the building at Dornach representing it. It cannot be expected
that anything but misunderstandings without number should still exist
regarding this movement of spiritual life. In reality, the meaning of
the movement is to be found in its striving with set purpose to bring
about a renewal of our whole civilization, as it is expressed in art,
religion, science, education, and other human activities; in fact, it
may truly be said that a renewal is sorely needed from the very
foundations of social life upwards. This stream of spiritual life
leads us to the conviction, already indicated by me. in these
lectures, that it is no longer of any use to devise net schemes for
world-improvement; from its very nature, human evolution demands a
transformation of thoughts and ideas, of the most intimate life of
feeling of humanity itself. Such a transformation is the aim of
spiritual science, as it is represented in this movement. Spiritual
science stimulates the belief that the views of society, of which we
have just spoken, proceed from the old habits of thought which have
not kept pace with the evolution of humanity and are no longer suited
to its present life. These views have been clearly proved useless in
aiding the reconstruction of social life.
What we need is
understanding. What is really the meaning of all the subconscious
yearnings, of the demands, which have not yet penetrated into the
conscious thought of our present humanity? What do they mean, above
all things, with regard to art, with regard to science, religion, and
education? Let us look at the new directions followed by art,
especially of late! I know well that in giving the following little
sketch of the development of art, I must inevitably give offence to
many; indeed, what I am going to say will be taken by many as a proof
of the most complete lack of understanding of the later schools of
art.
If we except a few
isolated, very commendable efforts of recent years, the chief
characteristic in the development of modern art is that it has lost
that inner impulse which should drive it to place before the world
that which is felt by humanity as a pressing need. The opinion has
grown more and more common that, in contemplating a work of art. we
must ask: How much of the spirit and significance of outer reality
does it express? How far is external nature or human life reflected
in art? One need only ask, what meaning has such a criterion with
respect to a “Raphael”, or a “Leonardo”, or
to any other real work of art? Do we not see in such great works of
art that the resemblance to the outer reality surrounding us is by no
means the measure of their greatness? Do we not see the measure of
their greatness in the creation of something from within that is far
removed from the immediate outer reality? What worlds are those that
unroll before us as we gaze at the now almost effaced picture at
Milan, Leonardo's Last Supper, or when we stand before a
“Raphael”? Is it not a matter of secondary importance
that those painters have succeeded more or less well in depicting the
laws of nature in their work? Is it not their chief aim to tell us
something of a, world which we do not see when we only use our eyes,
when, we perceive only with our outer senses? And do we not find
more and more that the only criterion now applied in judging a, work
of art, or in judging anything artistic, is whether the thing is
really true, and “true” here is to be understood in the
ordinary naturalistic sense of the word. Let us ask ourselves —
strange as the question may appear to the holders of certain artistic
views — what does an art confer on life, actually on social
life, what is an art, which aspires to nothing higher, than the
reproduction of a part of external reality?
At the time in which
modern capitalism and modern technical science became a power,
landscape painting began to be developed in the world of art. I know,
of course, that landscape painting is justified, fully justified from
an artistic point of view. But it is also true, that no artistically
perfect landscape painting, however perfect, equals in any sense the
scene lying before me, as I stand on a mountain side and contemplate
Nature's: own landscape. Precisely the rise of landscape painting
shows to what an extent art has taken refuge in the mere imitation of
nature, which it can never equal. Art turned to landscape painting
because it had lost touch with the spiritual world; it could no
longer create out of the spiritual and super-sensible world., What
will be the future of art, if it is inspired only by the recent
impulses toward naturalistic art? Art such as this can never grow out
of life, as a flower grows from its roots; it will be a luxury
outside life, an object of desire for those only for whom life has no
cares. Is it not comprehensible that people who are absorbed in the
pressing cares of life from morning till evening, who are shut off
from all culture, the object of which is the understanding of art,
should feel themselves separated as by an abyss from art? Though one
hardly dare to put the sentiment into words now-a-days, because to
many it would stamp the speaker as a philistine, it is distinctly
evident in social life that great numbers of people look on art as
something remote, and unconsciously feel it to be a luxury of life,
something that does not belong to every human life, and to every
existence worthy of a human being, although, in truth, it brings
completion to every human life worthy of the name.
Naturalistic art will
always be in one sense a luxury for those whose lives are free from
care, and who are able to educate themselves in that art. I felt this
when I was teaching for some years in a working-men's college, where
I had the opportunity of addressing the workers themselves directly
in order to help them understand the socialist theories which were
being instilled into their minds, to their ruin, by those who called
themselves “leaders of the people.” I learnt to
understand — forgive the personal remark — what it means
to bring scientific knowledge from a purely human standpoint (See:
Appendix VII)
within reach of those unspoiled minds. From
a longing to know something also about modern art a request was made
by my students that I take them through the museums and picture
galleries on Sundays. Though it was possible, of course, to explain a
great deal to them, since they had themselves the desire to be
educated, I knew quite well that what I said did not at all make the
same impression on these minds as did the things that I had told them
from the standpoint of universal humanity. I felt that it would be a
cultural untruth to tell them about the luxury art of the later
naturalistic school, so far removed from actual life. This on the one
hand.
On the other hand, do
we not see, how art has lost its connection with life? Here, too,
praiseworthy endeavors have come to light in the last few decades;
but these have been by no means decided enough, though much has been
done in the direction of industrial art. We see how inartistic our
everyday surroundings have become. Art has made an illusory progress.
All the buildings around us with which we come in contact in our
daily routine are as devoid of artistic beauty as possible. Practical
life cannot be raised to artistic form, because art has separated
itself from life. Art which merely imitates nature cannot design
tables and chairs and other articles of utility in such a manner that
when we see them, we at once have the feeling of something artistic.
These objects must transcend nature as human life transcends itself.
If art merely imitates, it fails in the shaping of practical life,
and practical life thereby becomes prosaic, uninteresting and dry,
because we are unable to give it an artistic form and to surround
ourselves with beautiful objects in our everyday lives.
This might be further
amplified. I shall only indicate the decided direction which the
evolution of our art has nevertheless taken. In like manner we have
moved in other domains of modern civilization. Have we not seen that
science has gradually ceased to proclaim to us the foundation which
lies at the base of all sense-life? Little wonder that art has not
found the way out of the world of sense since science itself has lost
that way. By degrees science has come to the point of merely
registering the outer facts of the senses, or at most to comprise
them in natural laws. Intellectualism of the most pronounced type has
over-spread all modern scientific activity to an ever increasing
degree, and a terrible fear prevails among scientists lest they
should be unable to exclude everything but intellectualism in their
research, lest something like imaginative or artistic intuitions
should perchance find their way into science. It is easy to see by
what is said and written on this subject by scientists themselves how
great is the terror they experience at the thought that any other
means than the dry, sober intellect and the investigation by
sense-perception should find entrance into scientific research. In
every activity which does not keep strictly to intellectual thought
men do not get far enough away from cuter reality to judge it
correctly. Thus the modern researcher, the modern scientist, strives
to carry on his work by intellectualism only; because he believes he
can by this means get away far enough from the reality to judge it,
as he says, quite objectively. Here the question might perhaps be
asked: Is it not possible through intellectualism to get so far away
from reality that we can no longer experience it? And it is this
intellectualism, above all, which has made it impossible for us to
conquer reality by science, as I have already indicated in these
lectures and into which I will enter more fully today.
Turning to the
religious life: with what mistrust and disapproval is every attempt
to penetrate into the spiritual world by means of spiritual science
received by the religious communities! On what grounds? People are
quite ignorant of the reason of their disapproval. From official
quarters we learn of a science which is determined to keep to the
mere world of the senses, and we hear that in these official quarters
the claim is apparently allowed that it is only in this way that
strict and true scientific knowledge can be attained. But the student
of historical evolution does not view the matter in this light. To
him it appears that for the last few centuries the religious bodies
have more and more laid claim to he the only authority in matters
relating to the spirit and soul, and have recognized as valid only
those opinions which they themselves permit the people to hold. Under
the influence of this claim to the monopoly of knowledge by the
Church, the sciences have neglected the study of everything except
the outer sense-perceptions, or at most they have attempted to
penetrate into the higher regions with a few abstract conceptions.
They believe they are doing this purely in the interests of exact
science, and do not dream that they are influenced by the Church's
pretension to the monopoly of knowledge, the knowledge of the spirit
and the soul as contained in their religious creeds. What has been
forbidden to the sciences for centuries, the sciences themselves now
declare to be an absolute condition for the exactness of their
research, for the objective truth of their work. Thus it has happened
that the religious communities having failed to develop their insight
into the world of soul and spirit, and having preserved the old
traditions, now see in the new methods of spiritual research, in the
new paths of approach to the soul and spirit, an enemy to all
religion, whereas they ought to recognize in these new methods the
very best friends of religion.
We shall now speak of
these three regions of culture, art, science, and religion. For it is
the mission of Anthroposophy or spiritual science to build up a new
structure in these three regions of culture. To explain what I mean,
I must indicate in a few words the vital point of spiritual science.
Its premises are very different from those of science as it is
commonly known today. It fully recognizes the methods of modern
science, fully recognizes also the triumphs of modern science. But
because spiritual science believes it understands the methods of
research of modern science better than the scientists themselves, it
feels compelled to take other ways for the attainment of knowledge
regarding spirit and soul than those which are still regarded by
large numbers of people as the only right ones. In consequence of the
enormous prejudice entertained against all research into the higher
worlds, great errors and misunderstandings have been spread abroad
regarding the aims of the Dornach movement. That here is truly no
false mysticism, nothing in any way obscure in this movement, is
plainly evident in my endeavors in the beginning of the 'nineties,
which formed the starting-point for the spiritual-scientific movement
to which I allude, and of which the Building at Dornach is the
representative. At that time I collected the material which seemed to
me then most necessary for the social enlightenment of today in my
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity.
Whoever reads that book will hardly accuse the spiritual science of
which I speak of false mysticism; but he may see what a difference
there is between the idea of human freedom contained in my book and
the idea of freedom as an impulse prevalent in our modern civilization.
As an example of the
latter, I might give Woodrow Wilson's idea of freedom; an
extraordinary one, but very characteristic of the culture, the
civilization of our age. He is honest in his demand for freedom for
the political life of the present day. But what does he mean by
freedom? We arrive at an understanding of his meaning when we read
words like the following: ‘A ship moves freely,’ he says,
‘when it is adapted to all the forces which act upon it from
the wind, from the waves, and so on. When its construction is
exactly adapted to its environment, no hindrance to its progress can
arise through the forces of wind or wave. Man must also he able to
motive freely through life, by adapting himself to the forces with
which he comes in contact in life, so that no hindrance may ever come
to him from any direction.’ He also compares the life of a free
human being with a part of a machine, saying: ‘We say of a
part, built into a machine, that it can move freely when it has no
connection with anything anywhere; and when the rest of the machine
is so constructed that this part runs freely within it.’ I have
just one thing to say to this; we can only speak of freedom with
regard to the human being when we see in it the very opposite of such
an adaptation to the environment, we can only speak of human freedom
when we compare it, not with the freedom of a ship on the sea,
perfectly adapted to the forces of wind and weather, but when we
compare it with the freedom of a ship that can stop and turn against
wind and weather, and can do so without regarding the forces to which
it is adapted. That is to say, at the bottom of such an idea of
freedom as this lies the whole mechanical conception of the world,
yet at the present day it is considered to be the only possible one.
This world-conception is the result of the mere intellectualism of
modern times. In my
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity I have felt compelled to
take a stand against views of this kind. I know very well —
forgive another personal remark — that this book has fragments
of the European philosophical conception of the world, out of which
it is born, still clinging to it, as a chicken sometimes retains
fragments of the eggshell from which it has emerged. For the book
has. of course, grown out of European philosophical
world-conceptions. It was necessary to show in that book the
erroneous thought in those world-conceptions. For this reason the
book may appear to some to be pedantic, though this was by no means
my intention. The contents are intended to work as an impulse in the
immediate practice of life, so that, through the ideas developed in
that book, the impulse thus generated in the human will may flow
directly into human life.
For this reason,
however, I was obliged to state the problem of human freedom quite
differently from the usual manner of doing so wherever we turn,
throughout the centuries of human evolution, the question regarding
the freedom of human will and of the human being has been: Is man
free, or is he not free? I was under the necessity of showing that
the question in this form was wrongly framed and must be put from a
different standpoint. For if we take that which modern science and
modern human consciousness look upon as the real self, but
which ought to be regarded as the natural self, then,
certainly, that being can never he free. That self must act of inner
necessity. Were man only that which he is held to be by modern
science, then his idea of freedom would be the same as that of
Woodrow Wilson's. But this would be no real freedom; it would be only
what might be called with every single action the inevitable result
of natural causes. But modern human consciousness is not much aware
of the other self within the human being where the problem regarding
freedom really begins. Modern human consciousness is only aware of
the natural self in man; it regards him as a being subject to
natural causality. But those who penetrate more deeply into the human
being must reflect that man can become something more in the course
of his life than that with which nature has endowed him. We first
discover what the human being really is, when we recognize that one
part of him is that with which he is born, and all that which he has
inherited; the other part is that which he does not owe to his bodily
nature, but which he can make of himself by awakening the real
self slumbering within him. Because these things are true I have
not asked: Is man free or not free? I have stated the question in the
following way: Can man become a free being through inner development,
or can he not? And the answer is: He can become free if he develops
within himself that which otherwise slumbers, but can be awakened; he
can only then become free. Man's freedom is not a gift of nature.
Freedom belongs to that part of man which he can, and must, awaken
within himself. But if the ideas contained in my
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity
are to be further
developed and applied to external social life, so that these truths
may become clear to a larger circle of people, it will be necessary
to build a superstructure of the truths of spiritual science on the
foundation of that philosophy. It had to be shown that by taking his
evolution into his own hands, man is really able to awaken a
slumbering being within him. I endeavored to do this in my book,
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds,
and in the other books
which I have contributed to the literature of spiritual science. In
these books I tried to show that the human being can indeed take his
own evolution in hand and that only by so doing, and thus making of
it something different from that to which he is born, can he rise to
a real knowledge of soul and spirit. It is true that this view is
considered by a large part of humanity at the present day to be a
most unattractive one. For what does it presuppose? It presupposes
that we attain to something like intellectual humility. But few
desire this today. I will explain what I mean by this quality of
intellectual humility, to which we must attain.
Suppose we give a
volume of Goethe's lyric poems to a child of five. The child will
certainly not treat the book as it deserves; he will tear it to
pieces, or spoil it in some other way. In any case he does not know
how to value such a book. But suppose the child to have grown ten or
twelve years older, that he has been taught. and trained; then he
will treat Goethe's lyric poems in a different manner. And yet there
is no great difference externally between a child of five and one of
twelve or fourteen with a book of Goethe's poems before him. The
difference lies within the child. He has developed so that he knows
what to do with such a volume. As the child feels towards the volume
of Goethe's lyrics, so must the man feel towards nature, the cosmos,
the whole universe, when he begins to think seriously of soul and
spirit. He must acknowledge to himself that, in order to read and
understand what is written in the book of nature and the universe, he
must do his utmost to develop his inner self, just as the
five-year-old child must be taught in order to understand Goethe's
lyric poems. We must acknowledge with intellectual humility our
impotence to penetrate the universe with understanding by means of
the natural gifts with which we are born; and we must then admit that
there may be ways of self-development and of unfolding the inner
powers of our being to see in that which lies spread out before the
senses the living spirit and the living soul. My writings to
which I have referred show that it is possible to put this in
practice. This must be said, because intellectualism, the fruit of
evolution of the last few centuries, is no longer able to solve the
riddles of life. Into one region of life, that of inanimate nature,
it is able to penetrate, but it is compelled to halt before human
reality, more especially social reality.
That quality which I
have called intellectual humility must be the groundwork of every
true modern conception of the impulse towards freedom. It must also
be the groundwork of all real insight into the transformation
necessary in art, religion, and science. Here intellectuality has
plainly, only too plainly, shown that it can attain no real knowledge
which truly perceives and attains to the things of the soul and
spirit. As I leave already pointed out, it has confined itself to the
outer world of the senses and to the combining and systematizing of
perceptions Hence it has been unable to prevail against the
pretensions of the religious bodies, which have also not attained to
a new knowledge of matters pertaining to the soul and spirit, but
have on this account carried into modern times an antiquated view,
unsuited to the age. But one thing must be conquered, that is the
fear I have already described, the fear that we might become too much
involved in the objects of the senses, in our endeavors to gain a
spiritual knowledge of them. It is so easy to call oneself a follower
of intellectualism, because, when we occupy ourselves merely with
abstract ideas, even of modern science, we are so far removed from
the reality that we only view it in perspective, and there is no
danger of our being in any way influenced by the reality. But with
the knowledge that is meant here, which we gain for ourselves when we
take our own evolution in hand, with such knowledge we must descend
into the realities of life, we must plunge into the profoundest
depths of our own nature, deeper than those reached by mere
self-training in intellectualism. Within the bounds of
intellectualism, we only reach the upper strata of our own life. If
with the help of the knowledge here spoken of, we descend into the
depths of our own inner nature, we find there not only thoughts and
feelings, a mere reflection of the outer world, we find there
happenings, facts of our inner being, from which the merely
intellectual thinker would recoil in horror; but which are of the
same kind as those within nature herself, of the same kind as those
which happen in the world. Then, within our own nature, we learn to
know the nature of the world. We cannot learn to know that life of
the world if we go no further than mere abstract conceptions or the
laws of nature. We must penetrate so far that our own inmost being
becomes one with reality. We must not fear to approach reality; our
inner development must carry us so far that we can stand firm in the
presence of reality, without being consumed, or scorched, or
suffocated. When we stand in the presence of reality, no longer held
at a distance by the intellect, we are able to grasp the truth of
things. Thus we find described in my book,
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds,
the inner development of
the human being to the stage of spiritual knowledge at which he
becomes one with reality, but in such wise that, being merged in
reality, he can imbibe from it knowledge which is not a distant
perception by means of the intellect, but is instead saturated with
reality itself and for this reason can merge with it.
You will find that one
characteristic feature of the spiritual science which occupies us
here is that it can plunge into reality, that it does not merely
speak of an abstract spirit, but of the real, tangible spirit, living
in our environment surrounding us just as the things of the
sense-world surround us. Abstract observations are the fruit of
modern intellectualism. Take up any new work, with the exception of
pure natural science or pure philosophy, and you will find the
conception of life it contains, often a would-be philosophical view,
is far removed from actual life or from a real knowledge of things.
Read what is said about the will in one of the newer books on
psychology, and you will find that there is no profound meaning
underlying the words. The ideas of those who devote themselves to
such studies have not the power actually to penetrate to the core,
even of nature herself. To them matter is a thing outside, because
they cannot penetrate it in spirit. I should like to elucidate this
by an example.
In one of my last books,
Riddles of the Soul,
(Von Seelenraetseln,
not translated [yes it is, e.Ed.]. Anthroposophic
Press, New York.) I have shown how an opinion of long standing,
prevailing in natural science, must be overcome by modern spiritual
science. I know how very paradoxical my words must sound to many. But
it is just those truths which are able to satisfy the demands —
already making themselves heard and becoming more and more insistent
as time goes on — for a new kind of thought which will often
appear paradoxical, when compared with all that is still looked upon
as authoritative. Every modern scientist who has occupied himself
with the subject maintains that there are two kinds of nerves (See:
Appendix VIII)
in human and animal life (we are now only
concerned with human life), one set, leading from the sense organs to
the central organ, is the sensory nerves, which are stimulated by
sense-perceptions, the stimulus communicating itself to the nerve
center. The second kind of nerves, the so-called motor nerves, pass
from the center out to the limbs. These motor-nerves enable us to use
our limbs. They are said to be the nerves of volition, while the
others are called the sensory nerves.
Now I have shown in my book,
Riddles of the Soul,
though only in outline, that there is
no fundamental difference between the sensory and the so-called motor
nerves or nerves of volition, and that the latter are not subject to
the will. The instances brought forward to support the statement that
these nerves are obedient to the will as is shown by the terrible
disease of locomotor ataxia really prove the exact opposite,
which can easily be shown. They, indeed, prove the truth of my
contention. These so-called voluntary nerves are also sensitive
nerves. While the other sensitive nerves pass from the sense organs
to the central organ, so that the outer sense-perceptions may be
transmitted to it, the voluntary nerves, as they are called, which do
not differ from the other set, perceive that which is movement within
ourselves. They are endowed with the perception of movement. There
are no voluntary nerves. The will is of a purely spiritual nature,
purely spirit and soul, and functions directly as spirit and soul. We
use the so-called voluntary nerves, because they are the sensory
nerves for the limb which is going to move and must be perceived if
the will is to move it. For what reason do I give this example?
Because countless treatises on the will exist at the present day, or
may be read and heard, in which the will is dealt with. But the ideas
developed have not the impelling power to advance to real knowledge,
to press forward to the sight of will in its working. Such knowledge
remains abstract and foreign to life. While such ideas are current,
modern science will continue to tell us of motor nerves, of nerves of
volition. Spiritual science evolves ideas regarding the will which at
the same time show us the nature of the physical human nervous
system. Spiritual science will penetrate the phenomena and facts of
nature. Instead of remaining in regions foreign to life, it will find
its way into reality. It will have the courage to permeate material
things with the spirit, not to leave them outside as things apart.
For spiritual science everything is spiritual. Spiritual science will
be able to pierce the surface and penetrate into the social order,
and will work for a reality in social life, which baffles our
abstract, intellectual natural science. And thus, spiritual science
will again proclaim a spiritual knowledge, a new way of penetrating
into the psychic and the spiritual in the universe. It will proclaim
boldly that those spiritual worlds, represented in pictures
envisioned by artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da
Vinci, can no longer suffice for us. In accordance with the progress
of human evolution, we must find a new way into the spiritual world.
But if we learn to understand the spiritual world anew, if we
penetrate into that world, not in the nebulous manner of pantheism,
by a continual repetition of the word “spirit”, a
universal, abstract, vague spirit which “must he there”:
if we pierce through to the real phenomena of the spiritual world not
by spiritualism, but by the development of the human forces of spirit
and soul in the manner described above, then again we shall know of a
spiritual world in the only way adapted to the present development of
humanity. Then the mysteries of the spiritual world will reveal
themselves to us, and then something will happen of which Goethe
spoke. Although he was only a beginner in the things which modern
spiritual science goes on developing in accordance with his own
spirit, but of which he had a premonition, Goethe beautifully
expressed that which will happen in the words: “He to whom
nature begins to reveal her open secrets, experiences a profound
longing for her worthiest exponent — art.” Once more
will the artist receive a revelation from the spiritual world; he
will then no longer be led astray in the belief that his portrayal of
spiritual things in a material picture is an abstract, symbolic,
lifeless allegory; he will know the living spirit and will be able to
express that living spirit through material means. No longer will the
perfect imitation of nature be considered the best part of a work of
art, but the manifestation of that which the spirit has revealed to
the artist. Once more an art will arise, filled with spirit, an art
which is in no way symbolical, in no way allegorical, which also does
not betray its luxurious character by attempting to rival nature, to
the perfection of which it can never attain. It demonstrates its
necessity, its justification, in human life by proclaiming the
existence of something of which the ordinary, direct beholding of
nature, naturalism, can give us no information. And even if the
artist's attempt to give expression to something spiritual be but a
clumsy effort, he is giving form to something which has a
significance, apart from nature, because it transcends nature. He
makes no bungling attempts at that which nature can do better than
he. A way opens here to that art in which a beginning has been made
in the external structure and the external decoration of the
Goetheanum at Dornach.
The attempt has been
made there to create a University of Spiritual Science for the work
to be carried on within it. In all the paintings on the ceilings, the
wood carvings, etc., an attempt has been made to give form to all
that spiritual science reveals in that building. Hence the building
itself is a natural development. No old architectural style could be
followed here, because the spirit will be spoken of in a new way
within it. Let us look at nature and consider the shell of a nut; the
kernel within determines the form of it; in nature every sheath is
formed in accordance with the requirements of the inner core. So the
whole of the building at Dornach is formed in consonance with that
which as music will one day resound within it; with those mystery
dramas which will one day be presented there; with those revelations
of spiritual science which will one day be uttered within its walls.
Everything described here will echo in the wood carvings, in the
pillars, and in the capitals. An art as yet only in its beginnings,
which is really horn of a new spirit, altogether born of the spirit,
is there represented. The artists who are working there are
themselves their own severest critics. In such an undertaking one is,
of course, exposed to misunderstandings; this is only natural.
Objections are raised against the Dornach Building by visitors, who
say: “These anthroposophists have filled their building with
symbols and allegories.” Other visitors who increase in number
from day to day, understand what they see here.
Now the characteristic
of the building is that it does not contain a single symbol or
allegory; in the work attempted here the spirit has flowed into the
immediate artistic form. That which is expressed here has nothing of
symbolism, nothing of allegory, but everything is something in its
own form. Up to the present we have only been able to build a
covering for a spiritual center of work; for external social
conditions do not yet permit us to erect a railway station or even a
bank building. For reasons, which may perhaps be easily
comprehensible to you, we have not yet been able to find the style of
a modern bank or of a modern department store; but they must also he
found. Above all things, the way must be found along these lines to
an artistic shaping of actual practical life.
Just think of the
social importance of art, even for our daily bread; for the
preparation of bread depends on the manner in which people think and
feel.
It is a matter of
great and social significance to men, that everything by which they
are immediately surrounded in life should take on an artistic form;
that every spoon, every glass, should have a form well adapted to its
use, instead of a form chosen at random to serve the purpose; that
one should see at a glance, from its form, what service a thing
performs in life, and at the same time recognize its beauty. Then for
the first time large numbers of people will feel spiritual life to be
a vital necessity, when spiritual life and practical life are brought
into direct connection with each other. As spiritual science is able
to throw light on the nature of matter, as I have shown in the
example of the sensory and motor nerves, so will art, born of
spiritual science, attain to the power of giving direct form to every
chair, every table, to every man-created object.
Since it is plainly
evident that the gravest prejudices and misunderstandings come from
the churches, we may ask: What is the position finally reached by the
religious creeds? If they have any justification at all, they must
have a connection by their very nature with the spiritual world. But
they have preserved into our period of time old traditions of these
worlds, grown out of very different conditions of the human soul.
Spiritual science strives to advance to the spiritual world, in
accordance with the new mode of thought, with the new life of the
soul. Should this be condemned by the religious sentiment of
humanity, if it understands itself aright? Is such a thing possible?
Never! What is the real aim of religious sentiment and of all
religious work? Certainly not the proclamation of theories and dogmas
pertaining to the higher worlds. The aim of all religious work should
be to give all men an opportunity to look up with reverence to higher
worlds. The work of religion is to inculcate reverence for the
super-sensible. Human nature needs this reverence. It needs to look up
in reverence to the sublime in the spiritual worlds. If human nature
is denied the present mode of entrance, then, of course, the old way
must still be kept open. But since this way is no longer suited to
the thoughts of our day, it must be enforced, its recognition must be
imposed by authority. Hence the external character of religious
teaching as applied to modern human nature. An antiquated outlook on
the higher worlds is imposed by the religious teachers.
Let us suppose that
there are communities in which an understanding exists of the true
nature of religion consisting in reverence for spiritual things. Must
it not be to the highest interest of, such communities that their
members should develop a living knowledge of the unseen world? Will
not those whose souls contain a vision of the super-sensible, whose
knowledge gives them a familiarity with those worlds be the most
likely to reverence them? Since the middle of the fifteenth century
human evolution has taken the line of development of the
individuality, of the personality. To expect of anyone today that he
should attain a vision or an understanding of the higher worlds on
authority, or in any other way than by the force of his own
individuality or personality, is to expect of him something which is
against his nature. If he is allowed freedom of thought with respect
to his knowledge of the super-sensible he will unite with his
fellow-men in order that reverence for the spiritual world, which
everyone recognizes in his own personal way, may be encouraged in the
community. When men have attained freedom of thought to approach
knowledge of the spiritual world through their own individuality,
then the common service of the higher worlds, true religion, will
flourish.
This will show itself
especially in the conception of the Christ Himself. This conception
was very different in earlier centuries from that even of many
theologians of the later centuries, especially of the nineteenth. How
greatly has humanity fallen away from the perception of the true
super-sensible nature of the Christ, who lived in the man Jesus! How
far is it removed from the understanding of that union of a
super-sensible being with a human body, through the Mystery of
Golgotha, in order that the earth in its development might have a
deeper meaning! That union of the super-sensible with the things of
the senses, which was consummated in the Mystery of Golgotha, how
little has it been understood even by theologians of a certain type
in recent times! The man of Nazareth has been designated “the
simple man of Nazareth”, the conception of religion has become
more and more materialistic. Since no one was able to find a way into
the higher worlds, suited to modern humanity, the super-sensible path
to the Christ-Being was lost. Many who now believe that they are in
communion with the Christ, only believe this. They do not
dream how little their thought of Christ and their words concerning
Him correspond to the experiences of those who draw near to the great
Mystery of Humanity with a spiritual knowledge that is suited to our
time.
It must be said that
spiritual science makes absolutely no pretension of founding a new
religion. It is a science, a source of knowledge; but we ought to
recognize in it the means for a rejuvenescence of the religious life
of humanity. As it can rejuvenate science and art, so can it also
renew religious life, the very great importance of which must lie
apparent to anyone who can appreciate the extreme gravity of the
social future. Much, very much has been said recently on the subject
of education, yet it must be acknowledged that a large part of the
discussion does not touch the chief problem. I endeavored to deal
with this problem in a series of educational lectures which I was
asked to deliver to the teachers who are to form the staff of the
Waldorf School in Stuttgart, which was founded last September [1919],
in conformity with ideas underlying the Threefold Social Order.
At the foundation of the school I not only endeavored to
give shape to externals, corresponding to the requirements and the
impulse of the Threefold Order; I also strove to present pedagogy and
didactics to the teaching-staff of this new kind of school in such a
light that the human being would be educated to face life and be able
to bring about a social future in accordance with certain
unconquerable instincts in human nature. It is evident that the
old-fashioned system of normal training, with its stereotyped rules
and methods of teaching, must be superseded. It is true nowadays that
many people agree that the individuality of the pupil ought to be
taken into account in teaching. All sorts of rules are produced for
the proper consideration of the child's individuality. But the
pedagogy of the future will not be a normal science; it will be a
true art, the art of developing the human being. It will rest upon a
knowledge of the whole man. The teacher of the future will know that
in the human being before him, who carries on development from birth
through all the years of life, a spirit and soul element is working
through the organs out to the surface. From the first year of school,
he will see how every year new forces evolve from the depths of the
child's nature. No abstract normal training can confirm this sight;
only a living perception of human nature itself. Much has been said
of late on the subject of instruction through observation and, within
certain limits, this kind of tuition is justified. But there are
things which cannot be communicated through external observation, yet
which must be communicated to the growing child; but they can only be
so communicated when the teacher, the educator, is animated by a true
understanding of the growing human being, when he is able to see the
inner growth of the child as it changes with every succeeding year;
when he knows what the inner nature of the human being requires in
the seventh, ninth, and twelfth years of his life. For only when
education is carried on in accordance with nature, can the child grow
strong for the battle of life. One comes in contact with many
shattered lives at the present day, many who do not know what to make
of life, to whom it has nothing to offer. There are many more people
who suffer from such disrupted lives than is commonly known. What is
the reason.? It is because the teacher is unable to take note of
important laws of the evolving human being. I will give only one
instance of what I mean. How very often do we hear well-meaning
teachers say emphatically that one should develop in the child a
clear understanding of what is being offered him as mental food. The
result of this method in practice is banality, triviality! The
teacher descends artificially to the understanding of the child, and
that manner of teaching has already become instinctive. If it is
persisted in, and the child is trained in this false clarity of
understanding, what is overlooked? A teacher of this kind does not
know what it means to a man, say thirty-five years of age, who looks
back to his childhood and remembers: “My teacher told me such
and such a thing when I was nine or ten years old; I believed it
because I looked up with reverence to the authority of my teacher,
and because there was a living force in his personality through which
I was impressed by his words. Now, looking back, I find that his
words have lived on in me; now I can understand them.” A
marvellous light is shed on life by such an event, when through inner
development we can look back in our thirty-fifth year at the lessons
we have learnt out of love for our teacher which we could not
understand at the time. That light, which is a force in life, is lost
when the teacher descends to the banality of the object-lesson, which
is praised as an ideal method. The teacher must know what forces
should be developed in the child, in order that the forces which are
already in his nature, may remain with him throughout his life. Then
the child need not merely recall to memory what he learnt between his
seventh and fifteenth years; what he then learnt is renewed again and
again, and wears a new aspect in each successive stage of life. What
the child learnt is renewed at every later epoch of life.
The foregoing is an
effort to place before you an idea of the fundamental character of a
system of pedagogy which, if followed, may truly grow into an art; by
its practice the human being may take his place in life and find
himself equal to all the demands of the social future. However much
people may vaunt their social ideals, there are few who are at all
capable of surveying life as a whole. But in the carrying out of
social ideals, a wide outlook on life is indispensable. People speak,
for instance, of transferring the means of production to the
ownership of the community and believe that by withdrawing them from
the administration of the individual human being, much would be
accomplished. I have already spoken on this point, and will go into
the subject again more thoroughly in the following lectures. But
assuming for a moment that it is possible to transfer the means of
production to the ownership of the community at once, do you suppose
that the community of the next generation would still own them? No!
For even if the means of production were transmitted to the next
generation, it would be done without taking into account the fact
that this next generation would develop new and fruitful forces,
which would transform the whole system of production, and thus render
the old means useless. If we have any idea of molding social life. we
must take part in life in its fullness, in all its phases. From a
conception of man as a being composed of body, soul, and spirit, and
from a real understanding of body, soul, and spirit, a new art of
education will arise, an art which may truly be regarded as a
necessity in social life.
Arising from this way
of thinking, something has developed within the spiritual movement,
centered at Dornach, which has to a great extent met with
misunderstanding. There are a number of persons who have learnt in
the course of years to think not unfavorably of our
spiritual-scientific movement. But when we recently began, in Zurich
and elsewhere, to give representations of the art known as eurythmy,
an art springing naturally out of spiritual science itself, but, as
we are fully aware, as yet only in its infancy, people began to
exclaim that after all, spiritual science cannot be worth much, for
to introduce such antics as an accompaniment to spiritual science
only shows that the latter is completely crazy. In such a matter as
this, people do not consider how paradoxical anything must appear
which works towards reconstituting the world on the basis of
spiritual science. This art of eurythmy is a social art in the best
sense; for its aim is, above all things, to communicate to us the
mysteries of human nature. It uses the capacities for movement latent
in the human being, bringing to expression these movements in a
manner to be explained at the next representation of the eurythmic
art. I will only mention here that eurythmy is a true art; for it
reveals the deepest secrets of human art itself by bringing to
evidence a true speech, a visible speech expressed by the whole human
being. But beside the mere movements of the body, founder on
physiological science and a study of the structure of the human form,
eurythmy presents to us at the same time a capacity of movement
through which man, ensouled and inspired, yields himself up to
movement. The purely physiological, gymnastic exercises of our
materialistic age may also be taught to children, and they are now
taught in the Waldorf School of which I have spoken. Ensouled
movement, however, actually employs the whole being, while gymnastics
on physiological, merely material lines employs only a part of the
whole nature of the human being, and therefore, unless supplemented
by eurythmy, allows much to degenerate in the growing human being Out
of the depths of human nature spiritual life in a new form must enter
into the most important branches of life.
It will be my task in
the next few days to show how external life may really be given a new
form in the present and for the future, when the impulse for the
change comes from such a new spirit. Many people of all sorts,
noteworthy people, feel today the necessity of understanding
spiritually the modern pressing demands of social life. It is painful
to see the number of people who are still asleep as regards these
demands, and the many others who approach them in a confused way as
agitators. We find faint indications of a feeling that none of the
mere superficial programs can be of any use without a change of
thought, of ideas, a new mode of learning from the spirit. But in
many cases how superficial is the expression of that longing for a
new spirit! We may say that the yearning for a new spirit is dimly
and imperceptibly felt here and there in remarkable men, who most
certainly have no idea of that which the Dornach Building represents
in the outer world. But the expression of a longing for this new
spirit can be heard. I will give one out of many examples of
this.
In addition to the
numerous memoirs published in connection with the disaster of the
World War just ended, those of the Austrian Statesman, Czernin, will
soon appear. This book promises to be extremely interesting. It is
difficult to express what I wish to say without the risk of being
misunderstood; I mean that it is interesting, because Czernin was a
good deal less pretentious than the others who up to now have given
expression to their opinions on the War, and he should therefore be
leniently judged. In this book of Czernin's we may read something
like the following passage:
‘The War
continues, though in another form. I believe that coming generations
will not call this great drama which has held the world in thrall for
five years, the World-War; they will call it the world-revolution and
they will know that the world-revolution only began with the
World-War. Neither the Peace of Versailles nor that of St. Germain
will create a lasting effect. This peace contains within it the
destructive germ of death. The conflicts which shake Europe are not
yet on the wane. As in a mighty earthquake, the subterranean rumbling
still goes on. Now here, now there, the earth will continue to open
and hurl fire towards heaven. Again and again events of elemental
vehemence will sweep over the lands, bringing destruction in their
train, till everything has been swept away, reminiscent of the
madness of this War. Slowly, out of: unspeakable sacrifice, a new
world will be born. Coming generations will look back to our times as
to a long, terrible dream. But the darkest night is followed by the
dawn. Generations have sunk into graves, murdered, starved, victims
of disease. Millions have died in the effort to annihilate, to
destroy, their hearts filled, with hatred and murder. But other
generations will arise, and with them a new spirit. They will build
up, what war and revolution have destroyed. Every winter is followed
by spring. It is an eternal law in the circuit of life that
resurrection follows death. Happy those who are called upon to
cooperate as soldiers of labor in the work of rebuilding the
world.’
Even this man speaks
of a new spirit. But this new spirit only a shadowy conception, a dim
presentiment in heads like In order that this new spirit may take
hold of the hearts, of minds, of the souls of men in a really
concrete form, the spiritual science and the art of education of
which I wished to s today in connection with human evolution, will
labor for the social future of humanity.
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