European Spiritual Life in the 19th Century

The Development of Thought from the 4th to the 19th Century

By Rudolf Steiner Translated by ! Collison "# $%&

This lecture series consists of the first two lectures in the cycle of six lectures entitled, Natural Science and Human History since Ancient Times. Published in German as, Die Naturwissenschaft und die Weltgeschichtliche Entwickelung der Menschheit Seit dem Altertum . They were given at Dornach in mid-May, 1 !1. "rom a shorthand re#ort unrevised by the lecturer. Presented here with the $ind #ermission of the Philosophisch Anthroposophischer !erlag, Dornach, %wit&erland. 'nglish translation by #ermission of (. )ollison.
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C*+TE+TS
/ecture 1 The Develo#ment of Thought from the 0th to the 1 th )entury 1Part 12 /ecture ! The Develo#ment of Thought from the 0th to the 1 th )entury 1Part !2 ,ay 1&( 19%1 ,ay 1-( 19%1

Le)ture 1
Dornach, 13th May, 1 !1
/ecture given at Dornach, 13th May, 1 !1. "rom a shorthand re#ort unrevised by the lecturer. -ll rights reserved by the Philosophisch Anthroposophischer !erlag, Dornach. 'nglish translation by #ermission of (. )ollison, by whom all rights are reserved .

4')'5T lectures given at the Goetheanum have laid re#eated em#hasis on the fact that the %#iritual %cience cultivated here must wor$ fruitfully u#on the whole scientific mind of to-day and also u#on the various branches of science. This is #erha#s brought home to us most strongly of all when we realise the light that is shed by %#iritual %cience u#on the #roblems of history. -nd so far as the limits of two brief lectures allow, we will try to go into this matter. 6n many sides to-day it is being said that the science of history is facing a crisis. 5ot so very long ago, among certain circles in the days of the historian 4an$e, it was held that history must be made into an 7exact8 science 9 exact in the sense in which this ex#ression is used in connection with ordinary scientific research. :e often hear it said by those to whom 7exact research8 im#lies the methods current in the domain of external science, that all historical writings are inevitably coloured by the nationality, tem#erament and other #ersonal #ro#ensities of the historian, by the element of imagination wor$ing in the condensation of the details, by the de#th of his intuitive faculty and the li$e. -nd as a matter of fact in the most recently written histories it is abundantly evident that the #resentation of ob;ective facts and events varies considerably according to the nationality of the historian, according to his #ower of synthesis, his imagination and other faculties. <n a certain res#ect, %#iritual %cience is well fitted to cultivate an ob;ective outloo$ in the study of history. <t is, of course, not to be denied that the measure of talent #ossessed by the historian himself will always #lay an im#ortant #art. 5evertheless, in s#ite of what our o##onents choose to say to the contrary, it is #recisely in the study of history that a =uality essentially characteristic of %#iritual %cience comes into #lay. >y its very nature %#iritual %cience must begin with a develo#ment of the inner, sub;ective faculties in the being of man. "orces otherwise latent in the soul must be awa$ened and transformed into real faculties of investigation. The sub;ective realm, therefore, is necessarily the starting-#oint. >ut in s#ite of this, the sub;ective element is gradually
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overcome in the course of genuine s#iritual research@ de#ths are o#ened u# in the soul in which the voice of ob;ective truth, not that of sub;ective feeling, is s#ea$ing. <t is the same in mathematics, when ob;ective truths are #roclaimed, in s#ite of the fact that they are discovered by sub;ective effort. "rom this #oint of view < want to s#ea$ to you of a cha#ter of history which cannot but be of the dee#est interest to us in this modern age. < will choose from the wide field of history the more s#iritual forms of thought which came to the fore in the nineteenth century, and s#ea$ about their origin in the light of %#iritual %cience. To-day < #ro#ose to deal with the more exoteric as#ect 9 if < may use this ex#ression 9 and #ass on in the next lecture more into the realm of the esoteric connections and dee#er causes underlying the facts of the s#iritual and mental life of humanity. -s we loo$ bac$ to the nineteenth century 9 and the character of the first twenty years of the twentieth century is really very similar 9 the im#ression usually is that thought in the nineteenth century develo#ed along an even, regular course. >ut those who go more dee#ly into the real facts discover that this was by no means the case. -bout the middle of the century a very radical change came about in the develo#ment of thought. The mode of thin$ing and outloo$ of men underwent a metamor#hosis. Peo#le began to as$ =uestions about the nature of the im#ulses underlying social life in the #ast and #resent. <t is only #ossible to-day to indicate these things in a few characteristic stro$es, but this we shall try to do. /eading minds in the first half of the nineteenth century were all characterised by certain s#iritual and idealistic as#irations, in s#ite of the fact that they were the offs#ring of the $ind of thought that had become habitual in the domain of natural science. These leading minds were still, to a certain extent, conscious of their de#endence u#on an inner guidance - few definite exam#les will show that this changes entirely in the second half of the century. <n following u# this #articular line of develo#ment we shall not be able to concentrate u#on those who were either scientists or artists in the narrower sense. :e shall have to select ty#ical re#resentatives of scientific thought at that time who set themselves the tas$ of clarifying the #roblems of the social life which had become more and more insistent in the course of the nineteenth century. More and more it was borne in u#on eminent thin$ers that the only way of a##roach to the #roblems of the social life was, on the one hand, to em#hasise the im#ortance of the results achieved by science and, on the other, to deal with the de#ression which had so obviously cre#t into the life and im#ulses of the soul. <n the first half of the nineteenth century, we find a re#resentative #ersonality in Saint Simon, a son, as it were, of the "rench 4evolution, and who had thoroughly imbibed the scientific thought of his time. %aint-%imon was one whose mind, at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, may be ta$en as a ty#ical exam#le of the scientific thin$ing of the day. (e was also dee#ly concerned with the social #roblem. (e had ex#erienced the aftermath of the "rench 4evolution and had heard the cry for /iberty, '=uality, "raternity resounding from the de#ths of the human soul. >ut it had also been his lot to ex#erience the disa##ointments suffered by 'uro#e alter the 4evolution. (e witnessed the gradual emergence of what, later on, became the burning social =uestion. -nd if we study the whole tem#er and outloo$ of %aint-%imonAs mind, it is clear that he was a firm believer in the fact that $nowledge can ultimately lead to ideas which will be fruitful for the social life, #rovided always that these ideas are in inner harmony with the demands of the times. (e was convinced that study, understanding and enthusiasm for the tas$s of social life would lead to the discovery of something which could be communicated to men, and that they would res#ond to $nowledge born of enthusiasm for the betterment of social life and #resented to them in a form suited to the conditions of the age. >etterment and #rogress 9 so thought %aint-%imon 9 will come about in the social life of 'uro#e through the co-o#eration of individuals who have both understanding and strength of will. %aint-%imon was imbued with the firm belief that it is #ossible to convince human beings when oneAs own mind has gras#ed the truth and is ca#able of #resenting it to others in the #ro#er scientific form. -nd so he tries to base all his wor$ u#on the s#iritual and mental conce#tions of his day. (e loo$s bac$ to times which, in his o#inion, had already fulfilled their mission@ he thin$s of the #ower once #ossessed by the nobles and the military class, and says to himself, <n earlier times the nobles and the military class had their #ur#ose and function. The nobles #rovided military forces for the #rotection of those who desired to devote their energies to the so-called arts of #eace. >ut 9 thought %aint-%imon 9 in earlier times the #riesthood too was a factor of great significance. "or long ages the instruction and education of the #eo#le were in the hands of the #riesthood and the #riests were the bearers of the s#iritual life. >ut this state of things has long since #assed away. The nobles and the military class, nay even the #riesthood, have lost their raison d"tre. -nd on the other hand, an entirely new line of activity has established itself in civilised life. %aint%imon was well aware of all that the develo#ment of industry and industrial science meant in the evolution of humanity. (e said to himself, This industrial develo#ment will in its turn give rise to a $ind of thin$ing that has already been ado#ted by natural science, is em#loyed in #hysics, chemistry, biology, and will inevitably s#read to the other sciences. <n astronomy, chemistry, #hysics and #hysiology we find evidences of the $ind of thin$ing that is current in the modern age.

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>ut it is also essential to inaugurate a science of man, in other words, #sychology and sociology. The #rinci#les of #hysics must be introduced into #olitical science and then it will be #ossible to wor$ and act effectively in the domain of social life. :hat is needed 9 so said %aint-%imon 9 is a $ind of 7#olitical #hysics,8 and he set out to build u# a science of social life and action that should be in line with the #rinci#les of chemistry, #hysics and #hysiology. %aint-%imon considered that this $ind of thin$ing was evitable because of the overwhelming im#ortance which industrial life was beginning to assume in his day, and he was convinced that no further #rogress would be #ossible in industry if it remained under the old conditions of subordination to the military class and to the #riesthood. -t the same time %aint-%imon indicated that all these changes were to be regarded as #hases. The #riests and the nobility had had their function to #erform in days gone by and the same significance was, he said, now vested in the scholars and the industrialists. -lthough in former times a s#iritual conce#tion of life was thoroughly ;ustified, the $ind of thought that is fitting in the modern age, said %aint-%imon, is of a different character. >ut something always remains over from earlier times. %aint-%imonAs re;ection of the older, sacerdotal culture was due to his intense #reoccu#ation with the industrialist mode of thin$ing that had come to the fore in his day. (e s#o$e of the old sacerdotal culture as a system of abstract meta#hysics, whereas the =uest of the new age, even in the s#here of #olitics, must be for #hiloso#hy concerned as directly with concrete facts as industrial life is concerned with the facts of the external world. The old sacerdotal culture, he said, sim#ly remains as a system of meta#hysical traditions, devoid of real life, and it is this element that is found above all in the new form of ;uris#rudence and in what has cre#t into #olitical life through ;uris#rudence. To %aint%imon, ;uris#rudence, and the conce#ts on which it was based, were remnants and shadows of the time when sacerdotalism and militarism had a real function to #erform in the life of the #eo#le. The views of a man li$e %aint-%imon are born of the scientific mode of thin$ing which had become so wides#read in the eighteenth century, and even before that time. <t is a mode of thin$ing which directs all inner activity in man to the external world of material facts. %aint-%imonAs attitude, however, was influenced by yet another factor, namely, the demand for individual freedom which was at that time arising from the very de#ths of manAs being. 6n the one side we find the urge to discover natural law everywhere and to admit nothing as being 7scientific8 which does not fall into line with this natural law. 9 -nd on the other side there is the insistent demand for individual freedom, Man must be his own matter and be able in freedom to find a #lace in the world that is consistent with the dignity of manhood. These two demands are, as a matter of fact, in diametrical o##osition to one another. -nd if we study the structure of the life of thought in the nineteenth century, we realise that the mind of %aint-%imon and others li$e him was faced continually with these great #roblems, (ow can < reconcile natural law 9 to which man too must, after all, be sub;ect 9 with the demand for human freedom, for freedom of the individuality. <n the "rench 4evolution a materialistic view of the universe had been mingled with the inner demand for individual freedom. -nd it was the voice of the "rench 4evolution, sounding over into the nineteenth century, which led men li$e %aint-%imon to this bitter conflict in the realm of $nowledge. 9 The laws established by natural science hold good and are universal in their a##lication. They obtain also in the being of man, but he will not admit it because within this body of scientific law he cannot find his freedom as an individual. -nd so at the beginning of the nineteenth century, men li$e %aint-%imon stood as it were without ground under their feet before two irreconcilable #rinci#les. <n trying to solve the #roblems of social life it was a =uestion, on the one side, of $ee#ing faith with science and, on the other, of discovering a form of social life wherein the freedom of true manhood is #reserved and maintained. %aint-%imon tried hard in every direction to find ideas for the institutions of industrial life and of human life in general which might bring him satisfaction. >ut again and again he was baffled by the incom#atibility of these two demands of his age. The conflict, moreover, did not only ma$e itself manifest in individual minds. 6ver the whole of the thought-life and its offs#ring, namely, the #olitical and economic life of the beginning, of the nineteenth century, there loomed the shadow of this conflict. 6n the one side men yearn for unsha$able law and, on the other, demand individual freedom. The #roblem was to discover a form of social life in which, firstly, law should be as su#reme as in the world of nature and which, secondly, should offer man the #ossibility of individual freedom. The shrewdest minds of the age 9 and %aint-%imon was certainly one 9 were not able to find ideas ca#able of #ractical a##lication in social life. -nd so %aint-%imon #rescribes a social system directed by science and in line with scientific habits of thought. 9 >ut the demand for individual freedom finds no fulfilment. - cardinal demand had thus obtruded itself in the life of the times, and is reflected in many a mental conflict. Men li$e Goethe, not $nowing where to turn and yet see$ing for a reconciliation of these two o##osing #rinci#les, find themselves condemned to a life of inner loneliness. -t the beginning of the nineteenth century there is a feeling of des#air in face of the fact that human thin$ing, in s#ite of every effort, is inca#able along these lines of discovering a #racticable form of the social organism. -nd the conse=uence of this is that minds of another character altogether begin to ma$e a stir
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9 minds not fundamentally under the influence of scientific thought nor desirous of a##lying the abstract demands of the "rench 4evolution but who aim at establishing some #ermanent #rinci#le in the social life of a 'uro#e sha$en by the 4evolution and the deeds of 5a#oleon. -nd su##ort is forthcoming for a man li$e de Maistre who #oints bac$ to conditions as they were in the early centuries of )hristendom in 'uro#e. De Maistre, born in the %outh of "rance, issued his call to the "rench 5ation in the nineties of the eighteenth century, wrote his stri$ing wor$ on the Po#e and also his Soir#es de St$ Peters%ourg. (e is the most universal mind among the reactionaries in the first half of the nineteenth century 9 a shrewd and ingenious thin$er. (e calls the attention of those who are willing to listen to the chaos that must gradually ensue if men #rove inca#able of evolving ideas u#on which a social order may be built u#. "rom this #oint of view he criticises with considerable acrimony those whom he considers res#onsible for the chaos in modern thought, among them, /oc$e, and he lays it down as an irrefutable #rinci#le that no social order worthy of the name can arise unless the civilisation of 'uro#e is imbued once again with the old )atholic s#irit of the early centuries of )hristendom. :e must be absolutely ob;ective in our study here and try to #ut ourselves in the #lace of a man li$e de Maistre and of those who even to-day still thin$ more or less as he did. :e must be able to see with the eyes of one who is convinced that no true social science can be born of modern scientific thought and that if no s#iritual im#ulse can find its way into the social organism, chaos must become more and more wides#read. <t is, of course, true that neither de Maistre himself nor those who listened to his im#assioned words #erceived the reality of a new s#iritual im#ulse. De Maistre #ointed bac$ to olden times, when the building of social order had actually been within the ca#acity of men. <n the world of scientific thought to-day his voice has to all intents and #ur#oses died away, but on the surface only. Those who #erceive what is really ha##ening below the surface of civilised life, who realise how traditional religions are stretching out their tentacles once again and trying des#erately to 7modernise8 $now how strongly the attitude of men li$e de Maistre is influencing ever-widening circles of reactionary thought. -nd if no counterbalance is created this influence will #lay a more and more decisive Part in our declining civilisation. -n ob;ective study of de Maistre ma$es it abundantly evident that there is in him no single trace of a new s#irit but that he is sim#ly an ingenious and shrewd inter#reter of the ideas of 4oman )atholicism. (e has wor$ed out the #rinci#les of a social system which would, in his o#inion, be ca#able of calling forth from chaos a #ossible 1although for the modern age not desirable2 social order, directed by ecclesiasticism. - strange situation has arisen at this #oint in the life of modern thought. <n a certain sense, another man who is also a ty#ical re#resentative of modern thin$ing came strongly under the influence of de Maistre. (e gave an entirely different turn to the ideas of de Maistre but we must not forget that the actual content of a thought is one thing and the mode of thin$ing another, and it may be said with truth that the reactionary #rinci#les of de Maistre a##ear, li$e an illegitimate child of modern culture, in an unex#ected #lace. 5ot from the #oint of view of content but from that of the whole configuration of thought, Auguste &omte, sometimes called the 7father of modern society,8 is a true disci#le of de Maistre for whom, moreover, he had considerable admiration. 6n the one side, )omte is a disci#le of %aint-%imon, on the other, of de Maistre. This will not readily be #erceived by those who concentrate on the actual content of the thoughts instead of u#on the whole trend and bent of the mental life. )omte s#ea$s of three #hases in the evolution of humanity. 9 There is, firstly, the ancient, mythological #eriod 9 the theological stage 9 when su#remacy was vested in the #riesthood. This, in his view, was su#erseded by the meta#hysical #hase, when men elaborated systematic thoughts relating to things su#er-#hysical. This stage too has #assed away. The transition must now be made to a $ind of #olitical #hysics, in line with the idea of %aint-%imon. %cience of given facts 9 this alone is worthy of the name of science. >ut there must be an ascent from #hysics, chemistry, biology, to sociology, and thus, following the same methods, to a $ind of #olitical #hysics. )omte outlines a form of society directed by #ositive thin$ing, that is to say, by thought based entirely u#on the material facts of the external world. <n this social structure there is, naturally, not a single trace of )atholic credulity to be found. >ut in the way in which )omte builds u# his system, the way in which he substitutes the authority of the senses for the su#ersensible authority of the )hurch, #utting humanity in the #lace of God, declaring that it is the individual who acts but humanity who guides 9 all this is sim#ly another way of saying, Man thin$s and God guides. -ll this goes to show that the essentially )atholic, reactionary thought of de Maistre is wor$ing in the #ositive #hiloso#hy of -uguste )omte which is directed entirely to the things of the material world. )atholic thought is being #romulgated in this sociology. -nd yet we must admit that there was an idealistic tendency too in the thought of -uguste )omte. (e believes, #rovided always that his thought is in conformity with the s#irit of the age, that he can discover in the social structure something that will be a blessing to man@ he believes, furthermore, that this can be brought home to men and that a beneficial and desirable form of social life may thus be achieved. <m#licit in every thin$er during the first
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half of the nineteenth century there is a certain confidence in ideas that can be born in the mind of man and then communicated to others. There is a certain confident belief that if only men can be convinced of the truth of an idea, deeds of benefit to human life will s#ring from a will that is guided by intelligence. This attitude of confidence ex#resses itself in many different ways and is a##arent in all the thin$ers of the first half of the nineteenth century. Their individual views are, of course, #artly influenced by nationality and #artly by other factors, but this attitude is none the less universal. )onsider for a moment how men li$e %aint-%imon, )omte or BuCtelet conceive of the social order. They wor$ entirely with the intellect and reasoning faculty, systematising, never de#arting from the #rinci#les of mathematical calculation, building u# statistics and orderly systems with a certain elegance and grace. -nd then thin$ of a man li$e Her%ert Spencer in 'ngland during the first half of the nineteenth century. (erbert %#encer is absolutely ty#ical of the 'nglish outloo$. (e does not systematise li$e %aint-%imon and )omte, nor does he wor$ with statistics. 'conomic and industrial thin$ing, the way in which the #roblems of industrial life are interlin$ed 9 all these things which he has learnt from the others, he then #roceeds to build u# into a social science. 6n the basis of scientific and economic thin$ing (erbert %#encer evolves a $ind of 7su#er-organism8. (e himself does not use this ex#ression but many other thin$ers ado#ted it, and indeed it became a habit in the nineteenth century to #lace the #refix 7su#er8 before anything of which they were unable to form a concrete idea. This may be =uite harmless in the realm of lyrical thought, but when it becomes a =uestion of raising the concrete to a higher level sim#ly by using the #refix 7su#er8 9 as was usual at one time 9 then one is stumbling about in a realm of confused thoughts and ideas. <n s#ite of this habit, however, eminent minds in the first half of the nineteenth century were all #ossessed of a certain confidence that the #ower of the s#irit would ultimately lead them to the right #ath. <n the second half of the nineteenth century there is a com#lete change. "rom many #oints of view, 'arl Mar( may be regarded as an outstanding figure of this #eriod. (e too, in his own way, tries to give to the social life a lead based u#on modern scientific thought. >ut the attitude of Darl Marx is very different from that of %aint-%imon, of -uguste )omte, of (erbert %#encer. Darl Marx has really given u# the belief that it is #ossible to convince others of something that is true and ca#able of being #ut into #ractice, once the conviction has been aroused. %aint-%imon, )omte, (erbert %#encer, >uc$le and many others in the first half of the nineteenth century had this inner belief, but in the second half of the century it was not, could not be there. Marx is the most radical exam#le, but s#ea$ing =uite generally this trust in the s#irit was sim#ly non-existent. %o far as Darl Marx is concerned, he does not believe that it is #ossible to convince men by teaching. (e thin$s of the masses of the #roletariat and says to himself, These men have instincts which ex#ress themselves as class instincts. <f < gather together those in whom these class instincts are living, if < organise them and wor$ with what is ex#ressing itself in these class instincts, then < can do something with them, < can lead them in such a way that the inauguration of a new age is #ossible. %aint-%imon and )omte are li$e #riests who have been trans#orted into the conditions of the modern age. They at least believe that conviction can be aroused in the hearts of men, and this was actually the case in the first fifty years of the nineteenth century. Darl Marx, however, sets to wor$ li$e a strategist, or a General who never gives a thought to the factor of conviction but sim#ly sets out to organise the masses. -nd there is really no difference between drilling soldiers and then the masses in order to #re#are them for the field of battle, and marshalling the class instincts that already exist in human beings. -nd so we find the old sacerdotal methods in men li$e %aint-%imon, -uguste )omte, (erbert %#encer, and militaristic methods in men li$e Darl Marx who being out-and-out strategists have given u# the belief that men can be convinced and through their conviction bring about a desirable state of affairs. %uch thin$ers say to themselves, < must ta$e those whom < can organise ;ust as they are, for it is not #ossible to convince human beings. < will organise their class instincts and that will achieve the desired result. - very radical change had come about in the course of the nineteenth century and anyone who studies this change dee#ly enough will realise that it ta$es #lace with considerable ra#idity and is, moreover, a##arent in another s#here as well. The natural scientific mode of thin$ing came to the fore in the modern age, during the first half of the nineteenth century. :e have only to thin$ of men li$e "ichte, %chelling, (egel. <n their days, men still had faith in the s#irit and believed that the s#irit would hel# them to fathom the world of nature@ they believed that nature was in some way directed by the s#irit. >ut later on, ;ust as faith in the creative s#irit was lost in the domain of sociological thin$ing, so too was faith lost in the s#here of the $nowledge of nature. Men #laced reliance alone u#on observation and ex#eriment, and confidence in the creative s#irit died away entirely. The s#irit, they said, is ca#able only of recording the results of observation and ex#eriment. -nd then, when this attitude cree#s into the realm of social science, the scientific mode of observation is a##lied, as in Darwinism, in the study of the evolution of man. >en;amin Didd, (uxley, 4ussell, :allace and others in the second half of the nineteenth century are ty#ical re#resentatives of this $ind of thin$ing The s#irit is materialised and identified with external things both in the realm of social life and in the realm of $nowledge.
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<t is strange how in the nineteenth century the human mind is beset by a $ind of inner agnosticism, how it gradually loses faith even in itself. There was a radical increase of this agnosticism in the middle of the nineteenth century. Those who observe the way in which thoughts are ex#ressed 9 and when it is a matter of discovering historical connections this is far more im#ortant than the actual content of the thoughts 9 will realise that these voices of the nineteenth century were the offs#ring of a tendency that was already beginning to ma$e itself felt in the eighteenth century. <t is #ossible, too, to follow the line of develo#ment bac$ into the seventeenth, sixteenth and fifteenth centuries. :e shall not there find direct evidence of the urge that became so insistent in the nineteenth century to unfold a new conce#tion of the social order, in s#ite of a realisation that the goal was im#ossible of achievement, but we shall find nevertheless that the change which too$ #lace in menAs thin$ing in the middle of the nineteenth century had been gradually wor$ing u# to a climax since the fifteenth century. :e find too, as we follow the develo#ment of thought bac$ to the time of the fifteenth century, that conce#ts and ideas are invariably intelligible to us as thin$ers living in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. >ut this is no longer the case as soon as we get bac$ to the time #receding the fifteenth century and towards the Middle -ges. < could tell you of many ideas and views which would #rove to you the difference of outloo$ in these earlier centuries, but < will give one exam#le only. 9 -nyone who genuinely tries to understand writings which deal with the world of nature, dating from the time #receding the fifteenth century, will find that he must a##roach them with an attitude of mind =uite different from that which he will naturally bring to bear u#on literature of the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. >efore the fifteenth century, all the writings on the sub;ect of nature indicate =uite clearly that anyone who ex#eriments with #rocesses of nature must be filled with a certain inner reverence. 'x#eriments with mineral substances, for instance, must only be carried out in a mood that finds favour in the eyes of certain Divine >eings. 'x#eriments with the #rocesses of nature must be accom#anied by a moral attitude of soul 9 so it was said. >ut ;ust thin$ of what would ha##en to-day if it were demanded of someone wor$ing to #roduce a chemical reaction in a laboratory, that his soul must first be suffused with a mood of #iety. The idea would be ridiculed. 5evertheless, before the fifteenth century, and more strongly so in earlier times, it was =uite natural that this demand should be made of those who were in any way wor$ing with the #rocesses of nature. <t was the aim of a man li$e de Maistre to bring to life again in the modern age, conce#ts that had really lost the vital meaning once attaching to them, and above all he tried to bring home the difference between the conce#ts of sin and of crime. -ccording to de Maistre, the men of his day 9 he is s#ea$ing of the beginning of the nineteenth century 9 had no insight into the difference between sin and crime. The two conce#ts had become #ractically synonymous. -nd above all there was no understanding of the meaning of 7original sin.8 /et me now try to describe the idea men had of original sin before the days of the fifteenth century. Modern thought is altogether unfitted to gras# the real meaning of original sin, but some measure of understanding at least must be #resent in studying the develo#ment of thought through the centuries. :e must here turn to fundamental conce#tions resulting from s#iritual investigation. "or it is only by inde#endent research that we can understand the character of a mental outloo$ =uite different from our own. :hen we #eruse boo$s on the sub;ect we are sim#ly reading so many words and we are dishonest with ourselves if we imagine that the words convey any real meaning. 'nlightened minds before the fifteenth century would have set no store by such definitions of original sin as are given by modern theology. <n those days 9 and < re#eat that these things can only be discovered nowadays by %#iritual %cience 9 it was said, The human being, from the time of his birth, from the time he draws his first breath, until his death, #asses through certain #rocesses and #hases in his inner life. These inner #rocesses are not the same as those at wor$ in the world of nature outside the human being. <t is, as a matter of fact, a form of modern su#erstition to believe that all the #rocesses at wor$ in the being of man can also be found in the animal. This is mere su#erstition, because the laws of the animal organisation are different from those of the human organism. "rom birth until death the organism of the human being is #ermeated by forces of soul. -nd when we understand the nature of the laws and forces at wor$ in the human organism, we $now that they are not to be found in outer nature. <n outer nature, however, there is something that corres#onds in a certain sense with the laws at wor$ during the #eriod of embryonic develo#ment, from the time of conce#tion until birth. The #rocesses at wor$ in the being of man between birth and death are not to be ex#lained in the light of the #rocesses of outer nature. 5evertheless, if it is rightly a##lied, the $nowledge gleaned from a study of external nature enables us to understand the #rocesses at wor$ during the embryonic #eriod of the life of a human being. <t is not easy for the modern mind to gras# this idea, but my ob;ect in s#ea$ing of it is to give an exam#le of how %#iritual %cience can throw light u#on conce#tions of earlier times. 5ot of course with clear consciousness, but out of dim feeling, a man engaged in the investigation of nature before the fifteenth century said to himself, 6uter nature lies there before me, but the laws of this outer nature wor$ only in the #rocesses of my #hysical body as it was before birth. <n this sense there is something in the inner being of man that is o#enly manifest in outer nature. >ut the evolution of the human being must not be sub;ect to the laws and
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#rocesses of external nature. Man would be an evil being if he grew as the #lant grows, unfolding its blossom in the outer world of s#ace. %uch were the views of an earlier time. <t was said that man falls into sin when he gives himself over to the forces by which his develo#ment in the motherAs womb was #romoted, for these forces wor$ as do the forces of nature outside the human being. <n nature outside the human being, these forces are wor$ing in their #ro#er s#here. >ut if, after birth, man gives himself over to the forces of nature, if he does not ma$e his being fit to become #art of a world of su#ersensible law 9 then he falls into sin. This thought leads one to the conce#t of original sin, to the idea of the mingling of the natural with the moral world order. Processes which belong to outer nature are woven, as it were, into the moral world order and the outcome is the birth of a conce#t li$e that of 7original sin8 which was an altogether scientific conce#t before the days of the fifteenth century. De Maistre wanted to bring this conce#t of original sin again to the fore, to ma$e a connecting lin$ between natural science and the moral world. <n the nineteenth century, however, the only #ossible way of #reserving this conce#t of original sin was to bring about an even more radical se#aration of religion and scientific $nowledge. -nd so we find great em#hasis being laid u#on the cleft between faith and $nowledge. <n earlier times no such cleft existed. <t begins to a##ear a few hundreds of years before the fifteenth century but becomes more and more decisive as the centuries #ass, until, in the nineteenth century, religion says, /et science carry out its own methods of exact research. :e on our side have no desire to use these methods. :e will ensure for ourselves a realm where we need sim#ly faith and #ersonal conviction 9 not scientific $nowledge. Dnowledge was relegated to science and religion set out to secure the realm of faith because the #owers of the human soul were not strong enough to combine the two. -nd so, in the o#inion of de Maistre, the conce#t of crime alone, no longer that of sin in its original meaning, conveyed any meaning to the modern mind, for the conce#t of sin could only have meaning when men understood the inter#lay between the natural and moral worlds. This exam#le shows us that the conce#ts and ideas of men in the time immediately #receding the fifteenth century were =uite different from ours. Going bac$wards from the fifteenth century, we come to a lengthy #eriod generally referred to as the dar$ Middle -ges, during which we find no such #rogress in the realm of thought as is a##arent from the fifteenth century onwards. The develo#ment of thought that has ta$en #lace since the days of Galileo and )o#ernicus, leading u# to the achievements of the nineteenth century, bear witness to unbro$en #rogress, but in the time #receding the fifteenth century we cannot s#ea$ of #rogress in this sense at all. :e can go bac$ century alter century, through the twelfth, eleventh, tenth, ninth, eighth, seventh and sixth centuries, and we find =uite a different state of things. :e see the gradual s#read of )hristianity, but no trace of #rogressive evolution in the world of thought such as begins in the fifteenth century and in the middle of the nineteenth century undergoes the radical change of which we have s#o$en. :e come finally to a most significant #oint in the s#iritual life of 'uro#e, namely, the fourth century -.D. Gradually it dawns u#on us that it is #ossible to follow stage by stage the #rogressive develo#ment beginning in the middle of the fifteenth century with 5icolas )usanus, ex#ressing itself in the thought of men li$e Galileo and )o#ernicus and ultimately leading on to the radical turning-#oint in the nineteenth century, but that things are not at all the same in earlier centuries. :e find there a more stationary condition of the world of thought and then, suddenly, in the fourth century of our era, everything changes. This century is a #eriod of the greatest significance in 'uro#ean thought and civilisation. <ts significance will be brought home to us all the more when we realise that events after the turning-#oint in the fifteenth century, for exam#le, the movements $nown as the 4enaissance and the 4eformation, denote a $ind of return to conditions as they were in the fourth century of the )hristian era. This is the decisive time in the #rocess of the decline of the 4oman 'm#ire. The headway made by )hristianity was such that )onstantine had been obliged to #roclaim religious freedom for the )hristians and to #lace )hristianity on an e=ual footing with the old #agan forms of religion. :e see, too, a final attem#t being made by Fulian the -#ostate to reinculcate into the civilised humanity of 'uro#e the views and conce#tions of ancient Paganism. The death of Fulian the -#ostate, in the year +E+, mar$s the #assing of one who strove with might and main to restore to the civilised #eo#les of 'uro#e im#ulses that had reigned su#reme for centuries, had been absorbed by )hristianity but in the fourth century were a##roaching their final #hase of decline. <n this century too we find the onslaught of those forces by which the 4oman 'm#ire was ultimately su#erseded. 'uro#e begins to be astir with the activities of the Goths and the Gandals. <n the year -.D. +H? there ta$es #lace the momentous battle of (adriano#le. The Goths ma$e their way into the 'astern 4oman 'm#ire. The blood of the so-called barbarians is set u# in o##osition to the dying culture of anti=uity in the %outh of 'uro#e. The history of this fourth century of our era is truly remar$able. :e see how the culture of Greece, with its belief in the Gods and its #hiloso#hy, is little by little lift ed away from its hinges and disa##ears as an influence, and how the remnants of its thought #ass over to the 4oman )atholic )hurch. Direction of the whole of the s#iritual and mental life falls into the hands of the #riests@ s#irituality in its universal, cosmic as#ect vanishes, until, brought to light once again by the 4enaissance, it wor$s an so strongly that when Goethe had com#leted his early training and #roduced his first wor$s, he yearned with all his heart and soul for ancient 'uro#ean--siatic culture.

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:hat, then, is the state of things in the age immediately following the fourth century -.D.I 'ducation and culture had vanished into the cities, and the #easantry, together with the landowning #o#ulation in %outhern 'uro#e, fused with the #eo#les who were #ressing downward from the 5orth. The next stage is the gradual fading away of that s#iritual life which, originating in the ancient 'ast, had a##eared in another garb in the culture of Greece and 4ome. These im#ulses die down and vanish, and there remain the #easantry, the landowning #o#ulace and the element with which they have now fused, living in the #eo#les who were coming down from the 5orth into the Graeco-4oman world. Then, in the following centuries, we find the 4oman #riesthood s#reading )hristianity among this #easant #eo#le who #ractically constituted the whole #o#ulation. The wor$ of the #riesthood is carried on =uite inde#endently of the Gree$ elements which gradually fade out, having no #ossibilities for the future. The old communal life is su#erseded by a system of commerce a$in to that #revailing among the barbarians of the 5orth. %#iritual life in the real sense ma$es no headway. The im#ulses of an earlier s#irituality which had been ta$en over and remoulded by the #riesthood, are inculcated into the uneducated #easant #o#ulation of 'uro#e@ and not until these im#ulses have been inculcated does the blood now flowing in the veins of the #eo#le of 'uro#e wor$ in the direction of awa$ening the s#irit which becomes manifest for the first time in the fifteenth century. <n the fourth century -.D. we find many ty#ical re#resentatives of the forces and im#ulses wor$ing at such a momentous #oint of time in the evolution of humanity. The significance of this century is at once a##arent when we thin$ of the following dates. 9 <n the year +++, religious tolerance is #roclaimed by the 'm#eror )onstantine@ in the year +E+, with the murder of Fulian the -#ostate, the last ho#e of a restoration of ancient thought and outloo$ falls to the ground@ (adriano#le is con=uered by the Goths in the year +H?. <n the year 0JJ, -ugustine writes his &onfessions, bringing as it were to a $ind of culmination the inner struggles in the life of soul through which it was the destiny of 'uro#ean civilisation to #ass. /iving in the midst of the fading culture of anti=uity, a man li$e -ugustine ex#erienced the death of the 'astern view of the world. (e ex#erienced it in ManichKism, of which, as a young man, he had been an ardent adherent@ he ex#erienced it too in 5eo#latonism. -nd it was only after inner struggles of uns#ea$able bitterness, having wrestled with the teachings of Mani, of 5eo#latonism and even with Gree$ sce#ticism, that he finally found his way to the thought and outloo$ of 4oman )atholic )hristianity. -ugustine writes these &onfessions in the year -.D. 0JJ, as it were on tables of stone. -ugustine is a ty#ical re#resentative of the life of thought as it was in the fourth century -.D. (e was imbued with ManichKan conce#tions but in an age when the ancient 'astern wisdom had been romanised and dogmatised to such an extent that no fundamental under standing of ManichKan teaching was #ossible. :hat, then, is the essence of ManichKismI The teachings that have come down to us in the form of tradition do not, nor can they ever ma$e it really intelligible to us. The only ho#e of understanding ManichKism is to bring the light of %#iritual %cience to bear u#on it. 6riental thought had already fallen into decadence but in the teachings of Mani we find a note that is both familiar and full of significance. The ManichKans strove to attain a living $nowledge of the inter#lay between the s#iritual and the material worlds. The aim of those who adhered to the teachings of Mani was to #erceive the %#iritual in all things material. <n the light itself they sought to find both wisdom and goodness. 5o cleft must divide %#irit from nature. The two must be realised as one. /ater on, this conce#tion came to be $nown by the name of dualism. %#irit and nature 9 once ex#erienced as a living unity 9 were se#arated, nor could they be reunited. This attitude of mind made a dee# im#ression u#on the young -ugustine, but it led him out of his de#th@ the mind of his time was no longer ca#able of rising to ideas which had been accessible to an older, more instinctive form of cognition, but which humanity had now outgrown. -n inner, tragic struggle is waged in the soul of -ugustine. :ith might and main he struggles to find truth, to discover the immediate reality of divine forces in cloud and mountain, in #lant and animal, in all existence. >ut he finally ta$es refuge in the 5eo#latonic #hiloso#hy which #lainly shows that it has no insight into the inter#enetration of %#irit and matter and, in s#ite of its greatness and ins#iration, does no more than reach out towards abstract, nebulous %#irit. :hile -ugustine is gradually resigning ho#e of understanding a s#irit-filled world of nature, while he is even #assing through the #hase of des#ising the world of sense and idolising the abstract s#irituality of 5eo#latonism, he is led, by a #rofoundly significant occurrence, to his )atholic view of life. :e must realise the im#ortance of this world-historic event. -ncient culture is still alive in -ugustineAs environment, but it is already decadent, has #assed into its #eriod of decline. (e struggles bitterly, but to no #ur#ose, with the last remnants of this culture surviving in ManichKism and 5eo#latonism. (is mind is stee#ed in what this wisdom, even in its decadence, has to offer, and, to begin with, he cannot acce#t )hristianity. (e stands there, an eminent rhetorician and 5eo#latonist, but torn with gnawing doubt. -nd what ha##ensI Fust when he has reached the #oint of doubting truth itself, of losing his bearings altogether along the tortuous #aths of the decadent learning of anti=uity in the fourth century
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of our era, when innumerable =uestions are hurtling through his mind, he thin$s he hears the voice of a child calling to him from the next garden, 7Ta$e and read. Ta$e and read.8 -nd he turns to the 5ew Testament, to the '#istles of %t. Paul, and is led through the voice of the child to 4oman )atholicism. The mind of -ugustine is laden with the oriental wisdom which had now become decadent in the :est. (e is a ty#ical re#resentative of this learning and then, suddenly, through the voice of a child, he becomes the #aramount influence in subse=uent centuries. 5o actual brea$ occurs until the fifteenth century and it may truly be said that the ultimate outcome of this brea$ a##ears as the change that too$ #lace in the life of thought in the middle of the nineteenth century. -nd so, in this fourth century of our era, we find the human mind involved in the com#licated networ$ of :estern culture but also in an element which constitutes the starting-#oint of a new im#ulse. <t is an im#ulse that mingles with what has come over from the 'ast and from the seemingly barbarian #eo#les by whom 4oman civilisation was gradually su#erseded, but whose instructors, after they had mingled with the #easantry and the landowning classes, were the #riests of the 4oman )hurch. <n the de#ths, however, there is something else at wor$. 6ut of the raw, un#olished soul of these #eo#les there emerges an element of lofty, archaic s#irituality. There could be no more stri$ing exam#le of this than the boc$ that has remained as a memorial of the ancient Goths 9 :ulfilaAs translation of the >ible. :e must try to unfold a sensitive understanding of the language used in this translation of the >ible. The /ordAs Prayer, to ta$e one exam#le, is built u#, fragment by fragment, out of the confusion of thought of which -ugustine was so ty#ical a re#resentative. :ulfilaAs translation of the >ible is the offs#ring of an archaic form of thought, of -rian )hristianity as o##osed to the -thanasian )hristianity of -ugustine. Perha#s more strongly than anywhere else, we can feel in :ulfilaAs translation of the >ible how dee#ly the #agan thought of anti=uity is #ermeated with -rian )hristianity. %omething that is #regnant with inner life echoes down to us from these barbarian #eo#les and their culture, to which the civilisation of ancient 4ome was giving #lace. The /ordAs Prayer rendered by :ulfila, is as follows, -tta unsar thu in himinam, Geihnai namo thein@ Buimai thiudinassus theins. Gairthai vil;a theins, sve in himina, ;ah ana aerthai. (laif unsarana thana sinteinan, gif uns himma daga. Fah aflet uns, thatei s$ulans si;aima, svasve ;ah veis afletam thaim s$ulam unsaraim. Fah ni briggais uns in fraistubn;ai, a$ lausei uns af thamma ubilin. Lnte theina ist thiu dangardi, ;ah mahts, ;ah vulthus in aivius. -men. -tta unsar thu in himinam, veihnai namo thein@ Buimai thiudinassus theins. Gairthai vil;a theins, sve in himina, ;ah ana aerthai. 9 The words of this wonderful #rayer cannot really be translated literally into our modern language, but they may be rendered thus, :e feel Thee above in the %#irit-(eights, -ll "ather of men. May Thy 5ame be hallowed. May Thy Dingdom come to us. May Thy :ill be su#reme, an the 'arth even as it is in (eaven. 9 :e must be able to feel what these words ex#ress. Men were aware of the existence of a #rimordial >eing, of the -llsustaining "ather of humanity in the heights of s#iritual existence. They #ictured (irn with their faculties of ancient clairvoyance as the invisible, su#ersensible Ding who rules (is Dingdom as no earthly Ding. -mong the Goths this >eing was venerated as Ding and their veneration was #roclaimed in the words , -tta unsar thu in himinam. This #rimordial >eing was venerated in (is three as#ects, May Thy 5ame be hallowed. 75ame8 9 as a study of %anscrit will show 9 im#lied the outer manifestation or revelation of the >eing, as a man reveals himself in his body. 7Dingdom8 was the su#reme Power, Geihnai namo thein@ Buimai thiudinassus theins, Gairthai vil;a theins, sve in himina, ;ah ana aerthai. 7:ill8 indicated the %#irit shining through the Power and the 5ame. 9 Thus as they ga&ed u#wards, men beheld the %#irit of the su#ersensible worlds in (is three-fold as#ect. To this %#irit they #aid veneration in the words , Fah ana aerthai. (laif unsarana thana sinteinan, gif uns himma daga.
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9 %o may it be on 'arth. 'ven as Thy 5ame, the form in which Thou art outwardly manifest, shall be holy, so may that which in us becomes outwardly manifest and must daily be renewed, be radiant with s#iritual light. :e must try to understand the meaning of the Gothic word Hlaif, from which )ei% 1)ei%Mbody2 is derived. <n saying the words, 7Give us this day our daily bread,8 we have no feeling for what the word Hlaif denoted here, 9 'ven as Thy 75ame8 denotes thy body, so too may our body be s#iritualised, subsisting as it does through the food which it receives and transmutes. The #rayer s#ea$s then of the 7Dingdom8 that is to reign su#reme from the su#ersensible worlds, and so leads on to the social order among men. <n this su#ersensible 7Dingdom8 men are not debtors one of another. The word debt among the Goths means debt in the moral as well as in the #hysical, social life. -nd so the #rayer #asses from the 75ame8 to the 7Dingdom8, from the bodily manifestation in the %#irit, to the 7Dingdom8. -nd then from the outer, #hysical nature of the body to the element of soul in the social life and thence to the %#iritual.9 Fah aflet uns, thatei s$ulans si;aima, svasve ;ah veis afletam thaim s$ulam unsaraim. 9 May we not succumb to those forces which, #roceeding from the body, lead the %#irit into dar$ness@ deliver us from the evils by which the %#irit is cast into dar$ness. Fah ni briggais uns in fraistubn;ai, a$ lausei uns af thamma ubilin. 9 Deliver us from the evils arising when the %#irit sin$s too dee#ly into the bodily nature. Thus the second #art of the #rayer declares that the order reigning in the s#iritual heights must be im#licit in the social life u#on 'arth. -nd this is confirmed in the words , :e will recognise this s#iritual 6rder u#on 'arth. Lnte theina ist thiu dangardi, ;ah mahts, ;ah vulthus in aivius. -men. 9 -ll-"ather, whose 5ame beto$ens the out er manifestation of the %#irit, whose Dingdom we will recognise, whose :ill shall reign, May earthly nature too be full of Thee, and our body daily renewed through earthly nourishment. <n our social life may we not be debtors one of another, but live as e=uals. May we stand firm in s#irit and in body, and may the trinity in the social life of 'arth be lin$ed with the su#er-earthly Trinity. "or the %u#ersensible shall reign, shall be 'm#eror and Ding. The %u#ersensible 9 not the material, not the #ersonal 9 shall reign. Lnte theina ist thiu dangardi, ;ah mahts, ;ah vulthus in avius. -men. 9 "or on 'arth there is no thing, no being over which the rulershi# is not Thine. 9 Thine is the Power and the /ight and the Glory, and the all-su#reme /ove between men in the social life. The Trinity in the su#ersensible world is thus to #enetrate into and find ex#ression in the social order of the Material world. -nd again, at the end, there is the confirmation, Nea, verily, we desire that this threefold order shall reign in the social life as it reigns with Thee in the heights, "or Thine is the Dingdom, the Power and the revealed Glory. 9 Theina ist thiu dangardi, ;ah mahts, ;ah vulthus in aivius. -men. %uch was the im#ulse living among the Goths. <t mingled with those #easant #eo#les whose mental life is regarded by history as being almost negligible. >ut this im#ulse unfolded with increasing ra#idity as we reach the time of the nineteenth century. <t finally came to a climax and led on then to the fundamental change in thought and outloo$ of which we have heard in this lecture. %uch are the connections. 9 < have given only one exam#le of how, without in any way distorting the facts, but rather drawing the real threads that bind them together, we can realise in history the existence of law higher than natural law can ever be. < wanted, in the first #lace, to describe the facts from the exoteric #oint of view. /ater on we will consider their esoteric connections, for this will show us how events have sha#ed themselves in this #eriod which stretches from the fourth century -.D. to our own age, and how the im#ulses of this e#och live within us still. :e shall realise then that an understanding of these connections is essential to the attainment of true insight for our wor$ and thought at the #resent time.

Le)ture %
Dornach, 1Eth May, 1 !1
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/ecture given at Dornach, 1Eth May, 1 !1. "rom a shorthand re#ort unrevised by the lecturer. -ll rights reserved by the Philosophisch Anthroposophischer !erlag, Dornach. 'nglish translation by #ermission of (. )ollison, by whom all rights are reserved .

< (-G' tried to show how about the middle of last century a radical transformation too$ #lace in s#iritual life, and how moreover the #eculiar configuration of the nineteenth century thought and the s#iritual life in general that underwent this transformation can be traced bac$ to another crucial turning #oint in the west which we have to loo$ for in the fourth century -.D. 5ow it might at first sight a##ear as if we were trying to show too close a connection between two #eriods that are so very widely se#arated in #oint of time. >ut this very thought will serve to call attention to certain interconnections in the history of humanity. To-day we will begin where we left off yesterday, with the downfall of ancient culture and of the 4oman em#ire. :e drew attention to a distinguishing feature of that time. :e #laced before our souls two re#resentative #ersonalities@ one of them was -ugustine, who grew entirely out of the %outh-:est@ and we com#ared them with another #ersonality, that of the Gothic translator of the >ible, :ulfila, and with the s#iritual stream out of which :ulfila s#rang. :e have to be =uite clear that -ugustine was altogether the child of the conditions which had develo#ed in the southwestern #arts of the 'uro#ean--frican civili&ation of the day. -t that time men who sought a higher culture only found it through contact with the #hiloso#hy, literature, art and science which had for a long time been #ursued in a certain u##er level of society. :e even have to thin$ of Gree$ culture as the #ossession of an u##er class which relegated its more menial wor$ to slaves. -nd still less can we thin$ of 4oman culture without wides#read slavery. The life of this culture de#ended u#on its #ossessors being remote from the thought and feeling #revailing in the masses. >ut one must not thin$ that there was therefore no s#iritual life in the masses. There was an exce#tionally strong s#iritual life among them. This was of course derived more from the native stoc$ left behind at an earlier stage of evolution than that of the u##er class, but it was nevertheless a s#iritual life. (istory $nows very little about it, but it was very li$e what was carried into the southern #arts of 'uro#e by the barbarian tribes, forced to migrate by the forward #ressure of the -siatic hordes. :e must try to form a concrete idea of it. Ta$e, for instance, the #eo#le who over-ran the 4oman 'm#ire 9 the Goths, the Gandals, the /ombards, the (erules. >efore the migrations had begun, thus before the fourth century -.D. which is for us such an im#ortant turning-#oint, these men had s#iritual life away in the 'ast which culminated in a certain religious insight, in certain religious ideas, which #ervaded everything@ and the effects of these ex#eriences influenced every as#ect of daily life. >efore the migrations began these #eo#le have had a long #eriod of settled life. <t was while they were thus settled that they first ex#erienced the southern oriental #eo#les, from whom the <ndian, Persian and succeeding cultures s#rang, had ex#erienced at a much earlier time@ they ex#erienced what we can call a religion which was closely connected with the blood relationshi#s of the #eo#le. <t is only through s#iritual science that this can be observed, but it is also echoed in the sagas and myths < lived in these #eo#les. :hat they worshi##ed were the ancestors of certain families. >ut these ancestors first began to be worshi#ed long after they had #assed away, and this worshi# was in no way based u#on abstract ideas, but u#on what was instinctively ex#erienced as dreamli$e clairvoyant ideas, if < can use the ex#ression without causing misunderstanding. "or there were certain ideas which arose in =uite another way from the way our ideas of to-day are formed. :hen we have ideas nowadays our soul life comes into #lay more or less inde#endently of our bodily constitution. :e no longer feel the seething of the body. These #eo#le had a certain intensive inward sense that in what too$ #lace in their bodies all sorts of cosmic mysteries were active. "or it is not only in the chemical retorts that cosmic #rocesses wor$ according to law, but in the human body also. -nd ;ust as to-day, by means of the #rocesses which ta$e #lace in their retorts chemists see$ with their abstract reason to understand the laws of the universe, so these men too tried through what they had ex#erienced inwardly, through their own organism, whose inner #rocesses they felt, to #enetrate into the mysteries of the cosmos. <t was entirely an inner ex#erience that was still closely bound u# with ideas arising in the body. -nd out of these ideas which were called forth by what we might describe as the inward seething of the organism, there develo#ed the #ictorial imaginations which these men connected with their ancestors. <t was their ancestors whose voices they heard for centuries in these dream formations. -ncestors were the rulers of #eo#le living in =uite small communities, in village tribal communities. These tribes had still this $ind of ancestor-worshi#, which had its life in dreamli$e ideas, when they #ressed forward from the east of 'uro#e towards the west. -nd if we loo$ bac$ to the teachers and the #riests of these #eo#les we find that they were advanced s#irits whose foremost tas$ was to inter#ret what the individual saw in his dream-#ictures, albeit dream-#ictures which he ex#erienced in his awa$e consciousness. They were inter#reters of what the individual ex#erienced. -nd now the migrations began. During the #eriod of the migrations it was their greatest s#iritual consolation that they had this inner clairvoyant life which was inter#reted by their #riests. This s#iritual life was reflected in sagas which have been handed down, notably in the %lav world, and in these sagas you will find confirmation of what < have ;ust briefly outlined.
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5ow shortly after the end of the fourth century these tribes settled down again. %ome of them were absorbed into the #eo#les who had already for a long time inhabited the southern #eninsulas, that is to say they were absorbed into the lower classes of these #eo#les, for their u##er classes had been swe#t away in the time of -ugustine. The Goths were among the tribes absorbed in this way, but mainly those Goths who #eo#led the countries of middle and western 'uro#e@ those who settled in the northern regions of southern 'uro#e maintained their own existence and ac=uired a #ermanent home there. Thus we see that after the fourth century the #ossession of a fixed dwelling #lace becomes an essential characteristic of these #eo#les. -nd now the whole s#iritual life begins to change. <t is most remar$able what a radical change now ta$es #lace in the s#iritual life of these #eo#le through their #eculiar talent. They were gifted not only with s#ecial racial dis#ositions, but with a much greater freshness as a fol$ for ex#eriencing s#iritual reality in dreams@ something which in the southern regions had long since been transformed into other forms of s#iritual life. >ut now they have become settled, and through their #eculiar endowment a new $ind of s#iritual life develo#ed in them. :hat in earlier times had ex#ressed itself in ancestor-worshi#, had con;ured before the soul the #icture of the revered forefather, now attached itself to the #lace. :herever there was some s#ecial grove, some mountain which contained let us say, s#ecial treasures of metal, wherever there was a #lace from which one could watch storms and so on, there, with a de#th of feeling left to them from their old ancestor-imaginations and dreams, men felt something holy to be connected with the #lace. -nd the gods that used to be ancestral became gods of #lace. 4eligious #erce#tions lost their time a character and too$ on a s#atial character. Those who had been #reviously the inter#reters of dreams, the inter#reters of inner soul-ex#erience, now became the guardians what one might call the signs c 9 the #eculiar reflection of the sun in this or that waterfall or other feature of nature, the #henomena of the cloud-drifts in certain valleys and so on 9 these are now the ob;ects of inter#retation, something which then became transformed into the system of 4unes cultivated in certain #laces, where twigs were #luc$ed from trees and thrown down, and the signs read from the s#ecial forms into which the twigs fell. 4eligion underwent a metamor#hosis into a religion of s#ace. The entire s#iritual life became attached to the #lace. Thus these tribes became more and more susce#tible to the influence which the 4oman )atholic )hurch, since it had become the state church in the fourth century, had been accustomed to exercise over the southern #eo#les, that is to say over the lower classes which had been left behind after the u##er classes have been swe#t away. -nd what was it that the church had doneI <n these southern regions the #eriod of transition from the time conce#tion to the s#atial conce#tion of the world was long since #ast, and something of extraordinary im#ortance always ha##ens in a #eriod of transition from a time outloo$ to a s#atial outloo$, a certain living ex#erience #asses over into an ex#erience through symbol and cult. This had already ta$en #lace for the lower classes of the #eo#le in the southern regions. %o long as men continue to live in their time-conce#tions, the #riests, those who in the sense of ancient times we can call learned men, our inter#reters of a corres#onding life of the soul. They were engaged in ex#laining what man ex#erience. They were able to do that because men lived in small village communities, and the inter#reter, who was in fact the leader of the whole s#iritual life, could address himself to the individual, or to a small grou#. :hen the transition ta$es #lace from the time-outloo$ to the s#ace-outloo$, then this living element is more or less su##ressed. The #riest can no longer refer to what the individual has ex#erienced. (e can no longer treat of what the individual tells them and ex#lain to him what he has ex#erienced. :hat is something living is thus transformed into something bound to a #lace. -nd thus ritual gradually arises, the #ictorial ex#ression of what in earlier times was a direct ex#erience of the su#ersensible world. -nd at this #oint develo#ment begins again, so to say, from the other side. The human being now sees the symbol, he inter#rets the symbol. :hat the 4oman )atholic )hurch built u# as cult was built u# with exact $nowledge of this worldhistoric course of human evolution. The transition from the ancient celebration of the /ast %u##er into the sacrifice of the Mass arose, in that the living /ast %u##er became the symbolic rite. <nto this sacrifice of the Mass, it is true, flowed #rimeval holy mystery usages which had been handed down in the lower classes of the #eo#le. These #ractices were now #ermeated with the new conce#tions )hristianity brought. They became, so to say, christianised. The lower classes of the 4oman #eo#le #rovided good material for such a birth of ritual, which was now to reveal the su#ersensible world in symbol. -nd as the northern tribes had also made the transition to a s#iritual life associated with #lace, this ritual could also be im#lanted among them, for they began to meet it with understanding. This is the bases of one of the streams which start in the fourth century -.D. The other stream must be characterised differently. < have described how the ancient ancestor-worshi# lived on, rolling over from the east u#on the declining 4oman 'm#ire. <n the O6ur "atherP of :ulfila we see that in these nomadic #eo#les )hristianity was absorbed into the ancestral cults and the cults connected with locality. -nd that constitutes the
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essence of -rian )hristianity. The dogmatic conflict in the bac$ground is not so im#ortant. The im#ortant thing for this -rian )hristianity, which traveled with the Goths and the other German tribes from the 'ast towards the :est by a #ath which did not lead through 4ome, is that in it )hristianity becomes stee#ed in a living s#iritual life which has not yet reached the stage of ritual, that is closely related to the dream ex#erience, to the clairvoyant ex#erience, if you will not misunderstand the ex#ression. 6n the other hand the )hristianity that -ugustine ex#erienced had #assed through the culture of the u##er classes of the southern #eo#les, and had to encounter all sorts of oriental cults and religious ideas, which flowed together in a great city of 4ome. The heathen -ugustine had grown u# amidst these religious ideas and had turned from them towards )hristianity in the way < have described. (e stands within a s#iritual stream which was ex#erienced by the individual in =uite a different way from the stream < have already mentioned. The latter arose out of the most elemental forces of the fol$-soul life. :hat -ugustine ex#erienced was something which had risen into the u##er class through many filtrations. -nd this was now ta$en over and #reserved by the 4oman )atholic clergy. Moreover its content is far less im#ortant for the #rogress of history than the whole configuration of soul that constituted first Greco-4oman culture and then, through the ado#tion of )hristianity, the culture of the )atholic clergy. <t is essential to see this culture as it was at that time and as it then lived on through the centuries. 6ur #resent-day educational system is something which remains over from the real culture of that time. -fter one had mastered the first elements of $nowledge, which we should to-day call #rimary education, one entered what was called the grammar class. <n the grammar classes one was taught structure of s#eech@ one learned how to use s#eech #ro#erly in accordance with the usages established by the #oets and the writers. Then one assimilated all other $nowledge that was not $e#t secret, for even at that time =uite a lot of $nowledge was $e#t secret by certain mystery schools. :hat was not $e#t secret was im#arted through grammar, but through the medium of s#eech. -nd if anyone reached a higher stage of culture, as for exam#le -ugustine, then he #assed on from the study of grammar to the study of rhetoric. There the ob;ect was to train the #u#il above all in the a##ro#riate use of symbol, how to form his sentences rightly, #articularly how to lead his sentences to a certain climax. This was what the #eo#le who as#ired to culture had to #ractice. 6ne must be able to sense what such a training develo#s in a human being. Through this #urely grammatical and rhetorical $ind of education he is brought into a certain connection with the surface of his nature, he is within what sounds through his mouth far more than is under the influence of thought. (e #ays much more attention to the structure of s#eech and to the connection of thought. -nd that was the #rimary characteristic of this ancient culture, that it was not concerned with the inner soul ex#erience, but with structure, the form of s#eech, with the #leasure it gives. <n short, the man became externalised by this culture. -nd in the fourth century, at that time -ugustine was a student, as we should say to-day, we can see clearly this #rocess of externali&ation, this living in the turn of words, in the form of ex#ression. Grammar and rhetoric were the things that students had to learn. -nd there was good reason for this. "or what we to-day call intelligent thought did not at that time exist. <t is a mere su#erstition very commonly to be found in history to su##ose that men have always thought in the way they thin$ today. The entire thought of the Gree$ e#och right u# to the fourth century -.D. was =uite different. < have gone into this to a certain extent in my 74iddles of Philoso#hy.8 Thought was not hatched out of inner soul activity, as is the case to-day, but thought came to the human being of itself li$e a dream. Particularly was this the case in the 'ast, and the 6riental s#iritual life which had animated Greece and still animated 4ome was not won through thin$ing, it came, even when it was thought, as dream #ictures come. -nd the oriental and south-euro#ean scholars only differed from those of the north in that the #ictures that came to the northerners at first stimulated ideas of their ancestors, and later were associated with #articular localities and became more or less ritualistic. The ideas that were formed in -sia, in southern 'uro#e, already had the character of thought, but they were not thoughts won by inner soul activity, inner intelligence, they were inwardly revealed thoughts. 6ne ex#erienced what one called $nowledge and elaborated for oneself only the word, the sentence, the discourse. There is no logical activity. /ogic arose through -ristotle, when Greece was already decadent. -nd what lived in beauty of s#eech, in rhetoric, was essentially 4oman culture, and became the culture of )atholic )hristianity. This habit of living not in oneself but in an external element ex#resses itself in the education that was given, and one can see how in this res#ect -ugustine was a re#resentative of his time. The corres#ondence between Ferome and -ugustine is illuminating in this res#ect. <t shows how differently these #eo#le conducted an argument in the fourth or beginning of the fifth century from the way we should do so to-day. :hen we discuss things to-day we have a feeling that we ma$e use of a certain activity of thought. :hen these #eo#le discussed, one of them would have the feeling 9 O:ell, < have formed my own view about a certain #oint, but #erha#s my organism does not give me the right view. < will hear what the other man has to say@ #erha#s something else will emerge from his organism.P These men were within a much more real element of inner ex#erience. This difference is seen also in -ugustineAs attitude in condemning heretics of various sorts. :e see #eo#le deriving from the life of the common #eo#le, #eo#le li$e the #riests of Donatism, li$e Pelagius and some others, s#ecially coming to the fore. These #eo#le, although they believe themselves to be entirely
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)hristian, stress the #oint that manAs relation to ;ustice, to sin, must come from the man himself. -nd thus we see a whole series of #eo#le one after the other who cannot believe that it has any sense to ba#ti&e children and thereby to bring about forgiveness of sins. :e see ob;ections made against the )hristianity issuing from 4ome, we see how Pelagianism wins adherents, and how -ugustine, as a true re#resentative of the )atholic element, attac$s it. (e re;ected a conce#tion of sin connected with human sub;ectivity. (e re;ects the view that a relation to the s#iritual world or to )hrist can come from an individual human im#ulse. (ence he wor$s to bring about gradually the #assing over of the )hurch into the external institution. The im#ortant =uestion is not what is in the child, but what the )hurch as external ordnance bestows u#on it. The #oint is not that ba#tism signifies something for the soulAs ex#erience, but that there exists an external ordnance of the )hurch which is fulfilled in ba#tism. The value of the human soul living in the body matters less than that the universal s#irit that lives in the sacrament, so to say an astral sacrament, should be #oured out over man$ind. The individual #lays no #art, but the im#ortant thing is the web of abstract dogmas and ideas which is s#read over humanity. To -ugustine it seems #articularly dangerous to believe that the human being should first be #re#ared to receive ba#tism, for it is not a =uestion of what the human being inwardly wills, but it is a =uestion of admitting into the Dingdom of God which has ob;ective existence. -nd that is essentially the setting in which -thanasian )hristianity lived, in contrast to the other bac$ground that originated in the north-east, in which a certain #o#ular element lived. >ut the )hurch understood how to clothe the abstract element in the ritualistic form which again arose from below. <t was this that made it #ossible for the )hurch to s#read in this 'uro#ean element, from which the ancient culture had vanished. -nd above all it attains this ex#ansion through the exclusion of the wide masses of the #eo#le from the essential substance of religious culture. <t is a matter of tremendous significance that in the centuries which follow this substance is #ro#agated in the /atin language. -nd from the fourth century -.D. onward )hristianity is #ro#agated in the /atin tongue. <t is as it were a stream flowing over the heads of men. That goes on right u# to the fifteenth century. "or what history usually relates is only the outer form of what went on in the souls of men. )hristianity was $e#t secret by those who taught at right u# to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, in a far dee#er sense than the ancient Mysteries were $e#t secret. "or only the outer ritual #enetrated the masses. -nd what was transmitted, which at the same time laid claim to all science coming from the ancient culture and clothed it in the /atin tongue, this was the )hurch, something which hovered above the essential evolution of humanity. -nd the centuries between the fourth and the fourteenth stand under the sign of these two #arallel streams. The external history boo$s, even the histories of the mind, only give the traditional descri#tion of what lea$s out into greater #ublicity from the /atin ecclesiastical stream. (ence from #resent-day historical literature we get no idea of what too$ #lace among the wide masses of the #eo#le. :hat too$ #lace among the masses was something li$e this. -t first there were only village communities@ in the coloni&ation of the whole of middle, western and even of southern 'uro#e the towns #layed a very small #art. The most significant life develo#ed in small village communities@ such towns as did exist were really only large villages@ in these large village communities there was the )atholic )hurch, way over the heads of men, but through the ritual wor$ing suggestively u#on them@ however, these men who only saw the symbolic rite, who #artici#ated in the cult, who watched something which they could not understand, did nevertheless develo# a s#iritual life of their own. The very rich s#iritual life develo#ed throughout 'uro#e at that time, a s#iritual life which stood first and foremost under the influence of human nature itself. <t was something =uite a#art from their #artici#ation in the s#read of )atholic doctrine. "or to associate everything with the #ersonality of >oniface, for instance, is to #lace things a false light. :hat went on in these village communities was an inner soul life through which echoed the omens of the divinity or s#irituality associated with the #lace. 'verywhere #eo#le saw intimations from one or other of these. They develo#ed a magical life. 'verywhere human beings had #remonitions, and told their fellows about them. These #remonitions ex#ressed themselves in sagas, in mysterious hints as to what one or another had ex#erienced s#iritually in the course of his wor$. >ut something very remar$able #ermeated this remains of an ancient #ro#hetic and clairvoyant dream-life, which continued to flourish in the village communities whilst )atholic doctrine #assed over their heads, and one can see that everywhere in 'uro#e the organi&ation of the human being was involved in this characteristic s#iritual life. %omething was at wor$ which indicated a =uite s#ecial dis#osition of soul in two res#ects. :hen #eo#le told of their weightiest #remonitions, their most significant dreams 1these were always associated with #laces2, when they describe their halfwa$ing, half-slee#ing ex#eriences, these dreams are always connected either with events, with =uestions which were as$ed them from out of the s#iritual world, or with tas$s which were im#osed u#on them, with matters in which their s$ill #layed a #art. "rom the whole character of these stories, which were still to be found among the common #eo#le in the nineteenth century, one sees that when men began to #onder and to dream and to build u# their legendary sagas in their mythologies, of the three members of the human being it was not so much the nerve-system 9 which is more connected with the outer world 9 but the rhythmic system which was active@ and in that the rhythmic system was drawn forth out of the organism it showed itself in clairvoyant dreams which #assed by word of mouth from one to another, and in this way the villagers shared with one another fear and ;oy, ha##iness and beauty. <n all this there was always an element of
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delicate =uestioning which came from the s#iritual world. Peo#le had to solve riddles half in dreams, had to carry out s$illful actions, had to overcome something or other. <t was always something of the riddle in this dream life. That is the #hysiological basis of the wides#read s#iritual ex#erience of these men who lived in village communities. <nto this, of course, #enetrated the deeds of )harlemagne of which history tells you@ but those are only surface ex#eriences, though they do of course enter dee#ly into individual destiny. They are not the main thing. The im#ortant thing is what ta$es #lace in the village communities, and there, side by side with the economic life, a s#iritual life develo#ed such as < have described. -nd this s#iritual life goes on right into the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries. 6f course, something of what has develo#ed in the heads of men in the u##er strata of society gradually tric$les down into the lower strata, and the ghostly and magical character of the stories men recount gets charmingly mixed with the )hrist and (is deeds, and what comes from the human being himself is sometimes overlaid with what comes from the >ible or the Gos#el. >ut then we see that it is #rimarily into social thin$ing that the )hristian element is received. :e see it in 7Der (eliand8 and other #oems which arose out of )hristianity but always we see something s#iritual brought to the #eo#le, who meet it with a s#irituality of their own. :hen we come to the tenth and eleventh centuries we see a change in the external life. 'ven earlier, but at this time more mar$edly so, we see life centering itself in the towns. That life of #icture-li$e wa$ing dreams which < have described to you is altogether bound u# with the soil. -s, therefore, in the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries the whole country became covered with larger towns, in these towns another $ind of thin$ing began to develo#. Men living in towns had a different $ind of thought. They were cut off from the #laces in which their local cults had develo#ed, their attention was more directed towards what was human. >ut the human element which develo#ed of the towns was still under the influence of this earlier state of mind, for some of the #eo#le who settled in the towns came from the villages and they with very s#ecial s#iritual endowment made their own contribution. :hat they brought with them was an inner #ersonal life which was an echo of what was ex#erienced in the country, but which now manifested itself in a more abstract form. These men were cut off from nature, they no longer #artici#ated in the life of nature, and although they still have forms of thought derived from nature, they already began to develo# the $ind of thin$ing which was gradually directed towards intelligence. <n the towns of the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries there develo#ed the first trace of that intelligence which we see arise in the fifteenth century among the leading 'uro#ean #eo#les. >ecause life in the towns was more abstract, the abstract ecclesiastical element, clothed in the /atin tongue, became mixed u# with what s#rang directly out of the #eo#le. Thus we see how this /atin element develo#ed in the towns in a more and more abstract form. Then we see the great outburst of #eo#le from below u#wards in various countries. There is a great to-do when Dante, assisted by his teacher, ma$es his way u# into the world of culture. >ut even that is only one instance of many similar outbursts which ha##ened because of the #eculiar manner in which the /atin culture came u# against the #o#ular element in the towns. :e must not forget that still other streams entered into what was ta$ing #lace at that time. <t is of course true that the main streams of s#iritual life, which so to say carried the others, was the one that continued the s#iritual tradition in which -ugustine had lived@ that controlled everything and finally not only gave the towns the bisho#s, who controlled the s#iritual life, if somewhat abstractly and over the heads of the #eo#le, but also, little by little, because it too$ over everything from the constitution of the 4oman em#ire, ended by giving the civil government also, and built u# the alliance between )hurch and %tate which in the eleventh and twelfth centuries was very close. :e see other events light u# in this stream, we see crusades arise, which < need not describe to you, because < want to lay the greatest stress u#on the things that external history #laces in a false light@ and too little im#ortance is attached to other currents that were #resent. "irst of all there is the commercial traffic which had in fact always existed in 'uro#e between the Danube basin and the 'ast. There was constant trading in both directions #articularly in the middle of the middle ages. <n this way oriental ideas in an advanced stage of decadence were brought over into 'uro#e. -nd someone who had #robably never been in the east himself but had only traded with men from the east, brought to the householder not only s#ices, but s#iritual life, a s#iritual life tinged with 6rientalism. This traffic went on throughout the whole of 'uro#e. <t had less influence on /atin culture, far more on the wide masses of #eo#le who understood no /atin. <n the towns and in the surrounding villages there was a living intercourse with the east which was not merely a matter of listening to tales of adventure that which dee#ly influenced s#iritual life. -nd if you want to understand figures such as Facob >oehme, who came later, Paracelsus and many others, then you must bear in mind that they s#rang from #eo#le who had develo#ed without any understanding of the /atin culture which #assed over their heads, but who were in a certain way stee#ed in 6rientalism. -ll that develo#ed as #o#ular alchemy, astrology, fortune telling, had develo#ed out of the union of what < described above as the inner ex#erience of the riddle, told in wa$ing dreams, with what came over from the east as decadent oriental life. 5or within the /atin culture have the will to thin$ been able to ma$e any headway. The logic of -ristotle had a##eared, as it
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were, li$e a meteor. :e see that even -ugustine was little influenced by this logic. >y the fourth century interest had been withdrawn from Greece, and later the 'm#eror Fustinian had closed the %chool of Philoso#hy at -thens. This led to the condemnation for heresy of 6rigen, who had brought with him into )hristianity much of oriental culture, of the earlier s#iritual life. -nd the Gree$ #hiloso#hers were driven out. The teaching that they had from -ristotle was driven into -sia. The Gree$ #hiloso#hers founded centre in -sia, and carried on the -cademy of Gondisha#ur, which had for its main ob;ective the #ermeation of the old decadent oriental s#iritual culture with -ristotelianism, its transformation into an entirely new form. <t was the -cademy of Gondisha#ur wherein a logical form of thought develo#ed with giant strides, that saved -ristotelianism. -ristotelianism was not transmitted through )hristianity, it came into /atin-ecclesiastical life by way of -frica, %#ain and the west of 'uro#e. -nd thus we see how Gondisha#ur, this #hiloso#hic form of -rabism, which does contain a living world-conce#tion, although it is =uite abstract, brings its influence to bear u#on the current which we have already described as #assing over the heads of men. < have described to you both these streams, the one at wor$ above, in the heads of men, the other in their hearts. They wor$ together and it is very significant that the ancient culture was transmitted in a dying language. 6f course there then flows into all this what came through the 4enaissance. >ut < cannot describe everything to-day. < want to #oint out some of the main things which are of s#ecial interest to us. The two currents existed side-by-side right on into the fifteenth century. Then something ha##ened of extraordinary im#ortance. The thought of anti=uity, ins#ired thought which was half vision, became gradually clothed in abstract forms of s#eech, and became )hristian #hiloso#hy, )hristian s#iritual life, the %cholastic #hiloso#hy, out of which the modern university system develo#ed. <n this grammatical-rhetorical atmos#here not thought, but the garment of thought, 4omanism lived on. >ut in the #o#ular stream thin$ing was born, evo$ed through sub;ective activity 9 for the first time in human evolution. 6ut of this ghostly-magical element of #resentiment, mingled with 6rientalism, which above all had its life in the inter#retation of natural #henomena, active thin$ing was born. -nd this birth of thought out of the dreamli$e mystical element too$ #lace somewhere about the fifteenth century. >ut u# to that time the system of 4oman law, clothed in /atin form, gathers strength side by side with the 4oman #riesthood. This current over the heads of men had been able to s#read everywhere in a most systematic way first in the villages, then in the towns, and now in the new age which dawned in the fifteenth century it ;oined forces with that other current which now arose. <n the towns #eo#le were #roud of their individualism, of their freedom. 6ne can see this in the #ortraits #ainted at that time. >ut the village communities were shut off from all this. Then the medieval #rinces rose to #ower. -nd those who outside in the villages gradually came to be in o##osition to the towns, found in the #rinces their leaders. -nd it was from the country, from the villages that the im#ulse came which drew the towns into the wider administrative structure, into which then came 4oman law. There arose the modern state, made u# of the country #arishes@ thus the country con=uered the towns again, and became itself #ermeated by what came out of the /atin element has 4oman law. Thus the latter had now become so strong that what was stirring among the common #eo#le could find no further outlet@ what in the times of unrest, as they were called, had ex#ressed itself among the 4ussian #easants in the (ussite movement, in :ycliffism, in the >ohemian >rotherhood, such movements could no longer ha##en@ the only thing that could find ex#ression was what merged with the 4oman-administrative element. Thus we see that the fol$-element which had won for itself the reality of thought, which held its own in o##osition to the 4oman-/atin element, remained to begin with a faint glow under the surface. There is a cleavage in the s#iritual life. 6ut of the /atin element develo#s 5ominalism, for which universal conce#ts are merely names. Fust as this was an inevitable develo#ment from grammar and rhetoric, so, where there still remained a s#ar$ of the fol$-element, as was the case with -lbertus Magnus and Thomas -=uinas, there develo#ed 4ealism, which ex#erienced thought and ex#ression of something real. >ut at first 5ominalism had the victory. -ll that ha##ened in the historical evolution of humanity is in a sense necessary, and we see that the abstract element becomes all the stronger because it is carried by the dead /atin language right u# to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and is then fructified by thought, has to rec$on with the birth of thought, but clothes thought in abstractions. -nd the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries are #rimarily under the influence of thought born from out of the ancient Gothic Germanic way of life, clothed however in 4oman formulae, in grammatical, rhetorical formulae. >ut now that they have been fructified by thought, these formulae can be called logical formulae. That now becomes inward human thin$ing. 5ow one could thin$ thoughts, but the thoughts had no content. -ll the old world-conce#tions contained, together with the inward ex#erience, at the same time cosmic mysteries. %o that thought still had content right u# to the fourth century -.D. Then came the time which as it were bore the future in its womb, the time in which rhetoric, grammar and dialectic develo#ed further and further in a dead language. Then that was fructified by the force of thought which came from below, and men ac=uired mastery over that, but in itself it had no content. There was a dim #erce#tion of 4ealism but a belief in 5ominalism, and with the aid of 5ominalism next came the con=uest of nature. Thought as inner soul life brought no content with it. This content had to be sought from without. Thus we see how from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century the con=uest of natural law was the achievement of a thin$ing that was em#ty
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of all content, but was born as a ca#acity out of all that 'uro#e had brought forth as her own. <n the middle of the nineteenth century men began to be aware O:ith your thought you are con=uering natural law, you are con=uering the external world, but thought itself is ma$ing no #rogress.P -nd men gradually got into the way of eliminating from their thought everything that did not come from outside. They found their life in religious faith which was su##osed to have nothing to do with scientific $nowledge, because their thin$ing has become void of content and had to fill itself only with external facts and natural entities. The content of faith was to be #rotected because it had to do with the su#ersensible. >ut because this em#ty thin$ing had no content, it could a##ly itself to the sense-#erce#tible. >ut this faith in which man lived could only fill itself with old traditions, with the content of the oriental culture of the #ast, which still lived on. <t was the same with art. <f one loo$s bac$ to earlier times, one finds art closely associated with religion, and religious ideas find their ex#ression in wor$s of art. 6ne sees how their ideas about the Gods find ex#ression in the Gree$ dramatists or the Gree$ scul#tors. -rt is something within the whole structure of the s#iritual life. >ut by the time of the 4enaissance -rt begins to be ta$en more externally. <ndeed in the nineteenth century we see more and more how men are ha##y to be offered a #ure #hantasy in art, something which they need not acce#t as a reality, something which has nothing to do with reality. -nd such men as Goethe are li$e modern hermits. Goethe says O(e to whom nature begins to unveil her o#en secrets feels an irresistible longing for her worthiest inter#reter, art.P -rt, says Goethe, is a revelation of natureAs secret laws, laws which would never be revealed without her. -nd it is worthy of note that Goethe has a way of turning to the #ast, different from that of other men, 9 he s#ea$s therein for a content, in the age of em#ty intellect, filled only with the im#ression of the external world of the senses. (e yearns toward Greece. -nd when in 4ome he finds still something of what Gree$ art has fashioned out of the de#ths of its #hiloso#hy, he writes OThat is necessity, that is God.P -rt unveiled for him the s#irituality of the world which he was trying to ex#erience. >ut more and more men have a obscure ill-defined feeling OThis thin$ing of ours is all right for the external world, but it is not suited to attain to an inner s#iritual content.P -nd thus we see the second half of the nineteenth century run its course. -s < remar$ed yesterday, the winds of the first half of the nineteenth century, such as (egel, %aint-%imon or even %#encer, still believed that they could reach a #hiloso#hy, even a social #hiloso#hy, out of their inner soul ex#eriences. <n the second half of the nineteenth century men thought that no longer. >ut something of what had given birth to thought out of the unconscious was still at wor$. :hy was it that in the #ortentous dreams of village #o#ulations over the whole of 'uro#e right u# to the twelfth century there was always something of this riddle-solving element, this cleverness which ex#resses itself in all sorts of cunningI <t was because thought, reflection, the wor$ of thin$ing, was born. The foundation of thought was laid. -nd now we see how in the second half of the nineteenth century there is utter des#air. 'verywhere we find statements as to the boundaries of $nowledge. -nd with the same rigidity and dogmatism with which once the scholastics had said that reason could not rise to the su#ersensible, du >ois-4eymond, for exam#le, said that scientific investigation could not #enetrate to the consciousness of matter. < mean that #reviously the barrier had been set u# in relation to this su#ersensible@ now it referred to what was su##osed to hide behind the senses. >ut in all manner of other s#heres we see the same #henomena emerge. 4an$e the historian of the second half of the nineteenth century is very ty#ical in this res#ect. -ccording to him history has to investigate the external events, even of the time in which )hristianity begins to s#read@ one has to #ay attention to what is ta$ing #lace in the world around one #olitically and socially and culturally. :hat however has ta$en #lace through )hrist in the course of human evolution 9 that 4an$e assigns to the original world 1Lrwelt2, not in the tem#oral sense, but to the world behind what can be investigated. :e have seen that the scientist du >ois-4eymond says 7ignorabimus8 as regards matter and consciousness. 5atural %cience can go #retty far@ but what is there where matter lur$s, what is there where consciousness arises, there du >ois-4eymond formulates his seven universal riddles@ they are he #ronounces his 7ignorabimus.8 -nd /eo#old von 4an$e, the historian who wor$s in the same s#irit says OL#on all the wealth of existing documents historical investigations can #our its light@ but behind what is at wor$ as external historical fact there are events which seem to be #rimeval.P 'verything which thus lies at the base of history he calls the 7Lrwelt8, ;ust as does du >ois-4eymond the world lying beyond the limits of natural science. :ithin that s#here lie the )hristian mysteries, the religious mysteries of all #eo#les. There the historian says 7ignorabimus8. 7<gnorabimus8 ali$e from scientist and historian@ that is the mood of the entire s#iritual life of the second half of the nineteenth century. :herever you meet the s#iritual life, in :agnerian music, in the cult of 5iet&sche, everywhere this mood is to be found. The former is driven to ta$e refuge in certain musical dreams, the latter suffers through what is ta$ing #lace in the world of 7ignorabimus8. -gnosticism becomes fashionable, becomes #olitics, sha#es the state. -nd anyone who wishes to do anything #ositive but relies not on any $ind of gnosticism, but u#on agnosticism. The strategy of Marxism builds u#on what lies in the instincts, not u#on something which it wants to bring forth of su#er-earthly nature. :e see how everywhere s#irituality is driven bac$, how agnosticism becomes the formative reality. <t is thus that we have to understand modern s#iritual life. :e shall only understand it aright if we follow its origin from the fourth century -.D., if we $now that in it 5ominalism is living, the #urely legalistic and logical@ and thought has been born in the way < have
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described. This thought, however, is still only so far born as to be able to ma$e use of formalism, of em#ty thin$ing. <t slumbers in the de#ths of civilised humanity. <t must be brought out into the o#en. :e learn how really to study history, if we illuminate with the light of s#iritual investigation what has hovered over us since the fourth century. Then we can $now what is above. -nd certainly thought has become fruitful and natural science because it has been fructified by thought born out of human nature in the way < have described. >ut now in the time of #overty, in the time of need, man$ind needs to remember that thought which to begin with could only fructify formalism 9 em#ty thought that receives $nowledge of nature from outside 9 has exhausted itself in natural scientific agnosticism, must strengthened itself, must become ri#e for vision, must raise itself into the su#ersensible world. This thought is there, it has already #layed a #art in natural scientific $nowledge, but its essential force still lies dee# beneath the consciousness of human evolution. That we must recogni&e as a historical fact, then we shall develo# trust in the inner force of s#irituality, then we shall establish a s#iritual science, not out of vague mysticism, but out of clarity of thought. -nd the thoughts of such a s#iritual science will #ass over into action, they will be able to wor$ into the human social and other institutions. :e are constantly saying that history should be our teacher. <t cannot be our teacher by #utting before us what is #ast and over, but by ma$ing it ca#able of discovering the new in the de#ths of existence. :hat goes forth from this #lace goes forth in search of such a new vision. -nd it can find its ;ustification not only in the inculcation of s#iritual scientific method, but also by a right treatment of history.

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