The Constitution of the General Anthroposophical Society

GA 260a — 24 February 1924

The School of Spiritual Science VI

In addition to the sections already mentioned, which the Executive Council of the Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum is striving to establish, another should be added. This will be possible if the will of this Executive Council is met with corresponding goodwill. In every age, youth has stood in a certain contrast to old age. Many people console themselves with this gypsy truth when it comes to the phenomena of life within today's youth.

But this consolation could easily turn into disaster.

One should understand today's youth from the “spirit of the present,” both in their questionable aberrations and in their all too justified striving for something other than what the older generation offers them.

First, there are young people who are pushed into academic careers by the circumstances of their lives. They are presented with “science.” Solid, reliable science that is fruitful for external life. It would be nonsense to rant about this science, as many laymen do. But young people freeze emotionally in the face of this science before they come to appreciate its solidity, its reliability, its fruitfulness for external life.

Science owes its greatness to a strong opposition that has been driving it since the middle of the nineteenth century. At that time, people became aware of how easily humans sail into the uncertainty of knowledge when they rise from the lowlands of research to the heights of a worldview. They believed they had experienced deterrent examples of such an ascent.

And so people wanted to free “science” from worldview. It should stick to the “facts” in the valleys of nature and avoid the high paths of the spirit.

When people drove the opposition against worldview, they derived a certain satisfaction from opposing it. The opponents of worldview in the mid-nineteenth century were happy in their fighting spirit.

Today's youth can no longer share in this happiness. They can no longer stir up satisfying feelings in their souls by witnessing the fight against the “uncertainty” and “swarm mentality” of worldview.

For today there is simply nothing left to fight against. It is impossible to advocate freeing “science” from “worldview.” For worldview has now died out.

On the other hand, however, the feelings of young people have made a discovery. This is by no means a discovery of the intellect, but one that comes from the whole, undivided human nature.

Young people have discovered that it is impossible to live a dignified life without a worldview. Many older people have heard the “evidence” against worldviews. They have submitted to the power of the evidence. Intellectually, young people no longer care about this power of evidence; but they instinctively sense the powerlessness of all intellectual proof when the human heart speaks out of an invincible urge.

Science presents itself to young people as solid and reliable, but it owes its solidity and reliability to its lack of a worldview. Young people demand a worldview. But science needs young people.

At the Goetheanum, we want to understand young people in such a way that we can seek with them the paths to a worldview. And we hope that in the light of this worldview, a true love of science will be generated. We do not want science to be lost in worldview reverie, but rather to be gained in an awakened spiritual experience.

The Executive Council of the Anthroposophical Society asks young people whether they would also like to understand it. If it finds this understanding, then the “Section for the Spiritual Endeavors of Youth” can become something vibrant.