Hygiene: a Social Problem

GA 314 — 7 April 1920, Dornach

Hygiene as a Social Issue

There is no doubt in the widest circles that the social question is one of the most pressing issues of our time, and wherever there is even the slightest concern for what is happening in the present as a result of the development of human history, what lies ahead in terms of threats or opportunities for the future, this can be summed up under the heading of the social question. However, it must be said that the consideration and treatment of this social question in the present suffers from the fundamental evil that afflicts so much of our cognitive life, our moral life, indeed our entire civilized life, namely the intellectualism of our time, and that its problems are so often viewed solely from an intellectualistic perspective. The social question is discussed from this or that point of view, leaning more to the right or to the left. The intellectualism of these discussions is evident in the fact that they start from certain theories, from the assumption that this or that must be this way or that way, that this or that must be abolished. In the process, little consideration is given to human beings themselves. People are treated as if there were something general called “human beings,” as if there were something that were not developed individually in a certain way in each person. No attention is paid to the individuality and peculiarities of each person. As a result, our entire view of the social question takes on something abstract, something that today has so little impact on social sentiments, on the attitudes that play out between people. This deficiency in social observation is most clearly evident when we turn our attention to a specific area, one that is perhaps more suited than many others to social observation, for example, the area of hygiene, insofar as hygiene is a public matter that concerns not the individual but the community.

It is true that even today we have no shortage of hygienic instructions, treatises, and writings on health care as a public matter. However, one must ask: how do these instructions, these considerations of hygiene, fit into social life? It must be said that they fit in in such a way that individual speeches on proper health care are published as the result of medical, physiological, and medical science, and that the trust one has in a field, a field whose inner essence one is not in a position to examine, should form the basis for the acceptance of such rules. Purely on the basis of authority, the widest possible circles, which are nevertheless concerned — because it concerns all people — can accept what emerges from the study rooms and examination rooms, the examination laboratories of the physician on hygiene, and is presented to the public. But if one is convinced that in the course of recent history, in the course of the last four centuries, humanity has developed a longing for democratic order in all matters, then one is confronted, even if it seems grotesque to many today, with the completely undemocratic nature of the pure belief in authority that is demanded in the field of hygiene. The undemocratic nature of this belief in authority contrasts with the desire for democracy, which, one might say, has reached a culmination point in the present, albeit often in a very paradoxical way.

I am well aware that the statement I have just made is perceived by many as paradoxical, because people simply do not associate the way in which someone perceives health care with the democratic demand that public affairs, which concern every adult, should be judged by the community of these adults, either directly or through their representatives. Certainly, it must be said that it may not be possible to implement something like a hygienic view of public life in a completely democratic manner, because it depends on the judgment of those who seek knowledge in a certain field. But on the other hand, the question must arise: Shouldn't we strive for greater democratization than is possible today under the current circumstances in an area that is so close, so infinitely close to every individual and thus to the human community, such as public health care?

Today, we are certainly told a great deal about the way in which human beings should live their lives in relation to air and light, in relation to food, in relation to the disposal of waste products produced either by human beings themselves or by their environment, and so on and so forth. But the rules imposed on humanity in this regard are mostly unverifiable for those to whom they are supposed to apply.

Now, I don't want to be misunderstood; I don't want to be misunderstood as taking a particular position on anything in this lecture, which is supposed to be devoted to the topic of “Hygiene as a social issue.” I would like, so to speak, not to treat in a one-sided manner what today tends to be treated one-sidedly from a party standpoint or from the standpoint of a certain scientific conviction. I would like—perhaps you will allow me this apparent departure from the norm in the introduction—I would like to take no side whatsoever in the old superstition that devils and demons go around as diseases and move in and out of people, nor would I like to take sides with the modern superstition that germs and bacteria move in and out of people and cause disease. Whether we are dealing with an old spiritual superstition or a materialistic superstition is of less concern to us today. But I would like to touch on something that permeates our entire contemporary culture, namely insofar as this culture is dependent on the fundamental scientific convictions of our time. Even though many people today assert that scientific materialism, as it prevailed in the middle and last third of the 19th century, has been overcome, this assertion cannot apply to those who truly understand the nature of materialism and its opposite; for this materialism has been overcome at most for a few people who see that today's scientific facts no longer allow us to declare outright that everything that exists is merely some mechanical, physical, or chemical process taking place in the material world. — It is not enough that, compelled by the power of facts, some people have come to this conviction. For this conviction is countered by the other fact that, despite this conviction, those who hold it, and others even more so, when it comes to explaining something concrete, to forming a view about something concrete, nevertheless adopt a materialistic way of thinking. It is also said that atoms and molecules are harmless accounting coins, about which one would not claim anything other than that they are things of the mind. But the view has nevertheless remained an atomistic, a molecularistic one. We explain the phenomena of the world from the behavior and mutual relationship of atoms or molecular processes, and it does not matter whether we imagine that some thought, feeling, or other process is connected only with the material processes of atoms and molecules, but rather on the direction our entire state of mind takes, the direction our spirit takes when it bases its explanations solely on what is thought of atomistically, what emerges from the smallest, the invented smallest. It does not matter whether one literally or mentally believes that there is something else besides atomistic effects, material atomic effects; what matters is whether one has the possibility of making other explanations of the world the guiding principle of one's mind than deriving phenomena from atomistic thinking. It is not what we believe, but how we explain, how we behave in our souls, that matters. And here, in this place, we must hold fast to the conviction that only real, genuine spiritual science, anthroposophically oriented, can help us overcome the evil that can be characterized in this way, as I have just done.

That this can be the case: I would also like to prove it in concrete terms. There is hardly anything more confusing to us than the differences that are often asserted today between the human physical body and the human soul or the human spirit, between what are physical illnesses and what are so-called mental or spiritual illnesses. It is precisely the proper distinction and the proper interrelation of such facts of human life as the sick body or the apparently sick soul that suffer in relation to insight under the materialistic-atomistic mode of thinking. For what is the essence of the materialism that has gradually developed as the modern worldview of many people, and which is by no means overcome, but is actually in its heyday today? What is its essence? Its essence is not that one looks at material processes, that one looks at what takes place in material processes in the human body, and that one devotedly studies the miraculous structure and activity of the human nervous system and other human organs, or the nervous system of animals or the organs of other living beings. It is not studying these things that makes one a materialist, but rather that one is abandoned by the spirit when studying material processes, that one looks into the world of matter and sees only matter and material processes.

But this is what spiritual science must assert — I can only speak about this point in summary today — that wherever material processes appear to us externally to the senses, those processes which today's science alone considers observable and exact, that everywhere these material processes are only the outer appearance, the outer manifestation of spiritual forces and powers working behind them and within them. It is not a characteristic of spiritual science to look at a human being and say: Ah, there is his body; this body is a sum of material processes, but man cannot exist in this body alone, he has his immortal soul independent of it — and then to begin to develop all kinds of abstract theories and abstract views in a rather mystical way about this immortal soul that is independent of the body. This is not at all characteristic of a spiritual worldview. One can certainly say: In addition to his body, which consists of material processes, man also has an immortal soul, which is carried off to some spirit realm after death. Therefore, in the sense of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, one is not a spiritual scientist. One is only a spiritual scientist when one realizes that this material body with its material processes is a creature of the soul. If one can understand in detail how the soul, which was there before birth or, let us say, before conception, works, how this soul shapes and molds the structure, indeed the substantiation of the human body, if one can truly see through the immediate unity of this body and the soul everywhere, and if one can see how, through the activity of the spiritual-soul in the body, this body as such is worn out, this body dies partially every minute, and how then, only at the moment of death, I would like to say, the radical formation of that which takes place at every moment through the influence of the soul-spiritual on the body occurs, when one sees through this living interplay, this continuous working of the soul in the body, when one sees through this in concrete detail, when one strives to say: The soul divides itself into very concrete processes, it passes into the processes of the liver, it passes into the processes of breathing, into those of the heart, into those of the brain; in short, if, in describing the material in human beings, one understands how to present the physical aspect of human beings as the result of a spiritual aspect, then one is a spiritual scientist. Spiritual science comes to a true appreciation of the material precisely because it sees in the individual concrete material process not only what modern science sees, what the eye observes or what is then recorded as a result in abstract concepts through external observation, but spiritual science is spiritual science only because it shows everywhere how the spirit works in the material world, that it looks devotedly at the material effects of the spirit. That is what matters on the one hand. On the other hand, it is important that this very thing protects us from all the abstract, chatty talk about a soul independent of human beings, about which we can only fantasize, insofar as life takes place between birth and death. For between birth and death, with the exception of sleep, the spiritual-soul is so devoted to the physical effects that it lives in them, lives through them, and manifests itself in them. One must come to be able to study the spiritual-soul outside the human life course and accept the human life course between birth and death as a result of the spiritual-soul. Then one looks at the real, concrete unity of the spiritual-soul with the physical-bodily. Then one pursues anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, because then one has the prospect that this human being, with all his individual structures, stands before one as a result of the spiritual-soul, also for the sake of knowledge. The mystical theosophical view, which constructs beautiful theories about all kinds of disembodied spiritualities, cannot serve the concrete sciences of life, cannot serve life at all, but can only serve intellectual or soulful voluptuousness, which wants to get rid of life outward life as quickly as possible and then, in order to have inner satisfaction, to be able to indulge in inner sensuality, weaves all kinds of fantasies about the spiritual-soul realm.

Here in this anthroposophically oriented spiritual movement, it is a matter of working seriously to cultivate a spiritual science that is capable of enlivening physics, mathematics, chemistry, physiology, biology, and anthropology. So that it is not a matter here of stating religiously or philosophically on the one hand: Human beings carry an immortal soul within them — and then to pursue anthropology, biology, physics, and chemistry as if one were dealing only with material processes. Rather, the aim here is to apply the knowledge that can be gained about the soul and spirit to the details of life, to look into the miraculous structure of the body itself. It is quite possible to say, even if it sounds paradoxical to some: Some people want to be good mystics or good theosophists and want to talk about all kinds of things, such as how human beings consist of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, an ego, and so on, but they have no idea what an expression of the soul it is when one blows one's nose. It is important to see matter not as matter, but as the revelation of the spirit. Then one also gains healthy, meaningful insights into the spirit. But then one also gains a spiritual science that can be fruitful for the sciences of life.

But this also achieves something else. It enables us to overcome what has driven us into specialization in recent times, precisely because of the materialistic nature of scientific knowledge. I truly do not want to make any kind of tirade against specialization, because I am well aware of its justification. I know that certain things today simply have to be driven out of specialization because they require specialized technology. But the point is that those who cling to the material, when they become specialists, can never gain a worldview that is applicable in life. For material processes are an infinite field. They are an infinite field out there in nature, they are an infinite field within human beings. If one studies only the human nervous system according to all that is available today, one can spend a long time on it, at least as much time as experts usually want to spend on their specialist studies. But if, in what happens in the nervous system, one has before one only what the material processes are, what is expressed in the abstract concepts that are the subject of science today, then nothing leads one to anything universal that can become the basis of a worldview. The moment you begin to look at, say, the human nervous system from a spiritual scientific perspective, you cannot look at this nervous system without what you find effective in it as spirit immediately leading you to what now underlies the muscular system, the skeletal system, and the sensory system as spiritual-soul elements, for the spiritual is not something that can be broken down into individual parts like the material, but the spiritual is something — at the very least it is characterized by this — that spreads out like a limb, like an organism. And just as I cannot look at a human being by merely looking at their five fingers and covering the rest of them, so too, in spiritual science, I cannot look at a single detail without what I perceive in this detail as spiritual-soul leading me to a wholeness. If I am then led to such a whole — admittedly, this may only be possible for a specialist in brain or nerve research — I will nevertheless be able to obtain an overall picture of the human being by observing this individual limb of the human organism. Then I will be led into a position where I can really obtain something universal for a worldview, and then the peculiar thing is that I can begin to speak of something about human beings that can be understood by all people who have a healthy mind and a healthy intellect. That is the great difference between how spiritual science can speak about human beings and how specialized materialistic science must speak about human beings. You see, let us take the simple case of how specialized, materialistic science is presented to you in any of the handbooks in use today. If you, as an ordinary person who has not learned much about the nervous system, pick up a textbook on the nervous system, you will probably soon stop reading, or at any rate you will not gain much that can give you a basis for seeing the human being as a real human being in his value and dignity. But if you listen to what can be said about the human nervous system from the perspective of spiritual science, such a discussion is always followed by something that leads to the whole human being, that provides such insight into the whole human being that the idea that dawns on you reveals something of the value, essence, and dignity of the human being you are dealing with. And this is most evident when we consider not only the healthy human being in relation to any of his or her limbs, but especially when we consider the sick human being, this sick human being with his or her many deviations from the so-called normal, namely when we are able to consider the whole human being when he or she is under the influence of this or that illness. What nature presents to our soul in the sick person is capable of leading us deeply into the connections of the world, of leading us to understand how this person is organized, and how, because of their organization, atmospheric and even extraterrestrial influences can affect them, how this human organization is connected with this or that substance in nature, which then turns out to be a remedy, and so on. We are led into broad contexts, and it can be said that if we supplement what can be learned about healthy human beings in this way with what can be learned from sick human beings, we gain a deep insight into the whole context and the deeper meaning of life. But everything that dawns on us in this way is the basis for knowledge of human nature, the basis for something that can then be expressed in forms that can be communicated to all human beings. Of course, we are not that far along today, because spiritual science in the sense in which it is meant here has only been working for a short time. Therefore, as Dr. Boos said in his introductory remarks a moment ago, the lectures given here can in many cases only be considered a beginning. But it is the tendency of this spiritual science to work out what is present in the individual sciences in such a way that what every human being should know about human beings can actually be brought to every human being.

And now imagine, once spiritual science has had such a transformative effect on science, and if this spiritual science then succeeds in developing forms of knowledge for healthy and sick human beings that can be made accessible to general human consciousness, if that succeeds, how different will the relationship between people be in social life, how much more understanding will each individual have for others than today, when everyone passes each other by and has no understanding for the particular individuality of the other! The social question will only be removed from its intellectualism when it is removed from expertise in the most diverse areas of life, when it is based on concrete experiences of life. This is particularly evident in the field of health care. For imagine the social impact of teaching people to understand what is healthy and what is sick in other people; imagine what it means when healthcare is taken in hand with understanding by the whole of humanity. Of course, this is not to encourage scientific or medical dilettantism — that must be clear — but imagine if compassion, not just feeling but understanding, were awakened in us for the health and sickness of our fellow human beings, understanding based on a view of the human being. Think of the social impact of such a thing, and you will have to say to yourself: Here we see that social reform, social reconstruction, must arise from expertise in individual fields, not from general theories, be they Marxist, Oppenheimerian, or of any other kind, which overlook human beings and seek to shape the world out of abstract concepts. Salvation cannot come from this, but from the devoted recognition of the individual fields. And health care, hygiene, is such a very special field, because it brings us, I would say, closest to everything that our fellow human beings experience in terms of joy through their healthy, normal way of life, or in terms of pain and suffering, in terms of limitations due to what is more or less sick within them.

This is something that immediately points us to the special social nature that spiritual science can create in the field of hygiene. For when, in this way, the student of humanity, the student of healthy and sick people, including those who specialize as doctors, is placed in human society with such knowledge, then he will be able to bring enlightenment within this human society, because he will find understanding. And it will not only be the relationship between the doctor and society that will emerge, that if you are not his friend or relative, you will walk past his house and have him fetched when you are in pain or have broken your leg, but a relationship with the doctor will emerge that the doctor is the constant teacher and instructor of preventive health care, that in fact there is constant intervention by the doctor, not only to heal people whose illness has progressed to the point where they notice it, but also to keep people healthy as far as possible. A lively social interaction will take place between the doctor and the rest of humanity. But then the health of such an insight will radiate onto medicine itself. For it is precisely because materialism has also spread to the medical view of life that we have truly run into strange ideas.

On the one hand, we have physical illnesses. These are studied by examining organ degeneration or other physically perceptible or physically conceived processes that are supposed to take place within the human body, and attention is focused on repairing any damage that is found. In this direction, the physical aspect of the human being in its normal and abnormal state is now thought of in a completely materialistic way. Alongside this, there are the so-called mental or spiritual illnesses. On the one hand, because of materialistic thinking, these mental or spiritual illnesses have been reduced to mere brain diseases or other diseases of the nervous system, and the basis for this has also been sought in the other organ systems of the human being. But because no view was formed at all about the way in which the spirit and the soul already work in human physicality, it was not possible to gain any insight into the relationship between mental illness, so-called mental illness, and what the human being otherwise is. And so, I would say, mental illnesses stand on one side, even today encompassed by a strange hybrid science, psychoanalysis, which thinks materialistically but does not understand materialism at all. These mental and soul illnesses stand there without it being possible to bring them together in any reasonable way with what is actually going on in the human organism. Spiritual science can now show — and I have drawn attention to this — that what I am saying here is not just a program, but that it is being pursued in detail, precisely on the occasions that have now presented themselves in the course for doctors that has taken place here in recent weeks. Spiritual science can indeed show in detail how everything that is called mental and soul illness is based on organ disorders, on organ degeneration, organ enlargement, organ reduction in the human organism. Somewhere in the heart, in the liver, in the lungs, somewhere something is not right if at the same time or later what is called a mental illness occurs. A spiritual science that penetrates to recognize the spirit in the normal heart in its effectiveness is also capable—and need not be ashamed of this—of seeking a cause for the so-called sick spirit or sick soul in the degeneration of the heart, in the defects of the heart.

The main error of materialism does not lie in its denial of the spirit. Religion could then ensure that the spirit is still recognized. The main error of materialism is that it does not recognize matter because it only observes its outer appearance. This is precisely the shortcoming of materialism, that it does not gain any insight into matter, for example in purely psychoanalytical treatment, in the mere observation of something that has taken place in the soul, which it describes as an island of the soul, i.e., an abstraction, whereas one must trace how certain soul impressions that a person receives at this or that time in their life, and which are normally bound to the normal organism, encounter defective organs, for example, a diseased liver instead of a healthy one, which encounter may manifest itself at a completely different time than when the defect is organically noticeable.

Spiritual science need not shy away from showing how so-called mental or soul illness is always connected with something in the human body. Spiritual science must strictly point out that one has nothing more than a one-sided diagnosis if one studies only the soul, the soul complex, the deviations of the soul from so-called normal soul life. Therefore, psychoanalysis can never be anything more than a diagnostic tool and can never lead to real therapy in this area. For this reason, because therapy must begin with physical treatment in cases of mental illness, one must know the ramifications of the spiritual down to the individual parts if one wants to know where to begin in the physical body, which is, however, spiritualized, where to begin in order to cure that which manifests itself only symptomatically in abnormal mental conditions. Spiritual science must emphasize most emphatically that so-called mental and soul illnesses must be traced back to the organology of the human being. However, one can only see into the abnormal organology of the human being if one can trace the spirit into the smallest parts of matter.

And conversely, what appear to be merely mental phenomena or phenomena affecting the soul, that is, what emerges in the temperaments and in the activity of the human temperaments, what emerges in the whole way in which a small child plays, how it walks, what it does, everything that is understood today as purely mental -spiritual, also has its physical side. And a mistake in some aspects of a child's upbringing can manifest itself later in life in a very ordinary physical illness. In certain cases, when dealing with mental illness, one is led to look at the physical in order to investigate what is important, and in the case of physical illness, to look at the spiritual and investigate what is important. For that is the essence of spiritual science, that it does not speak in abstractions of a nebulous spiritual realm, as the mystics and one-sided theosophists do, but that it pursues the spirit into its material effects, that it never understands the material in the way that today's external science understands it, but that in its consideration of the material it always penetrates to the spirit and can thus also observe that which must express itself as an abnormal soul life through the presence of an abnormal physical life, even if this may be hidden externally. Today, in the widest circles, people have completely false ideas about serious anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, perhaps sometimes with good reason, when one hears those who do not really want to go into what it is actually about, who only talk about abstract theories: Man consists of this and that, and there are repeated earth lives, and so on. These things are, of course, extremely important and very beautiful. But when it comes to working particularly seriously in this spiritual science movement, it is a matter of addressing the individual chapters, the individual areas of this life. And in the broadest sense, this in turn leads to a socially minded coexistence of human beings. For when one sees how the seemingly sick soul radiates its impulses into the organism, when one can feel this connection between the organism and the seemingly sick soul — feel it with understanding — if, on the other hand, one knows how the institutions of life also affect the physical health of human beings, how the spiritual, which in social institutions seems to exist only externally, influences the physical health care of human beings, if one understands this, then one is involved in human society in a completely different way. One begins to gain a true understanding of human beings and treats other people quite differently. One pursues their character in a completely different way. One knows that certain characteristics are connected with this or that, one knows how to behave towards these characteristics, one knows, especially when one has tasks connected with them, how to place people's temperaments in human society in the right way and, in particular, how to develop them in the right way. One social area in particular will have to be intensively influenced in hygienic terms by an acquired knowledge of human nature, and that is the area of education, the area of teaching. Without really knowing human beings comprehensively, it is impossible to appreciate what it means when children sit in school with hunched backs, so that their breathing is constantly disordered, or when children are not encouraged to speak loudly and clearly, with clear articulation and clear consonants. Their entire later life essentially depends on whether the child breathes correctly at school and whether they are encouraged to speak loudly, clearly, and articulately.

In such matters — I am only picking out examples, because the same could be applied to other areas — the specialization of general hygiene in the school system becomes apparent, and it is precisely here that the whole social significance of hygiene becomes apparent, but also how life demands that we do not specialize further, but that we bring together the specialized into a comprehensive view. We need not only what enables the teacher to know that, according to certain pedagogical norms, a child should be educated in this or that way, but we also need what enables the teacher to judge what it means when he lets the child articulate this or that sentence clearly, or when he lets the child after it has said half a sentence, and so on, and does not ensure that the air is used up while the sentence is being spoken. Certainly, there are also many guidelines and rules about this. But the proper recognition and application of these things only enters our hearts when we appreciate their full significance for human life and social health. For only then does the matter become a social impulse.

These considerations were the basis for my decision to hold a pedagogical-didactic course for the teachers there when I was at the starting point of founding the Waldorf School in Stuttgart. These considerations were that teachers are needed who can work from the depths of a worldview that understands human beings for the education and teaching of children. Everything that has been put into the sentences that have been expressed as pedagogical-didactic art strives to make the children who are being educated and taught into human beings who, later on, because they are encouraged as children to perform the functions of life in the right way, will have lungs, livers, hearts, and stomachs that are in good working order because the soul has worked on them in the right way. This worldview will never interpret the old saying in a materialistic way: a healthy soul lives in a healthy body. — Interpreted materialistically, this would mean that if you have a healthy body, if you have made it healthy by all possible physical means, then it will automatically become the bearer of a healthy soul. That is nonsense. It makes sense to say: a healthy soul lives in a healthy body — but only if you proceed in the following way, I mean, if you say to yourself: I have a healthy body before me, which shows me that it has been built up, sculpted, and made healthy by the power of a healthy soul. I recognize from this body that an autonomous, healthy soul has been at work in it. That is the meaning of the saying. But only in this way can this saying also form the basis of healthy hygiene.

In other words: we do not need, in addition to teachers who work solely on the basis of abstract educational science, a school doctor who comes to the school once every fortnight, at best, and does not know what to do with himself. No, we need a living connection between medical science and the art of education. We need an educational art that educates and teaches children in a hygienically correct manner in all its measures. This is what makes hygiene a social issue, because the social issue is essentially an educational issue, and the educational issue is essentially a medical issue, but only an issue of medicine that is enriched by the humanities, of hygiene that is enriched by the humanities.

These things then point to something that is extremely significant, especially with regard to the topic of “hygiene as a social issue.” For when spiritual science is cultivated, and when spiritual science is something concrete for human beings, then they know that what they receive in spiritual science contains something that differs from what they find in mere intellectualism — and contemporary natural science is also mere intellectualism —, what they receive in mere intellectualism or in natural science trained in a purely intellectualistic way or in the purely intellectualistically trained history of today or in jurisprudence. All sciences today are intellectualistic; when they claim to be empirical sciences, this is based solely on the fact that they interpret the results of sensory observation in an intellectualistic way. What is given in spiritual science differs quite essentially from these intellectualistically interpreted scientific or other results. For it would indeed be quite sad if what lives in our intellectualistic culture were not merely an image, but a real power that has a deeper effect on human beings. Everything intellectualistic remains only on the surface of the human being. This statement is meant in a very comprehensive sense. Those who pursue spiritual science only intellectually, that is, who only take notes: there is a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, the I, repeated earthly lives, karma, and so on — and notes this down in the same way as one notes things down in natural science or in today's social science — is not seriously engaged in spiritual science, for he is merely transplanting his usual way of thinking onto what he encounters in spiritual science. The essential thing about spiritual science is that it must be thought in a different way, felt in a different way, experienced in a completely different way than the intellectualistic soul. That is why spiritual science is something that has a living connection to healthy and sick people, albeit in a slightly different way than one often imagines. People will surely have become sufficiently convinced of how powerless one is with what one begins with, whether as admonition or persuasion, with purely intellectualistic culture in relation to the so-called mentally ill. The mentally ill person claims that voices speak to him; you tell him everything you can think of from your intellectual reasoning: in vain, because he knows all possible objections and so on. This alone could indicate that we are not dealing with a disease of the conscious or subconscious soul, but with a disease of the organism.

Spiritual science teaches us to recognize that we cannot treat so-called spiritual illnesses, such as mental or soul illnesses, by means of so-called spiritual methods, such as hypnosis and suggestion, but that we must treat them by so-called physical means, that is, by healing the organs, for which we also need spiritual knowledge of the human being. Spiritual knowledge knows that it should not actually intervene in the area of so-called mental illnesses with mere mental or spiritual procedures, because mental illness consists precisely in the fact that the spiritual member of the human being is pushed out, as it otherwise is only in sleep, and is weak in this state of being pushed out, but that the organ must be cured so that it can take back the soul and spirit in a healthy way. On the other hand, what emerges not from the intellect, from the head, but from the whole human being as a spiritual-scientific result, when it appears as imagination, inspiration, intuition, and when it is taken up by the human being, intervenes in his whole organism. What spiritual science really is truly has a healing effect on the physical organization of the human being.

On the other hand, there is no proof that some dreamers feel ill within spiritual science or show the opposite of what I have just said. There are just as many who are not spiritual scientists, but intellectual collectors of notes on the results of spiritual science. But spreading spiritual science in its true substance is itself a form of social hygiene, because it affects the whole human being, normalizing their organology when it threatens to develop this or that tendency toward abnormality, either following dreams or the other side. This is the enormous difference between what is given in spiritual science and what occurs in mere intellectual science, namely that the concepts that emerge in the field of intellectualism are far too weak, because they are merely pictorial, to intervene in the human being and have a healing effect on him. Spiritual scientific concepts, on the other hand, are drawn from the whole human being. In the formation of spiritual scientific concepts, it is truly not only the brain that has been involved, but the lungs and liver and heart and the whole human being, and they cling to them, permeate them, if I may say so, in a plastic form, which they have from the power of the whole human being. And if one permeates oneself with them, if one takes them in with healthy common sense, they in turn have a hygienic effect on the whole human being. This is what can intervene in a directional way in hygiene as a social matter, starting from spiritual science.

But in many other ways — I can only give examples — spiritual science will intervene in an orienting way in the whole health life of humanity, if this spiritual science really takes root among humanity in all its seriousness.

I would like to point out just one thing. Among the chapters that must be studied again and again through spiritual science is the relationship between the waking human being and the sleeping human being, the enormous difference that exists between the human organization in waking and sleeping. How the spirit and soul behave in the waking state, when they interpenetrate each other in the physical, spiritual, and soul aspects of the human being, how they behave when they are temporarily separated from each other, as in sleep, is carefully studied precisely through spiritual science.

Now I can only, I would like to say, refer to a certain statement, which is, however, a completely reliable result of spiritual science. We see so-called epidemic diseases occurring in life, diseases that affect entire masses of people, which are therefore also a social issue at the same time. Conventional materialistic science studies them in relation to the human physical organism. It knows nothing of the enormous significance of abnormal human behavior in relation to waking and sleeping, particularly for epidemics and for the predisposition to epidemic diseases. What happens in the human organism during sleep is something which, if it occurs in excess, for example, predisposes people to a high degree to so-called epidemic diseases. People who, by sleeping too long, cause processes in the human organism that should not be there, because sleep should not interrupt waking life for so long, are predisposed to epidemic diseases in a completely different way, and they also respond to epidemics in a completely different way.

Now you can judge for yourself what it means to educate people about the proper distribution of sleep and wakefulness. You cannot do this through regulations. At best, you can instruct people not to send their children to school when they have scarlet fever, you cannot give lectures when the flu is rampant: people will comply because today people tend toward “freedom,” I mean, the “sense of authority” is not as great as it was in earlier times; so people will comply. I am not saying that they are not right to obey; I am not saying anything against what happens in this way, but you cannot possibly prescribe to people in the same way: you must sleep seven hours. Nevertheless, it is more important than the other regulations that people who need it sleep seven hours, while others who do not need it may sleep much less, and so on. But such things, which are so intimately connected with the most personal aspects of human life, have a tremendous social impact. It actually depends on the most intimate aspects of human nature how the social effects occur, whether a larger or smaller number of people are withdrawn from this or that profession, which may or may not have an effect on a completely different place. Hygiene does indeed have an enormous impact on social life. Quite apart from what one thinks about contagion or non-contagion, this element intervenes in social life during epidemics. You cannot influence this through external regulations; you can only influence it by bringing a lay audience into human society, an audience that understands people and can engage with doctors who are educating them about prophylaxis, wherever there can be lively cooperation between experts and lay people who understand people in order to maintain health.

When we look at all these things, we will say to ourselves: Here we have described one aspect of hygiene as a social issue, which in the most eminent sense depends on our having a free spiritual life, on our actually having a spiritual life, where within the spiritual realm those who are engaged in the cultivation of the spiritual life, even insofar as it extends into its individual practical areas, such as hygiene, are completely independent of everything else that is not pure knowledge, that is not the cultivation of spiritual life itself. What the individual can do for the good of his fellow human beings must come entirely from his own abilities; there must be no state norms governing it, nor must there be any dependence on economic powers; it must be placed in the personal sphere of dependence of the individual human being and must be further placed in the understanding trust that capable people can place in others who need the application of their abilities. This requires a spiritual life that is independent of all authority, of the state, and of the economy, a spiritual life that acts expertly on its own, purely out of spiritual forces. If you think through what hygiene can really achieve, which is closely connected with insightful knowledge of human nature and insightful social behavior, you will come to the conclusion that — whatever abstract theories may say against the independent position of spiritual life — if you approach a particular branch such as hygiene with expertise, it is precisely this specific field that requires — and as can be shown for hygiene, it could also be shown for other areas — that the spirit must be taken into administration by those who are involved in its care, that not only experts who are experts in the ministries, but also those who are active in spiritual life must be the administrators of this spiritual life and the sole administrators of this spiritual life. Then, when social insight from free spiritual life has produced a hygiene that truly exists as a social institution, it will be possible to work for this hygiene in a completely different economic way, and precisely in an independent economic life, in an economic life that is structured as I have described in my “Key Points of the Social Question,” as has been repeatedly described in the journals that serve this idea of the threefold social organism, for example in the Swiss “Soziale Zukunft” (Social Future), published by Dr. Boos.

If what is latent, what is dormant in the bosom of human society in terms of forces for the cultivation of hygiene, is received with human understanding by society, if this becomes the general order, then everything that can work out of this independent economic life without any regard for any dependence on profit motives or state impulses, everything that must be cultivated out of economic life in the service of genuine, true hygiene, can be carried into economic life, into independent economic life. But then, and only then, will it be possible to introduce into economic life the high sense that is necessary for hygiene to be cultivated in human life. If the mere profit motive of our economic life, which increasingly tends to be integrated into the unitary state, prevails, and the general opinion is that one must produce that which yields the most profit, then the self-determined impulses of a free spiritual life cultivated in this area of hygiene cannot assert themselves. Then this spiritual life becomes dependent on non-spiritual state or economic factors, and the economic becomes the master of the spiritual. The economic must not become the master of the spiritual. This is most evident when one is called upon to produce what is required by the spirit in economic life, when one is called upon to serve genuine, true hygiene. The forces of economic life, of free economic life, will join the threefold social organism in the insight that becomes a public matter, in the understanding of human beings that becomes a public matter in the threefold social organism. And when, on the one hand, people are engaged in a free spiritual life in which a truly objective hygiene can be cultivated, and when, on the other hand, people develop that high sense through which, in economic life, everyone will then approach production with understanding, but with understanding that comes not merely from the desire to earn money, but from the insights that arise in the free spiritual activity of hygiene, then, once this insightful social understanding of human beings is there, that is, this high sense of humanity that wants to work economically because it simply wants to serve humanity hygienically in a social sense, then people will be able to come together democratically in parliaments or elsewhere. For then, from free intellectual life, the insight into the necessity of hygiene as a social phenomenon will be formed, formed for the care of what is necessary for hygiene as a social question, for an economic life supported by objectivity and expertise, through the high sense that will be developed within it; then people who have become mature will be able to negotiate on the basis of economic life, on the one hand from their insight and their understanding of human nature, and on the other hand from their relationship to economic life, which serves hygiene. Then people will be able to negotiate as equals on the basis of state, legal, or economic life about the measures that can be taken with regard to hygiene and public health care. Then, of course, it will not be the laymen, the dilettantes, who will make people healthy, but with understanding, the mature human being will face as an equal the one who tells him this or that: the expert physician. But the layman's understanding of human nature, cultivated together with the physician in social life, enables him to approach specialist knowledge with such understanding that he can say “yes” in a democratically conceived parliament not merely on the basis of authority, but on the basis of a certain understanding.

It is precisely when we objectively examine such a specific area as how the three members of the threefold social organism interact that we find the full justification for this idea of the threefold social organism. One can oppose this idea of the threefold social organism if one has initially only grasped it in abstract terms.

Well, even today I could give you no more than a sketchy indication of what follows from the necessity of the threefold social organism in a specific concrete area such as hygiene, if one thinks about it correctly. But if the paths that I have only been able to hint at today, I would say, in their infancy, are pursued further, it will be seen that those who approach what is there as an impulse of the threefold social organism with a few abstract concepts can, in a certain way, oppose it. As a rule, they put forward reasons that one has long since made one's own as objections. But those who approach the individual areas of life with full inner understanding and the living out of these individual areas with all the individuality that they bring into human life — for that is what social coexistence is all about — who really understands something in a concrete area of life, who makes an effort to understand something of true life practice in any area, will be led more and more in the direction indicated by the idea of the threefold social organism.

This idea did not arise from a dream, nor from abstract idealism; it arose as a social requirement of the present and the near future, precisely from the concrete, objective consideration of the individual areas of life. And again, when one then permeates these individual areas of life with what is at work in oneself from the impulse for the threefold social order, one finds for all these areas what, it seems to me, is needed today. And I wanted to give you just a few hints this evening about how, through what follows for social life from spiritual science, as the threefold social order, can be enriched, so that what today can only be accepted on the basis of belief in authority through blind submission can become established in human society as a social matter based on a truly socially cultivated understanding of human beings. For this reason, it can be said here that through the enrichment that the field of hygiene can receive from a spiritually enriched medicine, hygiene itself can become a social, a truly social matter. In the truest sense, it can also become, to a high degree, a democratically cultivated, general public matter.

In the following discussion, Rudolf Steiner expressed himself as follows:

My dear friends! With matters such as those discussed today, it is important to first respond to the whole spirit of what has been said. It is therefore sometimes difficult to answer questions appropriately without reformulating them or at least providing an explanation, when they are formulated in such a way that they are shaped by current thinking and attitudes. For example, the question that probably seems terribly simple to you or to many of you, so that it could be answered in a few sentences or in one sentence: “How does one break the habit of sleeping too long?”

Well, to answer this question, I would need to give a lecture that is, I would say, even longer than the one I have already given, because I would first have to gather together the various elements in order to answer this question properly. However, perhaps the following can be said: Today, there is an intellectualistic state of mind that affects almost all people. Those who believe that they judge or live based on their feelings, or who believe that they are not intellectualistic for some other reason, are precisely the ones who are. Now, the fundamental character of intellectualistic soul and organ life is that it ruins our instincts. The true instincts of human beings are ruined. In fact, if one wants to point to instincts that are not completely ruined today, one must either refer to primitive humanity or, let us say, even to the animal kingdom. For you see, on another occasion recently I was able to point to an example that says a great deal. There are birds that, out of greed, eat insects, for example, cross spiders. But these cross spiders, which are poisonous to them, cause them to fall into convulsions and twitching, and they die miserably very soon after swallowing the cross spider. But if henbane is nearby, the bird flies there, sucks out the healing juice, and saves its life. Now think about how this has developed, how in us humans it has shrunk to the few reflex instincts we have, such as when a fly lands on our nose, we make it fly away without first giving it much thought. A defensive instinct asserts itself in response to the insulting stimulus. In the case of the bird that eats the cross spider, the effect that the cross spider has on its organism is followed by such a defensive instinct that it drives it to do something quite reasonable. We can still find such instincts in people who lived in ancient times, if we understand their history correctly. But in our time, we have different experiences. I have always found it extremely painful when I came to someone who sat down at the lunch table and who — I was used to seeing knives, forks, and similar utensils next to the plate — had a scale next to the plate, a real scale — you really do see such things — a scale, and he weighed his piece of meat, because only then did he know how much meat he should eat according to his organism, once he had weighed it! Just imagine how barren a humanity has become that needs to be prescribed such things, how barren it has become of all real, original instincts! The point is that we must not remain at the level of intellectualism, but ascend to spiritual-scientific knowledge. You will now believe that I am speaking pro domo, even if it is pro domo of this great house, but I am not speaking pro domo; rather, I am actually expressing what I believe to be the truth, quite apart from the fact that I myself represent this truth. One can already see that when one penetrates not only into the intellectual, but into that which is to be grasped spiritually, which therefore presents itself to humanity more in a pictorial sense, one notices that By grasping such insights, which are not accessible to the mere intellect, one is led back to healthy instincts, if not in one's individual life, then more in the things that lie deeper in the foundations of life. Those who spend at least some time — however little — developing the completely different state of mind that is necessary if one really wants to understand spiritual science will be led back to healthy instincts in such things as the need for sleep. Animals do not sleep too much under normal living conditions. Primitive man did not sleep too much either. One only needs to re-educate oneself to healthy instincts, which are being lost in today's intellectual culture, so that one can say: The really effective way to break the habit of sleeping too long is to be able to absorb spiritual scientific truths without falling asleep. So if you fall asleep immediately when you hear spiritual truths, then you will not actually be able to break the habit of sleeping too long. But if you succeed in really engaging with the spiritual truths you are learning with your inner human being, then this inner human being is activated in such a way that you actually find out how much sleep your organism needs.

It is extremely difficult to specify intellectual rules, for example to say that an individual who has this or that problem with their liver or kidneys, which does not make them ill in the usual sense, but which is nevertheless present, must sleep in a certain way or for a certain length of time. As a rule, this does not lead to anything special. And artificially inducing sleep is not the same as when the body, out of its need for sleep, denies the mind access for as long as it needs. So one can say that proper hygiene based on spiritual science is what will lead people to measure their sleep in the right way.

That is why the other question that has been asked here cannot be answered so easily: “How can one know how much sleep one needs?” — I would say that you don't need to know this in discursive thinking, it is not necessary at all, but you do need to acquire certain instincts, which you acquire not by receiving collections of notes from spiritual science, but through the way you understand spiritual science when you understand it with full participation. You acquire this instinct, and then you measure your sleep in an individual way in the right manner. So that is what can generally be said about this. As I said, I can only give guidance on how to answer this question, not what might be expected. But what is expected is not always the right thing.

Is sleeping with the window open healthy?

Such things cannot always be answered in general terms. It is quite conceivable that sleeping with the window open is very healthy for one person, depending on the particular constitution of their respiratory organs, but that for another person, for example, a room that is otherwise well ventilated before sleeping but has the windows closed while they sleep is better. It is actually a matter of gaining an understanding of the relationship between humans and their non-human environment, in order to then be able to judge each individual case based on this understanding.

How do you explain, from a spiritual scientific point of view, the occurrence of mental disorders as a result of crimes committed, i.e., how can we recognize the physical illness that underlies these mental disorders?

Well, in order to answer this question exhaustively, it would be necessary to go into the whole field of criminal anthropology and, in fact, psychiatric anthropology. I would just like to say the following: First, when considering such matters, one must assume that there is something abnormal in the organ disposition of a person who becomes a criminal. You need only follow the truly objective studies of Moritz Benedikt, the first significant criminal anthropologist, and you will see how the pathological examination of the forms of individual human organs can indeed be linked to a disposition toward crime. So there is already an abnormality inherent, although materialistic thinkers like Moritz Benedikt naturally draw false conclusions from this, because it is by no means the case that someone who shows signs of this kind is a born criminal from the outset. The point is that one can certainly influence the defects present in the organism — I said organ defects, not pre-existing mental illness, but organ defects — through education and later through appropriate spiritual means, that is, in a spiritual-soul way, if only the facts are examined from a spiritual-scientific point of view. So the conclusions that Benedict draws from this are not correct. But such organ defects can be pointed out. And then one must be clear that those things that are not intellectual in ordinary human life, but rather emotional or sentimental, will have a retroactive effect. These initially affect glandular activity or similar processes, such as secretion, but in turn also affect the organs. In this regard, I recommend reading an interesting little book written by a Danish physician about the mechanics of emotional movements. It contains a great deal of useful information in this regard. And now imagine that the physical disposition, which can be traced in everyone who is truly considered a criminal, takes into account everything that is now the consequence for the caught criminal in terms of emotional turmoil, and what in the continuation of these emotional disturbances in turn affects the organs, then one later has the means to search for the defective organs for what occurs as a consequence, which caused a mental illness, when a crime was committed. In this way, one must obtain clarification about such connections.

How does theosophy relate to anthroposophy? Is the theosophy previously advocated here no longer fully recognized?

Now I would just like to say: Nothing other than anthroposophically oriented spiritual science has ever been represented here, and what is represented here today has always been represented here, and if this has been identified with what is represented on many pages as so-called theosophy, then this is based on a misunderstanding. This misunderstanding will remain a misunderstanding because, within certain limits, anthroposophically oriented spiritual science was active within the framework of the Theosophical Society for a time, for even within the framework of this society, the representatives of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science advocated nothing other than what is advocated here today. Only the Theosophical Society tolerated this as long as the matter did not appear too heretical. But when it was noticed that anthroposophy is something quite different from the abstract mysticism that often presents itself as theosophy, the anthroposophists were thrown out. This procedure was carried out entirely from the other side, while what is represented here has never had any other form than the one it has today. Of course, those who deal with things superficially and who only hear those who have taken on this superficial approach as members of society — for one does not always have to stand outside to understand anthroposophy superficially or to confuse anthroposophy with theosophy, one can also stand inside the society — those who only acquire knowledge in this way, through such a superficial understanding of the work, come to such confusions. But what is represented here is what I have again characterized today for a specific field, and nothing else has ever been represented here, even though, of course, work is constantly being done and certain things can now be characterized more precisely, more fully, and more intensively than they could, of course, have been specified fifteen, ten, or five years ago. That is precisely the nature of the work, that one makes progress, that one makes progress, especially in the formulation of making something as difficult as spiritual science understandable. Those people who, out of malice, have twisted the fact that what was previously said imperfectly is later said more perfectly, deriving all kinds of changes in worldviews from this, such malicious people and their statements need not really be taken seriously. For spiritual science, as it is meant here, is something living and not something dead. And those who believe that it cannot progress, who want to pin it down where it once stood, as is often the case, do not believe in the living, but want to turn it into something dead.

Please explain how an epidemic such as influenza or scarlet fever could have arisen if not through the transmission of germs. The pathogen has been scientifically identified for many diseases. What is your opinion on this?

Well, if I were to discuss this very question, on which I have indicated that I do not wish to take sides, I would have to give a whole lecture. However, I would like to point out the following. Those who, based on their findings, are compelled to point out that there are deeper causes than primary causes for diseases accompanied by germs or bacteria, namely the occurrence of the germs themselves, are not claiming that the germs do not exist. It is quite different to claim that the bacilli are there and that they occur in the wake of the disease than to seek the primary cause in the bacilli. I have developed what needs to be said in this regard in detail in this course, which is now being held. But that takes time. This also applies to certain elements that must be dealt with beforehand. This cannot be quickly settled in a question and answer session. Nevertheless, I would like to point out the following. The human constitution is not as simple a matter as is often imagined. Human beings are multi-faceted beings. I described this at the beginning of my book “Von Seelenrätseln” (Mysteries of the Soul), explaining that human beings are three-part beings, beings that can be called sensory-nervous beings, rhythmic beings, and metabolic beings. That is what human beings are. These three parts of human nature interact with each other, and if the human being is to be healthy, they must interact in such a way that there is a certain separation between the areas. For example, the sensory-nervous human being, who is more than what modern physiology imagines, cannot simply transfer his effects to the metabolic human being in any other way than through the rhythmic movements of the circulatory and respiratory processes, which extend to the outermost periphery of the organism. This interaction, however, can be interrupted in a certain way. Now, this interaction has a very specific effect. When such questions are asked, forgive me, but one must then also answer appropriately; now, I want to be as discreet as possible, but it is nevertheless necessary to say a few words that must also be heard appropriately. For example, it is certainly true that processes take place in the human abdomen that are integrated into the whole organism. If they are integrated into the whole organism, then they work in the right way. If they are increased by any processes, either directly in the lower abdomen, so that they become more active there, or if the corresponding processes — for such corresponding processes are always there — are reduced in intensity in the human head or in the human lungs, then something very peculiar occurs. It then becomes apparent that the human organism must develop processes within itself for its normal life, which, to a certain extent, are only allowed to develop to the extent that they engage the whole human being. If the process is increased, it localizes itself, and then, for example, a process occurs in the human abdomen whereby what is going on in the human head or lungs is not properly separated from what corresponds to certain processes in the abdomen. The processes always correspond to each other in such a way that they run parallel. As a result, however, what should only be present in the human being to a certain extent in order to maintain his vitality, the vitality carried by the spirit and soul, is raised above a certain level. Then it becomes, I would say, the atmosphere for all kinds of lower organisms, for all kinds of small organisms, and these small organisms can then develop there. That which is the creative element of the small organisms is always within the human being, but it is spread throughout the entire organism. When it is concentrated, it becomes a breeding ground for small organisms, microbes; they find a breeding ground there. But the reason why they can thrive there is to be found in extremely subtle processes in the organism, which then turn out to be the primary cause. I am really not speaking out of any antipathy towards the germ theory. I fully understand the reasons why people believe in germs. You can believe me when I say that if I did not have to speak as I do now for objective reasons, I would acknowledge these reasons, but it is precisely here that knowledge leads to the recognition of something else, and then forces one to say: I see a certain landscape, there are many exceptionally beautiful cattle, well cared for. I now ask: Why are there certain living conditions in the area? They come from the beautiful cattle. I explain the living conditions in this area by explaining that beautiful cattle were brought in from somewhere else and have spread there. — I will not do that, will I, but I will examine the primary causes, the diligence and understanding of the people, and that will explain to me why these beautiful cattle thrive on this soil. But I would be giving a superficial explanation if I simply said: It is beautiful here, life is good here because beautiful cattle have moved in. It is basically the same logic when I find the typhoid bacillus and then conclude that people have typhoid because the typhoid bacilli have moved in. To explain typhoid, other things are necessary besides simply referring to the typhoid bacilli. But one is misled in a completely different way when one indulges in such false logic. Certainly, the primary processes that provide the basis for the existence of the typhoid bacilli are then the basis for the typhoid bacilli, but they also cause all kinds of other things that are not primary. And it is very easy to either completely confuse or conflate what is secondary with the actual original clinical picture. These are the things that lead to the correct conclusion on this point, or that show how what is justified in a certain sense must be kept within its limits.

Perhaps you can see from the way I have given this answer — although I can only sketch it out, so it can easily be misunderstood — that this is really not about the popular ranting against the germ theory, but that it is really about examining things very seriously.

Please give some examples of how physical organic disorders can cause mental and emotional suffering.

Well, of course, if I were to answer that in detail, it would go far too far. But I would just like to point out one thing. You see, the development of medical thinking among humans is not as it is presented today in the history of medicine, namely that medicine began, so to speak, with Hippocrates and then Hippocratic medicine developed further. As far as we can trace it, we know that Hippocrates' work reveals some very strange things, and that Hippocrates represents much more the last vestiges of an ancient instinctive medicine than the mere beginning of today's intellectualistic medicine. But we find something else as well. You see, in this ancient instinctive medicine, as long as it was still in use, people did not speak of mental depression of a certain kind, which is a very abstract expression, but rather of hypochondria, or hardening of the abdomen. So they knew that when hypochondria occurred, it was a matter of disturbances in the abdomen, of hardening in the abdomen. One cannot say that the ancients were more materialistic than we are.

Similarly, it is very easy to show how certain chronic lung defects are definitely related to what could be called a false mystical sense in people. And so one could point to all sorts of things, quite apart from the fact that — in keeping with a correct instinct — the ancients definitely pointed to organic causes in relation to temperaments. They derived the choleric temperament from bile, from white bile, the melancholic temperament from black bile and everything that black bile causes in the lower abdomen. They then derived the sanguine temperament from blood, the phlegmatic temperament from phlegm, which they called mucus. But then, when they saw degenerations of the temperaments, they saw these as things that pointed to the degeneration of the relevant organic substance. What has been done in instinct medicine and instinct hygiene can be incorporated into the state of mind in a strictly scientific manner and cultivated from the standpoint of our present knowledge.

Here is the question where one can be even more misunderstood:

Are you familiar with eye diagnosis? Do you recognize it as a science?

Well, it is generally true that in an organism, and especially in the complex human organism, one can infer the whole from all possible details if one examines them in the right way. And again, how these details are located in the human organism is of great importance. In a certain way, what the eye diagnostician examines in the iris is, on the one hand, so isolated from the rest of the human organism and, on the other hand, so peculiarly connected to the rest of the organism that it is indeed an expressive organ. But it is precisely with such things that one must not schematize, and the mistake of such things lies precisely in schematizing. It is certainly the case, for example, that people with different mental and physical constitutions show different characteristics in their irises than other people. If one wants to apply such a thing, one needs such an intimate knowledge of what is happening in the human organism that, once one has this intimate knowledge, one no longer needs to search for it in a single organ. And if one is instructed to adhere to some rules in an intellectualistic way and to do such things schematically, then not much sensible will come of it.

What relationship do diseases have to the progress of world history, especially those that are now emerging?

A whole chapter of cultural history! Well, I just want to note the following. When studying history, one must have a sense for symptomatology, that is, to understand much of what is taken as history today only as a symptom of something much deeper that lies behind it, which is really the spiritual current that carries these symptoms. And so what lies in the depths of human development actually manifests itself symptomatically in this or that disease of the times. And it is interesting to study the relationships between what prevails in the depths of human development and what takes place in the symptoms of this or that disease. One can also conclude from the existence of certain diseases that there are impulses in historical development that escape such symptomatology. But then the question could also point to something else that is not insignificant when tracing the historical development of humanity. This is that: diseases, regardless of whether they occur in individual human beings or epidemically in human society, are often also reactions to other degenerations, which may be considered less serious from a health point of view, but which are nevertheless considered very serious from a moral or spiritual point of view. One must not, however, apply what is said here to medicine or hygiene. That would be completely wrong. Diseases must be cured. In hygiene, one must act in a way that promotes human welfare. One cannot say: I will first examine whether it is perhaps your karma that you have this disease, then I must leave it to you; if not, I can cure you — these views do not apply when it comes to healing. But what does not apply to us humans in our intervention in nature does apply objectively in the world outside. And here we must say that, for example, some things that arise as a predisposition to moral excesses become so deeply ingrained in the human organism that reactions appear in the form of certain illnesses, and that the illness is the suppression of a moral excess. In the case of the individual human being, it is not even of great importance to pursue these things, for they should be left to his individual destiny, and one should interfere with them just as little as one interferes with the privacy of other people's correspondence — unless it is from the standpoint that is now so close to us: “Officially opened by law of war” — just as one should not interfere with the privacy of another person's letters, one should not interfere with their individual karma. But in world history, that is another matter. There, it is important because the individual human being plays, I would say, only a statistical role in world history with its laws. It must always be pointed out that statistics provide life insurance companies with a good basis for assessing mortality rates, on which they base their premiums. The matter is quite correct, and the calculation is quite accurate; everything is quite scientific—but now, one does not have to die at the moment calculated by life insurance statistics, nor does one have to live as long as has been calculated. Other things come into play when the individual human being is considered. But when groups of people or even the entire development of humanity are taken into account, then it may very well be that one is not a superstitious person, but a very scientific one, if one examines the extent to which symptoms of illness and illnesses that occur are corrective for other excesses. So that one can indeed already seek out a certain repercussion of the illness, or at least a provocation of the illness for that which, if the illness had not come, would have developed in a completely different form.

These are just a few points on how this question can be viewed.

But our time has now progressed so far that we too will follow the others who have already departed in such large numbers.