Spiritual Science as a Life's Work

GA 63 — 26 March 1914, Berlin

11. Homunculus

How spiritual science in the sense meant here wants to position itself in the spiritual and cultural life of the present has often been indicated here. What it can be and bring to people has also been discussed frequently, and this will be presented in detail in the last lecture. In the course of these winter lectures, it has also been pointed out again and again how understandable it is that, on the one hand, numerous souls of the present, perhaps more than they already know, strive instinctively for this spiritual science out of their deepest feelings, one might say, out of their subconscious soul forces; and on the other hand, it is equally understandable that the general intellectual education of our time gives rise to opposition after opposition to spiritual science. The objections made against it, although based on prejudice, are also understandable to the spiritual researcher, even self-evident. This, too, has often been emphasized. But the whole attitude of our contemporary culture toward a possible spiritual science depends in no small part on the unwillingness to see how this spiritual science, at least as it is meant in these lectures, can basically understand and comprehend all other worldviews and fully appreciate the substance and significance of the arguments put forward against it from this or that side. Attention has been drawn to how spiritual science aims to be the large circle that expands human knowledge across all areas that illuminate our lives, and how all other worldviews are small circles within this large circle, which therefore naturally believe themselves to be right from their own points of view. Spiritual science is usually in a position to say yes to the positive aspects of these worldviews. However, the same cannot be said of other worldviews that are currently being put forward. For one will not take the position that this or that — whether it be materialism, spiritualism, or realism — should be regarded as one-sided in a certain respect, and only by going beyond this one-sidedness is it possible to gain knowledge that satisfies human beings. In its own field, the worldview that must appear one-sided is often fully justified, so justified that it is able to bring forth, uncover, and discover truths in its own place. Spiritual science cannot simply remain at the stage of recognizing these truths as something all-encompassing, but must go on to place them in their proper context. Thus, in the field of spiritual science in particular, we are confronted with opposition from those whose worldview, according to their own view, is firmly grounded in modern science and who, from their point of view, can see nothing else in spiritual science—and I say explicitly: must see nothing else—than fantasies and daydreams. Leaving aside other considerations, let us take a form of worldview that believes itself to be secure because it claims — and, from its point of view, must claim — to stand on the firm ground of strict scientific methodology. I would like to characterize this worldview, I would say for our time, in a somewhat radical way, the worldview that says: If we want to understand human beings, we must, if we remain on the ground of science, reflect on the physical, chemical, and mineral forces and substances that compose them; and we must be clear that, just as any other being is composed according to the laws of nature, so too is the human being, as the crown of creation, built up.

And so this worldview believes that once it has succeeded in understanding all the natural laws and substances that govern the human nervous system, down to the finest processes of the brain, then it will also be clear, as far as is scientifically possible, how human thinking, human feeling, and human volition arise from the processes governed by the laws of nature. To understand human beings purely from a scientific point of view is an ideal, if one wants to stick to it one-sidedly: a justified ideal of this worldview.

I know that by describing this ideal in such radical terms, I am bound to provoke opposition from some researchers who take a more serious and scientific approach than was the case until recently, researchers who are already saying today: We have moved away from that more materialistic worldview which believes that if man is understood purely in terms of external natural processes, then he is understood in his entirety. But it is not important that here and there it is already admitted that man is not understood by knowing the purely natural processes that take place in his nervous system up to the brain; what is important is that, despite this awareness, even in the scientific methods of philosophically minded contemporaries, nothing else prevails but the view that is based on these natural processes. For even today, in the widest circles that believe they are building on a scientific foundation, a view such as that meant here as spiritual science will be rejected.

This view of spiritual science will have to admit strictly, on the basis of its research results, that with all the thinking, with all the research, which by its natural nature is suitable for surveying the processes of the sensory world and describing them down to the processes of the nervous system and surveying them with these, nothing else could be found than the purely natural human being; but that in this purely natural human being, as in a shell, there is something that we have come to know as passing from one earthly life to another, something that after each earthly life undergoes an existence in a purely spiritual world between death and a new birth, as I dared to describe here last time. Spiritual science, I said, must be clear that this, which reigns so eternally in human nature, must remain hidden from all philosophy that wants to address only the powers suitable for natural observation; that this eternal element in human nature can only be explored with powers that have often been spoken of here, with powers that are attained through inner development, as described in more detail in my “Outline of Esoteric Science” and in the book “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds.” But even philosophers who today emphasize the necessity of spiritual life, even the philosopher who has become famous in such a strange way, Rudolf Eucken, who in a feuilletonistic philosophy speaks again and again of the “spirit,” will, when he speaks of the spirit, limit himself only to what the natural human being is; and nowhere does he reveal that he has a sense that spirit and the spiritual world can only be explored with the spiritual powers that must first be brought out of the soul through certain spiritual scientific methods.

Now, spiritual science is not the opponent of such scientific views, nor is it the opponent of such philosophical worldviews, but it must only point out their limitations, must show what they are capable of and what they can represent. With regard to this position of spiritual science in relation to other worldviews, it has been emphasized again and again that spiritual science feels in harmony with those spirits of human development who did not yet have spiritual science, because spiritual science can only be a product of our time, but who nevertheless, because they had a profound sense of truth arising from their deepest soul feelings and sensibilities, spoke in a clear and understandable way when they expressed this sense, so that spiritual science can feel in harmony with them.

I would like to speak to you today about how this is the case with regard to two spirits of the nineteenth century, so that, as it were, by inserting this lecture into the series of lectures this year, I would like to show this with Goethe and Robert Hamerling, with Goethe, who is known to all, and with Hamerling, who, despite his wide circulation, was still little known until recently. I would like to talk about a problem that the two poets posed, as if from a deep spiritual feeling, but in a genuinely poetic way, and I would like to emphasize first of all the spiritual coloring of this problem.

I would like to say: Couldn't the thought arise in one's mind: What actually happens when one forms a concept, an image of the human being that is based purely on natural thinking, when one conceives of the human being as a being in such a way that one does not draw on anything that can be recognized when reflecting on the deeper, eternal forces in the human soul? What image arises when we simply imagine: we have the forces and substances that we know — we may not yet know them all, but the ideal of natural science is to get to know them all and observe how they work — we have the laws of nature and try to imagine human beings as they might appear if we used nothing but natural forces and substances and the laws of nature?

The spiritual scientist can only judge such a picture from the standpoint that has often been emphasized here. If one develops the powers slumbering in the soul into spiritual vision, one comes to experience oneself in the soul, so that one experiences oneself in a way and recognizes in a way how these powers of the soul that are to be developed are not bound to the senses and also not to the powers of the brain. In this way, one experiences that one is truly outside one's sensory organs, outside the brain, outside the body, and indeed has everything that is bound to the body as an external object before one. That in which one otherwise always dwells, what one otherwise regards as belonging to one's ego, one's body: in spiritual research, one has it before one in the same way as I now have the table before me. But one also has one's own destiny before one, insofar as it takes place in the outer world. One has become a new human being, in relation to whom what one was before has become objective and is outside of oneself. - When one now stands outside one's human body and observes the human being, one gains the ability to judge: how much validity does the image of the human being have that one can conceive of using only natural substances, natural laws, and abilities? And one comes to the realization: Oh, this image is by no means unreal, but represents something very real; but for human beings it is not even real in the sensory world; rather, it is a link, a part of human nature, permeating and energizing human beings.

Those of you in the esteemed audience who remember the daring experiment of eight days ago will have heard how the human soul, after having gone through the purely spiritual life between death and a new birth, re-enters earthly life with the powers developed in that life, how it is drawn to a pair of parents, how it fits into what can be called the inherited powers from father and mother, in short, the powers coming from the stream of heredity. But the spiritual researcher becomes aware that what descends as the human soul into a new earthly embodiment must envelop itself, must clothe itself during its entry into the physical embodiment in powers that are, as it were, an extract of the whole of physical nature. Before the human being, the eternal human being, hastens to its embodiment, it must, as it were, draw forces from spiritual substance, draw spiritual substances, through which it solidifies the image that it has formed purely spiritually as an archetype for the next embodiment and which then wants to embody itself physically within the line of heredity. We can say that in human reincarnation, an intermediate link is inserted between the purely spiritual, which reigns between death and a new birth, and that which then stands before us in the physical world as a human being. In what stands before us as a human being in the physical world, we have what comes from the father and mother, and what comes from earlier earthly incarnations, the spiritual-soul. But in between, one might say, there is a purely etheric human being, a spiritual human being who is supersensible, invisible, but who contains within himself the forces that are like an extract of the whole physical world. It is remarkable: when human beings believe themselves to be on the solid ground of natural science and form a picture of humanity based on natural substances, natural forces, and laws, then he arrives at an image that is not really present in this physical human being, who also contains the eternal soul, that is an abstraction, a mere abstraction, but one that reigns and weaves in this physical human being, but which is also that in which the human being clothes himself before he descends to physical embodiment.

What the human being snatches from eternal spiritual life and forces into the earthly life that runs between birth and death, that is what compels us, little by little, to die from our earthly life. What man snatches from eternal spiritual life and forces into earthly life between birth and death, what is within us that compels us to speak little by little of the dying of our earthly life, what reigns within us between birth and death, torn from the spiritual worlds, what is itself spiritual but lifts us out of the physical and hands us over to the spirit: this is a real being for the spiritual researcher, only it is not visible, it can only be fathomed by higher vision.

This gives rise to the curious fact that those who believe they are thinking correctly in a materialistic or monistic way are not entirely wrong when they form a fantastical image of the human being based purely on natural laws, built up purely from natural forces, which has meaning for the human being between birth and death, and which during earthly life causes the soul to forget, as it were, its entire spiritual life. But conceived of as consisting of purely natural substances and governed solely by natural laws, it does not exist as a natural entity, but only permeates human nature; it is an intermediary between the outer and the eternal human being who passes through the physical world. And as such, one might say, “supersensible-sensible,” Goethe regarded this entity, and he characterized it as such in the second part of his life's work, in his “Faust,” as the homunculus. And precisely what Goethe meant by his homunculus is fantastically based on the materialistic or, as it is called today, the monistic worldview as the image of man. But this image of man does not exist in reality. It permeates human beings; it is what strips human beings of their eternal significance between birth and death and forces them into physical-sensual nature. The latter is a third element that is added to the other two. By believing that his image of human beings represents the most real thing before us, the materialistic thinker presents an abstraction, a supersensible entity. Goethe uses this ideal of modern monism, this homunculus, this thing that modern monism would like to describe as “human,” for a very special mission in the second part of his Faust. — So that this lecture does not go on too long, I can only briefly touch on these things.

Under the guidance — or through the seduction — of Mephistopheles, Faust has gone through what is known from the first part of the poem. He has gone through all the phases of the drive for knowledge, has experienced all the torments of the quest for knowledge, has gone through heavy human guilt, and in the second part of the poem, Goethe now depicts Faust as he is torn from ordinary imagination. Faust is not to gain the opportunity to penetrate further into the world by rising again from all that his soul has gone through with ordinary consciousness, with the everyday powers of his soul; instead, we are presented with a night, that is, a rapture of Faust's consciousness at the beginning of the second part of the poem, and from the spiritual worlds, forces are poured into him in his sleeping consciousness, which he does not immediately become aware of, but which Goethe indicates will be effective in Faust's soul, where the eternal forces reign, so that Faust may progress. Therefore, spirits speak to him in his sleep, Ariel and others. That is why he feels the “pulse of life” beating “freshly alive” again, is returned to life, and can begin the struggle for life anew. — I will disregard everything else and only mention that he is asked to conjure up the image of Paris and Helen, the image of Helen, the most beautiful woman. Faust himself feels the urge to see Helena; and Goethe's description makes it understandable that he himself feels this urge.

Mephistopheles, what kind of figure is he? He stands next to Faust as the spirit being who wants to keep people in the purely external, sensual world, in natural existence. Mephistopheles is indeed a spirit being, but he is the being who denies the spiritual world to humans and before humans. Faust must demand that Mephistopheles enable him to penetrate those realms of existence where Helena's eternal soul reigns. Mephistopheles can only give Faust the key to this world, for it is the world of mothers, of the eternal forces of spiritual existence, the world in which the eternal soul-spiritual powers reign. And now, in the second part of Faust, a conversation unfolds in which Faust's truly spiritual-scientific attitude is confronted with Mephistopheles' rejection of this attitude, who dismisses the world Faust wants to enter as nothingness. But Faust replies: “In your nothingness, I hope to find the universe!” For Mephistopheles, too, the world into which Faust wants to penetrate is nothingness. In the realm of the mothers, Faust encounters the archetype, that is, the eternal Helena. He brings her up. He is not mature enough to face her. I do not want to touch on everything that still takes place, but only this one thing: Faust is not as purified as the forces must be purified in such a striving in someone who really wants to face the spiritual. He approaches Helena as a sensual apparition, and the result is that he is paralyzed by Helena. His consciousness is snatched away by his effervescent passionate life. In his paralysis, his dream springs forth, leading him to the realm where Helena lived.

Now the big question arose for Goethe: How can Faust's life be continued poetically? Goethe was not a symbolic poet; he was a realistic poet, albeit a spiritually realistic one. And the question arose in him: Faust must be able to face Helena as a human being, that is, as she lived as a human being; she must therefore descend into the realm of humans, she must incarnate herself, and Faust must be able to face Helena as a human being: how can this be done, in a spiritual-realistic sense?

Then he thought of the studies he had pursued earlier, for he wrote this scene in the 1820s. But what he had studied in his youth in terms of spiritual science had an increasing effect. That is why the second part of this poem is so much more mature, which has led some minds to dismiss this second part as a pitiful product of the aging Goethe, because they could not relate to it. So the question for Goethe was: How can I use my spiritual studies to bring Faust to the point where Helena's spirituality can be found? Then he remembered what he had read in Paracelsus's work “De generatione rerum”: the “homunculus.” In it, Paracelsus explains how an image of a purely natural human being can be created in the state described above, so that humans can actually see it. It would be going too far to go into what Paracelsus describes, if only because his explanations are completely unsatisfactory to us today. I will therefore approach the matter more in the style of today's spiritual science, and not in the way Paracelsus described it. He talks about mixing different substances and treating them according to the methods of the time. If we consider how people in Paracelsus' time thought about this, it was not so much a question of how the substances mixed, how they decomposed and formed new compounds, but rather that the person stood in front of them and allowed them to affect their soul. And the effect of these processes evoked something in the human soul; this now brought about clairvoyance, which today can be achieved by other means. Then the figure described by Paracelsus was seen, which is truly a paradigm of the human being, a little human being, but only luminous, without a body, not embodied. The essential point, in the sense of today's spiritual science, is that those mixtures and fumigations produced a state of consciousness in which the homunculus became visible, which had the significance I have spoken of.

Goethe, following on from what he had read in Paracelsus, said: This homunculus is a being that stands between the supersensible and the sensible, in such a way that it can carry human beings down from the eternal into the physical-sensible world, acting in human beings as a force, but not embodied itself. And Goethe shaped the homunculus into a poetic figure. He first presented a spirit of the kind that, in the sense of Faust, can be said to greedily search for treasures and rejoice when they find earthworms. Goethe presents such a spirit in Wagner, a figure who truly represents the ideal of today's worldviewers, who search for treasures and rejoice when they find the laws of earthworms.

Goethe's image of Wagner emerged from two sources. Firstly, in addition to a “Faust” book, there is also a “Wagner” book; and secondly, there really was a remarkable man in Goethe's time: his name was Johann Jakob Wagner. He claimed that if you mixed certain substances and so on in a retort according to specific methods, you could actually create a little human being. From these two Wagner figures, the one from the Wagner book and Johann Jakob Wagner, Goethe melded a character, the Wagner of poetry. And so the figure of Wagner was created, standing in front of his retort, mixing the substances and waiting for the “well-behaved little human being,” the homunculus, to emerge. It would not emerge just like that. Neither in Johann Jakob Wagner's retort nor in Goethe's Wagner's retort would what a human being is, or what some scientists who consider themselves modern think of as a human being, come into being if Mephistopheles did not creep into the process, if Mephistopheles' spiritual power did not work in the background. And so, in Wagner's retort, a purely spiritual being is created, luminous, but now desiring to be embodied, lacking not in spiritual qualities, but in tangible abilities—a being that the materialistic worldview regards as human:

He does not lack spiritual qualities,
But it lacks tangible abilities.
Until now, only the glass gives it weight,
But it would like to be embodied first.

Homunculus also wants to become embodied, but it is a being that lives only in the spiritual realm. For those who seek the “real” present a terrible abstraction. But Wagner can believe nothing other than that he has brought about conviction in reality. And so he stands before the retort and believes:

It will happen! The masses are stirring more clearly!
The conviction truer, truer!

However, this passage is still so little understood in Faust literature today that people believe it refers to a “conviction” in the sense of a confession. But Goethe means it as a conviction, as it is also meant in the sense of Nietzsche's “superman.”

This homunculus now truly proves himself to be a being who belongs to the spiritual world. For he immediately attacks Faust himself in a strange way. Faust lives in dreams of ancient Greece. Homunculus is a clairvoyant; he sees everything Faust dreams. Why? Because, as Goethe depicts him, he is imagined in the spiritual world, not born out of the physical world. Human beings have him as a force within themselves. Thus the homunculus loses its abstraction. One would even concede to the monists that this abstraction, if they could really see it in the spiritual world, where it has reality, would even be clairvoyant there. For the homunculus, the human being as conceived, for example, by Ludwig Büchner and others, exists as a spiritual being and is a clairvoyant being in the spiritual world. Of course, a person like Ludwig Büchner would not suspect this. Therefore, the homunculus can indeed become the guide to the realms where Helena is to reincarnate in a new earthly realm, where she is to appear before Faust. But to do so, Homunculus must first acquire the powers that lie in physical nature, apart from everything else.

Homunculus, as a clairvoyant being, becomes Faust's guide in the “classic Walpurgis Night.” And there he seeks advice from the ancient philosophers, from Thales and Anaxagoras, and also from Proteus, as to how he, who would so much like to be incarnated, who does not lack “spiritual qualities” but all the more “tangible abilities,” could come into natural existence. If only the materialists or monists would realize: how can what we imagine come into natural existence?! Proteus advises the homunculus to develop through all the realms of nature. Goethe's reference to passing through the plant kingdom is wonderful; the homunculus says:

It grumbles, and I like the smell! “Grumbling,” which is derived from “green,” represents the effective fresh life of the plant world as perceived by the active being. But one thing is said to the homunculus: that on this path he can only come as far as the point where he becomes human. He is the mediator between the physical and the eternal. Where birth is concerned, he must plunge into the natural forces, must merge with the purely cosmic elements. Therefore, the homunculus is told: Go through all this, and “you have time until you become human.” And then he is told:

Just don't strive for higher places:
For once you have become human,
Then it is completely over for you.

How wonderfully this corresponds to the homunculus' mission in becoming human; for once he has become human, he is completely absorbed in human nature. Therefore, he is told: Stay here, do not strive for higher places. - “Places” must be used here. The copyist made a mistake here. This part of “Faust” is only available in the transcript, and since Goethe spoke with a Frankfurt accent, the writer understood ‘Orden’ instead of “Orten,” and modern Faust commentators believed that even the old Proteus spoke of “Orden,” one of the most unfortunate ideas that has crept into Faust literature.

The homunculus's merging into the elements is described magnificently, where Helena is to be created, where she is to appear before Faust by uniting her eternal self with the forces that come from the elements, so that she can thereby enter earthly existence. The sirens say:

What fiery miracle transfigures the waves for us,
Shattering against each other, sparkling?
So it shines and flickers and grows brighter:
The bodies glow on their nocturnal path,
And all around is surrounded by fire;
So let Eros reign, who began it all!

This means that when man enters earthly existence from the eternal spiritual realm through what is called love, Eros, on earth, this emergence appears to the clairvoyant gaze as waves, as surges. “Surges” are meant in a spiritual sense. Therefore, it says:

Hail to the sea! Hail to the waves!
Surrounded by the sacred fire;
Hail to the water! Hail to the fire!
Hail to the rare adventure!
Hail to the gentle breezes!
Hail to the mysterious tombs!
Highly celebrated here
Are all four elements!

This means that the homunculus now truly merges with the elements, and Helena appears in the third act. The reincarnated Helena, who will not be crushed by Faust, appears.

In this way, Goethe knew how to use the figure of the homunculus in a truly poetic way. In Goethe's eyes, the homunculus is that part of man which leads a purely mechanical existence, in which purely mechanical forces prevail. But man is the highest link in earthly creation because these forces dissolve the moment they enter him. But what man is not in reality, he can be in his imagination. This is the freedom of man, that he can form an image of his ideal, and that, although he has within himself an eternal spiritual-soul that passes from life to life and traverses a spiritual world between death and new birth, he can deny this eternal spiritual-soul, need not take it into account, and can imagine: I am only a being consisting of purely natural substances and forces. Then they can also live in a corresponding manner.

In an age that theoretically produces materialism, that thinks in the manner described, it is not unproblematic that in its entire way of life, in its entire attitude to life, it has something that denies the eternal spiritual and makes the natural human being precisely what we have now come to know as the homunculus. There must be a certain urge, a drive to develop the homunculus forces in particular; then one will take a liking to a worldview that presents the homunculus as the human being.

It was at the beginning of the 1860s; when a strange slogan swept through psychology. Psychology had always believed that people would not go so far in their understanding of the soul as to become homunculi, that they would not want to know anything about the soul and would only want to acknowledge the purely physical. But then the slogan “psychology without soul” arose — right up to Wundt. This means that people want to study the mere phenomena of soul life, goodwill, joy, sorrow, and so on, in detail. These are just “occurrences,” people say, but they do not turn to the soul itself. — It is, of course, in the nature of homunculism to deny the soul; for if one sees the homunculus as the true human being, one must deny the soul, because homunculism is incompatible with the soul. A time in which the slogan “psychology without soul” could arise must, of course, represent homunculism as a secret drive of human life. A time in which it is said that man is only what can be recognized with the ordinary powers connected to the nervous system, such a time will also show homuncular traits in the majority of its people.

Then a poet might have the thought: What if I hold up a mirror to the times and show them: you imagine what would come out of you if you believed that you really arose only from purely natural forces and laws. Let's take a poet who takes the slogan “Psychology without a soul” and says to himself: Not only have people said this, but they also live according to it. I want to present a person who is truly conceived in the image they imagine him to be. They just don't know that he is as he appears. But I want to think through consistently what would become of the image of the modern materialist or monist.

Such thoughts influenced Robert Hamerling, and on his sickbed he elaborated on these thoughts and sent the image of the “homunculus” out into the world. It seems to me that this poem is little known today, even though five thousand copies were sold in the first five months after its publication. But this is also something that is in keeping with homunculism—that is to say, with our present age. Hamerling created the “Homunculus” in the way I will now attempt to describe in a few words. I may describe it in this way. Just as, after more than thirty years of studying Goethe, I have come to believe that what I say about Goethe is correct, so too may I do so with regard to Hamerling. For shortly after Hamerling's “Homunculus” was published, I wrote a treatise on the “Homunculus,” and Hamerling wrote to me that I had fully grasped his idea.

Robert Hamerling had conceived the idea of presenting to modern man what lies in the views that man is composed solely of purely natural forces and substances and according to natural laws. Therefore, he has the modern professor Ernst construct a human being according to natural forces and laws. Certainly, the natural scientist who believes in constructing a worldview based on the laws of nature will say: it is not yet possible today to compose a human being in this way. But the poet may say: let us assume that this moment has already arrived, which may well be justified according to the theory of those who believe they stand on the firm ground of modern science. So we see the learned monist in Robert Hamerling standing in front of the retort, treating the substances accordingly — and the well-behaved little homunculus appears:

“Bravo, little doctor!” he cried
A second time, as he
Slip into a little jacket,
Which was already waiting for him;
And with a gracious expression, he pats
His creator on the shoulder. "So, on the whole, and from a purely
chemical-physiological point of view
, my dear,
what you have created is a respectable,
praiseworthy piece of work.
In detail, of course,
there are many things to say about it."
So the homunculus continued,
Then dropped a few scholarly,
Valuable hints,
Spoke at length about albumin,
About fibrin, about globulin too,
Keratin, mucin and other things,
And about proper mixing,
And thoroughly instructed his creator
And producer thoroughly how he Could have done better.

So there he is in reality—that is, in the reality of the poet, as conceived in the minds of many materialistic-minded people who, according to Hamerling's view, think from the perspective of the present day. And from this materialistic mindset, which is given to the “well-behaved little man,” arises what this little man shows as his first inclination. When one looks at the world today with the inclinations of the “youngest” people, one already understands how the homunculus can come to such a conclusion:

Gradually he began to criticize
And to nag at the book
He held in his hands,
The homunculus. This was interesting
To the doctor, who noted
The remark in his notebook:
“First literary impulse
Of a little person — reviewing.”

But now it's not working at all. Because, of course, the homunculus grows out of the thoughts of his creator, let's say his persuader, and brings with him many things that lived in his thoughts from the whole constitution of our time. He is nervous; he brings his nervousness with him. His learned creator can do nothing about this, so he throws him back into the retort, turns him back into a human embryo, and has him properly conceived and carried to term, at least on his mother's side, so that we do not have a completely correct homunculus before us, but one who is merely without a natural father.

Then he goes through his years of apprenticeship. Of course, he also becomes a poet. He experiences what so many poets experience in our time: he looks for his publishers. A pleasant relationship develops not only with his publisher, but also with the publisher's daughter, who is promised to him if his poems find the necessary distribution. Of course, one has “connections” in the age of homunculism. The book is brilliantly praised; how could Homunculus believe otherwise! But lo and behold: by the end of the year, the publisher has sold only thirteen copies. So he withdraws his daughter from him, and Homunculus must continue to search for his path in life. — He tries all kinds of paths. This brings him to a seaside resort, where he learns the customs and traditions of homunculism, that is to say, the customs and traditions of modern resort life. After that, he conceives the plan to found a newspaper, a “paper for everything and for everyone.” And because it costs little and belongs to no party, “court and state and other councilors, or even the leaders of powerful, solvent parties,” the heads of large banking and trading firms, flock to it and write their editorials and reports. But please bear in mind that since Robert Hamerling's “Homunkulus” was published in 1887, it cannot be meant as a satire on something that would only have arisen today, i.e., on things that only appeared much later. — But of course, Homunkulus is not satisfied with this; he strives for something even higher. He negotiates his newspaper to a stock corporation — again, this is not satire! — and then devotes himself to his other ventures. He then becomes a “billionaire” and lives as such in a very peculiar way. I would like to emphasize that he really immerses himself in the era of homunculism. What non-homunculism achieves through lifeless forces, for example when something needs to be supported, when columns are erected to bear weight: all that belongs to the past. Large snakes, which have been tamed, stand in Homunculus' garden pavilion and hold up its domed roof. Squirrels used to be trained and locked up in cages. Homunculus did not do that; he lets them function as automatons. That is true homunculism. Something like this would already come about if some ideas that exist today were further developed.

But even if you are a billionaire, you cannot achieve a truly satisfying life. Homunculus did not know what a “soul life” was, because he had no soul. So he is extremely dissatisfied with his existence, and that is why he throws himself into the Rhine. There he is rescued by a creature who also has no soul: the mermaid Lurley. And Homunculus and Lurley now become a couple. And because all the old worlds are not enough for them, they emigrate to a completely new area. - It would also be worth describing the interesting “literary Walpurgis Night” celebrated at the wedding of Homunculus and Lurley. Many aspects of our time are touched upon there. One would only have to go back to Hamerling's time, but one would also have to say here that it is not meant to be a satire on today's circumstances:

Completely addicted to bitter world-weariness,
Piteous weariness of life,
Gloomy melancholy,
Promethean, vulture-like
Liver-sick pessimism,
Was the swarm of water poets;
They found everything miserable,
Except their own verses.
Much more comfortable in their own skin
Were the wine and beer poets.
To them, the world was just fine,
And they suffered from only one evil:
A fear of water. Finally, the absinthe poets,
Together with the wine and beer poets,
Shared the fear of water,
And the vulture's bite of the gloomy,
Melancholic, weary,
Liver-sick pessimism
With the swarm of water poets:
And they were doubly miserable.

Thus, what prevails as “art and literature” is examined in a very interesting way.

So they emigrate to a region that is not yet afflicted by the belief in the soul. The soulless man and the soulless mermaid emigrate to an Eldorado. It is also an Eldorado of many a party system; and much of what prevails in party politics today is described in a magnificent way. I will only hint that Homunculus cannot cope with the establishment of his model state, Eldorado, even here; even his Lurley is taken away from him by a party man who goes around with the motto: “We will not be marginalized!” But “he is a character,” Lurley tells himself, and Homunculus must move on. Yet he is an inventive mind and now really wants to think things through to their ultimate consequences. He tells himself: There is nothing to be done with humans if one wants to turn homunculism into reality; they are not up for it. But why not draw the ultimate conclusions? Couldn't monkeys be trained to become humans? Modern science already teaches us that humans evolved from monkeys. So let's gather the best specimens and quickly turn them into humans! — And so he formulates his plan: he will found a company in which he will turn monkeys into humans, a whole new empire.

And now we are told about the monkey school: And now we are told about the monkey school:

The master of the monkey school
complained only about unrest,
For these noble offspring
Felt it difficult to break away
From the certain habits of their race:
For example, climbing everywhere.
They also sometimes forgot
Climbing everywhere.
They also sometimes forgot
Themselves so much, during long hours
Of serious instruction,
That they caught vermin,
And even in a frenzied
Swarm attacked the teacher
To delouse his head. — Now that the monkeys were educated,
They competed with humans
In every field.
They were excellently suited to the fine arts
Thanks to their innate
Talent for imitation.
Unparalleled, of course,
They were stage artists,
They undertook guest performances
With the most brilliant success.
Farce, comedy, operetta,
Parody—that was their domain.
Cabinet and masterpieces
Of the most drastic and finest comedy,
Such as had never been seen before,
Were the faces they made.
They had famous song sheets
— The soloists were howler monkeys
And they beat
Here and there in singing competitions
Human singing clubs.
Baboons, grinning like fauns,
Turned themselves into stumpers,
Elegant pavement treaders,
They also made dashing
Dancers at balls, and the gallant
Nature they boldly displayed
To the women was, in part,
Very much to the latter's taste.
As for the female monkeys,
They soon equaled and even surpassed
Sometimes equal and sometimes even superior
In the art of coquetry.
Always dressing fashionably,
Who would understand this better
Than a monkey? They knew how
To adorn themselves with trinkets
And tassels, ribbons, bows...

and so on. But even though it went that far, Hamerling believes that “monkey business plus education” did not make a human being. The monkeys referred to many a “monkey ancestor,” but they only achieved human likeness in one human “virtue”: the virtue of conviction. They soon declared that it was actually very inferior to be human, because these humans had not even become “monkeys.” This soon led to the monkey “Doctor Krallfratz,” who had been elected monkey rector, taking Homunculus' place. Thus, Homunculus was displaced by Doctor Krallfratz. But that did little to make the monkeys happy. The humans could not cope with these monkeys that had become human, but in wild regions, the humans still living in a primitive state could cope with them: they simply killed the monkeys that had become human.

Now comes a chapter that was very badly received by Hamerling — Hamerling did not want to be considered an anti-Semite; he strongly protested against this when, in the eighth canto, he also made Homunkulus the leader of the Jews emigrating to Palestine, who could no longer bear to live here under the current circumstances. One would think that in an age familiar with the aspirations of Zionism, this should not be considered particularly remarkable. What is important, however, is what this means for Homunkulus: he is crucified by the Jews because they cannot bear to be with him. And when he hangs there alone, bound to the cross, he is visited only by Ahasver, the eternal Jew. Through him, he is then freed from his bonds, and so they must now continue their journey together, Homunculus and Ahasver.

Homunculus has thought through to the ultimate consequences what he believes he has gained from modern science. But, as is often the case with people who concern themselves with questions of worldview, he has not really dealt with real science. Now he begins to concern himself with scientific problems. He actually succeeds in making an attempt: to win over a large part of humanity to an idea that first arose among philosophers of the unconscious out of pessimism, which in a certain sense is also homunculism: out of Eduard von Hartmann's pessimistic philosophy. Today, not many people know what pessimism has to say to humanity: Oh, the world is bad, as bad as it can be, and the best thing is to get out of this bad world. To do this, it is necessary to be clear: the world was created by will, and if all people make the decision to abolish existence, then through the unity of all decisions of will, the world and life will be abolished again. Eduard von Hartmann describes in detail how it would be possible to eliminate humanity from the world through a united will. From this perspective, Homunculus founds a society, not only of humans, but also of animals. Congresses are held, speeches are made, and so on. In the end, the moment is set when all humans are to make the decision at the same time: “Now you no longer want to be!” And even the earth is to perish in the process. Everyone agrees; the day, the hour approaches, but only the sun holds it back. What had happened? Homunculus and Lurley had wanted a child, but could not have one in Eldorado. So they adopted two children from the primitive people living there: they were named Eldo and Dora. But these two could not find their place in the Homunculus society. And now, when on the appointed day all people come together to carry out the decision, and Eldo and Dora meet again after a long separation, they fall in love, but as a result they arrive too late. They were absent from the whole of humanity at the union of wills, and all efforts were in vain. And Homunculus himself has attracted those who will destroy his decision! Oh, Homunculism will produce “Eldo and Dora” in the most diverse ways, who will arrive too late when Homunculism wants to draw the final conclusions! Then the sun of spiritual life, of spiritual science, will rise!

But Homunculus must ultimately achieve something from his science. After researching all the forces of nature, he builds a giant telescope through which he can see the farthest reaches of the world, magnifying everything to gigantic proportions, thereby elevating the modern worldview. And next to this giant telescope, he constructs a giant ear trumpet and a giant nose trumpet; and he also builds, indeed, everything else that can be obtained from mechanical forces! He undertakes to build something from these mechanical forces in the most modern style: he builds a giant airship. I note once again: in 1887, the history of the steerable airship was written by Robert Hamerling in his Homunculus! And on this steerable airship, Homunculus leaves the sphere of the earth. And he can speed along on his airship faster than the speed of light. But he is not satisfied with all that he can do: he can travel around in space on his airship, he can look out into the world of the stars with his giant telescope, he can listen to the Earth with his giant ear trumpet, and he speaks down to the people through a giant megaphone, and so he speeds around. Then, on his journey, he encounters a thundercloud, lightning strikes his airship, he cannot destroy the rudders or the engines, but he destroys the steering power! So Homunculus is now at the mercy of the elemental forces with his aircraft. There is only one thing he can still take with him: when he once again approaches the earth, he discovers Lurley's corpse and takes her with him on his steerable giant airship. — Hamerling thus concludes his epic with the words:

To whom nature, the sacred,
The mysterious mother,
Did not give life through love,
Did not give life in love,
She also denies death,
And above all, the most beautiful death,
Dying in love
And no grave of blessed rest,
No place of eternal peace
Does the vast universe hold for him. Who can say where
And how long with the homunculus
And the mermaid who accompanies him,
The charred giant airship
In the iron laws,
In the vortex of matter and forces
On boundless paths
Chasing the ruling fate?
Sunday children still see
Sometimes on starry nights
That wreck as a dark wandering star
High in immeasurable distance,
And shuddering, they sense the fate
Of the eternally restless.

In his own way, Hamerling showed that what homunculism conceives cannot belong to the world in which the human soul, which reigns from life to life, lives, but only to purely mechanical forces. And Hamerling's homunculus is carried away by the mechanical forces of nature. For the poet, this idea was indeed permissible: the idea that modern man, who develops his purely natural ideal of humanity, actually only sees in himself what is in reality an abstraction, something unreal, belonging to the purely natural elements. This is also what Hamerling means, as Goethe said, when the homunculus dissolves into the elements:

Hail to the gentle breezes!
Hail to the mysterious tombs!
Be highly celebrated here,
All four of you elements!

But while Goethe's homunculus contributes his powers to Helena's incarnation, Hamerling's homunculus, as a soulless being, as the representative of the ideal of humanity that denies the soul, must dissolve into the elements of the cosmos.

It is fair to say that Hamerling had the intention — whether he achieved it or not, I leave it to others to judge — to hold up a mirror to that modern attitude which wants nothing to do with the spirit and conjures up an ideal of humanity stripped of the spirit. Whether the mirror image is recognized is another question. But it is something that does not really exist in physical nature, something that can rightly be denied by those who set it up in the first place. What a strange fate! Goethe solves the riddle a little. He recalls the other saying: “The little people never sense the devil, even when he has them by the collar.” The wizard who creates the homunculus in his retort also does not notice the one who actually creates him: the devil. For it is Mephistopheles who brings in the spiritual powers. It is the “father of all obstacles” who inspires what is a product of modern science, what materialism wants to present as modern man.

I have read about the homunculus a third time. I say this with bashful hesitation, but I will not shy away from a remark that has already occurred to me once before. I read a book by the learned economist Werner Sombart, which describes the modern economic man. Read the final chapter on the bourgeois; it is very interesting; and in the end, the modern economic man emerges, who is seized by the forces that govern modern economic life, who is caught by them as if by tentacles, who is driven from company to company. The last thing, says Sombart, he has lost: religion. “Religion has become a business.” There he is, the modern man, you can literally feel him in Sombart's humanity. Anyone who knows anything about it will have to say: Isn't he there, don't the economists describe him?

So it is clear from all this how homunculism is to be overcome through a lively grasp of intellectual life. Just as homunculism cannot see many things, it also cannot see where its own powers are leading it. Poets have attempted to depict this, and spiritual science feels entirely in harmony with such poets, who, based on their intuition, sensed what spiritual science must now reestablish. What spiritual science can offer people as a gift of life, how it can move them, how it can grasp their souls, how it is the only true, the only genuine conqueror of all homunculism—this will be described in the next lecture. Today I wanted to show how what prevails in the present circumstances as homunculism in various currents of our time has also been recognized by spirits who have seen with open eyes and open senses.

I believe that Hamerling will be understood on the basis of spiritual science; people will understand precisely the last words that I have already taken the liberty of quoting:

Who can say where
And how long with the homunculus
And the nize that accompanies him,
The charred giant airship
In the iron laws,
In the vortex of forces
On boundless paths
Chasing the reigning doom?
Sunday children still see
Sometimes on starry nights
That wreck as a dark wandering star
High in immeasurable distance,
And shuddering, they sense the fate
Of the eternally restless.

But perhaps one may also apply a well-known saying to this statement: Why look into the vastness of space with the eyes of a Sunday child to search for the wreckage of the giant airship? The “rumor” is so close Sombart can even describe it! It is very close to modern man, and we can only hope that many perceptive and visionary souls will become a little like Sunday's children in this respect through spiritual science, that they will see the homunculism that is so close, one might say, embedded in our contemporary culture, the wreckage of a worldview nourished only by natural forces. And there will be more and more of these Sunday children, people who have become Sunday children through spiritual science. And whatever, forgive me for saying so, homunculism may be able to bring against spiritual science: spiritual science will give humanity what it cannot do without if it is to understand itself better and better, what it craves and must hope for: the soul, and with the soul, the spiritual life that many already long for today. Therefore, there is no need to worry about the future of spiritual science.

This lack of concern and the hope that spiritual science offers for the future will be discussed in the last of these winter lectures.