The Nature of Man in the Light of Spiritual Science

GA 68d — 19 January 1909, Karlsruhe

29. The Mystery of Human Temperaments

Ladies and gentlemen! It has been repeated often, from all areas of human intellectual life, over and over again, that the greatest mystery of humanity is humanity itself. Scientific and other research has repeatedly confirmed the seriousness of this statement. When it comes to life, we can say that this statement can be taken even further, to the point that it is not only human beings in general, what we call human nature, that present us with the great mystery of existence, but that, when we look at them with an open and unbiased eye, each individual human being we encounter presents us with a special mystery through their particular nature and essence.

When we look at human life as a whole, we must pay particular attention to this individual mystery of “human beings,” because our entire social life, our behavior toward other people, must depend more on how we are able to approach the individual mystery of “human being,” which we encounter so often every day and with which we often have to deal.

Spiritual science, or, as it has become customary to call it in recent times, theosophy, will have a special task to perform precisely in relation to this individual mystery, “human being.” Not only does it have to provide us with information about what human beings are in general, but it should also be — as has often been emphasized here — a source of knowledge that flows into our immediate, everyday life, into all our feelings and emotions. Since our feelings and emotions unfold most beautifully in our behavior toward our fellow human beings, the fruit of spiritual science, of spiritual scientific knowledge, will show itself most beautifully in the view we gain of our fellow human beings through this knowledge.

When we encounter people in life, we must always bear in mind, in the spirit of this spiritual science or theosophy, that what we can perceive externally in people is only a part, only a limb of the human being. An external, material view of human beings naturally considers what this external perception and the intellect associated with it can give us to be the whole human being.

But spiritual science shows us that the human being is something very, very complex. And only when we delve deeper into the complexity of human nature can we see the individual human being in the right light. Spiritual science should point us to what is the innermost core of the human being, of which what we can see with our eyes and touch with our hands is only the outer expression, the outer shell. And we can hope that we will also learn to understand the outer when we can enter into the spiritual inner.

In the sense of spiritual science, human beings stand within two streams of life. One stream is that which leads us from the individual human being up to parents, grandparents, and further ancestors. That which flows down from the ancestors of human beings to the individual human being is referred to in life and in science as inherited characteristics and traits. This is the line of heredity, and much, much can be explained to us about human beings when we know their ancestry, so to speak. How deeply true are the words spoken by Goethe, the profound connoisseur of the soul, in reference to his own personality:

From my father I have inherited my stature,
my serious approach to life,
from my mother my cheerful nature
and my love of storytelling.

Everything that we find to be passed down from ancestors to descendants explains the individual human being to us in a certain respect, but only in a certain respect.

However, today's materialistic view seeks to find everything possible in humans in the line of heredity, even deriving the spiritual essence of humans and their spiritual characteristics from heredity, and never tires of explaining that even a person's genius can be explained if we find traces and signs of such characteristics in one ancestor or another. People want to sum up the human personality, so to speak, from what is scattered among the ancestors.

However, those who delve deeper into human nature will notice that, in addition to these inherited characteristics, there is something in every human being that we cannot describe in any other way than by saying: “This is the most essential part of the human being,” which, upon closer examination, we cannot say originates from this or that ancestor. This is where spiritual science comes in and tells us what it has to say about it. Today, we can only sketch out what these things are, only sketch out the results of spiritual science.

Spiritual science tells us: It is certainly true that human beings are placed in the stream that we can call the stream of heredity, of inherited characteristics; but there is something else in human beings, the innermost spiritual core of human beings. This does not come from the immediate ancestors of human beings, nor from their parents, but from completely different realms. What we see in human beings when we penetrate into the depths of their souls can be explained if we know a great, comprehensive spiritual law, which is only the consequence of many natural laws. This is the law of so-called reincarnation, the law of repeated earthly lives, which is much maligned today.

With this law, things will be peculiar in the world; it will be the same as with any other law. Until well into the seventeenth century, learned and unlearned people alike had no doubt that not only lower animals could develop from ordinary inanimate things, but that even earthworms and even fish could arise from ordinary, inanimate river mud. The first person to argue vigorously that living things can only arise from living things was the great Italian naturalist Francesco Redi, who only narrowly escaped the fate of Giordano Bruno. He showed that living things can only be traced back to living things. This is a law that is only the precursor to another law: that the soul-spiritual can be traced back to the soul-spiritual.

We must therefore regard the innermost soul-spiritual core of the human being as that which descends from the spiritual world and unites with what the father and mother are able to give to the human being.

And so we have to trace what we see in the physical human being in terms of form and shape and so on, what the outer forms are, back to the ancestors, to the father and mother; but perhaps far, far back, beyond all heredity, we must seek the spiritual core of the human being, which has come into existence again and again over thousands and hundreds of years and has lived life again and again and has now, in its present existence, reunited with what the father and mother are able to give.

So we must go back to the spirit of the human being and his earlier incarnations if we want to explain what we now encounter in him as soul and spirit. We must go back to their earlier incarnations, to what they acquired at that time, how they lived then; what they brought with them from there must be regarded as the causes of what human beings today possess in new lives as predispositions, dispositions, and abilities for this or that.

Of course, this is considered a minor logic today, and materialistic thinkers will always object: just look up at your ancestors, and you will find how this or that trait, this or that peculiarity can be found in this or that ancestor, how we can all explain the individual traits and characteristics if we trace them back to our ancestors. Yes, it is even stated as a law that genius stands at the end of a line of inheritance, and this is supposed to be proof that genius is inherited. The starting point is this: a certain person has a certain characteristic; he is a genius — so we look back at his ancestors and forefathers and find signs of the same characteristic in some ancestor and conclude from this that genius is inherited. For those who think in a straightforward, logical manner, this could at most prove the opposite. Does finding the characteristics of genius in his ancestors prove anything? It proves no more than that a person who falls into water comes out wet. For it is quite obvious that what has been passed down through the line of inheritance, and was ultimately given by the father and mother to the actual person who descended from the spiritual world, bears the characteristics of the ancestors. Human beings simply clothe themselves in the shells given to them by their ancestors. If one wanted to show that genius is hereditary, one would have to show that it stands at the beginning and not at the end of a line of inheritance, that it has sons and grandsons to whom the genius characteristics are passed on; but that is precisely not the case. It is a short-sighted logic that wants to trace the spiritual characteristics of human beings back to their ancestors. We must trace these spiritual characteristics back to what is the other current in human beings, to what human beings have brought with them from their previous incarnations.

If we now look at the one current in human life, at that which lives in the line of inheritance, we find that human beings are absorbed into a stream of existence through which they acquire certain characteristics: we see human beings standing before us with characteristics of their family, their people, their race. The different children of a pair of parents carry such characteristics within themselves. When we think of a truly individual human being, we must say to ourselves: born into the family, the people, the race, the spiritual-soul core envelops itself with what is given by the ancestors, but it also brings with it purely individual characteristics. So we must now ask ourselves: How is harmony established between a human core being, which perhaps acquired this or that characteristic centuries ago and which must now envelop itself in an outer shell that carries the characteristics of family, people, and so on? Can harmony exist there? Is it not something eminently individual that is brought along, and does this not contradict what is inherited? Between these two, between what we bring with us from our previous lives and what is imprinted on us by family, ancestry, and race, there is a mediation, something that carries more general characteristics but is nevertheless capable of being individualized. That which stands between the line of inheritance and the line of life that represents our individuality is expressed in the word: temperament!

In what we encounter in a person's temperament, we have something that is, in a certain sense, like a physiognomy of their innermost individuality. We understand how individuality colors the characteristics that are inherited through the generations in the form of temperamental traits. Temperament stands in the middle between what we inherit and what we bring with us individually. But we now understand how this works in detail when we consider the whole of human nature from the perspective of spiritual science. For spiritual science, what the outer senses can perceive in human beings, what materialistic thinking alone wants to recognize, is only a single link in the human being, the physical body. Physical lawfulness, that which human beings share with the whole of surrounding external nature, the sum of chemical and physical laws, is what we in spiritual science call the physical body. But above this we recognize higher, supersensible members of human nature that are just as real and essential as the external physical body.

The next member of human nature — called the etheric or life body in spiritual science — can also be called the glandular body. It is no longer visible to our outer eyes, just as colors are not visible to those born blind. But it is present, truly perceptible to what Goethe calls the eyes of the spirit, and it is even more real than the outer physical body, for it is the builder, the shaper of the outer physical body. This etheric or life body is a constant fighter against the decay of the physical body throughout the entire period between birth and death. Any mineral product of nature, a crystal for example, is constituted in such a way that it continually maintains itself through its own substance. This is not the case with the physical body of a living being; here the physical forces act in such a way that they destroy the form of life — as we can observe after death, when these physical forces destroy the form of life. That this does not happen during life, that the physical body does not follow the chemical and physical forces and laws, is because the etheric or life body is a constant fighter.

As the third member of the human being, we recognize the bearer of all that is pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, instinct, desire, and passion, and indeed all ideas of what we call moral ideals and so on. We call this the astral body. Do not be offended by this expression. This body could also be called the nerve body. Spiritual science sees something real in it. For spiritual science, this body of drives and desires is not an effect of the physical body, but the cause of this body; it knows that this spiritual-soul body has built up the physical body.

So we already have three members of the human being, and as the fourth member we recognize that which makes man the crown of creation on our earth. Man shares the physical body with the entire visible environment, the etheric body with plants and animals, and the astral body with animals. But the fourth member is unique to him, and through it he rises above the other visible creatures. We refer to this fourth member as the “I-bearer,” that part of human nature through which man is able to say “I” to himself, to become independent. Today, these four members can only be briefly touched upon; it is not possible to go into them in more detail at this time. What we now see physically and what the mind, which is bound to the physical senses, can recognize is only an expression of these four members of the human being. Thus, the expression of the “I,” of the actual I-bearer, is the blood in its circulation. This “very special juice” is the expression of the “I.” The physical-sensory expression of the astral body is, for example, the nervous system in humans. The expression of the etheric body, or part of this expression, is the glandular system, and the physical body expresses itself in the sense organs. And all these four members of human nature, the I, the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body, interact in the most manifold ways. One member always influences the other. Depending on which of these members is particularly prominent, we encounter people with one temperament or another. Whether the forces, the various powers of one or the other, predominate and have an advantage over the others, depends on the peculiar coloring of human nature, which we call the actual coloring of the temperament.

The eternal essence of the human being, that which passes from incarnation to incarnation, lives itself out in each new incarnation in such a way that it evokes a certain interaction between the four parts of human nature: I, astral body, etheric body, and physical body, and from the interaction of these four elements arises the shade of the human being, which we call temperament. You know that there are four main temperaments; these are mixed in the most diverse ways in individual human beings, so that we can only say that this or that temperament predominates in these or those traits of a person. A distinction is made between the so-called choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, and melancholic temperaments. These four temperaments arise from the interaction of the four elements of human nature in various ways. When the “I” is predominant, when the I is particularly active in its powers and dominates the other elements of human nature, the choleric temperament arises. When the powers of the astral body are particularly predominant, the sanguine temperament arises. When the etheric or life body particularly imposes its nature on the human being, the phlegmatic temperament arises, and when the physical body with its laws is particularly dominant in human nature, the melancholic temperament arises. If we know that the blood in its circulation is the expression of the actual ego, then we will say that the choleric temperament, because the ego predominates here, expresses itself through the predominant effect of the blood, through the fiery, vehement blood that is particularly evident. In the sanguine temperament, the astral body predominates; we find here, therefore, that the activity of the nervous system, this instrument for the fluctuating sensations, has a particularly strong effect and dominates the other systems.

However, this activity is limited in a certain sense by the blood system. If one is able to go into more detail about the connection that exists between the nervous system and the blood system, one can literally grasp this connection with one's hands. If the nervous system were to act alone, being particularly predominant as the expression of the astral body, then the human being would have a changing life of images and ideas; they would be devoted to all kinds of images and ideas, to all kinds of fluctuating feelings and sensations. The blood that flows in human beings is, so to speak, what restrains what is expressed in the nervous system; it is the restrainer of the fluctuating life of feelings and sensations. And even if you do not go into finer physiological details, you can still conclude from the simple fact that when someone is anaemic, that is, has a deficiency of red blood cells, they are easily given over to all kinds of fantastic images, even hallucinations; so you can conclude from this simple fact that blood is the restrainer of the nervous system.

There must be a balance between the ego and the astral body, or physically speaking, between the blood and nervous systems, so that the human being does not become a slave to their nervous system, that is, to their fluctuating sensory and emotional life. If the astral body or its expression, the nervous system, predominates, if the blood is restrained but cannot be brought to a state of absolute equilibrium, then a peculiar situation arises in which the person is interested in one object but soon loses interest and quickly moves on to another. In this quick infatuation and rapid transition to another object, one sees the expression of the predominant astral body: the sanguine temperament.

Let us assume that the restrainer, the ego, which finds its expression in the blood system, exercises a special dominion, that it exerts a special power over the life of feeling and imagination, over the nervous system; let us assume that everything in a person springs from his ego, that everything he feels, he feels strongly because his ego is strong. We call this the choleric temperament. Suppose that the etheric or life body is particularly strong, then this dominance expresses itself differently. The etheric body is the body that leads a kind of inner life, while the astral body expresses itself in outward interest and the ego is the bearer of our outward actions and desires. So if the etheric body, which lives out its life instinct and keeps the individual functions in balance, expresses itself in a general sense of well-being; if this self-supported inner life, this life that primarily causes inner well-being, if this predominates, then it can happen that the person lives primarily in this inner well-being, that they feel quite comfortable when everything in their organism is in order and they feel little urge to direct their inner interest outward, little inclination to develop a strong will: This is the phlegmatic temperament.

And when the physical principle, when the principle of the physical body becomes predominant, it becomes a kind of obstacle to human development. The physical body is the densest link in the human being. Man must be master of his physical body, just as he must be master of a machine if he wants to use it. If this principle becomes particularly dominant, asserting itself with its demands, then the melancholic temperament can flow from it. The person is then unable to use their instrument fully, so that the other principles are inhibited, creating disharmony between the physical body and the other members. When this is the case, we are very easily affected by life in a painful and sorrowful way. Grief asserts itself very easily. Thus, the melancholic temperament comes from a predominance of the physical.

Thus, through the fourfold nature of human beings, we learn to understand precisely this mystery of the soul that is the temperaments. And truly, from a deep understanding of human nature, the knowledge of the four temperaments has been handed down to us from ancient times. When we understand human nature in this way and know that the external is only the expression of the spiritual, then we learn — apart from external appearances — to understand the human being in his or her context, to understand the human being in his or her entire becoming, and we learn to recognize what we must do for ourselves and for the child in relation to temperament. A truly lively understanding of the nature of temperaments is indispensable for both wisdom in life and pedagogy, and both would gain infinitely from it.

Let us now consider how temperament is expressed in a person's outward appearance. Look at the sanguine person. Notice what a remarkable look is already evident in the sanguine child, who quickly attaches himself to something, but just as quickly withdraws again; it is a cheerful look, an inner joy and happiness shines in the eyes, expressing what comes from the depths of human nature, from the mobile astral body. Yes, we could recognize the entire external physiognomy, the permanent form as well as the gestures, as the expression of the mobile, fleeting, and fluid astral body. The astral body has a tendency to form and shape. —- The inner emerges outward, which is why the sanguine person is slender and supple. In the bouncing, dancing gait of the sanguine child, you see the expression of the mobile astral body. Except for the color of the eyes, we could determine the expression of the sanguine person: they usually have blue eyes. These blue eyes are intimately connected with the inner light of the human being, which is an invisible light, with the light of the astral body.

In the choleric temperament, you can recognize even more tangibly in the outward growth, in everything that confronts us externally, the expression of what is effective internally, the actual deep inner power nature of the human being, the closed ego. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, for example, was a pronounced choleric. Fichte was as if restrained in his growth. This is particularly characteristic of the choleric person. It is not the astral body with its capacity for development that predominates, but the ego, the restrainer, the constrictor of the formative forces; growth is restrained and held back. Therefore, we usually see in these strong, eminent people of will how the “ego” has imposed restraints on the free formative power of the astral body: a small, stocky figure. We also see this in another type of choleric person, Napoleon, the “little general,” with his stunted growth and restraining “ego.” And as a rule, we also see in the choleric person how this strongly ignited inner light, which turns everything luminous inward, is expressed in sometimes coal-black eyes. And we also see the expression of strong ego power in the gait: In the choleric child, we already see the firm step, how it not only puts its foot down when it steps on the ground, but steps so firmly as if it wanted to step a little further through the ground.

And again, we see how the phlegmatic temperament also expresses itself in its outer form. In this case, the activity of the etheric or life body prevails, which finds expression in the glandular system and its soul expression in inner comfort and inner balance. When everything is not only normal and in order within such a person, but when these inner formative forces of comfort are particularly active above the normal, then their products are integrated into the human body; they become well-fed and expand. Here we have before us the physical expression of the predominance of the inner formative forces of the etheric or life body. And who would not also recognize in this lack of interaction between the inner and the outer the cause of the often shuffling, slouching gait of the phlegmatic person, whose steps often do not seem to fit the ground. Even in the peculiar dull, colorless gaze — while the gaze of the choleric person is fiery and sparkling — one recognizes the expression of the inwardly directed comfort of the etheric body: the phlegmatic person. The melancholic is the person who cannot find complete control over the physical instrument, who is resisted by the physical instrument, who cannot cope with the use of this instrument. We see it in his peculiar gait: it is measured, but in a certain way sluggish. In the melancholic, the bowed head shows us that the inner forces that lift the head upwards cannot unfold freely. We can also see from the peculiar, inward-looking gaze how the physical instrument causes him difficulty. Now that we know all this, we can learn how to deal with it. It should be of particular interest to people to learn how to deal with temperaments pedagogically, even in childhood. The sanguine child is quick to grasp things, but also quick to forget them. It is difficult for us to hold their interest in anything, as they quickly lose interest in one thing and move on to another. With such a child, someone who thinks materialistically will immediately come up with a recipe and say: If you have to raise a sanguine child, you must bring it into interaction with other children so that it rubs off on other children, so to speak. But a person who thinks realistically in the right sense will say: If you set out to influence the sanguine child with powers that it does not have, you will achieve nothing with this child. No matter how hard you try to develop the other aspects of human nature, they are simply not predominant in this child. So we do not build on what the child does not have, but on what it does have. We build precisely on its sanguine nature, on the mobility of the astral body, and do not try to drum into it what belongs to another aspect of human nature.

First of all, the real practitioner realizes that there is an interest, a real interest, in every sanguine child. It will generally be easy to spark their interest in this or that object, but they will quickly lose interest again. However, there is an interest that can be lasting, even for the sanguine child. You just have to find it — practice shows this. It will not be easy for them to show anything other than a temporary, fleeting interest in things, objects, or events, but experience will show that there will be a lasting, continuous interest in a personality that is particularly suited to the sanguine child. One just has to look for it in the right way. Therefore, it is important that special care is taken in the education of this child to ensure that they can form and develop an attachment to a particular personality. All education of the sanguine child must take the detour of attachment to a personality. Therefore, parents and educators must bear in mind that a lasting interest in things and so on cannot be instilled in the sanguine child by drilling, but that this interest must be gained by way of attachment to a personality.

Furthermore, education can be based on the sanguine nature of the child itself. The sanguine nature manifests itself in the fact that it cannot find any lasting interest; therefore, it should be occupied with such objects at certain measured times, where a temporary interest is justified, where it can be sanguine, so to speak, and which are not worth maintaining interest in. It is therefore important to choose objects for a sanguine child that allow it to be sanguine and lose interest. If you appeal to what is available rather than what is not available, you will see — as life experience will show — that when sanguine energy becomes one-sided, it can actually be harnessed for important objects. This is achieved in a roundabout way. It is good if the temperament is already developed in the right way in the child, but often the adult must take his or her education into their own hands later in life.

As long as temperaments remain within normal limits, they represent what makes life beautiful, diverse, and great. How dull life would be if all people were the same in terms of temperament; but in order to compensate for a one-sided temperament, people often have to take their self-education into their own hands later in life. Here, too, one must not try to instill a lasting interest in anything, but must say to oneself: I am a sanguine person, so now I will look for things in life that I can quickly move on from when my interest wanes, where it is right that I do not get stuck on them, and I will occupy myself with things where I can justifiably lose interest the very next moment.

When raising a choleric child, one must ensure that this child develops and unfolds its strong inner powers above all else. It is necessary to familiarize the child with what can cause difficulties in external life. One must not beat the choleric temperament out of the child, so to speak, but rather present them with precisely those things that require them to use their strength, where the expression of their choleric temperament is justified. The choleric child must learn to struggle with the objective world out of an inner necessity. One will therefore seek to arrange the environment in such a way that this choleric temperament can be lived out by having obstacles to overcome, and it will be particularly good if it can overcome these obstacles in small things, in trifles, if the child is allowed to do something where it has to use enormous strength, where the choleric temperament is particularly expressed, but in fact the facts prevail and the strength expended is shattered into nothing. This gives them respect for the power of facts that oppose what is expressed in their choleric temperament.

Again, there is another way in which the choleric temperament can be educated. Above all, it is necessary to awaken reverence, the feeling of looking up, by confronting the child in such a way that we really inspire such respect, by showing them that we can overcome the difficulties that they themselves cannot yet overcome. Reverence, respect, especially for what the educator can achieve, for what he can overcome in the face of the difficulties of the objects, that is the right means, respect for the educator's abilities, that is the way in which one can particularly reach the choleric child in education.

How, then, should we educate a melancholic child? Here it is particularly important not to rely on persuading the child to give up its grief and pain or otherwise wean it off them, because it has a predisposition to this closed-mindedness, precisely because its physical instrument presents obstacles. We must rely especially on what is there; we must nurture what is there. If we want to approach this child as educators, we must again find the point where we can connect with them. Here, too, there is one thing: above all, we must show the melancholic child how human beings can suffer in general. One must not think that one has to amuse the child or try to cheer it up. If you try to make it find pleasure, it will only become more and more withdrawn. If, on the other hand, there is someone at the melancholic child's side who, in contrast to the child's purely internal tendencies toward grief, knows how to talk in a justified way about the pain and suffering that the outside world has caused them, then the melancholic child will be uplifted by this shared experience, by this empathy for justified pain. A person who can convey in their feelings and emotions when telling their story that they have been tested by fate is a blessing for a melancholic child.

Even in what we prepare for the child, so to speak, we should not ignore their predispositions, but rather regard them as real and genuine and allow them to live them out. Therefore, it is useful to create real obstacles and barriers for this child, strange as it may sound, so that they can experience justified suffering and pain over certain things. The best education for such a child is to distract them from their inner feelings of sorrow and grief by allowing their innate talents to be ignited by the outside world. The child should learn to stand up for themselves and suffer from external obstacles and inhibitions, then the child, the soul of the child, will gradually find other paths.

We can also use this in self-education. We must always allow our existing predispositions and inner strengths to express themselves and not artificially suppress them. If, for example, the choleric temperament is so strongly expressed in us that it is an obstacle for us, we must allow this power within us to express itself by seeking out things in life where we can break our power in a certain way, where we can see how our powers lead to nothing, namely in things that are insignificant and unimportant. If, on the other hand, we are melancholic, we would do well to seek out the external, justified pains and sufferings of life so that we have the opportunity to live out our melancholy in the outside world; then we will come to terms with ourselves.

Here again, it would be the worst thing possible, it would be completely wrong, if we wanted to shake up the comfortable person, if we thought we could directly instill some interests in them, educate them. We must again take into account what they have. There is something to which the phlegmatic person will always cling, namely the child. If we build up what the child needs around them through wise education alone, we will be able to achieve a great deal. It is necessary for the phlegmatic child to have a lot of contact with other children. They will not easily become interested in objects or events. It is only through that peculiar suggestive effect, through the interests of others, that it is possible to ignite their interest. Arousing their own interest by experiencing the interest of others is as important for the education of the phlegmatic child as empathy and experiencing the human fate of others is for the melancholic child. Once again: being inspired by the interest of others is the right educational tool for the phlegmatic child. This can sometimes lead to great achievements in young children.

But even their self-education at a later age can be approached in this way—if one notices that phlegmatic tendencies are striving to manifest themselves in a one-sided manner—by trying to observe people and their interests. But one thing can be done: as long as one is still able to use one's intellect and reason, one can seek out objects and events that are highly indifferent, toward which it is justified to be phlegmatic. Once again, we have seen how, in the educational method based on spiritual science, we build on what we have, not on what we do not have.

So we see that precisely when we come to the intimate aspects of life, it is precisely in these intimate aspects of life that spiritual science shows its practicality, its eminently practical side. One could gain an infinite amount of art of living by acquiring this realistic knowledge of spiritual science. When it comes to coping with life, we must listen to life's secrets, and these lie behind the sensory. We also had to seek these secrets of human temperaments behind the sensory. Only true spiritual science is capable of explaining and fathoming such things as the secrets of human temperaments in such a way that we can use this spiritual science to serve the well-being and real blessing of life, both when it is young and when it is older.

If human beings are the greatest mystery to human beings, and if we wait for this mystery of human beings to be solved, then we must turn to spiritual science, which alone can solve it for us. Not only is the human being in general a mystery to us, but every individual human being we encounter in life, every new individuality presents us with a new mystery that we cannot fathom by thinking about it with our intellect. How do we solve the mystery that the individual human being presents us with? We solve it when we encounter this person in such a way that harmony arises between us and them. In our empathy, in our love, in the way we encounter each individual, in our behavior, we should learn the art of living through spiritual science. If we were to allow life and love to flow into our feelings and emotions, human life would be a beautiful expression of the fruits of this spiritual science. In every relationship, we get to know the individual person when we recognize them through spiritual science. We learn to recognize even the child: we gradually learn to respect and appreciate the peculiarities and mysteries of individuality in the child, and we also learn how to treat this individuality, and we further learn how we should otherwise treat people in life. This is why spiritual science becomes so fruitful in life, because it does not merely give us general intellectual instructions, so to speak, but guides us in our behavior toward human beings, to solve the mysteries that need to be solved: to love people as we must love them, not merely by understanding them intellectually, but by allowing them to have a complete effect on us, allowing our feelings and our love to be inspired by our spiritual scientific insights.

These are insights that can affect every fiber of the individual human being, that can govern every single action in life. In this way — and this was particularly evident in this consideration of the intimate peculiarities of human beings, of temperaments — spiritual science becomes a guide to the true art of living. This is how the most beautiful thing is kindled between human beings, when we look into the face of another human being and not only seek to fathom the mystery, but also understand how to live: to allow love to flow from individuality to individuality. Spiritual science does not need theoretical proof; life itself provides the proof. The spiritual scientist knows that one can raise arguments “for” and “against” everything. The true evidence is that which life provides, and life can show us at every turn the truth of what we think when we look at human beings through spiritual scientific insight, for this insight consists of a harmonious, life-filled recognition that penetrates into the deepest mysteries of life.