The Stimulating Effect of Anthroposophy on the Individual Sciences

GA 76 — 8 April 1921, Dornach

6. Social Science and Social Practice

Allow me today to take up some of the material that I could only hint at yesterday and which will then lead us to our reflection today. Yesterday I had to take up a sentence that emerged from the worldview of the 19th century, insofar as it prevailed in Central Europe, to the sentence that the tongue draws the word, that is, the power to speak, from the teeth just as it draws in air from the environment. And I drew your attention to how the 19th-century scholar has only to add to this sentence that he can laugh at it. But I have also characterized the distance that lies between the time in which such an instinctive view as the one quoted yesterday falls, and the age in which this philistine-ironic criticism then asserted itself, the age that begins with the first third of the 15th century. That saying falls into the previous age and is, for that age, in a certain way extraordinarily characteristic, for the reasons that I gave you yesterday.

But it must also be felt as characteristic in terms of its content. For I explained to you yesterday how, in order to understand the ability to speak and language in general, one must first familiarize oneself with what spiritual science has to say in the sense of what I have explained in my small writing “The Education of the Child from the Point of View of Spiritual Science”. There I have shown what significant process takes place at the change of teeth, how that which later still fulfils the human being as a rhythmic human being and a human being with limb metabolism, but which had previously fulfilled him completely, withdraws from the nerve-sense organization and therefore brings about precisely this process, which is formulated there in my writing “The Education of the Child from the Point of View of Spiritual Science” as the birth of the etheric body. I then showed you how, in a similar way, we must grasp the process that occurs around the fourteenth or fifteenth year, namely sexual maturation, and I explained how what is involved here can be expressed in the formula: birth of the astral body. But I have said that the events that occur in this way in the life of a human being at any stage of life also take place in metamorphosis at other times — but then in metamorphosis — and that what takes place externally between the human being and the external world at the time of sexual maturity must be sought internally as a process that occurs between the soul and spirit and the physical body within the human being as the process that is essentially the physiological correlate of the child learning to speak, and that we must therefore also seek the clues to a truly rational linguistics by starting from a penetrating intuitive knowledge of this process.

I then said that through the establishment and development of abstract logic and abstract logical thinking, the sphere of experience in which what takes place between the spiritual-mental and the physical-corporeal , is, as it were, displaced, pushed down into the subconscious, and that precisely by leading consciousness into abstraction, Aristotle has cut off the possibility of looking towards the prenatal. For if one had had a vivid picture of the workings of the astral in sexual maturation and in speech, as one instinctively could in early antiquity, as we must now strive to achieve again, then one could also have gradually gained a visual understanding of what the connection is between the I itself and the whole physical-etheric-astral human being. That is to say, one could have advanced in this field through the knowledge of learning to speak to the knowledge of the integration of the human spiritual-soul I into its bodily-physical. And Aristotle established his dogma precisely for the reason that with every single human being born here, the soul-spiritual also comes into being. With that, he removed from the world of knowledge the concept of the pre-existing human soul.

Only the concept of this pre-existing human soul provides real knowledge of the eternity of the human soul. This knowledge is not provided by any kind of philosophical speculation, but solely and exclusively by an intuitive judgment in the direction that I have just indicated. This dogma of the non-existence of pre-existence was then adopted into the church doctrine of Christianity. And it must be emphasized that the denial of pre-existence, in that it was then confirmed by councils, is not Christian in the true sense of the word, but is Aristotelian, and with the penetration of Aristotelianism into Christian doctrine, it became a Christian dogma. The moment that Christianity is able to free itself from this element of Aristotelianism, the way will also be clear for an acknowledgment of pre-existence.

It must be said that this pre-existence, which was not doubted by Western Christian doctrine until Origen, disappeared from Western Christian doctrine as a result of the state decree of Justinian, who helped to have Origen condemned as a heretic. That is why the followers of this non-Christian Christian doctrine of the West are so uncomfortable when someone points out the historical facts in the first centuries of Christianity. They then conjure up all the untruths they can muster about the connections between anthroposophy and gnosis and so on.

Now, I cannot go into these things in more detail here. But what I want to say is this: if one bases the spiritual and soul life in man solely on what lives for the contemplation of consciousness since birth, then one gradually comes to what makes the teaching of immortality a mere article of faith.

It can be said that what was prenatal, what was pre-existent in man, comes through the process of birth into a completely unconscious state. This can only be looked at again when one rises up to imagination and inspiration. But at the other pole of the human being, it appears in his will and emotional nature. In the threefold human being, we have on the one hand the nerve-sense human being, who is connected with the imaginative human being, and on the other hand the limb-metabolic human being, who is connected with the will nature of the human being and with his emotional nature. Because the life of imagination is dampened, subdued to the point of objective observation, pre-existence is initially closed to this objective imagination in knowledge. But what is present with it lives in the sphere of the human being that emerges at the other pole. The nature of the will and the emotions comes to the fore. Initially, no knowledge can be gained from this, only mere belief. And if what is prenatal can become knowledge through the expansion of knowledge, then without this expansion of knowledge, what lives in will and emotion can become nothing more than an article of faith for the human being. Therefore, with the dawning of supersensible knowledge, there also comes the dawning of knowledge of the eternity of the human soul, even in language. It should be striking that we have a word for immortality in the more well-known languages of civilization, that is, for life in the afterlife, but that we do not have a word that would express the eternity of the human soul at the other pole of the human being, its being unborn. But modern humanity will have to reclaim this for itself in language: that the eternity of the human being can be expressed in a word like “unborn-ness” — which, of course, will become more sophisticated with increasing civilization — just as it is expressed on the one hand, on the side of death, in the word “immortality”. But then what can be said about the eternity of the human soul will no longer be a mere article of faith, but a content of knowledge. As long as one remains merely with the afterlife, the question of immortality must be a question of faith. As soon as one passes over to a real knowledge of the supersensible, the question of immortality becomes a question of real knowledge.

This is a connection that must be recognized, this is a Rubicon that must be crossed by modern civilization. For what follows from this crossing will not only have a theoretical effect, but will have an effect in a completely different way. We can say: if we learn to ascend appropriately from something like the understanding of the change of teeth, the understanding of language, to what we then come to, we thereby acquire a knowledge of the immortal nature of the human soul.

Those who in the 18th century thought and spoke of the tongue drawing language out of the teeth, they did not believe, as Wilhelm Scherer strangely enough assumes, that there are only dental sounds, but in their instinctive knowledge they were imbued with the fact that in order to understand language one must penetrate down into the human being, just as one must penetrate down in order to understand the change of teeth. Just as the forces arise there, so must one penetrate down to the origins of the path that, with the change of teeth, points to what appeared at a previous step in the development of man: the emergence of language. These insights were instinctive, subconscious. But anyone who brings the corresponding thing out of consciousness today will find what depth they breathe in a certain respect, and what philistinism such objections breathe, like those I discussed yesterday. But we also gain, by soaring to such insights as those about language, at the same time, I would say, access to the way to recognize immortality. Therefore, the recognition of this supersensible world is at the same time connected with the attainment of a sound judgment about that which surrounds us in life, such as language. And we cannot, without becoming inwardly dishonest, pretend to penetrate into something in our environment, such as language, if we do not at the same time admit: here there are limits that are not merely to be recognized as limits of ordinary knowledge, but which make it necessary to transcend them through a different kind of knowledge.

Thus, true knowledge of the external sense world is already connected with the ascent to supersensible knowledge. In truly healthy knowledge, supersensible and sensory perception must work together, with one supporting the other. Therefore, we may believe that with the attainment of sound judgments about the supersensible, sound judgments can also be obtained in relation to what surrounds us in another sphere as human beings, with which we are connected as human beings and with which we must enter into intimate relationships: social life.

In the style of my previous lectures, I have tried as much as possible to adhere to what could be called a completely scientific style. Today, as we move on to what follows from such an inner state of mind as a social science and social practice, as it must arise from spiritual science as it is meant here, we find ourselves in the midst of practice in the present day. For what is to be said in a social context cannot today be considered in the same way as what has gone before.

It is necessary to take the following into account. By rising to imagination, inspiration and so on, what would otherwise be conceptual and cannot directly motivate the will is pushed into the will. Therefore, supersensible knowledge motivates the will, and there is no moral or religious ideal that is not rooted at least unconsciously in the supersensible. What is gained through imagination only from the sense world can never be socially or morally motivating because it remains ineffective for the will. Therefore, one must say that it could perhaps be conspicuous that the people who got hold of my writing on the social life of the threefold order, when they read it, found nothing in it of what they were accustomed to finding as the basic tone, for example, in my anthroposophical writings. Perhaps some people expected that when someone who professes to be an anthroposophist writes on a subject such as the one contained in my Threefolding of Man, then all kinds of familiar “anthroposophical” judgments must flow into all the details that are discussed there; one must very much mystel to all sorts of admonitions and so on.

Even if such a judgment has been heard many times from the anthroposophical side, it is no different in quality from the judgments of those who wanted to find in my Theosophy, as I was writing it, a literal transcription of what was in my arguments with Haeckelianism, for example. People just cannot understand how real anthroposophy, when it passes over into the will, leads to the environment, that is, to the objective observation of every field that it undertakes, so that one does not simply need to carry the formulas that are found in one field into another. It is easy to believe that those who have been accustomed to hearing this or that word for word over long periods of time will then find it unusual and uncomfortable to hear the same thing in another language. However, the different areas of life require different languages. And the point is that when they are spoken about, they should be spoken about in the same spirit, but not that the same concepts and ideas should be expressed in the same words everywhere. And in anthroposophy it is important that it is not only taken in according to its wording, but that it is taken in according to its spirit. But then one will recognize, when it wants to be active in an eminently practical area, such as the social question: which activity is called for by the need of the time, by all the forces of decline that are coming to light in our time. Inwardly, this treatment of the social question is entirely connected with what flows from other aspects of knowledge, but not from other practical aspects, even through the more theoretical sides of anthroposophy. Therefore, I must ask you today to bear in mind that I will have to depart from the style of my previous lectures, which were kept within the bounds of objective science. For it is necessary that what must live in direct life as impulses of the will, and what must still fight for its position, be grasped in a different form, so that it approaches our souls in a different way from that which one can say: That is how it is! Please refer to what is given in my book 'The Core Points of the Social Question' about threefolding. And today I want to speak more from the point of view of great social practice. Not theoretically, but from the point of view of social practice, I want to speak of what must be done first in the broadest sense. What must be done is connected with what has been done in recent years with regard to the threefold social order, despite the fact that it has aroused such tramping disapproval from fellow students, as it did, for example, in Stuttgart the day before yesterday in such a repulsive form. Therefore, I would like to give you a characterization that is very much of our time, which is based on the content that you can read about in my book 'The Core Points of the Social Question', in my book 'In Practice: Threefolding', and which you will then find characterizing various aspects of the lectures that are still to be given here today. I just wanted to give a kind of introduction to the general tone that will be struck. But I would like to say that precisely because, in the course of more recent times, humanity, for the reasons that have already been developed, has increasingly — despite believing that it is so very practical, believing that it has to an abstraction that can never bear favorable fruit anywhere else than in the scientific consideration of the inorganic, that humanity thereby became utterly impractical. Humanity had settled into this abstraction and had gradually begun to speak out of this abstraction even about what directly surrounds us as socially concrete life. If you read through all the theoretical discussions that modern, learned economists usually precede their system, you will find how the question figures everywhere: To what extent can the scientific observer of the national economy see into what is happening around us in practical terms? And how should the political economist, in order to do justice to the scientific claim – but that means nothing other than the scientific claim that one has acquired out of habit from the scientific point of view – how should he, this political economist, act in order to meet these scientific demands?

The confusion surrounding this question, and the fact that this confusion expresses a lack of contact with real social life, was something I first had to show in my book “The Key Points of the Social Question”. I had to show how, in this more recent period, hurrying on to abstraction, the leading human personalities have indeed found the way to live in the technical and social workings of the capitalist system, but how, precisely because their sense for what is human has been lost, nothing has come from these leading personalities for that which is so closely connected with man and his knowledge as the social question. For the connection between theoretical knowledge and so-called practical knowledge had been lost philosophically, too; in spite of Schopenhauer's saying, or perhaps because of the meaning of it, which was so much alive in modern humanity. In spite of the saying, “It is easy to preach morals, but difficult to found them,” word, one could not see how necessary it is to search for those foundations of life that not only preach morality, as Schopenhauer says, and thus want to provide a theoretical proof for it, but that want to establish morality through facts, by pointing to what really lives in the world of facts.

In Kantian philosophy, the confusion in this area is expressed by the fact that a sharp distinction is drawn between what is theoretical reflection, what is criticized in the “Critique of Pure Reason,” and what is the content of a mere imperative and therefore of a mere belief, and what is criticized in the “Critique of Practical Reason.” No attempt should be made to bridge the gap, although, as you have heard from this platform in recent days, Goethe objected to this with his concept of “contemplative judgment,” of “intellectus archetypus,” and then tried to approach what is really practical in the justification of human action from a different angle. Schopenhauer could not find it because he regarded everything that lives in the world of ideas from the outset as something merely pictorial, as something that cannot be imbued with the content of being. He also only referred to the will, which, however, cannot be brought into consciousness for objective knowledge without higher supersensible knowledge. Thus he felt the inadequacy of the theoretical basis of practical action. Through mere theoretical reason he was incapable of pointing out the basis of practical action itself, because in the will he saw only a blind thing, never one to be penetrated by the light of knowledge. For this light can only be the supersensible. And to that Schopenhauer did not want to rise either.

Then came other attempts, such as that of Herbarts. In Herbart we find the attempt to find a kind of basis in practical life for what practical action is. But the characteristic feature of Herbart is that in his practical philosophy he seeks what is basically an aesthetic judgment, that he tries to found practical philosophy as a part of aesthetics. In this way — by implicitly going beyond what he has theoretically in his consciousness — the five well-known practical ideas of perfection, goodwill, inner freedom, right and equity emerge. But man's relationship to them is one of consent, which in turn also requires the motivating force. Here, too, I can only hint at how an attempt was made, I would like to say, to break through what was given with the merely abstracting intellect, but how this attempt, because it did not want to penetrate to real spiritual science, failed in all possible respects.

Therefore, I must point out that the reason why the leading personalities could not find what appeals to people lies in this development of modern historical life. And so they found the way to the machine, so they found the way into technology, so they found the way to capitalism. They did not find the way to the human being, whom they left standing beside the machine, just as the natural scientist leaves the real human being standing beside what he is investigating theoretically through his natural science.

What is being lived out in natural science is rooted in a deep habit of life and expresses itself in all areas. Therefore, the first chapter of my “Key Points” could only be such that it illuminates this effect of a life-alien spiritual life in modern times. It had to be pointed out sharply to me, not by a theoretical consideration, but by the life experience described in my book, that the personalities who were the leaders in all traditions in the artistic, religious and scientific fields, in addition to what mere conception in the imagination in modern times, they created a religious content of feeling that could not arise in the class that was removed from the life of tradition and placed at the machine, which, of what emerged in this modern time, only took on the theoretical abstraction, so that in addition to the life of toil and labor, this class was also confronted with what comes from the emptiness of the soul, which can theoretically be filled with what a theoretical scientific way of thinking can provide, but which cannot live with it.

Thus what was to live through my “Key Points of the Social Question”, and already in the “Call” that preceded it, was conceived in the most eminent sense in practical terms, conceived as something that must pass directly into life, that should not merely take hold of the intellects, but should take hold of the will. And it had emerged from what should take hold of the will.

When it became clear to a larger number of personalities in the outside world how the terrible catastrophic events of the second decade of the 20th century would unfold, something intervened in the events - I will only hint at the direction today, as I said, you can find more details in my books -– that was the most bloodless abstraction, something born entirely out of abstract spirituality. With this abstract type of spirituality, the man who had become President of the United States of America from a scholar had emerged, Woodrow Wilson. In his Fourteen Points, he presented to the world as an impulse for practical action something that emerged only from an abstraction that was alien to life. The practical proof of this was provided by the situation – you can read about it in Maynard Keynes – in which Woodrow Wilson found himself during the negotiations in Versailles, where what lived in his theory was increasingly eroded in the face of what had been worked out in Versailles from the most outdated traditional views. Historical development itself has provided the proof of the lack of life in Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. When they were drawn up, however, they testified that with such abstraction one can also introduce something into reality: one introduces something into it, but one introduces only error! It is not that abstractions, when they pass through human beings, cannot conjure up realities; but it is the case that they will always cause confusion or inadequacies in these realities, because they have not been taken from life. Thus the Fourteen Points were able to transport ships and armies across the sea, but these Fourteen Points could not send a vital impulse into modern civilization.

I fear that what is at stake within modern civilization has still not been grasped by a sufficiently large number of people. For in the post-war period in America, Woodrow Wilson was followed by Harding – and we were recently able to read this Harding's inaugural address: the same abstract phrases, the same talk of “human brotherhood” that cannot be motivating because it lives in abstractions, the continuation of Wilson's policy under a different name. I cannot find that there is sufficient understanding in a sufficiently large number of people for the inadequacies that are perpetuated here. It is as if modern man has lost all connection with any enthusiasm for truth, for living truth, and would pass by asleep even such a lack of contact with life as was again heard in the inaugural address of the American president.

At the time when the Fourteen Points first entered modern life, what was contained in these Fourteen Points in the way of alienation from life should be countered by a real practice of life, something that emanated from life, emanated at the same time from the most important components of modern public life, from real social practice, from an understanding of what pulsates through contemporary humanity as a social question.

In a Stuttgart lecture a short time ago, I pointed out such things in a way that was true to life, after Lloyd George wanted to prevent the then impending outbreak of strikes and smoothed over the circumstances. After this gluing of social conditions, I said in Stuttgart: You can use such things, which, despite coming from Lloyd George, are only theoretical, to glue conditions, but you cannot direct realities, and people will see that only theory has been gluing, but that nothing has been achieved in practical life, and that this will soon become apparent. — Now you have it! Now you can see for yourself, from what has actually happened, whether in that Stuttgart lecture the knowledge of social forces was spoken of or whether it was only spoken of in theory, whereas today one not only speaks in theory but also acts in theory in public and especially in social life, where it is truly out of place.

And so at that time, when, I might say, in a classical way, the political fruit of modern abstractism appeared in Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, an attempt was made to awaken understanding in those who listened to it at the time, discouraged and reluctant to act , but who were curious about it in a certain way, to try to awaken understanding for the fact that from Europe - at first only Central Europe was accessible - in the form of the threefold social order, something concrete and practical was being opposed to the impractical Fourteen Points. And one could have been convinced if one had had a sense of realities, not just of beloved theories that had then become “practical”. One could have been convinced that just as the impractical abstractions in reality have set armies and ships in motion, that which would have been spoken out of a reality, if only it had been conveyed from the right place, would also have conjured up realities.

But those who had a say at the time did not want to listen. Social practice was far from their minds. They were accustomed to what had emerged in the course of modern times: to go the way to the machine, to the machinery of the social order, but not to go the way to the human being who stands at the machine, who lives as a human being within the machinery of the social order, and who, as a human being, is an active being.

Since people at that time did not understand what the necessities of life demanded, it was a necessary consequence that, immediately after the bloody catastrophe of war had ended, at the instigation of friends in Stuttgart, what is contained in my “Appeal to the German People and the World of Culture” and what is contained in my “Key Points of the Social Question” came about. And in the period when the old powers had disappeared in certain areas of modern civilized life, an attempt was made to speak to the broad masses of the people, to those who had suffered most from all the conditions that I have now indicated and otherwise described again and again. The beginning was basically a good one. It was possible to reach the broad masses of the people. They gradually understood the significance of the impulse of the threefold social order. For it is nonsense to say that it is difficult to understand in itself. The difficulty in understanding it lies only in the fact that one cannot escape from old habits of thinking, that one cannot refrain from imposing one's own habitual, rigid way of thinking on something that presents itself as something quite different. That is the reason, not the difficulty of the matter itself. Therefore, there was also the possibility of finding understanding precisely within those who, out of their own needs, were striving for a relative solution to the social question, and who had already seen that they could not arrive at a satisfactory organization of social life in modern times from the old dogmatic Marxism.

A spanner was put in the works by the fact that on the one hand, not the workers, but the leaders of these workers, and on the other hand, leading figures of the old bourgeoisie, reacted negatively. From all sides, one was, so to speak, left in the lurch with regard to the impulse of threefolding.

At first, in the spring of 1919, those in leading positions were gripped by a terrible fear and grasped at anything that had anything to do with the social question. As a result, some found themselves in the first stirrings of threefolding, as it came to them, but they did not have the strength or the courage to persevere with it. One of the celebrated leaders of the bourgeoisie of a Central European region said to me at the time, when we were in the midst of what was to happen: Yes, in the way you understand and speak to the broad masses of the people, one could indeed have high hopes; but such a thing, you will admit to a party leader of the old parties, must not be left to two people; others are not yet not yet – I am just quoting – that would be effective in this direction; therefore, we do not rely on this whole broad movement, but we want to hold the old order, despite the fact that it may only last for another fifteen or twenty years at most, with the cannons and rifles.

That was the response from one side. But let me also speak of the response from the other side, because I have to characterize practically what it is about. The working population, insofar as I was able to speak to them, tried to get involved in the threefolding movement with relative ease and with inner understanding. Then the labor leaders came, and they became, I might say, green with envy, because now they could be addressed from a different side than from the side of their instilled Marxism. And they, like the others, invented all kinds of slander and dirty tricks to prevent the workers, who are so credulous in their faith in authority in their relations with their leaders, from finding the right way to understanding. But the workers have not yet reached the point where they can find their way in the right way in their faith in authority, which has been handed down from past decades. The moment the workers realize what the lower and higher-ranking labor leaders are really after, much of the well-intentioned belief that still exists in this area will evaporate. They will realize that those at the top, of the Lenin and Trotsky, Lunach arskij, are at the head of the movement, they do not have the happiness and well-being of the masses at heart. They say to themselves and to each other: The broad masses of the people are stupid and will always be racked by passions; there is nothing to be done with them but to tyrannize them; therefore it must not be conspicuous that we also tyrannize, whether we are called Czar Nicholas or Lenin; for us, it is only a matter of those who used to sit on the curule chairs falling down and us now sitting on them; for us, it is a matter of conquering the seats of government!

The moment this realization dawns on the broadest sections of society, many things will change. But then the time will also have come when social practice can really be introduced into social life. Then people will look with practical understanding at what I have said in the second and third chapters of my “Key Points of the Social Question”, which I would like to say exemplifies what can be achieved from such a spirit. Then it will be seen that nothing here has been invented out of thin air, but that everything has been gained out of a hard-won practical life experience, just as in the past, after Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points had become known, this idea of the threefold social organism first appeared.

I speak as someone who spent half of his life, thirty years, in Austria, in this experimental country for social impossibilities. I speak as someone who knows well how people spoke in this Austrian experimental country in a ministry, a liberal ministry. At the height of Austrian liberalism, when the social question was already looming behind liberalism, the liberal Giskra said: In Austria we have nothing to do with the social question, because the social question stops at Bodenbach! — This was proclaimed in the parliament of liberalism in Austria by the responsible Minister of the Interior, in the last third of the 19th century.

Anyone who wants to study how the impossible mixing of the three parts of the social organism worked in this Austrian parliament – I would like to say in its purest form, which I have already expressed in my “key points” by stating that the composition of parliament was based on four economic curiae – can see how things gradually developed.

And anyone who wants to understand the ultimatum to Serbia must study in full everything that has happened in Austria since 1867 up to the period preceding the ultimatum to Serbia. Then he will see what the shortage of bread, the high prices and the inflationary conflicts in the months leading up to the outbreak of war looked like in Austria, and he will have the opportunity to study the social factors there to see where the essential causes lie. And there one would be led into a new way of looking at things.

But what must emerge from every such consideration is that it is a matter of finding impulses for practical social life that speak from this life itself. Then we may come to the time when there will be a sufficiently large number of people who, uninfluenced by the old designations of direction, “right” and “left”, turn their attention to the factual and practical, which, because it flows from reality, may believe it has a right to have a say in the most important matters of life. And these are the social matters.

Today, many people take the view that the world will be put in order if only they can continue the old impulses, and for a long time now they have been trying again to see how it can work by letting the old continue. They turn their eyes away from the fact that under this unobjective, unrealistic approach, more and more comes about that must have a demoralizing effect on the whole of modern civilization.

But a possibility to move forward will not arise until people realize that, without looking to the left or right, they must look objectively at direct life. For only in this way can we develop an understanding of such practical and social ideas that can not only preach an ethical and social life, but also found it. For it is the foundation of this life that should be emphasized in the threefold social organism. Theorists have long repeated from their theoretical point of view that today we must look at what also lives in ethics in a “social” way. Since the division of labor, man has been placed entirely in the social sphere, and one must understand “from the social” what motivates man when he is to act.

As long as this judgment remains bloodless, as long as it remains an abstraction, it will achieve nothing. For as an abstraction it is just as true as it is false. That it is false I have shown in my Philosophy of Freedom. The other, truly alarming aspect is that man hands himself over more and more with his freedom to the objective economic process and the like, as is even theoretically expounded in Marxism. And in that man hands himself over to the economic process or the state process or the other social institutions that we have now, naturally more and more his motivation for action becomes a social one. This can and may be understood. For modern civilization aims at people learning to live with people in a division of labor. But if the social order is to motivate appropriate social action in the individual, then it must be a social organism that is capable of motivating the will through its own inner laws. In a living social organism, one must not only preach morals, but establish social morals. In this field, morals must be established not through words and ideas, but through the realities of the situation. These realities should be stimulated by the impulse of the threefold social organism.

The matter was so little understood that the abstract thinkers even mocked me because I kept using the word “impulse” instead of “idea” to suggest that there should be power in this tendency of the threefold social organism, not just talk. That should already be in the life of this work for threefolding: that there is reality in it, not just talk. Otherwise, one can also go around as an ethical traveling speaker, as there are so many of them now, trying to persuade people: Just become ethical again, just become good again, and social harmony will arise! I have always said to those who wanted to hear it, when speaking to the stove in the room: You stove, according to your nature, it is your categorical imperative to warm the room – it will not warm the room. But you don't need to preach if you put wood in and light it. You don't need to moralize in theory, mystify, aestheticize. What is needed is not just a “practical” mixture of ideas, but real impulses to stimulate social forces that are filled with ideas, if it is to be a social practice. And only when we have developed an understanding for this fact will we learn to think correctly about what threefolding actually wants.

But because this reaches down into the soul and will, an enthusiasm and commitment to the truth is required for this understanding of threefolding, not just a theoretical interest in the truth and in a theoretical discussion. As long as we are unable to take truth into our will, to extract it from theory and permeate our whole being with it, there can be no beginning to a fruitful treatment of the social question and social practice.

That is what it is about: that those who seek understanding for what threefolding wants to achieve may seek it with their whole being. Then enthusiasm will not come from blind instincts, but will be stimulated by light-filled knowledge. Then it will not remain blind itself, but will shine itself. When the impulses of the will do not come from instincts and drives, but from an overview of social life, then they do not remain blind and dark, but become themselves seeing and luminous. And the path of the impulse of the threefold social order depends on the will and enthusiasm for the truth becoming ever more luminous and radiant in this sense. And I would like to express the hope that what can be said here in this direction will contribute to inspiring not a blind and dark enthusiasm and will, but a light-filled, willed shaping of life.

Final Word on the Fourth Evening of the Disputation

In the course of the very lively disputation on the topic “Social Science and Social Practice”, a Dutch member of the Society came back to the “World School Association” (see p. 92 ff.). He called for “immediate action”, namely to proceed with the founding immediately (following a Dutch initiative that was supported by iso names). In doing so, it referred to the fact that in April 1912, members of the “German Section” of the “Theosophical Society”, at the suggestion of a member who had travelled from England, had founded a “bund” through such an “act”, from which “what is known today as the Anthroposophical Society originated”.

I do not wish to detain you much longer, but would just like to make a few comments, firstly in connection with what our friend v.L. has proposed here, which is certainly quite commendable, or will be if it leads to the promised goal. I would just like to note that it would be a questionable basis if the matter were built on the same foundation as the “bund”, to which reference has been made. At that time, work was indeed carried out with a certain zeal, in the way Mr. v.L. has roughly outlined it today: people sat down in small committees, discussed all sorts of things, what should be done and so on. But then Mr. v.L. made a statement which, of course, is a small mistake at first, but which, if it were to continue to have an effect, could lead to a big mistake. It was said that the Anthroposophical Society emerged from the work that was so tirelessly carried out that night. No, that is not the case at all: nothing emerged from that night and from that founding of the society! I would like to protect the intended “restless work of this night” from this fate. There was a lot of talk back then about what needed to be done, but nothing came of it. And the mistake that could arise is based on the fact that one might think that something should now be done in the direction indicated by that “covenant”. What actually happened was that those who had been involved in our anthroposophical work, who were already very much with us, founded the Anthroposophical Society quite separately from this federation, and this then developed further, while the “federation” gradually passed from a gentle slumber into social death, let us say.

So, it would be a small mistake! And this must be emphasized, so that the mistakes of that night committee are not repeated in its second edition. That is one thing.

The other point I would like to make is that the aim of a world school association should be based on something really broad and should be tackled from the outset with a certain courage and a comprehensive vision.

Our friend v.L. has quite rightly emphasized that what is to be advocated in relation to a free spiritual life in connection with the threefold social organism must be treated in different ways for the most diverse fields. But this must then also really

so that the way it is treated is appropriate for the territories concerned. I myself will always point out that, for example, in England it will be necessary to present things in a way that is appropriate to the English civilization.

One must thoroughly understand what is imagination in the face of the great human questions of the present, and what is reality. So one must not present the matter in such a way as to create the belief that English intellectual life is freer than other intellectual lives. And you will see, if you really go through the “key points”, that less emphasis is placed on the negative aspect – the liberation of intellectual life from the state – and much less emphasis is placed on the establishment of a free intellectual life in general. And there it will always remain a good word: that it depends on the human being, that it really depends on the spiritual foundations from which the human being emerges, which spiritual foundations are created for his education. It is not so much a matter of emphasizing the negative aspect, but rather the positive. And I need only say this: if, let us say, spiritual life were formally freed from state control, and everything else remained the same, then liberation from the state would not be of much use.

The point is that positive spirit, as it has been represented here this week, as it has been tried to represent it, that this free spirit be brought into intellectual life internationally. And then things will happen as they should happen.

For example, the Waldorf School is not only a truly independent school, it does not even have a director, but the teaching staff is a truly representative community. It is not a matter of all measures being taken in such a way that 'nothing else' speaks except what comes from the teaching staff themselves, so that here we really have 'an independent spiritual community', but it is also a matter of the fact that in all countries there is a lack of the spiritual life that has been talked about here all week. And when one hears it emphasized somewhere that “intellectual life is free in this country” – I am not talking about Switzerland now, I am talking about England – that is another matter. And it is this positive aspect, above all, that matters. It must then be emphasized: Of course, this will only exist if one tries to actually respond to the specific circumstances in the individual countries and territories.

But one must have a heart and mind for what unfree intellectual life has ultimately done in our time. Not in order to respond to what was said here yesterday, but to show the blossoms of human thinking, both intellectually and morally, that our current intellectual life brings to light, I would like to read you a sentence. I do not wish to detain you for long, and I do not wish to speak from the standpoint from which there was such virulent opposition to anthroposophy and the threefold social order here yesterday; but I would like to read out a sentence from the brochure that had to be discussed here yesterday. General von Gleich writes about me: “At the turn of the century, which also marks a turning point in the supersensible world of Anthroposophy, Mr. Steiner, then almost forty years old, was gradually led to Theosophy through Winter's lectures on mysticism.”

Now you may ask who this Mr. Winter is, whom Mr. v. Gleich cites here as the person through whose lectures I was converted to Anthroposophy in Berlin. One can only put forward the following hypothesis: in the preface to those lectures that I gave in Berlin in the winter of 1901/1902, there is a sentence in which I say: the movement I want to talk about began with my lectures in the winter of 1901/1902. — From this winter, during which I gave my lectures, that Mr. 'Winter' was born, who converted me to theosophy in 1901/1902.

You see, I do not want to use the expression that applies to the intellectual disposition of a person who, because of it, is now called to lead the opponents of the anthroposophical movement; I do not want to use the expression; but you will certainly be able to use it sufficiently. This is the kind of intellectual product of the spiritual life that one could pass through in the present day to the extent of becoming a major general.

So one must look at the matter from a somewhat greater depth. Only then will one develop a heart and a mind for what is necessary. And just because the spiritual life must be tackled first and foremost through the school system, it is so desirable that this World School Association could be established, which would not be so difficult to establish if the will for it exists. But it must not be a smaller or larger committee, but must be established in such a way that its membership is unmanageable. Only then will it have value. It must not — I do not want to give any advice on this, because I have said enough about it — it must not, of course, impose any special sacrifices on an individual. It must be there to create the mood for what urgently needs a mood today! — That is something of what I still had to tie in with what has come to light today.

Finally, I must say something that I would rather not say, but which I must say, since otherwise it would not have been touched upon this evening and it might be too late for the next few days, when the pain of departure will probably set in. I must point this out myself. The point is that it is taken for granted that everything that has been said today will be worked for. But this work only makes sense if we can maintain the Goetheanum as it stands here, and above all, if we can complete it.

Now, however well things are going with “Futurum A.-G.” and however well things are going with “Kommenden Tag”, they will not be any economic support for this Goetheanum for a long time to come. Certainly not. And the greatest concern that weighs on me today, despite all my other concerns, is this: that in the not too distant future we may find ourselves with no economic support for this Goetheanum. Therefore, it is necessary above all to emphasize that each of us should work towards this, that each of us who can contribute something towards this, that this building can find its completion, may do so! That is what is needed above all: that we are put in a position by the friends of our cause to be able to maintain this Goetheanum, to be able to finish this Goetheanum above all. And that, as I said, is my great concern. I must say so here. Because ultimately, what would it help if we could do as much propaganda as we want and we might have to close the Goetheanum in three months from now? This is also one of the social concerns that, in my opinion, are connected with the general social life of the present day. And I had to emphasize this concern because the facts on which it is based should not really be forgotten: this makes it possible to strengthen the movement that emanates from this Goetheanum.

We can see the intellectual foundations on which those who are now taking up their posts against us are fighting. That will be a beginning. We must be vigilant, very vigilant, because these people are clever. They know how to organize themselves. What happened in Stuttgart is a beginning, it is intended as a beginning. And only then will we be able to stand up to them if we spark such idealism – I would like to say it again this time – that does not say: Oh, ideals are so terribly high, they are so exalted, and my pocket is something so small that I do not reach into it when it comes to exalted ideals. – It must be said: Only idealism is true that also digs into its pockets for the ideals!

Closing Remarks at a Student Assembly

At the suggestion of German students, a meeting was held on the afternoon of 9 April 1921 to discuss how anthroposophical work could be established at universities. Dr. Steiner spoke at the end.

Dr. S. has, however, pointed out the three most important issues at stake here: whether to organize or not, as desired. But above all, I would like to emphasize one thing: if you are involved in a movement like ours, it is necessary to learn from the past and to lead further stages of the movement in such a way that certain earlier mistakes are avoided.

What it will depend on in the first place is this: that anthroposophy, to the extent that it can already be accepted by the student body in terms of understanding and to the extent that it is at all possible through the available forces or opportunities, that anthroposophy in its various branches be spread among the student body as positive spiritual content. Our experience has basically shown that something real can only be achieved if one can really build on the basis of the positive.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to point out that years ago an attempt was made to establish a kind of world federation for spiritual science, and that nothing came of this world federation, which actually only wanted to proceed according to the rules of formal external organization. It ended, so to speak, in what the Germans call “das Hornberger Schießen” – a shooting match in Hornberg. But because a sense of cohesion and collaboration were needed at the time, the existing adherents of anthroposophy had to be brought together in the “Anthroposophical Society”. These were now more or less all people who had simply been involved with anthroposophy. It is only with such an organization, where there is already something in it, that one can then do something.

Of course it will be especially necessary for the student body not only to work in the sense of spreading the given anthroposophical problems in the narrower sense, but also to work out general problems and the like in the sense that Dr. S. just meant. Of course, at first it will not be so necessary to work towards dissertations with such things. It has often, really quite often, happened recently that I have been asked by younger students along the following lines: Yes, we actually want to combine anthroposophy with our particular science. How can one approach this in such a way that one works towards one's goal in the right way after the doctorate, after the state examination? What should one do? How should one set up one's work? — I have always given the following advice: Try to get through the official studies as quickly as possible, to get through them as quickly as possible – and I am always very happy to help with any advice – then choose any scientific topic that seems to emerge from the course of your studies, as a dissertation or state examination or the like. Whichever topic you choose, one of them is of course diametrically opposed to the other approaches in anthroposophical terms, there can be no doubt about that. Each is diametrically opposed. But now I advise you to write your dissertation in such a way that you first write down what the professor can censor, what he will understand; and take a second notebook, and write down everything that comes to you in the course of your studies and that you believe should actually be worked in from anthroposophy. You then keep that for yourself. Then you make your two sheets, that's how long a dissertation must be. You submit these. And try to finish them. Then you can really help anthroposophy with what you have acquired in addition to this one in the second issue, bit by bit. Because you actually only really notice what significant problems — special and specialist problems — arise when you are faced with the necessity of really working scientifically on a certain topic and the like. But there is a danger of, I would say, unclear cooperation with the professorship. And submitting dissertations to the professors that are written “in the anthroposophical sense” – these usually do not suit professors – I do not consider this to be a good idea because it actually slows us down at the pace that the anthroposophical movement should be taking.

We need as many academically trained co-workers as possible. If there is anything we lack in the anthroposophical movement today, it is a sufficient number of academically trained co-workers. I do not mean the externality of needing, say, people with degrees. That is not what I mean. But first of all, we need people who have learned to work scientifically from within. This inner scientific work is best learned in one's own work. Secondly, however, we need staff who come from the student body as soon as possible, and who are no longer held back by considerations for their later specialized studies. (You see, it is not at all wonderful that it is as difficult as it is in Switzerland, for example.) As a student, you naturally have the opportunity to join such a group in the first few semesters, if you are free-minded enough to do so. Then come the last semesters. You are busy with other things, and it becomes more difficult. And so the threads that you have pulled are constantly being torn away. This has just been emphasized.

So I would like to say, especially for scientific collaboration: the topics must be processed twice during such a transition period: one that the professor understands, and the other that is saved for later.

Of course, I am not saying that very special opportunities that arise are not seized, and that these opportunities, which arise, are not vigilantly observed by the student body in the most eminent sense and also really exploited in the sense and service of the movement: On the one hand, I hope, and on the other hand, I fear almost silently, that our dear friend, Professor Römer in Leipzig, will now be inundated with a huge number of anthroposophical dissertations! But I think that would also be one of the things he would probably prefer. And such a document of student trust would show that he is not one of the professors just mentioned. That would come from the foundation.

Now, however, we need an expansion of what has already been discussed here in Dornach, namely a kind of collaboration after all. You will work out among yourselves later how best to do this technically. It would be good if, with the help of the Waldorf teachers, who would be joined by other personalities from our ranks – Professor Römer, Dr. Unger and others – a certain exchange could take place, especially regarding the choice of topics for dissertations or scientific papers, without in any way compromising the free initiative of the individual. It can only be in the form of advice. It is precisely for this scientific work that a closer union should be sought – it doesn't have to be an organization, but an exchange of ideas – between you.

The economic aspect is, of course, a very, very important one. It is a fact that the university system in particular, but actually more or less the entire higher education system, will suffer greatly from our economic difficulties. Now it is a matter of really seeing clearly that it is only possible to help if it is possible to advance such institutions, as it is for example for Germany the “Kommende Tag”, as it is here the “Futurum”. So that a reorganization of the economic situation of the student body can also emanate from these organizations. I can assure you that all the things we are tackling in this direction are actually calculated on rapid growth. We do not have time to take our time; instead, we actually have to make rapid progress with such economic organizations. And here I must say that the members of the student body, perhaps with very few exceptions, can help us above all by spreading understanding for such things. It has indeed already happened in relation to other things that a student could achieve something for this or that with his father, or could achieve something with his relatives. Not everyone has only destitute friends. And then there really is something that works like an avalanche. Just think about how powerfully something like an avalanche works, based on experience: when you start somewhere, it continues. Something like this continues to have an effect when you act out of the positive: try to study these brochures that have been published by “Kommender Tag” and “Futurum”, and try to create understanding for something like this.

It is this understanding that the oldest people in particular find extremely difficult to work their way up to. I have seen how older people, I would say, have chewed on the desire to understand what “Tomorrow” or “Futurum” want, how they have repeatedly fallen back on their old economic prejudices, like a cat on its paws, with which they have rushed into economic decline, and how they cannot find their way out. I believe that there really is a bright understanding among our fellow students that could also have some effect on the older generations. We cannot make any progress in any other way. Because I can tell you: when we have come so far in relation to these economic institutions that we can effectively do something, that we first of all have enough funds to do something on a large scale – because only then does it help – and on the other hand can overcome the resistance of the proletariat, which is particularly hostile to an economic improvement in the situation of students, then it must indeed be the first concern of our economic organizations to work economically in relation to the student body.

The 'battle problems'! Yes, you see, that's the problem: the Anthroposophical Society, even if it wasn't called that before, has existed since the beginning of the century, and it has always actually only worked positively, at least as far as I myself am concerned. It let the opponents rant and do all sorts of things. But naturally then the opponents come with certain objections. They say, there it has been said, there that has been said, yes that, that has not even been refuted. It is already so that one finds understanding for it that actually the one who asserts something has the burden of proof, not the one to whom it is attributed. And we could really experience it again and again, that strange views emerged precisely among academics, I now mean lecturers, professors, pastors and those who had emerged from the ranks of academics. Just think, that from, I would like to say, for the outside world honorable - but I say it only between quotation marks: “honorable” - professors, things are put forward against Anthroposoph , and so on, that if one follows these proofs with reasons, it is a mockery, a bloody mockery of all possible methods of asserting something in science. Therefore, with someone like Professor Fuchs, I simply had to say: It is impossible that this person is anything other than a quite impossible anatomist! Am I supposed to believe that he examines things conscientiously when, after everything that has been presented, he examines my baptismal certificate in the way he has examined it? You have to draw conclusions about the way one area is treated from the way another is treated. Such things simply show – through the fact that people step forward and show their particular habits – the symptoms of how science is done today. Even the things that are presented at universities and technical colleges today are basically no better founded than the things that are asserted in this way; it is just that the generally loosened habits in scientific life are revealed in this way. And that is what is needed: to take the fight to a higher level, so to speak.

And there it is not necessary, as my fellow student wished, for example, which I understand very well, to play as a “fighting organization.” That is not necessary. Rather, only one thing: to avoid what has occurred so frequently in the Anthroposophical Society. In the Anthroposophical Society, this always came to the fore, as incredible as it is – not in everyone, of course, but very often: one was obliged to defend oneself against a wild accusation, and then to use harsh words, for example, we say in the case when a Mr. v. Gleich invents the term “Winter” for a lecturer by reading that I myself have given winter lectures, then invents a personality “Winter” and introduces it into the fight in a very nasty way. Yes, you see, I don't think that in this case one would say too harsh words if one spoke of Trottelisis! Because here, even if it occurs with a general, one is dealing with a genuine Trottelisis in its purest form. And in the Anthroposophical Society it was usually the case that it was not the person who was at fault who acted like Mr. von Gleich, but the person who defended himself. Until today! We have learned a few times that it was said: You must not become aggressive in this way. In the eyes of many people, becoming aggressive means defending oneself in this way. It is necessary that you, without emphasizing that you are a fighting organization or the like, still follow things with a watchful eye and reject them. You have to act positively in this regard; and then the others have to stand behind you, behind the one who is forced to defend himself. It is not a matter of our becoming fighting cocks ourselves; but it is a matter of the others standing behind him when it becomes necessary to defend himself. And it is a matter of really following the symptoms of the world-descriptive, scientific, religious, and so on, in this respect in our time, taking an interest in them.

Take this single phenomenon: I was obliged to characterize philosophical, or whatever you want to call it, scribblings by Count Keyserling in the appropriate way, because in his incredible superficiality he mixed in the madness that I started from Haeckel's views. This is not only an objective untruth, but in this case a subjective untruth, that is, a lie, because one must demand that anyone who makes such an assertion should search for the sources; and he could have seen that the chapter I wrote in the earliest years of my writing career is in my arguments with Haeckel, in the introduction to Goethe's scientific writings. You can all read it very well. Now Count Keyserling has had a small pamphlet published by his publisher: “The Way to Perfection”. I will not characterize this writing further, but I recommend that one or two of you buy this writing and pass it around; because if everyone wanted to buy it, it would be a waste of money; but I still recommend that you read it so that you get an idea of what, so to speak, goes against all wisdom in this writing “The Way to Perfection” by Keyserling. There is the following sentence, which he put together, more or less as I remember it: Yes, if I said something incorrect, that Dr. Steiner started from Haeckel, then Dr. Steiner could simply have corrected that; he could have set me right, because I have - and now I ask you to pay close attention to this sentence - because I have no time for a special Steiner source research.

So now, you see, we have already brought scientific morality to such a pass that someone who founds a “school of wisdom” considers it justified to send things out into the world that he admittedly has no time to research, that he has therefore not researched! Here one catches a seemingly noble thinker - because Count Keyserling always cited omnipotence in his writing - that is what is so impressive about Count Keyserling, that he always cites omnipotence. All present-day writing has reached a point where it is most mired and ragged. And despite the omnipotence, there is a complete moral decline of views here. And so people have to be told: Of course, nobody expects you to do Steiner source research either; but then, if you don't do any Steiner source research, if you don't have time, then – with regard to all these things about which you should know something: Shut up!

You see, it is necessary that we have no illusions, that we simply discard every conventional principle of authority and the like, that we face ourselves freely, really and truly examining what is present in our time. Then we will be able to notice quite a lot of it today.

I would certainly advise you to take a look at some of the sentences that the great Germanist Roethe in Berlin occasionally and repeatedly coins, purely in terms of form – I will completely disregard the view, which can certainly be respected. Then you will find it instructive. We do not need to be a fighting organization. But we must be ready and alert to take action when the things that are leading us so horribly into decline actually materialize. Do we need to be an organization of anthroposophical students to do that? We simply need to be alert, decent, and scientifically conscientious people, then we can always take a stand against such harm from our most absolute private point of view. And if we are also organized for positive work, then the number of those who are organized for it can stand behind us and support us. We need the latter. But it would not be very clever of us to present ourselves as a fighting organization. On the other hand, it is important that we really work seriously on improving our current conditions. And to do that, we first have to take note of the terrible damage that is coming to light in one field or another – and which really cannot be overlooked, because it involves enormous sums of money – and have the courage to take a stand against it in whatever way we can.

You have already done something if you can do just that: simply set the record straight for a small number of your fellow students with regard to such things, even if it happens only in the smallest of circles. Yesterday, I said to one of our members here with regard to the World School Association: I think it is particularly valuable, especially with regard to such things, to start by talking to one or two or three others, that is, to very small groups, even if there are only two of them; and, to put it quite radically, if someone cannot find anyone else, then at least say it to yourself! So these things are quite tangible in terms of what the individual is able to do. Some will be able to do much more, as has actually already happened with a doctor who was a member and whose fellow students proved to be very enthusiastic. The point is not to make enemies by appearing as fighting cocks in a wild form, but also not to shy away from the fight when others start it. That's it: we must always let the other start; and then the necessary help must stand behind us, which does not allow the tactic to arise, because it has arisen: that we would have started. If they start from the other side, then one is forced to defend oneself; and then you can always read that the anthroposophical side has used this or that in the fight as an attack and so on. They always turn the tables. That is the method of the opponents. We must not let that happen.

As for the World School Association, I would just like to say this: in my opinion, it would be best if the World School Association could be established independently of each other in Entente and neutral countries, but also in the German-speaking area of Central Europe. If it could happen at the same time, so that things could develop independently of each other, so to speak, it would be best. Of course, a certain amount of vigilance is required to see what happens. I believe that Switzerland, in particular, should mediate here. It would be good if we could do it right now. I can assure you: things are on a knife edge – and if the same possibilities for war existed today as existed in 1914, then we would have had war again long ago. Things are on a knife edge in terms of sentiment and so on. And we won't get something like this Weltschulverein (World School Association) off the ground if, for example, it is founded in Germany now, and then the others, for example, if only for a week, had to follow suit. It would simply not come about, it would be impractical to do so.

On the other hand, we must not allow any possibility of our in the least denying our position on these matters. This School of Spiritual Science is called the Goetheanum. We gave it this name during the World War, here and now. The other nations, insofar as they have participated in anthroposophy, have adopted the name and accepted it. We have never denied that we have reasons to call the School of Spiritual Science 'Goetheanum', and it would therefore not be good if in Germany things were allowed to appear as some kind of imitation from the other side.

So it would be a matter of proceeding in this regard — forgive the harsh word — a little less clumsily, of doing it a little more skillfully in the larger world cultural sense! Switzerland would now have to work with full understanding here. So it would actually have to be taken up simultaneously by Central Europe, by the Entente and by the neutral countries.

For the time being, I don't know whether it will take off in just one or two places. This morning I received the news that the committee, which was convened yesterday and which wanted to work so hard, went to bed a few minutes after yesterday's meeting left the hall; it was postponed until tonight. Whether they will meet tonight, we will wait and see. We have already had very strange experiences; and based on this knowledge, that we have already had the most diverse experiences, I have taken the liberty of speaking to you here about the fact that in the further course of the movement, the experiences made should be taken into account.

On the other hand, I am convinced that if the necessary strong impulse and proper enthusiasm can be found among our fellow students, especially for what I myself and other friends of mine have mentioned in the course of this lecture: enthusiasm for the truth – then things will work out.

I would like to say one more thing: I recently read an article from a feature page and I can assure you that what recently took place in Stuttgart is not the slightest bit an end, but only a beginning, and I can assure you that things will get much, much worse. I have often said this to our friends here – a very, very long time ago – and I recently read a piece from a feature page in which it says: “There are enough intellectual sparks that flash like lightning after the wooden mousetrap, there are plenty of sparks of intellectual fire, and it will take no little cleverness on Steiner's part to reconcile people and prevent a real spark of fire one day bringing the Dornach glory to an inglorious end.

I really do think that whatever must occur as a reaction against such action, which will grow ever stronger and stronger, will have to be better shaped and, above all, more energetically carried out. And I believe that you, my dear fellow students, need to let all your youthful enthusiasm flow in this direction, in what we have often mentioned here during this course: enthusiasm for the truth. Youthful enthusiasm for the truth has always been a very good impulse in the further development of humanity. May it be so in the near future through you in a matter that you recognize as good.