Lecture VII

Then came the Spirit of the Persian epoch, and man learnt through him to know matter as an opposing element which he must work upon. He united himself with the good Spirit, Ormuzd, against the Spirit of matter, Ahriman. But the Persian had an interest in the physical plane. Then comes the Spirit of that epoch which found expression, on the one hand, in the civilizations of Babylon, Assyria, Chaldea, and on the other hand of Egypt. Human science was founded; it was sought through geometry to make the earth suited to man. One sought to know the meaning of the motion of the stars in astrology, astronomy, and one arranged earthly affairs in conformity with this motion. Eygptian social life was especially directed according to the passage of the stars. What was read there as the secrets of the stars was the basis of human conduct. The ancient Indian sought the way to the Gods by turning his attention completely away from outer reality; the Egyptian studied the laws which rule in order to find how the will and spirit of the Gods were brought to expression in the laws of external nature. That was again a different epoch. So you have for each epoch a definite spirit, and the evolution of the Earth comes about through one Spirit of the Epochs being relieved by another—that is the case in detail. People rise to the conception of Ages, but they do not know that behind this whole progress of the Ages, Spirits of the Epochs stand, nor do they know that to bring to expression the Spirit of their epoch they are only the instruments here on earth of Spirits standing behind them. Just think of Giordano Bruno. If Giordano Bruno had been born in the 8th century, he would not have become what he became in the period ruled by the Epochal Spirit whose expression he then became. He was the instrument of the Time-Spirit, and the same applies to other outstanding human beings. And conversely, the Epochal Spirit would not have been able to find such an expression as it found in Giordano Bruno, if Giordano Bruno had been born in the 8th century. By such things we see how men are the instruments of the Epochal Spirits who are the guiding beings of the great epochs and also of the Spirits of the “meanings and conceptions” of the smaller epochs. They are the Original Forces, they extend their consciousness down to man. They have no directing influence over what brings man together with other nature-kingdoms, for their consciousness does not reach the animal kingdom. How men conduct their lives according to the spirit of the time, how they found states, found sciences, cultivate their fields—everything of human origin, the progress of civilization from beginning to end stands under the guidance of the Original Forces. They lead man in so far as he has to do with others.