Lecture III

In the third age man had been able gradually to penetrate Maya with the human mind. This was completed in the fourth age of civilization, the Graeco-Latin, when in the wonderful works of art man produced a perfect image of himself in the outer material world, and portrayed in the drama of Aeschylus, pictures of human fate. Observe on the other hand how in the Egyptian civilization men still sought the will of the Gods. The conquest of matter such as we see in the Greek age signifies another stage, in which man made a step further in love of material existence; and finally in the Roman age he completely entered into the physical world. One who understands this knows also that in this age we must recognize the full appearance of the principle of personality. Hence in Rome first appears what we call the conception of justice, and man as “a citizen.” Only a confused science is able to trace jurisprudence back to all sorts of previous ages. What was previously understood as equity was something quite different. The old law is much more correctly described in the Old Testament in the Ten Commandments. What God commanded belonged to the ancient idea of law. It is absurd in our age to try to trace back the ideas of law to Hamurabi, etc. True equity and the idea of man as a citizen, was first actualized in Rome. In Greece the citizen was still a member of the municipal body. An Athenian or a Spartan counted for much more as an Athenian or a Spartan than as an individual. He felt himself part of the municipality. It was in Rome that the individual first became a citizen; only then had he reached this stage. This could be proved in detail. What we now call a testament or will did not exist in this sense before Roman times. A will or testament in its present meaning first originated at that time, because only then did the separate human being become determinative in his egoistic will, so as to impose his will upon his successors. Previously other impulses than the personal will were present which held the whole together. Thus it could be shown by many examples how man then entered into the physical world as an individual being.