xi. Some Necessary Points of View

What can be said prophetically in this way about the future of man is the basis for all ideals which have a real, practical significance. If they are to have value, ideals must be rooted as deeply in the spiritual world as are natural laws in the natural world. Laws of development must be such true ideals. Otherwise they spring from a gushing enthusiasm and a fantasy which are valueless, and can never be fulfilled. In the broadest sense, all great ideals of world history have proceeded from clear cognition. For, in the final analysis, all these great ideals originate with the great scientists of the spirit or initiates, and those lesser ones who collaborate in the development of humanity direct themselves either consciously or—most often— unconsciously in accordance with the instructions of the spiritual scientists. Everything unconscious must finally have its origin in something conscious. The bricklayer who works on a house “unconsciously,” directs himself according to matters of which others are conscious who have determined the place where the house is to be built, the style in which it is to be erected, and so forth. But this determining of place and style is based on something of which the determiners remain unconscious, but of which others are or were conscious. An artist, for example, knows why a particular style requires a straight line here, a curved line there, and so forth. The one who uses this style for his house perhaps does not become conscious of this “why.”