Lecture II

GA 155/1912-05-29/p007 ·1912-05-29 · English HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: unknown. How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.

This can only be understood by an examination into the secrets of existence. Development is only possible through differentiation, through organisation; and if all men had wished to arrive at the degree of wisdom reached in the Brahmin caste not a single one would have been able to achieve it. If all human beings do not attain to the highest wisdom, one may not say that it is a contradiction of the Divine regulation of the world, for this would have no more sense than if someone were to demand of the infinitely wise and infinitely mighty Deity that He should make a triangle with four angles. No god could make a triangle other than with three angles. That which is ordered and determined inwardly in spirit must also be observed by the divine regulation of the world, and just as the laws concerning the limits of space are strict, for example, that a triangle can only have three angles, so also if is a strict law that development must come about through differentiation, that certain groups of people must be separated in order that a particular quality of human nature can be developed. To this end the others must be excluded for a time. This is not only a law for development of mankind, it is a law for the whole of evolution.

Read this passage in another edition
DEoriginalENEnglish
Raw JSON: /v1/steiner/en/ga/155/1912-05-29/p007.json
Cite: GA 155/1912-05-29/p007 · edition English