9. The Sleeping-and-Waking Rhythm in the Context of Cosmic Evolution

If you want to find out what went on in the cultural and literary life of the early 19th century you will of course look up a history of literature. This will tell you which poet was important and which was not; and the record will only go a certain way, for poets who were of no importance at all will not be mentioned. And so a person who knows anything at all will know which poets were important at the beginning or in the middle of the 19th century and which were not. They'll know that. Undoubtedly, there must also have been people who wrote poetry during the 19th century and yet are totally unknown to most if not all people today. I think you will agree that there must have been people of whom nothing at all is known today. But a time will come when the picture people have, say of literary life in the 19th century, will be different, completely different. Then a poet given many pages today will be given just half a page whilst another, who is not even mentioned today, will be given ten or twenty pages. Things are going to change. And, indeed, it will be necessary for thing to change quite profoundly. It is particularly when we consider that spiritual science is an element that now has to enter into the process of civilization, taking hold of human knowledge and entering into it everywhere, that we become aware of how men and women will have to change their approach and learn to think. Let me give you an instance.