Lecture II

On a higher level we can say the same of men who are like Otto Liebmann. They come to philosophy, to the land of the spirit through conditions holding good in our world. Someone writes a thesis, a book, is then sent as teacher to a grammar school and, when proving himself to be a thinker, he is sent on to a university. Philosophising is world-courtesy, just world-courtesy—and there is no need for any call to the land of the spirit. One goes to the door, even goes inside, and then falls asleep; not immediately like the satiated concert-goer, who sleeps without even being tired, through lack of interested consciousness in the subject—but the philosopher cannot wake up to Imaginative consciousness. If it is impossible for people to awake to Imaginative consciousness then the moment anything is said about the spiritual world they fall asleep. In other words, it is too difficult for them to take in anything about spiritual science. It is therefore not without danger to make this assertion, for people will say: So you are the people who are making a study of what to other men, to men of consequence, is so difficult!—Since we are conscious of the difficulty, however, we shall not be too arrogant. For we shall know that the very points about which we ought to agree will be attacked by the world because people refuse to embark upon so difficult an affair—for the very reason that they find it too difficult.