Lecture II

So you will certainly have no doubt that the course of world events is one thing and the participation of an individual in these events another. You will have no doubt that these events summon those individualities who are especially fitted through their karma for whatever is demanded of them. With reference to America we can easily think through to this conclusion. But, for those whose vision penetrates more deeply, the same truth applies to the genesis of Faust. We should have to assume utter nonsense in the evolution of the world if we had to suppose that there would have been no necessity for the creation of such a poetical composition as the Faust even if what the materialists like to emphasize so much had actually occurred and a tile had fallen on Goethe's head when he was five, making him an imbecile. Anyone who traces the course of spiritual life through the decades preceding the time of Goethe will see that the Faust was really a demand of the age. Lessing, indeed, is the typical spirit who wished to create a Faust—in fact, actually wrote a fine scene. It was not merely Goethe's subjective needs that demanded the Faust, it was demanded by the age. With respect to the course of events in world history, the truth is that a relationship similar to that between Columbus and the discovery of America exists also between Goethe's creations and Goethe himself.