VII. Whitsuntide Lecture

If we recollect the principal points of our spiritually scientific investigation, we shall everywhere find that it rests on the fact that super-sensible spiritual reality flows into the soul of man. Spiritual Science teaches us that in the course of humanity spiritual life continually streams into men, but that nevertheless what happens on Earth is only an “advance,” insofar as men understand how to awaken into external being what streams into them from the spiritual world. Such a thought should really be able to penetrate our whole feeling and experience. We must above all, be able to bring it into connection with what is known to us, for instance, as the Science of History; and we should be able to apply it to the present day from this point of view. We ought to be able to ask ourselves seriously (these things are of course hypotheses but they lead to realities in a true life of thought): What would have happened if Columbus, or anyone else fundamentally connected with the evolution of modern humanity—for instance Gutenberg, discoverer of the art of printing, or even Luther—had been born in the eighth or ninth century or at some other time in history? What would have become of those personalities who bear these names? They would certainly not have figured as they do in history today if they had been born in other times. Of course that could not have happened, for the evolution of the world has its karma; but the hypothetical consideration of such a possibility leads to realities. They would in all probability have become persons of whom external history does not speak. Yet, on the other hand, can you imagine that in such a case, at the approach of the modern age, the art of printing for instance would not have been discovered? Can you imagine that the Reformation would not have come about with the approach of this newer time? You can see from this that the principal thing is that we should look at the objective facts, at what has been imparted to mankind from the spiritual world, and that we should learn to a still greater degree than the present time can yet do, to look at man as an instrument, through whom reality may enter into Earth life from this virtual world.