VII. Whitsuntide Lecture

What is happening today—I will only mention one thing—is the lessening importance of the outer British Empire, as such. What the world has up till now really known historically as Britain itself and which was specifically British, is now merging into Pan-Anglo-Americanism. That such a thing actually forms part of the developments which we have already indicated in different ways, does not contradict these developments. On the other hand it is of tremendous importance to grasp such a significant thought, for much depends on whether we take correct or false forces into our life of idea. The times can teach us much in this respect; that must be pointed out again and again. Certainly, the men at the fronts have become different. Everyone who is familiar with the facts is aware of that. This is not the place to discuss in what way they have changed. But among those who have lived at the front there are still many who think just as they did in July 1914, who have learned nothing since, who use exactly the same concepts as were used to then. When you talk with the men, they just say the same things as they might have said in July 1914. Yet no man today can be really awake if all his ideas have not acquired a different impression, a different value. For this reason the question will have to be put—everyone should put it to himself, as a quite serious and I might say Christian question of conscience: Where are the men to be found today who, before July 1914, held the possibility in view that that might happen which has come to pass up to the present day? I might formulate the question differently. In the cycle of lectures which I held before the war in Vienna, there is among other things an expression which runs thusly: The human social life bears something within it which can be compared to a cancer; a cancerous disease is in the life of humanity. That had to be realized at that time; but there are many people who have not yet realized it at the present time. I ask: In how profound a sense has it been understood that a “cancer” in human development was spoken of just at that time?