VII. Whitsuntide Lecture

Today we indeed believe from the evolutionary tendencies of mankind to which I have often referred that, as a rule, with the 20th year of our life we have brought our life to its perfection. We believe that we are then ready to be elected to a municipal assembly, to Parliament and so forth, because we are then capable of deciding on all subjects. Men believe they have long ago outgrown those bygone times when people waited for the fullness of years, in the belief that each new year of life brings new revelations. Today we expect that when the age of puberty is reached the soul-powers of the child are also transformed. For the other years of childhood we may have a like expectation, though perhaps not in such a strong degree. We look at evolution and are convinced that human life develops up to the 20s. From then we cease to believe in further development. We then believe ourselves to be ready for anything. We no longer expect the later years of life to bring new revelations. We cannot do so if we keep the usual ideas. We know however that humanity becomes younger in the course of evolution, that at the present day it never grows older than 27. The bodily development produces nothing further after that. Therefore what constitutes the further development must be drawn from the spirit. But when it is drawn from the spirit it unites with our soul. Just consider how few people today at the age of 22 admit that when they reach the age of 45, something can come about through inner revelation which could not have come earlier, for the simple reason that at an advanced age one has different experiences from those of youth. Who now believes in the productivity, the fruitfulness of old age? But although it is not believed in, it is nonetheless there; only people do not pay attention to the new revelations each new year brings. Just consider how much would be altered in human life, if the belief really became general, if all men believed that they must wait for old age, when they will learn things through their own experience which they could not have learnt before. Where is life full of expectation, full of hope to be found today? But if such a thought, such a feeling were carried into the everyday life of the community, just imagine what a tremendous significance this would have! What a tremendous significance it would have if in the life of men that consciousness were added to all the different “struggles for equality” which play such a part at the present time—the consciousness that for the simple reason that a man has reached the age of forty he may have learnt something which he could not have learned at 27. Imagine how a young man of 27 would regard one of 40 if that were a natural feeling! Of course it cannot be so today, because often today the men of 70 have not grown beyond the age of 27, and often just the most representative men are no older, though they are not aware of it. Thus one cannot demand this is a real requirement today.