I. The Transforming of Instinctive into Conscious Impulses

In the first place the modern man must gain a clear feeling, or at least a clear intellectual conception, of those forces of the Universe which are the forces of decline and destruction. The forces to which we are fond of turning our attention (and for the very fondness, we delude ourselves about them) are of course the upbuilding forces above all others. We always want to build and build. But in the world there is not only evolution or upbuilding, there is also devolution, demolition. We ourselves bear the process of demolition within us; our evolved nervous system, our brain system, is perpetually engaged in demolition or destruction. With these forces of destruction man must make himself acquainted. With unprejudiced and open mind he must say to himself: Along the very path that unfolds in the age when the Spiritual Soul shall awaken fully, the forces of destruction are most active. When suddenly they concentrate or consolidate; then such a thing arises as in the last four and a half years. Then there appears to mankind in a concentrated form what in any case is always there. But this must not remain unconscious and instinctive: it must become a fully conscious thing, above all in the present age. The destructive forces, the forces of death, the paralyzing forces—how gladly would man turn his face away from them! But in so doing he only blinds himself. In fleeing from the destructive forces he learns not to cooperate in real evolution.