I. The Difference Between Man and Animal

And if you compare what I have just been saying with the different ways in which the American West, the European centre, and the East meet the Guardian of the Threshold of which I spoke in lectures some time ago, (see R. XLVII) if you compare these you will see how it is possible to get one's bearings where what is happening to mankind on earth is concerned, if only one will go right into these things. Then it will be grasped that in admitting these conceptions man would really arrive finally at thinking differently about himself and his relation to his fellows. Today all serious people should at some time consider the question that can arise in such a sentence as the one referred to: “It seems to me a certainty that a fearful destiny beckons to the white races unless a period of the supreme dominion of wisdom succeeds that of passion and delusive conceptions.” Where these wise conceptions are to be found, how they are to be obtained—these questions Spiritual Science is quite ready to answer (see R. 40)—And Spiritual Science, my deer friends, would like to give the answer to the most important questions of the day. And when anyone comes who feels as deeply as this man what is necessary for the times, he may be told: If you wish no longer to be afraid that a fearful destiny is beckoning to white men, then begin to observe the world and its phenomena in the way of Spiritual Science!