I. Inner Experience of Language I

In this the school must come to the help of what is a great task of civilization. In the school this creation of concrete ideas should be made a practice so that in speaking one begins to feel oneself into the speech, to feel oneself in the world in speaking. Take as an example that I have written something on the black-board. Someone says “I do not understand it”. . . Think of the confused abstractions you sometimes have in mind when you say “I do not understand”. They would become concrete if you would picture to yourself that you want to grasp it, take it in, comprehend it. But you do not grasp it, you remain aloof—you do not get into touch with the matter. But you must think with your very hands. Try with the most important words. What will you be doing? You will in fact be doing eurhythmy in spirit! When indeed you speak concretely you do eurhythmy in spirit. You cannot do anything else than eurhythmy in spirit. He who is actively alive in sea things finds most men of today—if you will allow me to say so—sluggards, men who go round with their hands in their pockets and then want to talk without any feeling. For, spiritually considered, abstract thinking is putting the feet together and the hands in the pockets, and withdrawing everything as far into oneself as possible. This is how the man of today speaks. To leave out the concrete from one's thinking is just to be slovenly. But most men are that today. People must become more mobile inwardly, that is, they must feel with the world. Even those who do this often do so unconsciously. One knows people who place their finger on their nose when considering anything. They are quite unconscious of the fact that this is an actual concrete eurhythmic expression of the strong feeling of self when deciding on something. People today do not even consider why they have a left and a right hand, or two eyes. And in learned books the most foolish things—which explain nothing—are said of the seeing with two eyes. If we did not possess two hands so that we can grip one with the other we would not be able to have any clear idea of our own self, our “I”. It is only because we can grasp the one hand with the other, the like with like, that the conception “I” is attainable in the right way. And just as we can cross the left hand with the right, as we experience ourselves, and are astonished at this experience, at experiencing ourselves, we also cross the axis of sight in our eyes, although this crossing is not so visible as that of the hands. And we have two eyes which we can cross for the same reason as we have two arms and two heads.