III. Fundamental Impulses in History

In the last three days, I have made it my task to show you in what way the civilisation of our times must be regarded in respect of the possibility for mankind's further evolution. Our earth, as an earth with all that is upon It, has already entered on its downward stage, on the stage of its decline. I have often told you that keen-sighted geologists themselves have already noted this fact. It is even now possible to demonstrate by purely external physical science, and according to the most exact geology, that the earth has already begun to crumble away, that the ascending phase of its evolution is at an end, and that the solid ground we tread on is actually breaking up beneath us. But it is not only the mineral kingdom of the earth that Is breaking up; all organic life that moves upon the earth is more or less in a state of decomposition, of falling away. The bodies of plants, of animals, of men, these, too, are no longer in their ascending stage of evolution, but are going downhill. Our physical organisation is not now what it was, for instance, before the fourth century after Christ, or what it was in the times of ancient Greece. Our organisation is a perishable one, and along with us the earth is in its decadence. What Is physical about the earth is in its decadence. I called attention to this phenomenon for the first time some years ago in a lecture at Bonn; but as a rule, not sufficient importance is attached to these things. The bodies we live in are crumbling away. But, as a set-off against this, we must reflect: