III. Historical Occurrences of the Last Century

Relations—I say—with the spiritual worlds result when one sees into these delicate details of human soul-life. Through that which is more thinking and has only an undertone of willing we are connected with a certain kind of spiritual existence of the spiritual worlds. And with another kind of spiritual worlds we are connected through that which is more willing and less thinking. That has indeed its deeper significance; for what we discover in this way manifests itself in human life; and the differentiations which exist in the world arise because the one or the other force of human nature is always developed more in one direction or another. Those forces, for example, existing in the willing which has an undertone of thinking were pre-eminently developed in the ancient Hebraic culture; and those forces of the human soul-being which are based essentially in the thinking which has an undertone of willing were developed in what is called the ancient pagan culture. At the present time we have the two streams flowing side by side; we have in the civilized world the two streams intermingling: one, a continuation of ancient paganism, in the conception of nature; and the other, which comes from the ancient Hebrews, we have in the social viewpoint of the present, in our ethical and religious concepts.