Twelfth Lecture

Whether or not social demands arise is not open to discussion, just as it is not open to discussion whether or not an earthquake will occur in a particular region. But how we should relate to such phenomena is open to discussion. No one will be able to gain a proper perspective on such phenomena without a sense of humanity, as indicated above. This is something with which one must penetrate oneself very deeply. And whether the life of the civilized European world will be able to continue or not will depend on whether there will be a sufficiently large number of people who see through the impossibility of a further world regiment that is particularly influenced by such people out of touch with reality as Lloyd George is. You all know that I am not speaking from some kind of jingoistic point of view, from some particular side, but I am speaking from a purely objective point of view, from the observation of objective facts. I have never had anything against Woodrow Wilson or Lloyd George as a German, as a so-called German. Compared to other people today, even Lloyd George is a “great guy”. But he is a man who remains a twenty-seven-year-old, who is incapable of assimilating that which one can only assimilate when the descending evolution takes hold, when one has passed beyond the thirties. For the dried-up European bodies, which do not want to turn to absorb something spiritual, lose the possibility of development in their thirties. They may be members of parliament, even as accomplished and as exceptionally good a member of parliament as Lloyd George, who, as is well known, carried out quite admirable reforms when he was made a minister. Isn't it true that this is what you do to opposition politicians: you take them into the ministry so that they don't cause a nuisance in parliament? At a certain moment in England Lloyd George was also made a minister, at first because they did not want him in the opposition; but he was made a minister by being given a department about which he knew nothing. That is the usual way of dealing with dangerous parliamentarians. And lo and behold, when Lloyd George was given the department he understood nothing about, he developed a feverish activity, introduced reforms that are truly admirable, and the others stood there with long noses.