Knowledge as a Source of Healing II

I will give you just one nice little example. In 1866, at the time of the Prussian victory over Austria, it was said that this was a proof of the superiority of Prussian schools. It gave rise to the saying: “It was the Prussian schoolmasters who won the 1866 victory.”[^1] This has been constantly repeated, and it would be interesting to count the times, between 1870 and 1914, that it was said by the qualified and unqualified—mostly the unqualified: “The Prussian victory was won by the schoolmasters.”—I imagine that people today will no longer be so ready to speak anywhere in such a fashion, any more than the truth of this other assertion will be insisted upon in the light of present events. But in this intellectual age, when people are so clever, they are not willing to notice the contradictions to be found in life. Facts play very little part in the intellectual life, but they must do so if the intellect is to be permeated with fresh spiritual content. Then, indeed, it will be manifest that a paralysing process, a decadent process, is appearing in men, which must be overcome by new spiritual knowledge. In the past: men must be said to have sensed, experienced, something of a healing nature in the knowledge surging up from the physical body. In future they will have to learn to see in the development of intellect the cause of disease, and to look to the spirit for healing. The source of healing must indeed be found again in science. This necessity, however, will arise from an opposite direction, when it can be seen how external life, even when proficient in knowledge, makes for sickness in men and must be counteracted by the healing principle.