{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 202/1920-12-12/p007","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"How can the world view of those who in the course of time during the three to fourth century and even longer have developed and even remain religious, spiritual, yet, as soon as they are let free to abstractions, feel the soul-spiritual life tightly bound to the physical, how can such a method of examination rise above the pure progression of the generation line, the evolution of generations? Here we have to become serious regarding anthroposophic wisdom. From this viewpoint we need to not merely look back at people or the number of people in the present, insofar this person or these people directly have inherited characteristics from their forebears, but we need to be practical and clear that in every one of these people there is a soul-spiritual element which had lived for a long time in the soul-spiritual world before it came in to a particular physical body. When we have a person present in front of us, we need to say to ourselves: we look lovingly at him, he actually displays inherited qualities from previous generations. We also observe him soul-spiritually. He has a soul which has absolutely nothing directly to do with previous generations, which also have not had much to do with generations even further back, who in a much earlier time than now had been on the earth, and who, during an entire row of generations, developed in such a way that he didn't stand directly in relation to the earth's evolution, who, during the course of generations, had been in the soul-spiritual world. It is one-sided to consider mankind only according to inherited characteristics of generations. It is finally also only an illusion to consider mankind or historical origins this way. It is argued that one would understand these things, but in fact they are not understood at all in reality. There is theorizing about this and that, what mankind is doing at present, how they live there, the affect of this or that inherited quality. Yet if we could be sufficiently impartial we would in innumerable situations, yes, everywhere, say: what a person takes on from generation to generation of further developing physical qualities, is not by any means clear in one or other area, whether with individuals or with some kind of nation, or race type of relationship. If one wants to come to the reality, if one doesn't allow the continuation of abstraction, when one is also a materialist—which is after all only an abstraction, even a materialistic abstraction—then one must consider how someone living in the present had taken what had been in his bloodline, and be clear about the forces within his soul, which had lived for a long time in the spiritual world before his reincarnation into this body.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Spiritual Science, History, Reincarnation, Culture, Examples","site_heading":null,"date":"1920-12-12","location":null,"word_count":462,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/202/1920-12-12/p007","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Hanna von Maltitz","identified_edition":"Singles","book_title":"Spiritual Science, History, Reincarnation, Culture, Examples","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA202/English/Singles/19201212p02.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/202/1920-12-12/p007"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/202/1920-12-12/p007","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 202/1920-12-12/p007","passage_number":7,"text":"Wie sollte denn auch eine Weltanschauung wie diejenige, die sich in dem Lauf der letzten drei bis vier Jahrhunderte und schon länger herausgebildet hat und die, selbst wenn sie noch so religiös-spiritualistisch ist, doch, sobald sie vom Abstrakten loskommt, praktisch das seelisch-geistige Leben eng an das physische gebunden fühlt, wie sollte denn eine solche Betrachtungsweise hinauskommen über dieses bloße Verfolgen der Generationenreihe, der Generationenentwickelung! Aber hier ist es gerade, wo Ernst gemacht werden muß mit dem, was uns die anthroposophischen Erkenntnisse geben. Von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus müssen wir ja nicht bloß hinblicken auf den Menschen oder auf eine Anzahl von Menschen der Gegenwart, insofern dieser Mensch oder diese Menschen die von den unmittelbar vorangehenden Generationen vererbten Merkmale haben, sondern wir müssen uns praktisch klar sein darüber, daß in jedem einzelnen Menschen ein Seelisch-Geistiges vorhanden ist, das ja eine lange Zeit in der geistig-seelischen Welt durchlebt hat, bevor es in diesen physischen Leib hereingekommen ist. So daß, wenn wir einen gegenwärtigen Menschen vor uns haben, wir uns sagen müssen: Wir sehen ihn leiblich an; da trägt er allerdings die vererbten Merkmale, von den früheren Generationen herrührend. Aber wir sehen ihn auch geistig-seelisch an. Da trägt er in sich eine Seele, die ja zunächst gar nichts zu tun hat mit den unmittelbar vorangehenden Generationen, die auch mit weiter zurückliegenden Generationen nicht viel zu tun hat, die in einer sehr viel früheren Zeit als die jetzige hier auf der Erde war, die also, während eine ganze Reihe von Generationen sich entwickelt hat, gar nicht im unmittelbaren Zusammenhange mit der Erdenentwickelung gestanden hat, die, während diese Generationen abgelaufen sind, in der geistig-seelischen Welt war. Es ist ja einmal eine Einseitigkeit, den Menschen nur nach den in der Generationenfolge vererbten Merkmalen zu betrachten. Es ist ja schließlich auch nur eine Illusion, wenn man den Menschen oder das geschichtliche Werden so betrachtet. Man redet sich eigentlich nur ein, daß man die Dinge verstünde; man versteht sie in Wirklichkeit gar nicht. Man theoretisiert darüber, das oder jenes, was die Menschen in der Gegenwart machen, wie sie sich darleben, das rühre von den oder jenen vererbten Qualitäten her. Aber würde man unbefangen genug sein dazu, so würde man an unzähligen Stellen, ja überall sich sagen müssen: Was man da annimmt als von Generation zu Generation sich fortentwickelnde physische Qualitäten, das erklärt irgendeine Lage der Gegenwart durchaus nicht, weder beim einzelnen Menschen, noch bei irgendeinem volks- oder rassenmäßigen Zusammenhang der Menschen. Wenn man zur Wirklichkeit kommen will, wenn man nicht in dieser Abstraktion stehenbleiben will, die, wenn sie auch materialistisch ist, dennoch nur eine Abstraktion ist — eben eine materialistische Abstraktion -, dann muß man Rücksicht darauf nehmen, wie dasjenige, was sich in der Gegenwart darlebt, neben dem, was in der Blutsströmung zurückliegt, sich erklärt aus dem, was in den Kräften der Seelen liegt, die eine lange Zeit hindurch in der geistigen Welt gelebt haben, bevor sie zur Wiederverkörperung in diese Leiber heruntergestiegen sind.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":485,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/202/1920-12-12/p007"}],"english":["GA 202/1920-12-12/p007"],"method":"length","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":485,"en_words":462,"ratio":0.95,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":0.95,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":5149,"original_word_count":5416,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Hanna von Maltitz","identified_edition":"Singles","book_title":"Spiritual Science, History, Reincarnation, Culture, Examples","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA202/English/Singles/19201212p02.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 202/1920-12-12/p007"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}