{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 273/1919-01-19/p035","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"We might picture this to ourselves, my dear friends; suppose someone were now to read this *Homunculus* of Hamerling's which appeared at the end of the eighties of the nineteenth century. I have given many lectures about it, even before the war I actually spoke of it, not without a certain significance. Let us suppose then that someone reads Hamerling's *Homunculus* and lets work upon him what Hamerling imagines as the evolutionary progress of his Homunculus. He thought it out at that time, when men had already broken away from Goethe and all that he gave, and wished to hear no more of it. Hamerling represented the evolution of his Homunculus, how he was completely under the sway of materialistic thinking, how he lived in a world where people did not enrich themselves with spiritual treasure but became millionaires instead. Homunculus was a millionaire. He pictured the world where men treat even spiritual matters with frivolity, the world in which journalism—with respect be it mentioned—that was already developing, has since sunk yet deeper into the slough. We assume then that someone reads this *Homunculus*, and he might say: Why, yes, this Hamerling who died in 1889, had, when he wrote his *Homunculus*, with his physical eyes actually only seen mankind as it then was, hurrying on its chosen path. He might continue: Had people then taken seriously what Hamerling emphasises in his Homunculus, had they let it work upon them a little more deeply and not just as a literary production, but as something to be taken in earnest, then indeed they would not have been surprised to learn that, because of men being as they then were, our present world-catastrophe had of necessity to arise. This is what anyone reading *Homunculus* today might say to himself. What is there in the development of this world-catastrophe to astonish us, when a writer in the eighties of the last century was able to represent the man Homunculus in this way? But, underlying this representation of man, of Homunculus, is at the same time the appeal not to stop short at the life that can give us only Homunculism, but to cross the abyss where Spiritual Science speaks of the supersensible knowledge that alone can change Homunculus into Homo. And so it might be said: Mankind is placed in the Homunculism which, in the scent we are today presenting, finds itself in a world the man of today is not very eager to enter—in a world leading to the region of the Phorkyads, between Homunculism and Mephistophelianism. Goethe divined this and represented it in his Faust; he also divined that a path must be made that will avoid the crags of fantastic, abstract mysticism, as it avoids the other crags of a phantom-like conception of nature, remote from all reality,a path that leads to supersensible knowledge where fresh social impulses will be found.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"12. In Place of Homunculism and Mephistophelianism","site_heading":null,"date":"1919-01-19","location":null,"word_count":481,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/273/1919-01-19/p035","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"George Adams","identified_edition":"UNK1930","book_title":"The Problem of Faust","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA273/English/UNK1930/19190119p01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row"},"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/273/1919-01-19/p035"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/273/1919-01-19/p035","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},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1919-01-19","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 273/1919-01-19/p040","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/273/1919-01-19/p040"},{"locus":"GA 273/1919-01-19/p041","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/273/1919-01-19/p041"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","anchors","reader"],"reader_german":["GA 273/1919-01-19/p040","GA 273/1919-01-19/p041"],"length_check":{"de_words":481,"en_words":481,"ratio":1.0,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 273/1919-01-19/p040","passage_number":40,"text":"Man könnte sich eines denken: jemand läse jetzt den Hamerlingschen «Homunkulus», der am Ende der achtziger Jahre des 19. Jahrhunderts erschienen ist, diesen «Homunkulus», über den ich ja manchen Vortrag gehalten habe, wahrhaftig auch vor dem Kriege nicht ohne eine gewisse Bedeutung darüber gesprochen habe. Nehmen wir an, es läse jetzt jemand diesen Hamerlingschen «Homunkulus», er lasse auf sich wirken, was Hamerling sich denkt von dem Werdegang seines Homunkel. Das alles hat er gedacht am Ende der achtziger Jahre, als schon gebrochen war mit allem Goetheanismus, als schon die Menschen nichts mehr wissen wollten von allem Goetheanismus. Hamerling hat dargestellt den Werdegang des Homunkel: wie er ganz von materialistischem Denken erfaßt wird, wie er lebt in einer Welt, in der man sich nicht bereichert durch geistige Schätze, wohl aber Billionär wird -— Homunkel wird Billionär -, in der man sich in der frivolsten Weise selbst mit der geistigen Welt zu schaffen macht, in der sich schon ausbildet, mit Respekt zu vermelden, jener Journalismus, der seither noch viel furchtbarere Versumpfung erfahren hat. Man nehme an: jetzt läse jemand diesen Hamerlingschen «Homunkulus». Nun würde er sich vielleicht sagen: Ja, Gott, dieser Hamerling - er ist 1889 gestorben - hat eigentlich doch nur mit physischen Augen, als er seinen «Homunkulus» schrieb, die Menschheit gesehen, wie sie damals war auf den Wegen, denen sie zueilte. Nehmen wir an — so könnte ein solcher sagen, der jetzt diesen «Homunkulus» liest —, die Leute hätten damals so etwas, wie das ist, was Hamerling in seinem «Homunkulus» zeigt, ernst genommen, sie hätten es wirklich ein bißchen auf sich wirken lassen, nicht bloß als literarisches Produkt, sondern sie hätten es ernst genommen, dann hätten sie sich wahrhaftig nicht verwundert, wenn jemand gesagt hätte: Aus dieser Menschheit muß diese Weltkatastrophe entstehen ganz notwendigerweise. - Das kann sich jemand sagen, der heute den «Homunkulus» liest. Was ist weiter verwunderlich daran, daß diese Weltenkatastrophe entstanden ist, da ein Dichter der achtziger Jahre den Menschen Homunkel in dieser Weise darzustellen vermochte?","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":329,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/273/1919-01-19/p040"},{"locus":"GA 273/1919-01-19/p041","passage_number":41,"text":"Aber der Ruf, der da liegt in dieser Darstellung des Menschen Homunkel, ist zu gleicher Zeit der, nicht stehenzubleiben bei dem Leben, das doch nur ein Homunkeltum gibt, sondern hinüberzusetzen über den Abgrund da, wo Geisteswissenschaft redet von den übersinnlichen Erkenntnissen, die erst den Homunkulus in einen Homo verwandeln können. Und so könnte man sagen: In den Homunkulismus, der sich in einer Welt, in die sich der Mensch heute nicht so gern versetzen will, befindet in der Szene, die wir heute darstellen, zwischen den Homunkulismus und den Mephistophelismus, der aber in die Region der Phorkyaden führt, ist die Menschheit hineingestellt. - Goethe ahnte das und stellte es dar in seinem «Faust». Er ahnte schon, daß ein Weg gebahnt werden muß, der ebenso sehr die Klippe phantastisch-abstrakter Mystik vermeidet wie die andere Klippe wirklichkeitsfremder gespensterhafter Naturanschauung, der aber hinführt ins übersinnliche Erkennen und aus dem übersinnlichen Erkennen heraus auch wiederum soziale Impulse findet.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":152,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/273/1919-01-19/p041"}],"english":["GA 273/1919-01-19/p035"],"method":"length","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":481,"en_words":481,"ratio":1.0,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","anchors","reader"],"reader_german":["GA 273/1919-01-19/p040","GA 273/1919-01-19/p041"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.01,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":6706,"original_word_count":6662,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"George Adams","identified_edition":"UNK1930","book_title":"The Problem of Faust","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA273/English/UNK1930/19190119p01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row"},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 273/1919-01-19/p040","GA 273/1919-01-19/p041"],"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."}}