53. Eurythmy Performance

And one can say, if one is unbiased enough and does not close one's mind to important facts that signify a social psychology, one can say: Certainly, in the modern era there has been a lot of gymnastics and a lot of similar activities have been practiced, but whether one can directly affirm that through this – even if perhaps individual has become physically stronger and perhaps also in a physiological sense, and perhaps some things have become healthier, but whether one can also affirm that as a result, the human being as a whole, as a physical, spiritual and mental being, has become stronger, is more equipped with initiative, is more involved in world affairs than in the first gymnastics-less times, that cannot be immediately asserted. This question will not be answered in the affirmative. For after all, our time shows that we live in the epoch of sleeping souls, that we have been driven by gymnastics, and also by many other things that go beyond gymnastics – what has not been produced by sport! But the fact that the result of all this would be a strengthening of the whole human being, namely a strengthening of the initiative of human beings, cannot be affirmed. For it is all too clear that people have become more and more closed in on themselves, more and more inwardly lethargic, and that this inward-closed-ness and this inward-lethargy, this sleepiness of soul, is connected with the misfortunes that have manifested themselves so horribly in the last five to six years. We will only emerge from this, to which we must point, when we strive to strengthen the human being not only through physiological gymnastics, but also through psychological eurythmy, through soulful movement.