IV. The Origin of Evil

GA 55/1906-11-22/p016 ·1906-11-22 · English MediumMedium alignmentSome paragraph re-numbering between this translation and the German original — the locus may slip by a paragraph or two.
Record: unknown. 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.

Without Lucifer, human self-consciousness would never have become mingled with love. Thinking and wisdom now became servants of the self; a person could choose between good and evil. But love ought to be directed to the self only in order to place it in the service of the world: The rose should adorn itself only to adorn the garden. That must be deeply engraved in the hearts of those who seek higher development. In order to have a feeling for what is good, we must also have a feeling for what is bad. The gods endowed us with enthusiasm for what is higher; but without evil we would have no feeling of self, no free choice of the good, no freedom.

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Cite: GA 55/1906-11-22/p016 · edition English