{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 61/1912-03-21/p003-p005","extent":"range","passage_number":3,"through":5,"paragraph_count":3,"first_locus":"GA 61/1912-03-21/p003","last_locus":"GA 61/1912-03-21/p005","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"title":"The Nature of Eternity","date":"1912-03-21","location":null,"alignment_confidence":"medium","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"not_established","translator":null,"identified_edition":"eLib2016","book_title":"Human History in the Light of Spiritual Investigation","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA061/English/eLib2016/19120321p01.html","evidence":null,"reason":"no_translator_named","note":"Neither the lecture's own page nor rsarchive's lecture list names a translator for it. 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He speaks there of reincarnation, of the repeated earthly lives experienced by the human soul, and continues somewhat as follows. Why, he asks, should this doctrine, so obvious in primeval days to the soul of man and one of its earliest treasures, while the soul was still uncorrupted by all kinds of theorising—why should this doctrine be less true than many other doctrines which in the course of time have been accepted as the result of philosophical speculation? After plainly indicating how this theory of repeated earthly lives is the only reasonable one for the human soul, Lessing says we might well expect that any unprejudiced man, willing to let the true nature of the soul work upon him, would grow accustomed to the doctrine—were it not for two things. We are certainly eager to know what Lessing meant by these two things that hindered the human soul from accepting the doctrine of repeated earthly lives. Lessing, however, never finished his sentence, having presumably been disturbed. He breaks off with the words: ‘were it not for two things’, and a colon. Nowhere in his writings, moreover, do we find anything to tell us what he considered these two things to be, although all kinds of speculations have been advanced by scholars who have made a special study of his work.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":262,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/61/1912-03-21/p003","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1912-03-21","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 61/1912-03-21/p002","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/61/1912-03-21/p002"},{"locus":"GA 61/1912-03-21/p003","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/61/1912-03-21/p003"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","length_check":{"de_words":297,"en_words":267,"ratio":0.9,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. 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An unattributed translation cannot be weighed as a witness: you cannot tell which hand made the choices in it. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 61/1912-03-21/p002","GA 61/1912-03-21/p003"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"medium","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."}},{"passage_number":4,"locus":"GA 61/1912-03-21/p004","text":"Now perhaps our conscience may allow us to assume that Lessing was most probably thinking of two things generally repellent to people when reincarnation is mentioned—two impulses rising up in the soul against the idea. One impulse may be expressed thus: whatever may be maintained by any form of spiritual science in favour of reincarnation, one thing is certain—that in normal consciousness we have no recollection of having lived before on Earth. Therefore, even should repeated earthly lives be in accordance with truth, they would seem to be of no significance for human consciousness and must therefore appear to it as an arbitrary hypothesis. That, for many souls, is certainly one of the objections to the idea of reincarnation. The second arises from a sense of justice towards oneself. Repeated earthly lives require an acceptance of destiny—whether we are fortunate or unfortunate, gifted or not in worldly affairs—as a consequence of what we have done in previous lives; so that, to a far greater extent than is generally believed, we ourselves would be the makers of our good fortune and abilities, or the reverse. Many souls may well exclaim: ‘If I have to accept my destiny, if my earthly existence is indeed burdened with that, have I got to accept also that I myself—the Ego within me—has in earlier lives on Earth created the destiny in which I am now involved?’ This is what could be called a man's sense of justice towards himself.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":244,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/61/1912-03-21/p004","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1912-03-21","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 61/1912-03-21/p004","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/61/1912-03-21/p004"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","length_check":{"de_words":328,"en_words":244,"ratio":0.74,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. 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See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}},{"passage_number":5,"locus":"GA 61/1912-03-21/p005","text":"Anyone who delves more deeply into Lessing's ways of thinking and into his whole nature, making it part of his own soul will not doubt that this pioneer of the reincarnation theory meant to indicate these two objections to it. In the course of our study of eternity and of man's soul in connection with it, it will be well to pay attention to the facts just described. So now we will once again call to mind something said by the German philosopher Hegel about eternity—how if eternity belongs by nature to the human soul, it must certainly not reveal itself only after death, but must be capable of being experienced during life on Earth. Hegel puts it like this: Eternity cannot begin for the soul only at death but must belong to it already during earthly life. If we seek it in man's soul, if we seek to know how eternity lives in us and how we can investigate it by looking into our own depths, why should it not reveal itself at once, if, in the sense of Spiritual Science, it is so intimately bound up with the soul?","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":191,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/61/1912-03-21/p005","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1912-03-21","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 61/1912-03-21/p005","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/61/1912-03-21/p005"},{"locus":"GA 61/1912-03-21/p006","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/61/1912-03-21/p006"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","length_check":{"de_words":514,"en_words":439,"ratio":0.85,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. 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Er sagte: Sollte denn diese Lehre, da sie in den urältesten Zeiten der Menschenseele einleuchtete, als diese noch nicht durch allerlei Gedankenspekulationen verdorben war, da sie also sozusagen zu den primitivsten Gütern der Menschenseele gehörte, deshalb weniger wahr sein als so manche andere Lehre, welche im Laufe der Zeit durch philosophische Spekulation oder dergleichen sich dieser Menschenseele ergeben hat?- Und nachdemLessing deutlich darauf hingewiesen hat, daß eben für die Seele diese Lehre von den wiederholten Erdenleben des Menschen die einzig sinnvolle sei, da meinte er, es wäre wohl die Aussicht vorhanden, daß diese Lehre sich bei allen denjenigen einleben könnte, die wirklich unbefangen das Wesen der Menschenseele auf sich wirken lassen, wenn nicht zwei Dinge wären. Nun ist man gewiß gespannt, was Lessing unter diesen zwei Dingen, die gegenüber der Lehre von den wiederholten Erdenleben hindernd für die Menschenseele eintreten sollen, gemeint habe. Aber siehe da, Lessing hat diesen Satz nicht voll ausgeschrieben, er ist durch irgend etwas gestört worden, so daß ihm der Satz mit den Worten abbricht: «... wenn nicht gleichsam zwei Dinge wären:» mit einem Doppelpunkt. Und wir finden dann nicht in seinen Schriften einen Ausspruch von ihm selbst, was er eigentlich als diese zwei Dinge angesehen hat. Die Lessing-Gelehrten haben allerlei Spekulationen darüber angestellt, was etwa Lessings Gedanke beim Hinschreiben dieses Satzes gewesen sein könnte.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":283,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/61/1912-03-21/p003"},{"locus":"GA 61/1912-03-21/p004","passage_number":4,"text":"Nun, vielleicht braucht man sich keine so großen Skrupel darüber zu machen, wenn man annimmt, daß Lessing höchstwahrscheinlich jene beiden Dinge gemeint habe, welche den meisten Menschen zunächst aufstoßen, wenn von der Lehre der wiederholten Erdenleben die Rede ist. Aus zwei Impulsen heraus sträubt sich sozusagen diese Menschenseele gegen eine solche Idee. Der eine läßt sich etwa so ausdrükken, daß man sagt: Wie es sich nun auch mit dem verhalten möge, was etwa aus irgendeiner Geisteswissenschaft heraus für die Lehre von den wiederholten Erdenleben vorzubringen sei, das eine stehe doch fest, daß das normale Bewußtsein kein Gedächtnis, keine Erinnerung an schon durchlebte Erdenstufen habe. Daher scheine es zum mindesten, selbst wenn es einer Wahrheit entspräche, daß es solche wiederholten Erdenleben gibt, daß diese für das menschliche Bewußtsein selber bedeutungslos seien und daher für das normale menschliche Bewußtsein eine Art willkürlicher Hypothese darstellen. - Das ist gewiß bei vielen Seelen, die sich gegen die Annahme der wiederholten Erdenleben empören, einer der Impulse. Der zweite der Impulse dürfte aus dem heraus gegeben sein, was man nennen kann das Gerechtigkeitsgefühl des Menschen gegenüber sich selbst. Die wiederholten Erdenleben machen es notwendig, daß man annehme, daß sozusagen unser Schicksal, die Art und Weise, wie wir mehr oder weniger glücklich oder unglücklich, begabt oder unbegabt in die Welt hereingestellt sind, eine Folge dessen ist, was wir selber als Ursachen dazu in früheren Erdenleben gelegt haben, so daß wir sozusagen selber in einem weit umfassenderen Sinne, als man es gewöhnlich meint, die Schmiede unseres Glückes, unserer Fähigkeiten oder unseres Unglückes und unserer Unfähigkeiten wären. Da sagt sich wohl manche Seele: Wenn ich schon mein Geschick hinnehmen muß, wenn es sich schon belastend auf mein Erdendasein legt, so soll ich auch noch dazu annehmen, daß ich selber, das heißt dieses Ich, das in mir wohnt, in früheren Erdenleben die Ursachen zu diesem Geschick herbeigeschafft habe, in welches ich jetzt verstrickt bin. — Das ist, was man nennen könnte das Gerechtigkeitsgefühl des Menschen gegen sich selbst.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":328,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/61/1912-03-21/p004"},{"locus":"GA 61/1912-03-21/p005","passage_number":5,"text":"Wer Lessings sonstige Gedanken, sein ganzes Wesen durchforscht und es seiner Seele zu eigen macht, der wird wohl kaum zweifeln, daß Lessing, dieser Bahnbrecher der Lehre von den wiederholten Erdenleben, in gewisser Beziehung auf diese zwei Einwände hat hinweisen wollen, und es ist wohl gut, wenn wir gerade bei einer Betrachtung über das Wesen der Ewigkeit und über die Natur der Menschenseele und ihres Zusammenhanges mit der Ewigkeit auf diese Tatsachen, die eben charakterisiert worden sind, aufmerksam machen. Denn noch einmal sei auch am heutigen Abend an den Ausspruch des deutschen Philosophen Hegel erinnert, der ja in dem Zusammenhange der bisherigen Vorträge schon erwähnt worden ist: Wenn die Ewigkeit eine Eigenschaft der Menschenseele sein soll, so muß sich diese Eigenschaft innerhalb der Natur der Menschenseele nicht etwa erst nach dem Tode zeigen, sondern sie muß sich erleben lassen im irdischen Dasein selber. - Hegel spricht, man möchte sagen, das Charakteristische aus, daß die Ewigkeit für die Seele nicht erst nach dem Tode beginnen könne, sondern sie müsse eine ihr schon im Erdenleben eingepflanzte Eigenschaft sein.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":175,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/61/1912-03-21/p005"},{"locus":"GA 61/1912-03-21/p006","passage_number":6,"text":"Wenn man aber die Eigenschaft der Ewigkeit in der Menschenseele suchen will, wie sie in uns lebt, wie wir sie erforschen können beim Einblick in unser eigenes Seelenleben, wie sollte sie sich nicht gerade an dem zeigen lassen, was so innig verbunden ist mit dieser Menschenseele im Sinne der Geisteswissenschaft. Die bisherigen Vorträge haben gezeigt, daß diese innige Verbindung besteht mit dem, was man das Hinausgehen der Menschenseele in ihrem Schaffen und Wirken über das einzelne Dasein zwischen Geburt und Tod nennen kann, gerade zu dem, was wir eben zusammenfassen in der Idee von der sogenannten Wiederverkörperung, den wiederholten Erdenleben, und in der Idee von dem Karma, das heißt von dem Hereinwirken der Ursachen aus früheren Leben in unser gegenwärtiges Leben und von den Ursachen, die wir selber jetzt für unser zukünftiges Leben schaffen. Wir müssen die Menschenseele verknüpft denken mit diesem ganzen Ursachengewebe, müssen sie verknüpft denken in ihrem gegenwärtigen Leben mit dem, was sie in früheren Daseinsstufen erfahren hat, und mit dem, was sie in zukünftigen Daseinsstufen noch erfahren wird. So kann uns denn die Betrachtung des gegenwärtigen Lebens der Menschenseele zu einer Anschauung führen über das vergangene und über das zukünftige Leben. Und wenn man nicht den Blick auf irgendeine abstrakte Idee von Ewigkeit richtet, sondern auf die wirkliche, sich in sich erfassende Menschenseele sieht, dann wird man vielleicht zu etwas kommen, was zu einer Charakteristik des Wesens der Ewigkeit führen könnte. Denn sollte es nicht, um einen Vergleich zu gebrauchen, aussichtsvoller sein, das eigentliche Wesen einer Kette dadurch zu erforschen, daß man von Kettenglied zu Kertenglied geht, und nicht so die Kette nähme, wie sie war, als sie ein Strich, eine Linie noch war? Das Letztere wäre zu betrachten, wenn man auf die Ewigkeit direkt losgehen würde, während das Erstere in Frage kommt, wenn man die Menschenseele ins Auge faßt, wie sie sich im einzelnen Leben darstellt als ein Kertenglied unter wiederholten Kettengliedern, die sich zu der gesamten Kette zusammenschließen, die uns dann das vollkommene, das vollständige Leben des Menschen durch das Erdendasein hindurch darstellen.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":339,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/61/1912-03-21/p006"}],"beads":[{"from":[2,3],"to":[2,3],"confidence":"medium"},{"from":[4],"to":[4],"confidence":"medium"},{"from":[5,6],"to":[5,6],"confidence":"medium"}],"note":"Paired by the paragraph aligner; each language numbers its own paragraphs. A bead at either end of the span can carry text beyond it (the `from` numbers show what each bead covers)."}}