12. Spiritual Science as a Life's Work

I only mention this because the construction of this College of Spiritual Science is now giving rise to more opponents of spiritual science here and there, and because it may be an outward sign of how spiritual science is already finding understanding, that the construction of this college could go ahead, so that such an artistic symbol of what spiritual science stands for can exist in the world. Those who want to be opponents of spiritual science, however, always put forward the argument that they say: Who are they, these followers of spiritual science? Judgmentless people! People who are easily swayed by faith or authority! But usually the people who talk like this are people who would very much like others to listen to their authority or to what they regard as authority! And because the adherents of spiritual science do not do this, but have attained a certain impartiality, which is the only thing that counts in spiritual science, these people are opponents. Impartiality, freedom from the prejudices of a materialistic or otherwise dogmatic worldview, will be necessary if one wants to understand spiritual science. And with this understanding, one will call into the soul the gifts of life in the moral, cognitive, and volitional realms, as was indicated today, for those who really engage more intimately with this spiritual science. But those who feel and grasp its living life will become increasingly aware of one thing: this spiritual science is connected with what must give humanity the new lifeblood, the spiritual lifeblood, that is necessary for its future. Even if what is connected with this spiritual science causes some teething troubles — as it is meant here, this spiritual science is, after all, still in its infancy — there is no justification for everything that appears to be right. One thing may perhaps be said at the end, especially today, when this lecture concludes the winter series. Something that tempts us from outside, something that could lead us inwardly to advocate spiritual science in the same way that one is led to other spiritual currents — that is not really what prompts the spiritual researcher to speak, what makes him try to bring this spiritual science to his fellow human beings; but solely the realization that with this spiritual science, the genuine, true, and fruitful goods of life, for which every soul that wants to understand itself must hunger, could enter into the human soul, and that this human soul, even if it does not yet know it today, longs for these goods of life, that it must have them if it is not to wither away. This is the feeling that imposes itself on the representative of spiritual science, which lives in him as he represents it. And with this confession I would like to conclude these winter lectures: