14. The Development of the German Soul

Something must be added to these considerations about the physical, mental and spiritual development of the human being if one wants to look at the human being as he emerges, emerging from the national soul. We must add an understanding that this human soul is something composite, despite all the objections of so-called monism. I have often said that if, according to the view of certain people, one wanted to be a monist and not a dualist with regard to the soul and bodily life, then one would also have to regard water as a single entity and claim that it cannot be regarded as something composed of hydrogen and oxygen! Of course, one can be a very good monist if one regards water as composed of hydrogen and oxygen, just as one can be a very good monist if one summarizes the whole of human life as consisting of soul and spiritual elements on the one hand and bodily and physical elements on the other. In this way, the human being remains as he appears to us in the outer physical world, a monad, just as water is a monad.