14. The Development of the German Soul

And other overall souls work in a very similar way. For example, we can consider an overall soul that has had a truly far-reaching effect throughout Europe from the south. Everyone can imagine for themselves how this overall soul essence has worked. I am referring to the collective soul of Christianity. Just as one can speak of the soul of a people, one can also speak of the collective soul of Christianity. What streams forth from Christianity, what it works out, permeates and shapes human beings, has done so for a long, long time and will continue to do so. But here too we are dealing with a process that must be put together in a similar way. We are dealing here with a process that draws its strength from what lives in the human being between the change of teeth and sexual maturity, mixed again with what lives there from the forty-second to the forty-ninth year. Of course, it must be much stronger forces, organizing man, than even the folk soul character, which, so to speak, shapes him religiously. Those who consider the strength with which religions have shaped people will not find what I say unreasonable.