14. The Development of the German Soul

Let us take a time when the influence of another national soul on the German national soul was more effective, let us say the thirteenth century. Because the soul of the German people has been poured out throughout the entire period of the development of the human soul, from the age of twenty to thirty-five or thirty-six and even later, because it is spread throughout this entire period, it can also absorb influences from outside through all the qualities I have mentioned. We shall see in a moment how particularly shaped these influences are. We have seen here how Christianity has flowed into them. We could demonstrate these peculiar words in words, in word transformations, which flowed in as foreign words at the time when the French folk soul nature had attained a particular strength, as in the thirteenth century. Then quite different words come in, words that grasp the inner soul, words that are grasped only by the subconscious and undergo their development, foreign words, yes, today one no longer knows that they are foreign words; they will therefore escape the fate of being eradicated as foreign words. Words like “price” and “clear” come in in the thirteenth century. The word “klar” (clear) does not exist before the thirteenth century; “Preis” (price), “etwas preisen” (to praise something), “einen Preis haben” (to have a price) comes in at that time. These are words that are connected with the soul being. What we have recognized in the French folk soul being has an effect on the German folk soul being.