38. The Ideals of Humanity and the Ideals of the Initiates
GA 68b/1906-01-16/p012
·1906-01-16
·
English
HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Da keine professionellen Stenogramme vorliegen, handelt es sich oftmals um notizenhaft festgehaltene Zusammenfassungen oder Berichte.» (Since no professional shorthand transcripts exist, these are often summaries or reports kept in the form of notes.). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 68b). The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.
Hegel says: You believe that some ideal is an abstraction? For me, an ideal is not an abstraction, but something very concrete. — Idealism is not only the knowledge of ideals, but it is a mood, a feeling that must come to life in us, that must become a life force. The ideals of humanity are therefore the deepest forces at work in humanity. The great geniuses of humanity, the poets, composers, painters, sculptors, all these guides of humanity are recorded in history, which some understand better and others less well. They stand at the top as the guides of humanity; but those from whom they draw their strength stand behind them. Those who are hardly more than a name to humanity – namely, the “great initiates” – stand overlooking and dominating the times.
Read this passage in another edition