32. The Origin of Man

GA 68b/1907-10-31/p014 ·1907-10-31 · 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.

Let us look at this in a little more detail, [so that our minds can form certain concrete ideas in the process]. You all know that when the European immigrants first moved to the American continent, they encountered an indigenous people [there], a people who are believed [in natural historical thinking] to represent earlier stages of the present peoples. From a European point of view, they were certainly at a low level of civilization back then, but if you take such an absolute point of view, you can go very wrong in your judgment. Let's imagine a scene to illustrate this. The Europeans have not always managed things so well. They have not always chosen the best means to exterminate the free man. One of the last chiefs [of the free people] who came from the areas from which [the Native Americans] were expelled in North America [was one of the last] to face a European conqueror, a leader of a European culture. The inhabitants of America had been deprived of their lands, including the tribe to which that Indian chief belonged. [The scene took place not so long ago.] The people had been promised land for what was taken from them, and it had not been kept.

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Cite: GA 68b/1907-10-31/p014 · edition English