{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 68c/1909-12-06/p022","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"Above all, in more recent times, no one has felt this so deeply as the person we have spoken about here many times before, who was as close to spiritual science as possible, who created the greatest poetic works, as Goethe. And a work by the later, older Goethe should serve as an illustration to what has been said today. Oh, Goethe knew clearly and distinctly that the way in which man confronts the truth depends on how he has developed in his own self. That truth is merely something objectively compelling was never Goethe's thought. That truth enlightens man all the more the more receptive he is, that was his fundamental conviction, which is little understood today. People come and say: Oh, we have long since gone beyond a certain way of grasping the truth. Science has led us to the point where we cannot help doubting that there is something spiritual in a living being. [Science has thoroughly driven out of us the belief that something spiritual is to be sought behind every material thing. It has driven out our belief in something like an etheric body or a life force, because science is close to showing how living substance can be composed of external chemical components. Don't you hear everywhere that we are told: We cannot recognize such fantasies as those presented by Theosophy, because our ideal is to produce protein, that is, something living, from dead matter in the laboratory. May a counter-question be asked here? After all the development of man, can what he expects about the composition of a living being decide anything? Can that decide anything for his beliefs about the spirit of the world? If you want to think about it, you can find external proof that nothing is decided about the belief in the spirit through something like the expectation that protein could one day be produced chemically in a laboratory. The one does not force the other at all, this can be proved historically. Ask what else people have believed in the past, for example, in earlier centuries, in the Middle Ages, they not only believed that they would succeed in synthesizing protein from carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and so on, they believed something quite different. Imagine the sentences in Goethe's Faust, where Wagner stands before the preparation of the homunculus; the ability to do this was a belief that existed in the Middle Ages. People believed that they could create something that was a small human being from external substances through the various processes they performed in the laboratory. However, this belief that they could create a human being from external substances did not cause these people to deny the spirit. Therefore, the denial of the spirit today does not arise from the compulsion of objective facts, but from the inability [to grasp the spirit] to rise within one's own soul to the kind of thinking that sees the conditions for professing the spirit. One must also consider such things, then one will understand what it meant that only the one who can work in the substance of the soul as the external naturalist works in the external substance can grasp the life of the soul.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"XXXI. The Mission of Truth","site_heading":null,"date":"1909-12-06","location":null,"word_count":536,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/68c/1909-12-06/p022","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"Goethe and the Present","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA068c/English/SOL2024/19091206p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/68c/1909-12-06/p022"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/68c/1909-12-06/p022","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 68c/1909-12-06/p022","passage_number":22,"text":"Das hat vor allen Dingen in neuerer Zeit keiner so tief gefühlt als derjenige, von dem wir hier schon öfter gesprochen haben, der der Geisteswissenschaft so nah als möglich gestanden hat, der die größten dichterischen Werke geschaffen hat, als Goethe. Und wie eine Illustration zu dem Gesagten soll uns heute dienen ein Werk des späteren, älteren Goethe. Oh, Goethe wusste klar und deutlich, dass die Art und Weise, wie sich der Mensch der Wahrheit gegenüberstellt, davon abhängt, wie er in seinem Ich selber sich ausgestaltet hat. Dass die Wahrheit bloß etwas objektiv Zwingendes ist, das war niemals Goethes Gedanke, dass die Wahrheit den Menschen umso mehr erleuchtet, je mehr er ihr Empfänglichkeit entgegenbringt, das war seine Grundüberzeugung, das wird heute wenig verstanden. Da kommen die Leute und sagen: Ach, über eine gewisse Art, die Wahrheit zu erfassen, sind wir längst hinaus. Die Wissenschaft hat uns dahin geführt, dass wir nicht umhinkönnen, daran zu zweifeln, dass etwas Geistiges in einem Lebewesen drinnen ist. [Die Wissenschaft hat uns gründlich ausgetrieben, hinter jedem Materiellen etwas Geistiges zu suchen.] Sie hat uns ausgetrieben den Glauben an etwas wie einen Ätherleib oder eine Lebenskraft, denn diese Wissenschaft ist nahe daran, zu zeigen, wie die lebendige Substanz sich zusammensetzen lässt aus äußeren chemischen Bestandteilen. Hören Sie nicht überall, dass uns gesagt wird: Wir können nicht solche Phantasterei anerkennen, wie die Theosophie sie zeigt, denn wir haben das Ideal, im Laboratorium aus toter Materie Eiweiß, das heißt Lebendiges herzustellen. Darf da vielleicht einmal eine Gegenfrage gestellt werden? Kann denn nach der ganzen Entwicklung des Menschen dasjenige etwas entscheiden, was er erwartet über die Zusammensetzung eines Lebewesens? Kann das für seine Bekenntnisse zum Geist der Welt etwas entscheiden? Wer nachdenken will, der kann einen äußerlichen Beweis dafür finden, dass gar nichts entschieden wird über das Bekenntnis zum Geist durch so etwas wie die Erwartung, man könne einmal im Laboratorium auf chemischem Wege Eiweiß herstellen. Das eine zwingt gar nicht zum anderen, das kann man geschichtlich beweisen. Fragen Sie einmal, was noch ganz anderes geglaubt worden ist, was zum Beispiel die Menschen in früheren Jahrhunderten, im Mittelalter etwa, geglaubt haben, die haben nicht bloß geglaubt, dass es ihnen gelingen werde, aus Kohlenstoff, Wasserstoff, Stickstoff und so weiter Eiweiß zusammenzustellen, die haben noch etwas ganz anderes geglaubt. Vergegenwärtigen Sie sich die Sätze im Goethe’schen Faust, wo Wagner vor der Bereitung des Homunculus steht; das zu können war ein Glaube, der im Mittelalter vorhanden war. Die Leute haben geglaubt, dass sie aus äußeren Substanzen durch die verschiedenen Verrichtungen, die sie machten im Laboratorium, so etwas herstellen könnten, was ein kleines Menschlein ist. Dieser Glaube, dass sie aus äußeren Substanzen einen Menschen herstellen können, hat aber diese Menschen gar nicht dazu veranlassen können, den Geist abzuleugnen. Daher rührt es gar nicht aus dem Zwang der objektiven Tatsachen her, dass heute der Geist verleugnet wird, sondern von der Unfähigkeit [den Geist zu erfassen], in dem eigenen Seeleninneren sich aufzuschwingen zu derjenigen Vorstellungsart, welche einsieht, welches die Bedingungen sind, sich zum Geist zu bekennen. Solche Dinge muss man auch ins Auge fassen, dann wird man verstehen, was es hieß, dass nur derjenige das Leben der Seele erfassen kann, der in der Seelen-Substanz so zu arbeiten versteht wie der äußere Naturforscher in der äußeren Substanz.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":540,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/68c/1909-12-06/p022"}],"english":["GA 68c/1909-12-06/p022"],"method":"identity","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":540,"en_words":536,"ratio":0.99,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","meaning","anchors","audit"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.04,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":10593,"original_word_count":10222,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"Goethe and the Present","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA068c/English/SOL2024/19091206p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 68c/1909-12-06/p022"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. 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