Third Lecture

Now, in this age of agnosticism, one could also encounter a human phenomenon that presents itself as the living embodiment of the question: How can one live with what agnostic thinking regards as an absolute, irrefutable truth? For those who wanted to grapple with this significant riddle of life in the last third of the 19th century, this human phenomenon must have seemed in some way like a riddle of the times. By this human phenomenon, I mean Friedrich Nietzsche. For everyone in the last third of the 19th century, Friedrich Nietzsche was a human phenomenon who embodied what came to mind when one searched for the sources of knowledge of anthroposophical life. This is what is unique about Friedrich Nietzsche's personality: that, in a sense, his soul absorbed everything that could be experienced in the most outstanding worlds of thought and feeling that were pushing against agnosticism in the last third of the 19th century.