The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Section for the Arts of Eurythmy, Speech, and Music

On Tuesday evening, February 17, 1925, at 8 p.m., there will be a recital of older and newer poems. Choral poems will be spoken in a new way. The main content is formed by poems by Dr. Friedrich Doldinger. Reciters will be Edwin Froböse and Käthe Hacker and other participants in the Course for Creative Speech.

Marie Steiner
Dr. I. Wegman
Rudolf Steiner

Dear teachers of the Free Waldorf School!

It is a great hardship for me not to be able to be among you for so long. And now I have to place important decisions in your hands, in which I have naturally participated since the school was founded. It is a time of trial by fate. I am with you in spirit. I cannot do more now if I do not want to risk extending the time of physical hindrance to infinity.

We are united in thought, since we have to be separated in space. — What we have already accomplished together now permeates the teaching staff. It circles through their own council, Since the council, which would so gladly come, does not have its wings free.

So we want to strive all the more for community of spirit, as long as nothing else is possible. The Waldorf School is a child of the care, but above all, it is also a symbol of the fertility of anthroposophy within the spiritual life of humanity.

If the teachers carry the consciousness of this fertility in their hearts, then the good spirits that prevail in this school will be able to take effect, and divine spiritual power will prevail in the teachers' actions.

With this in mind, I would like to send you all my warmest thoughts and greetings.

I am enclosing a short letter for the students, which I would ask you to read out in class.

With warmest regards,
Rudolf Steiner

Dear students of the Rudolf Steiner School,

Much to my regret, I will not be able to be among you for a long time. And yet it always gave me the greatest satisfaction when I was able to spend some time among my dear students. As long as it is not possible, I will send many warm and good thoughts to you.

You have also given me great pleasure by sending me your work. I send you my warmest thanks for this.

I hope I can appear among you again soon.

Kindest regards,
Rudolf Steiner

Crystal

[Mineral] bounded by flat surfaces. Differentiation: 6 systems. The basic form of a crystal system is that whose surfaces pass through the end points of the axes.

1) Tesseral system: Based on 3 axes of equal length that are perpendicular to each other. Plenotesseral (holohedral) systems refer to those in which the three axes have perfect symmetry. The basic shape of the octahedron (Fig. 1 of Plate XIX) is bounded by 8 equilateral triangles. The rhombic dodecahedron (Fig. 3) is bounded by 12 equal rhombi. The hexahedron (cube) (Fig. 2) is bounded by 6 equal squares. Tetrakis Hexaeder (Fig. 4) begr. v. 24 gleichschenklig. Dreieck. Gest. ist e. Würf. a. dess. Seiten j.e. 4seitige Pyramide afgesetzt ist. Triakisoktaeder (Fig. 5) (Pyramidenokt.), begr. v. 24 gleichschenkl. Dreiecken. Octahedron with an attached side. 3-sided pyramid; Icosahedra (Fig. 6) based on 24 deltoids; Hexakisoctahedron (Fig. 7) (tetracontaoctahedron) based on 48 unequal-sided triangles. Each complete form is divisible into 2 geometrically equal halves, which are different in position (positive, negative). The tetrahedral half is obtained by extending the faces of the alternating octants. It breaks down: octahedron into 2 tetrahedra (Figs. 8 and 9), triakisoctahedron into 2 deltoid dodecahedra (Fig. 11), the icositetrahedron into 2 trigondodecahedra (Fig. 10). The hexakisoctahedron into 2 hexakistetrahedra (Fig. 12). Dodecahedral halves a.d tetrakishexahedron u. hexakisoktahedron dch expansion z. their intersection: pentagondodecahedron (Fig. 13), dyakisoktahedron (Fig. 14). Combinations. Cryst. in which faces of the system occur, e.g. when the corners of the cube are truncated by faces with the position of the octahedron or the 6 corners of the tetrahedron are replaced by tetrahedral faces (Fig. 15/18).

2) Tetragonal system based on 3 perpendicular axes, 2 of equal length. Pyramid of 8 isosceles triangles (Fig. 19). Prism with square cross-section (the square boundary surface is called basic pinacoid) (Fig. 20). Ditetragonal pyr. arises when instead of the 8 triangles, 2 occur. Analogous to the ditegial prism (Fig. 21, 22). Deuteropyr. and deuteroprism arise when the sides of the base of the pyr. or the cross-section of the prism are not through the end points of the axes, but rather parallel to them (Figs. 23, 24). Hemispherical figures: tetrahedron sphenoid (half of the tetrahedron pyramid) (Fig. 25).

3) Rhomb. S. bezog. a. 3 ungleich. u. einand. senkr. Achs. D.e. wird as Hauptachse gewählt, dann v.d. and. d. läng. Makroachse, d. kürz. Brachyachse grundgest. Pyr (Fg 28) Prism (Fig 29). Macrodoma prism with 4 faces parallel to the macroaxis, terminated on both sides by faces parallel to the brachyaxis (brachypinacoid) (Fig. 30). Brachydoma that in the plane of the brachyaxis (Fig. 31).

4) Monoclinic. S around a. 3 uneven axes. 2 lower oblique angle inclined, 2 and. perpendicular E.d. both oblique main axes. 2. oblique Klinoachse, d. 3. af both perpendicular Orthoachs. Grundgest. Pyr. begr. v. 8 uneven triangle (Fig. 34) Prisma (Fig. 35) Klinodoma (4 z. Kl. achs. par. Fläch. (36) Orthodoma (Fig. 37). 5) Triklinisch. S. bez. a. 3 u. schief. Wink. gem. Achs. Eine Hptachse d. beiden and. Makro-, Brachyachs. Subject Pyr. (Fig. 39) the rest analogous to the rhombic system.

6) Hexagonal. See 3 equivalent axes, which intersect at 60° and the 4 larger or smaller angles on the two opposite sides (main axis). Basal hexagonal pyr. with a regular hexagonal (Fig. 41). Prism (Fig. 42). The dihexagonal form corresponds to that of the rhombic system. Deuteropyr. and Deuteroprism. e., against the ordinary Pyr. by 30° used. position. surfaces intersect not the axis, but parallel d. alternating surfaces of the hex. pyr. extended given rhombohedron (Fig. 45). B. 6 equal rhombohedra. The dihex. pyr. gives a. half. given scalene scalene. B. 12 unequal triangles bounded by twins, resulting from the lawful intergrowth of crystal individuals. Special features of the Karlsbad twins, caused by intergrowth: 2 monoclinic prisms (feldspar), Kr Druse and Druse: crystalline [mineral] of the same kind, incomplete.

Mineral

Inorganic, solid, rare liquid homogeneous natural body, neither through the life process of organic beings nor through human arbitrariness. Entry: Elements (metals, amines) ores (sulfides, oxides, sulfides; sulf. again in gravel, luster, blends), stones (sclerites, felsites, zeolites, phyllites, steatites), haloids, psytogenids.

Alluvium

Pierer's Conversational Encyclopedia, 7th ed., vol. 1, 1888

Alluvial formations, recent formations, alluvial land, geological modern times), rock formations that arise in the present or in historical times through the mediation of water and air. They participate in the formation of the solid earth's crust and thus provide us with a means of recognizing the geological laws of formation in general through inference. For we have long since abandoned the assumption that the individual geological formations were separated by long periods of time and arose through violent revolutions. Today, we are convinced that the older formations were formed exactly according to the same laws that we still observe today in the formation of alluvial deposits. Of course, we can only follow a part of these new formations, because the larger part occurs on the sea floor and will only be uncovered when it rises. If we could also observe these formations, it would most likely be determined that all types of original layered rocks are still being created today. All these newest deposits contain remains of organisms that still live today or at least lived in historical times.

After formation, the A. can be divided into mechanical, chemical and organic, and also into freshwater and marine formations.

The mechanical deposits include: river alluvium, delta formations, dunes and sandbanks, volcanic tuff formations and deposits on the sea floor. River alluvium is formed by the deposition of sand and mud, as well as the debris carried by rivers. Most Alpine lakes are becoming shallower as a result of this process. The deltas of the Nile, the Ganges [etc.] have originated in this way. The sea deposits are partly also formed by the material that the rivers bring into the sea and that is not always deposited directly at the mouths, partly by the action of the sea itself, which washes away material on one coast and deposits it on the other. On flat coasts, this enlargement occurs as dune or mud formation or in the form of sandbanks. The volcanic tuff formations owe their origin to the lapilli and fine, dust-like ash ejected by the volcanoes, which are deposited in the immediate vicinity. Sometimes these products are carried into the sea and deposited on the seabed, along with marine organisms, which then, as fossils, are a valuable addition to such geological records.

Chemical deposits are formed when the substances contained in the springs either precipitate directly at the mouths of the springs or in water pools together with clay and marl. The former is the case with carbonic acid lime earth, iron oxide [etc.]. This results in tufa, 'travertine, siliceous tufa, siliceous sinter and bog iron ore. If we do not find this type of rock formation in older formations, this is not proof that it did not take place there, because the rocks formed in this way undergo such a transformation over time that it is difficult to recognize the shape corresponding to their original formation process in later times. Deposition in calm water accumulations is the case with the salts dissolved in the springs in salt lakes.

Among the organic formations, peat formation is to be considered first. Certain swamp plants grow over each other, with the lower dead ones becoming a (often 15 m) thick layer of a felt-like plant tissue. In this we see the beginning of coal formation, as indeed the lower parts do become similar to brown coal due to the pressure of the upper parts. We also have to consider driftwood deposits as the origin of more recent coal formation. They consist of rivers flowing through forested areas, carrying tree trunks into the sea, where they are then seized by the currents and deposited somewhere. Furthermore, submarine forests, which can be observed below the present sea level (especially on the English coasts), consisting of stuck tree trunks that have probably been transported to their present location by a lowering of the ground, also belong here. Coral reefs and islands that are still forming and growing in the Indian and Pacific Oceans also belong here. Buch and Ehrenberg have shown that the presence of such reefs is always associated with a submarine crater rim, on which the coral animals erected their burrows.

From the formations described here, the laws can be deduced according to which all new formations and transformations of materials on the earth's surface take place. One may only base the assumption on the fact that the laws of formation were always the same, and one will simply, by not allowing any restriction with regard to the times of formation - and nothing forces one to do so - get a unified view of the geological structure and development of our earth. According to this, all the same structures have been created over time by those forces that we still find constantly active today. This view is one of the foundations of our present-day geology.

Barrande

Pierer's Conversational Encyclopedia, 7th ed., vol. 2, 1889

(spr. barangd'), Joachim, Baron v., geologist and paleontologist, born 10/8 1799 Saugues (Upper Loire), †5/10 1883 Castle Frohsdorf; educator of Count Chambord, last private scholar in Prague. He made a significant contribution to the research of the silurian system in Bohemia. B. wrote: “Système silurien du centre de la Bohême” (Paris and Prague 1852-77, Suppl. 1872; the first part is a major work on trilobites); “Colonie dans le bassin silurien de la Bohême” (Paris 1860); “Defense des colonies” (ibid. and Prague 1861) [etc.

Basalt

Pierer's Konversations-Lexikon, 7th ed., vol. 2, 1889

Bohemian &edi£, m; Danish Basalt, Seilesten, g; English basalt; French basalte, “n; Gr. Baoavirng, m; Dutch basalt, n; Italian basalto, m; Latin basanites, ae, m; Russian 6asanpis, m; German Basalt, m; Spanish basalto, m; Hungarian somla; cserkö.

A rock of dark green to black color, characterized by columnar, often remarkably regular forms. It sometimes happens that two pieces of column are shaped at their ends so that they connect as if by a hinge (hinge-B.); the spherical-shelled masses are called spherical-B. It consists of labradorite, augite and magnetite and shows a dense (so-called cryptocrystalline) groundmass, in which grains of augite, hornblende, magnesium mica and olivine are grown. Depending on the rock that is predominant in the groundmass, the following are distinguished: feldspar, nepheline and leucite basalts. The following varieties of B-s are distinguished according to texture: 1) common B., which contains no or very few inclusions of crystals, grains [etc.]; 2) porphyry-like B. (B-porphyry) with distinct crystals or crystalline inclusions of olivine, augite, hornblende or feldspar; 3) vesicular or slaggy B., with empty vesicle rims, also called B-lava, found at volcanoes; 4) almond stone-like B. (B-mandelstein), with vesicular cavities that are partially or completely filled with zoolite, calcite, green earth; 5) wacken-like B., basalt wacke; a highly decomposed or never crystalline B., dense, soft, almost earthy, brownish, greenish or yellowish in color, often contains the crystals mixed with the basalt in a very fresh state, as well as the fillings of the bubble spaces (basalt almond stone). Basalt belongs to the volcanic rocks, i.e. to those that have been formed in a fiery way, in such a way that they have risen from the earth's interior as a fiery liquid mass and solidified on the surface. This theory was proposed because its occurrence does not allow for the assumption that it was created by the forces to which the formations of any kind owe their origin. It permeates almost all formations, so it must have broken through them and been inserted between other rocks, as evidenced by the widely spread layers. Sometimes, the occurrence clearly shows how individual pieces broke away from the upward-pushing mass. From the changes that the latter caused in the surrounding rock, one can see the high temperatures of the upward-pushing mass. However, the most common occurrence is in the form of isolated cone mountains, rarely contiguous mountain masses. It can then be clearly seen from the dike under the mountain cone that the mass has formed an opening through which it has flowed upwards and accumulated above it as a cone mountain. The B. easily disintegrates at the contact surfaces of the columns. Between it and the surrounding rocks, there are often iron ore deposits, which in any case were formed by leaching of the B.-s, which is then found decomposed. The soil formed by the weathering of the B-s is very fertile due to its potassium content. Lush green beech forests, with magnificent, diverse flora, can usually be found on the B-kuppen, and wide stretches owe their fertility to decomposed basaltic subsoil, e.g. the Wetterau and Bohemia. The columnar or spherical segregation usually makes the B. unsuitable as a building block, where one cannot layer and use the long columns as such, e.g. in strong fortress walls and bank structures, where it is then almost eternal, as many buildings on the Rhine prove. It is also excellent as a paving stone and road construction material and is used for these purposes frequently and with preference. Individual columns are used as cornerstones, for balustrade posts [etc.]. The Egyptians used them, though rarely, to make sculptures, lions and sphinxes, which have come down to us. As a flux, it is sometimes used in blast furnaces and as an additive to the glass mass of green bottles. B. is only ever found in small areas and usually in individual domes scattered around a larger central mass, which is thought to be the central eruption point. The most important B areas in Central Europe are: the Auvergne in France, where the first classical studies of B areas were carried out and where they offer magnificent natural spectacles, for example in the giant dam of the Volant, a riverbank formed by upright B columns. In England, for example, B. occurs on the Hebrides, where the Fingal Cave on Staffa offers a well-known and rightly praised natural wonder, a 35m high grotto into which one enters from the sea. It is assumed that the surf gradually knocked out the lower columns and thus formed the cave. In Ireland, County Antrim is a well-known B area. The Faroe Islands also show it. In Germany, we find B-e in the Eifel and in the Siebengebirge, with beautiful, columnar segregation, then in the Vogelsberg and the Rhön, in northern Bohemia and in the Sudetes. Some smaller domes in some places, e.g. at Katzenbuckel in the Odenwald, which is known for its beautiful nepheline dolerite, at Kaiserstuhl in the Breisgau, in the Ore Mountains, Lusatia, northern Hesse and other places.

Literature: Lasaulx, Der Streit über die Entstehung des B-s (Verl. 1869); Zirkel, Untersuchungen über die mikroskop. Zusammensetzung u. Struktur der B-steine (Bonn 1870).

Berthierite

Pierers Konversations-Lexikon, 7th ed., vol. 2, 1889

Mineral, a naturally occurring compound of sulfur antimony with sulfur iron (FeS + Sb? S?) in stalk-like and fibrous aggregates of a steel-gray color. Hardness 2-3; specific weight 4-4.3. It can be found near Braunsdorf (Saxony), near Chazelles (Auvergne), near Anglar (Depart. de la Creuse); it melts easily on contact with coal, releasing antimony vapors. In France, it is used as antimony ore (yield of up to 60% antimony).

Beryl

Pierer's Conversational Encyclopedia, 7th ed., vol. 2, 1889

(the emerald of the ancients, who also called other green gemstones by that name), silicate mineral in hexagonal crystals that are columnar, individually grown or combined into druses. Hardness 7-8, specific gravity 2.6-2.7, colorless, but usually greenish white, celadon green, oil green, mountain green and colored. Vitreous luster, transparent to translucent. Conchoidal fracture. Negative double refraction, with a cross often separated into two hyperbolas. Chemical composition: Be'(AP)Si°O'*, usually with a little iron oxide. The beautiful B. from the island of Elba is said to contain only 3.3% B-earth. Emerald is the green variety of quartz from Habachtal (Salzburg), Muzo (Columbia), Rosseir (Egypt), the Takowoia River (Ural), Mourne Mountains (Ireland). All other varieties are called beryl. The almost opaque crystals of common beryl can reach a length of 2 meters and a weight of 30 hundredweight. The peculiar behavior of the B-s when heated makes them suitable for cutting in a certain direction to serve as a real gem. Occurrence: Mursinka, Schaitanka, Miask on the Ural, Altai, Grafton between Connecticut and Marimac. - The emerald, as well as the blue and yellow B., are very popular as precious stones.

Berzelit

Pierer's Conversational Encyclopedia, 7th edition, vol. 2, 1889

(Kühnit), rare mineral, lime and magnesia arsenate with some manganese oxide. Occurs near Longbanshytta in Sweden.

Besteg

Pierer's Conversational Lexicon, 7th ed., vol. 2, 1889

the boundary surface of an ore vein against the surrounding rock, if a thin strip of clay or loam lies between them.

Beudant

Pierer's Conversational Encyclopedia, 7th ed., vol. 2, 1889

(pronounced bödäng), Francois Sulpice, mineralogist and physicist, born September 5, 1787 in Paris, died December 10, 1850 in the same city. In 1811, B. became professor of mathematics at the Lyceum in Avignon, in 1813 professor of physics at the Collège in Marseille, and in 1815 sub-director of the mineral collection of Louis XVIII. From that time on, he devoted himself specifically to mineralogy. He undertook a mineralogical expedition to Hungary in 1818, which he described in: “Voyage minralogique et geologique en Hongrie” (Paris 1822, 3 vols., with atlas). His ‘Traite elömentaire de mineralogie’ (Paris 1814, 2nd ed. 1830; German Lpz. 1826) was even more influential. In 1824 B. became a member of the Paris Academy. He specialized in the relationship between crystallization and chemical composition, the survival of marine molluscs in fresh water, specific weight and the chemical analysis of minerals. B. also wrote: “Traite @l&mentaire de physique” (6th ed. Paris 1838); “Cours elementaire de mineralogie et de g&ologie” (Paris 1841, 16th ed. 1881; German Stuttg. 1858).

Beyrich

Pierer's Conversational Encyclopedia, 7th edition, vol. 2, 1889

1) Ferdinand, chemical technician, born November 25, 1812 in Berlin, August 29, 1869 the same; since 1838 pharmacist, he later devoted himself to chemical technology, especially the production of chemicals for photographic purposes, and thus became the founder of this now flourishing industry in Germany. B. also played an outstanding role in the founding of the “Photographic Association” (1864) and the “Association for the Promotion of Photography” (1869).

2) Heinrich Ernst, geologist and paleontologist, born August 31, 1815 in Berlin; professor of mineralogy and geology at the University of Berlin, member of the Academy of Sciences since 1853, and now also head of the Geological Survey. Among his writings, the following are particularly noteworthy: “De goniatitis in montibus rhenanis occurrentibus” (Verl. 1837); “Krystallsysteme des Phenakits” (ibid. 1857); “Ueber die Entwicklung des Flözgebirges in Schlesien” (ibid. 1844); “Untersuchungen über Trilobiten” (ibid. 1846, 2 vols.). His achievements in publishing an accurate geological map of Germany deserve special mention. His investigations relate mainly to the Rhenish slate and greywacke mountains. B's wife, born 9/10 1825 Delitzsch, is known as a writer of books for young people under the name Klementine Helm.

Dyasrormation

Pierer's Konversations-Lexikon, 7th ed., vol. 4, 1889

(Permian formation; see the table “Dyasformation”), in geology the uppermost layer of the Paleozoic period, i.e. the layer directly above the coal formation. The name Permian formation comes from the fact that it is particularly rich in the Permian province in Russia. There it covers an area the size of France. It is called Dyas because in Germany and England it can be divided into two main layers: the Rotliegendes and the Zechstein. The lower layer, or Rotliegendes (Lower New Red Sandstone in English), which on average reaches a thickness of 500 m, and in Bavaria even up to 2000 m, consists mainly of beach formations, namely red sandstone and conglomerates; the upper division, or Zechstein (magnesian limestone in England), consists of bituminous slate, which contains a lot of copper, which is why this formation is also called copper mountains; and gray, impure, marine limestone. In North America, Russia, and other countries, this division into two layers does not exist; in Austria, only the Rotliegendes is present. Where the Rotliegendes occurs so rarely, it is a freshwater formation; but where it is covered by the Zechstein, it is a beach formation, while the Zechstein itself is a marine product that was deposited during continued subsidence. In the Rotliegendes, we distinguish a lower Rotliegendes, which is rich in gray sandstone and slate clay, and an upper Rotliegendes, where red sandstones and conglomerates alternate with layers of slate clay. The mostly round pebbles in the conglomerates are cemented by a quartziferous, clayey or sandstone-like binder colored red by iron oxide. They are mostly debris from older rocks. The sandstones are red, green or gray and have a calcareous or kaolinitic binder. In the upper Rotliegendes in the Mansfeld area, we find white and gray layers (Weißliegendes or Granliegendes) with blood-red or bluish-red slate layers or red slate in between. Coal also extends into the Rotliegendes, but not to the same thickness as in the hard coal period. Organic remains are very rare in the Rotliegend. Particularly noteworthy is the Archegosaurus, which first appears in the Carboniferous period and can be considered the progenitor of the dinosaurs. It was found in 1847 by Dechen in three different species in the Saarbrück coal field near the village of Labach between Strasbourg and Trier. The Archegosaurier were air-breathing reptiles and had feet with distinct toes. The limbs were weak and apparently served only for swimming or crawling. The largest of this species is the Archegosaurus Decheni (Fig. 1). Of the plant forms of the Rotliegendes, the following are worthy of mention: Calamites gigas, Walchia piniformis (Fig. 13). The Zechstein formation is already richer in organisms. The marl slate contains beautiful specimens of fossil fish: Palaeoniscus Freieslebeni Ag. (Fig. 2), Platysomus gibbosus Blainv. (Fig. 3), Pygopterus, Caelacanthus, all of which have melon scales with an asymmetrical tail fin. The overlying fossiliferous limestone contains: Gervillia keratophaga (Fig. 4), a bivalve mollusc, Spirifer undulatus Sow. (Fig. 6), a brachyopod form, Orthis pelargonata Schl. (Fig. 7), Productus horridus Sow. (Fig. 8), found in magnesian limestone, and Fenestella retiformis Schl. (Fig. 9), a bryozoan form. Of the crinoids, we highlight: Poteriocrinus, Cyathocrinus (e.g. C. ramosus Schl., Fig. 10), Pentremites, Actinocrinus, Platycrinus. One of the uppermost layers is the crystalline or concretionary limestone; it contains Schizodus Schlotheimii Sow. (Fig. 5) and Mytilus septifer. Of the plant forms, we also highlight the ferns Neuropteris flexuosa Brogn. (Fig. 11) and Sphenopteris trifoliata Brogn. (Fig. 12), which, however, appear in more varied forms in the coal period. The Rotliegend period saw many eruptions, which gave rise to the numerous felsite porphyries, granite porphyries and porphyries that are found interspersed with the sedimentary rocks here. The D. is the uppermost of the Palaeozoic periods; at the end of it most of the organic forms that had existed until then had died out, and a new, more diverse organic world emerged.

Literature: Geinitz, Dyas (Lpz. 1861, Nachträge dazu 1880 u. 1882); Speier, Die Zechsteinformation des westlichen Harzrandes (Berl. 1880); Weiß, Fossile Flora der jüngsten Steinkohlenformation u. des Rotliegenden im Saar-Rhein-Gebiet (Bonn 1869-72).

Ice Age

Pierer's Conversational Encyclopedia, 7th ed., vol. 4, 1889

Now, however, we also find erratic blocks in the North German Plain, which, due to their angular shape and their scratches and cracks, can hardly owe their present position to anything other than glacial action. In addition, there is also boulder clay, a mass without layers, which, like the ground moraine of the glaciers, looks like water deposits. At the same time, however, we encounter very distinct diluvial formations, which clearly indicate that these areas were once covered by water. The latter circumstance led to the so-called drift theory, according to which the erratic blocks in the North German Plain also came down only on floating icebergs from Scandinavia and remained on the seabed when the ice melted. The most likely scenario, however, is that the areas of Central Europe were covered by a shallow sea, and that the effect of the glaciers combined with that of the water. Where the ice masses at the glacier terminations were thicker than the depth of the sea, they could not break away and float away, but advanced on the lake floor, depositing the unstratified layers of boulder clay beneath them. Where this did not happen, the pieces of ice swam from the edge of the glacier into the sea, the frozen ground moraine (see glacier) thawed and fell together with larger rock debris into the depths, where it settled in regular layers. As in Europe and Asia, glaciers in North America once seemed to have spread much further than they do today. Glacial striations and scratches can be found in Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick and in the northern regions of the United States. Moraine trains and erratic blocks also bear witness to this glacial development. The fact that only the northern slopes of the mountains and hills bear traces of glaciers suggests that the glaciers extended from north to south.

There have been attempts to assume that the southern hemisphere had a simultaneous glaciation as in the northern hemisphere. In particular, Agassiz claimed to have found evidence of this during his trip to South America in 1865; however, it all turned out to be erroneous. The erratic boulders in South America may just as well have originated at an earlier or later time than those in North America, so that the southern earth flow, if it exists at all, must in any case not coincide with the northern one. There have also been attempts to prove the existence of even older earth flows than those at the end of the Tertiary period. Gastaldi believed he had discovered traces of it in the Miocene layers of Turin, Godwin-Austen in the Cretaceous of England and in the coal formations of France, Escher v. d. Linth in the Cretaceous of the Alps, Ramsay in the Dyas of England, Sorby in the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland. All these claims should be treated with caution until they have been more precisely confirmed. For the time being, it is only geology that can explain the E. of the northern hemisphere that has undoubtedly existed; because, in contrast to the currently accepted (Kant-Laplace) view that the present temperature conditions of the Earth have arisen through gradual cooling from a fiery-liquid state, it seems a complete contradiction that the much warmer periods, which must have preceded the ice age without fail, were followed by a cold period as described. Various explanations of the ice age have now been attempted. The most important of these are as follows: 1) that our solar system would alternately pass through warmer and colder parts of space; 2) changes in the amount of heat radiated; 3) greater height of mountains; 4) the transformation of African lake basins into desert and, as a result, the transformation of the winds blowing over the northern regions, and consequently the change of the winds from cold to warm in the regions over the northern regions; 5) changes in the distribution of land and water on the earth's surface; 6) periodic changes in the position of the earth's axis. Of all these assumptions, only the last two are to be considered; the first three are unfounded hypotheses, not supported by any facts; the fourth is refuted by Dove's objection that, given the current extent of the Sahara basin, if it was a lake basin, that explanation would only suffice for a field located further east than the Alps. But even if one assumes a greater expansion of the Sahara, one could perhaps explain the ice formations of the Alps, but by no means those of the Vosges, England, Scotland and Scandinavia. But one can explain very significant climatic changes if one assumes a change in the distribution of water and land. This can be seen from the fact that in the southern hemisphere, where there is much more water than in the northern hemisphere, the temperature conditions at the same latitude are significantly different. On the southern tip of South America, on the coasts of Chile, glaciers descend to the sea at the same geographical latitude as our Alps. Now, however, it follows from what has been said earlier that there must have been a sea area between the two regions, that of the Alps on the one hand and the English, Scottish and Scandinavian glacier areas on the other. At the same time, the nature of the coral islands indicates that, in all likelihood, a larger mass of water must have prevailed in the northern hemisphere during that period, and a larger land mass in the southern hemisphere. Darwin has indeed demonstrated from the structure of these islands that the land must have sunk by 1000-3000 feet in a more recent geological period. A lowering of the ground in the southern hemisphere was, however, always accompanied by a drainage of water from the north, so that we are dealing with a true relocation of the seas, which makes this explanation possible. A picture of the distribution of land and water in the northern hemisphere during the ice age, based on what came before, would be something like the following: Europe formed an elongated island stretching from east to west; the northern coastal countries of this continent, such as Holland, northern Germany, Denmark, Poland, and large parts of Russia, were underwater; the English, Scottish, and Scandinavian glaciers jutted out of this sea like islands. The steppes of Siberia between Altai and the Urals were also covered by this sea, and there was probably a waterway from this sea to the Mediterranean. The southern shore of the great sea was probably located along a line from the Urals via Tula, through Poland, along the Sudetes and the Giant Mountains, via Thuringia, then turning northeast to the Harz Mountains, along the northern edge of the latter through southern Hanover, Westphalia to Bonn and then through Belgium to Calais. Between the Lusatian and the Ore Mountains, there seem to have been some bays extending into Bohemia.

In addition to the explanation just given, there is another one based on astronomical conditions. Due to the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit, the Earth does not always move at the same speed, but faster when it is close to the Sun and slower when it is far from the Sun. Therefore, the hemisphere that experiences winter during the time when the sun is close to it experiences a longer winter than the other hemisphere. But now the axis of the earth changes its position in relation to the sun; therefore, the time of a longer winter will not always occur for the same hemisphere. The earth's axis describes a full revolution in 21,000 years, and during this time the winters and summers will be the same twice (once for the northern hemisphere and once for the southern hemisphere). But for 10,500 years the northern hemisphere and for the same length of time the southern hemisphere will have longer winters. But if the winter is considerably longer than the summer in one hemisphere, then the mean annual temperature can drop so much that a cold period is possible. According to astronomical calculations, however, this difference can increase to a maximum of 36 days. Both this and the previous explanation are possible, and the E. could have arisen from the interaction of the two causes. In either case, we must assume that the ice ages in the northern and southern hemispheres did not occur simultaneously, which, as mentioned, is not substantiated by anything.

Literature: Heer, Die Urwelt der Schweiz (Zurich 1865); Völker, Eine auf physische u. mathematische Gesetze begründete Erklärung der Ursache der E. (St. Gallen 1877); Kjerulf, Die E. (Berlin 1878); Penck, Die Vergletscherung der deutschen Alpen (Lpz. 1882); Ders., Die E. in den Pyrenäen (ibid. 1885).

Fraas

Pierer's Konversations-Lexikon, 7th ed., vol. 5, 1890

2) Oskar F., geologist, born 17/1 1824 Lorch (Württemberg), first studied theology and then turned to the natural sciences. Until 1847 he was a curate in Balingen and in the same year went to Paris to hear d'Orbigny and Elie de Beaumont. In 1848 he became a curate in Leutkirch, then a pastor in Lauffen, and since 1853 he has been a curator of the natural history cabinet in Stuttgart. F. focused his main activity on the geological research of southern Germany. In 1864, F. traveled in the Orient, where he paid particular attention to the Jura of Palestine. In 1866, he made the important discovery of the Schussenried human remains, described in his writing: “The finds at the source of the Schussen in Swabia” (Stuttgart 1867), and in 1871 further cave excavations. Furthermore, as a Stuttgart city councilor, he devoted himself to the excavation of artesian wells, the question of sewerage and waste disposal, took over the management of the Württemberg Wine Improvement Society and, in 1875, explored Lebanon in a geological sense on behalf of Rustem Pasha, Governor General of Lebanon. In 1872 ff. F. was co-chairman of the German Anthropological Society. He wrote: “Die nutzbaren Mineralien Württembergs” (Stuttgart 1860); “Fauna v. Steinheim, mit Rücksicht auf die miocänen Säugetier- u. Vögelreste” (ibid. 1870); “Aus dem Orient” (ibid. 1867); “Vor der Sündflut” (3rd ed. ibid. 1870); “Three Months in Lebanon” (2nd ed. ibid. 1876); “Geological Observations in Lebanon” (ibid. 1878); “A&tosaurus ferratus, the armored bird lizard from the Stubensandstein near Stuttgart” (ibid. 1877); “Württemberg's Railways with the Country and People at the Railway” (ibid. 1880); “Geognostic Description of Württemberg, Baden and Hohenzollern” (ibid. 1882).

Fritsch

Pierer's Conversational Encyclopedia, 7th edition, vol. 6, 1890

5) Karl v. F, geologist and traveler, born 11/11 1838 Weimar, since 1876 full Prof. of Geology at the University of Halle; studied natural sciences in Göttingen from 1860-62, traveled to Madeira and the Canary Islands in 1862, habilitated in Zurich in 1863, made a trip to Santorini in 1866, became a lecturer in mineralogy and Geology at the Senckenberg Natural History Museum in Frankfurt am Main; as its director, he traveled to Morocco in 1872 and came to Halle as a professor in 1873. He wrote: “Reisebilder von den Kanarischen Inseln” (Gotha 1867); “Das Gotthardgebiet” (Beiträge zur geologischen Karte der Schweiz, 15. Liefg., Bern 1873); “Allgemeine Geologie” (Stuttgart 1888); with Hartung and Reiß: “Tenerife, geologically and topographically presented” (ibid. 1867); with Reiß: “Geological description of the island of Tenerife” (Winterthur 1868).

Iron ore

Pierer's Conversational Encyclopedia, 7th ed., vol. 6, 1890

(gelbeisenstein, yellow glass head, yellow iron ochre, xanthosiderite), mineral from the group of sulfates, in kidney-shaped, tuberous forms, earthy, yellow ochre. Hardness 2.5-3; density 2.7-2.9; chemical composition: K?SO? + 4(Fe2)S'O” + 9H?O*. Deposits: Kolosoruck u. Tschermig, Bohemia; Modum, Norway. Used for smelting iron.

Geology

Pierer's Conversational Encyclopedia, 7th ed., vol. 6, 1890

Czech zemäzpyt, m; zemöväda, fi zemäslovi, n; Danish geologi, g; English geology; French géologie, f; Greek yealoyin; Dutch geologie, f; Italian geologia, f; Latin geologia, f; Swedish geologi, f; Spanish geologia, f; Hungarian földtan.

Geology (Greek, v. g Earth, lögos Science), the science of the structure and development of the solid earth's components. Concept and classification. Geology is divided into a descriptive part, geognosy, which familiarizes us with the composition of the earth in its present state, and a speculative part, geogeny, which shows us how this present state has gradually developed. Of general geology, the part that deals with the solid earth's crust, which is the only one accessible to us, is usually treated separately as special geology and divided into the following sections: 1) petrography (lithology), i.e. the study of the rocks that form the solid earth's crust; 2) geotectonics, i.e. the study of the layers (stratigraphy) and the conditions in which the rocks are found, and 3) the study of formations (historical G.), i.e. the study of the succession of layers, their gradual formation and their evolutionary relationships to present-day fauna and flora (petrefactology, paleontology, petrology).

History. The origins of geological science are to be found, on the one hand, in the myths and legends of nations about the origin of outstanding natural phenomena and, on the other hand, in the philosophical and theological views of the Bible and the older philosophers such as Empedocles, Megasthenes, Hekataeus, about the formation of the earth. Aristotle had already developed a complete geological hypothesis to the effect that the Earth is a large organism in which the various parts have a different degree of moisture at different times, and from this he concluded that land and water change periodically. Leonardo da Vinci concluded that the sea floor had once existed from the presence of fossils. In the Middle Ages, when science was completely dependent on theology, it was not possible to develop geology. This also required a thorough knowledge of minerals, in which direction the German physician Georg Agricola (1490-1555) broke new ground by founding scientific mineralogy. Fabius Colonna distinguished between land and sea conchylia in 1616. But the fame of having first introduced geology as a separate science belongs to Niels Stenon (1631-86), a Dane; in 1669 he published “De solido inter solidum naturaliter contento”, from which Elie de Beaumont provided an excerpt in the “Ann. des sc. nat.” in 1831 T. XXV. Stenon already recognized that the solid earth's crust consists of layers one on top of the other with characteristic fossils that have been brought out of their original position by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. He attributed the veins to the filling of crevices that were caused by those disturbances in the regular succession of the layers. The Englishman Martin Lister (1638-1712) explained the volcanoes by the decomposition and ignition of underground sulfur deposits. In his “Lectures on Earthquakes,” his fellow countryman Robert Hooke (1635-1703) tried to prove that all fossils come from extinct organisms. From the fossils in England, he concludes that this country was once covered by the sea. In his work “Iconographia lithophilocii britanici” (1689), Ed. Eloyd expresses the view that there are very specific fossils in each layer. Thus, the theory of index fossils, which was only established in the 19th century by V. Smith, was already present in his work. In his work “Essay towards a natural history of the earth”, John Woodward demonstrated that fossils originate partly from terrestrial and partly from marine organisms. He thus already contains an echo of the facies theory established by Voltz in the 19th century. In 1702, J. Petifer provided the first illustrations of plant fossils. In 1709, Gottfr. Mylius established a sequence of strata of the Thuringian Zechstein. In 1721, Ant. Valisneri expressed the view that the fossils had been deposited by the sea and the rivers, and that the Flood had not played a role in this. In 1740 Lazaro Moro published the book “Dei crostacei e degli alteri marini corpi che trovamo nei monti”. In 1756 Füchsel gained the view of an original horizontal stratification of all mountain layers, attributed the uneven stratification of the same to an uplift and displacement of the ground, and was the first to introduce the concept of formation. Also worthy of mention during this period are P.S. Pallas (1741-1811) and Horace de Saussure (1740-99). In 1780, Abr. Gottl. Werner created a completely new geognostic system. He was the first to observe the stratification and bedding of the rocks in more detail and developed the concept of formation in such a way that he understood it to mean a geological sequence of strata that had been formed under the same conditions. He regarded the formation of the solid earth's crust as purely Neptunian and volcanic activity as completely subordinate. Earthquakes are the cause of volcanic activity. He did not accept the uplift and subsidence of the layers. The layers should have formed completely regularly through successive submergence in water. He won a large number of students, although his theory was fiercely attacked. His opponents were Füchsel, Voigt, Charpentier, but especially the Englishman James Hutton (1726-97), who hypothesized that all crystalline rocks had risen up in a molten state. The two conflicting views of Werner and Hutton divided the geologists of the time into two strictly separate parties, who feuded with each other in the most violent manner.

William Smith (1769-1834) recognized the uniform stratification of the rocks in southeastern England on his numerous travels and skillfully used the fossils to identify the individual layers, thus laying the foundation for today's theory of formations. The Geological Society of London (1810) and the first geognostic map of England with exact profiles (1815) were the result of his efforts.

Of Werner's numerous students, Leopold von Buch (1774-1853) deserves special mention. His extensive travels enabled him to make observations on a larger scale. In Italy, and especially in Auvergne (1812), he became convinced that volcanoes must be something independent of terrestrial fires, and that the basalts, which are most closely related to the lavas, and whose aqueous origin he had once been the most ardent defender of, as well as granite, are volcanic formations. Here he formulated the idea of uplift craters, which, further developed, would soon lead to the idea of the most magnificent volcanic uplifts. Buch pointed out that the volcanoes of very different areas have a row-like arrangement, and that these rows correspond to large crevices from which they have emerged through underground forces. Buch also conducted numerous sensational investigations into porphyry and the transformation of limestone into dolomite through the penetration of volcanic magnesia vapors. Alex. v. Humboldt (1769 to 1859) gained important insights into volcanoes and earthquakes as well as the general geognostic conditions of those areas on his travels to America and Asian Russia. Educated at Werner's school, he initially advocated the Neptunian origin of basalts, like his friend L.v. Buch the Neptunian origin of the basalts, but then also joined the volcanic school. In France, despite the objective and commendable descriptions of domestic and foreign conditions by Faujas de Saint-Fond (1741-1819) and Dolomieu (1750-1801), perhaps in reaction to the hypothetical theories of the formation of the earth by Buffon and de la Mötherie, by d'Aubuisson (1769-1841), Heron de Villefosse (1774-1852) [etc.], introduced Werner's teachings. In Germany, it was especially A. Boue who adopted Hutton's ideas.

The most important investigations for the G. during this period were delivered by G. Cuvier and Alex. Brongniart; these were the first to establish the deviation of the organic remains even in the youngest periods of the present world, and this already undermined the sharp demarcation of the individual formations, explained by earth revolutions. v. Buch had already demonstrated secular uplifts and subsidence of large areas, but still assumed sudden dislocations for the elevation of the mountains. Here, for the first time, de la Beche and Poullet Scrope, but especially Karl von Hoff (1771-1837) in the prize-winning work “History of the Natural Changes in the Earth's Surface as Proven by Tradition”, pointed out the effect over longer periods of time, analogous to the changes in the solid earth's crust that are taking place today. Charles Lyell published his “Principles of Geology” in 1831-32, in which he demonstrated that the same results could be achieved by changing the distribution of water and land, by slowly raising and lowering the ground, as by completely hypothetical and unscientific catastrophes. Lyell cites the ongoing changes in their slow, but over the course of time powerful effects and explains them using many precisely executed examples, for which his observations collected on extensive travels came in handy. Without prejudice, he indicates the extent to which the effects of existing changes can be given and shows how volcanic forces can be used for the theory. The slow changes in the solid crust described by Lyell created a favorable ground for the metamorphism described by Bou&, and geologists rushed to investigate the details of this rapidly emerging developmental moment and to conduct the most in-depth, even chemical, investigations. Most successful in the exploitation of chemical processes in the service of geology was Bishop, who has the great merit of having placed chemistry in the service of geology. He was the first to point out the importance of chemical analysis in explaining the origin of geological processes. At present, the G. regards it as its task, through complete empirical knowledge of the composition of the entire earth's crust, as far as completeness is possible, to gradually understand the process of its formation.

Literature: Maps: Dumont, Carte geologique de la Belgique, 1:833333 and 1:160000 (1836-49); ibid., Carte geologique de l'Europe, 1:4000000 (Paris and Liege 1850); Dufrenoy and Elie De Beaumont, Carte geologique de la France, 1:500000 (Paris 1840); Gümbel, Geognostische Karte des Königreichs Bayern u. der angrenzenden Länder, 1:500000 (Munich 1855); Bach, Geognostische Übersichtskarte v. Germany, Switzerland and the neighboring countries (Gotha 1855, 9 sheets); Bach, Geological Map of Central Europe (Stuttgart 1859), 1:450000 (ibid. 1860); Staring, Geol. kaart van Nederland, 1:200000, with a summary map at 1: 1500000 (Haarlem 1858-67); Phillips, Geological map of the British Isles and adjacent coast of France, 1:1500000 (2nd ed. Lond. 1862); Studer u. Escher v. der Linth, Carte geologique de la Suisse, 1:760000 (2nd ed. Winterthur 1867; Übersichtskarte in 1:380.000, 2nd ed. ibid. 1872); Hauer, Geologische Übersichtskarte der österr.-ungar. Monarchie, 1:576000 (Vienna 1867-76, 12 sheets); Ders., Geologische Karte v. Austria-Hungary, 1:2026000 (4th ed. ibid. 1884); Dechen, Geognostische Übersichtskarte v. Deutschland, Frankreich, England u. den angrenzenden Ländern, 1:2500000 (2nd ed. Berl. 1869); Ders., Geologische Karte v. Germany, 1:2000000 (ibid. 1870); Marcon, Carte geologique de la terre, 1:23000000 (Zurich 1875); Carta geologica d'Italia, 1:1111111 (Rome 1881); Fraas, Geognostic wall map of Württemberg, Baden and Hohenzollern, 1:280000 (Stuttgart 1882); Geological Map of Sweden (1862 to the present, still incomplete), 1:5000; Theodor Kjerulf, Geologisk overtigts kart over det sydlige Norge (Christiania 1871). - Cf. also the article Geological Survey. Textbooks: Lyell, Principles of geology (Lond. 1830-1832; 12th ed. 1876, 2 vols.); idem, Elements of geology (ibid. 1838, 6th ed. 1865); Naumann, Lehrbuch der Geognosie (2nd ed. Lpz. 1858-72, unfinished); Quenstedt, Epochen der Natur (Tübing. 1861); Bischof, Lehrbuch der chemischen u. physikalischen G. (2nd ed. Bonn 1863-66); Vogelsang, Philosophie der G. u. mikroskopische Gesteinsstudien (ibid. 1867); Senft, Lehrbuch der Mineralien- u. Felsartenkunde (Jena 1869); Ders., Synopsis der Mineralogie u. Geognosie (Hannov. 1876 u. 78, 2 Tle.); Ders., Fels u. Erdboden (Münch. 1876); Stoppano, Corso di geologia (Mail. 1871); Pfaff, Allgemeine G. als exakte Wissenschaft (Lpz. 1873); Cotta, G. der Gegenwart (4th ed. ibid. 1874); Hauer, Die G. u. ihre Anwendung auf die Kenntnis der Bodenbeschaffenheit der österr.-ungar. Monarchy (2nd ed. Vienna 1877); Brauns, Die technische G. (Halle 1878); Daubree, Etudes synthetiques de g&ologie exp&rimentale (Par. 1879; German v. Gurlt, Brunswick 1880); Heer, Urwelt der Schweiz (2nd ed. Zurich 1879); Vogt, Lehrbuch der G. u. Petrefaktenkunde (4th ed. Brunswick 1879); Roth, Allgemeine u. chemische G. (Berlin 1879ff.); Dana, Manual of geology (10th ed. Philad. 1880); Gümbel, Grundzüge der G. (Kass. 1884 ff.); Leonhard, Grundzüge der Geognosie u. G. (4th ed., ed. v. Hörnes, Lpz. 1885); Geikie, Textbook of geology (2nd ed. Lond. 1885); Suess, Das Antlitz der Erde (Prag u. Lpz. 1885, Bd. 2, 1888); Neumayr, Erdgeschichte (Lpz. 1886 u. 1887, 2 Bde.); Credner, Elemente der G. (6th ed. ibid. 1887); v. Fritsch, Allgemeine G. (Stuttg. 1888); Reyer, Theoretische G. (ibid. 1888). Microscopic structure: Zirkel, Die mikroskopische Beschaffenheit der Mineralien u. Gesteine (Lpz. 1873); Cohen, Sammlung v. Mikrophotographien zur Veranschaulichung der mikroskopischen Struktur v. Mineralien u. Gesteine (Stuttg. 1884); Rosenbusch, Mikroskopische Physiographie der petrographisch wichtigen Mineralien (2nd ed. ibid. 1885); idem, Mikroskopische Physiographie der massigen Gesteine (2nd ed. ibid. 1886-87, vols. 1 and 2); idem, Hilfstabellen zur mikroskopischen Mineralbestimmung in Gesteinen (ibid. 1888). Paleontological works: Goldfuß, Petrefacta Germaniae (Düsseldorf 1826-44); Quenstedt, Petrefaktenkunde Deutschlands (Tübingen u. Lpz. 1846 ff., unvollendet); Ders., Handbuch der Petrefaktenkunde (3. Aufl. Tübing. 1885); Zittel, Aus der Urzeit (2. Aufl. Münch. 1875); Ders., Handbuch der Paläontologie (ebd. 1876ff., Paläophytologie v. Schimper and Schenk); Hörnes, Elements of Paleontology (Lpz. 1884); Schenk, The fossil plant remains (Breslau 1888). - Works of historical content: Hoffmann, History of Geognosy (Berlin 1838); Cotta, Contributions to the History of G. (Lpz. 1877).

Journals [etc.]: Except for the communications of the various geological state institutes (“Yearbook” of the Royal Prussian Geologischen Landesanstalt u. Bergakademie zu Berlin, «Jahrbuch» der k. k. Geologischen Reichsanstalt zu Wien, «Abhandlungen» der großherzogl. hess. Geologischen Landesanstalt zu Darmstadt [etc.]) «Jahrbuch für Mineralogie u. G.» (Stuttg., since 1830, as continuation of the «Mineralogischen Jahrbuchs», 1807 v. Leonhard founded); “Zeitschrift der deutschen Geologischen Gesellschaft” (Berl., since 1848); “Transactions”, “Proceedings” and “Quarterly Journal” of the Geological Society of London; “Geological Magazine” (Lond., since 1864); “Bulletin de la Societ£ geologique de France” (Paris); Bulletino del R. Comitato geologico d'Italia; Mineralogische und petrographische Mitteilungen (edited by Tschermak, Vienna, since 1878); Palaeontographica (Cassel, later Leipzig); Paläontologische Abhandlungen (edited by Dames and Kayser, Berlin). See also the literature on the article Gesteine.

Collections: In most residences as state collections, also in connection with the geological state institutes, many universities [etc.], available as an aid to the study of G.

Geological-Agronomic Lowland Survey

Pierers Konversations-Lexikon, 7th ed., vol. 6, 1890

A map created by the Geological Survey of Prussia, showing the geological conditions of the North German Plain insofar as they are important for agriculture. The geological structure of the soil is taken into account to such a depth as it still has significance for agriculture. Such a map provides information about the orography and topography of an area, the geological dependency and the relative age of the layers (through different colors and lettering), then the rock diversity of the individual layer parts in one and the same layer (through different hatching), and also information about the thickness of the topsoil and the subsoil. The deposits consist of alluvium and diluvium, i.e. layers of loam, marl, clay, sand, boulders, debris and peat layers [etc.]. If, for example, you see the designation 179 T6-8 on a map, this means that a peat layer 6-8 cm thick and a clay layer 7-9 cm thick lie on a sandy base. These data are based on drillings, of which a larger number are always taken together and the arithmetic mean of the measurements obtained is entered on the maps. However, on special request, the results of all drillings can be obtained on special maps. On each map, the corresponding soil profiles are given in the margin, along with an explanation of the colors and symbols. The explanations included with each sheet contain geological and petrographic data as well as analyses of the soil types. The scale of the maps is 1:25000. The following areas have already been mapped: the area around Berlin, the Elbe area, the Havel area, the Uckermark, East and West Prussia. Similar surveys have also been carried out for Saxony and the Strasbourg area.

Geological formations

Pierer's Conversational Encyclopedia, 7th ed., vol. 6, 1890

(Mountain formations, geological system; see the table “Geological Formations”), mountain ranges characterized by common properties of bedding, structure, etc. The layered mountain ranges of our earth show a certain sequence of age due to their superimposition, in such a way that the ranges prove to be the younger the further up they are found. This can be seen from the fact that the higher the layers are, the more perfect the animal remains become. A group of layers that shows a certain uniformity in its organic remains compared to others is called a formation and the period of time necessary for its formation is called a geological period. If the formation of the strata had taken place without any disturbance, then they would have to merge steadily into one another, and the remains of organisms would also have to form a continuous series of development from the bottom to the top, from the most imperfect creature to today's living world. But this is not the case. In many cases, what was once the bottom of the sea later became dry land, which interrupted the formation of layers for a long time, or other similar disturbances took place. This often forces us, when we want to establish a geological system of formations, to look for the transitional links between two superimposed layers in geographically distant areas where the conditions were again favorable for the deposition of these links. During a formation, certain organic types usually predominate, which then give it its character and are called index fossils. If we start with the uppermost geological period, we get the following descending series of formations: Table of formations. IMAGE

The anthropozoic period or present time of the earth. Alluvium or young quaternary formations with recent fresh and salt water formations, peat bogs, coral structures and modern volcanic products. Diluvium or old quaternary formations, divided into the postglacial stage, the ice age and the preglacial stage. During this period we already find prehistoric man and the mammoth. The present time is also referred to as the time of the third large mammal fauna. Remains of mammoths, cave bears, aurochs, musk oxen, horses, etc. have been found. Based on the tools that have been discovered in caves, lakes, and moors in the present day, the period is divided into the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages, depending on the materials from which these tools are made. The Cenozoic period, or the modern times of the earth, is divided into the Neogene formation, or younger Tertiary formation, and the Eocene formation, or older Tertiary formation. The first is further divided into a) a freshwater stage, b) a Sarmatian stage, partly consisting of marine and partly of brackish deposits; c) a Mediterranean stage. The Eocene consists of an upper division and a lower division. The Neogene contains the second large mammal fauna (mastodon, dinotherium), the Eocene the first (palaeotherium). The Tertiary contains solid conglomerates, limestones, sandstones, slates, loose sand, and clays. The marine deposits contain a great deal of salt, gypsum, sulphur, and petroleum, while the freshwater strata contain lignites. This is why they are also called the brown coal mountains. The Mesozoic period or the Middle Ages of the earth. The following formations belong to this period: the Cretaceous, consisting of an upper division (chalk, marl, sandstone, containing quartzite sandstone), a middle division (limestone, sandstone, clay, marl) and a lower division. In the upper division the first deciduous woods appear; in the lower and middle divisions ammonites and belemnites are common, which already become extinct in the upper division. Between the Cretaceous and the next lower formation, the so-called Wealden formation is embedded, with large land saurians. The Jurassic formation also breaks down into an upper section (Malm or White Jurassic) with the first bony fish, turtles, flying lizards and birds; a middle division (Dogger or brown Jurassic) with marsupials and large belemnites; a lower division (Lias or black Jurassic) with pentacrinites, belemnites, ammonites and marine reptiles. The flora consists of cryptogams, conifers and cicadæ. The so-called Rhaetian strata, with the oldest remains of mammals (Microlestes, a type of opossum), form the transitional link to the next group. The Triassic formation or Salzgebirge, consisting of an upper section (Keuper) with saurian amphibians and crocodiles; a middle section (Muschelkalk) with sea lilies and the first long-tailed crabs. In the Triassic of the Alps, the first ammonites can be found; a lower section (colorful sandstone) with giant horsetails, palms and conifers.

The Paleozoic period, or the ancient history of the earth. It is divided into the Permian formation (Dyas or Kupfergebirge). The first reptiles and amphibians appear here, along with many unequal-tailed ganoids (Ganoidei). It is divided into an upper section (consisting mainly of copper) and a lower section (Rotliegendes); the Carboniferous formation or coal mountains; contains an upper section (productive coal mountain) with the first spiders and insects and a lower section (mountain limestone, Kulmschichten) with many crinoid forms. The Devonian formation, or the younger graywacke mountains. In the old red sandstone of Scotland, which forms the uppermost section, armored fish appear as characteristic forms; in the middle section we find land cryptogams, corals; in the lower section, mollusks and trilobites. The Silurian formation, or the older graywacke mountains, contains the richest gold, iron, lead, and copper ores, is the age of trilobites (which already became extinct in the Carboniferous period) and graphtolites. The archaic period or the primeval times of the earth. This includes the oldest rock formations on earth that are known and are referred to as bedrock or primary rock. They are rich in useful minerals; of precious metals, gold, silver, platinum are found; of base metals, lead, copper, tin, iron, cobalt, nickel, antimony; of precious stones, diamond, ruby, sapphire, spinel, emerald, aquamarine, zircon, topaz, garnet, beryl, tourmaline. The rocks of this period are azoic, i.e. they contain no visible organic remains. However, one should not conclude from this that no organic beings lived in this oldest geological period; they just approached the mineral form so strongly that their organic origin is not recognizable to us. - For the literature, see under the articles Geology and Rocks.

Geological Societies

Pierers Konversations-Lexikon, 7th ed., vol. 6, 1890

Scientific associations for the purpose of geological research in individual countries. Such societies include: Geological Society of London, Royal Geological Society of Ireland, the German G.G. in Berlin, the Societ& g&ologique de la France, Societe Belge de G£ologie, de Pal&ontologie et d'Hydrologie, Societä Italiana di Scienze Naturali in Milan and Societä Geologica Italiana in Rome; Sweden and Switzerland also have similar bodies. Since 1878, an institute has been created in the international geological congresses for the exchange of ideas between all geologists. Their main task is to achieve an agreement on nomenclature, coloring and signs on geological maps and in books. Furthermore, they are responsible for the joint publication of a geological overview map. Geological congresses were: 1878 Paris, 1881 Bologna, 1885 Berlin, 1889 London.

Geological State Institutes

Pierers Konversations-Lexikon, 7th ed., vol. 6, 1890

Institutions that are funded by the state and are dedicated to the geological exploration of the respective countries. They are responsible for monitoring all earthworks related to geology, drilling, and the preparation of geological maps, especially those important for mining, agriculture, and forestry. The first example was set in England in 1835 with the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom and the associated Mining Record Office, Government School of Mines and Museum of Practical Geology. The maps produced there are on a scale of 1:21120. Since then, similar institutions have been established in all major countries. In 1873 in Prussia (merged with the Mining Academy, founded in 1860 in Berlin, in 1875). Today, this institution is one of the most impressive of its kind. Its task is to: 1) produce a specialized geological map of Prussia and the Thuringian Staaten based on the so-called General Staff planetable sheets (scale 1:25000). So far, 40 deliveries of the same have appeared; 2) to publish scientific papers on the geological conditions of the country and 3) to establish a geological state museum. Furthermore, there are geological state museums in Saxony, Alsace-Lorraine and Baden. In Württemberg, a specialized geological map (scale: 1:50000) is published by the State Statistical Office, which is complete except for a few sheets, in Hesse-Darmstadt by the Mittelrheinischer Geologenverein and the Geological State Office, which was established in 1885. In Bavaria, the Geognostische Bureau (founded in 1869) publishes a geological map and associated publications (scale 1: 100000). Since 1849, Austria has had the 'Geologische Reichsanstalt' in Vienna, which publishes 'Verhandlungen', 'Abhandlungen' and a 'Jahrbuch'. The mapping is carried out at various scales in the individual countries: 1:28,000, 1:1,440,000, and 1:2,880,000. In addition, a large number of special maps have been provided for the individual regions. Since 1869, there has been an independent Geological Survey in Pest for the Hungarian lands. In France, the Carte geologique de la France (scale: 1:500,000) is available in a completed form, as well as individual geological special maps for departments. Work has been in progress since 1867 on the Carte geologique detaillde based on the General Staff maps, which is scheduled for completion in 1890. Belgium currently lacks a map that is up to date. In government circles, a revision of the older maps (1:160000 and 1:833000) is being discussed. The Netherlands is currently working on a geological map based on the Prussian model. In Portugal, the Comissão Geológica, and in Spain, the Comisión del Mapa Geológica d'Espagna, are working on geological maps (scales: 1:1,000,000 and 1:2,000,000). In Italy, a Comitato Geologico has been producing geological maps since 1861. In Switzerland, a commission is working on the Carte géologique de la Suisse (1:380000). In Sweden, the Sveriges geologisca undersökning has existed since 1858 and publishes a map (1:50000). A geological map also exists for Norway (1:200000). In Russia, such an institution does not yet exist; in North America, the individual states have such institutes, and a joint institute for North America is being established in Washington. In Japan, there has been a Geological Survey since 1876.

vitreous

Pierers Konversations-Lexikon, 7th ed., vol. 6, 1890

(hyaline), the state of minerals or rocks in which no individual parts can be distinguished with the naked eye. In the past, such minerals were thought to be completely homogeneous, but this cannot be maintained before microscopic examination. In many specimens previously thought to be completely homogeneous, small crystals (microlites) have been detected. Even rocks that look completely homogeneous, such as obsidian, pitchstone, perlite, basalt, melaphyre, and diabase, are full of such microlites. Most commonly, feldspar, hornblende, augite and apatite occur as micro-liths. These inclusions are hair-shaped (trichites), needle-shaped, spiky, club-shaped, star-shaped, loop-shaped, spiral-shaped, or like a string of pearls. Sometimes these inclusions are arranged in the form of wavy lines (micro-fluctuation structure), from which it can be seen that the glassy mass, which had been formed by solidification, after it had already enclosed the micro-liths, was still in a viscous state, so that it was in a kind of flowing-about-in-a-mess motion. The glassy mass in which the microliths are embedded is also called glass base. Cf. also the article devitrification.

Gold

Pierer's Conversational Encyclopedia, 7th ed., vol. 6, 1890

Czech zlato, n; Danish guld, n; English gold; French or, m; Greek xovo&c, m; Dutch goud, n; Italian oro, m; Latin aurum, n; Swedish guld, n; Spanish oro, m; Hungarian arany.

G. (Aurum), Au, atomic weight 196.6, specific weight on average 19.3 (molten 19.3, powdered up to 19.7). Content: Properties; Mineralogy; Occurrence; Extraction; Use; Historical and statistical data; Literature. - Properties. Gold is a pure yellow, highly lustrous metal; the naturally occurring form sometimes regular octahedrons. The most ductile of all metals, it can be processed into wires, of which 150m weigh 0.6g, and foils up to 0.0001 mm thick. Depending on their thickness, such foils are transparent with a blue or green color. The G coatings, which are nevertheless completely cohesive, are much thinner and, as in the illustration of the G-tresses, are obtained by plating and drawing gilded silver. It only melts at 1240° to form a light green liquid, contracts strongly when cooling and therefore cannot be cast in molds. In air (even that containing hydrogen sulfide), in water, in contact with alkalis and acids, gold remains unchanged at all temperatures, only aqua regia and all liquids containing free chlorine dissolve it. In chemical terms, silver is characterized by its reluctance to form compounds with other elements (especially with oxygen), as well as by the easy decomposability of its compounds; it only combines easily and directly with chlorine and bromine. It is precipitated from its solutions by most other metals and by reducing substances such as iron vitriol and oxalic acid as a brown, dull powder or in shiny crystal flakes. See also the article gold samples.

Mineralogical. Gold is a mineral from the group of elements. It crystallizes tesserally (octahedron, hexahedron, rhombic dodecahedron, icositetrahedron and combinations); the crystals are often indistinct and distorted, the surfaces uneven; often twinned with one octahedral surface as the twinning plane; occurs in sheet, plate, tree, moss, wire, hair and knitted forms. Fracture jagged; hardness 2.5-3; ductile and malleable; brass-yellow, food-yellow (the richer in silver, the lighter the color); chemical composition: elemental gold, with smaller or larger amounts of silver, also mixed with small quantities of copper, iron [etc.]; melts easily in a blowtorch.

Occurrence. Solid gold almost always occurs together with quartz (gold quartz, mountain gold), which is then found either in deposits or veins in crystalline schists. Usually pyrite or limonite also occurs as a companion. In primary deposits, G. quartz is found in crystalline slates, sometimes also in granite, e.g. in North America (Georgia, Carolina, Virginia), Brazil, at Radhausberge near Gastein. As a companion to trachyte and porphyry rocks and other igneous rocks, quartz appears near Verespatak in Transylvania, in Peru, Mexico and Australia; near Nagyäg in Hungary and in California, quartz appears together with tellurium; it occurs with silver ores near Schemnitz and Kremnitz. In secondary deposits, gold is found as panned gold, in gold placers and in the sands of many rivers: in the Urals and Altai, Lapland, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Guiana, California, Oregon, Victoria Land (in Australia), St. Domingo, Borneo, on the coasts of Africa, in the rivers: Danube, Rhine, Isar, Edder, Schwarza, Göltzsch, Stringis. The G ores are of little importance. Schrifterz (Sylvanit) contains 26.2% G., along with 59.5 tellurium and 14.3 silver, the former often replaced by antimony, the latter by copper or lead. A variety of this is white tellurium (yellow ore) with 28% G. Leaf tellurium (Nagyagit, leaf ore) contains 9% G. Rarely does the G. occur in larger lumps (G-klumpen). Examples are: a piece of G-ore at Miask, which weighs 36.02 kg and was found in 1842; in 1857, a 70 cm long and 25 cm wide lump of 50 kg was found in Australia and exhibited in the Crystal Palace of exhibited in the Crystal Palace of Sydenham (London); it was valued at 8000 pounds sterling. In addition, G pieces of 92 and 105 kg have been found in Australia and 70 kg in California.

Depending on the type of occurrence, gold is extracted either by purely mechanical means (washing and slurrying) or by chemical means (melting of gold-bearing gravel, blende, copper ore, lead ore or by extraction with chlorine water, amalgamation [etc.]) or by a combination of mechanical and chemical processes (washing and amalgamation, weathering and washing, roasting and amalgamation). Ores from which gold can only be obtained by chemical processes are either gold-bearing dry ores or gold-bearing sulfur-bearing ores, depending on whether the gold is bound in earthy (i.e. oxidic) substances or sulfur. The methods of gold extraction are: for extraction from gold sand:

washing (either in bowls, as in America, or in gourd skins, as in Africa, or by means of machines, as in Russia, California, Australia). Washing is an imperfect process because both the solid mercury particles bound to clay and the very fine ones that are carried away by the water are lost.

Leaching and amalgamating: The washed G-sand is stirred in bowls (or mortars) with mercury, the G-amalgam formed by this is pressed through leather and then annealed, leaving G. This method is used particularly in Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia, Russia, Portugal, Brazil and Tibet.

Melting of iron-bearing galenic sand on pig iron and separation of the galenic by sulfuric acid.

Extraction from gold-bearing gravels:

At Marmato in America, gravel is ground, concentrated by washing, exposed to weathering and then all components except G. are made to disappear by renewed washing. Another method consists of combining grinding and amalgamation. The former can take place in mills or in barrels. The latter is less favorable because the deaf rock prevents the action of mercury on the G. The methods are different: In Piedmont, the gravels are ground separately and then with water and mercury on mills; the amalgam thus obtained is pressed through leather and annealed in iron retorts. In Transylvania, the ores are washed in hand troughs and blast furnaces and then left to amalgamate in mortars. In Schmölnitz, the so-called mercury column is used for ores that only contain mercury in a very finely distributed form. By means of the same, larger quantities of ore can be processed at the same time. If the mercury occurs with selenium, tellurium or arsenopyrite, the ores must first be roasted. In Salzburg, the gravel is washed and roasted, then washed again (on mills), mixed with table salt, then pressed through chamois leather and finally annealed in a bell apparatus. From ores that contain the G. in a finely divided state and allow themselves to be completely oxidized during roasting, the G. is obtained by means of chlorinated water and precipitation from the chlorinated gold solution using Plattner's method. Plattner originally simply used chlorinated water. Lange tried to use chlorinated lime, hydrochloric acid and also gaseous chlorine.

The von Richter improved Plattner method is the following: A layer of quartz pieces is placed in a charred wooden barrel, on the bottom of which is a charred wooden cross and on it a perforated charred wooden disc. The roasted ore is then placed on top of this, after which the whole thing is covered with a perforated wooden disc and the chlorinated water is spread over the ore. From the solution, the gold is precipitated by iron vitriol, arsenic chlorure, copper or iron, or is precipitated by means of hydrogen sulfide and driven off with lead. This method is by far the most common. From gold-bearing copper, lead and nickel [etc.] ores, the gold is obtained by roasting and then by amalgamation or chlorination. It can also be accumulated by concentration melting in a regular and then treated with lead or with zinc. These combine with the gold and it can be obtained from this by beating off or distillation. Gold-bearing black copper is now usually processed in such a way that the alloy is granulated (crushed) and the granules are dissolved using concentrated sulfuric acid. The gold remains undissolved and can be driven off by lead.

The gold obtained is still more or less mixed with silver and must be separated from it. Various methods are used for this. The separation can be done by wet or dry methods. The dry method only allows an imperfect separation and is therefore rarely used now. The wet method consists of the separation using nitric acid (quartation). This is laborious, expensive and is now almost universally abandoned. Or the separation using sulfuric acid (refining), which is now almost the only method used. This is based on the insolubility of the silver in concentrated sulfuric acid and the solubility of silver in it. The silver alloy is granulated (crushed) and the granules are dissolved in vessels made of platinum, glass, cast iron or porcelain using concentrated sulfuric acid; this yields silver, sulfuric acid silver (silver vitriol) and sulfurous acid. Silver vitriol is precipitated out by copper and silver; the sulfurous acid escapes through the vent and is absorbed by lime slurry, and the remaining silver vitriol is boiled down several more times with sulfuric acid and melted with sodium or potassium bisulfate to completely remove the silver.

In order to obtain chemically pure silver, it is dissolved in aqua regia, the solution is evaporated to dryness and the silver is precipitated from it using iron vitriol. If carbonic potash and crystallized oxalic acid are added to a concentrated silver chloride solution and the solution is quickly heated to boiling, silver chloride is obtained in the form of a yellow sponge. In trade, a distinction is made between pale, bright yellow and very pure (virgin) G. G-sand is G. in grains, G-bars in bars, G-dust in very fine particles. G. is never used pure, but in alloys with copper or silver.

Use. The alchemists attributed healing properties to gold and saw in it a means to cure diseases and prolong life. Now it is used as jewelry (see goldsmithing), for dental fillings and for coating pills; by far the most important use, however, is as a means of payment.

History and statistics. Gold was known in the most ancient times. It is mentioned in the Book of Genesis; Abraham sent Rebekah, who was courting Isaac, golden bracelets. A passage in the Book of Job already suggests that gold was smelted from gold-bearing rock. In India, gold seems to have been known in the most ancient times. The main center of gold production in ancient times was Egypt. The legend of King Midas also points to significant gold wealth in Asia Minor. The Lydians are said to have been the first to mint gold coins. The Greeks also knew gold very early on and used it for vessels, statues [etc.], in 'Rome, gold coins were minted since 207 BC. In the Middle Ages, gold mining in Bohemia, Hungary and Transylvania played an important role. From the 14th to the 18th century, alchemists sought to produce gold from other metals. The discovery of America opened up new sources of gold for Europe, but these were initially of little importance, since in the first 3 decades after the discovery hardly 100,000 marks of gold came to Europe. Then, however, the import increased rapidly and resulted in an enormous increase in almost all prices. In 1521, the production of silver in Mexico amounted to 79 million piastres; Richthofen estimates the amount of silver produced in 1690-1852 at 12,691,916,200 piastres. The Brazilian g-type was discovered in 1590 by Alfonso Sardicha. Incidentally, production has decreased significantly during this century. In Russia, g-production has only been of importance since 1743 (discovery of the g-bearing of Yekaterinenburg). In 1745, other significant g-sites were found in the Urals. Since 1842, a large output of gold has also been recorded in Siberia. There are also significant deposits in Austria-Hungary and outside Europe in Borneo and in the interior of Africa. Since 1848, the great gold deposits of California have been opened up by Marshall; gold deposits have also been discovered in other states in North America (in British Columbia in 1856). Finally, in 1851, Hangreaves discovered rich gold deposits in Australia, which were followed by other discoveries in that part of the world. The discovery of a gold deposit in a foreign part of the world usually attracted a large number of profit-seeking people, most of whom experienced only disappointment. Only a few acquired large quantities of gold, with which they then increased the prices of goods on the world market. This resulted in an increase in production, the establishment of new companies, etc., which led to a large supply of goods for which there was no corresponding demand. This caused crises; people who had only recently become rich had to sell their goods at low prices and went bankrupt. This happened repeatedly. Because when the cheap supply was used up, new demand arose and prices rose again. We are summarizing the production of gold here according to Clarence King (Production of the precious metal 1882), according to which the annual production of gold in the various countries of the world in dollars is as follows:

United States 33,379,663 dollars; Mexico 989,161; British Columbia 910,804; Africa 1,993,800; Argentine Republic 781,546; Colombia 4,000,000; the rest of South America 1,933,800; Australia 2,901,822,33; Austria 1,062,031; Germany 205 361; Italy 723,750; Russia 26,584 ,000; Sweden 1,994; Japan 46,654,800; which amounts to a total annual production of gold on Earth of 100,756,306 dollars.

Literature: Historical: King, Nat. history of precious stones and metals (New York 1870); Mercantile and Monetary Policy in Soetbeer (supplement to Petermann's geograph. Mitteilungen 57); the same, Kritik der bisherigen Schätzungen der Edelmetallproduktion (Preuß. Jahrbücher, vol. 41); Säß, Die Zukunft des Geldes (Vienna 1877); L. Simonin, L'or et l'argent (Paris 1877, popular-technological); Vom Rath, über das Geld (Berlin 1879).

Hammerschmidt

Pierer's Conversational Encyclopedia, 7th ed., vol. 7, 1890

Karl, called Abdullah Bei, mineralogist, born 1800 Vienna, 1 30/8 1874 Asia Minor; first devoted himself to law, became editor of the “Landwirtschaftl. Zeitung” and then studied medicine. In 1848 he had to flee because of his participation in the revolution, joined the Hungarian Army and was, with many fellow campaigners, driven out of Transylvania, where he fought under Bem, into Turkish territory. H. now became a teacher of medicine in Constantinople; but he also had to leave this post at the instigation of the Austrian government. He settled in Damascus as a doctor, served as a Turkish military doctor during the Crimean War and was sent to the Vienna World's Fair in 1873 as a commissioner for Turkey. From that time on, he worked as a teacher of mineralogy and zoology in Constantinople, where he founded a natural history museum. H. provided important work for the knowledge of the geological conditions of the Balkans.

Hauer

Pierer's Conversational Encyclopedia, 7th ed., vol. 7, 1890

Franz, Ritter v., geologist and paleontologist, born born on January 30, 1822 in Vienna, studied at the Mining Academy in Schemnitz, became an assistant at the Mining Museum in Vienna in 1846, the first mining councilor at the Geological Institute in 1849, and director of the same in 1866; in 1886, he also became director of the Natural History Court Museum, whose “Annals” he has been editing since 1886. He published his first major work while still an assistant: “Die Kephalopoden des Salzkammerguts” (Vienna 1846). In addition to numerous writings in the yearbooks of the Imperial Institute and the Academy, he also published: “Geologische Übersicht des Bergbaus der österreichischen Monarchie” (ibid. 1855); “Geology of Transylvania” (ibid. 1863, with Stache); “Die Bodenbeschaffenheit der österreichischen Monarchie” (ibid. 1875; 2nd ed. 1878) as well as geological maps of Transylvania (1866) and Austria-Hungary (4th ed. 1884).

Haushofer

Pierers Konversations-Lexikon, 7th ed., vol. 7, 1890

2) Karl H., mineralogist, born 28 April 1839 in Munich, studied mineralogy in Munich from 1857 to 1863, then mining in Prague and Freiberg, habilitated in Munich in 1865 as a mineralogist, and became an associate professor at the Technische Hochschule in 1868, and in 1880 a full professor of mineralogy and metallurgy. His work “On Asterism and Etching Figures on Calcite” (Munich 1846) was fundamental to a new direction in crystal physics. In addition, H. wrote: “On the Constitution of Natural Silicates” (Brunswick 1874); “Franz v. Kobell” (Munich 1884); “Microscopic Reactions” (Brunswick 1885). He also edited the “Journal of the German Alpine Club” and published a series of geological blackboards for teaching.

There are a few things I want to add to the points we have been considering. They may help to make some of the ideas on which we must base our actions more real. I am looking for ideas that are less abstract than the vast majority of ideas by which people allow themselves to be governed today. We really need such concrete ideas, for they are the only ones that enter into the realm of feeling for human beings, and therefore into real life. They are the only ideas to fire the human will and human actions.

Looking at the world today we should really consider the most striking characteristic of social life in the civilized world to be that the smaller communities of past times have given way to quite large human communities. We need not go far back in human evolution to find that social communities extended only over limited territories. The civic communities of towns formed a relative whole, and fundamentally speaking it is only now, in quite recent times, that large empires have arisen, that the empire of English-speaking peoples has come about—I have characterized this a number of times. None of us should have any illusions concerning the consequences, particularly in Central Europe. It needs the point of view of spiritual science, however, to get the right ideas about these things, ideas that fully relate to reality. The spiritual-scientific point of view makes us go back to earlier stages of human development to see that then, too, people formed certain kinds of communities, though these should not be called ‘states’—as I have said on a number of occasions—for that would cause tremendous confusion. Instead, let us find some other, more neutral term. Let us say that ‘realms’ arose. Such realms were ruled by individuals, or by particular groups. Subsequently states developed out of this, and today states are taken so much for granted that no one would think of going against them—at least in certain areas no one would go against them.

What is worse, they are so much taken for granted that people are not even inclined to think about them.

Behind this, however, lies something that unites human beings in their inner soul life with the spiritual, the divine principle, as it came to be called during different stages of earth evolution.

If we go back to prehistoric times, times that only partly extend into historical times, we find that in those prehistoric times the idea of a ruler of the realm, as we may call it—whatever words we use do not really fit those earlier ideas—was quite different from what we take it to mean today. The idea of the ruler of an earthly realm came very close to what people knew to be their idea of a god. These things inevitably must seem highly paradoxical to modern minds, though that is only because modern minds are little inclined to take serious consideration of things that existed during the past in human evolution and do not fit in with the way of thinking that has become customary in Western Europe and in its appendage, America, over the last three or four hundred years.

Of course the way a ruler of the realm was introduced to his office, at least in many empires, was very different in those early partly prehistoric times. We need only go back as far as ancient Egypt, meaning the earlier, partly prehistoric times of ancient Egypt, or as far as Chaldea, and we shall find that it was considered a matter of course that regents were prepared for their office by the forerunners of our present-day priests. People had quite concrete ideas as to how a ruler should be prepared for office by the priesthood and its institutions. They felt that with this kind of preparation the person called to be regent truly became what the Chinese, still having a faint notion of this, called the Son of Heaven. There was an awareness that someone called to rule over some region had to be made a kind of Son of Heaven. What was in people's minds was however something quite different from the one and only idea we have today when we speak of training a person or preparing them for something. You can go to great lengths to explain that one should not train people for some office or other in this world by merely implanting intellectual knowledge into their souls, but that the whole person needs to be developed; practically all our ideas today on development, education and so on tend to be abstract to an extreme degree. People have the idea that only some aspect or other of the human being should be changed or transformed to advance him in his training, his preparation for some office. No one thinks that development should be such that the individual undergoes a complete change. Above all no one thinks that something objective should enter into the soul of that individual, something that was not there before. No one has that idea. I could characterize this more or less as follows: I am talking to someone who is the product of the natural and social life of the present day. He tells me this and that, I tell him this or that. The person who speaks to me bears a name: he is the product of the usual natural and social background that people have today. The same applies to me. That is really almost the only way in which we behave towards each other nowadays, the way in which we look at each other.

In the times of which I have been speaking that would have been a very alien notion. It was above all alien to people called to hold important offices, to be leaders within the human community. The external natural background—family origins, father, mother, grandfather, grandmother and so on—was of no real concern if the people concerned had been properly prepared for their office. The things we look for and find in present-day individuals who have been raised to the highest spheres were then of no account. People felt that if they spoke to someone who had been properly trained in this respect it was not the ordinary ego that spoke to them: i.e. an ego born in some place or another, bearing the imprint of some social background or other. Instead they felt that something was speaking to them that had been made to come down from spiritual heights to take up its abode in a human individual thanks to the preparation and training given in the mystery cult. This must of course sound incredibly strange to present-day people. It is however necessary to stop harbouring confused notions about these things and to form ideas that have their basis in truth.

The idea was that education—not all training but the training of people called to high office—should enable spirits from the higher hierarchies to speak through these individuals, using them as their instruments. Those instruments were prepared by training, so that spirits of the higher hierarchies would be able to speak through them. There was general awareness of this, particularly when the population at large came to form an opinion about the identity of their ruler. Remnants of this still survive, for instance in the title Son of Heaven for the ruler of China. That was the level of human awareness in earliest Egyptian and Chaldean times. Spiritual science has established this. To the people at large their ruler was God. Basically they had no other concept of divinity. The preparation of the ruler had been such that the outer physical form was nothing, it merely made it possible for a god to move among human beings. The earliest inhabitants of what was later to become the kingdom of Egypt quite naturally accepted the fact that they were ruled by gods who walked on earth in human form. In this respect the earliest social awareness of human beings was entirely realistic. There was no recognition of a separate world beyond, of a separate spiritual world. The spiritual world existed in the same place as the world within which people moved on earth. In this world, where human beings walked the earth, not only ordinary human individuals were walking about in physical form but also gods. The divine world was right among them, made absolute and visible under the conditions regularly created through the mystery cult. When such a ruler wanted something, decreed something, it was a god who wanted it. To the minds of earliest humankind during that partly prehistoric period it would have been pointless to question whether something decreed by their ruler should or should not happen; it was after all a ‘god’ who wanted it.

Earliest humanity thus connected the spiritual hierarchies with everything that happened on earth. Those hierarchies were there in their midst; they were not something to which one first has to ascend by some kind of spiritual, inner means. No, they were present in the mysteries as the training given to physical bodies found suitable for preparation as dwelling places for spirits of the higher hierarchies, so that these might walk among human beings and be their rulers.

This may seem strange to modern minds, but modern minds will finally have to leave behind the narrow-minded views they hold today, ideas only three or four hundred years old as we know them today, and take a wider view. We cannot develop and think ahead to the future unless we broaden the tunnel vision which has evolved in almost every sphere of life. We must expand the time horizons we survey and consider larger evolutionary time spans than present-day history normally covers.

The things of the past, things that existed in historical and prehistoric evolution, do of course give way to other things as time progresses, but in certain areas they are retained. They are often retained by becoming external, continuing in an outer form and losing their inner meaning. The awareness of the godlike nature of the ruler that was a feature of earliest imperialism still comes up here or there in the present age, except that it no longer has any meaning, since mankind progresses and does not stand still.

Not long ago a Roman Catholic bishop addressed a pastoral to his diocese¹³ in which he stated nothing more and nothing less than that a Roman Catholic priest conducting an act of worship was more powerful than Christ Jesus himself. Acting as the celebrant, the priest coerced Christ Jesus, the god of Christianity, to enter into the physical world as the priest performed the act of transubstantiation. The god might be willing or not, the act of transubstantiation forced him to take the route prescribed by the priest. It is really true that very recently a pastoral referred to the sublime power of the earth-born ‘priest god’ over the ‘inferior god’ who descended from cosmic heights and walked on the earth in the flesh of Jesus. Things like this have their origin in older times and have lost their meaning in the present age. Some people representing certain confessions know very well, of course, why they keep throwing such things into human minds. They have become just as meaningless as the words modern rulers write in albums: The king's wishes are the supreme law.¹⁴ These things have happened in our times. Humanity, fast asleep, has said nothing at all about it and still says nothing now to things going on that bode ill for humankind, things one gets used to, things one does not want to see. Today we are altogether little prepared to take note of major events in human evolution.

That was a first stage in the evolution of human empires: when the ruler was the god. This way of looking at it was still very much alive in Roman times. Whichever way you may look at Nero, as a fool or a bloodhound, for the large majority of the Roman people Nero's dreadful tyranny merely made them marvel that a god could walk on earth in such a guise. Many of the citizens of imperial Rome never doubted that the figure of Nero was that of a god.

A second stage in the evolution of empires came with the transition from a ruler who was a god to one who ruled by the grace of God. During the earliest times of human evolution on the civilized earth the ruler was God. At the second stage the ruler stood for God; he was not indwelt by the god himself but inspired by God, given special grace. Everything he did would succeed because divine power—now no longer within him but in a realm close to the earthly realm—flowed into him, inspired him, filled him, and guided him in all he did.

To describe the essential nature of such a second stage ruler we have to say that the ruler was a symbol. At the first stage the ruler was a divine spirit walking on earth. At the second stage he represented what that spirit signified; he was the sign, the symbol in which the spirit came to expression. The ruler became the image of God.

The principles governing those external social relationships also came to expression in the institutions which became established. In earliest times empires were so constituted that a number of people were governed by a divine spirit. This god would be similar to them in external appearance but utterly different inside. At the second stage we find empires where the leader or leaders represent the god or gods and are symbols for them.

At the early stage of human empires discussion as the whether the ruler, the god, was acting rightly or wrongly was beside the point. At the second stage it began to be possible to think whether something he had done was right or wrong. At the early stage everything the ruler did, thought or said was right, for he was the god. Then, at the second stage, some other spiritual sphere was felt to exist side be side with the earthly realm, one that has the god, the ruler given the grace of God, within it. The power streaming into the earthly realm, giving direction and orientation, was felt to come from that other realm. The institutions and human individuals in the earthly realm were the reflection of something streaming in from the realm of the higher hierarchies.

It is interesting to find out, for example, that Dionysius the Areopagite,¹⁵ also called the pseudo-Dionysius, who was much more genuine than orthodox science imagines, presented the right theory concerning the way human empires were ruled by divine empires so that the conditions and institutions created among humans were a symbol of what existed in the divine realm. Dionysius the Areopagite wrote that there were heavenly hierarchies behind the human hierarchies on this earth. He stated very clearly that the social structure of the priestly hierarchy here on earth, from deacons and archdeacons all the way up to bishops, ought to show that the relationship of deacon to archdeacon is the same as that of angel to archangel, and so on. The earthly hierarchy should truly reflect the heavenly hierarchy. This refers to the second stage of empires. Something was able to evolve that was to govern human ideas until quite recent times. After all there existed in Central Europe until 1806 an institution that in its title gave expression to the way the heavenly and the earthly principle were seen to be one: the Holy Roman Empire, an empire seen to be based on the power of heaven. The words ‘of German nationality’ were added [to the German title] to show that the empire was also of earthly origin. The way the title evolved it is evident that a whole empire was formed in such a way that it should be seen to be the image of a heavenly institution.

Such were also the ideas behind St Augustine's City of God and Dante's work On the Monarchy.¹⁶ If only people were not so limited in their ideas they could take a wider view when reading something like Dante's work and realize that Dante, who after all must be considered a great thinker, still had ideas in the 13th and 14th centuries that are radically different from our modern ideas. If we were to take such things in historical evolution seriously we would give up those narrow ideas that do not even go back as far as Dante but are just a few hundred years old. The ideas used by people nowadays to fill their heads with illusions, wanting to understand history by merely going back as far as ancient Greece, are limited ideas. Yet it is only possible to understand the whole structure of ancient Egypt, for instance, if we know that the ancient gods still walked on earth. In the times that followed gods no longer walked on the earth, but the institutions created on earth had to be an image, a symbol, of the divine world order.

Then something arose for example like the possibility to reflect on the lawfulness of things, to reflect on such things as the fact that the human intellect can arrive at a judgement as to what is lawful and what is not—all this only became possible during the second stage of imperial development. During the earliest stage it was pointless to reflect on what was lawful and what was not. People had to look to what the ruler said, for the god lived in him, he was the god. In the second stage, human judgement could be used to determine that there is something in a spiritual realm next to our own realm that we cannot reach as physical human beings but only as human beings of soul and spirit. Then people no longer believed, as they had believed in earlier times, that the divine could unite with the whole physical human being, that a human being could indeed become a god. At most—using mystical language to define the living truth about public institutions—people believed that the human soul element could unite with the god.

Basically it is true to say that no one nowadays is able to understand the way things were said in works written and published as late as the 13th and 14th centuries unless one knows that the people of that time had quite a different awareness, a feeling that some degree of divine inspiration was alive in those who were called and trained to hold special office. Oddly enough things referring to something rather serious will often become derisory expressions at a later point in time when the evolution of humankind has progressed. Someone saying ‘God shapes the back for the burthen’ nowadays would say this more or less as a joke. Yet though it may be said today partly as a joke, in the times when empires were at their second stage of development it certainly held true and was to the forefront of people's minds. It applied not only to people but within certain limits also to what was being done. Rituals were made to be such that the actions performed in them reflected what went on in the spiritual realms. The rituals performed were spiritual events reaching across into what went on in the physical world. People very much believed the spiritual realm to be adjoining the physical realm, but they also thought that it extended across into the earthly realm and that the symbol or sign of the spiritual realm was to be found in the earthly realm.

Very gradually people ceased to believe in the validity of this. An age was to follow where this awareness of the connection between earthly and spiritual things was to fade. In the days of Wycliffe, of Huss,¹⁷ people began to dispute things which it would have been unthinkable to dispute before. They were in disagreement on the significance of transubstantiation: whether this ritual act had anything to do with what went on in spiritual worlds. When people begin to disagree about such things, old ideas are coming to an end. People no longer know what to think; yet for centuries, indeed millennia, they had known exactly what to think. It always happens that certain things normal to a particular age continue to play a role in later ages. They are then out of place, anachronistic, luciferic. That is what has happened to the great, far-reaching symbols relating to a particular age when they showed how ritual acts and the like performed on earth Were connected with divine and spiritual happenings in the world. Those symbols persisted during later ages and certain secret societies preserved them in a luciferic way. Western secret societies in particular have been preserving such ancient symbols. They are traditional in those societies, though they have lost their real content. On the one hand, then, we see certain secret societies—Freemasons, Jesuit organizations and denominational groups have arisen from these—preserving, in a way, those symbols which only had meaning in an earlier age. On the other hand we see how words preserve ideas that belonged to an earlier age in a basically luciferic way. Words used In everyday life have also lost their original substance, lost the context of a way of thinking when those words were symbols of spiritual things. For the spiritual content is gradually lost and words become empty symbols, signs without meaning.

During a third period, at a third level of empire development, there was no longer any awareness of individuals being given the grace of God, of divine elements entering into earthly events, earthly speech. The spiritual realm was now entirely in the beyond. The opposite of what had existed at the first stage of empire development now held true. During the first stage the god lived on earth, went about in human form. During the third stage one can only think of the god being present in an invisible world that is not perceptible to the senses. Everything people were able to use to express their relationship with the realm of divine spirits lost its meaning. The word ‘god’ continues to be used. When the word ‘god’ was spoken in the distant past people were looking for something that appeared in human form, walking among human beings. It is not that human beings in those very early times were materialists. Materialists only became possible once the spiritual realm had been banished beyond the sense-perceptible world. During the earliest period of human evolution the spiritual world was right there among human beings. There would have been no need for someone living in ancient Egypt during its earliest times to say: The kingdom of the divine is at hand. He would take that to be self-evident. At the time when Christ Jesus appeared among men people first had to be told: ‘The Kingdom of the gods cometh not with observation… for, behold, it is within you.¹⁸

We are now living in an age when it would be a nonsense to look to a person for anything but a straightforward development of what he was as a child, a development based on cause and effect. We live in an age when it would be sheer madness for someone to consider himself more than the straightforward further development of what was also there in his childhood. Eight thousand years ago, let us say, something was taken as a matter of course, was the general way of thinking; yet if anyone were to say the same thing today this would merely indicate that they are mad. The realities of those distant times have been reinterpreted in the modern way of thinking into that fictitious tale we call ‘history’. This spreads a veil over the radical metamorphosis we are able to discover when we consider human evolution in the light of truth. The things we often say today, things we reveal in our external life, exist because they once had relevance and were considered to be the truth. We still say things like ‘by the grace of God’—people have more or less tried to get out of the habit in recent years, but they have not succeeded very well with this—but we do not know, or pay no attention to the fact, that there was a time when this was a reality to human minds, when it was taken as a matter of course.

Here I am drawing your attention to things that give our public life its meaningless, conventional character. Things we put forward in the words we use, in our customs and indeed the way we judge issues in public life, relate to times when those words, even if they only became part of the vocabulary at a later date—they were modelled on the original language—were formed and used on quite a different basis. The words we use in public life today have been squeezed dry. With some it is immediately apparent, with others it was not apparent for a long time. In the distant past a token was hung upon a human body in magical body in magical rites, transforming it into an important magical aspect of the god walking on earth. This has become something trivial in the decorations given to people today. That is the kind of history humankind is unlikely to pursue. Not only words can become empty phrases and lose all meaning, as is the case with the most important words used in public life today; the objects hung around people's necks or pinned to their chests can show similar character in their relation to reality, like a word that is meaningless today but once had sacred meaning and substance to it.

We must realize that initially our evolution was such that an older awareness lost its substance and became empty and conventional. There can be no real new growth in our devastated public life of today unless we do so. We must look for new well-springs that will give real substance again to public life. We have no awareness of gods walking the earth in human form. We must therefore acquire the ability to recognise the spirit not in human form but in the form it has when we rise to spiritual vision. For us the gods no longer descend to sit on physical thrones. We must acquire the spiritual faculties that enable us to ascend in our vision to the thrones where gods are to be found who can only be alive to us in the spirit. We must learn to fill the abstract formulas we use with spiritual contents of our own experience. We must become able to face truths that are deeply disturbing to those who grasp them rightly. We must become able to see things as they are. Sometimes we fail to do so for periods extending over decades.

As Central Europeans we believe ourselves to be part of European civilization. What we should ask ourselves is what it is that has made our inner life, the life of our soul, so full of discord over the last fifty years or even longer. Let me say just one thing. When you look to the West you see in the first instance—we'll leave aside the rest—a nation falling into decadence, the French nation. One thing is important, however, among the French. When a member of this nation said: I am a Frenchman—this is what they have said to themselves for centuries—he said something that was in accord with the external facts; a permissible, truthful declaration made with reference to external life. Any of us who have ever talked to people who were young and German in the first half of the 19th century will be able to confirm the following. Herman Grimm¹⁹ for instance has repeatedly described what it meant, to people who were young when he was young in Germany, for someone to profess himself to be German in public life, not as an empty phrase but in reality. It would have been treason. People were Bavarians, Wurttembergians, Prussians, but to say ‘I am German’ would make them criminals. In the West there was a point to saying ‘I am a Frenchman’, people were permitted to be that in external life. It would have meant going to prison or being put beyond the pale in some other way if one had taken it into one's mind to say one was German, i.e. belonged to a united nation. People have forgotten about this now, but those are facts. And it is important to face up to these things. We shall not develop the right enthusiasm for such things, however, unless we fertilize our inner life by considering the great events of world history, seeing them in the right light—not that fabricated tale written in our handbooks and taught in our schools today, but the true history of the world that can be found by looking at things in the light of the spirit.

It is quite unthinkable for a present-day protestant Christian to consider that people once felt it to be true to say ‘the god walked on the earth and the ruler was the god’ and ‘there is no kingdom on this earth where gods are still to be found, for the ways in which one is made a god are in the realm where the supersensible dwells, within the Mystery’. In the early times of Egyptian history, which in part was still prehistoric, the Mystery was indeed something supersensible. It was only when the mysteries were made into churches that the church became the symbol for the supersensible.

Present-day humanity has no wish to look to the points of origin of its historical development. It lives like someone who has reached the age of forty-five and has forgotten what life was like as a boy or a girl, at most remembering back as far as his or her twenty-fifth year. Try and visualize what it would mean for the inner soul life of someone of forty-five to remember nothing that happened before the age of twenty-five. Yet that is the state of mind humankind is in now, it is the state of mind in which the people arise who are to be the leaders of humanity. Out of this state of mind something is attempted that is to give the orientation for a social system. The most important thing is that human beings come to see humanity as a living organism with a memory that should not be trodden to death, a memory reaching back to things that still have their effect in the present day, and because of the way they do take effect, literally ask for something new to be poured into them.

We merely need to strike this note a few times and we shall see that there is need for something in the present time that makes all the empty words that are flashing up all around come to nothing. It would be good if a sufficiently large number of of people were to realize how serious the present situation is, and out of this realization were to arrive at something that is really new. The sad thing is that People today have been given great tasks and yet would most of all like to sleep through those tasks. The particular task given to the anthroposophical movement for decades now has basically been to shake humanity out of its sleep, to point out that humanity needs to be given something today that truly changes the present state of soul to the same extent as the dreamer's state of soul changes to being fully awake and alive for the day, when he wakes in the morning.

This I intend to be the conclusion to the two aspects of history seen in the light of spiritual science I discussed during my present stay in this city. If only something could emerge from our anthroposophical movement that would truly fire our social ideas, filling them with warmth and energy. Social impulses are needed in the present age, that is so obvious when we look at events that we really should not fail to see it. These social impulses can only come to fruition if a new spirit is poured into human evolution. This should be realized particularly by the people who from one side or another come to join the anthroposophical movement. On the soil of this anthroposophical movement truthfulness and alertness are necessary, real alertness. Modern civilized society has got into the habit of being asleep in public life. Today people are so much asleep one might fall into severe doubt on seeing the external course followed by people in the pursuit of their affairs—were it not for the fact that one stands within spiritual life and perceives the course taken by spiritual affairs behind the Physical world. The external course people pursue in their events clearly spells it out that people fight shy of having any part in the search for truth in the phenomenal world. They are so glad they do not have to look at the events that are happening. You can see that when people are told of something happening somewhere today, they stand there on their two feet and give no indication of having heard something that is of profound significance for the way events will go. People hear of deeply significant things that must inevitably lead to ruin, to decline and fall, and they do not even feel indignation. Things are going on in the world, intentions are alive in German lands that should horrify people—yet they do not. Anyone incapable of being horrified at these things also lacks the power to develop a sense of truth.

It has to be pointed out that healthy indignation over things that are not healthy should be the source and origin of enthusiasm, of the new truths that are needed. It is actually less important to convey truths to people than it is to bring fiery energy into their lethargic nervous systems. Fiery energy is needed today, not mystical sleep. Longing for mystical peace and quiet is not of the essence today but rather dedication to the spirit. Union with the divine has to be actively sought today and not in mystical indolence and comfort.

This has to be pointed out. We must find a way of making it possible again for our minds to connect a divine principle with our outer reality. We shall only be able to do this if we consider without bias how people found their gods walking the earth in the earliest empires. We must find a way in which our human souls can walk in the spirit in spiritual worlds, that we may find gods again.

• 13. Prince-Archbishop Johann Baptist Katschthaler, Salzburg, Austria. Pastoral of 2 February 1905 entitled 'Die dem katholischen Priester gebiihrende Ehre' (The honour due to Catholic priests), reprinted in Carl Mirbt Quellen zur Geschichte des Pabst-rums and des rdmischen Katholizismus (Sources relating to the history of the papacy and of Roman Catholicism) 5. Aufl. Tubingen 1934, S. 497 ff. The passage relating to the powers of consecration is given below.
  
  ‘Honour your priests, for they have the power of consecration. Catholic priests have this wonderful power of consecration, Protestant pastors do not. This power of consecration, to make the Body of the Lord be present, with the precious Blood, with the whole of His sacred humanity and His divine nature in the Bread and the Wine—that is a great and sublime power, a truly extraordinary power! Where in heaven is a power like that of the Catholic priest to be found? Among the angels? Or does the Mother of God have it? Mary conceived Christ, the Son of God, in her womb and gave birth to Him in the stable in Bethlehem. Yes. But consider what happens during Holy Mass! Does not the same thing happen, as it were, when the priest raises his hands in blessing during the consecration? Christ is really and truly made to be present, to be reborn, as it were, in the Bread and the Wine. Mary bore her child in Bethlehem, wrapping it in swaddling clothes; a priest does the same, as it were, placing the wafer on the corporal cloth. Mary brought her child into the world just once. But see, a priest does this not once, but many hundreds and thousands of times, each time he celebrates the Mass. There, in the stable, the child which Mary gave to the world was small, capable of suffering and mortal. Here, on the altar, in the hands of the priest, we have Christ in His glory, not capable of suffering and also immortal, sitting in heaven to the right of the Father, glorious and triumphant, perfect in every regard. Do priests merely make the Body and Blood be present? No. They sacrifice, offering sacrifice to the Heavenly Father. This is the same sacrifice that Christ brought by shedding His blood on Calvary and bloodlessly at the Last Supper. There the eternal High Priest Jesus Christ sacrificed His Flesh, His Blood and His very Life to the Heavenly Father; here, at the Mass, He does the same through his representative, the Catholic priest. He ordained priests to take His place so that they might continue the same sacrifice that He had brought. He has transferred to them the authority over His sacred humanity, giving them power over His body, as it were. A Catholic priest is able not only to make Him be present on the altar, lock Him up in the tabernacle, take Him out again and give Him to the faithful to eat, he is actually able to offer Him, the Son of God become Man, as a bloodless sacrifice for the living and the dead. Christ, the only begotten Son of the Father by whom heaven and earth were created and who sustains the whole world, submits to the Catholic priests in this respect.'=’ (Italics as in the original text given by Mirbt.)
• 14. ‘Suprema lex regis voluntas’. William II (see note 10) wrote this in the Golden Book of the City of Munich. See also J. von Kiirenberg War alles falsch? Das Leben Kaiser Wi/helms II. (Was it all wrong? A life of the emperor William II. Translated into English and published in 1954, but exact English title not known), Basle-Olten 1940; German edition S. 190.
• 15. Dionysius the Areopagite (an Athenian converted by St Paul): ‘ the Heavenly and Ecclesiastical Hierarchies' and The hierarchy of the church,’ in Die angeblichen Schriften des Areopagiten Dionysius, übersetzt and mit Abhandlungen begleitet von J.G. V. Engelhardt (Writings ascribed to Dionyius the Areopagite, translated and provided with commentaries by J.G.V. Engelhardt), part 2, Sulzbach 1823.
• 16. Aurelius Augustinus, De Civitate Dei. libri XII.
  
  Dante Alighieri, De Monarchia.
• 17. Wycliffe, John, English reformer.
  
  Hus, or Huss, John, Bohemian reformer, burned when the Council of Constance condemned his and Wycliffe's writings.
• 18. TN. Luke 17:20-21. Rudolf Steiner was quoting from the Luther Bible, but saying 'gods' instead of 'God'.
• 19. Grim, Herman, Fragtmente (vol. 1), Berlin & Stuttgart, S. 212: ‘For the people of today [1891], it is no longer the Wars of Liberation fought against Napoleon I that are the last important historical event in their lifetime, but the Wars of Liberation fought against Austria and France in the 1860s and 1870s. We have been a nation where children had to be taught that they would never be permitted to act freely in influencing the destinies of their country. Today, however, Germans are compelled to act in this way. Fifty years ago it would have been unthinkable to make it part of education to tell children that they would one day be citizens of a great united German Empire and that their duties towards God, the Emperor and their country would one day also consist in having to elect someone to represent them in a German Parliament, basing their choice on their personal judgement of the country's needs. Just to utter such things would have sounded like high treason and might have ruined the life of the person who uttered them.’

Anthroposophy and Threefolding: Their Nature and Their Defense

Dear attendees! It has not been my custom to say a special word of thanks after greetings. Today I want to do it because I really thank you very much for this greeting in the interest of the matter. Anyone who is attached to the matter I represent here may also express his thanks when he sees that it has retained its old sympathies despite the attacks it has suffered here. For almost two decades I have been giving lectures here in Stuttgart every year on the anthroposophical worldview, and in these lectures everything has been mentioned that makes it possible to form an opinion about the anthroposophical movement. More recently, I have also spoken about things that are more loosely connected with what I represent as the anthroposophical worldview: the so-called threefold social order. And I do not believe that any of the words I have spoken in the latter context have in any way violated the spirit and content of what, as I said, I have been advocating for almost two decades as an anthroposophical worldview.

Today, however, I face the outside world as if before a caricature of what I myself have to describe as the anthroposophical worldview. From all sides, I am confronted with descriptions of what this anthroposophical worldview is supposed to be. I must confess that most of these descriptions are such that I do not recognize the picture of the anthroposophical world view that I have drawn here. Everything seems so alien to me, just as what has been said in numerous personal attacks from all sides seems alien to me. It will therefore be forgiven if today I depart from the custom I have otherwise almost always observed here of speaking purely impersonally about the anthroposophical world view, and that I also take into account in a few places the personal attacks that have been made against me. But I promise you that I will not go into these things any further than they are related to the matter in hand in any direction.

First of all, dear ladies and gentlemen, I would like to talk about the origin and starting point of the anthroposophical world view. This origin and starting point lies entirely in the scientific world view of modern times. Anyone who goes through the somewhat long series of my writings will be able to see that my starting point never lies in any religious problems, even though, of course, anthroposophy, by its very nature, as we shall see, must lead to religious feeling and religious views. The starting point was not religious views, the starting point was the scientific world view that I grew into in my younger years. Anyone who grows into this scientific worldview of the present day will initially feel an extraordinary respect for what science has achieved in modern times, and above all, they will gain an even greater respect for both the experimental and observational methods of scientific research and for the training in thinking and methodical schooling that contemporary science can introduce to people. And I must confess that, for me, since I entered the natural sciences, the most valuable thing about them was this training of thought, this conscientious discipline of thinking and researching. And more than from individual results of natural science, I have always started from what natural science research brings up in you as a training in thinking. But in doing so, one thing became clearer and clearer to me. When I — and I believe that what I am about to say is sufficiently clear from my 'Introduction to Goethe's Scientific Writings', which appeared in the 1880s — when I repeatedly looked at what lives in the human soul in terms of yearning for the spiritual world, what views of a spiritual world live in the human soul, then the fundamental question arose for me: How can that which undoubtedly forms the great triumph of modern times, scientific research, be reconciled with these longings, with these justified impulses of the human soul?

Dear attendees! This question has brought me together with personalities in particular who, familiar with the scientific way of thinking of modern times, led a tragic inner life of the soul in dealing with the same question. An example: In my early youth, I encountered a person who, I might say, was completely infiltrated by the scientific way of thinking - a way of thinking that is fully justified in its field and points to the origin of our planet Earth, our entire world system, as a purely material primeval nebula, through whose inner forces all being has gradually formed, ultimately including man. But in man, so this personality said to himself, the processes of this concentrated nebula world took on very special forms; ideals arise in man, religious convictions, the longing arises in man to know something about that which lies beyond birth and death, because a life that only covers the period between birth and death seems so meaningless. But everything that appears in the so-called life of the soul in a human being is, as this personality put it, just smoke and fog, something that arises like a haze from what alone can be scientifically accepted. And the mental life of this personality was tragic, for it said to itself: It must be a mere deception, a mere illusion, what emerges from material life and presents itself to man as a mirage.

One may find such a way of thinking more or less justified, more or less opposed, it was there in numerous cases, and it was there in such personalities, for whom it was in vain to object: Yes, natural science on the one hand is an exact science, on the other hand the world of faith is the subjective world. Our ideals arise from this subjective world, our religious convictions arise from this subjective world. One must know the one, believe the other. There were just so many such personalities who could not do this, who said to themselves: If it is the case that the human being has arisen from what science presents to us, then ethical ideals and religious convictions are illusions. I could cite many examples along these lines. But what I want to say with it is sufficiently indicated. And so the question arose for me more and more out of life itself: Is there not a possibility, between what lives inside of man in terms of spiritual aspirations and what natural science has established, is there not a connection in between, is there not a bridge from one to the other?

And now, what offered me above all the possibility of finding such a bridge, that was not, at first, looking at inner, subjective visions; that had become clear to me from the beginning. No matter how convincingly or intensely subjective visions may present themselves to the soul, one has no right to accept them as objective on account of their subjective appearance, if one is not in a position to build a bridge from the scientifically established to the spiritual world. I have already tried to build this bridge in my “Introductions to Goethe's Scientific Writings”. I then devoted special attention to this in the elaboration of my small work “Truth and Science” and my larger book “The Philosophy of Freedom”.

It is quite certain that if the scientific world view alone is right, then we as human beings are the works of a necessity, then the idea of freedom is impossible, then even in this so convincing experience of our inner life, the fact that we have free will seems to stand only as a deception before our soul. And so for me the question of the justification of freedom became one of those problems, one of those riddles that occupied me intensely as a young man, and I saw that it is impossible to find a foundation for the question of freedom without a foundation for all of philosophical thinking. That was therefore the task I set myself at the end of the 1880s and the beginning of the 1890s: to find a foundation for philosophical thinking. I first put aside everything that might arise to me as visions of a spiritual world. Above all, I wanted to have a secure philosophical foundation that was in harmony with the scientific research of modern times. And starting from this point of view, I examined above all the nature of human thinking. I tried all possible ways of arriving at the answer to the question: What is human thinking essentially according to its nature?

Anyone who reads my “Philosophy of Freedom” will find how these paths to fathoming the nature of human thinking were sought. And for me it turned out that only someone who sees something in the highest expressions of this thinking that takes place independently of our physicality, of our bodily organization, can understand human thinking correctly. And I believe I succeeded in demonstrating that the processes of pure thinking in man take place independently of bodily processes. In bodily processes, natural necessities prevail. What emerges from these bodily processes in the way of dark instincts, will impulses and so on is, in a certain respect, determined by natural necessity. What a person accomplishes in his thinking ultimately turns out to be a process that takes place independently of the physical organization of the person. And I believe that through this “Philosophy of Freedom” nothing less has emerged than the supersensible nature of human thinking. And once this supersensible nature of human thinking had been recognized, then the proof was provided that in the most ordinary everyday life, when man rises to real thinking, through which he is determined by nothing other than the motives of thinking itself, then he has a supersensible element in this thinking. If he then directs his life by this thinking, develops himself in this way, is educated in this way, that he goes beyond the motives of his physical organization, beyond drives, emotions, instincts, and bases his actions on motives of pure thinking, then he may be called a free being. To explain the connection between supersensible pure thinking and freedom was my task at that time.

One can stop at this point and pursue such a train of thought merely in theory. But if such a train of thought is not pursued merely in theory, but becomes a fulfillment of one's whole life, if one sees in it a revelation of human nature itself, then one pursues it not merely in theory, but in practice. What is this practical pursuit? Well, once one has grasped the supersensible nature of thinking, one learns to recognize that the human being is capable of becoming independent of his bodily organization in a certain activity. One can now try whether, in addition to pure thinking, the human being is also capable of developing an activity that is modeled on this pure thinking. Anyone who calls the method of research that I use to underpin my anthroposophical spiritual science clairvoyance must also call ordinary pure thinking, which flows from everyday life into human consciousness and into human action, clairvoyance. I myself see no qualitative difference between pure thinking and what I call clairvoyance. My view is that through the process of pure thinking, man can first develop a practice of how to become independent of one's physical organization in one's inner processes, how to accomplish something in pure thinking in which the body has no part. In 1911, at the Philosophers' Congress in Bologna, I explained in a very philosophical way that pure thinking is something that is carried out in man without the physical organization having any part in it. And here, in a large number of lectures, I have confirmed this from the most diverse points of view.

But then, when one knows the process by which one arrives at such pure thinking, something can be developed through what true, deeper philosophy gives, which I then presented in the most diverse ways as a method of knowledge for the higher worlds in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds” and in my “Secret Science”. Just as pure thinking ultimately emerges from the ordinary everyday activities of the human soul, for which no special training is needed, so, by further developing this process, one can arrive at what I have called in the above-mentioned book and in the second part of my “Occult Science” the stages of higher knowledge — that is, imagination, inspiration, intuition. What is expressed in pure thinking becomes our own simply by virtue of being born; it is inherited by us in our present stage of human development. That which, in accordance with the pattern of pure thinking, can appear as imagination, inspiration, or intuition, must likewise be cultivated in the adult, just as certain abilities are cultivated naturally in the child.

If some people find it astonishing, some paradoxical, and some even curious, what I describe as methods in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds,” then it must be clear that when a person tries to develop an inner life within himself, he needs something other than what is available in everyday life. Therefore, other terms are needed. Anyone who penetrates the meaning of these terms without being malicious from the outset will see that the only intention of my book “How to Know Higher Worlds” is to show people how to develop certain abilities that are latent, that is, dormant, in every soul: the ability to have certain images present in consciousness. The fact of the matter is that through those methods – which I will not describe again today, I have described them here very often – that through those methods, which I have described in the books mentioned, the human being makes himself capable not only of attaining such abstract concepts as are contained in pure thinking, but that he makes himself capable of presenting to his soul fully substantial, if I may use the expression, more saturated contents of consciousness, which are as full of content as otherwise only sensual impressions. What is called for here is essentially a strengthening of ordinary thinking power, and if one wishes to call it clairvoyant power, so be it. Certain exercises must be done to develop such abilities, just as certain exercises must be done by the child to develop certain abilities.

Professor Wilhelm Bruhn, who lectured on anthroposophy and related subjects in Kiel for a semester, has observed that the preparations to be made in order to arrive at such imaginative and then at an inspired knowledge are, in a certain respect, of an ethical nature, that certain ethical forces must be applied, must be trained if man is to penetrate to the knowledge of the higher worlds. And this Wilhelm Bruhn, who is an opponent of the anthroposophical world view in the strongest possible terms, emphasizes the ethical seriousness of these preparations, which is unmistakable. Bruhn alone – and I may well base myself on him here precisely because in his small work, which appeared in the collection 'Aus Natur und Geisteswelt' (From Nature and the Spiritual World), he has a kind of compendium of everything that can be said against anthroposophy – he particularly asserts that by encouraging people to develop their inner soul abilities, I am in fact leading them to initially have pictorial representations that are expressed in colors, lines or figures. This is one of the gross misunderstandings that must be corrected if Anthroposophy is not to be completely misunderstood.

In my “Theosophy” I expressly pointed out what is important here. I said: It is not important that the one who, as a spiritual researcher, seeks the way into the higher worlds, sees exactly the same thing that is described in the sensual life as yellow and red, as pointed or blunt, but rather, said: the person who has a somewhat finer perception does not simply gaze at yellow, at green, at red, but has an inner experience of the yellow, of the green, of the red. You can read about these interesting inner experiences of colors in Goethe's Theory of Colors in the chapter “Sensual-moral Effect of Colors.” When you have this experience, this particular specific experience of yellow, green, red, blue, then you know something that is purely spiritual. And you get this experience when you rise to imaginative knowledge. By soaring to imaginative knowledge, one has, as I say in my Theosophy, an experience such as one has with yellow, an experience such as one has with blue; the experience is a purely soul process. If one wants to have designations for it, then one expresses oneself in such a way that one experiences something that is illustrated by yellow, by blue, and one speaks just as little of this color yellow and blue as one speaks of a reality, as one, when one draws a triangle or a square on the blackboard, which is to depict something, confuses this triangle or square with the reality that is to be depicted.

Everything that is striven for in this anthroposophical schooling is striven for in full consciousness; nothing unconscious or subconscious prevails in it. Everything is striven for in such a way that one emulates those inner soul processes that one has acquired through mathematical schooling. In such consciousness, in such inner development of the will, one strives for that which is to lead up into the higher worlds. One simply comes to a visualization that one depicts through colors. And when one has progressed so far in a certain way that one can have a new world, a completely new world before oneself, a world that one is urged to represent by colors or by other sensualizations, then one is ripe to advance to inspired knowledge. When one develops the element of love, which is present even in ordinary life, to its highest expression as an inner soul power, then one is given the opportunity not only to have such images arising in one's consciousness, but also to be able to remove them from one's consciousness. One is not a slave to these images, nor is one a mere psychic; one is in full command of them. But just as one knows when one puts one's finger on a hot iron that one is not just dealing with the idea of the hot, but with a reality, as one can only state this through life, through the context of life, it turns out that what one experiences inwardly in this way in imaginative experience refers to an objectively spiritual reality. And if one develops the ability to love in the appropriate way, then one comes to erase these images from one's consciousness, so to speak, and then one has spiritual substance in one's pure, inner experience.

This spiritual essence, as far as it is accessible to me, I have described in my books, and at the same time I have followed the method that on the one hand, through books like my “Theosophy” and my “Secret Science”, I have described what arises from such research. And on the other hand, in such a book and in some other books, such as 'How to Know Higher Worlds', I have described exactly the path by which every human being can come to such knowledge. And I have expressly made it clear that every person can come to such realizations; but I have also made it clear that the one who handles the inner essence of pure thinking does not need schooling of the mind, but he can, when the knowledge gained by such schooling of the mind is communicated to him and he receives it without prejudice, he can receive it inwardly as a conviction, just as he receives what astronomy gives, without becoming an astronomer himself.

This, esteemed attendees, is the method for entering the spiritual world. One enters the spiritual world as into a reality, which one then knows to be a reality as that which is handed down to us by science. If we now turn back to the method of natural science, we say to ourselves: After all, we do not really apply any other method, any other inner soul activity, to the supersensible world than the one we have already applied in natural science, but adapted to things outside ourselves that can be perceived by the senses. Yes, one finally realizes that natural science has become great precisely because, I would say, the same inner training of thought was used in the first stage, which can then be applied to supersensible knowledge.

That is why I said that what interested me most about science was what emerged from it as a training in thinking. I have wrestled with such problems as those presented by Du Bois-Reymond in his “Grenzen der Naturerkenntnis” (The Limits of Natural Knowledge), where he comes to the conclusion that one can only arrive at the supersensible by going beyond science. But I have seen that one can only make such a statement as Du Bois-Reymond does here if one believes that the way in which one masters scientific facts, brings them into laws, is not already dominated by thinking, which is similar to the supersensible capacity for knowledge.

As for how the world judges such things, there are only a few hints. I must start by saying that Wilhelm Bruhn fundamentally misunderstands much of anthroposophy. He reproaches me, for example, with offering nothing more than a kind of filtered sensuality in supersensible knowledge. What I say in the passages quoted in my Theosophy and what I say in my Occult Science cannot be applied to words such as Bruhn utters. He says:

In any case, Steiner also teaches a sufficient knowledge of reality in some sensory form.

No, I have never taught that. Every such statement as Bruhn's is simply a misunderstanding of what I have always said as the most essential thing. When someone misunderstands so thoroughly, it seems understandable that he should make the strange statement: 'What I am giving as exercises to get up into the supersensible worlds is exactly the same as the spiritual exercises that Jesuit pupils have to do. Now, yet another Protestant theologian has found a similarity between what I write in my book “How to Know Higher Worlds” and the Jesuit spiritual exercises. But a Catholic theologian, Canon Laun, firmly rejects this and says that anyone who claims that my exercises are similar to those of the Jesuits does not know the exercises of the Jesuits.

Dear attendees! In this case, I must absolutely agree with Canon Laun, even though I do not agree with him on anything else, but what I have now explained to you in principle has truly nothing to do with the Jesuit retreats. No wonder that when something is misunderstood in the way I have indicated, people are led to believe that I am describing the content of the spiritual world as a series of cinematic images – that is how Bruhn expresses himself. Now, it is true that Whoever rises to the spiritual world, as I have described, also grasps his own spiritual soul, grasps this spiritual soul as it is as eternal. Through contemplation, he penetrates the riddles of death and immortality, for whom a scientific path to the eternal forces of that which lives in man reveals itself.

But if we consider the temporal forces that live in man between birth and death, what do we find? Well, we do not just have a consciousness of the moment. In our ordinary life, we look back to a very early point in our childhood, and we know that the human soul would be ill if one could not look back to this point in childhood in a continuous stream of memory. If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that, fundamentally, we are nothing more at this moment than what we have become through our experiences, which can be brought up again through the memory stream. If one delves into one's temporal existence between birth and the present moment and reveals to oneself, not cinematically but in inner experience, the recent past of one's own self, then, if one sees through this process in the right way, it will no longer wonderful that if you now familiarize yourself with the eternal, with the immortality of the soul, which was present in all processes that preceded even our formation on earth, you can also familiarize yourself with what this eternal part of the soul has experienced. If you familiarize yourself with what the soul has experienced eternally, then you have the cosmic environment around you, just as you have your personal environment around you through ordinary memory. This supersensible ability to read is in the so-called Akashic Chronicle, that is, in what one surveys through the experiences of the soul in relation to the soul's eternal; it is nothing other than that the soul these experiences are presented and revealed, so that one's ordinary memory, which otherwise reaches back to birth – or at least to a point near birth – is expanded to cosmic vision.

That, my dear audience, people who listen to ordinary mystics cannot see through in its true essence. These ordinary mystics usually take what has been seen by others and embellish it with all kinds of nebulous things. And in this way, what I would like to call the justified rejection or even the justified caution towards everything that appears as spiritual-scientific results has also come about. Nebulous mystics have brought too much all kinds of number symbolism and the like to that which is observed just as accurately, only by applying the developed soul abilities of man, as for example in physics the rainbow or the seven-color spectrum. The true spiritual researcher, when speaking of the sevenfold human being, can only speak as one speaks of the seven-coloured rainbow, and he means nothing mysterious by it, any more than the physicist means anything mysterious when he speaks of the seven-coloured spectrum. But then come the mystics, the nebulous ones, who attach all kinds of stuff to these things; as a result, much of honest spiritual research has been discredited. And if one is forced to use the number seven or the number nine somewhere, it is resented.

You see, Bruhn, as I said, provided the compendium for the opposition. Bruhn, the Kiel professor, finds a kind of mythology in what I present and finds, affirms what he says about mythology by the fact that I have to use such numbers as 7 and 9 and the like. I find this strange in a gentleman who, for his part, admits: there is intuitive knowledge, there are intuitive truths, supersensible truths – and who now lists what he calls supersensible truths in this way, and he numbers them : 1. one's own ego, 2. the ego of others, 3. the existence of things in space, 4. events in time, 5. beauty, 6. morality, 7. the divine.

Yes, my dear audience, it does not occur to me to accuse Mr. Bruhn of some nebulous number mysticism just because he mentions seven truths. However, these truths are, I would say, very meager. And even though he admits that the content of these seven truths was attained intuitively, that is, in a way that signifies a purely inner vision, he must also admit the possibility that this path, which leads to these simple, meager truths, can perhaps be developed as a very exact path like the mathematical one, and that one can then also come to other, richer, more substantial truths. Instead, such seven truths are nailed up, and what is basically drawn from the same sources – only after these sources have first been sought in the right way – is called mythology.

In a peculiar way, one relates to what appears here as an anthroposophical worldview. Recently, a newspaper here turned to an authority so that this authority, which belongs to a neighboring university, would give an authoritative judgment on anthroposophy. Now, among the many things – and you really can't read them all – that now appear to be opposed, I just got this article and read it. I came across a passage where the author objects to my statement about supersensible facts and supersensible beings. He says that in my spiritual realm, supersensible beings move just as tables and chairs move in the physical realm! Now, ladies and gentlemen, just imagine the logic that leads to saying that tables and chairs move by themselves in physical space. I am aware of states of human life in which there is a subjective appearance of tables and chairs moving by themselves, but I do not believe that the good theologian meant to refer to such a state. Now, Bruhn also betrays himself through a similar kind of logic, but I would like to say explicitly, just so that I am not misunderstood, that the earnest way in which he approaches anthroposophy is thoroughly commendable. You have to take Bruhn seriously, so I take him seriously. But now he also says that I am clinging to the gross-sensual and that I only present the supersensible, the spiritual, as a sensual, which is why one has to object that one does not get closer to the unknown spiritual through such a method. You get just as little close to this unknown spiritual as a mountaineer – so says Bruhn – who moves away from the earth and climbs up a mountain; he may move away from what is below, but the sky is still just as far above him.

Now, my dear audience, the sky that arches above us is, as is well known, not there at all; one looks out into the infinite space of the universe. One can see from the sensualizations that these people give when they want to hit something that comes from spiritual science that their logic is in a strange way ordered. And so I would like to point out right away that it is said that in the account I give of the course of the world through supersensible knowledge, one could understand Christ in the same way as any other particularly distinguished personality, such as Socrates, Plato or Buddha. — This is simply an objective untruth compared to what I have presented in my book “Christianity as Mystical Fact”. There I showed how everything in the pre-Christian era was directed towards the mystery of Golgotha, but how nothing in the pre-Christian era can be compared with what appears in the being of Christ Jesus. I have characterized it concretely in the course of spiritual history, and I have further shown how everything that has happened since the mystery of Golgotha is thoroughly impelled by this event. I have expressly shown that anthroposophy leads to the placing of this event of Golgotha in the center of the becoming of the earth. But this is what must be taken into account, what must not and should not be criticized by simply applying quite different, alien thoughts to the same.

And so a critic like Bruhn also finds that what I present as supersensible intuitions I actually only get through my thoughts operating in some way unknown to me, that I construct them out of thoughts without knowing, however, that what then becomes an image only proceeds in the unconscious, that thus, so to speak, the intuitions are only ideas after all. In his essay on Theosophy and Anthroposophy, Bruhn says that Schiller had already objected to Goethe's Urpflanze, saying that Goethe's image of the Urpflanze was an idea and not a vision. In my books and lectures, I have often described how Goethe defended himself against Schiller's statement, and Bruhn says that I must accept the same objection. Well, I am happy to do so! But I would like to point out that such an objection arises from the fact that the objector does not recognize how imaginative knowledge, how beholding, rises from the abstract idea to something more saturated, to something more fully substantial, and only in this way can that which is still a formal element in the abstract become a visualization of higher spiritual realities.

If one misunderstands in such a way what is expressed by the spiritual science meant here, then one can also very easily come to the conclusion that this spiritual science wants to be a substitute for religion. And then one says, as Bruhn has often said, that religion must not be something that one grasps in clear recognition, but that religion must be something irrational. Bruhn expresses it, I admit, very beautifully. He says it should be a blissful enjoyment as a closeness to God and a homesickness as a distance from God. It should not be a supersensible knowledge, but it should be a touch of the divine.

Now, the error lies in the fact that anthroposophy does not want to be a substitute for religion. Religion is formed, however, through a personal relationship with the founder of the religion. This personal relationship to the founder of the religion is irrational, just as, on a smaller scale, every relationship we have with any human being is irrational. The relationship we have with any human being is something we naturally refrain from reducing to any kind of idea, however supersensible, because we would accept any tittle-tattle from him. Thus the relationship one has to the Christ Jesus is something irrational, something that should not be conceptualized, not even in supersensible concepts, but should become a fact in the inner, fully human experience alone. On the other hand, especially for those who have knowledge of nature, there is the necessity to strive for supersensible knowledge in order to have the possibility of penetrating to the soul and spiritual as something real. Once one is familiar with supersensible knowledge, one will seek to find through this supersensible knowledge that which is most valuable to one in the world. And so many people have the urge to understand that which they have as an irrational nature, which they blissfully enjoy as being close to God, which they feel homesick for as being far from God, in terms of its historical and cosmic reality. It can be understood in a philological way; this has been achieved through external science. It can also be approached through supersensible knowledge; this has been achieved through anthroposophy. The aim is not to shake people out of their irrational relationship with religion, but to seek a path of knowledge to Christ Jesus. The human being who needs it - and many people already need it today, and more and more will need it - must, on the one hand, form his view of the world of the senses and of the spirit, and on the other hand, of that which has become religiously valuable to him, in order to then find harmony between the two.

This is what tears the soul apart if one is not able to bring one's knowledge to what has become religiously valuable to one. Anthroposophy is not intended to found a religion. Anthroposophy is neither a sect nor the founding of a religion, but rather the realization of the supersensible. And since that which has embodied itself through Christ Jesus in the Mystery of Golgotha is a supersensible being, and since the event of Golgotha itself is a process in which the supersensible lives, there must be a path from supersensible knowledge to this Mystery of Golgotha. The aim is not to create a substitute for religion, but to expand our knowledge so that we can also understand what we experience religiously. This does not make religious experience more superficial, nor does it strip religious experience of its piety. Rather, it allows us to turn our inner gaze to what is religiously valuable to us in the mystery of Golgotha through contemplation, with firm inner strength.

Dearly beloved attendees, I can only give examples of what I have to say about the nature of spiritual science, of anthroposophy, and what I have to say in its defense. But just as the points I have touched on, others could be presented here if I were able to give many lectures and did not have to content myself with one lecture. Therefore, I will now move on to what has been added in recent years to what I have previously presented here over many years as the anthroposophical worldview: the idea of social threefolding.

The fact that this social threefolding exists at all can be traced back to the fact that a number of people came to me during the sad days of the war and afterwards and wanted to know my thoughts on how social life could progress from these tragic events of the war. I was asked, people came to me, ladies and gentlemen. I mention this explicitly for the reason that it is far too little seen, because usually things are presented as if I were some kind of fanatical agitator who would forcefully bring things to people. I have never done anything else in the anthroposophical worldview, except give lectures, dear attendees. I appealed to those people who wanted to come to these lectures; they came – whether they were from the aristocracy or the proletariat, they were always equally welcome to me. And those who then became my so-called followers became so because they heard me. I did not go after anyone – I would not say such a thing if I were not compelled to do so. And if anyone presents these things as if I, as a fanatical agitator, had followed one person one time and another person another time, then it must be said that I have never followed anyone with any idea. The social threefolding is even used today to cast suspicion on that aspect of the anthroposophical world view from which it actually draws its very best roots. And here I would like to come back to Bruhn, who at least is to be taken more seriously than other critics.

Bruhn says: No matter how much he may have to fight it, something like anthroposophy has its origin in the “bankruptcy of our intellectual culture”. One has to get out of this intellectual culture, and he attributes to me that I did not strive to get out of this intellectual culture in the same way as those whom I 97 as the nebulous Theosophists, but that I had gone through Goethe and Haeckel, had struggled through German idealism, that I was “occidentally” oriented, that the roots of my view would rest in “western-Germanic culture” and in “scientific training.

I am not saying this out of immodesty – you can read it in Bruhn's small writing, and you will find that this can be important to me in the face of the various hostilities that are now coming from all sides. As a young man, I was among those who, in Austria in the 1880s, had to fight a difficult battle in defense of Germanness against the other nationalities. I edited the Viennese “Deutsche Wochenschrift” for a short time. I got to know all the difficult struggles that one had to go through, especially in Austria, if one wanted to make the German character and German abilities, which are considered valuable for humanity, part of the content of the whole of human culture.

Dear attendees, I only refer to such small episodes in a spirit of urgency: when I was once asked to speak at a Bismarck Commers in Weimar, where I was in the 1890s, I concluded with the words of our Austrian poet Robert Hamerling – one only needs to know his works to know that his Germanness could not be doubted – I concluded at the time, when I spoke in Weimar, in Germany, as an Austrian at the Bismarck Commers, with the words of Hamerling: “Germany is my fatherland, Austria is my motherland!”

Dearly beloved, in all my life I have never for a moment deviated from this view. And those who approached me in 1918 to ask me what Anthroposophy thought about how to proceed from there knew full well that my answer was rooted in German spirituality. I have – I make no boast of this, but in the face of the fierce attacks it must be said – I have given lectures from Bergen to Palermo, from Paris to Helsinki; I have given them everywhere in German. In May 1914 – please note the date – I gave a public lecture in Paris in German, based on German spirituality, not to a German colony but to the French. Every sentence had to be translated afterwards.

Now, out of the same spirit, what was then called the “threefold social order” has emerged. I would like to start by quoting something, again from an opponent, so that one can see how opponents think about the threefold order, which actually does not even belong to the most serious ones, because they overlook something, although they are nevertheless trained in thinking, as for example the Jena professor Rein. To begin with, he is preaching to the converted when he says: All ideas are sterile when the concept of humanity plays a decisive role in them. I quite agree, because the abstract, nebulous, mystical concept of humanity makes no sense. Humanity consists of people, of nations, and anyone who wants to work for humanity must, of course, move out of the national and into the general human. How one can do that, everyone who has any impartiality at all should admit that one can have a definite opinion based on one's own assumptions. And now Professor Rein goes on to say that the state cannot be overcome without further ado, because the state has already developed to such an extent among us Germans that one cannot go back to earlier conditions. Again, I agree! Yes, one can even completely agree with what Rein now cites as individual state demands. He says: The state must, first of all, be responsible for the care of art and science, morality and religion. Secondly, it must advocate the equalization and reconciliation of contradictions, the cooperation of the estates and professions, of employees and employers. All this, says Rein, must work together in the state as the three limbs work together in the human organism, of which Rein says - in a discussion of threefolding - that it is also threefold.

Now, just to make it clear how the three limbs should work together in the threefold social organism, I used the comparison with the threefold human being. It never occurred to me to speak of a “tripartite division”. Just as one cannot have the head separately from the human being, one cannot have the circulatory system separately, one cannot have the metabolic system separately, so one cannot have spiritual life, economic life and legal life separately in the social organism. Just as the blood supplies everything in the human organism, so within the state there are impulses that supply everything in all three limbs. And the opinion was that the three limbs of the social organism – spiritual life, legal life, economic life – work together in the right way when they exist in relative independence, just as the three limbs of the human organism are characterized by relative independence.

What, for example, does someone like Professor Rein want, who admits all this but then says that he must nevertheless fight the threefold order? He says, for example, that the state cannot be creative, but only regulatory and controlling. So what does he demand for spiritual life? A cultural parliament! And Professor Rein imagines this cultural parliament to consist of school chambers, state school chambers and so on; he imagines it to a certain extent as self-governing. And if I examine objectively how this cultural parliament of Professor Rein differs from what I have stated as the self-government of the spiritual member of the social organism, I find no difference other than that Professor Rein - and and this is open to discussion - wants to have the parents elected to his cultural parliament, but I would like to hand over the self-administration to those who are experts in this field, to the teachers and educators themselves. I do not want a cultural parliament, but something that arises without parliamentary chatter as a proper administrative organism made up of experts.

It is indeed strange that people like Professor Rein should fight against the threefold order. I really must ask myself why Professor Rein fights against the threefold order and describes it as dangerous to the state. Well, one may well ask why he does so. For in the same article in which he does so, he says: We Germans have every need to consolidate the freedom and unity of the national state. – So says Professor Rein, and then he says: Threefolding, rightly conceived, shows the way in which this can be done – namely, to consolidate the freedom and unity of the national state. And further: This way will be especially welcome to those who aim to eliminate the political parties, together with parliamentarism, which they repeatedly present as a corrupting institution.

I asked: What does Professor Rein want more than for threefolding to fulfill this ideal task of his? I cannot find any reason why he opposes it, since he says that, properly understood, threefolding points the way for what he wants to happen. I cannot find any other explanation than the one that emerges from a few words of Professor Rein: He says that he has explained his understanding of this threefold order in the new edition of his “Ethics”, which will be published soon. I am very interested to see when this threefold division appears in his Ethics, but I could not help speaking of this threefold division earlier, since I was asked about it earlier. And it seems to me that gentlemen like Rein are only angry because I forestalled them. I cannot help that.

Now, there is one more point I must mention: I have spoken here again today - and as I said, for 15 to 16 years - about supersensible knowledge. I have not only spoken of these supersensible insights as something that is, so to speak, shot from a pistol, but I have spoken of them in such a way that I have given precise details of the paths by which one comes to such insights. And with that, everyone is given the opportunity to verify it. Anyone who wants to go this way can come to the verification. And it is therefore quite unjustified when, today, out of the thought habits of the present — the thought habits that I have to fight against in many respects — the demand arises that what I call clairvoyant knowledge should be examined in a different way than the way I have indicated. I have said in my book “Theosophy”: For everything that I present in this book, I advocate that it be presented as a fact to me, as external sensory facts are. The one who has written them down does not want to present anything that is not a fact for him in a similar sense to how an experience of the external world is a fact for the eyes and ears and the ordinary mind.

Dear attendees, through such a method, the way is to be found to create a bridge from one human inner being to another. Above all, a pedagogical path is to be sought, the pedagogical path on which we base our teaching at the Freie Waldorfschule, founded by Emil Molt and led by me, the path without which a truly free spiritual life in the three-part social organism is not possible. We must seek such a path for the child too. But such a path is far removed from today's materialistic age; it is so far removed that it seeks the path to the child in a completely different way. And this has given rise to a strange psychology of the soul, which, according to many people, should also find its way into education. Because it is no longer possible to find the way to the child's soul through inner experience, the child is to be subjected to all kinds of procedures according to the methods of experimental psychology, whereby one determines what abilities the child has, for example, from the speed with which it absorbs certain words or with which it forgets words — quite externally, as if one were experimenting on an object because one can no longer do it inwardly. This examination of abilities is applied in a particular way in that area of Europe that has reached the extreme development of social materialism in social terms; this principle of examining children externally - as one examines external apparatus - is applied in a particular way in Bolshevik Russia. This has already been officially introduced there as a method of testing children's abilities – basically a terrible procedure, an indictment of the ability of the human soul to build a bridge to a person's mental abilities. And it is quite characteristic that it is precisely Bolshevism, this destructive worldview that destroys everything human, that is advancing to this pedagogical practice.

Now there are certain people who would like to apply this method to spiritual vision as well. They demand that I or one of my students should submit to such tests as one examines external apparatus. My dear audience, I have presented to humanity for decades what is created through my methods. I have indicated the methods by which it can be tested. I have shown how people who think of such tests, such as Professor Dessoir, who now even wants to form a society for such tests, approaches the anthroposophical spiritual science that I mean. I have shown in my book 'Von Seelenrätseln' how he has presented objective untruth about objective untruth about anthroposophy. Well, anyone who wants to test any kind of fortune teller, card reader or sorcerer may demand such methods. I have never presented fortune telling, sorcery or such so-called soul abilities or clairvoyance, which Professor Dessoir or Professor Oesterreich or similar people speak of, who might also want to test mathematical abilities in such an external way. I can only say: anyone who demands such tests does not understand the slightest thing about what lives in anthroposophical spiritual science. And it would not occur to me to engage in what arises from a Bolshevist attitude. No, my dear audience, people may behave as German national as they like – but they shall be recognized by their fruits! If they make such demands as these, then it is not worth discussing their Germanness with them, and I will not engage in any further discussion. I have given my answer.

Now I come to something else. And there I would have to demand that the gentleman who asked the question, “What evidence can you give for your clairvoyant abilities?” First explain who “Mr. Winter” was, by whom I was supposedly converted to anthroposophy in 1900, before he acquires the right to ask me such questions. Dear attendees, the gentleman who wants to ask me questions today once spun his audience a yarn about how I was converted to anthroposophy by lectures given by a “Mr. Winter” in Berlin in 1900. He has probably read as closely as one reads when one only reads the first words of my writing about these winter lectures. In fact, I myself gave these lectures in Berlin in the winter of 1900/1901, through which I am said to have been converted. These, my winter lectures, became “Mr. Winter's” lectures in this gentleman's mind.

Ladies and gentlemen, I further demand that my Jewishness not be mentioned again and again in any insidious allusion, after I have spoken here in sufficient detail about my family tree. And I further demand that I not be slandered by saying that I worked under the tutelage of Mr. Liebknecht. What I experienced at the beginning of this century, however, is that I was thrown out of the proletarian schools where I taught because of my representation of a spiritual conception of history by the satellites of old Liebknecht; I was thrown out of the workers' training schools because I never bought into [the materialist conception of history] and the like.

And I demand that the claim of any kind of suggestive influence or even of post-hypnotic suggestion, as it has been raised by this side, be retracted. And I further demand that the first thing to be done is to clarify what has been stated by this side about my relationship with the late Chief of Staff, Field Marshal von Moltke. My dear audience, I have no need to entertain you this evening with these matters, but I do want to say something about some of the things that have been said here. I have, as I have already said this evening, never followed anyone. I never appeared at Mr. von Moltke's house without having been invited, without having been requested to do so; and so I have been a guest at Mr. von Moltke's house almost every week since 1904. I have learned to respect Mr. von Moltke, I have learned to respect him so much that I may describe him as one of the noblest of men; I want to leave no doubt about that. I have never been to his house without having been invited. Before the outbreak of the war, I never had a conversation with Mr. von Moltke about anything military or political. Whatever was discussed arose from Mr. von Moltke's need to get to know spiritual science. That was his personal matter; I accommodated him.

I was asked to come to Berlin in the first few days of August, as I was not in Berlin when the war broke out. I refused, in anticipation of what might come from a malicious source about these things. For only once, on August 27 [correctly: 26] of 1914, was I in Koblenz, but not at headquarters, but with a family of friends. Herr von Moltke visited me there for half an hour. My dear attendees, there was truly no reason to talk about war at the time. We were in the midst of the triumphal march; it was still relatively far to the Battle of the Marne. Not a word was spoken about military or political matters during that half-hour conversation that Herr von Moltke had with me back then, certainly not at a time when he could have missed something, because the triumphal march continued even afterwards. I did not see Herr von Moltke again until October, long after the Battle of the Marne. There is no way to place anything I discussed with Herr von Moltke before his dismissal in a political or military context. But what was said between Mr. von Moltke and me is one of those personal matters that no one should allow another to prohibit; and it would be sad if we had come to a point where snooping into such matters were considered justified today. From this, the objective untruth arose that some kind of theosophical events in Luxembourg had a paralyzing effect on Mr. von Moltke's health. Mrs. von Moltke herself has now stated that this is an objective untruth. None of this really concerns me; I have no business to speak about it.

Other untrue things have come to light in connection with the threefold social order. And it will be considered justified that, after I have been personally insulted in this way – I do not usually need the word personally – after I have been personally insulted in this way, I would not find it dignified to enter into a discussion with these people before these things are not taken back – despite the fact that I am open to any other discussion.

That is why I sent a registered letter that arrived a few days ago, with “General von Gleich” as the sender, back unopened by return of post. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know how individuals would behave in such a case; I know how I behave. General von Gleich then wrote an open postcard – which of course I could not return because it was put in the letterbox – in which he repeated what he had said in his letter and in which he expressly confirmed that he had received the letter I had returned. Well, my dear attendees, with my understanding of the mutual relationship between people, I cannot understand such intrusiveness.

My dear attendees, it has been said at this time, and even in a well-known German weekly magazine, that the former minister Simons is supposed to be my student, that he was inspired by me for all the horrible things he did in London. Now, it seems to me necessary to look at this matter a little more closely. Some time ago I came across an interview with a French journalist. This French journalist said that he had just had an interview with Minister Simons. Minister Simons had spoken to him about the threefold order and said that he found something agreeable in it, just as he did in the views of the Italian minister Giolitti. It seemed to me that there was something fishy about it – I had never got to know Minister Simons very well before – and for me there was only one thing, and I said it in front of many people at the time, even in public meetings, long before the accusations against Simons started here. I said that a German minister would be more likely to know about the threefold order than a French journalist. You see, perhaps out of a prejudice that comes from national backgrounds, I had more sympathy for a German minister than for a French journalist. Then, however, I was urged to talk to Mr. Simons, and lo and behold, Mr. Simons told me that he had not known about the threefold order, that the French journalist had only just told him about it. Well, then I saw Mr. Simons again when he spoke here in Stuttgart about the politics of the time. He wanted to see the Waldorf School. How this visit went has been presented here in a public announcement.

No one who is familiar with what happened at the time will be able to deny that I did anything other than be courteous to the German Reich Minister of Foreign Affairs. Politeness, especially in such a case, does not seem to me to be particularly punishable. And anyone who claims that a different relationship existed is claiming an objective untruth. In this case, however, I am not surprised at this objective untruth. For when this public notice was posted, a letter was produced that was said to have been written in Cologne and which stated that I had boasted in Cologne that I had spoken to Minister Simons here in Stuttgart about the threefold order before his London mission. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have not been to Cologne for many years, and I have not been to Cologne at all recently.

Bruno Roos: Here is the letter!

That may be. The letter can only be a forgery! And that is no wonder, because a lot of work has been done here with forged letters. I don't care what the letter says. The truth is that there was never any relationship between me and Minister Simons other than the one I have described here, and that I have not been to Cologne at all in the last few years, I don't think I've been there for four or five years. So it is a lie that I could have said anything in Cologne. Someone may read or show you a letter – if it says what appeared in the newspaper, then the content of the letter is a blatant forgery. There is no need to engage with people who use such letters to wage a fight.

Dear attendees, many other things have been brought up recently. It is late, and I will only be able to address a few of them. The aim of all these opposing arguments is to distort the essence of threefolding and to present it as questionable by slandering me. For example, there is repeated mention of certain changes that I am supposed to have undergone in my world view. Now, anyone who reads what is contained in my first “Introduction to Goethe's Scientific Writings” about my engagement with Haeckel will see that I was not a blind admirer of Haeckel in my entire life, but that I did struggle with it in the nineties, trying to come to terms with the things said, even in the details, by such a brilliant naturalist as Haeckel. At that time, it was around the time when Haeckel's “Welträtsel” had not yet been published, but his Altenburg speech on “Monism as a bond between religion and science” had been published. At that time, I gave a speech against this monism at the Vienna Scientific Club about my spiritual monism. And at that time I wrote an essay on ethical questions in the “Zukunft”, and it was Haeckel who approached me at that time, at the beginning of the nineties. I answered his letter and later sent him a copy of the lecture I gave on spiritual monism. Then Haeckel developed the material that became his one-sided book 'The World Riddles'. This led to a fierce battle against Haeckel, especially on the part of philosophers. And I still admit today: the one who was the greater at that time, on whose side the principal right was, was not Haeckel's opponents, it was Haeckel. And I stood up for the one who was relatively more in the right. And from this point of view one must understand what I have often said. Anyone who wants to do spiritual scientific research must be able to immerse himself in everything. This must not be just a phrase; one must also be able to immerse oneself in foreign worldviews. That was always my endeavor: to be able to be objective about foreign worldviews. This may have justified the view of those who from the outset held malicious opinions that I somehow stood in the position myself, in which I found myself; no one who cannot find themselves in foreign points of view can come to spiritual-scientific views. This reproach regarding “changes” is settled by what I presented in an issue of Das Reich, where I showed how what I represent as spiritual science grows out of my original epistemological views in a completely consistent way.

However, I only want to point out these things. It has even been claimed – and this shows how everything is dug up today that can somehow lead to the disparagement of the bearer of the threefold idea – that I was connected with an occult society that practices some evil practices. Dearly beloved, whatever I have advocated, internally or externally, is contained in what I have said in my “Theosophy”: the person who has written it down - and I must say, who has spoken it - does not want to represent anything that is not a fact for him in a similar sense to which an experience of the external world is a fact for the eye and ear and the ordinary mind. The fact that a gentleman, who later in Berlin even became the director of a larger theater, once introduced me to a person as being in need of support does not change that, and that person then received support from me for years through a kind of, I would like to say foolish, good-naturedness. No other relationship than that I supported this person, who would otherwise have had nothing to eat, has led to the assertion that worthless things, which were spoken and agreed between me and this person, have led to the assertion that I had some kind of occult relationship with this person or with an order he represented. I never had a single spiritual scientific conversation with this personality, not least because this personality understood nothing of spiritual science. And when the brazen claim is now made that I received something of the content of my spiritual science from that side, it means that one has understood nothing of what courses through my writings and my speeches.

When such things are stated, one need not be surprised if the claim has also been made that the un-German, the un-national nature of anthroposophy has been revealed in its position on the Upper Silesian question. No one who has sought advice from us in any way has been given any advice other than that those who stand in our ranks should vote for Germany when it comes to the vote. No one was ever given any other advice. What was said in addition to this was, however, that one should not only bring about this vote, but that one should bring about such a relationship for Upper Silesia as an integral country, so that it would be united internally with the German spirit. The idea was not just to call for a plebiscite, but at the same time to introduce a nuance into the agitation that would not only result in a worthless yes-saying in the face of the terrible will of the Entente, but would also lead to something being established that would show Upper Oberschlesien as a region turns out to be, which, through its inner structure, through what it can develop in terms of German spiritual impulses precisely in these difficult struggles, can, I would say, establish its inner affiliation with Germany in the germ. That, my dear attendees, I say in response to all those variously nuanced and from all sorts of dark backgrounds emerging accusations regarding the Upper Silesian question.

This question has been used particularly as a slander because one knows how it works, even by those who then added: One does not get the impression that Steiner's mother tongue is German. - Well, my dear attendees, I have not yet shown anyone outside of this room a document that I have here right now. Those who know me are aware that I do not use such documents to boast about myself or to engage in any kind of self-aggrandizement, but I may read out a sentence here from a letter I received many years ago, immediately after the publication of my first independent work, 'The Epistemology of the Goethean Worldview':

I can only say here that your struggle to gain a firm point of view between idealism and realism is extremely interesting to me, that your booklet has revealed a meaningful life of thought to me, that so many fine and pretty remarks have spoken to me from it and that the tone and style of the whole - despite some content-related suggestions for objections - has touched me sympathetically from beginning to end.

Dear attendees, I have only ever made use of this document in my thoughts when people complained about my style. I have not yet responded to it, but I have remembered that what I have read to you was written to me from Graz on January 30, 1887 by the German poet Robert Hamerling, who probably also understands something about the German style and the German mother tongue. So when the threefold social order emerged here, it was born out of German idealism, oriented towards the West, and it is born out of the longing to present to the world what has emerged from the world forces in Goethe, Schiller, in German Romanticism, in German philosophy, as a German creation, as German power.

Dear attendees, do you think it was easy to work on an eminently German construction in the northwestern corner of Switzerland during the entire war, in a highly visible location? Do you think it was easy to be labeled a Pan-German, that is, an All-German, by the French and the English throughout the entire period? That is what happened to me: across the border I am an Alldeutsche, within Germany I am an enemy of the Alldeutsche and their like-minded people, a traitor to Germanness. Well, that is how the views face each other, just as the views of the Protestant and Catholic priests face each other. Whether I give people Jesuit or anti-Jesuit exercises, both are essentially a distortion and have nothing to do with what threefolding really wants to be. It wants to bring to independent existence that which is genuine German spiritual life. Therefore, it wants the self-administration of spiritual life. In order that man may rightly relate to man, everything that can exist among equals and that can sustain the other two members of the social organism, which must shape themselves out of their own specialized activities in self-government, must unfold in the state. The threefold social organism in Germany will certainly be a vital organism, arising out of the genuine German spiritual life, and if it is only understood, it will bear its fruits. It will work in such a way that German spiritual power will become for the whole world what it can be by its very nature. Much of this German spiritual power has now been shaken, and much of it is slandered, which wants to work precisely from the deepest German essence.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, they go to great lengths in this regard. And I would like to share the latest product of such processes with you at the end. Just a few days ago, an article appeared in the Chicago Daily News with the following content:

Chicago Daily News

The Germans have a pale pink theory about losing the war. The Battle of the Marne was lost because Moltke was studying science.

By Georg Witte. Spezial Kabel: Chicago Daily News, field service. Copyright. 1921. By the Chicago Daily News Co.

Berlin, Germany, May 4. – “Anthroposophy”, a new communist theory of the pale pink variety, is directing the fortunes of Germany according to the enemies of Foreign Secretary Simon. Yesterday they came out with the confirmation that he was only a puppet in the hands of his anthroposophical directors. The Vossische Zeitung, which has continually attacked Dr. Simon during the past week, prints the following:

"Dr. Steiner, creator of a new theory.

Recently, during a meeting of opponents of the new theory, it was confirmed that the influence of Dr. Steiner, the creator of the Theosophical theory, extended as far as Wilhelmstrasse and Dr. Simons, who, before leaving for the London conference, visited Dr. Steiner in Stuttgart and also had lunch with Director Molt, the founder of the Waldorf-Astoria School, where Anthroposophy is taught.

It has also been established that Dr. Simons is in constant touch with the exponents of the new theory, who are never refused entry to his house, even at this critical time.

Was General von Moltke a victim?

The anthroposophical theory was first widely noticed when its enemies claimed that the Battle of the Marne was lost because General Moltke, the chief of staff, neglected to go to the front because he was too absorbed in studying the new theory, which completely governed all his actions. General von Gleich, who makes this accusation, describes Anthroposophy as a “very dangerous idea, destined to have a pernicious influence on both the individual and family life, undermining the authority of the state and dissolving national unity.”

Dr. Steiner's theory, according to the Vossische Zeitung, provides for a division of national strength into three parts, with a communist system under anthroposophical auspices as the ultimate goal.

Now, you see, when someone spreads such a slander that General von Moltke lost the Battle of the Marne because of anthroposophy, and then makes a weak retraction of this claim, this does not prevent this disparagement of General von Moltke's personality from crossing the ocean to America, and that as a result of this slander, General von Moltke's good name is dragged through the mud across the sea.

I also had to mention this fact here, because I was asked by a certain party whether I had inspired a writing that was written against General von Moltke by a person close to him. Just as Hofrat Seiling once became an enemy and wrote a book full of objective untruths against me – because a book by him could not be accepted by our publishing house and was returned to him – so, basically, all of General von Gleich's hostility stems from the fact that a person close to him married someone whom he probably does not consider to be his equal. I am supposed to be responsible for this fact. Well, I can only say that the lady to whom that personality married spoke to me only once, long before the marriage; if she were introduced to me today, I would first have to get to know her again. I knew so little about this connection, and so far I have not been notified of the marriage by an announcement in the papers. I believe that in those circles where such outward appearances are highly valued, one could even argue that I know nothing about this marriage at all, because it has never been objectively indicated to me. And when the writing in question was composed, it was sent to me in Dornach. But I forgot about it. And when I was asked on the telephone about this writing - there are witnesses for it - I said: I completely forgot to read this writing. - That was just before it appeared in print. I have no connection whatsoever with this writing, and I am very far from infringing on anyone's freedom.

My Philosophy of Freedom, ladies and gentlemen, is meant seriously and honestly, and therefore do not count it as immodesty on my part if I - to affirm that threefolding originated in the attitude I have described to you today, I quote here the judgment of an opponent of my Philosophy of Freedom, for ultimately the idea of threefolding rests on my Philosophy of Freedom. I will read to you at the end, because time is already so short and I do not want to bother you any longer with going into all kinds of details - perhaps this will come up in the question - I will therefore read to you at the end the judgment of a fierce opponent of my “Philosophy of Freedom.” In this judgment, it says right at the beginning:

These lines are addressed exclusively to the philosopher, not to the anthroposophist Steiner. And in the main, to his by far most important book, 'Philosophy of Freedom', which the later work 'The Riddles of Philosophy' does not come close to. It goes without saying that Steiner the person is not considered here. I count myself among Steiner's most outspoken opponents and have also publicly expressed this opposition (in my writing “The Thinker”). But the form in which the polemic against Steiner often degenerates into wild agitation is more than unpleasant. And there it must be said...

— Please do not accuse me of immodesty, here it is written:

... that a man capable of a book like “The Philosophy of Freedom” could not possibly have the small and lowly character that is made out of him. In their clarity and noble calm, Steiner's philosophical and anthroposophical writings are among the most formally noble products of our new philosophical literature.

Dear attendees, in no other situation than the one in which anthroposophy and threefolding find themselves today would I somehow bother you with reading such a passage, which might seem immodest; but today it seems to me to be a duty to point out how someone can be an opponent but at the same time a decent person.

It has been said that I do not expose myself to scientific discussions. My dear audience, take the long series of my writings; they are available to the world. It is not my fault that the internal lectures are only now beginning to appear in public. They were urgently requested, but I did not have time to review them. It is not because of the slanderous intentions that they state that they have not been reviewed by me – for my sake they could always have been published for the greatest possible public after I had reviewed them – but I really have not had the time to review them, just as I really do not have the time to deal with all the possible hostile writings that have sprung up from all sides in recent times.

After today's allusions and after what a large number of you have heard in my many lectures over the past years, allow me to say: I stand for what I stand for because, from the innermost strength of my soul, I cannot stand for anything else, and because what I stand for lives in me in such a way that I must stand for it. If it is the truth, it will work its way through despite all opposition. If it is not the truth, which is, however, quite unlikely, then it will be replaced by the truth, because that which is truth will find its way through even the greatest obstacles. But anyone who believes that they can represent the truth from any side must do so. I have always stood before you from these underground bases, I stand before you today from these underground bases, and I will work from these underground bases as long as it is granted to me. No matter how many attacks are made, I will always use honorable means against honorable opponents. But what has emerged in recent times cannot claim that it can be dealt with by means of personal vilification, because it tries to attack the cause indirectly.

But I have to think in terms of standing up for this cause. I will stand up for it. That is what I must express to you today at the end of this discussion, and I have the confidence that if what I have to advocate is the truth, it will prevail because truth itself is something spiritual, something divine, and that which must triumph over all hostile powers is, after all, divine, spiritual truth.

After the previous great unrest in the hall.

Dear attendees, after this heated discussion, I would now like to answer the questions put to me in peace.

How is it possible, if, as you quite rightly noted, our thoughts are a resultant of previous impressions in the cerebral cortex, i.e. changes in a part of our body, that one can free oneself from the influence of the body with one's thoughts, as you explained at the beginning of your lecture. Do you have the ability to free your thoughts in this way?

Now, I have already spoken quite clearly about this matter; I now want to state here some more that follows from spiritual science itself for this question. We humans have in us, in a physical sense, an ascending life and also a descending life. This, I might say two-fold current of our life is usually not sufficiently taken into account. All ascending life consists in our developing growth forces and those forces that drive the absorbed nutrients to all, even the finest, organizational links in our organism. Now, alongside these processes, which are thoroughly constructive, others take place that are destructive, so that we constantly have destructive processes within us. This too is something that can only be established through spiritual science, which is not yet sufficiently known to ordinary materialistic physiology today. Now, all those phenomena that dampen our consciousness and put us into a state of partial or complete sleep are connected with the organic anabolic processes. The processes of our thoughts now go hand in hand with the catabolic processes in our organism, and all the other mental processes, such as instinctive perceptions, perceptions of drives, which actually always put us in a down-tuned state of consciousness, are connected with the organic ascending processes; the actual life of thinking is connected with the catabolic processes. This thinking life is already so in every single person that it develops independently of the organism; there must only be a process of degradation, that is, a process of dissociation in the brain, if thinking is to take hold in us.

If you consider this, my dear audience, you will say to yourself: Our organic building processes extend as far as thinking, then they recede, and thinking is precisely tied to the organic processes limiting themselves. So one becomes free of the organic processes through thinking, and one then continues this freedom by rising from thinking to higher spiritual knowledge. It is therefore absolutely the case – as is explained in more detail in my “Philosophy of Freedom” – that thinking, when it is practiced as pure thinking, is already a clairvoyant process. Even if people do not recognize it in ordinary life, we learn to know the peculiar true nature of higher knowledge precisely when we grasp ordinary thinking in terms of its essential being.

Why were you in a neutral country during the war and not in your homeland?

Dear attendees, I have had my work in Dornach. During the war, I was really, I may say it, more in Germany here than in neutral foreign countries, and I have done what could be done by me as a job, which has been recognized from various sides, during the war. And those who want to know about it, look at the events. It is not true that I did not work for the German people during this time.

Is it true that the ideas of threefolding are partly based on extrasensory knowledge and insights gained through it? And what are these extrasensory experiences and insights?

Dear attendees, I have specifically said that the idea of threefolding has loosely connected to the anthroposophical worldview because what appears in the anthroposophical worldview is a result of supersensible knowledge. For threefolding and for everything that I have presented in my “Key Points of the Social Question”, one does not need clairvoyance. Look through the entire Kernpunkte and see if at any point it appeals to anything other than common sense. Any association of clairvoyance with the threefold order is pure nonsense and malicious slander.

Anyone who follows the method according to your books “Geheimwissenschaft” and “Erkenntnisse höherer Welten” and so on, you claim that he will achieve supersensory knowledge or vision. As a master of this method, I can demand of you that you can do this. And so I ask you, tell me the feeling, not the physical one, that I have gained from you through your lecture: the feeling is, I ask you, is...

The rest cannot be read. Well, what the questioner asks on this piece of paper cannot be brought out, cannot be read.

Why does a doctrine, if it is good, have to defend itself? Good never needs to defend itself.

Ladies and gentlemen, no one would be happier than I if I did not need to defend myself in any way. And to the one who asks why the good must defend itself – if he regards what I have just presented as the good – I refer him to the address of my opponents, because what one clings to with all the fibers of one's soul must, when it is attacked, be defended.

If anthroposophy has nothing to do with Buddhism and Theosophy, then why are the Sanskrit words karma, reincarnation and so on used?

Reincarnation is not a Sanskrit word. And I use the word karma only because — and not even I always use it, those who have heard my lectures often will know this — because in an old, instinctive spiritual vision, the word “karma” was used. However, I very often replace it by saying: fate as it unfolds through successive earthly lives. I do not attach any importance to these words, but they are often used by others and by myself for the reason that our modern world view is intimately connected with our coinages and therefore one often has to go a long way for the words one has to form.

At the beginning of his speech, Mr. Steiner said that anthroposophy has nothing to do with religion. Why then does anthroposophy not remain neutral?

Dear attendees, I did not say that. I said: Anthroposophy, as I represent it, has arisen from natural science; it has its sources in natural science. — I said: It is not a substitute for religion. —- And I have said: It leads from the side of knowledge to that which is irrationally as a religious experience in the human soul. — And there I can say nothing other than: Just as external philology leads to the dissection of the Bible, so does a supersensible knowledge lead to the knowledge of the spiritual that underlies world development in a religious way. I did not say that anthroposophy has nothing to do with religion, I only said that it did not arise from it and that it does not want to be a substitute for religion.

Why is the neutrality of true and pure theosophy and Christianity not more sharply outlined and clearly presented?

Well, I have never lacked clarity in this respect in the various lectures I have given here, for those who are at all able to grasp the fundamentals of the anthroposophical worldview. And to anyone who demands that anthroposophy should relate to some religion in some subjective way, I can say nothing other than that, according to what I can discern, Christianity is at the center of earthly evolution , that all the other religions of antiquity are moving towards Christianity, culminating in the Mystery of Golgotha, and that everything we have in the way of civilization since then comes from the Christ impulse and is influenced by it. If someone wants a different neutrality, I cannot offer a different neutrality. It is not out of some subjective wish that I place Christianity at the center of earthly development, but out of what I believe I can support as objective knowledge.

I distinguish between what lives irrationally in man as Christianity, as a religion, and what then leads to the spiritual interpretation of the content of this religion. Anthroposophy is concerned with the latter in the sense in which I have expressed it. I will not allow myself to be influenced by the fact that non-Christians may not take kindly to my placing Christianity at the center of attention. For me, this is not a subjective fact, but an objective one. Those who disagree in any direction may be willing to go along with Anthroposophy as far as the discussion of religious questions; after that, they can leave.

But I believe I have presented the relationship between my anthroposophical worldview and the Christian religion very conscientiously in my book “Christianity as a Mystical Fact”. And in addition to all that I have said, I will only add this: When a malicious source says that I have taken something from Anglo-Indian Theosophy, the fact is that I wrote “Mysticism at the Dawn of Modern Spiritual Life” entirely on my own, before I had any relationship to Anglo-Indian Theosophy before I had read any book that had emerged from the Theosophical Society, I wrote my “Mysticism in the Dawn of Modern Spiritual Life” and that I was invited to give lectures to Theosophists.

I said in the lecture: I did not follow anyone; I did not follow the Theosophists either. They came to me because they wanted to hear me. I did not tell you anything that I learned from the Theosophical Society; I said what came from me, and I will defend that in the future everywhere where people want to hear it. I will not ask what views or what kind of societies prevail among those who want to hear me, but I will take it as my right to speak whenever I am wanted in any circle.

Exoteric Christianity is to be found in the Gospels and as they have been interpreted through history; esoteric, inner Christianity is the living teaching of the Risen Christ: resurrection. Today it lies in the resurrection of thinking: how dead thoughts can be awakened to life in the form of moral impulses.

The evolution of mankind is recorded in documents that have been preserved as religious records, or as other documents relating to world-conceptions. But it must be emphasized over and over again that, in addition to these records that have influenced mankind throughout history (and there is, indeed, a deep justification for this exterior influence), there are other records, which we may term esoteric records.

When people spoke in a deeper sense of a knowledge of man and of man's conception of the world, they always made a distinction between an exoteric teaching, that gives a more exterior knowledge of things, and an esoteric teaching; only those who had trained their hearts and minds accordingly, were able to penetrate into this teaching. In Christianity, too, especially as far as its central point, the Mystery of Golgotha, is concerned, we must make a distinction between exoteric conceptions and esoteric knowledge. An exoteric contemplation of Christianity, accessible to all the world, is contained in the Gospels. Side by side with this exoteric contemplation, there has always been an esoteric Christianity for those who were willing—as I have said before—to prepare their hearts and minds in an adequate way for the reception of an esoteric Christianity.

All that could be gathered of the intercourse of the Christ who had passed through death and had risen from the dead, with those of his disciples who were able to understand him, was of the greatest importance in this esoteric Christianity. You know already that the Gospels contain very little about the intercourse of the risen Christ with his disciples. But what the Gospels tell us concerning this intercourse of the risen Christ with his disciples, can indeed give us an inkling and a foreboding of something very special, that entered the evolution of the earth through the Christ who rose from the dead. But we cannot go beyond such forebodings, without an esoteric knowledge.

These inklings of a truth acquire weight and significance if we add to them Paul's utterances. Paul's words acquire a particular meaning, for he assures us that he was able to believe in Christ only from the moment in which the Christ appeared to him through the event at Damascus. This gave him the sure knowledge that Christ had passed through death and that, after his death, he was connected with the evolution of the earth as the living Christ. The event at Damascus gave Paul a knowledge of the living Christ and we should bear in mind what this impiles, when it is said by a man like Paul. Why could Paul not be convinced of the true existence of the Christ-being before the event at Damascus? We must bear in mind what it implied for Paul, initiated to some extent in the Hebrew teachings—that the Being who lived on earth as Christ-Jesus, had been condemned to a shameful death on the cross in accordance with human laws and justice. Paul could not grasp that the old prophecies referred to a Being who had been condemned lawfully to the shameful death through crucifixion. Until the event at Damascus, Paul saw in the shameful crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth the proof that He could not be the Messiah. Only the experience at Damascus convinced Paul; the vision at Damascus convinced him of the truth of the Mystery of Golgotha. In spite of the fact that Jesus of Nazareth—or better, the Being who was incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth—had undergone the shameful death on the cross, something very deep and great is implied in this confession of Paul's conviction. The traditions that still existed in the first centuries after Christ, no longer exist. They may exist, at the most, in the form of outer historical records kept by some secret society that does not understand them. We must find again, through an anthroposophical spiritual science, that which surpasses the scanty communications concerning the Christ, after the Mystery of Golgotha. This is what we must find again: What did the risen Christ tell to the disciples that were around him, and that are not mentioned in the Gospels? For, what the Gospels say of the apostles who met Christ-Jesus on the way to Emmaeus, and other things recorded of the apostles, are steeped in tradition and refer to simple souls who were unable to advance to an esoteric knowledge. For this reason we must go beyond this and ask: What did the Christ say after his resurrection to the disciples who were really initiated?

If we want to understand this, we must begin by taking into consideration the frame of mind in which men of past ages took up the real Mystery of Golgotha and how the Mystery of Golgotha changed their disposition.

When we speak of the great truths of the past connected with man's earthly evolution, a modern man finds it very difficult to understand that the first men who lived on the earth did not possess a knowledge of the kind termed “knowledge” by us. The first men who lived on the earth were able to receive the wisdom of gods through atavistic, clairvoyant capacities. This means nothing less than this: Divine beings who descended to the earth from higher worlds could impart their teachings to human beings—in a spiritual way, of course—and these, in their turn, taught other souls. In the ancient past of human evolution on earth, it was a well-known fact that men were taught by the divine beings themselves, who descended to the earth from spiritual worlds. This condition, transcending the earthly one, could be attained especially by those men who had passed through the initiation in the Mysteries, where for the most part, they were outside their bodies with their souls and were able to reveive the communications of the gods in a spiritual way, because they were not dependent on the outer form of speech, or spoken words. They did not receive these communications in a state of mind resembling today's dreaming state, but in a living intercourse with divine beings which took place spiritually, and where they received what these beings considered to be their own particular wisdom. This wisdom at first consisted of communications (if I may call them thus) of the gods concerning the abode of human souls in the divine world before descending into an earthly body. During that state of consciousness which I have just described, the gods taught human beings what the souls experienced before their descent into an earthly body through conception. Then men felt as if they were being reminded of something, and they found that the communications of the gods reminded them of their experiences in the world of the spirit and soul, before birth, i.e. before conception.

An echo can still be found in Plato that this was indeed so in ancient times. Today we can look back on a divine spiritual wisdom received here on earth by men who were in the frame of mind just described, a wisdom received—we may indeed say it in the real sense of the word—from the gods themselves. This wisdom was of a special kind: namely, of such a kind, that people—strange as it may seem today—knew nothing of death. It may seem strange to you today, yet it is so: the oldest inhabitants of the earth knew nothing of death, just as the child knows nothing of death. The people who were instructed in the way indicated by me and passed on this instruction to others who still possessed an atavistic clairvoyance, became conscious at once of the fact that their soul-being had come down from divine-spiritual worlds into a body, and that it would leave this body. They considered this an advance in the life of the spirit and of the soul. Birth and death appeared to them as a metamorphosis, as something which is the beginning and end of something. Were we to draw this schematically we might say that people saw the human soul in its progressive evolution and considered life on earth as an interlude. But they did not see in the points “a” and “b” a beginning and an end, they only saw the uninterrupted stream of the life of spirit and soul. They did see, of course, that the people around them died. You will not think that I am comparing these ancient men with animals; for, although their outer aspect resembled that of animals, these oldest of men had a higher soul-spiritual nature. I have already explained this before. But just as an animal knows nothing of death when it sees another animal which is dead, so did these ancient men know nothing of death, for they received only the idea of an uninterrupted stream in the life of soul and spirit. Death was something pertaining to Maya, the great illusion, and it made no great impression on men, for they knew life, only. Although they saw death, they knew nothing of death. For, their spirit-soul life was not ensnared by death. They saw human life only from within. When they looked at birth, human life extended beyond birth, into the spiritual. When they looked at death, the life of spirit and soul again extended beyond death, into the spiritual; birth and death had no meaning for life. Life alone was known—not death.

Men gradually came out of this frame of spirit. On tracing the evolution of mankind from the oldest times to the Mystery of Golgotha, one may say: more and more, human beings learnt to know death. They learnt to know death more and more as something that made an impression on them. Their souls became entangled in death, and out of man's feelings arose the question: what happens to the soul when man goes through death?

You see, in far distant ages people never contemplated death as an end. Their problem was at the most one dealing with the special nature of metamorphosis involved. They asked whether the breath leaves man and continues streaming, and whether the soul enters thereby into eternity; or else, they had some other conception of the way in which the life of spirit and soul continues. They thought about the nature of this continuation, but they did not think of death as an end. Only with the approach of the Mystery of Golgotha people really felt that death has a meaning and that life on earth is something that ends.This, of course, did not assume the form of a problem formulated in a philosophical or scientific way, but it entered the soul as a feeling. Men on earth had to come to this feeling, for it was necessary for the evolution of mankind that the understanding, or the intellect, should enter life on earth. But the intellect depends on the fact that we are able to die. I have often mentioned this. Man had therefore to become entangled in death. He had to become acquainted with death. The old ages in which man knew nothing of death were all non-intellectualistic. Men received their ideas through inspirations from the spiritual world and did not think about them. There was no intellect. But the intellect had to come. If we express it in a soul-spiritual way, the understanding could come only because man is able to die and carries within him all the time the forces of death. In a physical way, we might say that death can enter because man deposits salts, i.e. solid mineral substances, dead substances, not only in the body, but also in his brain. The brain has the constant tendency to deposit salt—I might say, toward an incomplete ossification. So that the brain contains a constant tendency toward death. This inoculation of death had to enter in mankind. And I might say, that the result of this necessary development—that death began to have a real influence in man's life—was the outward acquaintance with death. If men had remained the same as in the past, where they did not really know death, they would never have been able to develop an intellect, for the intellect is only possible in a world where death holds sway.

This is how matters stand, seen from a human aspect. But they can also be contemplated from the aspect of the higher hierarchies, and then they will appear as follows: The higher hierarchies contain in their being the forces that have formed Saturn, the Sun, the Moon and finally the Earth. If the higher hierarchies had expressed their teachings amongst themselves, as it were, up to the Mystery of Golgotha, they would have said: We can form the Earth out of Saturn, Sun and Moon. But if the Earth were to contain only what we have placed into Saturn, Sun and Moon it would never have been able to develop beings who know something about death, and can therefore develop the intellect within them. We, the higher hierarchies, are able to let an Earth proceed out of the Moon, on which there are men who know nothing of death, and on which they cannot develop the intellect. It is not possible for us, higher hierarchies, to form the Earth in such a way that it is able to supply the forces which lead man towards the intellect. We must rely, for this, on an entirely different being, on a being who comes from another direction than our own—The Ahrimanic Being. Ahriman is a being who does not belong to our hierarchy. Ahriman comes into the stream of evolution from another direction. If we tolerate Ahriman in the evolution of the Earth, if we allow him a share in it, he brings us death, and with it, the intellect, and we can take up in the human being death and intellect. Ahriman knows death, because he is at one with the Earth and has trodden paths which have brought him into connection with the evolution of the Earth. He is an initiate, a sage of death, and for this reason he is the ruler of the intellect. The gods had to reckon with Ahriman—if I may express it in this way. They had to say: the evolution cannot proceed without Ahriman. It is only a question of admitting Ahriman into the evolution. But if Ahriman is admitted and becomes the lord of death and, consequently, of the intellect too, we forfeit the Earth, and Ahriman, whose sole interest lies in permeating the Earth with intellect, will claim the Earth for himself. The gods faced the great problem of losing to a certain extent their rule over the Earth in favour of Ahriman. There was only one possibility—that the gods themselves should learn to know something which they could not learn in their godly abodes which were not permeated by Ahriman—namely, that the gods should learn to know death itself, on the Earth, through one of their emissaries—the Christ. A god had to die on earth, and he had to die in such a way that this was not grounded in the wisdom of the gods, but in the human error which would hold sway if Ahriman alone were to rule. A god had to pass through death and he had to overcome death.

Thus the Mystery of Golgotha meant this for the gods: a greater wealth of knowledge through the wisdom of death. If a god had not passed through death, the whole Earth would have become entirely intellectual, without ever reaching the evolution which the gods had planned for it from the very beginning.

In past ages, people had no knowledge of death. But they learnt to know death. They had to face the feeling that through death, i.e. through the intellect, we enter a stream of evolution which is quite different from the one from which we come.

Now the Christ taught his initiates that he came from a world where death was unknown; he learnt to know death, here on earth, and conquered death. If one understands this connection between the earthly world and the divine world, it will be possible to lead the intellect back gain into spirituality. We might express approximately in this way the content of the esoteric teachings given by the Christ to his initiated disciples: it was the teaching of death, as seen from the scene of the divine world. If one wishes to penetrate into the real depths of this esoteric teaching, one must realize that he who understands the entire evolution of mankind knows that the gods have overcome Ahriman by using his forces for the benefit of the Earth, but his power has been broken because the gods themselves learnt to know death in the being of Christ. Indeed, the gods have placed Ahriman into the evolution of the earth, but, in making use of him, they have forced him to come down into the evolution of the earth without completing his own rulership. He who learns to know Ahriman since the Mystery of Golgotha and he who knew him before, knows that Ahriman has waited for the world-historic moment in which he will not only invade the unconscious and subconscious in man, as in the case since the days of Atlantis (you know this through myOccult Science), but will invade also man's consciousness. If we apply human expressions to the willing of gods, we might say that Ahriman has waited with longing for the moment in which to invade human consciousness with his power. His purpose was thwarted because he knew nothing of the divine plan whereby a being—the Christ—was to be sent to the Earth, a being who underwent death. Thus the intervention of Ahriman was possible, but the sharp edge was taken off his rule. Since then, Ahriman uses every opportunity to encourage men in the exclusive use of the intellect. Ahriman has not lost all hope today that he will succeed in inducing men to use only their intellect. What would this imply? If Ahriman would succeed in convincing men against all other convictions that man can live only in his body and that, as a spirit-soul being, he cannot be separated from his body, the idea of death would seize the souls so strongly that Ahriman would be able to realize his plans quite easily. Ahriman hopes for this always. One might say, for instance, that special joy fills the heart of Ahriman—if one can speak of a heart in Ahriman's case, but this is a comparison, for I must always use human expressions in cases where other expressions should really be found—that special joy lives in Ahriman's soul since the period stretching from the forties of the 19th century until about the end of the 19th century; in the predominant sway of materialism Ahriman could cherish new hopes for his rule over the earth. In this time even theology becomes materialistic. I have mentioned already that theology has become unchristian and that the theologian from Basle, Overbeck, wrote a book in which he tried to prove that modern theology is no longer Christian. This gave new hopes to Ahriman.

An antagonism to Ahriman exists today only in the teachings like those that stream through Anthroposophy. If Anthroposophy can again make clear to men the independence of the spirit-soul being which is not dependent on the bodily being, Ahriman will have to give up his hopes for the time. The battle of the Christ against Ahriman is again possible. And we can have a foreboding of this in the Temptation described in the Gospel. But a full understanding can be gained only by penetrating into what I have often set forth, namely, that Lucifer plays a greater part in the older evolution of mankind, and that Ahriman began to have an influence on human consciousness since the Mystery of Golgotha. He had an influence also before that time, but not on the consciousness of man.

If we look at the human mind and soul we must say that the most important point in mankind's evolution lies where man learns to know that the Christ-impulse contains a living force which enables him to overcome death in himself, when he unites himself with it.

Seen from the spiritual world this implies that Ahriman was drawn into the evolution of the earth by the hierarchies belonging to Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, etc. But his claims of rulership were hedged in because they were placed at the service of the evolution of the earth. Ahriman has, as it were, been forced to enter the evolution of the earth. Without him, the gods could not have placed intellectualism into mankind and if they had not succeeded in taking off the sharp edge to Ahriman's rule through the Christ event, Ahriman would have rendered the whole earth intellectual from within and material from without. The Mystery of Golgotha is not only an inner mystical event; we must look upon it entirely as an outer event which cannot, however, be set forth according to an outer materialistic, historical investigation. It must be set forth in such a way as to show the entrance of Ahriman into the evolution of the earth, and, at the same time, the overcoming of Ahrimanism, to a certain extent. Thus we have a battle of the gods which was enacted through the Mystery of Golgotha. That a battle of the gods took place on that occasion, is contained also in the esoteric teachings imparted by the Christ to his initiated disciples, after his resurrection. If we are to designate that which existed in the form of an esoteric Christianity, we might say that in past ages of the evolution of the earth people knew of the existence of these worlds through the manifestations that I have characterized a short while ago. But these divine worlds could not tell them anything concerning death, for death did not exist in the worlds of the gods, and it did not exist for man, because he gained knowledge only of the steady uninterrupted progress of the spirit and soul through the spheres of the gods. Man came nearer and nearer to the understanding of death. By yielding himself up to the Christ, he could gain for himself a sure power which enabled him to overcome death. This is man's inner evolution.

But the esoteric element which Christ gave to his initiated disciples consisted therein, that He told them: What took place on Golgotha, is the reflection of superterrestial events and of the relationship between the worlds of the gods connected with Saturn, Sun, Moon and the present Earth, and Ahriman. The cross of Golgotha cannot be looked upon as something earthly, but as something having a meaning for the entire universe—this was the content of esoteric Christianity.

Perhaps we can awaken a particular feeling in connection with esoteric Christianity: Imagine two esoteric disciples of the Christ, who progress more and more in the acquisition of an esoteric Christianity, and imagine them speaking together while they are still battling with their doubts: One of them would say more or less the following words to the other one: The Christ who is teaching us, has descended from worlds which are known from the past. Gods were known in past ages, but they were gods who could not speak of death. If we had remained with these gods, we would never have learnt anything concerning the nature of death. The gods themselves had first to send down to the earth a divine being, in order to learn something concerning death though one of their own ranks. After His resurrection, Christ teaches us what the gods had to fulfill in order to guide the evolution of the earth to a right end. If we keep to him, we will learn something that men could not learn until then. We learn what the gods did behind the scenes of the worlds's existence in order to further the evolution of the earth in the right way. We learn how they brought in the forces of Ahriman, without allowing them to be of harm to man, but to be of use to him. What the initiated disciples received as the esoteric teaching of the risen Christ was something deeply moving. A disciple, such as the one described above, could only have continued by saying: Today we would know nothing at all concerning the gods, for we would be in the meshes of death had Christ not died and risen, and had He not taught us, after His resurrection, the experiences of the gods concerning death. As human beings, we must immerse ourselves into a period of time in which we can no longer know anything of the gods. The gods found a new way of speaking to us. This way went through the Mystery of Golgotha. The essential knowledge conveyed to the disciples through the Mystery of Golgotha, was that men could again approach the divine worlds which they had left. In the first period of the Christian evolution, the disciples were permeated by this stirring teaching. Many a one, whom history barely mentions, bore within him the knowledge which he could have gained only because in the early times he had enjoyed the teaching of the risen Christ himself, or else because he was connected in some way with the teachers who had been taught by the Christ.

Later on, all these things were exteriorized. They were exteriorized to such an extent that the first heralds of Christianity attached great value to the fact of being able to say that they were the disciples of one who had been taught by a disciple of the apostles. It was a continuous development, for he who imparted the teaching, had known one who had seen an apostle, i.e. one who had known the Lord himself, after his resurrection. In the past, some value was still attached to this living development, but the form in which it reached a later mankind was already exteriorized. It had assumed the aspect of an outer historical description. But, essentially, it goes back to what I have just set forth. The incorporation of the intellect, which began already, and particularly, during the fourth and fifth centuries after the Mystery of Golgotha, and underwent a special change in the fifteenth century—the beginning of the fifth post-atlantean epoch—this development of the intellect brought about the loss of the ancient wisdom which enabled man to grasp something of the spiritual truths, whereas the new wisdom was not there. To a certain extent, men forgot for a whole age everything that had an esoteric significance in Christianity.

As stated, some records dealing with this esoteric knowledge remained in the keeping of secret societies, the members of which no longer understood the content of these records—in our age, certainly not. These records really refer to the teachings that were imparted by the risen Christ to some of his initiated disciples.

Suppose that the ancient Hebrew teaching had not received new life through Christianity—then, Paul's conviction before the event at Damascus would have been justified. For, Paul more or less accepted the view that there is an old traditional teaching, which existed originally as a divine-spiritual revelation given to men in a distant past, in the spiritual form which I have described. Then, this was preserved in written records. Amongst the Hebrews, there were scribes who knew what was contained in the records from out of the ancient wisdom of the gods. The sentence that condemned Christ-Jesus to death came from such scribes. While he was still Saul, Paul looked up to this original divine wisdom of the past and thought that this ancient wisdom was the source of the knowledge which came streaming down even to the scribes of his time. The fact that prominent men took up the calling of a scribe, could, however, bring this divine wisdom only as far as the pronouncing of righteous sentences. Impossible—quite impossible—for an innocent man to be condemned to death through crucifixion! Especially if things took the course they did take during the trial of Christ Jesus. This was the course of Paul's thoughts. Only the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, was already entangled instinctively in quite another world-conception and could utter the pregnant sentence: What is Truth? Paul, as Saul, could not possibly imagine that what had taken place according to a righteous judgement, might not be truth. What a conviction had to be gained by Paul? The conviction that there can be error in the truth which used to come streaming down to men from the gods, for men have changed it into error—into an error so strong, that the most innocent of all had to pass through death. The original divine wisdom streams down as far as the wisdom of the scribes, who were the Hebrew contemporaries of the Mystery of Golgotha. This wisdom can only contain truth—thought Saul. But he had to think otherwise. When Paul was still Saul, he used to say: If he, who died on the cross, is indeed the Christ and the Messiah, this current of wisdom must contain error in its truth, and error brought Christ to the cross. That is, man must have turned the old divine wisdom into error. Naturally, only the actual fact that this is so, indeed, could convince Saul. Only Christ himself could convince him, by appearing to him in the event at Damascus. What did this mean for Saul? It meant that a divine wisdom no longer existed, for the Ahrimanic element had entered into it.

Thus Paul reached the point of seeing that mankind's evolution had been seized by an enemy and that this enemy is the source of error on earth. In bringing the intellect, he brings also the possibility of error, and, in its greatest aspect, this error is responsible for the death on the cross of the most innocent of all. First, this conviction must be gained—that He who has no stain upon him, died on the cross. This enabled men to see how Ahriman crept into the evolution of humanity and how a super-sensible, superterrestial event existed in the evolution of the Ego, through the enactment of the Mystery of Golgotha. An esoteric fact can never be merely mystical. It is always an enormous mistake to explain mere mysticism as esotericism. The esoteric knowledge is always a knowledge of facts which take place, as such, in the spiritual world, and remain hidden behind the veil of the physical world. For, behind this veil, the adjustment between the divine world and Ahriman takes place, as enacted in the death on the cross of Christ-Jesus. Paul felt that error, leading to the death on the cross, can only enter a world wherein man is seized by the Ahrimanic powers. And when he had understood this, he learnt the truth of esoteric Christianity.

Paul was undoubtedly one of those who belonged, in this sense, to the initiates. But initiation gradually died out, through the growing influence of intellectualism. Today we must return to a knowledge of esoteric Christianity: we must know again that Christianity does not only contain what is exoteric, but goes beyond the forebodings that can be awakened through the Gospels. Today very little is said concerning an esoteric Christianity, but humanity must return to this knowledge, which is not based on outer documents. We must learn to fathom what the Christ himself taught to his initiated disciples after his resurrection, and we must take for granted that he could impart such teachings only after having passed through an experience, here on earth, which he could not have had in the divine world—for until the Mystery of Golgotha death did not exist in the divine worlds. No being of the divine worlds had passed through death—Christ is the first-born who passed through death from the world of the hierarchies, connected with the evolution of the Earth that went through Saturn, Sun and Moon.

The secret of Golgotha is the inclusion of death into life. Before Golgotha, the knowledge of life did not include death. Now death became known as an essential part of life, as an experience which strengthens life. Humanity went through a weaker form of life when nothing was known of death; humanity must live more forcefully if it wants to pass through death and yet remain alive. Death, in this connection, is also the intellect. Men possessed a comparatively weaker sense of life when they had no need of the intellect. The older people who obtained their knowledge of the divine worlds in the form of images and inner manifestations, did not die inwardly. They always remained alive. They could laugh at death because they remained alive inwardly. The Greeks still relate how happy the ancients were because, when death approached them, they became so dazed within, that they hardly noticed it. This was the last remnant of a world-conception that knew nothing of death. Modern man experiences the intellect. Intellect renders us cold and dead within. It paralyses us. When our intellect is active, we do not really live. We must feel that when we are thinking, we are not really alive, that our life is poured into the empty pictures of our understanding. A strong life is needed in order to experience the living activity contained in the lifeless images formed by our intellect, a creative, living activity inspite of all. A strong life is needed to reach the sphere where moral impulses flow out of the force of pure thinking, and where we learn to understand the freedom in man, through the impulses of pure thinking.

This is what I tried to set forth in my Philosophy of Freedom, which is really an ethical conception, and tries to show how dead thoughts can be awakened into life in the form of moral impulses, and thus be led to resurrection. An inner Christianity is undoubtedly contained in this Philosophy of Freedom.

With these explanations I wished to place before your souls, from a particular aspect, something concerning an esoteric Christianity. This age, which is so full of disputes concerning the nature of Christianity in an exoteric, historical sense, needs an esoteric Christianity—it is necessary to point out the esoteric teachings of Christianity. I hope that they will not be taken lightly, but with the needed earnestness and responsibility. When speaking of such things, one feels how difficult it is to clothe these experiences in the words of modern speech, which has already become abstract. For this reason, I have tried to attune your souls by describing the inner processes of man in the form of images, in order to form a thread leading from the single human being to that which constitutes, in an esoteric sense, the historical evolution of humanity, which is contained, as something essential, in the Mystery of Golgotha.

As the result of an impulse which I have lately had, let us consider one of the most important subjects in Anthroposophy. Anthroposophists are often reproached for their inclination towards the study of far-distant cosmic developments; and it is said that they lift themselves into spiritual worlds, too frequently only considering the far-distant events of the past and the far-reaching perspective of the future, disregarding a sphere which is of more immediate interest—the sphere of human morals and human ethics.

It is true that this, the realm of human morals, must be looked upon as the most essential of all. But what must be said in answer to the reproach that we are less concerned with this important field of man's soul-life and social life than with more distant spheres, is that when we realise the significance and range of anthroposophical life and feeling we are only able to approach this subject with the deepest reverence, for it concerns man very closely indeed; and we realise that, if it is to be considered in the right way, it requires the most earnest and serious preparation. The above reproach might perhaps be stated in the following words: What is the use of making deep studies of the universe? Why talk about numerous reincarnations, or the complicated conditions of karma, when surely the most important thing in life is what a certain wise man after he had attained the summit of this life, and when after a life of rich wisdom he had grown so weak and ill that he had to be carried about, repeated again and again to his followers: “Children, love one another!”

These words were uttered by John the Evangelist when he was an old man, and it has often been said that in these four words, “Children, love one another!” is contained the extract of the deepest and most practical moral wisdom. Hence many might say: “What more is wanted, provided these good, sublime and moral ideals can be so simply fulfilled as in the sense of the words of the Evangelist John?”

When to the above statement one adds that it is sufficient for people to know that they ought to love one another, one thing is lost sight of, namely, the circumstance that he who uttered these words did so at the close of a long life of wisdom, a life which included the writing of the most profound and important of the Gospels. A man is only justified in saying anything so simple at the end of a rich life of wisdom. But one who is not in that position must first, by going deeply into the foundations of the secrets of the world, earn the right to utter the highest moral truths in such a simple manner.

Trivial as is the oft-repeated assertion, “If the same thing is said by two persons it never is the same,” it is especially applicable to the words we have quoted. When someone who simply declines to know or understand anything about the mysteries of the Cosmos says: “It is quite a simple matter to describe the highest moral life,” and uses the words: “Children, love one another,” it is quite different from when the evangelist John utters these words, at the close of such a rich life of wisdom. For this reason, he who understands these words of St. John ought to draw from them quite a different conclusion from that usually drawn. The conclusion should be that one has first of all to be silent about such profoundly significant words, and that they may only be uttered when one has gone through the necessary preparation and reached the necessary maturity.

Now after we have made this statement—which it is quite certain many will take earnestly to heart—something quite different, which is of the deepest importance will come to our mind. Someone might say: ‘It may be the case that the deep significance of moral principles can only be understood when the goal of all wisdom is reached, man uses them, nevertheless, all the time. How could some moral community or social work be carried on if one had to wait for a knowledge of the highest moral principles till the end of a life of striving for wisdom? Morals are most necessary for human social life; and now it is asserted that moral principles can only be obtained at the end of long striving after wisdom.’ A person might therefore reasonably say that he would doubt the wise arrangement of the world if this were so; if that which is most necessary could only be gained after the goal of human effort had been attained.

Life itself gives us, the true answer to what has just been said. You need only compare two facts which, in one form or another, are no doubt well known to you and you will at once perceive that the one can be right as well as the other; firstly, that we attain to the, highest moral principles and their understanding only at the conclusion of the effort after wisdom, and secondly, that moral and social communities and activities cannot exist without ethics or morals. You see this at once if you bear in mind two facts with which you are most certainly acquainted in one form or another. You may have known a man who was highly developed intellectually, he may have possessed not only a clear intellectual grasp of natural science, but he may also have understood many occult and spiritual truths both theoretically and practically and yet you may have known that such a person was not particularly moral. Who has not seen people clever and highly intellectual, going morally astray? And who has not also experienced the other fact, from which much may be learned! You, doubtless have known someone with a very restricted outlook, with limited intellect and knowing but little, who being in service brought up not her own but other people's children. From their earliest days she has probably assisted with their education and development and perhaps to the day of her death sacrificed to these children all she had in a selfless loving way and with the utmost devotion; yet if one had brought to her the moral principles that one had gained from the highest sources of wisdom, she would not, in all probability, have been particularly interested; she would probably have found them useless and incomprehensible. On the other hand her moral actions had accomplished more than mere recognition of moral principles. In such cases we feel that we must bow in reverence before that which streams out of the heart into life and creates an infinite amount of good.

Facts of such a nature often answer the riddles of life far more clearly than theoretical explanations, for we say to ourselves that a wise Providence, in order to impart to the world moral actions, moral activities, has not waited until people have discovered moral principles. There is in fact, to begin with—if we disregard immoral actions, the basis of which we shall get to know in these lectures—something contained in the human soul as a divine heritage, something given to us as original morality which may be called “instinctive morality” and it is this which makes it possible for humanity to wait until it can fathom moral principles.

But perhaps it is quite unnecessary to trouble much about investigating moral principles! Might it not be said that it is best if people trust to their original moral instincts and do not perplex themselves with theoretical explanations about morals? These lectures are to show that this is not the case. They are to show that, at least in the present epoch of humanity, we must seek for anthroposophical morals and that these morals must be exercised as a duty which comes as the fruit of all our anthroposophical science and practice.

The philosopher, Schopenhauer, in spite of much that is entirely erroneous in his philosophy, made this very true statement regarding the principles of morality. “To preach morals is easy, but to give them a foundation is difficult.” This statement is very true, for there is scarcely anything easier than to pronounce in a manner appealing to the commonest principles of human feeling and perception, what a person ought to do or leave undone in order that he may be a good man. Many people no doubt are offended when it is asserted that this is easy, but it is easy, and one who knows life, and knows the world, will not doubt that scarcely anything has been spoken about so much as the right principles of ethical action, and the man who speaks upon general ethical principles meets with almost universal approval. One might say it pleases listening minds, for they feel they can agree in an unqualified manner with what the speaker says when he discourses on the very commonest principles of human morality.

Notwithstanding this, morals are certainly not established by ethical teachings or moral sermons. Truly not. If morals could thus be founded there would be no immorality at the present day, for one might say that the whole of humanity would be overflowing with moral activities. For undoubtedly everyone has the opportunity of hearing the finest moral principles, since people are so fond of preaching them. But to know what one ought to do and what is morally right is of least importance compared with the fact that there should be within us impulses which, through their inward strength, their inward power, are themselves converted into moral actions, and thus express themselves externally. It is well known that ethical sermons do not produce this result. A moral foundation is laid when a man is guided to the source whence he must draw the impulses which shall supply him with forces leading to ethical activity.

How difficult these forces are to find, is shown by the simple fact that innumerable attempts have been made, for example, from the philosophic side, to found a system of ethics, a code of morals. How many different answers exist in the world to the questions: “What is goodness?” -- “What is virtue?” Put together what the philosophers have said, beginning with Plato and Aristotle, and passing on through the Epicureans, the Stoics, the NeoPlatonists, the whole series down to modern philosophical opinions; put together all that has been said from Plato to Herbert Spencer upon the nature of Goodness and Virtue and you will see how many different attempts have been made to penetrate to the sources of moral life and impulse.

I hope in these lectures to show that it is only by delving into the occult secrets of life that it becomes possible, to penetrate not only to moral teachings, but to moral impulses, to the moral sources of life itself.

A single glance will show us that this moral principle in the world is by no means such a simple matter as might be supposed from a certain convenient standpoint. Let us for the moment take no notice of what is usually spoken of as “moral,” but consider certain spheres of human life from which we may perhaps be able to obtain a great deal towards a moral conception of life.

Not the least among the many things learned from spiritual science is the knowledge that most manifold conceptions and impulses have held good among various peoples in different parts of the earth. In comparing two sections of humanity which at first seem separated, one can consider the sacred life of ancient India, and observe how it has gradually developed up to the present day. One knows that what was characteristic of the India of primeval times is still true at the present day. The feelings, the thoughts and conceptions have been maintained that we find in this region in ancient times. It is remarkable that in these civilisations there has been preserved an image of primeval times, and when we consider what has been maintained up to our own day we are looking, so to say, at the same time into the remote past.

Now we do not progress very far in our understanding of the different peoples on earth if we begin by only applying our own moral standards. For this reason let us for the moment exclude what might be said about the moral things of those times and only inquire: What has developed from these characteristics of venerable ancient Indian civilisation?

We find, to begin with, that what was most highly honoured and held sacred may be described as “devotion to the spiritual”. This devotion to the spiritual was the more highly valued and counted sacred, the more the human being was able to sink into himself, to live quietly within himself, and, apart from all that man can attain on the physical plane—to direct the best in him to the spiritual worlds. We find this cultivation, this dedication of the soul to the foundations of existence as the highest duty of those who belonged or belong to the highest caste of Indian life, the Brahmins.

Nothing impresses the moral feelings of the Indian people more than this turning to the Divine-Spiritual with a devotion which forgets everything physical; an intensely deep introspection and renunciation of self. The moral life of this people is permeated by a devotion which controls every thought and action. This is apparent from the fact that those who belonged to other castes looked upon it as natural, especially in ancient times, that the caste of religious life and devotion and the life of ritual should be considered as something apart and worthy of reverence. That which underlies this cannot be understood by means of the common principles of morality laid down by philosophy, for at the period when these feelings and impulses developed in ancient India they were impossible among other peoples. In order that these tendencies could develop with such intensity both the temperament and fundamental character of the Indian people were required. As civilisation proceeded, emanating from India they spread abroad over the rest of the earth. If we wish to understand what is meant by the Divine-Spiritual we must go to this original source.

Let us now turn our attention away from this people and direct it towards Europe. Let us consider the peoples of Europe before Christianity had affected European culture very much, when it had only begun to spread in the West. You all know that Christianity spreading into Europe from the East and South was confronted by the peoples of Europe, who possessed certain tendencies, a definite inner worth and definite forces. One who studies with spiritual means the history of the introduction of Christianity into Central Europe and also here in the North, knows at what cost the balance was struck between this or that Christian impulse and what was brought to meet it from Northern and Central Europe.

And now let us inquire—as we have already done in the case of the Indian people—“What were the most characteristic moral forces brought to Christianity as a moral possession, a moral heritage, by the peoples whose successors form the present European population, especially the population of the North, Central Europe and England?” We need only mention a single one of the principal virtues, and we know at once that we are expressing something which is truly characteristic of these Northern and Mid-European peoples.—With the word “valour,” or “bravery,” we have named the chief virtue brought by the Europeans to Christianity; and the whole of the personal human force was exercised in order to actualise in the physical world what the human being intends from his innermost impulse. Intrinsically the further we go back to ancient times the more we find this to be the case—the other virtues are consequent upon this.

If we examine real valour in its fundamental quality, we find that it consists of an inner fullness of life which is practically inexhaustible, and this fullness of life was the most salient characteristic among the ancient peoples of Europe. Ancient Europeans possessed within them more valour than they could use for themselves. Quite instinctively, they followed the impulse to spend that of which they had a superabundance. One might even say that they were wasteful in pouring out their moral wealth, their fitness, and ability into the physical world. It was really as if among the ancient people of Northern Europe each one had brought with him a superfluity of force which was more than he needed for his own personal use; this he was therefore able to pour forth in an excess of prodigality and to use it for his warlike deeds. Modern ideas now consider these self-same warlike deeds, which were the outcome of ancient virtue, to be a relic of the past, and in fact they are classed as vices; but the man of ancient Europe used them in a chivalrous, magnanimous manner. Generous actions were characteristic of the peoples of ancient Europe, just as actions springing from devotion were characteristic of the people of ancient India.

Principles, theoretical moral axioms, would have been useless to the peoples of ancient Europe, for they would have evinced little understanding for them. Preaching moral sermons to a man of ancient Europe would have been like giving one who does not like reckoning, the advice that he ought to write down his receipts and expenditures with great accuracy. If he does not like this, the simple fact remains that he need not keep accounts, for he possesses enough for his expenditure, and can do without careful book-keeping if he has an inexhaustible supply. This circumstance is not unimportant. Theoretically it holds good with regard to what the human being considers of value in life, regarding personal energy and ability, and it also applies to the moral feelings of the inhabitants of ancient Europe. Each one had brought with him a divine legacy, as it were; he felt himself to be full of it, and spent it in the service of his family, his clan or his people. That was their mode of active trading and working.

We have now characterised two great sections of humanity which, were quite different from one another, for the feeling of contemplation natural to the Indians did not exist among Europeans. For, this reason it was difficult for Christianity to bring a feeling of devotion to the latter people, for their character and predispositions were entirely different. And now after considering these things—putting aside all the objections which might be raised from the standpoint of a moral concept—let us enquire into the moral effect. It does not require much reflection to know that this moral effect was extremely great when these two ways of looking at the world, these two trends of feeling met in their purest form. The world has gained infinitely much by that which could only be obtained through the existence of a people like the ancient Indians, among whom all feeling was directed to devotion to the Highest. Infinitely much it has also gained from the valiant deeds, of the European peoples of early pre-Christian times. Both these qualities had to co-operate, and together they yielded a certain moral effect. We shall see how the effect of the ancient Indian virtue as well as that of the ancient Germanic peoples can still be found to-day; how it has benefited not only a part but the whole of humanity, and we shall see how it still exists in all that men look up to as the highest.

So without further discussion, we may assert that something which produces this moral effect for humanity is good. Doubtless, in both streams of civilisation it must be so. But if, we were to ask: what is “goodness”? we are confronted once more by a puzzling question. What is the “good” which has been active in each of these cases? I do not wish to give you moral sermons, for this I do not consider my task. It is much more my task to bring before you the facts which lead us to an anthroposophical morality. For this reason I have thus far brought before you two systems of known facts, concerning which I ask nothing except that you should note that the fact of devotion and the fact of bravery produce definite moral effects in the evolution of humanity.

Let us now turn our attention to other ages. If you look at the life of the present day with its moral impulses you will naturally say: “We cannot practise to-day—at least not in Europe—what the purest ideal of India demands, for European civilisation cannot be carried on with Indian devotionalism”; but just as 1ittle would it be possible to attain to our present civilisation, with the ancient praiseworthy valour of the people of Europe. It at once becomes evident that deep in the innermost part of the ethical, feelings of the European peoples there is something else. We must therefore search out that something more in order to be able to answer the question: What is goodness? What is virtue?

I have often pointed out that we have to distinguish between the period we call the Graeco-Latin or fourth post-Atlantean age of civilisation and the one we call the fifth, in which we live at the present time. What I have now to say regarding the nature of morality is really intended to characterise the origin of the fifth post-Atlantean age. Let us begin with something which, as it is taken from poetry and legend you may consider open to dispute; but still it is significant of the way in which fresh moral impulses became active and how they flowed into mankind when the development of the fifth age gradually set in.

There was a poet who lived at the end of the 12th century and beginning of 13th century. He died in the year 1213, and was called Hartmann von Aue. He wrote his most important poem, entitled “Poor Henry,” in accordance with the way of thinking and feeling prevalent in his day. This poem particularly addresses what was thought about certain moral impulses among certain peoples in certain circles. Its substance is as follows:—Poor Henry once lived as a rich knight—for originally he was not poor Henry but a duly installed knight—who did not take into account that the things of the physical world decay and are temporary; he lived only for the day and thereby rapidly produced bad karma. He was thus stricken with a form of leprosy; he went to the most celebrated physicians in the world but none of them could help him, so considering his life at an end he sold all his worldly possessions; His disease preventing intercourse with his fellows he lived apart on a solitary farm, well taken care of by an old devoted servant and daughter. One day the daughter and the whole household heard that one thing alone could help the knight who had this destiny. No physician, no medicines could help him, only when a pure virgin out of pure love sacrificed her life for him would his health be restored. In spite of all the exhortations of her parents and of the knight Henry himself, something came over the daughter which made her feel that it was imperative she should sacrifice herself. She went with the knight to Salerno, the most celebrated school of medicine of the day. She did not fear what the physicians required of her; she was ready to sacrifice her life. But at the last moment the knight refused to allow it, he prevented it and returned home with her. The poem then tells us that when the knight returned home, he actually began. to recover and that he lived for a long time and spent a happy old age with the one who had determined to save him.

Well, to begin with, you may say that this is a poem, and we need not take literally the things here spoken of. But the matter becomes different when we compare what Hartmann von Aue, the poet of the Middle Ages, wrote at that time in his Poor Henry" with something that really happened, as is well known. We may compare what Hartmann wrote with the life of Francis of Assisi, who was born in the year 1182 and lived in Italy.

In order to describe, the moral nature contained in the personality of Francis of Assisi, let us consider the matter as it appears to the spiritual investigator or occultist, even though we may be looked upon as foolish and superstitious. These things must be taken seriously, because at that period of transition they were producing such momentous effects.

We know that Francis of Assisi was the son of the Italian merchant Bernardone, and his wife. Bernardone travelled a great deal in France, where he carried on his business. We also know that the father of Francis of Assisi was a man who set great store on outer appearances. His mother was a woman possessing the virtue of piety, having fine qualities of heart, and living devoutly according to her religious feelings. Now the things recounted in the form of legends about the birth and life of Francis of Assisi are entirely in agreement with occult facts. Although occult facts are frequently hidden by history in pictures and legends, these legends still correspond with them. Thus it is quite true that before the birth of Francis of Assisi quite a number of persons knew through revelation that an important personality was about to be born. Historical records show that one of the many people who dreamt—that is, who saw in prophetic vision—that an important personality was about to be born, was Saint Hildegarde. At this point I must emphasise once more the truth of these facts, which can be corroborated by investigations into the Akashic Record. She dreamt that there appeared to her a woman whose face was smeared and covered with blood, and this woman said to her: “The birds have their nests here upon earth, the foxes too have their holes, but at the present time I have nothing, not even a stick upon which I can lean.” When Hildegarde awakened from this dream, she knew this personality represented the true form of Christianity. And many other persons dreamt in a similar manner. From the knowledge at their disposal they saw that the outer order and institution of the church was unfitted to be a receptacle, a covering, for the true Christianity.

One day, while Francis of Assisi's father was on business in France—this, again, is a fact—a pilgrim went to Pica's house, to the mother of Francis of Assisi, and said to her: “The child you are expecting must not be brought into the world in this house, where there is abundance; you must bring him to birth in the stable, for he must lie upon straw and so follow after his Master!” This was actually said to the mother of Francis of Assisi; and it is not legend but truth that as the father was in France on business the mother was able to carry this out, so that the birth of Francis of Assisi actually took place in a stable and upon straw.

Another thing is also true: Some time after the child was born a remarkable man came into the little town, a man who had never been seen in that neighbourhood before and was never seen there again. He went through the streets again and again saying “An important person has been born in this town.” And those whose visionary life was still active also heard the ringing of bells at the time of the birth of Francis of Assisi.

Besides these few details a whole series of phenomena might be adduced, but we shall content ourselves with the above, which are only mentioned in order to show how significantly everything was concentrated from the spiritual world, regarding the advent of a single personality in that age.

All this becomes especially interesting when in addition we consider something else. The mother had the peculiar impression that the child ought to be called “John” and he was therefore given this name. However, when the father returned from France where he had done good business, he changed it and gave his son the name of Francis, as he wished to commemorate his successful journey. But originally the child was called John.

Now we need only draw attention to a few details from the life of this, remarkable man, especially from his youth. What sort of a person was Francis of Assisi as a youth? He was one who conducted himself like a descendant of the old Germanic knights, and this need not appear remarkable when we consider how peoples had intermingled after the immigrations from the North. Brave, warlike, filled with the ideal of winning honour and fame with the weapons of war; it was this which existed as a heritage, as a racial characteristic in the personality of Francis of Assisi.

There appeared in him more externally, one might say, the qualities which existed more as an inward quality of soul in the ancient Germans, for Francis of Assisi was a “spendthrift.” He squandered the possessions of his father, who was at that time a rich man. He gave freely to all his comrades and playfellows. No wonder that on all the childish warlike expeditions he was chosen as leader by his comrades, and that he was looked upon as a truly warlike boy, for he was known as such throughout the whole town. Now there were all sorts of quarrels between the youths of the towns of Assisi and Perugia; he also took part in these and it came about that on one occasion he and his comrades were taken prisoners. He not only bore his captivity patiently and in a knightly way, but he encouraged all the others to do the same until a year later they were able to return home.

Afterwards, when in the service of chivalry, a necessary expedition was going to be undertaken against Naples, he had a vision in a dream. He saw a great palace and everywhere weapons and shields. Up to the time of his dream he had only seen all kinds of cloth in his father's house and place of business. So he said to himself, this is a summons for me to become a soldier, and he thereupon decided to join the expedition. On the way there and still more distinctly after he had joined the expedition, he had spiritual impressions. He heard something like a voice which said “Go no further, you have wrongly interpreted the dream picture which is very important to you. Go back to Assisi and you shall there hear the right interpretation!”

He obeyed these words, went back to Assisi, and behold, he had something like an inner dialogue with a being who spoke to him spiritually and said, “Not in external service have you to seek your knighthood. You are destined to transform all the forces at your disposal into powers of the soul, into weapons forged for your use. All the weapons you saw in the palace signify the spiritual weapons of mercy, compassion and love. The shields signify the reasoning powers which you have to exercise to stand firmly in the trials of a life spent in deeds of mercy, compassion and love.” Then followed a short though dangerous illness, from which, however, he recovered. After that he passed through something like a retrospection of the whole of his life and in this he lived, for several days. The young knight who in his boldest dreams had only longed to become a great warrior was transformed into a man who now most earnestly sought all the impulses of mercy, compassion and love. All the forces he had thought of using in the service of the physical world were transformed into moral impulses of the inner life.

Here we see how a moral impulse evolves in a single personality. It is important that we should study a great moral impulse, for though the individual cannot always raise himself to the greatest ethical heights, yet he can only learn of them where he sees them most radically expressed and acting with the greatest forcefulness. It is precisely by turning our attention to the greatest and most characteristic manifestations of moral impulses, and then by considering the lesser ones in their light that we can attain to a correct view of moral impulses active in life.

But what happened next to Francis of Assisi? It is not necessary to describe the disputes with his father when he became prodigal in an entirely different manner. His father's home was well known for its lavish hospitality and wastefulness—for that reason his father could understand his son's extravagance, but he could not understand him after the radical change he had undergone, when he laid aside his best clothes and even his necessities and gave them to those in need. Nor could he understand his son's frame of mind, when he said, “How remarkable it is that those through whom in the West Christianity has received so much are so little respected,” and then Francis of Assisi made a pilgrimage to Rome and laid a large sum of money on the graves of the Apostles Peter and Paul. These things his father did not understand. I need not describe the discussions which then took place; I need only point out that in them were concentrated all the moral impulses of Francis of Assisi. These concentrated impulses had then transformed his bravery into soul-forces, they had developed in such a manner that in his meditations they produced a special conception, and appeared to him as the Cross and upon it the Saviour. Under these conditions he felt an inner personal relationship to the Cross and the Christ, and from this there came to him the forces through which he could immeasurably increase the moral impulses which now flowed through him.

He found a remarkable use for that which now developed in him. At that time the horrors of leprosy had invaded many parts of Europe. The church had discovered a strange cure for these lepers who were then so numerous. The priests would call the lepers and say to them: “ You are stricken with this disease in this life, but inasmuch as you are lost to this life, you have been won for God, you are dedicated to God.” And the lepers were then sent away to places far removed from mankind, where, lonely and shunned, they had to spend the remainder of their lives.

I do not blame this kind of cure. They knew no better. But Francis of Assisi knew a better one. I mention this, because from actual experience it will lead us to moral sources. You will see in our next lectures why we are now mentioning these things. These moral impulses led Francis of Assisi to search out lepers everywhere, and not to be afraid of going about among them. And actually the leprosy which none of the remedial agents at that time could cure, which made it necessary that these people should be thrust out of human society, this leprosy was healed in numberless cases by Francis of Assisi, because he went to these people with the power which he possessed through moral impulses, which made him fear nothing; it rather gave him courage not only carefully to cleanse their wounds, but to live with the lepers, to nurse them conscientiously, yea, to kiss them and permeate them with his love.

The healing of Poor Henry by the daughter of his faithful servant, is not merely a poetic story, it expresses what actually occurred in a great number of cases at that time through the historically well-known personality of Francis of Assisi. Observe what really took place. In a human being, in Francis of Assisi, there was a tremendous store of psychic life, in the shape of something which we have found in the ancient peoples of Europe as bravery and valour, which had been transformed into soul and spirit, and afterwards acted psychically and spiritually. Just as in ancient times that which had expressed itself as courage and valour led to personal expenditure of force, and manifested itself in Francis of Assisi in his younger days as extravagance, so it now led him to become prodigal of moral forces. He was full to overflowing with moral force, and this actually passed over to those to whom he turned his love.

Now try to realise that this moral force is a reality, just as much a reality as the air we breathe and without which we cannot live. It is a reality which flooded the whole being of Francis of Assisi, and streamed from him into all hearts to which he dedicated himself, for Francis of Assisi was prodigal of abundance of force which streamed forth from him, and this is something which has streamed into and intermingled with the whole of the mature life of Europe, which has changed into a soul force, and thus worked, as it were, in the world of external reality.

Try to reflect upon these facts which at first may apparently have nothing to do with the actual question of morality; try to grasp what is contained in the devotion of the Indian and the valour of the Norseman; reflect upon the healing effect of such moral forces as were exercised by Francis of Assisi and then in our next lecture we shall be able to speak about real, moral impulses and we shall see that it is not merely words which give rise to morality, but realities working in the soul.