Our
studies of karma, which have led us lately to definite individual
examples of karmic relationships, are intended to afford a basis
for forming a judgment not only of individual human connections,
but also of more general historical ones. And it is with this end
in view that I would like now to add to the examples already
given. Today we will prepare the ground, and tomorrow we will
follow this up by showing the karmic connections.
You
will have realised that consideration of the relation between one
earth-life and the next must always be based upon certain
definite symptoms and facts. If we take these as our
starting-point, they will lead us to a view of the actual
connections. And in the case of the individualities of whom I
have ventured to tell you, I have shown where these particular
starting-points are to be found.
Today
I want, as I said, to prepare the way, placing before you
problems of which we shall find the solutions tomorrow.
Let
me first draw your attention to the peculiar interest that one or
another personality can arouse. I shall speak of personalities of
historical interest as well as of personalities in ordinary life;
the very interest that some persons arouse in us will often urge
us to find a clue to their life-connections. Once we know how to
look for these clues in the right way, we shall be able to find
them. As you will already have noticed from the way in which I
have presented the cases, it is all a matter of seeking in the
right way. Let us then not be deterred, but proceed boldly.
Whatever
one's attitude to the personality of
Garibaldi may be in other respects, there can be no doubt
that he is an interesting figure in the history of Europe; he
played, as we all know, a remarkable part in the events of the
19th century. Today, then, we will make a preparatory study of
Garibaldi, and to begin with I will bring to your notice certain
facts in his life which, as we shall find, are able to lead the
student of spiritual science to the connections of which we shall
learn tomorrow.
Garibaldi
is a personality who participated in a remarkable way in the life
of the 19th century. He was born in the year 1807 and he held a
prominent and influential position on into the second half of the
century. This means that the way he expresses himself as a man is
highly characteristic of the 19th century.
When
we come to consider the features of his life, looking especially
for those that are important from a spiritual aspect, we find
Garibaldi spending his boyhood in Nice as the son of a poor man
who had a job in the navigation service. He was a child who had
little inclination to take part in what the current education of
the country had to offer, a child who was not at all brilliant at
school, but who took a lively interest in all sorts and varieties
of human affairs. What he learned at school had the effect of
inducing him very often to play truant. While the teacher was
trying in his own way to bring some knowledge of the world to the
children, the boy Garibaldi much preferred to romp about
outdoors, to scamper through the woods or play games by the
riverside. On the other hand, if he once got hold of some book
that appealed to him, nothing could tear him from it. He would
lie on his back by the hour in the sunshine, absolutely absorbed,
not even going home for meals.
Broadly
speaking, however, it was the great world that interested him.
While still quite young he set about preparing himself for his
father's calling and took part in sea voyages, at first in a
subordinate, and afterwards in an independent position. He made
many voyages on the Adriatic and shared in all the varied
experiences that were to be had in the first half of the 19th
century, when Liberalism and Democracy had not yet organised sea
traffic and put it under police regulations, but when some
freedom of movement was still left in the life of man! He shared
in all the experiences that were possible in times when one could
do more or less what one wanted! And so he also had the
experience — I believe it happened to him three or four
times — of being captured by pirates. As well as being a
genius, however, he was sly, and every time he was caught, he got
away again, and very quickly too!
And
so Garibaldi grew up into manhood, always living in the wide
world. As I have said, I do not intend to give you a biography
but to point out characteristic features of his life that can
lead us to a consideration of what is really important and
essential. He lived in the wide world, and there came a time when
he acquired a very strong and vivid impression of what his own
inner relationship to the world might be. It was when he was
nearly grown up and was taken by his father on a journey through
the country, as far as Rome. There, looking out from Rome over
all Italy, he must have been aware of something quite remarkable
going through his soul. In his voyages he had met many people who
were, in general, quite alive and awake, but were utterly
indifferent to one particular interest — they were asleep
as regards the conditions of the time; and these people made an
impression on Garibaldi that nearly drove him to despair. They
had no enthusiasm for true and genuine humanity, such as showed
itself in him quite early in life — he had indeed a genius
for warm, tenderhearted enthusiasm.
As
he passed through the countryside and afterward came to Rome, a
kind of vision must have arisen in his soul of the part he was
later to play in the liberation of Italy. Other circumstances
also helped to make him a fanatical anti-cleric, and a fanatical
Republican, a man who set clearly before him the aim of doing
everything in his power to further the well-being of humanity.
And
now, taking part as he did in all manner of movements in Italy in
the first half of the 19th century, it happened one day that for
the first time in his life Garibaldi read his name in the
newspaper. I think he was about thirty years old at the time. It
meant a good deal more in those days than it would do now, to
read one's name in the newspaper. Garibaldi had, however, a
peculiar destiny in connection with this reading of his name in
the newspaper, for the occasion was the announcement in the paper
of his death-sentence! He read his name there for the first time
when his sentence to death was reported. There you have a unique
circumstance of his life; it is not every man who has such an
experience.
It
was not granted to Garibaldi — and it is characteristic of
his destiny that it was not, considering that his whole
enthusiasm was centred in Italy — it was not granted him at
first to take a hand in the affairs of Italy or Europe, but it
was laid upon him by destiny to go first to South America and
take part in all manner of movements for freedom over there,
until the year 1848. And in every situation he showed himself a
most remarkable man, gifted with quite extraordinary qualities. I
have already related to you one most singular event in his life,
the finding of his name in the newspaper for the first time on
the occasion of the announcement of his own death-sentence. And
now we come to another quite individual biographical fact,
something that happens to very few men indeed. Garibaldi became
acquainted in a most extraordinary way with the woman who was to
be the mainstay of his happiness for many years. He was out at
sea, on board ship, looking landwards through a telescope. To
fall in love through a telescope — that is certainly not
the way it happens to most people!
Destiny
again made it easy for him to become quickly acquainted with the
one whom he had chosen through the telescope to be his beloved.
He steered at once in the direction in which he had looked
through the telescope, and on reaching land he was invited by a
man to a meal. It transpired, after he had accepted the
invitation, that this man was the father of the girl he had seen!
She could speak only Portuguese, and he only Italian; but we are
assured by his biographer, and it seems to be correct, that the
young woman immediately understood his carefully phrased
declaration of love, which seems to have consisted simply of the
words — in Italian of course — “We must unite
for life.” She understood immediately. And it really
happened so, that from this meeting came a lifelong companionship
that lasted for a long, long time.
Garibaldi's
wife shared in all the terrible and adventurous journeys he made
in South America, and some of the recorded details of them are
really most moving. For example, the story is told of how a
report got about that Garibaldi had been killed in battle. His
wife hurried to the battlefield and lifted up every head to see
if it were her husband's. After a long time, and after undergoing
many adventures in the search, she found him still alive. It is
most affecting to read how on this very journey, which lasted a
long time, she gave birth to a child without help of any kind,
and how, in order to keep it warm, she bound it in a sling about
her neck, holding it against her breast for hours at a time. The
story of Garibaldi's South American adventures has some deeply
moving aspects.
But
now the time came, in the middle of the 19th century, when all
kinds of impulses for freedom were stirring among the peoples of
Europe, and Garibaldi could not bring himself to stay away any
longer in South America; he returned to his fatherland. It is
well-known with what intense energy he worked there, mustering
volunteers under the most difficult circumstances — so much
so that he did not merely contribute to the development of the
new Italy: he was its creator.
And
here we come to a feature of his life and character that stands
out very strongly. He was, in every relationship of life, a man
of independence, a man who always thought in a large and
simple way, and took account only of the impulses that welled up
from the depths of his own inner being. And so it is really very
remarkable to see him doing everything in his power to bring it
about that the dynasty of Victor Emmanuel should rule over the
kingdom of Italy, when in reality the whole unification and
liberation of Italy was due to Garibaldi himself. The story of
how he won Naples and then Sicily with, comparatively speaking,
quite a small force of men, undisciplined yet filled with
enthusiasm, of how the future King of Italy needed only to make
his entry into the regions already won for him by Garibaldi, and
of how, nevertheless, if truth be told, nothing whatever was done
from the side of the royal family or of those who stood near to
them to show any proper appreciation of what Garibaldi had
accomplished — the whole story makes a deep and striking
impression. Fundamentally speaking, if we may put it in somewhat
trivial language, the Savoy Dynasty had Garibaldi to thank for
everything, and yet they were eminently unthankful to him,
treating him with no more than necessary politeness.
Take,
for example, the entry into Naples. Garibaldi had won Naples for
the Dynasty and was regarded by the Neapolitans as no less than
their liberator; a perfect storm of jubilation always greeted his
appearance. It would have been unthinkable for the future King of
Italy to make his entry into Naples without Garibaldi, absolutely
unthinkable. Nevertheless the King's advisers were against it.
Advisers, no doubt, are often exceedingly short-sighted; but if
Victor Emmanuel had not acted on his own account out of a certain
instinct and made Garibaldi sit by him in his red shirt on the
occasion of the entry into Naples, he himself would most
certainly not have been greeted with shouts of rejoicing! Even
so, the cheers were intended for Garibaldi and not for him. He
would most assuredly have been hissed — that is an absolute
certainty. Victor Emmanuel would have been hissed if he had
entered Naples without Garibaldi.
And
it was the same all through. At some campaign or other in the
centre of Italy, Garibaldi had carried the day. The
commanders-in-chief with the King had come — what does one
say in such a case, putting it as kindly as one can? — they
had come too late. The whole thing had been carried through to
the finish by Garibaldi. When, however, the army appeared, with
its generals wearing their decorations, and met Garibaldi's men
who had no decorations and were moreover quite unpretentiously
attired, the generals declared: it is beneath our dignity to ride
side by side with them, we cannot possibly do such a thing! But
Victor Emmanuel had some sort of instinct in these matters. He
called Garibaldi to his side, and the generals, making wry faces,
were obliged to join with Garibaldi's army as it drew up into
line. These generals, it seems, had a terribly bad time of it;
they looked as though they had stomach-aches! And afterward, when
the entry into a town was to be made, Garibaldi, who had done
everything, actually had to come on behind like a rearguard. He
and his men had to wait and let the others march in front. It was
a case where the regular army had in point of fact done
absolutely nothing; yet they entered first, and after them,
Garibaldi with his followers.
The
important things to note are these remarkable links of destiny.
It is in these links of destiny that we may find our guidance to
the karmic connections. For it has not directly to do with a
man's freedom or unfreedom that he first sees his name in print
on the occasion of his death-sentence, or that he finds his wife
through a telescope. Such things are connections of destiny; they
take their course alongside of that which is always present in
man in spite of them — his freedom. These are the very
things, however — these things of which we may be sure that
they are links of destiny — that can give a great stimulus
to the practical study of the nature and reality of karma.
Now
in the case of a personality like Garibaldi, traits that may
generally be thought incidental, are characteristic. They are, in
his case, strongly marked. Garibaldi was what is called a
handsome man. He had beautiful tawny-golden hair and was
altogether a splendid figure. His hair was curly and gleaming
gold, and was greatly admired by the women! Now you will agree,
from what I have told you of Garibaldi's bride — whom he
chose, you remember, through a telescope — that only the
highest possible praise can be spoken of her; nevertheless, it
seems she was not altogether free from jealousy. What does
Garibaldi do one day when this jealousy seems to have assumed
somewhat large proportions? He has his beautiful hair all cut
away to the roots; he lets himself be made bald. That was when
they were still in South America. All these things are traits
that serve to show how the necessities of destiny are placed into
life.
Garibaldi
became, as we know, one of the great men of Europe after his
achievements in Italy, and traveling through Italy today you know
how, from town to town, you pass from one Garibaldi memorial to
another. But there have been times when not only in Italy but
everywhere in Europe the name of Garibaldi was spoken with the
keenest interest and the deepest devotion, when even the ladies
in Cologne, in Mainz and in many another place wore red blouses
in Garibaldi's honour — not to mention London, where
Garibaldi's red blouse became quite the fashion.
During
the Franco-Prussian War, in 1870, Garibaldi, now an old man, put
himself at the disposal of the French, and an interesting
incident took place. His only experience, as we know, had been
volunteer fighting, such as he had conducted in Italy and also in
South America, yet on a certain occasion in this full-scale war
he was the one to capture a German flag from under a pile of men
who were trying to protect it with their bodies. Garibaldi
captured this flag. But he had such respect for the men who had
hurled themselves upon the flag to guard it with their own
bodies, that he sent it back to its owners. Strange to relate,
however, when he appeared in a meeting at some place or other
soon afterward, he was received with hisses on account of what he
had done.
You
will agree — this is not merely an interesting life, but
the life of a man who in very deed and fact is lifted right above
all other greatness in evidence in the 19th century! A most
remarkable man — so original, so elementary, acting so
evidently out of primitive impulses, and at the same time with
such genius! Others working with him may perhaps have been better
at leading large armies and doing things in an orderly way, but
none of them in that deeply materialistic period had such
genuine, spontaneous enthusiasm for what they were aiming at.
Here,
then, is one of the personalities whom I would like to place
before you. As I said, I shall give preparatory descriptions
today, and tomorrow we will look for the answers.
Another
personality, very well-known to you by name, is of exceptional
interest in connection with investigations into karma. It is
Lessing.
The
circumstances of Lessing's life, I may say, have always
interested me to an extraordinary degree. Lessing is really the
founder of the better sort of journalism, the journalism that has
substance and is really out to accomplish something. Before
Lessing, poets and dramatists had taken their subjects from the
aristocracy. Lessing, on the other hand, is at pains to introduce
bourgeois life, ordinary middle-class life, into the drama, the
life concerned generally with the destinies of men as men,
and not with the destinies of men in so far as they hold some
position in society or the like. Purely human conflicts —
that is what Lessing wanted to portray on the stage. In the
course of his work he applied himself to many great problems, as
for example when he tried to determine the boundaries of painting
and of poetry in his Laocoon. But the most interesting
thing of all is the powerful impetus with which Lessing fought
for the idea of tolerance. You need only take his Nathan the
Wise and you will see at once what a foremost place this idea
of tolerance has in Lessing's mind and life. In weaving the fable
of the three kings in Nathan the Wise, he wants to show
how the three main religions have gone astray from their original
forms and are none of them really genuine, and how one must go in
search of the true form, which has been lost. Here we have
tolerance united with an uncommonly deep and significant idea.
Interesting,
too, is the conversation between Freemasons, entitled Ernst
und Falk, and much else that springs from Freemasonry. What
Lessing accomplished in the way of critical research into the
history of religious life is, for one who is able to judge its
significance, really astounding. But we must be able to place the
whole Lessing, in his complete personality, before us. And this
we cannot do by reading, for example, the two-volume work by
Erich Schmidt which purports to be a final and complete study of
Lessing. Lessing as he really was, is not portrayed at all, but a
picture is given of a puppet composed of various limbs and
members, and we are told that this puppet wrote Nathan the
Wise and Laocoon. It amounts to no more than an
assertion that the man portrayed here has written these books.
And it is the same with the other biographies of Lessing.
We
begin to get an impression of Lessing when we observe the driving
force with which he hurls his sentences against his opponents. He
wages a polemic against the civilisation of Central Europe —
quite a refined and correct polemic, but at every turn hitting
straight home. You must here observe a peculiar nuance in
Lessing's character if you want to understand the make-up of his
life. On the one hand we have the sharpness, often caustic
sharpness, in such writings as The Dramatic Art of Hamburg,
and then we have to find the way to an understanding, for
example, of the words used by Lessing when a son had been born to
him and had died directly after birth. He writes somewhat as
follows in a letter: Yes, he has at once taken leave again of
this world of sorrow; he has thereby done the best thing a human
being can do. (I cannot cite the passage word for word, but it
was to this effect.) In so writing, Lessing is giving expression
to his pain in a wonderfully brave way, not for that reason
feeling the pain one whit less deeply than someone who can do
nothing but bemoan the event. This ability to draw back into
himself in pain was characteristic of the man who at the same
time knew how to thrust forward with vigour when he was
developing his polemics. This is what makes it so affecting to
read the letter written when his child had died immediately after
birth, leaving the mother seriously ill.
Lessing
had moreover this remarkable thing in his destiny — and it
is quite characteristic, when one sets out to find the karmic
connections in his case — that he was friends in Berlin
with a man who was in every particular his opposite, namely,
Nikolai.
Of
Lessing it can be said — it is not literally true, but it
is none the less characteristic — that he never dreamed,
because his intellect and his understanding were so keen. On this
account, as we shall see tomorrow, he is for the spiritual
researcher such an extraordinarily significant personality. But
there is something in the very construction of his sentences,
something in the home-thrusts with which he lays his opponent in
the dust, that really makes every sentence a delight to read.
With
Nikolai it is just the opposite. Nikolai is an example of a true
philistine. Although Lessing's friend, he was none the less a
typical philistine-bourgeois; and he had visions, most strange
and remarkable visions.
Lessing,
genius as he was, had no visions, not even dreams. Nikolai
literally suffered from visions. They came, and they went
away only after leeches had been applied. Yes, in extremity they
actually applied leeches to him, in order that he might not be
forever tormented by the spiritual world which would not let him
alone.
Fichte
wrote a very interesting essay directed against Nikolai. He set
out to give a picture of the typical German-bourgeois as shown in
the personality of Nikolai. For all that, this same Nikolai was
the friend of Lessing.
Another
thing is very remarkable in Lessing. In his own Weltanschauung,
Lessing concerned himself very much with two philosophers,
Spinoza and Leibniz. Now it has often attracted me very much, as
an interesting occupation for spare hours, to read all the
writings in which it is proved over and over again that Lessing
was a Leibnizian, and on the other hand those in which it is
proved on still more solid ground that he was a Spinozist. For in
truth one cannot decide whether Lessing, acute and discerning
thinker as he was, was a Leibnizian or a Spinozist, who are the
very opposite of each other. Spinoza — pantheist and
monotheist; Leibniz — monadist, purely and completely
individualistic. And yet we cannot decide whether Lessing belongs
to Leibniz or to Spinoza. When we try to put him to the test in
this matter, we can come to no conclusive judgment. It is
impossible.
At
the close of his life Lessing wrote the remarkable essay, The
Education of the Human Race, at the end of which, quite
isolated, as it were, the idea of repeated earth-lives appears.
The book shows how mankind goes through one epoch of development
after another, and how the Gods gave into man's hand as a first
primer, so to speak, the Old Testament, and then as a second
primer the New Testament, and how in the future a third book will
come for the further education of the human race. And then all at
once the essay is brought to a close with a brief presentation of
the idea that man lives through repeated earth-lives. And there
Lessing says, again in a way that is absolutely in accord with
his character (I am not quoting the actual words, but this is the
gist of it): Ought the idea of repeated earth-lives to seem so
absurd, considering that it was present in very early times, when
men had not yet been spoilt by school learning? The essay then
ends with a genuine panegyric on repeated earth-lives, finishing
with these beautiful words: “Is not all Eternity mine?”
One
used to meet continually — perhaps it would still be so if
one mixed more with people — one used to meet people who
valued Lessing highly, but who turned away, so to speak, when
they came to The Education of the Human Race. Really it is
hard to understand the state of mind of such people. They set the
highest estimation on a man of genius, and then reject what he
gives to humanity in his most mature age. They say: he has grown
old, he is senile, we can no longer follow him. That is all very
well; one can reject anything by that method! The fact is, no one
has any right to recognise Lessing and not to recognise that this
work was conceived by him in the full maturity of his powers.
When a man like Lessing utters a profound aphorism such as this
on repeated earth-lives, there is, properly speaking, no
possibility of ignoring it.
You
will readily see that the personality of Lessing is interesting
in the highest degree from a karmic point of view, in relation to
his own passage through different earth-lives. In the second half
of the 18th century the idea of repeated earth-lives was by no
means a commonly accepted one. It comes forth in Lessing like a
flash of lightning, like a flash of genius. We cannot account for
its appearance; it cannot possibly be due to Lessing's education
or to any other influence in this particular life. We are
compelled to ask how it may be with the previous life of a man in
whom at a certain age the idea of repeated earth-lives suddenly
emerges — an idea that is foreign to the civilisation of
his own day — emerges, too, in such a way that the man
himself points to the fact that the idea was once present in very
early times. The truth is that he is really bringing forward
inner grounds for the idea, grounds of feeling that
carry with them an indication of his own earth-life in the
distant past. Needless to say, in his ordinary
surface-consciousness he has no notion of such connections. The
things we do not know are, however, none the less true. If those
things alone were true that many people know, then the world
would be poor indeed in events and poor indeed in beings.
This
is the second case whose karmic connections we are going to
study.
There
is a third case I should like to open up, because it is one that
can teach us a great deal in the matter of karmic relationships.
Among the personalities who were near to me as teachers in my
youth there was a man to whom I have already referred; today I
should like to speak of him again, adding some points that will
be significant for our study of karma.
There
are, of course, risks in speaking of these matters, but in view
of the whole situation of the spiritual life which ought to
proceed from Anthroposophy today, I do not think such risks can
be avoided.
What
I am now going to tell you came to my notice several years after
I had last seen the person in question, who was a greatly beloved
teacher of mine up to my eighteenth year. But I had always
continued to follow his life, and had in truth remained very
close to him. And now at a certain moment in my own life I felt
constrained to follow his life more closely in a particular
respect.
It
was when, in another connection, I began to take a special
interest in the life of Lord Byron. And at that same time
I got to know some Byron enthusiasts. One of them was the
poetess, Marie Eugenie delle Grazie, of whom I shall have much to
say in my autobiography. During a certain period of her life she
was a Byron enthusiast. Then there was another, a most remarkable
personality, a strange mixture of all possible qualities —
Eugen Heinrich Schmidt. Many of you who know something about the
history of Anthroposophy will be familiar with his name.
Eugen
Heinrich Schmidt first became known in Vienna during the
eighties, and it was then that I made his acquaintance. He had
just written the prize essay that was published by the Hegel
Society of Berlin, on the Dialectics of Hegel. Now he came to
Vienna, a tall, slight man filled with a burning enthusiasm,
which came to expression at times in very forcible gestures. It
was none the less genuine for that. And it was just this
enthusiasm of Schmidt's that gave me the required “impulse,”
as it were. I thought I would like to do him a kindness, and as
he had recently written a most enthusiastic and inspired article
on Lord Byron, I introduced him to my other Byron enthusiast,
Marie Eugenie delle Grazie. And now began a wildly excited
discussion on Byron. The two were really quite in agreement, but
they carried on a most lively and animated debate. All we others
who were sitting round — a whole collection of theological
students from the Vienna Catholic Faculty were there, who came
every week and with whom I had made friends — all we others
were silent. And the two who were thus conversing about Byron
were sitting like this. — Here was the table, rather a long
one, and at one end sat delle Grazie and at the other end, Eugen
Heinrich Schmidt, gesticulating with might and main. All of a
sudden his chair slips away from under him, and he falls under
the table, his feet stretching right out to delle Grazie. I can
tell you, it was a shock for us all! But this shock helped me to
hit upon the solution of a particular problem.
Let
me tell you of it quite objectively, as a matter of history. All
that they had been saying about Byron had made a strong
impression upon me, and I began to feel the keenest need to know
how the karmic connections might be in the case of Byron. It was,
of course, not so easy. But now I suddenly had the following
experience. — It was really as if the whole picture of this
conversation, with Eugen Heinrich Schmidt being so terribly
impolite with his foot! — as if this picture had suddenly
drawn my attention to the foot of Lord Byron, who had, as you
know, a club-foot. And from that I went on to say to myself: My
beloved teacher, too, had a foot like that; this karmic
connection must be investigated. I have already given you an
example, in the affliction of the knee from which Eduard von
Hartmann suffered, of how one's search can be led back through
peculiarities of this kind. I was able now to perceive the
destiny of the teacher whom I loved and who also had such a foot.
And it was remarkable in the highest degree to observe how on the
one hand the same peculiarity came to view both in the case of
Byron and of my teacher, namely, the club-foot; but how on the
other hand the two persons were totally different from one
another, Byron, the poet of genius, who in spite of his genius —
or perhaps because of it — was an adventurer; and the other
a brilliant geometrician such as one seldom finds in teaching
posts, a man at whose geometrical imagination and treatment of
descriptive geometry one could only stand amazed.
In
short, having before me these two men, utterly different in soul,
I was able to solve the problem of their karma by reference to
this seemingly insignificant physical detail. This detail it was
that enabled me to consider the problems of Byron and my geometry
teacher in connection with one another, and thereby to
find the solution.
I
wished to give these examples today and tomorrow we will consider
them from the point of view of karma.
Continued
in the next issue of SCR.
Thanks
to the Rudolf Steiner Archive.
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