6/23/23, 9:15 PM Contents - GA 349.

Colour and the Human Races (1969) - Rudolf Steiner Archive

Colour and the Human Races

Two lectures, the second and third, from the lecture series entitled, The Life of Man on Earth,
Facts Concerning Christianity, published in German as, Vom Leben des Menschen und der Erde.
Ueber das Wesen des Christentums. Vortraege fuer Arbeiter am Goetheanumbau. Band 3. These
lectures to the workmen have also been published with the title, Life on Earth, Race, Color.
They were given by Rudolf Steiner on February 21st and March 3rd, 1923 at Dornach.
Translated by M. Cotterell

I. The Nature of Color February 21, 1923

© 2021-2023 Steiner Online Library. All rights reserved.

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Colour and the Human Races

I. The Nature of Color

21 February 1923, Dornach

In order, gentlemen that the last question may be thoroughly answered. I will, as far as possible, say some‐
thing about colors. One cannot really understand colors if one does not understand the human eye, for man
perceives colors entirely through the eye.

Picture to yourselves, for instance, a blind person. A blind person feels differently in a room that is lighted
and in a room that is dark. Though it is so weak a matter that he does not perceive it, yet it has a great signifi‐
cance for him. Even a blind person could not live perpetually in a cellar, he would need the light. And there
is a difference if one brings a blind man into a bright room with yellow windows, or into a dark room, or into
a fairly light room which has blue windows. That acts quite differently on his life. Yellow color and blue
color influence life quite differently. But these are things which one learns to understand only when one has
grasped how the eye is affected by color.

Now from what I have hitherto put before you, you will perhaps have realized that two things are most im‐
portant in man. The first is the blood, for if man were not to have blood he would have to die at once. He
would not be able to renew his life every moment and life must be every moment renewed. So if you think
away the blood from the body, man is a dead object.

Now think away the nerves too: man would no doubt look just the same, but he would have no conscious‐
ness; he could form no ideas, could will nothing, would not be able to move.

We must therefore say to ourselves: For man to be a conscious human being he needs nerves. For man to be
able to live at all he needs blood. Thus blood is the organ of life, the nerves are the organ of consciousness.

But every organ has nerves and has blood. The human eye is in fact really like a complete human being and
has nerves and blood. Imagine that here [a drawing was made] the eye protrudes, and in the eye little blood-
arteries, many blood-arteries spread out. And many nerves too spread out. You see, what you have in the
hand, that is, nerves and blood, you have also in the head.

Now think: the external world which is illumined works upon the eye. By day at any rate the world in which
you go about is illumined, but it is difficult to form an idea of this wholly-lighted outer world. You get a true
idea when you imagine the half-lighted world in the morning and evening, when you see the red of dawn and
evening. Dawn and the sunset glow are particularly instructive.

For what is actually there in the glow of dawn and evening? Picture to yourselves the sunrise. The sun comes
up, but it cannot shine on you direct as yet. The sun comes when the earth is like this — I am now drawing
the apparent path, but that does not matter (in reality the earth moves and the sun stands still, but how we see
this makes no difference). The sun sends its rays here [drawing] and then here. So if first you stand there, you
do not see the sun at dawn, you see the litÖ¾up clouds. These are the clouds and the light falls actually on

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them. What is that actually? This is very instructive. Because the sun has not quite risen, it is still dark
around you and there in the distance are the clouds lit up by the sun. Can one understand that?

If you stand there you are seeing the illumined clouds through the darkness that is around you. You see light
through darkness. So that we can say it is the same thing at dawn and sunset — one sees light through dark‐
ness. And light seen through darkness — as you can see in the morning and evening glow — looks red. Light
seen through darkness looks red.

Now I will say something different. Imagine that dawn has gone by and it is daytime. You see freely up into
the air, as it is today. What do you see? You see the so-called blue sky. To be sure, it is not there, but you see
it all the same. That certainly does not continue into all infinity, but you see the blue sky as if it were sur‐
rounding the earth like a blue shell.

Why is that? Now you have only to think of how it is out there in distant universal space. It is in fact dark.
For universal space is dark. The sun shines only on the earth and because there is air round the earth the sun‐
beams are caught and make it light here, especially when they shine through watery air. But out there in uni‐
versal space it is absolutely black darkness. So that if one stands here by day one looks into darkness, and
one should actually see darkness. But one does not see it black, but blue, because all round there is light from
the sun. The air and the moisture in the air are illumined.

So you see quite clearly darkness through the light. You look through the light, through the illumined air into
darkness. And therefore we can say: Darkness through light is blue.

There you have the two principles of the color-theory which you can simply get from observation of the sur‐
roundings. If you thoroughly understand the red of dawn and evening glow you say to yourself: Light seen
through darkness or obscurity is red. When by day you look out into the black heavens, you say to yourself:
Darkness or obscurity seen through light — since it is light around you — is blue.

You see, men have always had this quite natural view until they became “clever.” This perception of light
seen through darkness being red, and darkness through light being blue, was possessed by ancient peoples
over in Asia when they still had the knowledge which I have lately described to you. The ancient Greeks still
had this concept, and it lasted through the whole Middle Ages until the 14th. 15th, 16th, 17th centuries when
people became clever. And as they became clever, they began not to look at nature but to think out all sorts of
artificial sciences.

One of those who devised a particularly artificial science about color was the Englishman Newton. Out of
cleverness — you know how I am now using the word, namely quite in earnest — out of special cleverness
Newton said something like this: Let us look at the rainbow — for when one is clever one does not look at
something happening naturally every day: dawn, sunset, one looks at the specially unusual and rare, some‐
thing to be understood only when one has gone further. However. Newton said: Let us look at the rainbow. In
the rainbow one sees seven colors, namely, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. One sees
them next to each other in the rainbow:

Red
Orange
Yellow
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Green
Blue
Indigo
Violet

When you look at a rainbow you can distinguish these seven colors quite plainly.

Now Newton made an artificial rainbow by darkening the room, covering the window with black paper, and
in the paper he made a tiny hole. That gave him a very small streak of light.

Then he put in this streak of light something that one calls a prism. It is a glass that looks like this [drawing],
a sort of three-cornered glass, and behind this he set up a screen. So he then had the window with the hole,
this tiny beam of light, the prism and behind it the screen. Then the rainbow appeared with the red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet colors. What did Newton then say?

Newton said to himself: The white light comes in; with the prism I get the seven colors of the rainbow.
Therefore they are already contained in the white light and I only need to draw them out.

You see, that is a very simple explanation. One explains something by saying: It is already there and I draw it
out.

In reality he ought to have said: Since I set up a prism — that is. a glass with a cornered surface, not a regu‐
lar glass plate — when I look through it like this, there is light made red through darkness, and on the other
side darkness made blue through light — the blue color appears. And in between lie in fact gradations. That
is what he ought to have told himself.

But at that time the aim in the world was to explain everything by seeking to find everything already inside
that from which one was really to explain it. That is the simplest method, is it not? If, for example, one is to
describe how the human being arises, then one says: Oh well, he is already in the ovum of the mother, he
only develops out of it. That is a fine explanation!

We don't find things as easy as that, as you have seen. We have to take the whole universe to our aid, which
first forms the egg in the mother. But natural science is concerned with throwing everything inside, which is
the simplest possible way. Newton said that the sun already contained all the colors and we had only to draw
them out.

But that is not it at all. If the sun is to produce red at dawn, it must first shine on the clouds and we must see
the red through darkness; and if the sky is to appear blue, that is not at all through the sun. The sun does not
shine into the heavens: it is all black there, dark, and we see the blue through the illumined air of the earth.
We see darkness through light, and that is blue.

The point is to make a proper physics where it could then be seen how in the prism on the one side light is
seen through darkness and on the other darkness through light. But that is too tiresome for people. They find
it best to say that everything is within light and one only draws it out. Then one can say too that once there
was a giant egg in the world, the whole world was inside, and we draw everything out of it.

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That is what Newton did with the colors. But in reality one can always see the secret of the colors if one un‐
derstands in the right way the morning and evening glow and the blue of the heavens.

Now we must consider further the whole matter in relation to our eye and to the whole of human life alto‐
gether. You see, you all know that there is a being which is especially excited through red — that is, where
light works through darkness — and that is the bull. The bull is well known to be frightfully enraged by red.
That you know.

And so man too has a little of the bull-nature. He is not of course directly excited through red, but if man
lived continually in a red light, you would at once perceive that he gets a little stimulation from it. He gets a
little bull-like. I have even known poets who could not write poetry if they were in their ordinary frame of
mind, so then they always went to a room where they put a red lampshade over the light. They were then
stimulated and were able to write poetry. The bull becomes savage: man by exposing himself to the red be‐
comes poetic! The stimulation to poetry is only a matter of whether it comes from inside or from outside.
This is one side of the case.

On the other hand you will also be aware that when people who understand such things want to be thor‐
oughly meek and humble, they use blue, or black — deep black. That is so beautiful to see in Catholicism:
when Advent comes and people are supposed to become humble, the Church is made blue; above all the
vestments are blue. People get quietened, humble; they feel themselves inwardly connected with the subdued
mood — especially if a man has previously exhausted his fury, like a bull, as for instance at Shrove
Tuesday's carnival. Then one has the proper time of fasting afterwards, not only dark raiment, black raiment.
Then men become tamed down after their violence is over. Only, where one has two carnivals, two carnival
Sundays, one should let the time of fasting be twice as long! I do not know if that is done.

But you see from this that it has quite a different effect on man whether he sees light through dark that is red,
or darkness through light, that is blue.

Now consider the eye. Within it you have nerves and blood. When the eye looks at red, let us say at the dawn
or at something red, what does it experience? You see, when the eye looks at red then these quite fine little
blood-arteries become permeated by the red light, and this light has the peculiarity of always destroying the
blood a little. It therefore destroys the nerve at the same time, for the nerve can live only when it is perme‐
ated by blood. So that when the eye confronts red, when red comes into the eye, then the blood in the eye is
always somewhat destroyed and the nerve with it.

When the bull is faced with red it simply feels: Good gracious — all the blood in my head is destroyed! I
must defend myself! — Then it becomes savage because it will not let its blood be destroyed.

Well, but this is very good — not only in the bull, but in man and in other animals. For if we look at red and
our blood becomes somewhat destroyed, then on the other hand our whole body works to bring oxygen into
the eye so that the blood can be re-established.

Just think what a wonderful process takes place there. When light is seen through darkness — that is, red —
then the blood is destroyed, oxygen is absorbed from the body and the eye vitalized through the oxygen. And
now we know through the renewal of life in our eye: There is red outside. But in order that we may perceive

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this red, the blood and the nerve in the eye must be a little destroyed. We must send life, that is, oxygen, into
the eye. And by our own vitalizing of the eye, by this waking up of the eye we notice: there is red outside.

Now you see, man's health too actually depends on his perceiving rightly the reddened light, on his always
being able to take in reddened light properly. For the oxygen which is drawn out of the body vitalizes then
the whole body and man gets a healthy color in the face. He can really reanimate himself.

This refers not only to a person who is healthy and able to see, it applies as well to one whose eyes are not
healthy and who does not see: When the light works through the bright color then he is vitalized in the head,
and this vitalizing acts again on the whole body and gives him a healthy color. So when we live in the light
and can take in the light properly we get a healthy color.

It is very important tor people not to be brought up in dark places where they can become lifeless and sub‐
missive. People should be brought up in light, bright places with yellowish-reddish light, where they also
properly assimilate the oxygen in them through the light.

But you see from this that everything connected with the element of red is actually connected with the devel‐
opment of man's blood. When we look at red the nerve is actually destroyed.

Now just think: We see darkness through light, that is, blue. Darkness does not destroy our blood, it leaves
our blood unharmed. The nerve too is undestroyed since our blood is in order. The result is for man to feel
himself thoroughly well inwardly. Since blood and nerve are not attacked by blue, man feels thoroughly well
inside.

And there is really something subtly refined in creating submissive meekness. When, let us say, the priests
there above at the altar are in their blue or their black vestments, and the people sit below and gaze at them,
the blood-arteries and nerves in the eye are not destroyed and naturally the people feel very well. It is actu‐
ally directed to the feeling of well-being of the people.

Do not imagine that that is not known! For they still have their ancient science. The more modern science has
only arisen with the men of the Enlightenment, in such men as, for instance. Newton.

Thus we can say: Blue is what sends through man a feeling of well-being, when he says to himself (it is all
unconscious, but he says it inwardly): There alone I can live — in the blue. There man feels inwardly him‐
self; in red, on the other hand, he feels as if something were to penetrate into him. One can say that with blue
the nerve remains undestroyed and the body sends the feeling of well-being into the eye and hence into the
whole body.

That is the difference between the color blue and the color red. And yellow is only a gradation of red, and
green is a gradation of blue. So that one can say: according to whether nerve or blood is active, the more sen‐
sitive is man to red or to blue.

Now you see, one can apply that to substances. If I want to look for a red for painting, to produce a red color
which contains the substances that stimulate man to develop oxygen inwardly, then I gradually arrive at the
fact that to get red color for painting I must test the substances of the outer world to find how much carbon

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they contain. If I combine carbon in the right way with other substances, I discover the secret of making a
red for my painting.

If I use plants for getting colors for paints then above all it is a matter of so organizing my processes, dimin‐
ishing, consuming, and so on, that I obtain the carbon in the paint in the right way. If I have the carbon in it
in the right way, then I get the bright, the reddish color.

If on the other hand I have substances which contain much oxygen — not carbon but oxygen — then I obtain
the darker colors, such as blue. When I know the living element in the plant then I can really create my col‐
ors. Imagine that I take a sunflower: that is quite yellow, a bright color. Yellow is near to red, that is, light
seen through darkness. If I now treat the sunflower in such a way as somehow to gel into my paint-color the
right process that lies in the flower, then I have a good yellow. Even the outer light cannot have much against
it, because the blossom of the sunflower has already taken from the sun the secret of creating yellow. If I
therefore get the same process into my artist's color as there is in the blossom, then if I get it thick enough, I
can use it normally as paint.

But let me take another plant, the chicory, for instance, the blue flower that grows on the wayside — it grows
here too. If I have this blue plant and want to prepare a paint from the flower, I cannot do it, I get nothing
from it. On the other hand, if I treat the root in the right way, there is a process in it which actually makes the
blossom blue.

When the blossom is yellow then something goes on in the blossom itself which makes yellow; when the
blossom is blue, however, the process lies in the root and it only presses upwards towards the flower. So if I
want to produce a blue paint from the indigo-plant, where I get a darker blue, or from the chicory, this blue
flower, I must use the root. I must treat it chemically till it yields me the blue color.

In this way, through real study, I can find out how to obtain paints from the plant. I cannot do so in Newton's
way; he simply says that everything is in the sunlight and one has only to draw it out. (One can apply that at
most to one's purse; what I spend for a day I must have in the purse in the morning.) That is how the quite
clever people picture it, like a sack in which everything is lying. That, however, is not the case.

We must know, for instance, how the yellow is in the sunflower or in the dandelion. We must know how the
blue is in chicory. The processes which make the chicory or the indigo׳ plant blue lie in the root, whereas
the processes that make the sunflower or the dandelion yellow lie in the flower.

And so I must imitate chemically, in a chemistry become living, the flower-process of the plant and get the
bright, light color. I must imitate the root process of the plant and there obtain the dark color.

You see, what I have related here is plain to the real human understanding; whereas as a matter of fact this
business (in the rainbow) with the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, is a rarity.

Now when Goethe lived the affair had got to the point where people generally believed in what Newton had
taught, namely, the sun is the great sack in which lie the so-called seven colors. One need only tempt them
out, then they come to light. Everyone believed that; it was taught and in fact is still taught today.

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Goethe's nature was not one to believe everything immediately. He wanted to convince himself a little about
things that were taught everywhere. People generally say that they do not believe anything on authority. But
when it comes to the point of crediting what is taught from the professorial chair, then people are today
frightfully credulous, they believe everything that is taught. Goethe did not want to believe everything
straightaway, so he borrowed from the university in Jena the apparatus, the prisms and so on which provide
the proof. He thought: Now I will do exactly what the professors do in order to see how it actually is.

Well, Goethe did not get down to it immediately and had the apparatus rather a long time without doing any‐
thing. He just did something else. So the time became too long for the Hofrat Büttner who needed the appa‐
ratus and wanted to have it fetched back. Goethe said: Now I must do the thing quickly — and at least, as he
was already packing up, looked through a prism. He said to himself: The rainbow must look beautiful on the
white wall if I look through there; instead of white, red, yellow, green and so on must appear. He therefore
peered through, anticipating with delight that he would now see the white wall in these beautiful colors, —
but he saw nothing: white as before, simply white. Naturally he was extremely surprised and asked himself
what was behind it. And his whole theory of color arose out of this.

Goethe said: One must now control the whole affair again. The ancients have said light seen through dark‐
ness = red, darkness through light = blue. If I gradate the red somewhat it becomes yellow. If I make the blue
go up to red, then it becomes green on the one side and violet on the other. These are gradations. And he then
worked out his color theory and in fact better than it existed in the Middle Ages.

Now today we have a physicist's color-theory with the sack from which the seven colors come, which is
taught everywhere. And we have a Goethean color-theory which understands the blue of the heavens rightly,
understands rightly the morning and evening glow as I have been explaining to you.

But there is a certain difference between the Newtonian and the Goethean theory. For the most part other
people do not notice it, for other people look on the one hand to the physicists: there the Newtonian theory of
color is taught which stands in the books everywhere. One can very clearly picture to oneself what appears
there in the rainbow as red, orange, yellow, green and so on. Well, but there is no prism there! However, one
does not reflect further. The Newtonians certainly know, but they do not admit, that when one looks through
the rainbow on the one side, then one sees darkness through the sun-illumined rainbow; sees on the other
side the blue. But then one also sees in front the surface where one sees light through darkness, and on the
other side the red. One must explain everything therefore by the simple principle: light through darkness is
red; darkness through light is blue.

But as I have said, people on the one hand see everything as the logicians explain it to them: on the other
hand they look at pictures where the colors are used. Well, they do not ask further about the red and the yel‐
low and so on; they do not bring the two things together.

But the painter must bring them together: one who wants to paint must connect them. He must not merely
know: There is a sack and the colors are within it — for he has not got the sack anywhere. He must obtain
the right thing from the living plant, or living substances, so that he can mix his colors in the right way.

So this is the position today: painters really reflect (— there even are painters who reflect, who do not simply
buy their colors): but those painters who reflect upon how they are to obtain these colors and how they

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should use them, they say: Yes, with the Goethean color-theory one can do something; that tells us some‐
thing. With the Newtonian color-theory, the theory of the physicists, we painters can do nothing.

The public does not bring painting and the physicists' theory of color together, but the painter does! He there‐
fore likes the Goethean color-theory. He says to himself: Goodness! We don't bother about the physicists:
they say something in their own field. They may do what they like; we keep to the Goethean color-theory.
The painters look on themselves as artists and not as having to encroach on the teaching of the physicists.
That is in fact uncomfortable, enmities arise, and so on.

But that is how things stand today between what is in the books about color and what is true. With Goethe it
was simply the defense of truth which impelled him to oppose the Newtonians and the whole modern
physics. And we cannot really understand nature without coming to Goethe's color-theory.

Hence it is quite natural that in a Goetheanum Goethe's theory of color should also be vindicated. But then if
one does not remain in some religious or moral sphere but also intervenes in the smallest single part of
Physics, then one has the physicists' whole pack of hounds upon one.

So, you see, the defense of truth is extraordinarily difficult in modern times. But you should just know in
what a complicated way the physicists explain the blue of the sky. Naturally, if I start from a false principle
and want to explain the simple thing that the blackness of universal space appears blue through light, then I
must make a frightfully complicated explanation of it. And then the red of dawn and sunset! These chapters
mostly begin like this; the blue sky — one cannot actually explain that properly today, one could imagine
this or that. — Yes, with all that the physicists have, their little hole which so much amused Goethe — the lit‐
tle hole through which they let the light come into the room, in order with the darkness to investigate the
light — with all this they cannot explain the simplest facts. And so it comes to the point that color is no
longer understood at all.

If one understands, however, that the destruction of the blood calls forth the vitalizing process — for when I
have destroyed my blood then I call up all the oxygen in me and renew myself, bring about health — then
one also understands the healthy rosy color in man.

If I have darkness round me or continual blueness, well, then I shall not continually reanimate myself, or else
I should create too much life in me. And so on the one hand one can understand the healthy rosy countenance
from the intake of' oxygen, when one is thoroughly exposed to the light, and one can understand paleness
from the perpetual intake of carbonic acid. Carbonic acid, the counterpart of oxygen, wants to go into my
head. That makes me quite pale.

Today, for instance in Germany, the children are almost all pale. But one must understand that that comes
from too much carbonic acid. And if man develops too much carbonic acid — carbonic acid consists of a
combination of carbon and oxygen — then he uses the carbon which he has in him too much for forming car‐
bonic acid. Thus in such a pale child you have all the carbon in him continuously changed into carbonic acid.
So he becomes pale. What must I do? I must administer something to him through which this eternal devel‐
opment of carbonic acid inside him is hindered, through which the carbon is held back. I can do that if I give
him some carbonate of lime.

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In this way the functions are again stimulated, as I have told you from quite a different standpoint, and man
keeps the carbon that he needs, does not continually change it into carbonic acid. And since carbonic acid
consists of carbon and oxygen, the oxygen comes up into the head and animates the head processes, the life
processes. But when the oxygen is given up to the carbonic acid, the life processes are suppressed.

If I therefore bring a pale person into a region where he has a good deal of light, he becomes stimulated not
to give up his carbon continually to carbonic acid, because the light sucks the oxygen up into the head. Then
he will get a healthy color again. In the same way I can stimulate that through the carbonate of lime, inas‐
much as I keep back the oxygen and the person has it at his disposal.

So everything must be interconnected. One must be able to understand health and illness from the theory of
color. One can do that only from Goethe's theory, for that rests simply on nature in a natural manner. It can
never be done from Newton's color-theory which is merely devised, does not rest on nature at all, and actu‐
ally cannot explain the simplest phenomena, the red at dawn and sunset and the blue sky.

Now, gentlemen, may I still say something else to you. Think of the old pastoral peoples who drove out their
flocks and herds and slept in the open air. During their sleep they were not exposed to the blue sky but to the
dark sky. And up there upon it [drawing] are the unnumbered shining stars. Now picture the dark sky with
these countless shining stars and there below the sleeping men. From the heavens there streams out a calm‐
ing force, the inner feeling of well-being in sleep. The whole human being is permeated by the darkness, so
that he becomes inwardly quiet. Sleep proceeds from the darkness, but nevertheless these stars shine down.
And wherever a star-beam shines the human being becomes inwardly a little stirred up. An oxygen ray goes
out from the body. Pure oxygen rays go to meet the rays from the stars and the man becomes entirely perme‐
ated inwardly by the oxygen rays: he becomes inwardly an oxygen reflection of the whole starry heavens.

Thus the ancient shepherd folk took into their quietened bodies the whole star heavens in pictures, pictures
which the course of the oxygen engraved into them. Then they woke up and they had the dream of these pic‐
tures. From this they had their star knowledge, their wonderful knowledge of the stars.

Their dream was not merely that Aries, the Ram, had so-and-so-many stars, but they really saw the animal,
the Ram, the Bull, and so on, and felt the whole starry heavens in themselves in pictures. That is what has re‐
mained to us from the ancient shepherd folk as a poetic wisdom which sometimes has extraordinarily much
that can still be instructive today.

One can understand it when one knows that the human being lets an oxygen ray radiate to each beam of light
from the stars, that he becomes wholly sky, an inner oxygen sky.

Man's inner life is as we know an astral body, for during sleep he experiences the whole heavens. It would go
badly with us if we were not descended from these ancient pastoral peoples. All men in fact are descended
from ancient shepherd folk. We still have, purely through heredity, the knowledge of an inner star-heaven.
We still unfold that, although not so well as the ancients. In sleep, when we lie in bed, we have still a sort of
recollection of how once the shepherd of old lay in the fields and drew the oxygen into him. We are no
longer shepherds and herdsmen but something is still given to us, we still receive something, only we cannot
express it so beautifully as it has already become pale and dim. But the whole of mankind today is indeed in‐
terconnected, all belong to each other, — and if one would know what man still bears in him today, one must

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go back to ancient times. Everywhere, all men on earth have proceeded from this shepherd-stage and have
actually inherited in their bodies what could descend from these pastoral peoples.

© 2021-2023 Steiner Online Library. All rights reserved.

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Colour and the Human Races

II. Color and the Human Races

3 March 1923, Dornach

Now, Gentlemen, I have not yet fully answered the last question about colors. We will take it a little further
or complete it.

First of all, today we have to consider a most interesting question, namely, the human color itself. You know,
of course, that over the face of the earth are people showing skins differing in color. The Europeans to whom
we belong are called the “White Race.” Well, we know indeed that a man in Europe is not quite healthy
when he is cheese-white. He is healthy when he shows his natural, fresh color, created by himself inwardly,
through the white.

But now besides this European coloring we have four other principal colors of the skin. We will consider this
a little today because one actually understands the whole of history and the whole social life, even modern
social life, only if one can turn to the race-characteristics of humanity [see drawings]. Only then can one
rightly understand the spiritual element if one first studies how the spirit works in man precisely through the
skin-color.

I should now like to put the racial color before you in this way. Let us start from Europe where we ourselves
are living. Here we have therefore — I can draw it for you only roughly — first Europe; bordering on
Europe: Asia, England, Ireland; here Japan, China; further India, India proper, Arabia; here we have Africa.
Thus: Europe, Asia, Africa [see scheme at end].

Now we will sketch in the men as they are in the corresponding regions. We call ourselves in Europe the
white race. If we go over to Asia we have the yellow race, principally in Asia. And when we go over to
Africa there we have the black race. Those are the original races. All others living in these regions are the
consequence of migration.

So if we ask: What races belong to these parts of the earth? — Then we must say: To Asia belongs the yellow
race, the Mongolian; to Europe belongs the white race or the Caucasian race, and to Africa belongs the black
or Negro race. The Negro race does not belong to Europe and it is naturally only mischievous that it now
plays so great a role in Europe. These races are, as it were, at home in these three parts of the earth.

Now we will consider the color of these three races. I have already told you that color has to do with light.
When one sees the black of universal space through the illumined universe, then it appears blue. When one
sees light, illumination through the dark air, it appears reddish, as in the glow of morning and evening.

Let us just simply consider colors on ordinary objects. You first distinguish — let us say — black and white.
These are the most striking colors, black and white. What is the position then with a black body? A black
body assimilates in itself all the light that falls upon it and mirrors back none at all.

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So if you have a black body, it takes the light that falls on it, absorbs everything into itself, and gives none
back. It therefore appears black because it reflects no light.

When you have a white body it says: I do not need the light, I will only use what is in myself, I send all the
light back. It is therefore white.

Thus a white body sends back all light and we see its surface light, white. A dark body absorbs all the light
and also all the warmth and throws back no light, no warmth at all, and therefore appears black.

You can study that more closely if you consider the following. Suppose there is some object on the earth
which takes up all light. In the first place it gives back a little light and so appears bright. But it allows itself
time and takes up the most light possible. When it can take up no more and one brings it into the light, then it
appears black.

Now, suppose there is a tree. It stands at first on the earth's surface and takes up a certain amount of light.
But it absorbs a good deal of both light and warmth. That goes on until the time when it falls below the earth.
When, for a length of time, — but that means thousands or millions of years — it has remained beneath the
earth, what does it become? Black coal. It becomes black because it took up light and warmth into itself
when it was a tree. It does not give that out unless we destroy it. If we burn it then it yields it, but if we only
bring it into the air for a time it keeps it. It has taken up so much light and warmth that it gives nothing out
— we must destroy it. That is the condition of coal.

Let us suppose that the object does not take up further light, it sends all back again, then something of such a
nature will be white. That is the snow in winter. It reflects all light, it takes up no light and no warmth and
thus becomes white. You see by this difference between coal and snow the relation that exists between ob‐
jects on earth and universal space.

Let us apply that to man in universal space. Let us look just at the blacks in Africa. These blacks in Africa
have the characteristic of absorbing from the universe all light and all warmth. They take it up. Now this
light and this warmth in the universe cannot go through the whole body because a human being is always a
human being even if he is a black one. It does not go through the whole body but stops short on the surface
of the skin, and therefore the skin itself becomes black.

Thus a black man in Africa is one who absorbs the most possible warmth and light from the universe and as‐
similates it in himself. Through the fact that he does this the forces of the cosmos work over the whole man
like this [see drawing]. He takes up light and warmth everywhere and uses it in himself. Now there must be
something which helps him in this assimilation.

Well, you see, what helps him in particular is his posterior brain. In the Negro the posterior brain is specially
developed. That goes through the spinal cord and can work over all the light and warmth that is in him.

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Hence alt that is connected with the body and metabolism is strongly developed in the Negro. He has, as one
says, a strong desire-life, instinctive life [see drawing]. And since he actually has the sun-like, light and
warmth, on the surface of his skin, his whole metabolism proceeds as if there were a cooking by the sun it‐
self in his interior. Hence comes his desire-life. There is really a continuous cooking going on within him,
and what stokes the fire is the posterior brain.

Sometimes man's organization throws off further byproducts. That is to be seen just in the Negro. The Negro
not only has this cooking in his organism, it not only boils there, but he also has a frightfully crafty and ob‐
servant eye. He peers craftily and very observantly. You can easily take this as a contradiction. But it is like
this: If there in front is the nerve of the eye [see drawing], the nerves go just into the posterior brain; they
cross there [see drawing]. The nerve goes into the posterior brain, and since that is specially developed in the
Negro therefore he peeps out so craftily, is such a sly observer of the world. If one begins to understand the
matter, it all becomes clear. But modern science does not make such studies as we do and so it knows noth‐
ing about these things.

Let us now pass over from the black to the yellow man. Yellow is already related to the red, and so light is
reflected to some extent but much is absorbed. However, the yellow man throws back more light than a
black. The black man is an egoist, he takes up all light and all warmth. The yellow Mongolian gives indeed
some light back, but he absorbs a great deal. That makes him what he is [see drawing]. Thus he takes up
much light but gives some back. He contents himself with less. This less amount of light cannot work in the
whole metabolism, and so the metabolism must be referred to its own force. That works chiefly in the breath‐
ing and blood-circulation.

Thus in the yellow race — Japanese, Chinese — the light and warmth work principally in breathing and
blood-circulation. If you have ever met a Japanese, you will have noticed how he pays attention to his
breathing. When he talks to you he keeps himself under restraint so that his breathing may be in good order.
He has a certain feeling of well-being in breathing.

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This means that less is worked over in his interior, it is principally worked upon in the breast [see drawing].
This causes the yellow man to develop strongly, not the posterior brain, but the middle brain. It is there that
his breath and blood-circulation are maintained. The yellow Asiatic lives rather less in the metabolism.

You can notice that too by his walking. He has a less energetic walk. He does not work so strongly with the
limbs and the metabolism. The Negro is more to the fore in racing and outer movement that is governed by
desires. The Asiatic, yellow man, develops more an inner dream life and therefore the whole Asiatic civiliza‐
tion has this dreamer-element.

Thus he is not only living more in himself; he absorbs something from the universe. And so it comes about
that the Asians have such wonderful poems about the whole universe. The Negro has not got this quality. He
takes everything into his metabolism and really he only digests the universe.

The Asiatic breathes it into himself, has it in his blood-circulation. And so he can also give it out from him‐
self when awake. For speech is in fact only a metamorphosed breathing. Yes. Gentlemen, they are beautiful,
wonderful poems. The Asians are altogether an inward people. They scorn the European today because they
say: They are external people. We shall see why immediately. That then is the yellow race [see drawing] and
it is connected with color in the way I have told you.

Now let us look at ourselves in Europe. We are a white race in regard to the universe, for we must give back
all external light. We give back all light and. in fact, all warmth too. The warmth has to be very powerful if
we want to take it into us. And when it is not there we are stunted, as we see by the Eskimos. There is the hu‐
man being [see drawing] of such a nature that he throws back all light and warmth. He absorbs them only
when they become powerful. He throws them back and develops only the light and warmth that arise in his
inner being through his own inner activity.

Yes, neither breathing nor blood-circulation comes to help him, nor the creation of warmth; but he must him‐
self work out light and warmth through his brain, that is, through his head. We actually throw back all exter‐
nal light and warmth. We ourselves must give the color to our blood. That then presses through the white and
so we obtain the human color of the Europeans. It is from within.

And so indeed we are such a white body as assimilates everything within and throws back all light and
warmth.

And whereas the Mongolian mainly needs the middle brain, we Europeans use the frontal brain, the anterior
brain. Through this fact the following is shown. The man with the posterior brain has mainly the desire-life,
life of instinct: the one here with the middle brain has the feeling life, situated in the breast; and we
Europeans, we poor Europeans, have the thought-life that sits in the head. Thereby, as it were, we do not feel
our inner man at all. For we feel the head only when it is ill. Otherwise we do not feel it.

But this makes us aware of the whole outer world and we easily become materialists. The Negro becomes no
materialist, he remains man inwardly, only he develops the inner desire-life. Nor does the Asiatic become
materialist, he remains at the feeling-life, he does not bother about external life as the European does. Of the
latter he says: He is only an engineer, concerning himself only with outer life. — He is, in fact, since he must
develop his frontal brain, assigned to the outer world, and everything is connected with that.

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Thus we are the white race, inwardly the white is colored through our blood. Then there is the Mongolian,
the yellow race; and then there is the black race. And we can understand that quite well when we start from
the colors — then the whole thing is explained.

Now you only need to consider how that is. The Negroes live on a part of the earth where the sun oppresses
them very much indeed, penetrates into them. So they give themselves up to it, absorb it fully into their bod‐
ies, become friendly with it, reject nothing.

With the Asians — more comes to them from the heat of the earth. They do not give so much back. They are
no longer so friendly with the sun.

And with the Europeans — here the fact is that they would actually obtain nothing from the sun if they did
not evolve their own human element. Europe has therefore always been the starting point for all that devel‐
ops the human element in connection with the outside world.

Inventions have very seldom been made in Asia. They can be assimilated, but inventions themselves, by
which the Asians can apply what is produced through practical experience with the outer world — these the
Asians cannot make.

For instance, this is what once happened with a screw-steamer. Some Japanese had learnt about it through
stealthily watching Europeans, and they also wanted to manage it alone. Previously the Europeans had al‐
ways been in charge and directed things. Now the Japanese wanted to manage the steamer alone. The English
remained behind on the shore. Suddenly the Japanese who were on board fell into evident despair, for the
steamer continually revolved round itself. They could not make out how to bring the proper forward motion
to the revolving movement. The Europeans who knew how to do it naturally grinned tremendously on the
shore. This independent thought which the European develops in familiarity with the environment is not pos‐
sessed by the Asiatic peoples. The Japanese will therefore develop all European inventions, but they will not
think out something by themselves.

As regards the human race, men all over the earth are actually dependent on one another. They must help
each other. That is a consequence of their natural ability. That is connected, you see, with the whole of man's
development. Think for a moment of a black man; his desire-life is especially evolved, all that boils in the in‐
terior. This gives much ash, and the ash is deposited in the bones. He is therefore more developed in his
bones than a man of the white race. The latter rather directs to the blood what he has inwardly and his bones
are more finely developed. Thus the Negro has coarsely developed bones, the European has more finely de‐
veloped bones. And the Asiatics, the yellow race, stand in between.

You can observe by the manner in which a Japanese stands and walks that in his bone-structure he stands be‐
tween the European and the African. The Africans have these strong bones continuously in movement. The
European has more the blood system. The Japanese has all that acts on the breathing and from the breath on
the blood-circulation.

But now, Gentlemen, men on earth do not simply remain where they are. If one were to go back into ancient
times, one would already find that the yellow race belonged to Asia, the white race to Europe and the black
race to Africa. But it has also always happened that people have wandered out. And it can happen that either
the yellow wander to the East or the blacks wander to the West. And that was once done. The yellow have al‐
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ways wandered eastwards. There they have come to those islands which lie between Asia and Australia [see
scheme]. When the yellow wander over to the East they become brown. There arose the Malayans who be‐
came brown. Why?

Yes, why do they become brown? What does it mean to become brown? Well, when they are yellow they
throw back a definite degree of light; the rest they absorb. When they become brown through the different
way in which they now live in the sun — for they come from another part of the earth — then they throw
back, reflect, less light. They take more light into themselves. So these brown Malayans are migrated
Mongolians, but who now, since the sun works on them differently, accustom themselves to absorb more
light and more warmth.

But consider how they have not the nature tor this. They have already accustomed themselves to have a bony
structure which limits them to a definite degree of warmth. They have not the right nature for taking up so
much warmth as they now take up as Malayans.

The result of this is that they begin to become unusable people, people who break to pieces in the body,
whose body dies away. This is in fact the case with the Malayan population. They die of the sun. They die of
the Fast. One can say that whereas the yellow, the Mongolians, are still men in full strength, the Malayans
are already a dying race. They are dying out.

In ancient times the Negroes wandered over to the West — today circumstances are different, they can do it
less — but they wandered westwards in ancient times; there had always been a ship passage, and there were
still islands over the whole Atlantic Ocean, for earlier this was in fact a continent. Now when the blacks wan‐
dered west they could no longer absorb so much light and warmth as in their native Africa. Less light and
warmth reaches them. What is the result? Their nature is organized to take up as much as possible of light
and warmth and actually in that way to become black. Now they do not get as much light and warmth as they
need in order to become black. So they become copper-red, become Indians. That comes from the fact that
they are obliged to reflect something of light and warmth. That gleams a copper-red. Copper is itself a body
which must reflect a little light and warmth.

They cannot hold out against this and so die in the West as Indians. They are again a race that is going under,
they die from their own nature which gets too little light and warmth. They die from the earthly, and the
earthly element of their nature is their desire-life. They can no longer develop that properly, whereas they
still get strong bones. Since much ash goes into their bones these Indians can no longer hold out against it.
Their bones become frightfully strong, but so strong that the whole man goes to pieces by reason of his
bones.

You see, this is how things have developed, so that these five races have come about. One might say: Black,
yellow, white in the center: as a side-branch of the black the copper-red, and as a side-branch of the yellow
the brown: those are always the dying-out parts.

The whites are actually those who evolve the human element and so they are assigned to themselves. When
they migrate they somewhat take on the characteristics of the other regions, yet they do not go to pieces as a
race, but rather as individuals. But instead they do something else altogether.

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You see, all that I have been describing to you are things that go on in man's body, and the soul and spirit are
more independent of it. And so soul and spirit can be most active in the European, since they make most
claim on him. He can more easily bear going into different parts of the earth.

Hence it also once came about that starting from up above there [see scheme] a great migration of people
went over as far as India. A stream of white people struck into a region where the population was yellow.
Thus arose the Hindus, a mixture of Mongolian and Caucasian. Hence came the very beautiful Indian poetry,
the most beautiful in existence. But again at the same time something of which one notes that it has already
become inert, because the white element is not in its own territory.

And so one can say that the white man can go everywhere, today even lo America — and all the white inhab‐
itants of America have come from Europe. The white element therefore comes into American regions, but
something happens to man when he comes to America from the Europe for which he is naturally constituted.
It means that some demand must be made on the posterior brain. As European in Europe he has made de‐
mands chiefly on his frontal brain. Now in America there flourish those people who were once actually deca‐
dent Negroes — that is to say, they do not flourish, they are going to pieces — the Red Indians. When one
comes there a conflict always arises in the head between the anterior and the posterior brain.

It is found that if a family moves to America and settles there, then the descendants have the peculiarity of
acquiring somewhat longer arms. The arms and legs grow rather more when the European settles in America
— not in himself, of course, but in his descendants. That comes from the fact that things move over through
the middle brain to the posterior brain when as European one comes to America.

But at the same time something very peculiar comes about in the American. Now the European lives entirely
in his inner being, does he not — especially if he is a thinker. If he is no thinker, he barely reflects at all, but
that produces a life which is not quite filled up. But as soon as the European settles in America he no longer
is such a brooder. So the following arises: When you read a European book, things are always proved. One
cannot get away from the proving. One reads through a whole book, reads through 400 pages, only proofs.
Even if it is a novel there is always proving. For the most part, nothing is proved at the end on the 400th
page.

The American does not do that. When you read an American book everything is put forward as a statement.
There again it is a going-back, nourished by the instinct. The animal proves nothing; the lion does not prove
that he will devour another animal, he will devour it. If the European wants to do anything, it must first be
proved. Today that is the great difference between the European and the American. Europeans prove,
Americans affirm.

But that is not to say that what they affirm cannot be just as true, it is even realized more through the whole
man. The Americans have that in advance of the European. On the one hand they approach decadence — the
American Indian is decadent — but when one begins to go to pieces one becomes clever. So the Europeans
become clever when they go over: they disaccustom themselves from the proving. This wanting to prove is
not exactly a quality to bring one forward. If one is to do something in the morning, one can begin with prov‐
ing, and at night on going to sleep one can still not do it, because one still must prove. The American will not
do that, because he has not been trained at all to prove. And so it comes that America will quite certainly go
ahead of Germany in some things. One can make quite interesting observations. If one takes up a European

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book it proves somewhat as follows — let us say it is a book about the digestive system of the cockchafer —
such books are indeed written. It begins by proving: “The animal species of the cockchafer contains also di‐
gestive organs, they only withdraw from ordinary observation, one must penetrate deeper into the whole or‐
ganization of the cockchafer.” — Well, so it goes on. One has to prove everything.

The American begins with: “When one dismembers a cockchafer then one finds in it that and that” — he af‐
firms as he observes.

And so you see in the case of the Europeans: they no longer develop their racial character on behalf of their
whole organization. They develop rather the qualities of soul and spirit. For this reason they can penetrate
into all other parts of the world. The process of becoming decadent is naturally a slow one.

The sun always sends more or less of warmth and light down to the earth. Now we have the Vernal Point in
the Fishes, as I have told you. Previously it was in the Ram, Aries. After some time it will be in Aquarius:
only then will the true American civilization come.

Before then civilization will go more and more over to America. One who will, can already see today how
powerful the Americans are becoming and how Europe is getting increasingly impotent. And the reason why
no kind of peace can now come to Europe is because Europe no longer actually understands its own land.

Now all civilization moves over to America; it will take a long time, but when the sun's vernal point has en‐
tered the Sign of Aquarius then it will send down its rays to earth just in such a favorable way that the
American culture and civilization will be especially powerful. That is already to be seen today.

It is very remarkable: In Europe over here what we call Anthroposophy can be developed. It must be devel‐
oped out of the Spirit — that does not come at all out of racial characteristics. It must be developed out of the
Spirit. And the men who are unwilling to approach the Spirit will plunge Europe into disaster.

The Americans do not yet need it, especially those who travel over there. For they can still maintain them‐
selves on racial characteristics. And so over in America, curiously enough, arises something remarkable.
Anyone who reads American books really attentively, who reads parliamentary speeches, one who takes a
general interest in what goes on in America today, will say to himself: Good gracious! That is very remark‐
able. We in Europe develop Anthroposophy out of the Spirit. Over there they develop something that is a
kind of wooden doll of Anthroposophy. Everything becomes materialistic.

But for one who is not a fanatic, there is something similar in American culture to what is anthroposophical
science in Europe. Only everything there is wooden, it is not yet alive. We can make it alive in Europe out of
the Spirit: those over there take it out of instinct.

You see, one cart notice that in all detail. The time will one day come when this American “wooden man” —
which actually everyone is still — when he will begin to speak. Then he will have something to say very
similar to European Anthroposophy.

One can say that we in Europe develop Anthroposophy in a spiritual way; the American develops it in a natu‐
ral way. Therefore when I explain anthroposophical matters I can so often point out: Well, that is how it is
anthroposophically, and that is the American caricature of it [sketch]. That is the caricature of it.

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But if someone is a fanatic and has come to Anthroposophy not through the inner life but through fanaticism,
then he finds the very sharpest invectives for Americanism because — well, man abuses the apes chiefly —
since the ape is like himself — as a caricature. And so it is really such a remarkable affair as between North
and South Pole, between what we achieve spiritually in Europe and what is gained over there in America in a
natural way.

Books on natural science in America do not look at all as they do in Europe. They really talk continually of
Spirit, but they represent it to themselves in the crudest, most material way. Hence Spiritism has also arisen
in America in recent times. For what does Spiritism do? It wants to talk of the Spirit and imagines it as
cloud-phenomena, would prefer everything to be like cloud-phenomena. And so Spiritism is an American
product, it aims at the Spirit but in a materialistic way.

It is in fact so interesting that in America materialism simply flourishes, but actually on the way to the Spirit;
while in Europe if someone becomes a materialist he dies as human being. The American is a young materi‐
alist. In fact, all children are at first materialistic, and then grow to what is not materialism. So too will the
American blatant materialism sprout to a spiritual element. That will be when the sun rises in the Sign of
Aquarius.

Now, you see, in this way we can realize what we as Europeans have as a task. Our task as Europeans is not
at all always to abuse the Americans, but naturally we must found over the whole earth a civilization which
is put together from the best.

If one thinks about things as the Prince of Baden does who has been taken in by the American European
Wilson, then it does not do. For Wilson was not a true American. He had actually taken all his theories from
Europe and therefore made things so dreadfully theoretic. But genuine Americanism will one day unite with
Europeanism which will have taken a more spiritual path. When one studies something in this way one sees
the attitude one should take in the world.

And so it is really quite interesting: On the one hand we have the black race, which is most of all earthly.
When they go westwards, they die out. We have the yellow race, which is between earth and cosmos. When
they go to the East they become brown, connect too much with the cosmos, die out. The while race is the fu‐
ture one, is the race creating in the Spirit. When they moved over to India they developed the inward, poeti‐
cal and spiritual Indian culture. When they now go to the West they will develop a spirituality which does not
so much grasp man's inner being, but turns to the spirituality of the outer world.

And so in the future, purely out of the racial characterization those things will emerge which one must know
in life so that one takes the right stand. Men are getting less and less adjustment in life. They want indeed to
have everything fall from the skies and not actually to learn.

This has come about through the fact that in the last third of the 19th century nothing more of a human ele‐
ment was provided in education, particularly in scientific education. Knowledge of man is so difficult to
present nowadays. Materialistic scholars themselves realize this, they get no farther.

It was very interesting at the last Natural Science Conference. One of these scientists had especially realized
it — one does not advance, one learns nothing of the human being through science today. — But he did not

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go on to say: “We must develop towards Anthroposophy:” he said: “Give us corpses so that we may dismem‐
ber them.”

You see, that was all he could say: Give us corpses! People want to have more corpses, they want to study
the dead man. That was a right catchword: Give us corpses! — Whereas we here can do without corpses, for
we want to observe and study the living man. For that it is only necessary to open one's eyes and through
one's eyes somewhat the soul, for one finds the living man everywhere. One meets nothing but living men.
Only one must be able to live with them, so that they may make known to one what a human being is.

But the learned scholars of today have really quite weak eyes; they do not see man. And then they fervently
beg “Give us corpses!” Then they can study them. Give us corpses! This was the position in educational cen‐
ters in recent years, recent decades. People have taken in nothing there pertaining to man. And so knowledge
of man has disappeared from all science.

That is why I dealt with this question in the first chapter of my “Threefold Commonwealth.” I had to show
how those who had not been occupied with science but with work had advanced and now naturally wanted
science. But the others, the bourgeois, could not give them this, which they appeared to have. And thus arose
the great calamity in civilization. The workers demanded science and it was not there, because only a science
was there that is devoid of man.

I have shown that in the first chapter of the “Threefold Commonwealth” because that must first be under‐
stood if one talks of the social question. So that it was in fact necessary for the “Threefold Commonwealth”
to begin with it in the first chapter.

Now, we have dealt with colors somewhat further today.

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