The Rudolf Steiner Archive

This first English translation of Rudolf Steiner's Vom Menschenrätsel is by William Lindeman. Vom Menschenrätsel was first published in 1916; the most recent 4th German edition, published by the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland, appeared in 1957 as Bibl.–Nr.20 in the collected works of Rudolf Steiner. Published in German as: Vom Menschenrätsel. Ausgesprochenes und Unausgesprochenes im Denken, Schauen, Sinnen einer Reihe deutscher und österreichischer Persönlichkeiten, this book was translated by William Lindeman. We present it here with the kind permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.

• Translator's Introduction

1. Foreword and Introduction: Thought-World, Personality, Peoples
2. German Idealism's Picture of the World
• Idealism as an Awakening of the Soul: Johann Gottlieb Fichte
• Idealism as a View About Nature and the Spirit: Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
• German Idealism as the Beholding of Thoughts: Hegel
3. A Forgotten Stream in German Spiritual Life
4. Pictures from the Thought-Life of Austria
5. New Perspectives