mething to our understanding of life. Yet it would certainly be a bad
thing for one to allow himself to be tempted through this generous view of
life, to excuse everything in those whom he happens to like, or to drop
into the habit of ignoring every blamable action, in order thereby to seek
some benefit to his own inner development. Blaming or excusing the
mistakes of others merely as a result of an inner impulse, does not
further our development. This can only happen if our action is governed by
the particular case itself, regardless of what we may thereby gain or
lose. It is absolutely true that we cannot learn by condemning a fault,
but only by understanding it; but, at the same time, if, owing to
understanding it, we exclude all disapproval of it, we likewise would not
progress very far.

Here, again, the important thing is to avoid one-sidedness, either in one
direction or the other, and to establish harmony and balance of all
qualities in the soul; and this is especially to be kept in mind in regard
to one quality which is pre-eminently important to man's development: the
feeling of devotion. Those who can cultivate this feeling, or on whom
nature herself has bestowed so inestimable a gift, have a good foundation
for the powers of supersensible cognition. Those who in childhood and
youth have been able to look up to certain persons with feelings of
devoted admiration, beholding in them some high ideal, will already
possess in the depths of their souls the soil in which supersensible
cognition may flourish abundantly. And those who, possessed of the maturer
judgment of later life, can direct their gaze upon the starry heavens and
surrender themselves unreservedly to admiration of the revelations of the
Higher Powers, are in a like manner ripening their senses for the
acquisition of knowledge with regard to the supersensible worlds. So is it
also with those who can admire the powers ruling over human life itself.
It is by no means of small importance for a fully matured man to be able
to feel veneration to the highest degree for other people whose worth he
senses or recognizes. For it is only where veneration such as this is
present that a vista of the higher worlds can be revealed. Those who
possess no sense of reverence will never go very far in their attainment
of cognition; for from those who decline to appreciate anything in this
world, the essence of all things will assuredly be withheld.

Nevertheless, any on