The Threefold Commonwealth

by Rudolf Steiner

The characteristic feature, then, to which the special form of the social question in recent times is directly traceable, may be expressed as follows: The modern life of industrial economy, grounded in technical science,—modern capitalism,—all this has acted in a sort of instinctive way, like a force of nature, and given modern social life its peculiar internal structure and method. But whilst men’s attention grew thus absorbed in all that technical industry and capitalism brought with them, it became at the same time diverted from other branches, other departments of social life,—departments whose workings no less require direction by conscious human intelligence, if the body social is to be a healthy one.

I may perhaps be allowed to start by drawing a comparison, in order the better to describe what here, in any really comprehensive study of the social question, reveals itself as a powerful, indeed a main, actuating impulse. It must however be borne in mind, that this comparison is intended as a comparison only, used to help out the human understanding and give it the turn of thought needed for picturing what health in the body social implies. Accepting this point of view, then, if one turns to the study of that most complex of all natural organisms, the human organism, it is noticeable, that, running through the whole structure and life of it, there are three systems, working side by side, and each functioning to a certain extent separately and independently of the others. These three neighbour systems may be distinguished as follows: One system, forming a province all to itself in the natural human organism, is that which comprises the life of the nerves and senses. It may be named, after the principal part of the organism where the nerve and sense-life is more or less centred,—the head-system. Second comes what I should like to call the rhythmic system, which, to arrive at any real understanding of man’s organisation, must be recognised as forming another branch to itself. This rhythmic system comprises the breathing, the circulation of the blood,—all that finds expression in rhythmic processes within the human organism. The third system, then, must be recognised as comprising all those organs and functions that have to do with actual matter-changes—the metabolic process. These three systems together comprise everything which, duly co-ordinated, keeps the whole human complex in healthy working order.

In my book, “Riddles of the Soul,” I have already attempted to give a brief description of this threefold character of the natural human organism in a way that tallies completely with what scientific research has as yet to tell us on the subject. It seems to me clear, that biology, physiology, and natural science in general as it deals with man, are all rapidly tending to a point of view which will shew, that what keeps the whole complex process of the human organism in working order is just this comparatively separate functioning of its three separate systems, the head system, the circulation, or chest system and the metabolic system,—that there is no such thing as absolute centralisation in the human organism, and, moreover, that each of these systems has its own special and distinct relation to the outer world, the head system through the senses, the rhythmic or circulatory system through the breathing, the metabolic system through the organs of nourishment and organs of movement. What I have here indicated goes much deeper down to spiritual sources that I have tried to utilise for natural science. In natural-science circles themselves, it is a fact not yet so generally recognised as might perhaps be desirable for the advancement of knowledge; but that merely means that our habits of thought, our whole way of picturing the world to ourselves, is not yet completely adapted to the inner life and being of nature’s workings, as manifested, for instance, in the human organism. People of course may say, “No matter. Natural science can afford to wait. She will come to her ideals bit by bit, and views such as yours will gain recognition all in good time.” But the body social cannot afford to wait, neither for the right views nor for the right practice. Here an understanding is necessary,—if only an instinctive one,—of what the body social needs,—and not merely an understanding amongst a handful of experts, but in every single human soul;—for every human soul takes its own share in the general working of the body social. Sane thinking and feeling, sane will and desires as to the form to be given the body social,—these are only to be developed, when one comes to recognise,—even though only instinctively,—that, in order to thrive, the social organism, like the natural one, requires to be threefold.

Now, since Schäffle wrote his book on the structure of the social organism, all sorts of attempts have been made to trace out analogies between the organic structure of a natural creature,—a human being, say,—and of a community of human beings. People have tried to map out the body social into cells, network of cells, tissues and so forth. Only a little while ago, there was a book published by Méray, “World Mutations,” in which various natural science facts and laws were simply transferred to what is supposed to be man’s social organism. That sort of analogy-game has nothing whatever to do with what is meant here; and anyone who mistakes what is said above for just such another play upon analogies between the natural and the social organism, has plainly not entered into the spirit of these observations. The present comparison is not an attempt to take some natural science truth and transplant it into the social system. Its object is quite different:—namely, to use the human body as an object lesson for training human thought and feeling to a sense of what organic life requires, and then to apply this perceptive sense to the body social. If one simply transfers to the body social something one thinks one has found out about the human body,—as is commonly done,—it merely shews that one is not willing to acquire the faculties needed for studying the social organism in the way one has to study the natural organism,—that is, as a thing by itself, with special laws of its own.

It might again be thought, that this manner of depicting the social organism arises from the belief that it should be “built up” after some cut-and-dried theory borrowed from natural science. Nothing could be further from all that is here in question. What I am trying to shew is something very different. The present crisis in the history of mankind demands the development in every single human being of certain faculties of apprehension, of which the first rudiments must be started by the schools and system of education,—like the first four rules of arithmetic. Hitherto, the body social received its older forms from something that never entered consciously into the life of the human soul; but in the future this force will cease to be active. Fresh evolutionary impulses are coming in, and from now on will be active in human life; and it is part of them, that every individual should be required to have these faculties of apprehension, just as each individual has long been required to have a certain measure of education. From now on, it is necessary that the individual should be trained to have a healthy sense of how the forces of the body social must work in order for it to live. People must learn to feel, that it would be unhealthy, anti-social, not to possess such sense of what the body social needs and to want to take one’s place in it.

One hears much talk to-day about “socialisation” as the thing that the age needs. But this socialisation will prove no true cure but a quack remedy, possibly even a fatal one for social life, unless in men’s hearts, in men’s souls, there dawns at least an instinctive perception of the necessity for a threefold division of the body social. If the body social is to function healthily, it must regularly develope three organic divisions such as here described.

One of these three divisions is the economic life. It is the best one to begin with here, because it has obviously, through modern technical industry and modern capitalism, worked its way into the whole structure of human society, to the subordination of everything else. This economic life requires to form an independent organic branch by itself within the body social,—relatively as independent as the nervous and sensory system within the human body. Its concern is with everything in the nature of production of commodities, circulation of commodities, consumption of commodities.

Next comes the life of public right,—political life in the proper sense. This must be recognised as forming a second branch of the body social. To this branch belongs what one might term the true life of the State,—taking “State” in the sense in which it was formerly applied to a community possessing common rights.

Whilst economic life is concerned with all that a man needs from Nature and what he himself produces from Nature,—with commodities and the circulation and consumption of commodities,—the second branch of the body social can have no other concern than what is involved in purely human relations, in that which comes up from the deep-recesses of the inner life and affects man’s relation towards man. It is essential to a right understanding of the composition of the social organism, that one should clearly recognise the difference between the system of “public right,” which can only deal from inner and purely human grounds with man-to-man relations, and the economic system, which is concerned solely with the production, circulation and consumption of commodities. People must become possessed of an instinctive sense for distinguishing between these two in life, so that in practice the economic life and the life of “right” will be kept distinct;—just as, in man’s natural organism, the lungs’ function in working up the outer air keeps distinct from the processes going on in the nervous and sensory life.

As the third division, alongside the other two and equally independent, are to be understood all those things in the social organism which are connected with mental and spiritual life. The term “spiritual culture,” or “everything that is connected with mental and spiritual life,” is scarcely a term that accurately describes it in any way. Perhaps one might more accurately express it as “Everything that rests on the natural endowments of each single human being—everything that plays a part in the body social on the ground of the natural endowments, both spiritual and physical, of the individual.”