In the collected edition of Rudolf Steiner's works, the volume containing the German texts is entitled, Der Innere Aspekt des sozialen Rätsels; Luziferische Vergangenheit, Ahrimanische Zukunft (Vol. 193 in the Bibliographic Survey, 1961). Translated from the German by M. Cotterell and revised by William Riggens.In addressing a public audience today on the most important question of our time, it makes a great difference if one speaks from a knowledge of the deeper forces of world-historical evolution, that is, from initiation-science, or if one speaks without such knowledge. It is relatively easy to speak about modern questions if one relies upon data of external knowledge which are considered scientific, practical, and so on. It is, however, extraordinarily difficult to speak about these questions from the standpoint of initiation-science - from which indeed everything is derived with which we have to deal at such gatherings as ours today.