1250. That is all very well, but of what use, then, is the analysis presented here about "criminals" not being "criminals", but "younger souls" in evolution who "know not what they do", and the fact that "punishing" them is "unjust"? Well, this analysis is of very great use to the being that today is beginning to love its neighbour, beginning to have so great an intellectual talent that he or she can understand the "cosmic analyses" or science of life, and who very much hates the idea of being party to, for example, "sentencing" these" younger brothers" to "punishment", "prison" or other injurious treatment of body and soul. As long as people do not completely understand their own being, the decisions and views of those in authority on religious as well as purely material matters must of course inevitably be their mental compass or rule of conduct, even though their hearts writhe at the thought of perhaps having to be subject to the authorised, judicial and religious paragraphs of these authorities in certain areas. One will have "pangs of conscience" if one does not comply with or adhere to these paragraphs, just as one will also have "pangs of conscience" and be at odds with oneself, if one does practice or adhere to them. One's mental attitude can thus be likened to a flickering candle that is suddenly threatened by a dangerous gust of wind from the one side and suddenly by an equally dangerous gust of wind from the other side. If one does not manage to sufficiently protect one's mental state or one's mental light, it can easily lead to one, instead of shining with a clear flame, becoming a candle that can only smoke and reek. One's mental candle can be made to burn only where it is protected by a strong will. But a strong will can exist only where it rests upon an absolutely secure mental foundation. A secure mental foundation can exist absolutely only where one feels that one is in absolute contact with "justice". This contact will in turn be able to rest only on either absolute "belief" or absolute "knowledge". Where one does not firmly "believe" that one's way of acting is "just", or does not "know for sure" that it is "just", one can be nothing but an unsteady or swaying reed in the storms of life. This is the point at which one, among other things, cries out to heaven: "What must I do to be saved?".
      And is it not so today that there are thousands upon thousands of people who do not want to be soldiers, who do not want to be executioners; indeed, are there not many who cannot even kill animals or eat meat or other coarse animal products because it is contrary to their nature to do so, but are at the same time unhappy because they feel compelled in many cases or to a great extent to go along with it nonetheless because the precepts, judicial and religious paragraphs of the authorities and the opinion and conventions of the flock demand it and single out anyone who deviates from this as an "offender", a "criminal", an "eccentric" or a downright "abnormal" being. In order to hold one's own in the face of such opposition one must of necessity possess a will that is rooted either in an unshakeable "belief" or in correspondingly unshakeable "knowledge" that one's view is neither "criminal" nor "abnormal" but solely "just".