The idea thus gained of the guidance of humanity may be extended in many directions. Let us suppose that a man finds disciples,--a few people who follow him. Such an one will soon become aware, through genuine self-knowledge, that the very fact of his finding disciples gives him the feeling that what he has to say does not originate with himself. The case is rather this,--that spiritual powers in higher worlds wish to communicate with the disciples, and find in the Teacher the fitting instrument for their manifestation. The thought will suggest itself to such a man: when I was a child I worked on myself by the aid of forces proceeding from the spiritual world, and what I am now able to give, of my best, must also proceed from higher worlds; I may not look upon it as belonging to my ordinary consciousness. Such a man may in fact say: something demonic, something like a “daimon”--using the word in the sense of a _good_ spiritual power--is working out of a spiritual world through me on my disciples. Socrates felt something of this kind. Plato tells us that he spoke of his “daimon” as of the one who led and guided him. Many attempts have been made to explain this “daimon” of Socrates, but it can only be explained by supposing that Socrates was able to feel something like that which results from the above reflections. Then we are able to understand that throughout the three or four centuries during which the Socratic principle was active in Greece, a state of feeling permeated the Greek world through Socrates, which prepared the way for another great event. The feeling that man, as he now is, is not the whole of what comes through from higher worlds,--this feeling went on working. The best of those in whom it was present were those who afterwards best understood the words, “Not I, but the Christ in me.” For they could say to themselves: Socrates used to speak of a being working as a “daimon” from higher worlds; the Christ-ideal makes clear what Socrates meant. Only Socrates could not as yet speak of Christ, because in his time no one was able to find the Christ-nature _within himself_. Here again we feel something of the spiritual guidance of the race, for nothing can be established in the world without preparation. Why was it that Paul found his best disciples in Greece? Because the ground had been prepared there by the teaching of Socrates and the state of feeling that has been described. That is to say, what happens in human evolution may be traced back to events which operated previously, and made people ripe for what was afterwards to be brought to bear upon them. Do we not feel here how far the guiding impulse passing through human evolution extends and how at the right moment it places people where they will be best used to further evolution? In such facts is manifested the guidance of the human race in a general way.