The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. On the Arrangement of Goethe's Scientific Writings

[ 1 ] In the publication of Goethe's scientific writings, which I had to arrange, I was guided by the thought: to enliven the study of their details by presenting the magnificent world of ideas that underlies them. It is my conviction that every single one of Goethe's assertions takes on a completely new and indeed the correct meaning when one approaches them with a full understanding of his deep and comprehensive world view. It cannot be denied: Some of Goethe's statements in terms of natural science appear completely meaningless if one looks at them from the point of view of science, which is now so advanced. But that is not at all the point. It is a question of what it means within Goethe's view of the world. At the intellectual height at which the poet stands, the need for science is also heightened. Without scientific need, however, there is no science. What questions did Goethe ask of nature? That is the important thing. Whether and how he answered them is only of secondary importance. If we have more adequate means today, a richer experience: well, then we will succeed in finding more adequate solutions to the problems he posed. But that we are not able to do more than this: to walk the paths he has marked out with our greater means, that is what my descriptions are intended to show. What we should learn from him, then, is above all how to ask questions of nature.

[ 2 ] One overlooks the main point if one concedes to Goethe nothing other than that he had many an observation to show, which later research has rediscovered and which today forms an important part of our world view. With him, it is not the traditional result that matters, but the way in which he arrives at it. He himself aptly says: "It is with opinions that one ventures, as with stones that one moves forward in the board; they can be beaten, but they have initiated a game that is won." ["Proverbs in Prose"; Natw. Schr., vol. 4, dept. 2, p. 362] He arrived at a thoroughly natural method. He sought to introduce this method into science with the means at his disposal. It may be that the individual results thus obtained have been transformed by the progress of science; but the scientific process thus initiated is a permanent gain to science.

[ 3 ] These points of view could not remain without influence on the arrangement of the material to be published. One may ask with some justification why, since I have already departed from the hitherto customary division of the writings, I did not immediately take the path that seems to be most recommendable: to bring the general scientific writings in the 1st volume, the organic, mineralogical and meteorological writings in the 2nd volume and the physical writings in the 3rd volume. The first volume would then contain the general points of view, the following volumes the specific expositions of the basic ideas. As tempting as this is, it would never have occurred to me to make this arrangement. To return to Goethe's parable, I would not have been able to achieve what I wanted: to make the plan of the game recognizable by the stones that venture ahead in the board.

[ 4 ] Nothing was further from Goethe's mind than to consciously start from general concepts. He always starts from concrete facts, compares them, classifies them. In doing so, he discovers the basis of their ideas. It is a great mistake to claim that ideas are not the driving principle in Goethe's work, because he made that well-known remark about the idea of Faust. In his contemplation of things, after stripping away everything accidental and insignificant, something remains that is idea in his sense. The method that Goethe uses remains the one based on pure experience even where he elevates himself to the idea. For nowhere does he allow a subjective ingredient to flow into his research. He only frees the phenomena from the accidental in order to penetrate to their deeper foundation. His subject has no other task than to arrange the object in such a way that it reveals its innermost nature. "The true is godlike; it does not appear immediately, we must guess it from its manifestations." ["Proverbs in Prose"; Natw. Schr., 4th vol., 2nd dept., p. 378] The important thing is to bring these manifestations into such a context that the "true" appears. In the fact which we confront by observation there is already the true, the idea; we have only to remove the covering which conceals it from us. The true scientific method consists in removing this shell. Goethe took this path. And we must follow it if we want to penetrate it completely. In other words: We must begin with Goethe's studies of organic nature, because he began with them. Here a rich content of ideas first revealed itself to him, which we then find again as components in his general and methodical essays. If we want to understand the latter, we must have already familiarized ourselves with this content. The essays on method are the pure fabric of thought that does not endeavor to follow the path Goethe took. As far as the studies on physical phenomena are concerned, they only arose in Goethe as a consequence of his view of nature.