The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity
GA 4
Appendix II
Remarks regarding the opening Chapter to the First Edition
[ 1 ] The following essentially reproduces what served as a kind of “preface” in the first edition of this book. Since it reflects more the intellectual mood in which I wrote the book twenty-five years ago than it has to do directly with its content, I am including it here as an “Appendix.” I do not wish to omit it entirely, however, because the view is repeatedly expressed that I have suppressed some of my earlier writings in favor of my later works in the field of Spiritual Science.
[ 2 ] Our age can only seek to draw the truth from the depths of the human being. 1The only parts omitted here are the very first introductory sentences (of the first edition) of these remarks, which seem entirely irrelevant to me today. But what is said further on seems to me necessary to state even now, despite the scientific mindset of our contemporaries—indeed, precisely because of it. Of Schiller’s well-known two paths:
“We both seek truth—you in the world outside, I within
In the heart—and so each of us is sure to find it.
If the eye is sound, it encounters the Creator outside;
If it is the heart, then surely it reflects the world within”
The present moment is best served by the second of the pious. A truth that comes to us from outside always bears the mark of uncertainty. We may believe only in what appears to each of us as truth within our own hearts.
[ 3 ] Only the truth can give us the confidence to develop our individual powers. Those tormented by doubt find their powers paralyzed. In a world that is a mystery to them, they cannot find a purpose for their work.
[ 4 ] We no longer want to merely believe; we want to know. Faith demands acceptance of truths that we do not fully understand. But what we do not fully comprehend is repugnant to the individual, who wants to experience everything with his deepest inner self. Only knowledge satisfies us, knowledge that does not submit to any external norm, but springs from the inner life of the personality.
[ 5 ] Nor do we want knowledge that has been set in stone once and for all in rigid school rules and preserved in compendia valid for all time. We believe everyone is entitled to start from their immediate experiences and, from there, ascend to an understanding of the entire universe. We strive for certain knowledge, but each in his own way.
[ 6 ] Nor should our scientific teachings take on a form that suggests their acceptance is a matter of absolute compulsion. None of us would wish to give a scientific work a title like the one once chosen by Fichte: “A Crystal-Clear Report to the General Public on the True Nature of the Latest Philosophy. An Attempt to Compel Readers to Understand.” Today, no one should be compelled to understand. From those whom no particular, individual need drives toward a certain view, we demand neither recognition nor agreement. Nor do we currently wish to cram knowledge into the still immature person, the child; rather, we seek to develop their abilities so that they no longer need to be forced to understand, but want to understand.
[ 7 ] I harbor no illusions regarding this characteristic of my age. I know how much unindividualistic conformity exists and is spreading. But I also know that many of my contemporaries are trying to organize their lives in the direction I have indicated. To them I would like to dedicate this work. It is not intended to lead to “the only possible” path to truth, but it is meant to tell the story of the one
[ 8 ] The text first leads us into more abstract realms, where thought must draw sharp contours in order to arrive at certain points. But the reader is also led out of these dry concepts and into concrete life. I am firmly of the opinion that one must also rise into the ethereal realm of concepts if one wishes to experience existence in all its dimensions. Those who know only how to enjoy with the senses do not know the delights of life. Oriental scholars first have their students spend years living a life of renunciation and asceticism before they impart to them what they themselves know. The West no longer demands pious exercises or asceticism for the sake of science, but it does require the willingness to withdraw for a short time from the immediate impressions of life and to enter the realm of the pure world of thought.
[ 9 ] There are many fields of life. Specific sciences develop for each one. Life itself, however, is a unity, and the more the sciences strive to delve into individual fields, the further they distance themselves from a view of the living world as a whole. There must be a form of knowledge that seeks out the elements within the individual sciences in order to lead humanity back to a full life. The specialized scientific researcher seeks to acquire, through his findings, an awareness of the world and its effects; in this work, the goal is a philosophical one: science itself is to become organically alive. The individual sciences are preliminary stages of the science sought here. A similar relationship prevails in the arts. The composer works on the basis of the theory of composition. The latter is a body of knowledge, the possession of which is a necessary prerequisite for composing. In composition, the laws of the theory of composition serve life, real reality. In exactly the same sense, philosophy is an art. All true philosophers were conceptual artists. For them, human ideas became artistic material and the scientific method became artistic technique. Abstract thought thereby gains concrete, individual life. Ideas become life forces. We then do not merely have knowledge of things, but we have made knowledge into a real, self-governing organism; our real, active consciousness has risen above a merely passive reception of truths.
[ 10 ] How philosophy, as an art, relates to human freedom, what the latter is, and whether we share in it or can come to share in it: that is the central question of my work. All other scholarly discussions are included here only because they ultimately shed light on those questions which, in my opinion, are closest to the human condition. A “Philosophy of Freedom” is to be presented in these pages.
[ 11 ] All science would be nothing more than the gratification of idle curiosity if it did not strive to enhance the value of human existence. The sciences derive their true value only through a presentation of the human significance of their results. The ultimate goal of the individual cannot be the refinement of a single faculty of the soul, but rather the development of all the abilities that lie dormant within us. Knowledge has value only insofar as it contributes to the all-round development of the whole human nature.
[ 12 ] This work therefore does not conceive of the relationship between science and life in such a way that human beings must bow to the idea and devote their energies to its service, but rather in the sense that they take control of the world of ideas in order to use it for their human goals, which go beyond the merely scientific.
[ 13 ] One must be able to confront the idea through experience; otherwise one falls under its bondage.