The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. Natural Science at a Crossroads

[ 1 ] In the introductory lecture I had the honor of delivering here eight days ago, I already drew attention to the two fundamental prerequisites of what is known as spiritual science or, if you will, theosophy. It has been said that spiritual science rests on two pillars: first, that human beings are aware that behind our sensory world—which can be seen with the eyes and touched with the hands—there exists a spiritual, supersensory world of facts, events, and beings; second, that human beings can become capable of intervening in this spiritual world through cognition and, on a higher level, through action as well. That there is a spiritual world and that it is accessible to human beings—this is how we can briefly express the conviction of spiritual science.

[ 2 ] Over the course of these winter lectures, this spiritual science will be examined from a wide variety of perspectives. Today we will take a look at its relationship to what is called natural science. Admittedly, those among you who have come to these lectures specifically to learn about the findings of theosophy itself and experiences in the higher worlds may view today’s lecture as a sort of digression from the main theme. True Theosophists generally believe that they have already established their relationship to the findings of the natural sciences, and so the discussion of such matters—as well as that of the relationship between theosophy and other findings derived from the natural sciences—sometimes seems somewhat tedious to them. However, in the coming lectures we will be addressing topics so specific to spiritual science that today’s interlude may well be tolerated—especially in light of the fact that the sharpest attacks and also the greatest misunderstandings regarding spiritual science come precisely from those who claim to stand firmly on the ground of natural science. Above all, please be aware that today’s lecture is not being presented from a standpoint opposed to the natural sciences. Given the immense influence that natural-scientific ideas exert on our contemporaries today, it would truly be a perilous undertaking to fall into opposition to the natural sciences. For time and again one hears: Natural science is grounded in facts and experience, and anything that does not correspond to these facts and experiences must be relegated to the realm of fantasy. This is the response given by many to matters such as those that are to be discussed in these winter lectures on spiritual science.

[ 3 ] Given the general state of education in our time, it will be most appropriate for today’s lecture to set forth, as objectively as possible and without taking sides regarding the pros and cons, merely the relationship between the natural sciences and the humanities. But let it be noted from the outset that the humanities, as such, have no interest whatsoever in engaging with the natural sciences, particularly where the focus is solely on scientific facts. That could not possibly be their task. Who would ever think of wanting to undermine the edifice of rigorous facts in any way? Who would think of objecting to anything that has been established through experiment and experience in the field of natural science? After all, the science of the spirit is itself based entirely on experience. Admittedly, on experiences as they were characterized last time—experiences in the higher, spiritual worlds. With regard to methodological principles, however, it is entirely in harmony with what is so often demanded today of the natural sciences. It is in complete agreement with the natural sciences in that all knowledge is ultimately grounded in experience, in lived experience. Thus, the introduction to a series of lectures on spiritual science will be less concerned with taking a position on specific contemporary findings in the natural sciences—since this is not necessary—than with pointing out how one must view the natural scientist in his scientific thinking. This is important: that we follow the scientific thought process as it is presented to us.

[ 4 ] It would be very helpful, then, if we were to take a brief look back at German intellectual life, which offers a picture of the entire intellectual landscape of the past decades. One thing stands out above all else: Today, for many people, the natural sciences have become something they never were before. Slowly and gradually, over the course of four centuries, the groundwork for this was laid. But it was not until the 19th century that what had been slowly taking shape reached its peak. Natural science has become something that could be described as a kind of religion, a kind of creed—or rather, individual people have believed that they could form a kind of creed, a kind of religion, out of the scientific findings of our time. Far more important for the spiritual sciences than debates over scientific facts is to examine the way in which a kind of new religion, a kind of new creed, has come into being on the basis of supposed scientific facts. Anyone who observes our spiritual life with an open mind cannot fail to recognize that today people oppose the belief in the spiritual world and oppose religious sentiment by claiming that any reference to a spiritual world has been refuted by the new findings of natural science. In certain circles, people actually believe that the findings of natural science have swept aside any reference to a spiritual world. A hundred years ago, no one could have imagined drawing such a conclusion from the facts of natural science. Certainly, there have been materialistic creeds of the most radical kind in the past as well; but they never asserted that, according to “true science,” the world could be explained only in materialistic terms. And the phrase “true science” holds an indescribable magical power for our contemporaries!

[ 5 ] Much is said about the dark times of the past—times of religious fury, religious strife, and religious persecution. There is absolutely no intention to gloss over or defend what is described here. But when we consider that these events—which truly debased humanity in its thinking and feeling—occurred in past centuries, and when we take an unbiased look at the development of the human soul and compare the thinking and feeling of our time with that of earlier times, something peculiar emerges. Anyone who reflects impartially will find confirmation everywhere for what is now merely presented as an assertion.

[ 6 ] Although many eras have been dark and intolerant, our own time is still marked by a form of intolerance characterized by an immense delusion of infallibility! This inner intolerance does not manifest itself in outward outbursts or persecution, although one can already witness instances where the police and the district attorney are called upon against those who speak about the spiritual world. Yet these are exceptions; outwardly, our time is tolerant. Only when it comes to thinking is anyone who cannot share the creed of those who say, “Based on the facts of natural science, it is impossible to say anything about the spiritual side of the world,” regarded as a fool, a fantasist, or at least as lacking in understanding. — This has been slowly developing. It reached its peak in the 19th century. There are good reasons why this has come to pass. And if we seek the reason, we must say that it is one connected with the great and tremendous progress of humanity. There we see how, in recent times, people have explored the external physical world with every conceivable instrument and ingeniously developed methods, which, in their own way, gradually border on the miraculous. We see how it began with astronomy and the conception of the astronomical cosmos, and how, piece by piece, the physical world was conquered by what can be explored with the unaided eye and grasped by the intellect. And in the 19th century, it became apparent that this kind of research is not only capable of looking into inanimate nature, but has also shed light—deeply and significantly—onto living nature.

[ 7 ] Anyone capable of observing intellectual life with an objective eye knows that it represented a tremendous advance when, in the 1830s, Schleiden discovered the smallest unit of the animal and plant worlds—the cell—which is, in a sense, a living entity. It suddenly became clear that the facts now being discovered through the microscope and new research methods meant that a great many earlier assumptions had to be discarded. Much thought was given to what this internal organism, which constitutes our living beings, actually was. Now what had been discovered was something that so closely corresponded to the thinking and sensibilities of the 19th century: it was evident how the organism was composed of countless and extremely small living beings. It was now clear how they interacted to form the human organism. What had been the subject of much speculation and deep reflection was now available to actual research.

[ 8 ] Once we had gained such a glimpse into the world of life, it was a major advance when spectral analysis was introduced by Kirchhoff and Bunsen. Thanks to this marvelous instrument, the spectroscope, it could now be demonstrated that the same substances that make up our earthly world are also present in the rest of the universe. This was evident from the facts provided by the spectroscope. And when Darwin then came along with his vast, indeed abundant, wealth of facts showing how living organisms change under the influence of external conditions and depend on the place where they live, and he succeeded in actually investigating the remains of ancient living beings found in the layers of our Earth, and when paleontological research—which forms a bridge between history and the natural sciences—was added to this, something extraordinarily essential was provided for the sensibilities and thinking of the 19th century. It was the foundation of what could be called a firm, secure support.

[ 9 ] In Germany, in particular, people felt the blessing of such a firm, secure foundation. In Germany, specifically, there was a grand, idealistic-philosophical worldview that was linked to names such as Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. They had behind them a series of bold, outstanding intellectual endeavors. People now believed that these intellectual endeavors had something subjective and arbitrary about them—something that anyone else might or might not share. What Hegel and Fichte had thought, they had thought for themselves; others might think differently. This, it was believed, would lead us into a tangle of worldviews. But that only happens when we leave the surer ground of facts, when, for example, we fail to see how the smallest organism is composed of the tiniest living beings. For then we would discover that thousands looking through a microscope see the same thing and describe it the same way; anyone familiar with the strata of the Earth’s formation must describe them in the same way. That is the secure, firm ground of facts.

[ 10 ] It did not stop at simply saying: “Whoever stands on this ground of facts walks safely, and let us leave everything else untouched.” Had one remained on the ground of facts, no creeds—indeed, no religious problems—could ever have arisen from it. True natural science, which is based on observation and excludes the supernatural world, will always proceed with certainty, even if it limits itself to the sensory realm. It will arrive at certain facts. But these facts have had a suggestive, even hypnotic effect! From these scientific facts, people have fashioned a kind of atheistic or materialistic religion grounded in science—a kind of creed. Now one might say that any creed can enable a person to be steadfast and strong in life, that the truth will emerge in the course of human development, and that it does not matter how a person stands on questions concerning the supernatural world. But it is precisely this that will become clear to us in the course of these lectures: that it is not correct to think it is irrelevant how a person feels and imagines. We will demonstrate precisely that feeling and imagination constitute a real world, and that the future—not only of the Earth but of the entire human race—depends on how people think.

[ 11 ] We will see just how profound and true this statement is in the course of the winter lectures. The spiritual science is not concerned with theoretical squabbling, but rather with working in a way that is beneficial and in harmony with human nature. Whether the individual physical body consists of atoms or not, whether the individual physical organism is composed of individual cells or not, whether the other celestial bodies contain the same substances as the Earth or not—these are all purely factual questions. But the resolution of these factual questions never says anything about the fate of what we call the soul or spirit in human beings. And if one confines oneself to stating and describing the facts, and does not cross this boundary into the realm of the soul, then there can be no conflict between the natural sciences and the spiritual sciences. But that is precisely not what has happened. Theories have been developed and concepts constructed with which no soul being, no spiritual existence, can be reconciled.

[ 12 ] We need only look back at a few decades of development. Today, it has almost been forgotten how the so-called theory of force and matter emerged in the 19th century; but it would be particularly beneficial for those outside the realm of the humanities to consider the true basis of the theory of force and matter.

[ 13 ] Let us imagine the picture of the dry science of forces and matter as it was back then. Philosophically, it emerged from what the facts of natural science had revealed. It had been discovered that human beings consisted of individual cells. Chemical and physical processes had been discovered, and it was said that all our bodies consisted of molecules and atoms, and that the phenomena around us arose from the interaction and movement of the atoms. Those who are now in their forties or fifties and have completed their academic training vividly remember the time when the so-called theory of heat dominated everything. At that time, the great discoveries in the field of thermodynamics had reached such a stage that people imagined any given gas to consist of millions of minute particles—molecules and atoms—engaged in an infinitely complex motion, colliding and rebounding off one another, thereby producing the phenomena of heat. What, then, was heat? Nothing other than a result of what exists out there in space as a manifold interplay of atoms moving chaotically and colliding with one another. People stated it bluntly back then: What you perceive as heat is nothing but a motion performed by the tiniest particles of matter, and the degree of heat depends on the force of the collisions and the intensity of the motion. Thus, in the external world, the theory of heat saw nothing but atoms swirling chaotically, and what was meant by the word “heat” was a subjective sensation—an effect on the human organism or on the brain—which was also conceived of in material terms. But it was not just heat—everything was conceived as such a movement of atoms! This must be noted. For once one arrives at the materialistic conception, it is like a Moloch: it devours the spiritual, just as the molecules and atoms have devoured it.

[ 14 ] If you pick up books from that time about light phenomena, you will find them stating quite matter-of-factly: What you call red or blue is merely an effect on your nerves; it exists only within you. Out there in the world, there is no light and no color; there is only the ether that permeates the entire world, and the peculiar movement of this ether acts upon you and causes the sensation of color. Thus, objectively speaking, light exists out there in the world as the movement of the world’s ether, and what you perceive is actually nothing. — In short, the true reality became empty space, filled with atoms in motion. It was assumed that all phenomena arose from this. Someone who wanted to express themselves radically might have said the following: Imagine all human brains gone—what remains then? Nothing but empty space, filled with atoms—for my sake, atoms of the ether and of matter endowed with weight—which are in a certain state of motion. But everything that constitutes perception and sensation within you—every sensation of smell, taste, and warmth—is no longer there; it is subjective, not objective.

[ 15 ] It was only people like Bächner and Vogt in the mid-19th century who demonstrated the logical consequences of this premise. In my work *Worldviews and Philosophies of Life in the 19th Century*, I highlight the contributions of these men because they had the unwavering resolve to draw the conclusions of such a worldview. If, in the external world, there was nothing other than moving atoms and molecules behind the phenomena of color and sound, then it was a natural consequence for the thinker to say: Then there is nothing else in human beings either but matter, consisting of atoms and molecules in motion. — It was simply a matter of drawing the absolutely unambiguous conclusion that Vogt drew: Through the movement of brain molecules, thoughts are excreted just as other substances are excreted by the liver and kidneys, and so on. — This statement, which caused a great deal of ill will, was essentially just a consequence of assumptions that others had also made, though they did not take it that far. Necessarily linked to this was the division of this world of atoms and molecules—which was regarded as the Absolute—into substances that could be discovered. It was believed that all matter was merely motion and could be broken down into atoms and molecules. Even living things—life itself—were regarded merely as a complex motion of atoms within living bodies. It was recognized that individual bodies could be broken down into their simple components: water, for example, into hydrogen and oxygen; sulfuric acid into hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen. — But now we reach a limit where the methods of chemical research do not allow for further decomposition. Why is that? It is because our substances are based on simple elements. There are about seventy of them, and it is said that all our substances are combinations of these seventy elements, which in turn consist of atoms and molecules.

[ 16 ] How is water formed? It is formed when its elements—oxygen and hydrogen, which would otherwise lie apart or side by side—interlock. This was the main premise on which the 19th-century materialists based their views: the assumption that there is a very specific number of elements. You can find them in any chemistry textbook: hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, sulfur, phosphorus, fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine, and so on. Everything living and non-living arises through more or less complex arrangements of molecules, and the complex entity called the human soul—everything a person possesses in terms of feelings, sensations, ideas, ideals, and so on—was also regarded as nothing more than the result of the interaction of their intricately assembled atoms and molecules. Admittedly, some individuals, such as Haeckel, have argued that it is absurd to explain what is called the soul as merely the result of the interaction of tiny, inanimate atoms. Haeckel therefore developed the view that the atom itself already possesses a soul. He believes that all these atoms, which make up such an organism, have a small soul and that the many small souls together constitute the human soul.

[ 17 ] Well, it is surely the boldest, most fanciful superstition to speak of such an “atomic soul”! Here begins a chapter of scientific superstition that then leads into what is called the “cell soul,” the “soul cell,” and the like. To pursue this further would take us too far afield. For us, the task is to characterize the meaning and spirit of natural science as it has presented itself. But we look back to the time when a kind of materialistic creed became attached to the influence of natural science. This has truly enormous intellectual consequences. Those who do not take these matters seriously can easily overlook them. But it is true that this scientific creed excludes any independence of the soul and the spirit; it precludes speaking of spirit and soul. According to this view, what the human soul experiences begins with the organism’s first stirrings and disappears with the organism’s decay. From this perspective, the human being is nothing more than a constructed machine that, during the sixty to eighty years of its existence, generates phenomena such as thoughts, sensations, and feelings from within itself; and when it decays, that is the end of it, for all these phenomena are nothing but the arrangement of molecules.

[ 18 ] That was Vogt’s thinking, and that of all those who drew bold, radical conclusions from the premises of the natural sciences. Then another faction entered the realm of the natural sciences. One of its members is the famous Du Bois-Reymond. He delivered a significant lecture at a meeting of natural scientists in Leipzig, in which he introduced a topic that, in essence, remains the subject of much discussion to this day—and must continue to be so. He said: We have reached a point in the natural sciences where a scientific ideal has taken shape within us, consisting in attributing everything that exists—for example, the phenomena of light, color, and sound—to the action of atoms and molecules. Everything else is a phenomenon; but these are the realities. Everything that comes into being arises and exists because these atoms, which are present in the world, aggregate, collide, and enter into oscillatory motion. If it were possible—so Du Bois-Reymond argues—to specify the corresponding motion and position of the atoms for every phenomenon, then the world would be explained scientifically. But with this scientific explanation, something remains unexplained and cannot be explained by it. Du Bois-Reymond also referred at the time to the teachings of the great German philosopher Leibniz. — Suppose for a moment — as Du Bois-Reymond put it, for example — that you could clearly analyze and describe a human brain in all its movements, and now imagine it magnified so that you could walk through it as if through the machinery of a factory. Look into the whole: You will see immensely complex movements within it; you will find complexities there that nothing in the world can compare to; but you will see only movements. The transition that makes it possible to say, “I smell the scent of roses”—that is something natural science will never be able to explain. Here lies an insurmountable limit to knowledge. How human consciousness arises cannot be explained. That is why he utters his “ignorabimus”: We will never know. — He is thus saying: There will never be an opportunity to cross these boundaries; humanity will never know how consciousness arises from movement.

[ 19 ] Du Bois-Reymond has not only presented this one mystery to the world, but six others as well. In *The Seven World Riddles*, you will find that he admits to not understanding how life originated or how the initial distribution of matter came about. He admits that matter must have been distributed and interwoven from the very beginning. When asked where motion comes from, he says: “One can never know that!” — Du Bois-Reymond counts all of this among the seven world mysteries, and in Haeckel’s book *The World’s Mysteries*, you can read that it was written as a kind of response to Du Bois-Reymond’s *Seven World Mysteries*. It goes on to say: It is true that there are seventy elements, consisting of substances that are quite different with respect to the individual elements; but everything arises through the arrangement of atoms and molecules. — One thing was simply taken for granted: the immutability of atoms. What is an atom remains an atom. This is a statement that Büchner emphasizes again and again: The motion of atoms changes, but what is an atom of sulfur, an atom of oxygen, and so on, remains an atom of sulfur, an atom of oxygen. This is what was now proclaimed as the immutability of matter in the elements, the eternity of atoms. In *The Riddles of the Universe*, Haeckel emphasizes nothing more strongly than the eternity of matter. That was the one thing that was established. And the other thing that Du Bois-Reymond established was that there are limits to natural science: one could never understand how consciousness arises.

[ 20 ] Based on these premises, various groups—one might say—formed. Some said: Whatever the case may be, we will stick to our old religious convictions. “Let the researchers think what they will; we believe—but when it comes to science, we stick to the established facts.” — The others, the bolder ones, said: “Certainly, if what is truly real consists of atoms in motion, the seventy elements, and the ether atoms in between, then everything else is a phenomenon that exists only as long as a form of motion exists.” — That is no longer science; that is a creed! It is something that extends to everything pertaining to the spiritual world, which, for such a creed, is nothing more than a manifestation of purely material facts.

[ 21 ] It was quite a bold move when, at the Lübeck Naturalists’ Conference in the late 1880s, the chemist Wilhelm Ostwald delivered a lecture titled “Overcoming Scientific Materialism.” Ostwald demonstrated that, for logical thinking, the concept of matter does not break down into anything at all. It is, after all, very easy to develop this logical and consistent line of thought: What do you see in the world? You see bodies! What are these bodies? They are things that have a certain color, a certain luster, a certain warmth—things you can hear, smell, and taste. Try to capture everything you perceive in such bodies. If you then remove what you perceive as smell, taste, touch, and so on, what is left? Absolutely nothing! To logical thinking, a body is nothing more than a conglomerate, the sum of its properties.

[ 22 ] What was the basis for light and color? Nothing but the movement of the ether! The entire space was filled with ether. Anyone familiar with theoretical physics knows how to calculate ether waves and so on, and that everything one finds there is the result of calculations. The ether can never be the object of direct observation. If it is supposed to produce perceptible things, how could one perceive it itself? The ether was the most fantastical idea one could possibly conceive. Thus, natural science is based on something purely imaginary. It has never been anything other than the result of a calculation. The most absolute and certain thing that was supposed to exist for scientific thought was nothing other than something calculated. In my *Philosophy of Freedom*, you can read how this idea negates itself, so that it can be compared to Münchhausen pulling himself up by his own hair. This is made clear there. But what influences people—no matter how precise they believe themselves to be—are never logical reasons, never real facts, but rather suggestions. All manner of concepts, flowing through the soul via thousands upon thousands of channels, exert their influence. Thus, the elements and atoms had become a self-evident given even among those who had no way of grasping the matter as a whole and who did not even know why such things were assumed. It was a general suggestion.

[ 23 ] It was during this period that one of the greatest and most beautiful advances in humanity’s exploration of nature took place—namely, the study of living organisms, as popularized by Darwin. That beautiful, infinite wealth of facts that had become known to the world was such that one had to say: Had it come into a spiritual age, when it had been known that all material phenomena are based on spirit, then one would have found in these very facts countless reasons for the workings and nature of the spirit. In the transformation and reshaping of organisms, one would have found the reign and workings of the spirit. Darwinism never gave rise to materialism. Materialism, which arises from the ideas I have just characterized, has made Darwinism materialistic. It has also turned even a thinker and researcher as profound as Ernst Haeckel into a materialist. While Haeckel could have made a magnificent contribution to spiritual science through his beautiful research, he was led into the materialistic current by the suggestive influences of his time.

[ 24 ] If things were still that way today, one could not even think of speaking of spiritual science, and for the time being it is still impossible to convince those who stand on the ground of scientific explanations. One must let them go their own way, and the spiritual researcher must also go his own way. If things were still the same today as they were back then, one would have to say: Spiritual research can be content with itself. — But things have changed. Precisely those who have been involved in everything considered to be natural science have also been able to witness how, albeit slowly, the greatest upheaval is taking place precisely in the realm of scientific thinking. There will come a time when people will not be able to comprehend how anyone could ever have thought the way that is still popular today. It may well seem as though natural science is currently making triumphant strides with this materialistic worldview, as though well-prepared experiments were succeeding in creating living organisms from protein in the laboratory. Then they would say, “We can produce the living substance from which entire living beings are composed,” and indeed there are facts that are downright delightful for the natural scientist, showing that inanimate matter can be treated with certain toxic substances, resulting in effects that resemble symptoms of poisoning. The resulting substances look like living crystals: their form gives the impression that they are alive, even though they are not yet. Thus, one might imagine that we will eventually be able to demonstrate how life—and, on the other hand, the mind—arises from molecules and atoms.

[ 25 ] On the one hand, that seems to be the case. And on the other hand, what do we have here? Something that will have a greater impact than anything Ostwald ever said against materialism from the standpoint of scientific logic. Here we see how a different scientific way of thinking is slowly taking shape and how this is becoming a necessity. It was in the mid-1890s that Becquerel, the great physicist, discovered the presence of certain types of radiation in certain substances containing uranium. These have very specific effects, which manifest themselves by making the air electrically conductive or by causing a certain change in a photographic plate, such as X-rays. As you know, it has recently been discovered that such rays are also associated with what is called the element radium. But as interesting as it is that there is something previously unknown, the entire nature and mode of action of these rays were so strange—so completely different from the ideas held until now—that many have already begun to question their belief that atoms are something absolute, eternal, and merely arranged within and alongside one another. We have substances here that behave quite strangely in the context of the universe, just like radium and uranium. They emit radiation—especially radium—but their radiation is virtually inexhaustible. All of this would be consistent with the old view; but the most important point is that a substance like radium can be made to emit radiation, that certain components can be separated and one component retained; that, for example, there are such emissions that electrify the air, and which can then be separated in such a way that their effect is captured on a photographic plate. The fact is that one can separate the various properties, so that one ends up with substances that no longer possess their original properties. A property is taken away from one substance and given to another. You can find treatises on this subject in any bookstore today.

[ 26 ] But that is not the most significant point. What is significant is that rays are constantly breaking away and traveling out into outer space. However, certain reasons compel us to assume that these rays will eventually be exhausted. It can already be demonstrated today that certain substances diminish within a short time—a time that is almost impossible to express—but that the substances capable of being released are, strangely enough, transformed into entirely different substances, so that for a large number of researchers, the fact remains that radium emissions are transformed into what is known as helium.

[ 27 ] We see that radium emits its radiation out into space. According to the old theory, what would have to happen there? At most, the atoms could break away or separate, if they were unchanging. But we see that they are constantly emitting radiation, and we can now assume nothing else but that the atoms disintegrate and shatter down to the smallest particles. Others clearly show us that this disintegration of atoms is possible for a large number of substances. Thus we see that what was once considered the most enduring—the Absolute—while everything else was regarded merely as a result of it—is now also disintegrating. It is disintegrating today. And there is well-founded hope that this is the case with all atoms. So what will the atom be in the future? It will be something that comes into being and takes shape. Every atom forms, has a specific lifespan, and dissolves again after a certain time. There you have it: what was the most solid thing for materialism—the atom—transformed into an entity that comes into being and passes away. When one observes that radium transforms into the element helium, one sees precisely that matter is transforming into matter. This leads one to conclude that the old alchemist’s dream—that substances can be transformed into other substances—is, after all, a reality.

[ 28 ] In some books, we already find hints that modern scientific research suggests something that the alchemists had dreamed of. There are already natural scientists who have made interesting observations about certain processes. In the past, it was said that there are copper salts composed, for example, of copper and chlorine. If you separate them, you end up with copper and chlorine again. This shows that the atoms are bound together, and when you drive them apart again, you get chlorine and copper. However, some people who have begun to think have noticed something essential—something that the spiritual scientist must emphasize time and again: When you recombine the substances you have separated as copper and chlorine, this cannot happen without heat being generated. When these two substances combine, heat is released. The fact that heat appears is just as real and tangible as the compound formed by copper and chlorine. If you want to separate these two again, you must add the heat back in. We perceive heat. No one has ever perceived atoms or molecules. But don’t we, as it were, see from the phenomenon itself what is actually happening? When you bring copper and chlorine together, it is as if you were squeezing out the heat, much like flour from sacks of flour. If you then want the sacks of flour to be full again, you simply have to put flour back into them. Heat, then, would be a filling. — With this, we have attributed a reality to heat and made it clear that we must account not only for molecular action, but that these substances themselves are only possible through this heat.

[ 29 ] If we now consider that atoms are disintegrating right before our eyes, we must ask ourselves: At this crossroads—where atoms, which until now were considered the most certain reality, are disintegrating—is natural science leading us to acknowledge that which it previously regarded only as an external expression, as a phenomenon? That is precisely where natural science is leading us today! The entire atomistic theory, which has long been the foundation of natural science, is now faltering. Today, the facts are such that theories not based on facts must fall. Atoms and molecules are not real; they are mere constructs. If this falls because it is itself an effect, then we must ask: Of what is it an effect? At first, people will try to return to the idea that something else underlies it all. Today they are already talking about a “fluid electricity.” What the British Minister Balfour said is very beautiful: When we imagine atoms today, we can only say that something is flowing through the world like a fluid, and the atoms are in it like chunks of ice in water. — That’s a beautiful idea. But where does it lead? Try to take it a step further. It leads to the point where natural science comes to recognize as the truly real and actual that which it previously denied—that which was once merely an appearance to it. It was a strange belief that what is color—and what I call red—exists only in my mind, that out there there are only tiny particles colliding and pressing against one another, thereby producing sensations of light, color, and sound. These notions will soon have to disappear under the weight of the facts. It will become clear that what we see and hear is reality, and that it was a wild fantasy to imagine a material world lying behind this one. This material world will disintegrate and crumble. What lies beyond it will be recognized. Then what one experiences and is capable of experiencing will have to take its place. Then one will realize that the atom can be nothing other than frozen electricity, frozen heat, frozen light. And then one will have to go even further, to see that in everything there is condensed and formed spirit. Matter does not exist! Matter relates to spirit as ice relates to water. Dissolve the ice, and you have water. Dissolve matter, and it disappears as matter and becomes spirit. Everything that is matter is spirit; it is the outer manifestation of spirit.

[ 30 ] It will be a long time before we are forced to draw this ultimate conclusion: that it is not the eye that created light, but light that created the eye, and the sounds we hear that created the ear. Then we will come to realize that all matter is born of the spirit, and we will be able to carry the true scientific facts over into spiritual science without any logical break. The scientific facts will form the most beautiful foundation for spiritual science. Anyone who stands on the spiritual-scientific standpoint looks with admiration upon natural science at this crossroads. Suggestions have led them to believe that matter is the only reality. They have not been content merely to investigate the material world; rather, they have conceived of yet another world alongside it. That was the tragedy, the impossibility. The spiritual scientist fully acknowledges the natural world as it is. The imagined and fantasized world of unchanging atoms and vibrations of the imagined ether—this dreamt-up and fantastical world of materialism—the spiritual scientist can never make his own. He rejects it as superstition. And superstition was the belief in material atoms lying beyond our perceptions. It was said that every atom could be perceived if we had the instruments to do so. — There is nothing behind what we perceive but the spirit and the spiritual world into which we penetrate! That is what we seek behind appearances. We seek not a world of atoms in chaotic motion, but the world of the spirit within the world of sensory appearances. Anyone who believes they can find another material world behind external appearances is on the wrong track. Those who still rely on this as fact today will have to be corrected. The time will come when this fanciful superstition will be recognized as such, and when much of what is today regarded as superstition from this perspective will prove to be true.

[ 31 ] The true fundamental principle of natural science—sticking to the facts—leads natural science itself to a crossroads where it becomes clear whether the facts support the theories. And the facts do not vindicate them; the theories vanish into thin air! That which has been regarded as the firmest foundation—that from which one has sought to explain the spirit and consciousness—the element and the atom—is disintegrating. What we want is certainty, and we can obtain it only by perceiving the spirit within ourselves.

[ 32 ] Thus, natural science will merge with spiritual science. Today it stands at a crossroads. Some do not yet recognize it, while others can see it. The time will come when there will be a wonderful harmony between the knowledge of scientific facts and what spiritual science asserts. It will never assert anything that contradicts what the natural sciences have discovered. Even today, the spiritual sciences admire the works of the spirit within materialism; but they do not build castles in the air. The spiritual sciences seek to understand the world in order to work within it. About a hundred years ago, Germany had a natural science that was sailing full steam ahead into 19th-century materialism—a natural science that began to recognize nothing other than what could be seen with the eyes and grasped with the hands. The consequence of this was that even what was conceived in the mind became something material, something concrete. The great philosophies, which operated in terms and concepts that were not to everyone’s taste, were pushed aside. However, the people who pass judgment on Hegel and Schelling generally understand nothing at all of these minds, which looked so deeply into the world in a way that hardly any of those who today believe themselves to have moved beyond them can even imagine. Admittedly, they operated within highly sublimated concepts—abstract concepts.

[ 33 ] Goethe stood right in the middle between these two camps. He was therefore able to foresee how the natural sciences would drift toward materialism, and, on the other hand, he found an opportunity to delve into the issues and build a bridge between religion and the natural sciences. That is why he was able to say so beautifully that a time would come when philosophy and natural science would unite. But, he added, for a while they must still go their separate ways. — They have gone their separate ways, with neither current understanding the other. Today we also have two currents: materialism, which has outlived its usefulness, which sees its most solid, most absolute foundation crumble in its own hands due to its own method, and which is destroying itself; and a philosophy that flows into theosophy or spiritual science; which seeks not to present the abstract spiritual, but the concrete spiritual—the facts of humanity’s higher world—and which will no longer exist as an abstract but as a concrete spiritual science.

[ 34 ] In the not-too-distant future, we will witness that beautiful alliance between the perspectives of the natural sciences and the humanities. We will see how the facts of the natural sciences will be useful to the humanities, and how the humanities will be useful to the natural sciences. That is why this bridge is being built. The human spirit can only flourish when its modes of activity are in harmony with one another. The spirit would be crippled if the natural sciences were left without the humanities, and if the humanities had to content themselves with the thought: “After all, you cannot bring the natural sciences over into the realm of the spiritual.” — But the course of world development will bring peace. It will build the bridge between faith and knowledge. It will bring infinite progress and harmony between faith and knowledge.

[ 35 ] How many people today long for external peace, external harmony, and external happiness! But everything external is, after all, a manifestation of the internal, and external human life can only be a consequence of the internal. A happy external human life will arise when there are souls full of hope and confidence in the future. They will know how to establish true social peace, and from inner peace will come outer peace. Therefore, it seems significant to examine these natural sciences at this crossroads and to show how one path will lead to a dead end, while the other must quite clearly lead into the realms that are also those of spiritual science. In this way, they will work together in the future, and the structure of the world will be enriched from two sides. It will be a great, perfect harmony, and in the human being this will be the inner harmony of the soul, which is the ultimate goal of spiritual science.