The Rudolf Steiner Archive

15. What Does Astronomy Have to Say About the Origin of the Universe?

[ 1 ] Who could doubt that we must look to the science we call astronomy with justified hopes when discussing the origin and evolution of the universe? For astronomy is indeed, and rightly so, a science that not only commands the highest respect of the human intellect—because it leads us into the vastness of the universe with profound insights—but it is also something that, despite all its abstractness and harshness, speaks to our soul and our entire spirit in the most intense way, so that one may say: There is something understandable about the fact that the human soul ultimately hopes to gain insight into the deepest mysteries of existence by gazing up at the starry sky, which speaks so deeply to our hearts when we allow it to work upon our souls on nights when we are open to its influence.

[ 2 ] Today, from the perspective of spiritual science, let us address the question: What does this branch of astronomy have to say about the origin of the world? Perhaps the conclusion that ultimately emerges from these reflections will seem to some as though a flower of hope might, in a certain sense, be plucked. Anyone who might gain this impression could, on the other hand, take comfort in the fact that this branch of astronomy has, precisely in the last few decades—at the end of the nineteenth century—brought us such marvelous results that we have ample reason to rejoice in these results as such—even intellectually — to the utmost degree, even if this deeper understanding of recent times in this field should lead us to conclude that it is precisely this deepening of astronomical science in the last few decades that makes us less hopeful when we seek, directly through it—as it presents itself to us as a science in the external world—to gain insights into the great questions concerning the origin and evolution of the universe.

[ 3 ] We should first point out that, precisely in regard to everything that has existed since the time when the natural sciences, through Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, through Herschel’s observations, or through the bold speculations of Kant and Laplace—a field that has undergone such a tremendous deepening—that, in addition to all of this, something was added in the course of the nineteenth century that has introduced us, in a previously unimagined way, to the material nature of the celestial world as well.

[ 4 ] Whereas in the past we had to limit ourselves to asserting—out of the audacity of human thought, so to speak—that when we turn our gaze out into the starry realms, we find worlds there that we are to regard as similar to our own, while we had to limit ourselves to this audacity of human intellect, something like the spectral analysis conducted by the brilliant researchers Kirchhoff and Bunsen in the nineteenth century opened up the possibility of penetrating directly into the material nature of the stars through physical instruments; so that since that time we have been able to venture the assertion, based on direct observation, that in the various suns shining toward us from space, in the nebulae, and in other formations we encounter in the heavens, we must recognize essentially the same substances with the same material properties that we also find on our Earth. Thus, it may be said that since the mid-nineteenth century, our science has been able to grasp this insight: We, as human beings on Earth, dwell within a material world governed by its own laws and forces. From the effects that these material laws of the Earth exhibit in the so-called spectroscope—which we have known only since the mid-nineteenth century—and because the same effects are transmitted into the spectroscope from the most distant regions of space, one can conclude that, as far as the material world is concerned, the same materiality and the same laws governing that materiality have pervaded the entire universe. Whereas in the past, studying the movements of the stars was, in a certain sense, merely a kind of geometric calculation, the beautiful, ingenious combination of spectral analysis with the so-called Doppler principle has made it possible for us not only to observe, so to speak, those movements that unfold before us in such a way that we recognize them—as if drawn on a plane—as the movements of the stars; but since that time we have also been able to include in our assessment those movements of the stars that are directed away from us and toward us, because, through the Doppler principle, the slight shift of the lines in the spectroscope has become significant for the motion of a star, insofar as it moves away from or toward our Earth; whereas previously it was only possible to accurately calculate what occurred in a plane perpendicular to our line of sight. A principle such as the combination of the Doppler effect with spectral analysis represents a tremendous achievement in the field of astronomy. As for what the human mind could conceive as a kind of worldview—the one that emerges when we imagine space filled with suns, planets, moons, nebulae, and other celestial bodies, and contemplate their intertwined movements and their lawful interactions—of this worldview, as it thus arises and as we can hold it fast in our thoughts, we say: We can find it understandable that such a picture appeared to the human spirit, which strove for knowledge, as a model of clarity and inner solidity when the aim was to encompass reality with thought.

[ 5 ] Let us consider what it means to encompass a structure that fills space with our thoughts, to calculate it: this is how structures—both large and small—move, and this is how one affects the other. Let us consider what it means to be able to project such a clear thought into space; let us consider it, for example, by comparing it to some other natural phenomenon we observe in our surroundings—such as the leaves of trees turning green in spring or the blossoming of a plant. Anyone who is actively engaged in science—or has been in the past—knows how bitter it is for the human soul when, starting from a purely external perspective, it is compelled time and again to resort to concepts that cannot be fully thought through—for example, when it comes to imagining a plant in the process of growing and developing, not to mention more complex phenomena such as animal organisms. Indeed, even in the phenomena of chemistry and physics related to our Earth’s development, there remain many residual elements in thermal effects and the like when we seek to encompass with clear conceptual frameworks what our eyes see and what our ears hear. If we now turn our gaze outward and observe what our eyes see, and can then summarize what we have seen in a picture expressed in clear changes of position and in mutual relationships of motion, then it is understandable that this has a blissful effect within us, that we say to ourselves: Such explanations—which we can offer regarding the motion of the stars in space and their mutual interactions—are in themselves so infinitely clear that we can see in them a model for explanations in general. No wonder, then, that this idea—the fascinating clarity of the astronomical worldview—captivated so many minds. For anyone who followed the theoretical science of the nineteenth century, it was extraordinarily instructive to see how the most outstanding minds of the nineteenth century took paths that were charted by the very fascination just described.

[ 6 ] This is roughly how the great minds of the nineteenth century thought: When we look out into space and observe the mutual relationships and movements of the stars—and transform this into a mental image—we see a picture of marvelous clarity. Now let us try to peer into that tiny world—a world into which, admittedly, only speculative thought can penetrate—a world that was increasingly constructed on a hypothetical basis in the nineteenth century: the world of atoms and molecules. In the nineteenth century, it was increasingly believed that every substance consists of the tiniest particles, which no eye and no microscope can see, but which must nevertheless be hypothetically assumed. Thus, it was assumed that—just as there are many stars in outer space—atoms exist everywhere one looks, as it were, like the tiniest stars. From the mutual arrangement of the atoms—how they are grouped together—it follows—albeit only hypothetically—that which can evoke a mental image on a small scale: Here you have a number of atoms; they stand in a certain relationship to one another and move around one another. If the atoms are related to one another and move, this means that the substance of which these atoms are composed is, for example, hydrogen or oxygen. All substances can be traced back to the smallest atoms of which they consist. These small atoms are in turn grouped together, and certain groups then form molecules. But if one could look inside these atoms and molecules, one would find, in the tiniest of details, a reflection of the clarity we experience out there when we gaze at the sky filled with stars. There was something alluring for many nineteenth-century thinkers in being able to say to themselves: All the phenomena we see out there—light, sound, elasticity, electricity, and so on—ultimately lead us back to effects caused by the movements and forces of atoms, which occur in the same way as the forces and movements on a grand scale when we look out into the heavens. Indeed, a curious image arose in many minds: If we look inside the human brain, it too consists of the substances and forces we find in the world outside; and if one could see into the smallest structures of the human brain, into the circulating blood of a human being, one would ultimately recognize everywhere something like tiny atomic and molecular worlds that are, on a small scale, a reflection of the vast celestial world. It was believed that if one could mathematically trace what results from the atoms and their movements, one would be able to recognize how a certain type of atomic movement—by acting upon our eyes—produces the sensation of light, while others produce the sensation of heat. In short, people imagined they could trace all phenomena of nature back to a small, tiny form of astronomy: the astronomy of atoms and molecules. The very term had been coined—a term that played a major role in the sensational lectures Emil Du Bois-Reymond delivered in the 1870s on “The Limits of Natural Knowledge”—the term “Laplace’s demon.” It had become a sort of catchphrase and meant nothing other than that the ideal explanation of nature must be to trace everything we see around us back to an astronomy-like understanding of the movements of atoms and molecules. Laplace was the mind in which a comprehensive view of our stellar universe took shape. And the mind capable of extending this overview of the stars in the cosmos down into the smallest molecular and atomic structures would, so to speak, come ever closer to the ideal of understanding nature astronomically. Therefore, we can now—and rightly so—say: There were people who believed that when I have the impression that I hear the note C-sharp, or that I see red, a movement is in fact taking place in my brain; and if I could describe these movements in the same way that astronomers describe the movements of the stars in the sky, then I would understand what is involved in comprehending natural phenomena and also the human organism. We would then have the fact in our consciousness: I hear C-sharp, I see red. But in reality, it would be this: When we perceive red, a small atomic and molecular cosmos is unfolding within us, and if we knew what those movements were like, we would have understood why we perceive red and not yellow, for with yellow, a different movement would be taking place.

[ 7 ] Thus, over the course of the nineteenth century, astronomical knowledge became an ideal that permeated all understanding of nature with the same clear concepts that apply to astronomy. Indeed, it is highly interesting to trace how theoretical natural science developed under the influence of such a line of thought. If I may point out something that struck me many years ago, it might be something like the following. I knew a school principal who was an excellent man, also as a school principal. But during the course of his other school-related activities—as early as the beginning of the 1870s—he had occupied himself with devising a system of nature in which one could dispense with the forces of attraction and repulsion that had been accepted since Newton’s time, so that this school principal —Heinrich Schramm—whose works are, after all, quite significant—attempted in his book *The General Motion of Matter as the Fundamental Cause of All Natural Phenomena* to eliminate, in addition to everything else that had already been discarded by astronomical knowledge, what had until then been called the force of attraction by which matter attracts one another in space. It was very interesting to see what this man first attempted in a certain ingenious way—an approach that was later imitated many times. For if we believe that light is nothing other than the motion of minute particles of matter, if we believe that sound and tone, as well as heat, are nothing other than the motion of minute particles of matter, and if astronomical knowledge can shed light on everything, why should we then still accept those strange, mystical forces—extending from the sun to the earth through empty space? Why should we not be able to assume, in place of this mystical force of attraction—which until then had been believed to be unshakable—a similar force between atoms and molecules? Why should we not be able to challenge that as well? This man did indeed succeed in understanding the attraction between celestial bodies and atoms without resorting to a special force of attraction, by demonstrating: When two bodies face each other in space, one need not assume that they attract each other, for such an attraction—as Schramm argued—is not accepted by anyone who does not believe in something akin to hands reaching across space. The only thing one may assume is that there is small, moving matter that collides from all sides like tiny spheres, so that tiny spheres from all sides collide with the two large spheres. Now, if one proceeds precisely in the calculation and makes no mistakes, one finds that simply because the collisions between the two spheres and those caused from the outside result in a difference, the forces that were otherwise assumed to be attractive forces from the outside can be replaced by external collisions, so that instead of an attractive force, one would have to postulate collision forces that attract the matter.

[ 8 ] With great insight, you will find this idea developed in the cited work. I could cite later writings of the same nature—though Schramm was the first to address the subject—but wherever a phenomenon appears anew, I wish to cite it where it first appeared. Thus, Schramm was able to show how, according to exactly the same law, two molecules exert forces of attraction just as the largest celestial bodies do. In this way, astronomical knowledge became something that took hold in the vast expanse of the universe and extended its influence down to the smallest, postulated particles of matter and ether. This stood as a grand, powerful ideal before the thinkers of the nineteenth century throughout that entire period. Anyone who pursued their studies during this period knows how this ideal was applied to the most diverse phenomena at the time, and how astronomical knowledge was indeed a pervasive ideal. And it can be said that everything—especially in the 1870s—was conducive to promoting this ideal, for in addition to all that was being discovered at the time—building on the great achievements of the natural sciences—there was also what came to light through the more precise investigation of the relationships between heat and the other forces of nature. In the 1860s, it became increasingly recognized what Julius Robert Mayer had already demonstrated with brilliant insight in the 1840s: that heat can be converted into other natural forces according to very specific numerical ratios. We see that this is the case, for example, when we run our finger across a surface: there, pressure is converted into heat. When we heat a steam engine, heat is converted into the propulsive forces of the machine. Just as heat is converted into kinetic energy or pressure into heat in this case, so too are the other forces of nature—electricity and so on—converted into forces of nature that were thought to be convertible. If we combine this idea with the laws of astronomical knowledge, we could say: What we encounter there differs in reality only in that a certain form of motion within the world of atoms and molecules transforms into another. We have a certain form of motion present in the molecules—a small, complex astronomical system, as it were—and these motions transform into other motions, the system into another system. Thus, heat is transformed into motive force, and so on.

[ 9 ] People believed they could see through everything. And the impact of astronomical knowledge was so great and powerful that it could serve as such a goal. Now we must say that, at first, all these ideas contributed little to the question of the origin of the world. Why? So that we do not immediately fall back, right from the start, on what spiritual science has to say—which can easily be challenged by its opponents—we must take a brief look at the ideas held by those who were deeply immersed in the spiritual life of that time and in such ideals. We can convince ourselves in the simplest way of how these things unfolded if we take a closer look at the lecture “On the Limits of Natural Knowledge,” which Du Bois-Reymond delivered on August 14, 1872, at the naturalists’ conference in Leipzig. There, Du Bois-Reymond extolled this ideal of astronomical knowledge in every possible way and stated that true natural science exists only where we are able to trace individual natural phenomena back to an “astronomy of atoms and molecules”; everything else does not count as an explanation of nature; so that someone would have scientifically explained human mental life if he had succeeded in showing how, following the pattern of astronomical movements, the atoms and molecules within a human being must group together to give rise to a human brain. However, Du Bois-Reymond also pointed out at the same time that, strictly speaking, we have not yet done anything to explain the soul and its phenomena through such an astronomical explanation, for he said: Let us assume that the ideal were fulfilled, that we could truly say: the movements of atoms within the brain occur in such and such a way, following the pattern of astronomical movements—when perceiving the note C-sharp, this complex of movements would be observable; when perceiving the color red, another—then we would have satisfied our need for causality from a scientific standpoint. But no one, Du Bois-Reymond emphasized, could understand why a particular kind of movement translates into the experience in our inner life: I perceive red, I hear the sound of an organ, I smell the scent of roses, or the like. For Du Bois-Reymond drew attention to something that Leibniz had essentially already emphasized and against which no objection can be raised: Let us imagine—if it were merely a matter of movement—that the human brain were enlarged to gigantic proportions, so that we could then have it right before us, walking through it as if in a factory, where we could observe all the movements of the gears and belts and point out: “There is a certain movement”—we could then sketch and calculate it in the most precise way, just as we can calculate the movements of the planets around the sun. But no one would know—unless they knew it from other sources—that this movement I am observing corresponds in the soul to the experience: “I see red.” He would not be able to deduce that; rather, he would only be able to discover laws of motion and say to himself: “The motion proceeds in such-and-such a way; this and that happens in space”—but he would not be able to find the connection between these motions, conceived according to the model of astronomy, and the peculiar experience: “I see red,” “I hear the sound of an organ,” “I smell the scent of roses.” If he did not know from some other source where these experiences come from—he would never be able to deduce them from the movements of atoms. Du Bois-Reymond even put it quite bluntly: “What conceivable connection exists between, on the one hand, the specific movements of certain atoms in my brain and, on the other hand, the facts that are original to me—indefinable beyond that, yet undeniable—such as: I feel pain, I feel pleasure, I taste sweetness, I smell the scent of roses, I hear the sound of an organ, I see the color red—and the equally immediate certainty that flows from them: therefore I am? It is simply and forever incomprehensible that a number of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, etc., atoms should not be indifferent to how they lie and move, how they lay and moved, and how they will lie and move.”

[ 10 ] Now, there is no doubt that what Du Bois-Reymond meant by this did not fully conform to natural logic; for it is precisely in this stark expression that we can see that a number of molecules—that is, material particles—are not indifferent to how they are arranged and move. For you all know that sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal are not indifferent to how they are arranged next to one another: when they are arranged next to one another under certain conditions, they produce gunpowder. Likewise, it is not irrelevant in what ratio carbon is combined with hydrogen; rather, the question is whether, in its motion, the substance is brought into contact with another substance to which it is related and with which it may form an explosive force. This statement therefore overshot the mark, even if it contained a shadow of truth. But Leibniz had already recognized the truth in it: that there is no kind of transition between the astronomical motion of molecules and atoms and the qualities of our experience and our inner spiritual life. It is not possible to bridge this chasm through mere astronomical science as “motion.”

[ 11 ] This is what we must carefully distill from the various errors contained in Du Bois-Reymond’s aforementioned lecture, “On the Limits of Knowledge of Nature.” But that is what is valuable in this speech: there is in it something like a reaction, a sentiment against the omnipotence and omniscience of astronomical knowledge. If we consider what we can so carefully isolate, we find the possibility of applying it to the great body of astronomical knowledge. Let us assume—and this is undoubtedly justified— it is impossible to find any bridge from astronomical knowledge of the motion of the smallest particles of matter to experiences of the soul and spirit. Then, however, one cannot build a bridge from what great astronomy offers—from the description of the starry sky and its movements and the relationships of the stars to one another—to any soul- and spirit-related effects that might fill space! If it is true—and it is reasonable to assume this to be true—that we imagine the human brain, in the sense of Leibniz and Du Bois-Reymond, magnified to such an extent that we could walk through it and observe the movements within it as we would the movements of the celestial bodies, and if we perceive nothing in these movements of our brain that corresponds to the soul’s reflections of these movements, then we need not be surprised if, standing within such an enlarged brain—namely, the structure of the universe—we cannot find the bridge between the movements of the stars in the celestial space and the possible activities of the soul and spirit that traverse the space of the universe and would relate to the movements of the stars just as our thoughts, sensations and soul experiences to the movements of our own brain matter. At that time—when Du Bois-Reymond spoke these words—anyone capable of thought could have drawn the conclusion that has, however, never been drawn since: If what Du Bois-Reymond pointed out with a certain degree of certainty is correct, then one must also say: If space is filled with something soul-like, something spiritual, then no astronomy, no astronomical knowledge—especially not if it fulfills this characteristic ideal of the nineteenth century—can in any way speak for or against the spiritual or soul-like forces filling space, for one cannot infer the spiritual from movements. This made it necessary to say: The astronomer must limit himself to describing what takes place in the heavens; he cannot possibly pass even the slightest judgment, with regard to what takes place there, that the movements of the stars are part of a great spiritual experience of a cosmic nature, just as our mental experiences are part of the mass movements in our brains. Thus, as early as the 1870s, the limits of astronomy had already been established. However, the question should have been posed quite differently than Du Bois-Reymond asked it, namely: Is there a possibility of proceeding in a different way, for example, to discover the soul and spiritual beings that fill cosmic space? — This is why spiritual science points to something—which has been discussed repeatedly in these lectures—that distinguishes it from astronomy: that human beings are capable of developing their powers of cognition to levels higher than those they possess in ordinary life. Only then, when these powers of cognition have been raised to a higher level, is it possible to find in space and time something other than what was regarded in the nineteenth century as the most ideal fulfillment of space and time: the astronomically observable movements of forces and atoms in space.

[ 12 ] However, we must not underestimate what the natural sciences have to say about the origin of the world. For while the scientific facts—which, admittedly, in a certain radical, fantastical development have led to the ideal of an astronomical-molecular and atomic understanding—have, on the other hand, brought forth in the nineteenth century something that we must regard as a prime example of a scientific fact that sheds light deep into the mysteries of existence. And even if it has a limited significance, it is nonetheless a fact of the very highest order. Indeed, it can only be hinted at today, for what is at stake here is the answer to the question: “What does astronomy have to say about the origin of the world?” To this end, we must point to what can be demonstrated in the external world to provide the answer to this question: that within scientific thought, research, and experimentation, it has been clearly demonstrated that, while it is generally true that we can transform natural forces into one another—for example, converting heat into work or, after performing some work, converting it back into heat—this is true with a very significant caveat. While on the one hand it is true that heat can be converted into mechanical work, into kinetic energy, and kinetic energy back into heat—on the other hand, we must acknowledge that if one wishes to reconvert heat into work, into kinetic energy, this cannot be done without limitation. We see this most clearly in the steam engine. We generate motion through heat, but we cannot convert all the heat we feed into the steam boiler in such a way that it is entirely converted into kinetic energy. Some heat is always lost, so that in all natural processes where thermal energy is converted into motion, we must always expect a loss of heat, as is certainly the case with a steam engine. For even with the most efficient steam engines, we can convert only about a quarter of the heat into motion; the rest radiates into the cooling chamber and so on. We can only accept that, during the conversion, we must allow for a portion of the heat—as heat—to radiate out into space. This realization—that while kinetic energy can be completely converted into heat, the reverse is not possible—has also become, in a broader sense, one of the most fruitful insights for nineteenth-century science. For everything that now fills university lecture halls and fills entire libraries—thermodynamics—rests solely on this insight, so that a large part of our current physics is built upon what has just been characterized here as the realization that heat cannot be completely converted back into kinetic energy, but that a residual amount of heat always remains, which radiates outward. This has been irrefutably demonstrated by studies such as those of the famous physicist Clausius, who asserted the generalization of this principle, namely that it must apply to all processes in the universe. Therefore, in all transformation processes—where heat plays a role everywhere—we are dealing with a transfer of heat into the kind of work that is relevant to the facts of our natural world. But since a residual amount of heat always remains after a transformation, it is not difficult to see that the final state of our development—in which we are immersed as part of a material development—is the conversion of all kinetic energy and all other forms of work in nature into heat. This is the inevitable conclusion: all other natural processes must ultimately be converted into heat, because a residual amount of heat always remains, so that all cosmic processes—no matter how long natural processes that we might call “natural work”—will proceed in such a way that the heat remaining as a residue will become ever greater and greater, and the result must now be that all processes of motion will be converted into heat. We would then be dealing with a great cosmic chaos consisting solely of heat that can no longer be converted back. Thus, everything our Sun brings about in terms of life processes on Earth leaves behind residual heat; everything that radiates from the Sun to us ultimately tends toward a general heat death. This is the famous “Clausius heat death,” into which all material development in the universe must ultimately flow. And here, physics has provided—for anyone who understands anything about knowledge at all—a finding that is entirely irrefutable, against which no physical objection can be raised. Our material universe is heading toward heat death, in which all natural processes will one day be buried.

[ 13 ] Here we have something from physics itself that we can directly apply to the entire field of astronomy. If only we were able to see how motion is converted into heat, we could say: The universe could be infinite in both directions—it need not come to an end. But physics shows us, through the second law of the mechanical theory of heat, that the material processes of the universe are heading toward heat death. One can be certain: if it weren’t so difficult, if it didn’t require so much prior knowledge of mathematics and delve into complex physical processes, far more people today would know about Clausius’s heat death than is actually the case.

[ 14 ] We have thus introduced into our astronomical worldview something that, in a sense, signifies evolution. Just think how devastating it must be for a materialistic worldview to come to terms with this irrefutable result! Anyone who regards the spiritual and the psychological merely as side effects of material movements must therefore immediately assume that everything psychological and spiritual will be buried in the thermal chaos toward which our material world is heading, so that all the culture toward which human beings strive, all the beauty and vitality of the Earth, would one day meet its end along with the general heat death. - Now it may be said that this general heat death has proved particularly fatal to the astronomical worldview. Not all astronomers take the matter as lightly as—you know from other occasions how appreciatively I have spoken of Haeckel as a natural scientist—Ernst Haeckel did in his *The Riddles of the Universe*. He believes that the “second law of mechanical thermodynamics” actually contradicts the first, which states that all heat is convertible. Admittedly, it cannot be denied—as Haeckel himself knows—that our solar system is hurtling toward such a heat death, but he consoles himself by saying: When the entire solar system has succumbed to heat death, it will collide with another solar system; the collision will generate heat once again—and a new solar system will emerge! — What is not taken into account here, however, is that a collision of the slag and remnants is already factored into the progression toward general heat death, so that there is not much to hope for from such a consolation.

[ 15 ] But even more serious-minded people, driven by the desire to use knowledge of physics and astronomy to gain an understanding of the evolution of the world, are striving to go beyond the general heat death. In this context, it is worth mentioning the work of Arrhenius—which can be regarded as the most recent attempt—the Swedish researcher who, in his book *The Formation of the Worlds*, addresses precisely such questions in a variety of ways from the perspectives of physical chemistry, physics, astronomy, and geology. It may be said that here, in a somewhat more ingenious manner than in Haeckel’s work, an attempt is made to overcome the doctrine of the general heat death. But when one takes into account everything Arrhenius attempts to demonstrate, one must nevertheless say: None of this is in any way convincing. Here, I shall briefly outline what is presented from this perspective to overcome the general heat death. Of course, it cannot be denied that a solar system—such as our own—is heading toward the general heat death. Now, Arrhenius also advocates another idea based on certain assumptions by Maxwell and his so-called radiation pressure. This is a force that counteracts the gravitational pull of celestial bodies; it continuously radiates outward from individual celestial bodies into space and into other celestial bodies as radiation of various natural forces that generate pressure. This pressure—which is, so to speak, what the celestial bodies emit into space—is now capable—because it is a force radiating into cosmic space—of carrying with it minute particles of matter that are repelled by a celestial body. Arrhenius now seeks, through various considerations, to show that it is, of course, self-evident that, as long as no special conditions arise, these phenomena caused by radiation pressure in no way prevent the general heat death. But Arrhenius believes that such special conditions are brought about by this cosmic dust being drawn, as it were, toward nascent cosmic nebulae that are in very special material states—for example, by a star from some direction entering such a cosmic nebula, taking the matter with it, thereby contracting it, and causing an increase in temperature. So if it were possible for such a star, upon entering such a cosmic nebula, to draw in and condense the matter it encounters, then—because the condensation causes a rise in temperature—we would have something that in turn causes a rise in temperature in outer space; we would thus have heat that could in turn be converted into work! In an ingenious way, Arrhenius shows that the interstellar dust flying toward such a cosmic nebula is in a different state—is, as it were, drawn into a state in which it is removed from the general tendency toward heat death.

[ 16 ] I was able to touch on this only briefly—as it is itself only all too briefly touched upon in Arrhenius’s writings. Essentially, however, anyone who examines what led to the acceptance of the general heat death will have no choice but to admit that the possibility is only apparent—that in a cosmic nebula, even if the temperature rises due to the entry of stars, the heat death could be delayed. For these are, after all, merely fallacies, and the law of universal heat death is so universal that we must admit, if we proceed correctly: according to the laws of physics, the stars that collide with a cosmic nebula—since they were also present there earlier and have already dispersed so much matter—can only bring with them the remnants of their former existence; thus, these processes taking place within the cosmic nebulae must also be factored into the universe’s overall trend toward heat death. Now it is characteristic that Arrhenius goes even further and incorporates into his idea of radiation pressure the possibility that the seeds of living beings could be propelled from one celestial body to another by radiation pressure. And one can indeed—with a great semblance of accuracy—demonstrate how the cold, through which certain plant and animal seeds would be carried, would have a preservative effect on them, so that, based on pure calculation, one could assume that life would be carried from one celestial body to another by radiation pressure. This could be calculated, for example, for the journey from Earth to Mars. One then spares the Earth—instead of otherwise imposing it upon her—the possibility of having once produced life, as is otherwise assumed in physics, geology, and so on; for one can then say: The Earth need not, therefore, have produced life, since it may have flowed to her from other celestial bodies. — Not much comes of it. For what special insight do we gain by shifting the question of the origin of life to other celestial bodies? We face the same difficulties there, except that conditions on Earth prevent us from accepting the possibility of life’s origin on other celestial bodies. These are, in general, things that can show how seemingly well-intentioned contemporary endeavors—which themselves assume the eternity of life—are influenced by materialistic prejudices. For the entire line of thought is thoroughly materialistic—so materialistic, in fact, that it fails entirely to take into account that life could have its origin here just as well as in what might be imagined as radiating from one celestial body to another. This shows that even well-intentioned thoughts in the present suffer from having to stand on the ground of materialism.

[ 17 ] So we encounter the same thing everywhere: the study of physical laws, material laws, and material forces; and this study is then applied in such a way that, as it were, everything physics discovers is projected onto the grand edifice of the world, and one attempts to imagine the world’s genesis through these forces. We have seen how, fundamentally, the boundary that the astronomer ought to draw is crossed everywhere by such intellectual ventures. For the astronomer cannot, from what he has before him, draw any conclusions whatsoever about the forces that determine the world’s genesis. We can illustrate this once again by noting that our thinking and feeling are psychological processes that undoubtedly give rise to physical processes—for example, in our brain, or even in the development of our blood. Anyone who feels a sense of shame, whose face flushes with embarrassment, can see for themselves that psychological processes are followed by physical processes. But anyone who admits that the soul-spiritual within us brings about physical processes must say to themselves: If I were standing inside the human brain and studying the external movements, I would see only movements in those movements; I would not even suspect that I am including the movements brought about by the spiritual-soul processes. So I will leave out what the spiritual-psychic causes are. — Does this not make it understandable that the astronomer, when studying the celestial bodies from his vantage point, is compelled to develop, in one way or another, the causes of why a particular star moves in a certain way here or there? Can we conclude from the mere movements or from the laws of dynamics that the Sun must be positioned in a certain way relative to the Earth, the Moon must be positioned in a certain way relative to the Earth, must orbit the Earth in a certain way, and that these movements can result from this? — Astronomy cannot determine at all what causes them in the spiritual-psychic realm. That is why, precisely from the field of astronomy, we may be led to the necessity of having to point out—through entirely different means—what the true causes of the world system are. Here, we can—today, if only in a few words—point to the relationship between the Earth, the Sun, and the Moon.

[ 18 ] The way these three celestial bodies relate to one another is how their mutual life has developed, and how their patterns of motion have evolved. If we wish to understand why the Sun, Earth, and Moon behave exactly as they do today, we must not merely ascend from the forces on Earth that we recognize as physical and mechanical to the celestial realm; rather, we must ascend from other processes taking place on Earth to the world of the celestial realm. When we consider human beings, we certainly have before us something that belongs to the entire Earth and its connection with the Sun and Moon just as much as the blooming of flowers or any other process—or as an electrical process in the air. Undoubtedly, the human being, with all that he is, belongs to the Earth, and it is an abstraction to imagine the Earth—as geologists do—as a purely inorganic, inanimate entity; rather, we must place human beings within the context of the Earth’s entire processes. Here we face the initial difficulty that we must distinguish between two things if we are to properly grasp the difference between human beings and animals: In animals, the generic aspect predominates, so that an individual self, with its entire development between birth and death, does not come to the fore in such a decisive way as is the case with human beings and their individual self, which is expressed in all of human education and cultural life. This is what distinguishes humans from animals, in which the generic aspect predominates. Now, it is the case that such things merge into one another through transitions. In animals, the generic aspect predominates, but the generic aspect merges into human nature. The further back we go in the course of time—a path we embarked upon when we considered the great spirits—the more we find that human beings are also generic beings, and we see the individual aspect sprouting ever more clearly from the generic. The individual arises from the foundation of the generic. We have before us the ideal of a human future that tells us: In the course of Earth’s evolution, the individual—the “I” nature of every human being—will triumph over the generic. But as we look back, we see precisely the generic as the foundation of human development. Indeed, by looking back, we have been able to draw ever closer to a different state of consciousness in which human beings were connected to a spiritual world in a dreamlike, pictorial way, so that we must regard these two things as belonging together: the generic and the pictorial, dreamlike consciousness of ancient times on the one hand, and on the other hand, the development of individuality—and, connected to the development of individuality, the passage of our individual consciousness through what human beings must acquire over the course of time. Such an emergence of the individual from the generic, of the intellectual and transparent rational from the clairvoyant and dreamlike—its origins must be sought within the entire course of world development. For just as, so to speak, the stone that falls to the earth is subject to the general laws of the world, so too is this emergence of human individuality and human intellectuality from the human generic and the human clairvoyant realm connected to the great cosmic laws that are at work everywhere in space. We have, after all, already taken a step in this direction when we were able to characterize the significance of geology for spiritual science. There we were able to show how we can trace the Earth back to a state in which such processes—telluric, earthly in nature—occur today only when our thoughts and feelings act in a decomposing manner within our organism, so that, when we go back in the Earth’s formation, we find such epochs in which the Earth was undergoing a process of decomposition. Here, then—as described in greater detail in *The Secret Science*—the insight characterized in these lectures reveals that the Earth, as it were, protected itself from an excessively far-reaching process of decomposition by separating the Moon from itself. Thus, in order to overcome that state—which can be described as a process of disintegration within the Earth’s development—the Moon had to be separated from our Earth.

[ 19 ] Now we are not merely dealing with a mechanical-physical process; rather, we must view the ejection of the Moon as a process that became necessary because the Earth, by ejecting the Moon, protected itself from a process of disintegration that would have gone too far. Through this, the Earth created the possibility of entering into a new relationship with the Sun directly. For as long as the Moon was within the Earth, this process of disintegration was such that—if we imagine the Earth’s atmosphere at that time—the Sun’s rays could not penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere. Therefore, a new state first had to be brought about so that the Earth and the Sun could become visible to one another. With this coming into view of the Sun and the Earth, and with the purification of the Earth’s atmosphere—which became possible only with the Moon’s departure—a new state of forces arose that gradually led to the old generic consciousness being transformed, step by step, into ego-consciousness, into intellectual consciousness. Thus, we see the departure of the Moon, the purification of the Earth’s atmosphere, and, as a result, the establishment of a direct relationship between the Sun and the Earth as all being connected to the entire development of humanity. We could now go back even further and would find a stage in the Earth’s development in which the Earth was still connected to the Sun itself. We would further find that the separation of the Earth from the Sun took place precisely in order to bring about the possibility of conscious beings on Earth at all. Only through the Earth’s separation from the Sun did the system of forces come into being that made it possible for beings to attain experience and consciousness within themselves. Thus, the ancient clairvoyant consciousness was made possible by the Earth’s separation from the Sun—and the ascent to a higher consciousness, to an intellectual consciousness, by the Moon’s separation from the Earth. When we ascend clairvoyantly—through higher knowledge—to what external astronomy cannot provide us, we find in cosmic forces the reasons for what occurred in the separation of the Sun and the other planets from the Earth—that is, we arrive at spiritual causes!

[ 20 ] I could only touch on this principle here. Of course, anyone might ask: Did human beings already exist when the Earth and the Sun separated? Certainly, they did exist, but under different conditions. It goes without saying that human beings, as they live under present conditions, could not exist if the Sun were still united with the Earth. But that would not be an objection. We thus find spiritual causes and spiritual reasons for the movements of the celestial bodies. We are no longer standing at the point to which astronomy pointed us more than a century ago, relying solely on the application of physical laws and stating: The Earth was formerly united with the Sun in a great ball of gas, which began to rotate, and as a result the planets—and the Earth as well—separated, and later the Moon separated from the Earth. — We can no longer claim that such events occur solely as a result of mechanical-physical laws; rather, there must be inner, spiritual reasons for the Sun’s separation from the Earth. Thus, the Earth was separated from the Sun so that humanity might be elevated to conscious experience, and thus the Moon was separated from the Earth so that humanity might attain its higher consciousness. In short: we are beginning to incorporate into the astronomical worldview what we must incorporate—namely, into the astronomical worldview of the small brain, that which we must incorporate if we wish to transition from the mere movement of brain atoms to the realization: I see red, hear the sound of an organ, smell the scent of roses, and so on. — This is how we must proceed if we wish to find the transition from what popular astronomy can offer us to the causes of events in the heavens. Therefore, those who wish to remain on the ground of external physics should limit themselves to investigating only what movements or forces are—that is, what can be known astronomically; they should admit that a completely different kind of progress in knowledge is necessary if astronomy is to arrive at an explanation of the origin of the universe; they should admit that, as representatives of a rationalist and empirical astronomy, they would have to stop short of explaining the origin of the universe.

[ 21 ] When this is taken into account, it becomes clear that the great and truly significant findings of modern astronomy fit wonderfully into our spiritual-scientific worldview. Pick up a copy of *The Secret Science*. It shows how our Earth has developed step by step, how it—just as the individual human being does in successive Earth lives—passes through stages of development, just as a planet itself, so to speak, passes through stages of development. There, our Earth is traced back to an earlier planetary state, and that earlier state is traced back to an even earlier one—as far back as one can trace it—to a state referred to there—though the specific name is not important—as “Old Saturn,” which does not refer to our present-day Saturn, but rather to a planetary predecessor of our Earth. The same insight—which is entirely independent of all external physics and of any speculation—as you can see for yourselves in the book mentioned—shows us that a corresponding planetary predecessor of our Earth, namely this Old Saturn, consisted solely of a state of heat, and that spiritual forces intervened in this state of heat, so that spiritual forces took possession of the heat chaos. This brings about all development leading up to our Earth. Furthermore, spiritual science shows us that the material world beneath our feet is indeed in a process of decay. In the lecture “What Does Geology Have to Say About the Origin of the World?” we demonstrated how geology has come to agree with us regarding the fact that the Earth’s crust is in a process of decay. We can only truly understand everything we know about the Earth’s crust if we view it as being in a process of decay. But this is precisely where—as spiritual science shows—the spiritual becomes free from the material. As the planetary material realm decays beneath us, the spirit liberates itself from it.

[ 22 ] Now we have another option! We can point to the cosmic nebulae—where we are not engaged in speculation along the lines of mere physicists, who do not stop short of heat death—and say: Certainly, there we have formations in which the transformation of all other processes into heat is taking place. But just as spiritual forces took hold of the Earth’s thermal state at its inception, so too do spiritual forces lead the cosmic nebulae—into which the solar systems have flowed through heat death—out of heat death and toward new solar systems. There is actually nothing more surprising than the agreement between one of the most marvelous laws of the nineteenth century—as applied to astronomy, such as the application of the second law of thermodynamics—and the positive, actual results of the world of astronomical observation. If you now set aside what can be conjured up through speculation about all manner of radiation pressure—or even through empirical results concerning radiation pressure—and instead proceed from what can actually be obtained through spectroscopy or the photography of celestial bodies, you will see that everything, down to the very last detail, corresponds to what can be derived from spiritual science regarding the becoming and evolution of the worlds, by demonstrating how what is seen as the astronomical image of space is the result—a spiritual result—of spiritual beings. Unlike the astronomical physicists of our time, we can say: Humanity has no reason to fight against the heat death or to fear it, for we know that new life will blossom from it, just as life blossomed from the ancient thermal chaos that we now have before us. Development is possible precisely because only in this way is a true repetition and intensification of life possible—not merely in the sense that Arrhenius suggests, that life would play out anew in the newly arranged cosmic nebula as if in a freshly wound clockwork, but only through the transformation of a spiritual element from one state of heat to another—. And when our cosmic substance is buried in the grave of heat, the spirit will have advanced one step further and will conjure up higher forms, higher life, out of the chaos of heat. Therefore, in “Esoteric Science,” the final state of Earth’s incarnations—the volcanic state—is the one that points to what is emerging as new life from the grave of thermal death. That is why the name “volcano” is used. If we consider the astronomical aspect, we can see precisely how deeply external science corresponds with what spiritual science has to offer.

[ 23 ] People will certainly keep saying: “You spiritual scientists are dreamers, because the findings of exact science completely contradict what you believe you can derive from spiritual science.” — And someone might go on to say: “You even spoke seriously about Moses the other day, but we know that all of that is outdated. For glorious natural science has long since taught us how we have moved beyond the world as Moses conceived it—that is what natural science has shown.” — That is what those who are merely observers from the outside say. But let us ask others who were not merely observers from the outside, but were more deeply involved from within. I can tell you what a very eminent physicist, Biot—who played a very significant role in the development of the science of light—said: Either Moses had as deep an understanding of the sciences as our century does, or he was inspired.

[ 24 ] Such a leading physicist of the nineteenth century. Now, perhaps those who write popular books on worldviews will say: Of course, that is just how a physicist thinks, one who deals only with the outward appearance of phenomena. But those who delve deeper into the nature of the organic show us that, in the course of the nineteenth century—when people sought natural causes—they were led astray from the spiritual. — Well, Liebig, who penetrated deeply into the nature of the organic, what did he think about the relationship between the world to which he had devoted his research efforts and the spiritual world? He says: These are the opinions of dilettantes who, from their strolls along the fringes of the fields of natural science, derive the right to explain to an ignorant and gullible public how the world and life actually came into being and just how far humanity has advanced in the exploration of the highest things. — Now people might proclaim to us: Have you never heard that a man named Lyell founded geology? Have you never heard of the great progress that has come through him, how he is the great conqueror of those worldviews that still reckon with spiritual forces? — I could present to you writings by Lyell that make a deep impression today. But Lyell himself once said: “In whatever direction we may direct our investigations, everywhere we discover the clearest evidence of a creative intelligence, its providence, power, and wisdom.” — So said the founder of modern geology. Now people might come and say: “But Darwin has surely overcome the influence of any spiritual forces! Darwin has shown us how the evolution of organisms occurs through purely natural processes.” — But Darwin himself wrote the following: “I hold that all living beings that have ever existed on Earth are descended from a primordial form into which the Creator breathed life.” — So people cannot use Darwin to argue that we are fantasists when we speak of spiritual beings and spiritual forces. Then perhaps others will come and say to us: “Don’t you know what the fundamental principle is behind all scientific development in the nineteenth century, the one that has profoundly influenced all progress? Don’t you know anything about the fundamental law of the transformation of natural forces?” — Well, we have just spoken about this today; we have seen how the transformation of natural forces in no way contradicts what spiritual science has to say. But people might wish to invoke Julius Robert Mayer, the founder of the principle of the mechanical equivalent of heat as well as of the transformation of natural forces itself. Yet Julius Robert Mayer made this remarkable statement: “With all my heart I proclaim: A true philosophy can and must be nothing other than a propaedeutic to the Christian religion!” — Things are different everywhere if one goes back to the sources and to those who created these sources—who are the great pioneers on the path of human knowledge—rather than looking to their successors, or to those who seek to construct a flimsy edifice of ideas—such as the more recent astrophysicists—and thereby attempt to encompass the entire world. If one turns not to the latter but to the former, then one can say: Spiritual science is in complete harmony with those who were the great pioneers. Therefore, spiritual science knows that it may take its place within the course of human spiritual development and that it proceeds harmoniously alongside the development of humanity, in step with everything that has fostered that development. If astronomy, as a merely external, physical science, seeks to conceive of the world’s becoming, then one would like to remind those who do so of a general statement in Goethe and Schiller’s *Xenien*:

The vault of the stars stretches to infinite heights,
Yet the spirit of pettiness found its way even there.

[ 25 ] We must guard against the spirit of pettiness finding its way even to the heights of the stars by demonstrating: Just as the study of the brain does not lead us to a spiritual and soulful life—but rather, how this life is distinct from mere movements and can transcend them—so too can the study of external movements and laws not lead us into the spirit of the universe. Therefore, in a certain sense, what Schiller means when he says to the astronomer remains true:

Don’t go on and on to me about nebulae and suns!
Is nature great only because it gives you something to count?
Your subject is, of course, the most sublime in space;
But, friends, the sublime does not dwell in space!

[ 26 ] That is Schiller’s view. It is correct when one considers merely the dynamic external aspects of space. It is not correct when one focuses on that which, from within itself—as the spiritual—radiates the laws of space. — Thus the saying remains true: The ascent of the soul toward the stars will always evoke in every soul a sense of the spiritual-divine. But if we wish to ascend with our knowledge, our knowledge must follow this path: Per aspera ad astra—through hardship to the stars, just as we work our way up through the thorns to the roses. But this is the path of spiritual knowledge. It is precisely the spiritual-scientific path to the stars that will show that it is the path that leads a person to say to themselves: Just as my physical substances and those in my surroundings are spread throughout the entire universe—as the spectroscope shows me—so, too, is that which lives within me as the spiritual-soul aspect spread throughout the entire universe and belonging to it. My physical body has been born out of the universe—my spiritual and soul life has been born out of the universe. It remains true—and I shall characterize this once more here with the few words I have already had the opportunity to cite on another occasion—that human beings can attain complete cosmic consciousness only when they gain clarity regarding the question that even astronomy cannot answer: the question of their place in the world and their purpose within it. And it is true that the answer to this question can give a person security in life, courage to face life, and hope for life, if, through spiritual scientific knowledge, they understand what is meant by the words:

It presses upon human consciousness From the depths of the world, enigmatic
The rich abundance of matter,
It flows into the depths of the soul
From the heights of the world, full of meaning
The clarifying word of the spirit.
They meet within the human being To become a reality of wisdom.