The Rudolf Steiner Archive

36. Science at a Crossroads

[ 1 ] In their simplicity, legends and fairy tales often express the longings and quests of the human soul better than the problems, philosophies, and questions posed by the intellect. That is why, perhaps, it is permissible today—as we seek to reflect on the relationship between a commitment to the natural sciences and a humanistic worldview—to recall a fairy tale that is, admittedly, far removed from us: a Mongolian fairy tale that can truly awaken a sense of what human beings yearn for amid all their knowledge and inquiry. This Mongolian fairy tale goes like this: A woman who has one eye on her forehead—that is, no second eye, just one eye—wanders through the vast world, and everything she encounters—every stone, every object—is picked up by her, raised to that one eye, looked at, and then hurled far away, and a look of bitter disappointment is etched on the woman’s face. The fairy tale goes on to tell us that the woman has lost her only child, has largely lost her mind because of it, and now wanders the wide world in search of her child. In every stone, in every object, she believes she can find her child, and time and time again she realizes how wrong she was, hurling the object far from her in her disappointment.

[ 2 ] With a certain wistfulness, this fairy tale can evoke in our souls that mood which human beings often experience—the mood that arises from the human soul’s search for and longing for truth. Human beings are searching for something; they know that, in a certain sense, they cannot live without the object of this search, that this object is connected to what is most important and most meaningful to them. And they search and search throughout the entire world. He examines all things because he senses that behind all things there must lie something mysterious that will finally reveal the truth to him. And time and again, it may be that, through the objects he finds here and there—and through which he hoped to gain insight into life’s mysteries—he finds himself deceived and must cast these objects aside once more.

[ 3 ] And one might almost think—if one looks at things superficially, so to speak—one might almost be tempted to believe that, ever since the dawn of humanity, when it comes to the deeper truths, the human soul itself has been a seeker just like that woman in the Mongolian fairy tale. In particular, when it comes to what contemporary culture can offer people in their striving and search for truth, a certain mood may well arise in many people today, for we live in a time when, in the broadest circles, that satisfaction and that bliss have vanished from people’s hearts—the very feelings that once overwhelmed them when they sought answers to the great mysteries of existence in the ancient traditions, in the religious traditions.

[ 4 ] Many of our contemporaries tell themselves, “Oh, what people used to believe about spiritual and soul worlds beyond physical existence—those were nothing more than childish fantasies; humanity has now entered adulthood, the stage of maturity; that external science, especially in the last century, has provided the human spirit with admirable results, and that it is only fitting today for people to build a worldview based on these reliable findings of natural science. And all old beliefs and prejudices, all the old imaginative conceptions of the peoples, must fade away. And we have heard of many genuine and honest quests for truth during the era when the so-called Enlightenment had taken hold of the widest circles, that whoever looks at the findings of natural science cannot help but cast aside the traditional, outdated views of nature and hold fast solely to what the solid ground of facts reveals.

[ 5 ] Yet some souls, on the other hand, have never been able to overcome the feeling that—no matter how admirable and magnificent the achievements of natural science may be, no matter how profound and thought-provoking the conclusions that bold minds have drawn from these facts—this external science has, after all, increased rather than diminished the mysteries for humankind. And so, when someone picks up a popular book on these subjects—for example, Haeckel’s *The Riddle of the Universe* or his *Natural History of Creation*—they stand there and say to themselves: Yes, actually, what is presented to me here is not a solution to the great riddles of existence, but an even greater riddle in itself.

[ 6 ] On the other hand, however, we must say—and it is important that we not overlook this—that anyone who immerses themselves today in the field of natural science, who honestly and sincerely strives to develop a worldview based on this field, fundamentally faces great difficulty with everything that, in a certain sense, still stems from premises other than natural science. In our time, we see two directions here: One is that which seeks to construct a worldview based solely on external scientific facts. And we see another spiritual orientation, which is precisely the spiritual-scientific—or, as it has become customary to call it, theosophical—one; a spiritual orientation that, in turn, seeks to point to the spiritual facts and spiritual beings behind the physical-sensory world. This spiritual science tells us: Certainly, the great achievements of natural science are admirable, and especially in the nineteenth century, magnificent, admirable instruments and methods were invented through which human beings are able to look into the farthest reaches of space. All of this is certainly admirable, but it still lacks one instrument: the one through which human beings can look into the spiritual world.

[ 7 ] Such an instrument does exist, but if it is to be useful, it must be prepared with no less care than any instrument of the external sciences. This instrument is none other than human beings themselves.

[ 8 ] All spiritual science is based on two principles: first, that there is a spiritual world beyond the sensory world; second, that human beings are capable of penetrating this spiritual world with their cognitive faculties—though they cannot do so if they take the position that they wish to remain exactly as they are right now. For this requires that a person first awaken certain powers and abilities that lie dormant in their soul in ordinary life, that they first develop themselves upward to these abilities, to a state of being that we can only describe as “awakening.”

[ 9 ] There may come a pivotal moment in a person’s life when, in terms of their soul and spirit, they will experience what it is like to be someone born blind who undergoes surgery.

[ 10 ] If we were to lead a person born blind into this hall—he would see none of the light and colors that surround us. But if we were now fortunate enough to restore his sight here, so that he suddenly beheld a world around him—a world that had indeed been there all along, even though he had been unable to perceive it—a physical awakening to the sense of sight would have taken place for him.

[ 11 ] Spiritual science asserts the reality and factuality of the spiritual world in no other sense than that in which a blind person is surrounded by a world of light and colors, even though he does not perceive it. All around us, within our ordinary world, lies the spiritual world, the higher world. It is simply a matter of human beings learning to see it, of advancing to what Goethe calls the “eyes of the spirit” and the “ears of the spirit.” Then human beings become instruments, so to speak, for seeing new things around them.

[ 12 ] When we speak of the spiritual world in this sense and then convey what the seer, the awakened one, beholds in this spiritual world—what he comes to recognize, what he learns to know there as the fundamental principles of this existence—then those who today stand firmly on the ground of natural science face great difficulties in understanding such communications. However, it would be entirely unfair to assume ill will or the like on the part of those who regard the spiritual scientist as a dreamer or a fantasist. For what is called “standing firmly on the ground of natural science” makes it very difficult for people to break free from their habitual ways of thinking and to acknowledge what must first be acknowledged in spiritual science.

[ 13 ] Certainly, one might say: What good does it do us if individual people act as such instruments and tell us this or that about the spiritual world—what use is that to anyone if they cannot see it for themselves? But tell me, has the person who studies natural science actually seen everything they are learning there? That is certainly not the case. Just as one relies on the accuracy of the methods in natural science—adhering to what one perceives through instruments like the microscope and so on—so it could well be in spiritual science. But that is not even how things stand. In spiritual science, it is actually made easier for people than in ordinary natural science. It cannot be emphasized often enough that one can only research and investigate the spiritual world by applying the method that is required for this research—the one described in *Lucifer—Gnosis* in the essay “How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?” If one applies this to oneself, one will already realize how little of it is fantasy or daydreaming.

[ 14 ] This is how one comes to perceive the spiritual world behind the physical one. Certainly, it is possible, but when those who have applied this method to themselves recount the results—describing what they have seen and experienced—then ordinary, unbiased common sense is sufficient to understand it as well. One can only research and investigate if one has applied this method to oneself. To recognize that what is recounted is true requires only unbiased, sound common sense. This common sense, however, must not be clouded by all sorts of suggestions and prejudices. Essentially, spiritual science makes things easier for people than natural science does. It merely requires that what the seer has to say be examined logically and without prejudice; then one will find that it is internally consistent and stands up to logical scrutiny.

[ 15 ] Nevertheless, it is difficult to agree with the findings of the humanities if one holds a more materialistic worldview. This may become clear to us, in a certain sense, through our discussion today.

[ 16 ] First, let us consider what distinguishes the two currents of thought that are at play in our time: spiritual science and natural science—the science based solely on external facts.

[ 17 ] Let us start from a single point. Let us begin with what relates to our own evolution as human beings. Through tremendous advances, the nineteenth century succeeded in demonstrating that a kinship exists between humans and higher animals. Who would object to Charles Darwin’s comprehensive grasp of facts and his immense talent for synthesis? Who would deny that Ernst Haeckel accomplished something truly monumental in his exploration of the inner realities of the development of living beings, all the way up to human beings? As far as facts are concerned, from the standpoint of the humanities we must fully acknowledge the great and significant achievements that have been made. To object to facts would not be to engage in science, but rather to be insane.

[ 18 ] But now something else comes into play. Nineteenth-century natural science has derived from this body of facts a kind of creed—a creed that, strictly speaking, is by no means a necessary conclusion from the facts, but is believed by many to be just that. It is said: Human beings, with the perfections we recognize in them, have evolved from the lower animal kingdom, and a lineage is traced from the simplest, most inferior living beings all the way up to human beings. And it is intended to be demonstrated that these simplest living beings, all the way up to human beings, become increasingly complex and acquire more and more organs, and that human beings have developed in this way through the external influence of facts.

[ 19 ] There is a growing tendency to associate human beings more and more with the animal kingdom. There is an effort to liken human expressions of life, as well as expressions of the soul and mind, to what is also found in the animal kingdom. Even human emotions and the impulses of the will are said to be merely higher manifestations of those of our animal ancestors—a refinement brought about at a higher level by our organs, a variation of what is also found in the animal kingdom. Indeed, even human moral life is said to be merely an elaboration of certain instincts. People have even gone so far as to derive the origin of religious aspirations in humans from the attachment found in animals.

[ 20 ] We can say: Those who base their views on external science imagine evolution something like this: When we look at our environment today, we see animals of various kinds, all the way up to human beings. If we trace this development backward, we go further and further back to increasingly imperfect human beings, finally to people who stand at a very low level of human culture. Then, finally, if we were to press further backward, we would arrive at beings who cannot yet be called human. We would arrive at beings between humans and ape-like animals, then at epochs when humans did not yet exist, but when everything that existed physically and sensually on Earth—from which humans physically evolved—was already present. And one might say: If such an observer could take a chair and place it out into space, and sit upon it, he would believe he could see how all of this unfolded purely from the outside. That is the image of this perspective.

[ 21 ] Let us now ask: What is the picture from the perspective of the science of the spirit? Let us see what this conclusion looks like from the perspective of the science of the spirit. Today we want to focus as little as possible on merely recounting the facts, but rather point out how spiritual science proceeds in a thoroughly scientific manner with regard to its conclusions and ideas. To begin with, it must be assumed that spiritual science regards the spirit—that which is truly spiritual—as the original source, and views everything material as an effect of the spiritual. Thus it says: Let us suppose, for a moment, that a large cloud of water were spread out before us. Because it is transparent, one does not see it at first. Anyone who stands there and relies on nothing but what they see with their own eyes would not see the cloud. Now let us suppose that parts of this body of water were to condense into ice balls through some process; then the person who relies solely on what he sees would observe pieces of ice emerging from nothing, and he would say: There is nothing around the ice balls; they are the reality.

[ 22 ] Spiritual science tells us: The spiritual world surrounds us, and indeed within a much wider sphere than the physical world; the spiritual world is full of facts, full of realities. This spiritual world is a real one. From it emerge, as if through a condensation, the facts, events, and occurrences of the physical-sensory world. Now, those who rely solely on the physical senses see only the effects, but not the causes. Physical-sensory materiality is like a condensation of the spiritual. Spiritual science sees the cause of the physical-sensory in the spiritual.

[ 23 ] And now let us build on a well-known fact in order to explain how spiritual science views these matters. Let us take two feelings of the human soul that everyone is familiar with: fear and shame. Fear arises in the human soul and causes a person to turn pale. What has happened here? Because the person has been overcome by fear, a change has occurred in the processes of their blood. The blood has receded. Thus, an inner state—the person’s feeling of fear—has brought about a redistribution of their physical components. A physical process is the consequence of a psychological cause. The same is true of the feeling of shame. When the soul wishes to conceal something within itself, a blush of shame appears on the person’s face—again, a redistribution of the blood. Physical processes are thus directed by psychological and spiritual processes. Here we have something on a small scale—on a very small scale—that shows us how physical and sensory processes can be the effect of psychological and spiritual factors.

[ 24 ] Spiritual science now says: What we encounter today in these two examples—that the soul-spiritual brings about physical processes—is a final remnant of ancient soul-spiritual processes that, in a broader sense, represented the same thing. It demonstrates this—how it does so is not our concern today—and it does so in harmony with facts that still exist today. It says: If we go back to the distant, distant past, we are dealing with simpler material processes than today, but in return with more comprehensive spiritual-soul processes. Today, the human being is a complex being in physical and sensory terms. Today, through his soul-state, a human being can direct physical processes only to a limited extent, as in the case of feelings of shame and fear. But if we go far, far back in the Earth’s evolution, we find that the spiritual-soul aspect not only brought about processes, events, and facts, but also, through its own densification, caused matter itself to emerge from within it. And going even further back, we arrive at ancient times when only the spiritual-psychic aspect of the human being existed. And then we see the physical form emerging from the spirit in a simple way—the physical was directed by the spiritual-psychic—and because the spiritual is complex, the physical, too, has gradually become more and more complex.

[ 25 ] Science tells us: If we go back in time, we will eventually reach a point—not too far in the past—when humans did not yet exist, when only animals existed. And humans then evolved from the higher animals.

[ 26 ] Spiritual science says: Yes, if we go back far enough in the Earth’s evolution, we do indeed see that, in the physical-sensory sense, the Earth is inhabited only by animals and plants. At the time when human beings did not yet exist as physical-sensory beings, they were connected to the Earth in a spiritual-soul sense. Our Earth was surrounded by our spiritual and soul elements, just as we are today by the air. We go further and further back in time. We do not reach a time when the Earth was without human beings, for human beings were connected to our Earth body far earlier than all other beings: animals, plants, and minerals.

[ 27 ] How did animals, plants, and minerals come into being in the first place? Originally, there was actually nothing but the potential for human beings. Yes, let’s try to form a picture of how the lower beings actually came into being in the course of Earth’s evolution. The process is very complicated and is described in detail in my book *The Secret Science*. We’ll assume that there are lower and higher civilized peoples on Earth. We won’t argue about the difference right now; we’ll just accept it as it exists side by side in everyday life. Let us take a concrete example—say, the decline of the Native Americans and the Europeans. Those who think in terms of today’s more materialistic outlook will say: All people who today live in societies at a higher cultural level originally belonged to peoples who were at lower cultural levels; they simply evolved to a higher cultural level.

[ 28 ] Spiritual science states: Those peoples who are today considered “primitive”—so-called “savage” peoples—would never have been able to develop directly into peoples at a higher cultural level; rather, the fact is that, in the course of human evolution, certain peoples possessed the potential to develop to a higher level. They have, so to speak, waited with their development until a later time. They allowed these predispositions to remain more within themselves, bringing them forth only at a later time. Those peoples who have remained at a lower level have, so to speak, entered the dense earthly sphere too early. They lost themselves too soon in physical-sensory existence and held nothing back. They remained stagnant with all their innate capacities, while the others advanced. Indeed, we must say: The less developed a human race is, the less it could have expected to descend into the physical realm, whereas others waited until conditions on Earth were favorable.

[ 29 ] Now let us apply this idea to the entire development of the Earth: Let us look back to the time when our Earth was still in the early stages of its development and human beings were purely spiritual and soul-like. Well, certain spiritual-soul dispositions cannot wait until favorable conditions on Earth exist; they enter existence too early and become lower beings. Others wait and enter existence at a specific time, and so we see that at a certain point in time, those beings from whom our ape species developed descended too early into physical evolution. Furthermore, we see that human beings are the beings who incarnated the latest and who preserved their spirituality the longest. As a result, the other lower beings have remained behind because they entered physical-sensory existence too early.

[ 30 ] Thus we see that human beings were spiritually and psychically predisposed earlier than all other creatures, but that they waited the longest before entering physical existence. They developed out of the spiritual realm, but later than the other beings who also developed out of the spiritual realm. The spiritual realm, therefore, is the source of the differentiation that places beings at different stages of development. We must not say, then, that human beings evolved from a lower animal form; rather, we must say that human beings originate directly from the spiritual realm, and that the lower animal forms, too, evolved from the spiritual realm but entered physical existence too early. This also allows us to shed the proper light on the kinship between animals and humans. After all, animals must bear the same forms and features as humans, for they have undergone the same line of development, but they became materialized too early.

[ 31 ] This is, however, a concept that is very difficult to understand for those who are willing to accept only physical and sensory facts regarding human development. Let us cite yet another example—a second fact—to show just how completely different the facts of the natural sciences are from those of the humanities.

[ 32 ] You are all surely aware that the development of scientific creeds in the nineteenth century—particularly toward the middle of the century—led to the formation of what is known as an atomistic worldview. Let us try to visualize, as simply as possible, how this atomistic belief system came into being. A person hears a sound and says to himself: I hear this sound with my ear, and I notice that the air is vibrating in a certain way. A cannon has been fired some distance away from me. The vibration has propagated. My ear perceives this vibration of the air as sound. One could also say: Take a string and stroke it with a bow, and you can demonstrate that the string is vibrating in a regular pattern, and you perceive these vibrations as sound. When a person allows these vivid facts to come to mind, it is easy to conclude: Outside of myself, there is nothing at all but vibrating matter, and the ear and the sense of hearing perceive the vibrating air as sound.

[ 33 ] However, the development of the scientific creed has been such that this fact has gradually been extended to the realm of vision—that is, specifically to the realm of light and color. In numerous writings, you can read time and again that what we call color is something that does not exist at all outside of us. Outside of us, science tells us, there is nothing but moving matter. Just as the air vibrates when we hear sounds, so does a fine substance called ether vibrate during the perception of colors and light. This ether performs certain movements, and our eye perceives a certain number of these vibrations as blue or red. Outside of us, there is no blue or red; outside of us, there is no light; outside of us, there is only vibrating matter, and what we perceive as color and light is brought about by us—through the fact that these vibrations reach our eyes and travel on to the brain.

[ 34 ] Similar claims have also been made in other fields, for example, in what emerged in the last third of the nineteenth century as the so-called mechanical theory of heat. For example, with regard to gas, it is said that the heat of the gas is not outside of us, and when our hand comes into contact with gas and feels heat, it is because there are millions upon millions of particles moving within the gas itself, and this movement evokes the sensation of heat within us. Thus, a curious doctrine was able to develop, one that could be called an atomistic worldview.

[ 35 ] If one follows this teaching to its ultimate conclusions, one ultimately comes to realize: Everything we perceive—all the rising and falling sounds, all the colorful and wondrous tapestry of color and light, all the warmth and cold, everything we perceive through our senses—all of that is merely something we experience within ourselves, and outside of us there is nothing but moving matter, vibrating atoms. If there is nothing else out there, what must the next conclusion be? Then our brain, too, is nothing but vibrating matter. Well, where does that leave us?

[ 36 ] So we have filled perceptible space with atoms and imagine them vibrating, dancing, and swirling together into the most diverse patterns, which affect our eyes and ears and produce sounds and colors. This naturally leads to the conclusion that the world of realities is composed of atoms, that it is nothing but a world of atoms in motion. And in this world of moving atoms, what is regarded as the inner life of various entities emerges as a phantom.

[ 37 ] If one posits such a theory as a science, it may indeed be useful in a certain respect; but if one posits it as a worldview, one would also have to draw the consequences, and these can be nothing other than that the only reality in the world is a world of atomic motion, and then human beings, too, would be nothing other than a sum of moving atoms.

[ 38 ] What, then, remains of a person when he dies? When he dies, these atoms scatter; nothing remains of the person, nothing remains of what his soul was, nothing of what his spirit was—only the atom is eternal. Atoms are the only thing that is eternal and indestructible. Thus, when taken to its logical conclusion, this line of thought becomes a creed affirming the eternity of the most insignificant thing: the tiny atomistic idol.

[ 39 ] It was essentially out of a certain sense of inadequacy that Du Bois-Reymond said in his famous speech: “Natural science can lead to nothing other than an explanation of all the facts of the world through the motion of atoms.” - He said: To explain human beings scientifically means to understand these atomic movements down to their very last detail. - But he found this explanation inadequate, and he said to himself: Yet it is quite another matter whether I observe movements—moving atoms—or whether I experience the unique fact within myself: I see red, or I smell the scent of a rose, or I hear the sound of an organ.

[ 40 ] Du Bois-Reymond drew attention here to something that the German philosopher Leibniz had already expressed when he said: Imagine the human brain as a giant machine—so large, in fact, that you could walk around inside it. Now, as I think, “I see red,” you observe what is happening there. Just as you would observe the gears and belts of a machine, you can now see all the movements of the atoms in my brain while I am thinking this. But what is thinking there—what the soul experiences while these movements are taking place—that you do not see. The fact remains unclear to you as to why I feel, “I see red.” Du Bois-Reymond felt this as well, and he said: Natural science can offer nothing more than the movement of atoms and molecules to account for any inner experience—and he called this the astronomical understanding of humanity. He said it was impossible for science to advance from what are merely movements of atoms to a true explanation of what does exist as specific ideas in the soul. Why shouldn’t a group of atoms care how they are arranged or will be arranged, how they swirl and dance? Why should they evoke the ideas that cannot be denied: one moment I see red, the next blue, and so on? Natural science will never be able to bridge the gap between external perception and my inner conception, Du Bois-Reymond believed.

[ 41 ] At the time, this was the natural scientist’s confession regarding the limits of natural science. It was also the confession that led to the rejection of this atomism in FCSSCII'I

[ 42 ] Well, where natural science ends, the humanities begin. What do the humanities have to say about all this? They say: Yes, no matter how many times you observe that there is nothing out there but moving air, when you hear a sound, you must not conclude from that that the ear creates the sound. That is about as sensible as the following: Suppose I receive a telegram from America: “Send this and that immediately,” and I go and examine the wire and find material processes there, and then conclude: So either my own inner self or the telegraph operator is creating the content of the telegram.

[ 43 ] Here—reasonably enough—the wire, the material medium, is used to mediate between the receiver and the sender. When we observe a material process, we never have the right to believe that only this process exists as reality. We must not pass judgment on a realm for which we have not yet developed the organs of perception; we have just as little right to do so as a blind person has to judge color and light.

[ 44 ] The humanities say: Sound belongs to the real world, and it was sound that caused the vibrations in the air.

[ 45 ] What is an atom? How do we know that an object is in space in front of us and has a material existence? We know this, first of all, through our external sensory perception—through the fact that it appears to us with a certain color or a certain luster, or that it can produce a sound, or that it exhibits a certain warmth, smell, or taste; we perceive it through its properties, which it reveals to our senses and through which it stimulates sensations of color, sound, smell, taste, and warmth.

[ 46 ] What, then, is an atom? An atom is not a real object in space. It has no heat of its own, for heat arises only from the motion of atoms; it has no color, for color is produced only by the motion of atoms; nor does it have any other properties, for all these properties are produced only by the motion of atoms. This atom, which has no reality, is nothing at all to those who think realistically. It is something that has been invented to supplement reality—a conceptual tool of research, a human construct that enables us to understand the world according to a certain framework.

[ 47 ] Daydreaming is the atomic world, the purest imagination—not even as real as color and light, but merely imagined in addition to everything else.

[ 48 ] Spiritual science is thus firmly rooted in the work of Goethe, about whom very few people know that he was as great a natural scientist as he was a poet; and just as he did, those who think in terms of spiritual science perceive reality in what lies before our senses. They see the sensory world as nothing more than a composite of what we experience in the spiritual world.

[ 49 ] When we see a rose, and it is yellow, we see a certain shape, a color, perceive a certain degree of warmth, a specific scent, and so on, and then we must tell ourselves: If you want to look behind things, you must not examine the atoms you have invented, but rather the spirit that lies behind things and that your soul can experience. The phenomenon itself is reality; the spirit within it is what we can seek, spread out in space. Just as ice has condensed from water, so too has the physical-sensory world condensed from the spiritual.

[ 50 ] Scientific thinking and the humanities stand in opposition to one another: the humanities do not invent fantastical atomic dances behind the physical, sensory world, but rather perceive spiritual entities behind colors, sounds, warmth, and so on.

[ 51 ] It is difficult for the two schools of thought to reach an understanding, but it is difficult only if one remains rooted in materialistic thinking. If we approach the world of facts through an example, we find—precisely as scholars of the humanities, as true adherents of the spiritual world—that what was once regarded as the solid foundation of the scientific creed has crumbled piece by piece in recent years. As recently as two years ago, it was claimed that humans descended from higher animals.

[ 52 ] Let us consider the following question: What is the truth about human descent from higher animals, from apes? There is, admittedly, a certain resemblance between the human body and that of a higher ape. This led Huxley, in his more superficial analysis, to state that there is less difference between the structure of a human and that of a higher ape than between the higher and lower species of apes. In recent years, however, it has become clear that it is impossible to equate human anatomy with that of apes. In a certain respect, however, humans bear a great resemblance to the gibbon; only the gibbon has terribly large front feet, reaching almost to the ground. In this regard, humans are much more similar to much lower-ranking species of apes than to the gibbon.

[ 53 ] If one were to insist that humans are descended from gibbons, one would have to reason as follows: Well, the story would go like this: At first, the apes had short hands, but then, when the gibbon evolved, they developed long hands, and then the hands became short again in humans. Thus, people gradually came to say that, even though the gibbon is most similar to humans in certain characteristics, humans must in turn be descended from a lower-ranking ape, and the gibbon is merely a side branch that happened to develop particularly long hands.

[ 54 ] This is a simple case; but such comparisons have been taken further, and it has become apparent that it is entirely impossible to trace human origins directly from the higher apes. One would have to go back to lower apes, so that all higher apes would be merely side branches. Yet this theory does not hold up when taken further. Indeed, authoritative voices have argued that humans must be traced back to much lower animal forms, and researchers have been compelled, so to speak, to increasingly distance those animal groups closest to humans from humans themselves. This trend will continue, and it will become clear that no direct relatives of humans can be found; the evolutionary line will have to be traced farther and farther back, and it will be realized that the being from which humans are derived was not physical at all, but spiritual.

[ 55 ] Natural science does not yet know it, but the facts are pushing it down a path whose destination has been mapped out by spiritual science. The world of physical facts will increasingly prove to be a confirmation of spiritual science.

[ 56 ] And now let us ask ourselves: What about our other example, the atomic world? Based on certain more profound theories, a recent natural scientist, the chemist Ostwald, has rejected the entire field of atomic theory altogether. At the Lübeck Congress of Natural Scientists in the late 1880s, Ostwald had spoken about overcoming materialism and pointed out its internal contradictions. He did not advocate the view of the eternal material atomic particle; rather, he said that everything that appears as atoms are centers of force and energy.

[ 57 ] He used an analogy and said: If I am struck with a stick, isn’t the material of the stick completely irrelevant to me, and isn’t the force with which I received the blow the essential thing? The energy unleashed upon you? Everywhere there are forces, energies, and when a person perceives these forces as filling space, then he perceives matter.

[ 58 ] That was still just speculation; others have been taken even further by the facts. Let us assume that copper and chlorine combine. They combine with the appearance of fire. Heat is generated. If one now wishes to separate these substances again, one must supply the same amount of heat. Thus, this heat proves to be something very real, even though it is supposed to be nothing more than motion.

[ 59 ] Some researchers who thought more deeply about this have now reasoned: Heat is produced when certain atoms combine and come together; if one wants to separate them again, one must supply heat once more. From this, they have concluded: We must therefore imagine atoms as being similar to those children’s balloons filled with air. When you squeeze them, the air escapes. If you want them to be full again, you have to pump air back in. Just as with the air in these children’s balloons, so—they reasoned—must we imagine heat within the atoms. We must imagine atoms and molecules themselves as a kind of sack, and heat is what fills the sacks, just as flour fills flour sacks. In the case of free copper and chlorine, these “bags” are completely filled with heat. But when these elements combine, the “bags” are pressed together and the heat is expelled. If we separate them again by some means, we must also add the heat back in.

[ 60 ] Such thinkers have thus been forced to recognize heat—something that is otherwise regarded merely as a form of motion—as something real and tangible, though it is supposedly still contained within a shell. The spiritual scientist would now say: So you are treating heat as something real and tangible, and you add the shell only so that you can still save your atom. I’ll even grant you the shell. — Spiritual science holds the view that the atom and the molecule are nothing other than the condensed quality of heat itself—not only the filling, but also the bags that contain it. If we omit the shell, what remains is shaped heat, and we conceive of a material particle as nothing other than a shaped sensory perception. That, then, is what is truly real.

[ 61 ] Others have gone a step further. When an electric current is passed through evacuated glass tubes—known as Geissler tubes—light phenomena occur inside them.

[ 62 ] This led to the assumption that it contained not merely moving matter; rather, it became clear that one could not help but conclude that electricity detaches itself from matter and flows independently. It was observed that flowing electricity exists at all. What had previously been regarded merely as a property of matter was now seen as something independent. The property itself flows within electricity, and such flowing electricity came to be called “electrons.”

[ 63 ] In a speech in 1904, former British Prime Minister Balfour pointed out that such views must lead to fundamentally different ways of looking at matter ... /gap] that matter is, in a certain sense, nothing other than frozen electricity.

[ 64 ] Doesn't this upheaval in views clearly show us how natural science is on its way to arriving at the theosophical teaching that the spirit is the primal substance and that everything else is merely condensed spirit?

[ 65 ] Thus, what was once thought to be merely the motion of matter has come to be regarded as a separate entity—flowing electricity—and, in essence, matter is nothing more than condensed, flowing electricity.

[ 66 ] But the crowning achievement of all this has been a discovery that has only come to our attention in recent years: the discovery of radium. What has this research into radium revealed? You all know that radium has drawn people’s attention to the fact that certain substances—radioactive substances—emit strange radiation that can only be detected by its effects; for example, that it makes non-conductive air electrically conductive and that it affects photographic plates. These emanations from radium could initially be explained in no other way to the scientists involved than by assuming that the emanation penetrated into the atom itself. It is the atom itself that emits these radiations—also called emanations—indeed, one has been compelled to conclude that the atom gradually radiates itself completely through its effects. We see that the atom is completely broken down and fragmented, so that we can perceive it only through its effects and properties.

[ 67 ] Yes, we see even more. The brilliant English physicist Ramsay has shown that a certain radiation, an emanation from radium, can be transformed into another substance, another element: helium. Physicists are beginning to calculate when the properties of such a substance cease entirely, when such an atom completely disintegrates. We see how calculations are made today—I do not wish to speak about the accuracy of the calculations, but only about the shift in thinking—how certain substances will, in 5,000 million years, have reached a point where they have lost all their properties, where they will no longer exist as material substance, but will have dissolved into outer space. Only the atom that has no properties is eternal, it was believed at the time; only the chemical elements—the atoms—are eternal; everything else passes away.

[ 68 ] Through these new research findings, the facts are now coming into people’s view—facts that show how that which was once considered the most solid thing, the atom, dissolves and shatters, how the body of this atom disintegrates in the natural scientist’s hands into the properties that should have arisen solely from its movements. Thus, the idea of an eternal atom has been shattered; it is transient, it disintegrates, and those who wish to remain atomists in the old sense have nothing left in their hands.

[ 69 ] Thus, natural science today stands at a crossroads. Either it can continue to build upon its old theories and end up with theories that increasingly contradict the facts—theories that the facts themselves make a mockery of—or it can take the path that gradually leads to tracing humanity’s ancestors farther and farther back into the spiritual-soul realm and dissolving matter more and more—and the final product of this dissolution will be the spirit. Thus we see how spiritual science is a pioneer working ahead of the future, and before us in this future lies something we can express with the words: We foresee peace between natural science and spiritual science, between what is the knowledge of nature and what, through the knowledge of the spirit, can fill human beings with certainty and bliss.

[ 70 ] Of course, more than 100 years ago, it was still too early for such a union of these two movements, and Schiller was right when he said: Both would have to go their separate ways for the time being, and only later would they be able to unite.

[ 71 ] The nineteenth century has now shown the way: the science of the external, the sensory world has discovered facts and produced results that themselves extend beyond the realm of the purely sensory-real. Alongside this, theosophy has developed. Theosophy itself, drawing from within—from its spiritual insights—will be able to point the way to the facts. It will be able to show how the external sensory world is an expression of the spiritual. Thus spiritual science will bring down philosophy—the knowledge of the supersensible, which a hundred years ago still existed only in abstract concepts and hovered in the clouds—it will bring it down in such a way that it no longer deals solely with abstract concepts and ideas, but points to the real, concrete knowledge of facts in the spiritual realm, and natural science will ascend and find its way from purely external sensory phenomena to the spiritual; and thus the two will meet, whereas more than a hundred years ago, conceptual philosophy could not descend to the facts of concrete reality.

[ 72 ] Time had to pass for this. That time has now passed. The spirit pushes its way down into reality and seeks to become applicable and fruitful even within this outer reality. And so we can present a beautiful horizon, a beautiful perspective of the spiritual world, and say: Precisely when we stand realistically on the ground of facts—both in the sensory and the spiritual worlds— we see how the natural sciences and the spiritual sciences converge to offer something that is life for human beings—something that will be transformed within the human soul and will give people strength, security, and self-confidence in life, and which will also give them the strength to feel, sense, and recognize within themselves that which can only be recognized through the spirit: the eternal in the human soul.