The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. How Does One Refute Theosophy?

[ 1 ] From the lectures I have been privileged to deliver here over the course of many years, it will have become apparent that the worldview from which the content of these lectures was drawn is based on a very specific—one might say—attitude, or at least that this worldview is linked to at least one such attitude, which can be more precisely defined by saying: A true lecture within theosophy or spiritual science is not possible unless the soul is imbued with a certain tolerance toward any and all worldview systems—an inner tolerance capable of offering devoted understanding to every kind of worldview. For the actual line of thought that is relevant within spiritual science has meaning only if it is kept at a distance from everything that might be called fanaticism and sectarianism. Such attitudes are so widespread in our time that when someone views the world from their own perspective, they come to believe that anyone with a different way of thinking must be a fool or a simpleton, or must at least lack a serious sense of truth, the capacity for insight, or conscientiousness. Even for external reasons alone, it would be unfortunate if Theosophy were to indulge in such fanatical attitudes, because it must be acknowledged that, upon deeper examination, a great deal of patience and time is required to grasp the theosophical worldview comprehensively and thoroughly; thus, a large portion of our contemporaries who derive their convictions from spiritual science or Theosophy do not by any means base this on a thorough understanding of all the underlying principles of truth, but rather, understandably, form their convictions from certain emotional and sentimental interests. Nor should the latter group be denied any justification for this! Of course, everyone has a personal right to do so, but it is equally obvious that it is impossible to thoroughly defend the spiritual science worldview if one’s convictions have been gained solely in this way. Furthermore, since becoming truly immersed in spiritual science is fundamentally possible only through difficult, devoted work, it becomes understandable that some of our contemporaries feel repelled by theosophy—and these are generally not the people with the poorest sense of truth.

[ 2 ] We must understand that, given the current state of affairs, those of our contemporaries who draw their convictions from science and culture will face difficulty upon difficulty in coming to theosophy; it is precisely for such people that refutations and contradictions pile up in great numbers against what they encounter as Theosophy. However, to speak of ill will would be contrary to the tolerance that Theosophy should always practice. Therefore, the task of this evening shall be to provide a picture of the doubts that may confront the honest seeker of truth when he approaches theosophy, and then, in the lecture the day after tomorrow—“How Does One Justify Theosophy?”—to show how such doubts can be dispelled.

[ 3 ] Even if today’s lecture may seem somewhat strange, this is precisely because it is intended to adopt the opponent’s point of view and to present, in broad strokes, his well-founded doubts and rebuttals. This is also the very best way to achieve what is intended to be demonstrated—namely, that the opponents’ objections should be taken as seriously as possible. I do not intend to advocate my own opinion here, but rather to make a serious attempt to place myself entirely in the opponent’s position, without touching upon those flimsy objections that are already dismissed simply by saying that the opponent should simply try to become more thoroughly acquainted with theosophy. Thus, I do not wish to address immaturity, but rather those reservations that genuinely present themselves to all those who, coming from contemporary culture, wish to acquaint themselves with the theosophical worldview and yet cannot go along with Theosophy, since they would otherwise have to break with everything that arises from contemporary culture—a culture whose foundations they apparently cannot refute, but which must rather raise legitimate and comprehensively justified objections that Theosophy must acknowledge as such, without being able to refute them to the same extent.

[ 4 ] Therefore, I would first like to present to you an overview of the theosophical worldview, in the same way that it has already been explained in as much detail as possible in many lectures. First, you will find in Theosophy the assumption of a supersensible world beyond the world of the senses and the intellect; second, Theosophy draws upon certain methods of inquiry that differ from what is taught in our time as the methods of research and thought. The sensory world, it is said, teaches that it can be explained from within itself and that, for this purpose, there is no need to seek a supersensible world behind it. Or others express the opinion that, while a supersensible world must indeed be assumed to lie behind the sensory world, human beings cannot penetrate it; therefore, limits to knowledge must be accepted.

[ 5 ] Theosophy emphasizes that, with ordinary consciousness, human beings are dependent on the external world of the intellect and, beyond that, on inner soul observation; however, it also states that it is possible to bring the inner life of the soul to a high level of development. When this is achieved through certain inner exercises, those who practice correctly and with sufficient perseverance will, as they develop their soul-spiritual faculties, encounter a higher supersensible world emerging from the depths of the soul’s life, so that the sufficiently advanced researcher in the realm of the spiritual world can perceive facts of a supersensible nature. Then a person developed in this way will be able to think about the nature of the human being in a different way than ordinary consciousness is capable of, since the latter can perceive only the sensually perceptible part of the environment.

[ 6 ] Theosophy, however, teaches that with heightened consciousness, three more supersensory aspects of the human being can be recognized. Namely, the “etheric body” is still at work within the physical human body as the actual animator and shaper of the physical body; it is also found in animals and even in plants, and works to ensure that the substances comprising the outer body do not follow the forces and laws otherwise inherent in them, as long as they remain under the influence of the etheric body within the organism, but only after death, when they are once again left to their own devices. Theosophy, or the secret science, recognizes a third aspect of human nature in the so-called astral body; every living being that develops consciousness does so through the forces of the astral body, which permeates the physical and etheric bodies—a body we find in humans and animals, but not in plants. Human nature now has a fourth component, the so-called “I,” which elevates the human being above the animal realm and thereby establishes him as the very crown of earthly creation.

[ 7 ] Further investigation and a deeper exploration of human nature reveal that a waking person differs significantly from a sleeping one; spiritual science teaches that, in the latter case, the astral body, together with the “I,” separates from the physical and etheric bodies, and these latter two enter the spiritual world. But in this world, both are then surrounded by darkness from the moment of falling asleep until waking, since for the normally developed human being, nothing is perceptible without his physical-etheric instruments and without the instrument of his intellect, and with these, only something in the physical world is perceptible, because he does not yet possess organs for perceiving the spiritual world.

[ 8 ] In this conception of wakefulness, spiritual science points out that everything a person has experienced through their senses in their mind—everything that has befallen them, whether good fortune or misfortune—has been imprinted in their soul, which carries it through the gateway of death into the higher spiritual members of the human being. These are preserved in a certain way—namely, as the “I,” the astral body, and the essence of the etheric body. With these aspects of the being, a person relives their experiences after death in the spiritual world, where they then gather strength from everything and process it in a unique way, so that after a longer or shorter period of time they may once again enter a physical body made available to them through their hereditary line. Through this, they will inherit certain characteristics from their parents, but their essential abilities will be formed within them, that is, into his physical body and the next higher constitutive elements, shaped by his own spiritual-soul core, which, during his life between death and a new birth—in the purely spiritual world, under conditions different from those of the physical-earthly realm—had further experiences that led him to develop powers making him suitable for a new earthly life. Everything a person has experienced in terms of important thoughts, impulses, and feelings carries over into a new life, so that this life, in its uniqueness, is in part a consequence of one or more previous lives.

[ 9 ] The various aspects of human nature belong to different worlds; the spiritual-soul aspect is of earlier origin than the physical-etheric aspect, so that we can say a spiritual-soul world preceded the physical world, which is, as it were, an earlier incarnation of our Earth. We must direct our gaze to this and many other aspects, as well as to its future forms, in order to gain an understanding of the foundation of theosophical science.

[ 10 ] If a person with a serious scientific mindset approaches such ideas, they will get the impression that everything that intellectual culture and science have explored over the past few centuries has been turned upside down—for example, the fact that Theosophy teaches that the physical body, in all its organs, is permeated by an etheric body, which is regarded as the carrier of life. Must not everyone who has delved deeply into science—especially that of the last and penultimate centuries—say that, with such a view, Theosophy adopts an amateurish standpoint that is not grounded in anything, for what is this etheric body other than a revival of the life force that has been rejected since the eighteenth century? Chemical compounds, mixtures, and separations can be explained by the forces observable in chemistry and physics! In addition to these, one observes certain chemical compounds that are formed only within living organisms, not in the external, non-organic natural world; hence it was once said that there exists within the living organism a life force that permeates its organs in a unique way.

[ 11 ] A scientific breakthrough occurred in the nineteenth century through the work of Liebig and Wöhler, namely that these two researchers succeeded in synthesizing, in their laboratories, chemical compounds that were thought to form only within living organisms—without relying on the organism’s supposed “vital force.” What could be more natural, then, than to believe—once such compounds had been produced outside the organism—that they must also have come into being within the living organism without the involvement of the supposed vital force? If science were sufficiently advanced, there would be nothing to prevent us from assuming even now that further, more complex substances could be produced in the future—in the laboratory, without the application of the so-called life force.

[ 12 ] As this line of thought was pursued further, the conviction finally took hold that a living organism contains only those forces that are also found in the external natural world, so that, with sufficient scientific progress, even simply organized living beings could be explained! It must be readily admitted, however, that the fact that such a possibility does not yet exist does not preclude the possibility of such hopes in the future. What, then, is the etheric body of Theosophy other than a rehashing of the life force long rejected by science? What does this reveal other than that Theosophy is unaware of the scope of scientific discoveries indicated above and the well-founded prospects associated with them? The assumption of an etheric or vital body is nothing but sheer ignorance, mere dilettantism.

[ 13 ] This objection is entirely justified from the perspective of our intellectual tradition, and a serious scholar cannot dismiss this objection lightly.

[ 14 ] But if we now turn our attention to what we have characterized as the astral body, the vehicle of consciousness, we realize that these manifestations of consciousness present themselves as supersensible experiences, and everything we know in terms of thoughts, sensations, feelings, and impulses of the will belongs to the supersensible world. This is as far as the natural scientists of the nineteenth century had gone; one need only recall the famous lecture that Du Bois-Reymond delivered in Leipzig in 1872 on the limits of scientific knowledge. Since, according to the prevailing view at the time, the brain was thought to be composed of atoms, it was impossible to arrive at an understanding of how phenomena of consciousness could arise from the constant or changing arrangement of these atoms. This radical difference in external phenomena had already seriously struck natural scientists at the time, as they considered both material phenomena and supersensory mental experiences. The latter were viewed as constant accompaniments to the former. Imaginative activity, for example, changes due to a greater or lesser flow of blood to the brain, so that phenomena of consciousness are thus bound to material processes; and the natural scientist therefore finds no difference between such phenomena and gravity, for example, which is also supersensible and can be perceived only in its effects, not in itself—just as supersensible as consciousness. It is bound to substances that attract one another in inverse proportion to the square of the distance and in direct proportion to their masses [...].

[ 15 ] Accordingly, for example, Benedict states in his *Psychology of the Soul*: The phenomena of consciousness within our inner life are, in their connection to the material substance of our body, no different from gravity, magnetism, [electricity], and the like; why should not such or similar forces emanate from our brain just as those forces accompany material processes? From the standpoint of rigorous scientific thinking, the assertion that phenomena of the soul are anything other than accompanying phenomena of matter cannot be sustained, and we must admit: Benedict’s principle is one that a person, from the standpoint of contemporary culture, cannot easily overcome; instead, one would have to assume that the soul’s powers would detach themselves upon death, and likewise, gravity would have to be able to detach itself upon the destruction of matter, in order to pass into a special realm—a kind of realm of gravity [gravity heaven]—until it found an opportunity to re-embody itself in new matter. This is a logical objection that a scientific conscience cannot easily overcome.

[ 16 ] Let us turn to what theosophy says about the phenomena of sleep and wakefulness; in contrast, today’s scientists believe that the explanation—that a supersensible aspect of the being steps out of the sleeper during this process—is completely unfounded. Let us therefore attempt to explain sleep and wakefulness, on the premise that soul processes are bound to the substances of the body just as gravity is bound to every physical substance. We therefore assume that wakefulness, through its wear and tear, leads the human organism to a state in which the individual organs are no longer able to sustain waking consciousness—namely, in such a way that certain toxins are produced and accumulate, which ultimately cause the person to fall asleep. As consciousness is thus extinguished during sleep, the purely [animal]—or rather, [vegetative]—activity of the human being sets in, which eliminates the fatigue-inducing substances or toxins, so that the person is regenerated and can once again enter the state of waking consciousness.

[ 17 ] Accordingly, we would have within humans a self-regulating mechanism that operates during both sleep and wakefulness throughout their entire lives. This is an explanation that is entirely consistent with our materialist way of thinking. Hypotheses of this kind may, even if erroneous in detail, still be justified on the basis of materialism; what matters here above all is whether they can be conceived logically without the assumption that something leaves the human being upon falling asleep and returns to him upon waking. Thus, based on its own perspective, scientific thinking must reject theosophy’s explanation of sleep and wakefulness.

[ 18 ] When it comes to the doctrine of repeated earthly lives, we find ourselves on completely uncertain ground under the latter conditions, whereas spiritual scientific thinking can conceive of the present life only as the effect of previous lifetimes. Yet even in scientific thought there are models that point in this direction; for example, according to the so-called biogenetic law, during the embryonic stage all animals and humans must pass through all the stages of their ancestors’ earlier developments—so that, for instance, the human embryo exhibits fish-like forms 21 days after fertilization, thereby indicating that in times long past its physical ancestors were fish-like; therefore, the current developmental process contains a certain indication of earlier physical states. This is how one might characterize earlier stages of development. Nevertheless, one soon realizes that it is not possible to explain all of a human being’s characteristics solely in terms of their ancestors, but only by assuming the existence of a spiritual-soul core—for example, by pointing out that children of the same parents should actually be much more similar to one another than twins typically are.

[ 19 ] But all of this will not satisfy scientific thinking, which argues that every human being must arise from the blending of the characteristics of the father and mother as they interact with one another; consequently, children born to parents of different ages would have to differ in their physical characteristics, since they would have resulted from vastly different proportions of these characteristics. Furthermore, given the current state of highly advanced research—or perhaps precisely because of it—scientific thinking might ask: Who would be capable of assessing the subtle structures of the germ of this mixture?

[ 20 ] Furthermore, it seems frivolous to the modern, materialistic thinker to want to attribute the most diverse characteristics to past lives; for one would first have to rule out everything that occurred in early childhood. For example, in the case of a sculptor, one might be tempted to attribute an outstanding talent to a past life, whereas it could just as easily be explained by the fact that the person in question had frequent and inspiring contact with sculptures and artists during his youth. [One need not even be aware of this; it nevertheless affects the subconscious.] One can never be too careful in gathering all the facts and bringing all relevant information to consciousness in order to arrive at an accurate and proper understanding.

[ 21 ] In science, there is something called a useful working hypothesis. For example, sunlight was once regarded as the radiation of a fine luminous substance that traveled from the Sun to the planets, including our Earth. However, since this could not explain all the phenomena of light, the hypothesis—or theory—of the “world ether” was adopted, even though no one can directly prove whether a substance is flowing or whether the ether moves in waves. But if the wave theory is correct, it can be used to explain the phenomena of light and color and to predict them under certain conditions. Even if the actual processes occur differently, this theory still proves to be useful. The situation is similar with Darwin’s theory, which cites fish as an intermediate link in the evolutionary chain leading to humans; it is, after all, possible, for example, to regard the fins of fish as the origin of the locomotive organs of higher animals, and so on, and to use this explanatory hypothesis to link lower animals—in their development toward higher forms—with humans across a wide variety of organic fields.

[ 22 ] The assumption of repeated earthly lives [as a working hypothesis] could prove fruitful in explaining happy or unhappy physical and social living conditions. Seriously, however, one cannot treat reincarnation and karma in the same way that a natural scientist proceeds with his working hypotheses, for in the natural sciences we have in them only one explanation for many phenomena; we trace many phenomena back to a single principle. Thus, as already indicated, higher animals are traced back to fish-like ancestors—an assumption that, through an infinite number of cases, can be elevated to a law and traced back to a single principle. In contrast, if we were to assume that every human being has had many previous lives, we would have to formulate a new hypothesis for each individual; if a natural scientist were to attempt this in his field, it would be declared absolutely inadmissible, since, on the contrary, he strives to find a common explanation for as large a number of individual events as possible. The idea that all people live according to “karma” is merely an abstraction, for every person must be traced back to his or her own past lives. Thus, one could raise legitimate difficulties in the most diverse ways through conscientious thinking and raise countless objections from a scientific standpoint.

[ 23 ] But the materialistic-scientific thinker still encounters specific objections when he observes how the spiritual researcher appeals to a higher, spiritual perception, which, the researcher tells him, can only be developed through higher soul powers—meaning that the researcher’s spiritual-scientific method is diametrically opposed to the materialistic scientific requirement that, in any place, at any time, and for any person—provided the indispensable preconditions are met—it should be possible to verify the assertion made, entirely independent of the processes taking place within one’s soul. For the scientific researcher, these processes are completely irrelevant to the application of his research method; rather, the second and third researchers should be able to arrive at the same findings as the first. This fundamental requirement contradicts the method of spiritual science, according to which something can be investigated through the development of subjective soul forces; but this is unacceptable to the scientific researcher; the results of such a research method are unprovable to him. He can therefore only classify them as belonging to the realm of mere faith, to which everyone can adhere as they see fit. Thus, all of this appears unacceptable to the materialist thinker—and indeed to any outsider—who approaches Theosophy with his own methods and then learns what and how it researches and teaches.

[ 24 ] Numerous other objections arise in the moral, religious, and spiritual spheres of life. It is argued that, according to the theosophical view, what we experience is a consequence of past lives, and that the thoughts and actions of the present life are the cause of the events of the next life; it is argued that such a view leads to a selfish morality and way of life, if evil is supposed to lead to something that must be balanced by suffering and so on, while good would bring happiness and joy. Would not a selfish morality develop, it is concluded, if one were to refrain from evil and practice good for the reasons indicated? Compared to such a selfish conception of morality, what we encounter from the materialist view of morality appears like heroism; for it assumes that with death, the phenomena of consciousness are extinguished like a flame whose fuel has been consumed; a view that holds that an individual’s actions yield nothing for the individual himself, but that their consequences—good and evil—merely flow on into the general process of the world. Even if this can be refuted theoretically, what matters is external reality—not logical arguments, but the effect that such a theory exerts in life.

[ 25 ] Among the noble minds of the West, we find the views of materialistic morality described above; for example, in the Munich philosopher Frohschammer, who raised a very noteworthy moral objection when he said: To what end does the constant recurrence of a spiritual-soul core lead? To the view that precisely what we regard here in life as one of the noblest relationships—namely, love between the sexes—serves as the cause for repeatedly, without end, imprisoning one soul after another in a physical body; for this reason, I consider reincarnation to be morally reprehensible. Anyone who devotes themselves to contemplating the supernatural world, turns away from external life, and becomes estranged from it through a form of asceticism hostile to life will, as a result, by no means find reincarnation to be an ethical or moral doctrine. The personal experience of the spiritual researcher can and will thus easily encounter contradiction, and what guarantee is there that this purely subjective experience is not merely an illusion?

[ 26 ] Such a view is, of course, theoretically refutable, but for anyone trying to decide whether or not to turn to theosophy, such doubts will weigh heavily on the soul—especially when reminded, for example, of Kepler, whom we know also practiced astrology, a peculiar form of astronomy intertwined with lofty spiritual views. We then learn from him how he was repeatedly compelled to draw up horoscopes even for distinguished personalities, and how he then anxiously wondered whether he should fully reveal what had been foretold or whether he should instead convey it in a veiled manner. One can thus point out that even in the case of the great Kepler, despite his scientific integrity, something occurs that borders on charlatanism. Abysses of a unique kind open up during the transition from an old to a new science, at the very threshold of which stands the figure of Kepler. If such a significant man, so the opinion goes, is not always protected from questionable obscurations, how is an ordinary person to develop steadfast qualities when, in a state of bondage and often immaturity, he arrives at supernatural visions, so that he may be the bearer of an unshakable sense of truth under all circumstances!

[ 27 ] Thus, there is a natural fear that clairvoyant abilities, when they penetrate higher spiritual worlds, may lead to a tendency to lie as a side effect of such abilities; opponents of theosophy therefore argue that even the method itself—not the development intended to lead to the perception of higher worlds—is morally questionable. For example, we see how Faust is accompanied by the bearer of magical powers, Mephistopheles; we can empathize with how deeply this affects him when Goethe has him say:

If only I could remove magic from my path, completely forget those spells...

[ 28 ] What does not come naturally to human beings thus approaches them from outside as a temptation toward immorality.

[ 29 ] In a religious context, one of the noblest—or perhaps the noblest—views a person can hold is that they stand before a divine being who created and redeemed them. What, then, does Theosophy make of this supreme divine being? It regards one’s own spiritual and psychological core as a spark within the totality of the Divine; the human “I” does both good and evil, carries salvation within itself, and does not look up to the God of balancing justice—who is instead transferred into one’s own soul and can lead a person into the delusion of unwarranted self-esteem. The emotional and intuitive core of religion—the sense of being a child of God—is therefore in danger of being perverted into a worship of self-righteousness.

[ 30 ] We have thus seen how theosophical reasoning and the general view of the world and life, and so on, are incompatible with those of other thinkers. For example, the human conscience cannot be understood from an external perspective, yet—as Dr. Paul Ree’s book on conscience demonstrates—the scientific thinker asserts that conscience is the final result of human development. In the face of this view, spiritual science must develop an inner tolerance and not label its opponent as a fool or even as someone acting in malice; rather, it should address those objections that, by their weight, appear worthy of consideration. Contemporary scientists, after all, demand entirely different approaches to proving the supersensory truths of the higher worlds, for example, in the manner demonstrated by Ludwig Deinhard in his book *The Mystery of Man*, specifically in the first half, where he leads up to the assumption of life after death and to an understanding of the continued existence of the same individuality that is identical to that of physical, earthly life. On the same basis, this path has often been explored by earnestly seeking scholars, and we can thus observe that all of them are led by the same established phenomena to the same hypothesis: that human beings continue to exist as spirits after death.

[ 31 ] For example, what is known as “cross-correspondence”—in which two or more people, driven from the depths of their souls, write down the same thing, which then collectively points to a person who died not long ago—could make a significant impression on researchers working in this field, who was the leader or an enthusiastic participant in a movement that had set itself the goal of investigating such phenomena; and this borders on the conscientiousness of the reasoning or completeness of the evidence—as a natural scientist demands of phenomena in his own field—when, in such a case of cross-correspondence, a woman in India sends messages from the spirit world, received through her hidden spiritual powers, to a person in London at an address revealed to her through the same occult means, and vice versa. Now there are two kinds of people: on the one hand, those who allow themselves to be convinced of the existence of a supernatural world by such phenomena, which border on scientific methods—such as Weber and Zöllner— and, on the other hand, people such as the philosopher Wundt, who believed that the aforementioned researchers were not justified in drawing such far-reaching conclusions from the observed phenomena; he argued that the scholar was too credulous and too naive for observation and judgment, and that the conjurer, on the other hand, was the most suitable examiner. He points to the events at a gathering where a medium, whose eyes were carefully blindfolded, demonstrated excellent mind-reading abilities, and where the information to be conveyed was written down on slips of paper for the impresario. The impresario then apparently thought the written words forcefully to the medium and asked what was on the slip of paper. The medium stated this with great certainty. Prearranged signals were ruled out by careful observation, and yet the medium reproduced the strangest and most intricate written messages. The explanation for this phenomenon came from a conjurer who recognized the impresario as a ventriloquist, whose medium, when conveying the messages, moved only her lips without speaking herself. Professor Weber, who, as already indicated, took a keen interest in the study of occult phenomena and the supernatural world, had convinced himself of their reality through his own experiments; [he] once saw a conjurer in Leipzig perform a trick with a banknote, which he made grow to enormous size before the eyes of his audience, not by means of four-dimensional forces, but solely through the use of his conjuring skills. Weber was deeply astonished when he witnessed this. Skepticism may therefore well arise when scholars examine such cases.

[ 32 ] In the first experiment mentioned—the cross-correspondence experiment—there is no need to even raise the objection that someone in India might have once read a lady’s address in London without remembering it and could unconsciously recall this fact; one could, after all, repeat the entire experiment from start to finish to eliminate such doubts. But setting that aside, if one seeks to prove something through experiments with such writings—particularly that a deceased person still lives as an individual in a spiritual world—one is easily tempted to to prove too much, since one must admit the possibility that the influence—even of a deceased person—on those still living can take the form of a spiritual movement that continues to resonate after their death, and thus the premature proof of identity has been called into question. Just as wireless telegraphy can transmit electrical waves across the entire Earth, it is equally conceivable that a person’s activities and thoughts could continue to exert an influence for years after their death without any mechanical aids, without it being necessary to assume the continued existence of a human individuality after death.

[ 33 ] As we have already heard in the short time of this lecture, there are objections upon objections, and these are not even presented as minor points of contention, so that one would have to take the position that theosophy cannot be reconciled with current science. In the next lecture, an attempt will be made to show whether this test cannot, after all, be conducted in a different way.

[ 34 ] To illustrate this in advance, let us recall how, in 1867, when Hartmann’s *Philosophy of the Unconscious* was published—a work that, among other things, demonstrated the inadequacy of a purely materialistic view, such as that of Darwin—a storm of indignation arose among natural scientists, who dismissed the arguments in Hartmann’s work as dilettantism. Many counter-writings appeared, including one titled: “The Unconscious from the standpoint of Descent ….” It compiled everything that could possibly be said against the “Philosophy of the Unconscious.” This treatise was regarded as the best response to Hartmann’s pretensions, and Ernst Haeckel said that he himself could not have written anything better than the anonymous author of this excellent refutation. – Eduard von Hartmann then revealed himself as the author; the storm of approval ceased immediately, and people no longer wished to recognize him as a proponent of materialist thought after he had demonstrated that he could himself articulate everything that the opposing side might raise if he were to adopt their standpoint.

[ 35 ] But is it the case that such objections can be upheld, or not? Or, in the former case, is there a way for theosophy to justify its position and refute the objections? We must therefore attempt to establish a standpoint within spiritual science from which theosophy can be justified. If this is possible, it will become clear whether the arguments thus presented will be acknowledged by the opponents of theosophy, whether it is indeed capable of refuting the objections of these fair-minded opponents, and of demonstrating what it still has to say in its own right.