The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. Justification of Transcendental Knowledge through Natural Science

[ 1 ] Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, as I would like to outline it in these lectures, is for the most part not judged by our contemporaries on the basis of what emerges from a closer examination, but—one might say—from the outside, based on a superficial understanding that forms a judgment according to various catchphrases.

[ 2 ] It is particularly from such backgrounds that two prejudices—or, one might say, misunderstandings—arise against the humanities-based worldview referred to here. The first is that this spiritual science violates the serious, conscientious method and approach to research characteristic of the natural-scientific worldview—a worldview that must thoroughly dominate the modern era and the modern human attitude toward knowledge, a worldview that has raced from triumph to triumph in modern times and which, precisely for that reason, must not be violated.

[ 3 ] Certainly, if the humanities—as understood here—were unable to justify themselves in the face of a scientific worldview, they would have to be condemned. That is why this will be one of the questions that must be addressed here today: How can a spiritual-scientific worldview, as represented here, be justified in the face of contemporary natural science—in the face of real, true natural science?

[ 4 ] Another prejudice of a similar nature—one that is, in fact, closely linked to the one just described—is the notion that this spiritual science leads into the darkness and murkiness of a mystical state of mind and worldview. It should become clear from today’s reflections that the first prejudice is just as unfounded as the second, for this is the premise from which we wish to proceed.

[ 5 ] The entire path that research leading to the spiritual science under consideration here must take must, above all—I would say—pass through two gates of knowledge. And one cannot truly enter into what is meant here unless one has passed through these two gates. One gate can be characterized in this way: the spiritual researcher must truly have been immersed in the entire mindset, the entire way of thinking and researching that, in the current sense, leads to knowledge of nature; yet he must not only have been immersed in this way of research, but must also have had an important, significant experience through this research. For most people who engage with the natural sciences, natural science actually remains just that—science, something one possesses as knowledge, with which one believes one can penetrate this or that realm of existence.

[ 6 ] For the researcher of the spirit, knowledge of nature must not remain merely this. For him, the issue is that he has—I would say—internally, in his soul, tested: To what extent are scientific concepts a suitable or unsuitable instrument when it comes to penetrating the depths of existence? He must, so to speak—if I may put it simply—have learned to handle scientific thinking and, using this scientific thinking in a variety of directions in a conscientious manner, well, I would simply say, have tested it: How suitable—or unsuitable—is it for penetrating into what external nature itself is?

[ 7 ] Now, one might say that even within the field of natural science itself, there have emerged figures who, more or less consciously, have sought to answer the question: To what extent does scientific research lead humanity in relation to the great mysteries of knowledge? — And time and again we must recall the speech delivered in the 1870s by a great natural scientist and physiologist, Du Bois-Reymond—the famous speech on the limits of scientific knowledge—in which he sought to demonstrate that scientific knowledge must indeed reach a certain limit, one that is, in fact, very close to the limits of human endeavor. Du Bois-Reymond argued at the time that, although natural science is capable of organizing the interrelationships of natural phenomena into certain laws and of discovering connections in the atomic world behind these laws, even if one were to believe that the ideal of this understanding of nature had been fulfilled, it would still be unable to answer even these two fundamental questions: What is matter, what is substance? — and the other: What is even the simplest sensation, the simplest mental experience?

[ 8 ] Du Bois-Reymond argued at the time that scientific inquiry must stop short of these two questions. And since he held the view that scientific inquiry was the only truly scientific approach, he believed that human beings could never arrive at any understanding whatsoever regarding the two questions mentioned—including an understanding of the human psyche and of what actually lies beyond nature—and that there were limits not only to our understanding of nature but to human understanding in general.

[ 9 ] What has taken shape as a judgment in the work of Du Bois-Reymond and many others—I cite him merely as an example—as a result of a certain kind of logical speculation must be brought to life by the researcher of the spirit. The spiritual researcher must, so to speak—if I may use that expression—have experienced all the hopes and all the disappointments associated with the study of nature. He must have allowed the study of nature to affect him in such a way that he sought, through it, to overcome the obstacles to human spiritual striving. He must have gone through the bitter experience that, no matter how rigorous and conscientious this research may be, one nevertheless reaches certain points beyond which this understanding of nature cannot go—certain limits it cannot transcend. What emerges in the soul of the spiritual researcher must, in a sense, be an experience. He must have learned to grapple with scientific concepts at certain cornerstones that present themselves in the natural world.

[ 10 ] Now, I could cite many such cornerstones; the same could be said about all of them as can be said about the simplest of things—the concepts of force and matter, for example. With the concepts that the study of nature provides us, we can penetrate nature to a certain degree. But what is represented by terms such as force and matter—and many others—always remains beyond our grasp in the picture of nature that we can form through these concepts. I will not go into the other point. It is clear that using the same methods, the same way of thinking, with which one successfully penetrates the essence of what is chemically present in nature—that with these concepts, with these ideas, one cannot penetrate that which extends as matter, that which, as force, determines the phenomena of nature and its processes. One comes up against force and matter, so to speak. Ultimately, one must admit: the more suitable scientific concepts are in the accessible fields, the more and more unsuitable they become for these cornerstones.

[ 11 ] And I would like to say that once one has gained sufficient experience through this process of exploration, one arrives at a specific question. Then one asks oneself: Well, what is actually the reason why, in the process of understanding nature, one encounters such cornerstones? — And it then becomes clear to the inquiring soul that the fundamental condition for encountering such cornerstones lies within the human organization, within the human being itself. One ultimately realizes: Nature does not provide certain solutions to these mysteries because one would have to be different oneself if such solutions were to come to one.

[ 12 ] The line of thought I am developing here before you differs quite significantly from Kant’s. However, regarding this difference, I can only refer you to my Philosophy of Freedom, which has just been published in a new edition. It would take us too far afield if I were to discuss this distinction in detail.

[ 13 ] For the spiritual researcher, the task is to realize—through genuine self-observation—that something within the human constitution prevents us from penetrating the cornerstones described here. It becomes apparent, first of all, that the very same force that prevents human beings from moving beyond these cornerstones is the force that enables us, in ordinary life—indeed, in our entire existence—to love. And that is the significant discovery one makes by following the paths I described yesterday. As a spiritual researcher, one must, so to speak, pose the hypothetical question: What would a being—which would then not be human—have to be like if it were to develop such scientific views that, in the same way as what is accessible in nature, these cornerstones, too, would reveal themselves as transparent, conceptually transparent?

[ 14 ] Such a person would have to possess a mental constitution that is not imbued with the power of love. For if one examines, through genuine self-observation, what comes to light in that expression of life we call love in the broadest sense—not merely love for any human being, but love for anything lovable—if one examines this peculiar spiritual power, its very nature is such that, in this act of loving, that imaginative, active engagement—which must arise when observing a natural phenomenon or when designing and conducting an experiment—is suppressed, initially instinctively suppressed within human nature.

[ 15 ] Love and scientific research must be two opposing activities of the human soul. But the capacity for love must be inherent in human nature. A person cannot, so to speak, set aside this capacity for love or eliminate it for the time being while engaged in scientific work. On the one hand, he can express himself in terms of scientific concepts. But that which enables him to love is also within him. And that is what, so to speak, dulls and numbs conceptual activity at those boundary markers I have described.

[ 16 ] This is a first significant experience, an inner observation that the spiritual researcher must have made on his path. Certainly, one might say: Prove that logically. — This question comes to mind. Less obvious, however, is the question of in which cases one can actually ask such a question. After all, one cannot ask: Why, for logical reasons, does a bull have horns or a fish have fins? These things are, for the time being, still results of observation. And the spiritual researcher can only point to the observation that arises, along the path indicated, from the very experiences of scientific research.

[ 17 ] One might say: I do not want to manage my state of mind in such a way that it leads to such experiences. — Well, of course, one can choose not to do that. But then one cannot claim to have any say in matters of truth. For only those who have actually encountered such pitfalls as those described—and, I would say, have then navigated around them—can truly penetrate to the heart of truth.

[ 18 ] The second experience, which leads to the second inner discovery in spiritual science, is the one one has when, for example, one has arrived at the conclusion I have just explained. Expressed and illustrated in the way that modern spiritual science must do, what I have just outlined is indeed unlikely to be encountered in any other field. But instinctively—more or less consciously or unconsciously—people have come to realize how, in a sense, the view of nature is a useless instrument for penetrating the mysteries of existence. They then turned away from this view of nature and sought to explore these mysteries by other means—namely, through mystical paths, through inner self-observation and inner self-experience. Just as the spiritual researcher must be well acquainted with what can be experienced through the scientific observation of nature, so too must he be well acquainted with what arises through inner, mystical contemplation. In a sense, he must also have tested this: Is it possible, by descending into one’s own soul life—a path often referred to as the mystical one—to reach the sources of existence? Those sources to which a human being must surely be connected in some way, if they concern him at all? The spiritual researcher will, along this path, likewise experience hopes and disappointments and finally arrive at the important conclusion that one can no more reach the mysteries of existence through this path of dark, mystical immersion into one’s own inner self than through the path of mere external observation of nature. Here, too, a wall appears before him—I might say—a wall against which he strikes, though this wall lies within his own inner self, in the realm of the soul. And once again, he faces the task of investigating why it is that even through the path of mystical contemplation, as it is often called, one cannot reach the sources of existence.

[ 19 ] In order to achieve clarity in this area, it is actually necessary to apply, unreservedly, truly unreservedly apply a scientific mindset—not proceeding with those delusional ideas, those vague notions of delving into the inner self, with which mysticism often proceeds, but rather studying this inner self with all—though it need not always be sober—but with all clear investigation. To explore this inner world of the human being is, in fact, not all that easy, especially for those who strive for clarity. For this inner world of the human being often appears quite, quite complicated to one’s own eyes. I would like to cite an example from the literature—specifically, scientific literature—that is well-suited to illustrating this point. It could be multiplied a hundredfold, but so that readers can look it up, I would like to quote from a treatise on the subconscious self published by Bergmann Verlag: The Subconscious Self: Its Relationship to Health and Education by Louis Waldstein. As I said, there are countless other examples; I would like to cite just one that shows how careful one must be when exploring one’s own inner life, and how easily one can be misled, particularly in this field of research.

[ 20 ] For example, the person who set out to achieve such self-knowledge with a scientific mindset recounts the following about himself: One day he was standing on the street in front of a bookstore. His eyes fell on a book about mollusks. And as he, a naturalist, reads this book title about mollusks, he can’t help but smile and laugh. At first, he has no idea why this book title about mollusks makes him smile and laugh. And it must be said, it is indeed something most peculiar: A serious naturalist sees a serious scientific book in a bookstore—and has to laugh. And lo and behold, it occurs to him: Maybe I’ll figure out why I start laughing when I close my eyes. — He closes his eyes and listens. From far away, the barely audible notes of a melody emerge—one he heard decades ago and to which he learned to dance. It comes from a barrel organ. He can vaguely recall that he hasn’t heard these notes in decades. Now, he hadn’t consciously taken them in while looking at the book’s title; but they flitted past his soul, as it were, and made him smile; in a completely subconscious way, his soul was prompted to turn toward the impressions he’d had decades ago, which were quite vague. For he must admit to himself: Back then, he was more concerned with keeping his steps in time while learning to dance than with focusing his thoughts on the melody itself. His thoughts were also directed toward something else of little importance, for he had a dance partner, didn’t he? But all of this continued to have an effect on his subconscious, and he couldn’t help but smile.

[ 21 ] Well, let’s take this example—which, as I said, could be multiplied a hundredfold—and take it seriously. It is decisive for countless experiences that surge through our existence and show us how little the human being is actually connected, in his consciousness, to what is taking place down below in the life of the soul—how things long forgotten, and indeed not only long forgotten—resound upward from that life of the soul; I have elaborated on this in greater detail in my book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?—but not only things long forgotten and things that were once clear resound upward in the soul life; things that were not consciously perceived also resound upward. We need not even have looked or listened fully to what was there, and yet it has made a certain impression and comes to the surface at the right moment!

[ 22 ] The conscientious researcher of the spiritual realm charts the path that is hinted at here with a first step. He examines everything that exists in the depths of the soul’s life, and then he realizes how credulous, naive mystics often fall prey to such things. These trusting, naive mystics immerse themselves in their inner world, drawing all manner of things from within—including what they then call a feeling of oneness with the primordial source of existence—but perhaps these are nothing more than the transformed sounds of a barrel organ! Perhaps it comes about in the very same way as what I have told you about. For what is peculiar about the life of the soul is that such reminiscences—such things that once made an impression and continue to have an effect—do not simply surface, but are transformed, purely within our own constitution, not merely as they originally were, but as something entirely different. Nevertheless, they are nothing other than a visual manifestation of what we have experienced. Many believe they can convey profound mysticism through self-observation, yet what they are actually dealing with are merely transformed impressions from their youth or the like.

[ 23 ] It is precisely in this way that the spiritual sciences must proceed with the utmost care, for they are meant to be the clearest—not the most confusing. I have noted this repeatedly.

[ 24 ] And so the spiritual researcher comes to study precisely that aspect of the human soul through which what we experience in our ordinary, fully conscious life of memory is connected with all manner of subconscious life reminiscences, transformed memories, and so on. And as the spiritual researcher pursues this path—proceeding along it with a truly scientific mindset—he arrives at an answer to the second question: What is the experience of mysticism like? Why does the path of ordinary mysticism ultimately lead only to something unsatisfying when one truly senses the right powers of insight within oneself?

[ 25 ] This shows, then, that there must be something within human beings: just as the power of love must exist—which sets the limit for the natural sciences—so there must be something within human beings that prevents them from truly delving into the depths of their own being, as the mystic would have it, within ordinary consciousness. For if human beings—and one can again pose this counterquestion hypothetically—had the ability to descend completely, to pursue everything encountered along the way that I have spoken of, and which the mystic believes he can find within the human interior, then human beings would lack the other ability necessary for life: namely, the power of memory, the power of recollection itself. In a sense, the impressions of life, the images of life, must accumulate. They must not penetrate into our innermost being. We must have a veil over our innermost being, which acts like a mirror, from which our experiences radiate back to us as memories. And just as we do not see what lies behind a mirror when we stand before it, so too do we not see the human inner being that lies behind that mirror, which is actually what brings our memories into being.

[ 26 ] And so, ultimately, the person who has this second experience truly comes to realize that, fundamentally, everything that can be attained through the path of ordinary mysticism is of no use to the spiritual researcher, because—if it is processed solely within ordinary consciousness—it ultimately reveals itself, in one way or another, to be a reminiscence of life, transformed memories, or the like.

[ 27 ] Thus, there are two starting points, two experiences that must be undergone if one wishes to be a researcher of the spirit: the experience of the perception of nature and the experience of reminiscences—of transformed memories. And from these experiences one gains, I would say, a certain way of knowing. And if these experiences are truly taken seriously—if they are not merely, I would say, passed down theoretically, but are learned through one’s own soul, along with all the disappointments associated with them—then such an experience simultaneously gives rise to an inner strength. And this strength leads one to pursue the path of knowledge in a different way than it is pursued with ordinary consciousness.

[ 28 ] Precisely what I have just explained serves as the foundation upon which the spiritual researcher builds his further work—a work aimed not at penetrating the supersensible world with ordinary consciousness (which, after all, must be capable of love and memory for ordinary life), nor with ordinary consciousness, into the supersensible world—so that the mysteries we seek may reveal themselves—but rather to first cultivate a different consciousness, to develop a different consciousness, in order to penetrate the supersensible world with the help of this different consciousness.

[ 29 ] It has just been suggested here that, in order to arrive at the truth to which human beings can aspire, it is necessary to transcend the ordinary state of consciousness—which is appropriate for everyday life and also for conventional science—and reach a different state of consciousness. But most of our contemporaries still shy away from this demand. They prefer to dismiss it as something fanciful or fanciful, and thereby fall into one of two extremes: either rejecting the possibility of knowing higher truths or attempting to approach them with ordinary consciousness. It goes without saying from what has been said that neither of these paths can lead to any goal.

[ 30 ] Now, in a certain sense, it is precisely from these experiences that the nature and essence of the path one must take will emerge. What, then, according to what has been said, is it that prevents one from descending into one’s own inner being while in ordinary consciousness? It is memory; it is the power of recollection. If one investigates everything that underlies the human ability to remember something, one finds that the power of memory is bound to the human physical organism.

[ 31 ] It is a colossal error on Bergson’s part to believe that memory—or at least part of it—is not bound to the human organism. The humanities show precisely that the process of sensory perception, which we penetrate through thought, is integrated into the physiological in such a way that it drives us toward memory. The fact that we are able to remember is already inherent in the process of sensory perception itself, which is penetrated by thought.

[ 32 ] Now, however, anything that leads to memory—that is, anything that points toward a view of nature—cannot, as has been shown, lead down into the human inner being. The question therefore arises: Is there a way to develop a form of inner mental activity—one that has nothing to do with memory, that is, in a sense, removed from everyday life and other scientific pursuits, which, if they are to be sound, must always appeal to memories?

[ 33 ] Perhaps because the personal and subjective could have objective value here, I would like to share how I myself was led down this path many decades ago—guided through the very first, most basic steps that then led me to further spiritual research regarding the nature of the faculty of memory.

[ 34 ] It is an experience from my childhood that may seem very insignificant to you. But time and time again during my school years, I had to realize that, even though I actually made the very best progress in all subjects related to mathematics or geometry, I had absolutely no talent for memorizing mathematical formulas—you may know what I mean by that. I could also say that it wasn’t even that I couldn’t have memorized them—I simply had no inclination to learn them. So whenever there was a test or an assignment in these subjects, the other students would work out their calculations algebraically using the mathematical formulas they had memorized. I, on the other hand, always had to derive these mathematical formulas on the spot from the basic principles—that is, to work out the entire derivation—and only then would I use the formula to calculate. Because I didn’t understand how to retain them by rote, I always had to try to keep the conceptual reasoning leading to the formula in mind—that is, to develop something in my mind that, so to speak, does not rely on memory.

[ 35 ] For me personally, this was the starting point on the path that must lead every spiritual researcher to cultivate the kind of inner soul work that truly leads to an altered state of consciousness—one that could be called contemplative meditation, or dwelling in the inner, imaginative life of the soul. But this imaginative work must be structured in such a way that, when it is to occur again, it arises, as it were, from the same impulse, rather than being a repeated, memory-based exercise in imagination.

[ 36 ] If I may speak about today, I must say once again—you see, I sometimes give ten, twenty, or thirty lectures on the same “topics” in different places—: I would never be able to give a lecture on the same topic in exactly the same way twice. Each one is different, because I don’t actually want to go through the process of memorizing anything; rather, I want things to truly come into being in the moment I speak them. So there is no reflection on what might remain in memory either.

[ 37 ] Do not misunderstand me; it would never occur to me to claim that spiritual research consists in eliminating memory. Of course, one would render a person useless for life if one were to take away their memory. Nor is it taken away when a person develops their thinking in such a way that they introduce into their ordinary soul life a form of soul activity that must be continually and anew regenerated, and that does not rely on the power of memory. This is essentially what I have described in great detail in my book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?, in my Occult Science, and in other books; this is what can be strived for in one way or another through this or that spiritual aid, but which always boils down to the following: To that kind of thinking—which, as I said yesterday, must actually only accompany external observation and then lead to memory if ordinary life is to be healthy—there is added another kind of thinking that does not aim to produce what is based on memory, but rather that which lives in the soul in ever new and new ways and must be generated anew again and again.

[ 38 ] In this way, a person connects spiritually with an element that is entirely different from what they experience when they merely absorb memories. Through this, a person gradually develops imaginations—an imaginative activity—that is truly not merely that pale imaginative activity known as a byproduct of ordinary life or ordinary science; rather, through the practice of such imaginations that do not appeal to memory, a liveliness gradually emerges, a vitalization of imagination that—even without sensory perceptions, such as visual or auditory ones, being present in the act of imagining—is nonetheless as vivid as our inner life is otherwise only when we have sensory perceptions. One arrives at a form of imagination—a mere act of imagination—that is as powerful, as rich, and as vivid as the life of the soul is otherwise only when it faces the entire, vibrant external sensory world: a thinking that is like beholding, and a beholding—but an inwardly generated beholding—that is like thinking.

[ 39 ] This is what can truly teach us about the nature of human life itself. For it is only now—once we have internalized the capacity for such vivid imagination—that we can compare this imagination with the ordinary imagination of everyday life and conventional science. And only then does one come to realize what the latter itself is in essence. Only then does one come to say to oneself: Yes, the natural sciences use only those concepts that are, by their very nature, organized in accordance with memory; they never use those concepts that are cultivated within human nature in the way I have described.

[ 40 ] But then, when one develops this kind of thinking—this kind of vivid thinking—one also arrives at that experience which, in a sense, pierces through the mirror I spoke of earlier in a metaphorical sense, which truly penetrates beyond memory and can penetrate into the innermost being of the human being.

[ 41 ] However, it becomes clear that when one enters the region that is otherwise obscured by the mirror of memory, one encounters something that, at first, touches the unprepared consciousness in a peculiar way. One undergoes an experience that can only be compared to the personal experience—I would say—of oversaturation, and one comes to realize that there is something alive within a person that can only be found in the manner I have hinted at—something that instills in a person an unconscious antipathy toward themselves, their own inner self, which constantly repels them. There must be a repulsive force at work here, just as light is repelled by the mirror coating. The mirror coating can, in a sense, be compared to what manifests itself as a subconscious feeling of antipathy or oversaturation. One does not notice this in ordinary consciousness, precisely because it is a mirror coating; because what is reflected back is experienced in memory.

[ 42 ] But now, with this newly developed imaginative life, one delves deeper, and one must overcome that antipathy described as lying behind the mirror of memory. One overcomes it only by adding other experiences to those described, not merely by trying to develop within oneself a form of imagination that makes no claim on memory, but by attempting to cultivate within oneself that power which is present in very ordinary, or rather, nightly human activity—but one that exists in a very weak, useless form. I mean that activity of the human soul that lives out its life in dreams.

[ 43 ] Dreaming—the process of dreaming—is something that the researcher of the spiritual realm must certainly study, for the soul, of course, also lives in dreams. As everyone knows, it lives, in a certain sense, in an unreality when it is dreaming. Dreams have, after all, always led people to pose certain enigmatic questions about life.

[ 44 ] The spiritual researcher will neither be able to study dreams in the way that was once done, following the model of dream books, nor will he have to study them as modern psychoanalysis does, for neither approach leads to an understanding of the force that actually lies behind dreaming. If one observes dreaming, it always becomes apparent that the inner workings of the human body are involved in every dream. In one way or another, it is always bodily processes that are connected with dreaming—but bodily processes that manifest themselves in such a way that they, in a certain sense, transcend the tranquil state of sleep, intrude into the life of the soul, and find expression in some form of figurative ambiguity.

[ 45 ] To want to take dreams as they present themselves in their images—that would never occur to a researcher of the human spirit. Once, following a lecture, a psychoanalyst asked me: “Yes, what you call anthroposophy takes dreams in terms of their immediate content.” But we, as psychoanalysts, approach dreams by seeking to uncover, through their images, what is stirring in the subconscious.” — Well, I don’t want to elaborate further on this, but the reply to that is: Just as the psychoanalyst—albeit with inadequate means—does not take dreams directly in their pictorial nature but seeks to explore what lies behind them, so does the spiritual researcher do the same, but not with inadequate means. It is clear to him—precisely from an investigation of the human psychological life driven by a truly scientific mindset—that the very same processes occurring within the psyche can take on entirely different images when one is dreaming. Let me put it this way: In a dream, one climbs a mountain and falls down the other side—the same thing could happen if one dreams of having a piece of paper in front of them that one pierces, making a hole in it. The images that appear in a dream are merely a veneer, merely an outer covering. And anyone who searches for the content of the dream—for the imagery within the dream—will never get to the bottom of the mystery of that power within the human soul that lies in dreaming. Only the person who can follow the dream—I would say, in its dramatic sequence—regardless of how it expresses itself visually, and who can trace how tensions and resolutions, or lingering tensions, arise in the life of the soul, can penetrate the power that lies in dreaming. These can then take on the most diverse forms. Only a way of thinking such as I have described—only such a way of thinking—can penetrate those regions of the soul from which the confused dreams of ordinary consciousness arise. For dreaming belongs to that region of the human organism which lies behind the mirror.

[ 46 ] One delves into the realm that lies beyond the mirror when, with a developed imagination that does not draw on memories, one now delves into the human inner world. For there one encounters the force that otherwise manifests itself, I might say, only in an embryonic or imperfect form in dreams; there one encounters this force of the human inner self in its true form. Otherwise, what lies down there as the subconscious nature of the human being is something that surges up into consciousness, into the life of the soul, out of subconscious antipathy, and thereby brings about the reflection of memory. Now one dives beneath the surface. And only what has been described here—not the images derived from memory—can dive so deeply that the antipathy is overcome. It is this antipathy that dulls our consciousness toward our own inner self, that prevents us from descending to shatter the mirror, to penetrate beneath the mirror’s surface, into a region that otherwise manifests as antipathy—unconscious antipathy—toward the human soul.

[ 47 ] In this way, we develop a power that is also present elsewhere in life. I have already mentioned it today in terms of its significance for everyday life: that power which is the human capacity for love. We usually come to recognize this capacity for love—I would say, in its early stages—as it manifests itself in everyday life. But when we delve into our own inner being along the path I have indicated—when we enter this realm through imagination that is not based on memory—then the power of the capacity for love is heightened. And this is the second aspect of the life of the soul that the researcher of the spirit must cultivate.

[ 48 ] The first force lies in the fact that he develops a life of imagination that is not based on memory. The other is that he develops such an inner life—and this soon reveals itself as a life of the will, for everything that is experienced there finds its expression in impulses of the will—such a life, which essentially increases the capacity for love. Thus, while memory must be virtually excluded in the realm where one seeks to explore the spirit, the capacity for love must be heightened to a degree of which ordinary consciousness has no inkling, because this ordinary consciousness generally develops love only in relation to external beings and external things, but not in relation to the spiritual; and the spiritual is encountered on the path I have just described, which enters the human inner being through the shattering of human memory.

[ 49 ] Thus, the fact—which may sound paradoxical—emerges that what is necessary for the ordinary natural scientist and for ordinary life—the capacity for memory and the capacity for love—develops, along the path that spiritual research must follow, in such a way that the life of the imagination, on the one hand, must enter a realm where no claim can be made to memory, while the life of the will must enter a realm where the capacity for love is substantially heightened.

[ 50 ] In this way, human beings venture into realms that would otherwise lie beyond the boundaries of the natural sciences. If they develop what I have spoken of in accordance with these two aspects of human nature, then they will surmount the cliffs that stand as cornerstones.

[ 51 ] That which otherwise presents itself merely as a natural context is, in a sense, seen through. One does not, however, arrive at atoms, nor at the hypothetical substance—matter—of which one usually speaks; rather, by seeing through and exploring nature, one arrives at the supersensible, at the spirit. In this way, one arrives at the Spirit that lives behind nature and within nature—one awakens, so to speak. For what I have just described is an awakening in relation to ordinary consciousness. Just as a person—to use a comparison—can live in a dull state of sleep or dreaming and then awaken into ordinary waking consciousness, so what I have described is a higher awakening—an awakening such that, compared to the experience one undergoes through imagination and volition as I have described, ordinary waking life is to this experience what dream life otherwise is to waking life.

[ 52 ] I would like to elaborate further on this comparison, particularly with regard to one aspect. Every healthy consciousness regards the dream as a sum of images, and it knows that as it steps out of the dream and enters ordinary reality, it is stepping out of the world of images and into the sphere of being. In the dream, the ordinary world of being becomes a world of images. Thus, the one who has become a researcher of the spirit begins to confront the world that he now experiences in supersensible consciousness—in awakened supersensible consciousness. He knows: this ordinary world, which we see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and perceive with our other senses, becomes for him a world of images for what is experienced supersensually. The whole of nature becomes a world of images for what is experienced supersensually, just as the dream world is otherwise a world of images for ordinary, external sensory life and being. It turns out that the course of modern natural science, with all its magnificent, tremendous achievements—for the spiritual researcher takes an affirmative, not a negative, stance toward natural science—that this entire modern natural science has actually only become great by limiting itself to presenting nature in images, without seeking to penetrate, by the means at its disposal, into that which lies as a mystery behind the images.

[ 53 ] I would like to use another parable to illustrate how one arrives at that kind of will—which I have described as an elevation of the capacity for love—through a comparison, a very simple, elementary comparison, which can then be developed further and further: People generally do not realize that what is called “handwriting”—when one observes different individuals—represents two entirely different activities. Very few people make these finer psychological observations regarding handwriting. When one person writes, this act of writing, in terms of its inner nature with regard to a certain aspect, need not be exactly the same as when another person writes. For there are—and this is the case with most people—those who write by forming the letters in such a way that the entire configuration of the letter, I might say, lies in the wrist. And of course, by this I mean more than just that; I mean everything connected with it. A person has his or her own handwriting, but it is rooted in his or her constitution; it is inseparable from it.

[ 54 ] I know other people who write differently; they write in such a way that their writing becomes more detached from their organization; they paint, so to speak, as they write. It is extraordinarily interesting when one realizes that there are people like this—who actually paint while they write, who always have a visual conception of the letter’s form, who are constantly shaping the letter, who draw it—and who thus live much more objectively within the letter itself. They do not have the forms of the script in their wrists; rather, they draw the script.

[ 55 ] Usually these are people who, in their youth, displayed a great capacity for love and who exhibited a peculiar trait: once they had seen someone they admired, they would write just like that person, imitating his or her handwriting. Whenever they began to take a liking to someone else, they would copy that person’s handwriting. And so this ability remained with them throughout their lives, such that their handwriting actually took on a drawing-like, painterly quality.

[ 56 ] Here one becomes aware that a completely different, elemental human activity can detach itself from the human being, can penetrate more deeply into the object, and that this penetration into the object is precisely connected with the human capacity for love. One will find that capacity for love—which I spoke of earlier as a development of the will—particularly well developed in the spirit of those people who do not actually have a script dictated by their physical constitution, who, in essence, can always write however they wish—to the left, to the right, standing, lying down, however they please—and who can form the letters in any way they choose. This is connected to the ability to immerse oneself—the loving ability to immerse oneself in the objective world.

[ 57 ] Now, what I have described here regarding the elementary activity of writing can become relevant; it can develop for a person in such a way that it also leads into higher activities. This is what lies along the path I had in mind when I showed that those impulses of the will—which, in a sense, grow together with external objectivity—must be added to the acts of imagination that do not appeal to memories.

[ 58 ] This, in turn, is precisely what must develop—I would say to a high degree—in the spiritual researcher. Then what otherwise appears coarse and rugged to ordinary consciousness becomes, for him, a reflection of the world as it reveals itself precisely in its truth, and he then truly penetrates to the supersensible.

[ 59 ] This leads to a situation that I would like to characterize as follows: There is a philosopher today whom I must greatly admire from a certain perspective, even though I cannot actually agree with anything he says. But he is a philosopher who has recently devoted himself to answering the question: What can a scientific mindset actually know about the world? — And he has answered this question from a wide variety of perspectives. It is the philosopher Richard Wahle. I would like to present this philosopher as a representative not only of the way many people think, but of the general direction in which contemporary thought is tending—just as yesterday I did not wish to present philosophers as teachers of humanity, but as those who bring certain symptoms of the times to light. This Richard Wahle attempted to question modern worldviews as he knows them—he is simply unfamiliar with spiritual science and has no desire to become acquainted with it—he attempted to ask modern worldviews: What can you learn about true reality? — And he came to say: Nowhere, when we view the world according to the model of the natural sciences, do we come to recognize the powerful force—that which brings about the events; rather, we learn only to recognize the sequence of events, the emergence of one event from another. But that which drives one event so that another can come into being—the forceful element, the “primordial factors,” as Wahle calls them—that is something we cannot come to know. And so, as he conscientiously attempts to answer the question: “What can be gained from the study of nature?”—this Richard Wahle, a contemporary university professor, comes to the view that this modern conception of nature does not actually provide a true picture, a realistic picture, of the external world, but rather presents something that is not actually part of the reality of nature—a spectral image of nature. And the more the ideal of natural science is fulfilled, the more phantom-like becomes what is now present in the image of nature. Richard Wahle, in his On the Mechanism of Spiritual Life, says that one cannot arrive at anything other than such a phantom-like view.

[ 60 ] Well, for him, I would say, this amounts to nothing less than a condemnation of all philosophical endeavor. He is a philosopher, and he has passed a peculiar judgment not only on contemporary philosophy but also on the philosophy of the past. It is, however, a curious fact that the official representative of philosophy at a university today arrives at the judgment I am about to cite regarding philosophy—that is, regarding his own craft, so to speak. It is extraordinarily characteristic of the present day, but it is true. And in a certain sense, it is also extraordinarily noteworthy precisely as a phenomenon, as a fact. This Richard Wahle looks at what philosophy—and what he himself has accomplished in the field of philosophy—has produced, and says something like this: In the past, philosophy resembled a restaurant where cooks and waiters served inedible food to the guests; and now philosophy is a restaurant where cooks and waiters stand around with absolutely nothing to do. — He thus refers to these waiters—that is, philosophers—in this strange restaurant of the present and begins with a question that is, in a certain sense, precise: What can the natural sciences do? — And he comes to visualize the limits of natural science by bringing its ghostly essence—which must cling only to the surface—before his soul. He arrives at the realization of the symbolic nature of all knowledge of nature. And this is, in general, a significant phenomenon in contemporary intellectual life.

[ 61 ] The natural sciences, precisely when they come to understand themselves well, tend to realize more and more that they actually provide only images, that what they call “nature” is merely an image of something.

[ 62 ] Anyone who is a conscientious scientific thinker today does not arrive at foolish monism, but rather comes to recognize the figurative nature of all scientific knowledge. Countless examples of this could already be cited today by considering those reflections that do not petty-mindedly devote themselves to the epistemological process of natural science, but rather conscientiously attempt to answer the question: To what extent is natural science a suitable instrument for the knowledge of truth and reality? — On the one hand, it is the case today that natural science is approaching its limits. And the more this natural science develops, the more its ideal is fulfilled, the more it will come to recognize its own figurative nature precisely through itself, through the conscientious pursuit of its own essence.

[ 63 ] And from another perspective, we have the path of spiritual research, which aims to develop within the human being a kind of recognition that goes beyond the image to reach reality. Natural science shows: What I can discover is an image. — Spiritual science shows: By cultivating a higher consciousness through methods applied with precision, you demonstrate that what exists in ordinary consciousness—for ordinary consciousness and for ordinary science—is of an image-like nature, and that you find the real only when you go beyond the image-like nature.

[ 64 ] How could the humanities be better justified in the eyes of the natural sciences than by the fact that the humanities, by their very nature, lead human development to recognize that which, as a result of its own development—when it understands itself—the natural sciences themselves must inevitably discover.

[ 64 ] How could the humanities be better justified in the eyes of the natural sciences than by the fact that the humanities, by their very nature, lead human development to recognize that which, as a result of its own development—when it understands itself—the natural sciences themselves must inevitably discover.

[ 66 ] That is precisely what I wanted to suggest today with a few remarks and reflections: What justifies the humanities in relation to the natural sciences is the natural sciences themselves, properly understood.

[ 67 ] I will continue to elaborate on the path of human spiritual culture, as conceived by spiritual science, in the two lectures next week: in one, by tracing human existence from birth to death and beyond birth and death into the eternal journey of the human soul; in the other, by showing how historical, social, and moral-religious life appear from the perspective of spiritual science. But there is something—I would say—that must run like a fundamental tone through the consciousness that the spiritual researcher wishes to convey to humanity; it must run through as a fundamental fact in contrast to natural science, which rightly positions itself in time as it does. This underlying tone can be expressed as follows: If natural science truly understands itself, it leads to a point where it must say: “Here I have reached my limits; here something else is required.”

[ 68 ] Very well, this other field will be the human sciences. And thus it will appear to be justified—not on its own, but by the natural sciences—even before the natural sciences themselves.