The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. Findings from the Humanities on Nature and Man as a Natural Being

[ 1 ] Among the relationships with other scientific currents that are most significant for the scholar of the humanities is the relationship to contemporary and modern scientific research in general. If anything can demonstrate from the outset the necessity of an anthroposophically oriented humanities discipline, it is, in particular, the relationship to the natural sciences that it must establish for itself.

[ 2 ] Among the attacks that this branch of the humanities—to which I am referring here—has faced, those directed against my own position on contemporary natural science are, at least for me personally, of some deeper interest. After all, it is entirely understandable that attacks and opposition should arise from within natural science itself against a school of thought that, while firmly grounded in natural science, must nevertheless go beyond natural science in almost every respect. But what is curious—and of some significance for the entire position of spiritual science—is that, especially in recent times, I have been repeatedly accused of not taking a negative stance toward contemporary scientific research, but rather, on the contrary, of standing firmly on that ground. This accusation is leveled at me by supposed adherents of a “spiritual scientific” school of thought. And it must be said: with the scientific approach that emerges in these lectures, one is, so to speak, caught between the opposition coming from the natural sciences and the opposition that asserts itself almost as strongly from various unclear, mystical, and spiritual quarters.

[ 3 ] Now I must say that the humanities, as I have to represent them here in these lectures, must not only acknowledge that they are compelled to build upon the natural sciences, but must also acknowledge that, just as they are necessary and must exist in the present, they owe the achievements of the natural sciences not only gratitude for inspiration, support in every respect—not merely owes this to the achievements of natural science, but must do so. For it is precisely the humanities that, if they do not wish to remain dilettantish, amateurish, or unclear, require an engagement with natural science in the most eminent sense, because—as we shall see today—they must, in a certain respect, build upon the latest findings of natural science.

[ 4 ] This may, however, seem paradoxical to those who are already familiar with various aspects of this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. Yet, in the course of today’s lecture, I will have much to say about various paradoxes from perhaps almost every angle. And from the outset, I would like—especially this evening—to offer my apologies, so to speak, for the fact that I will be compelled to present findings from spiritual research—findings which I intend to share solely to stimulate thought. To substantiate and prove every single point to be made today in detail would likely require a course lasting several weeks.

[ 5 ] One must grasp the essence of modern scientific development if one wishes to gain a proper understanding of it, particularly as a scholar of the humanities. This scientific movement actually owes its character not at all to what it itself attributes to its great merits, but to entirely different premises, entirely different facts. The distinctive character that the scientific mode of conception and way of thinking has assumed over the last four centuries—and particularly in the 19th century and up to the present day—is based on the fact that, in the course of humanity’s historical development, very specific inclinations toward knowledge and very specific intellectual gifts have emerged among human beings.

[ 6 ] This emergence of the scientific way of thinking is often portrayed as follows: Well, for millennia in the past, people had simply strayed from the right path precisely because of their reliance on natural science; and now—I don’t want to use the trite expression that is so often repeated: “And now we’ve come so wonderfully far!”—but I simply want to point out how good, honest, and sincere adherents of the scientific way of thinking nevertheless believe that it has simply turned out this way for humanity: that we have now arrived at the “truth” and “correct knowledge” in certain matters, whereas earlier times “wandered down the wrong path.”

[ 7 ] However, if one looks into the very nature of scientific development, one will see that the real miracle is not so much that humanity suddenly arrived at the sole valid truth starting in the 16th century, but rather that, beginning in the 16th century, very specific talents, very specific inclinations, and directions for the path of knowledge emerged, and that it is precisely these inclinations, these human needs, these—I would say—preferences that have led humanity, on the one hand, to direct its gaze and attention toward nature, and on the other hand, to give knowledge of nature the character that we, especially when standing on the ground of the spiritual sciences, cannot help but admire so greatly.

[ 8 ] One of the most striking talents that has emerged is this: the ability to observe precisely what is purely outwardly and sensually real. However, this preference and talent for observing what is sensually given—what is sensually real—has also been linked to another tendency: that of attributing a wholly exclusive value to the sensually given and believing that everything that goes beyond the sensually given must lead people into some impermissible realms of knowledge, into some vague, fantastical spheres—in short, into abysses of knowledge.

[ 9 ] This is particularly evident when one considers the endeavor to understand human beings through the natural sciences. This endeavor aimed to apply to human beings the very same forces and laws found in nature apart from human beings—to understand human beings, as it were, as mere natural beings, but as such natural beings as they have emerged before the scientific gaze of modern times. And this campaign of conquest by the natural sciences has extended not only to the outwardly natural aspects of the human being, but also to viewing the human soul in some way through the lens of the natural sciences—indeed, to bringing it as close as possible to pure natural law. And one can, I would say, even detect a sense of satisfaction and gratification in the modern researcher of the soul when he is able to apply something—which he believes has been proven to be an irrefutable law of nature—to the life of the human soul. When I present extreme cases along these lines, my intention is to characterize the matter as strikingly as possible.

[ 10 ] Anyone who still holds the view that the human soul is an entity in and of itself will naturally come to the conclusion that this self-contained human soul can express itself energetically through the organism by means of impulses of the will—we will discuss freedom or lack of freedom the day after tomorrow. The idea that the soul is, in a sense, the source of the organism’s movement and action even dominates the thinking of some people today.

[ 11 ] But those who believe they must think purely in terms of natural science tell themselves: In the 19th century, natural science established as one of its most significant laws the principle of constancy—the conservation of energy—and the transformation of forces in such a way that nothing new can arise within the system of forces, and that nothing can intervene in this system of forces that does not already exist within it. Now, they reason, if the soul were capable of setting the organism in motion on its own, it would have to generate a force. But this force would have to be added to the forces that the organism derives from food intake and its other interactions with the environment. The soul would, so to speak, have to be a source of force; in a sense, force would have to arise out of nothing, whereas the law of conservation of energy permits only that the forces the human organism receives through food and the like be converted into energy, so that any movement or heat generated by it can be nothing other than the transformation of the energy from food and other energy it absorbs from the outside. Thus, anyone who holds the view that the soul is a source of any kind of force comes into conflict with this law of conservation of energy, which played such a significant role in the development of the natural sciences in the 19th century.

[ 12 ] Therefore, people were truly very pleased to be able to experimentally disprove the existence of such a “reservoir of energy” in the soul that could intervene in the process of energy transformation. And the experiments conducted along these lines—first with animals by the eminent biologist Rubner, and subsequently with humans by Atwater—are also noted by psychologists today, I would say, with a certain sense of satisfaction. Rubner demonstrated in animals that the thermal and kinetic energy they generate is, when measured, nothing other than the transformation of the food energy they have ingested—that is, nothing originates from a psychological source; and Atwater extended these experiments to humans, selecting for this purpose very specific individuals whom one believed—naturally—to be even better suited for the task: academically educated people who were subjected to experiments under all manner of conditions, whether they were performing mental or physical work, at rest, or generating energy from within. He was able to demonstrate—up to a percentage that always plays a role in experiments but is quite negligible—that even in the human organism, what emerges from within does not come from a reservoir of energy in the soul, but rather consists of transformed energies that the human organism first had to absorb. Psychologists such as Ebbinghaus also note with a certain satisfaction that there is no question of any theory of the soul coming into conflict with the law of conservation of energy.

[ 13 ] Hundreds upon hundreds of such examples could be added from various perspectives; they would demonstrate just how significant and how characteristic the conquest of the scientific way of thinking is, even in the realm of spiritual life. Thus, it is understandable—since this scientific conquest, or, to a certain extent, we might well call it a triumphal march, is still relatively young—that it refuses to be hindered in its course by anything other than this spiritual science, and that it still encounters various inclinations along the way—what are commonly called “prejudices,” though one might also call them “preconceptions” — against it, which are extraordinarily difficult to combat. If natural science itself did not, out of its very nature—just as a child must necessarily become an adult—make it necessary for the humanities to develop from within natural science itself, it would probably take a very, very long time before the humanities could even begin to find a hearing in natural science, whenever they might appear here or there.

[ 14 ] Now, however, I must begin with a few critical remarks. Of course, in matters such as these, one must always highlight specific examples, for I do not wish to speak in terms of abstract principles. I do not wish to present general characterizations today at all, but rather to start with specific details and use them to substantiate what I wish to convey.

[ 15 ] If we take stock of what the natural sciences have adopted in recent times as their character, way of thinking, and mode of conception, then we must say: These natural sciences are, above all, under the impression that they must derive from nature certain experiences that seem to come from some realm beyond human reach. — I do not wish to delve into philosophical discussions; but a boundary question must nevertheless be addressed, not because I believe it is of particular importance for the contemporary natural scientist to deal with this boundary question, or because many natural scientists themselves happen to address this boundary issue, but rather because, in a sense, their quest for knowledge unconsciously moves toward this goal and can only be assessed if one considers it in the context of this movement toward this direction, toward this goal.

[ 16 ] I would like to take up an idea that certainly has philosophical origins but that haunts the minds of many people: the idea of the “thing-in-itself.” Certainly, the philosophical question—let me emphasize this once more—of the “thing-in-itself,” whether in the Kantian sense or in some other sense, is of very little interest to the natural scientist proper. But the entire direction, the entire endeavor of scientific thought, is aimed at approaching this “thing-in-itself”: Whether one stands more on the ground of the older atomic theory or on the ground of modern ion theory, electron theory, whether one takes this or that biological standpoint, one will, of course, admit from the outset one wishes only to understand the “laws of phenomena” and to leave the “thing-in-itself” to the philosophers—but how one approaches the laws of phenomena, how one examines the phenomena at all, rests on the premise that behind these phenomena there is some “thing-in-itself,” and that if one could delve even deeper into the realm revealed, for my part, by microscopy or other scientific methods, one would come closer and closer to such a “thing-in-itself.”

[ 17 ] This idea dominates, at least unconsciously, the direction of scientific thought; for whoever, for example, assumes the existence of an atomic world, or assumes that behind the tapestry of colors and shades of light spread out in our environment there are vibrations of the ether, imagines that these vibrations of the ether belong, as it were, to a sphere of the “thing-in-itself.” And Eduard von Hartmann, the philosopher of the unconscious, who sought to establish a philosophy of nature, went so far as to insist that what the natural scientist assumes to be the atomic world and the like, or the forces lying behind sensory perceptions, must be regarded as something equivalent to the “thing-in-itself.”

[ 18 ] For the anthroposophically oriented scholar of the humanities, this search for a “thing-in-itself” lying behind phenomena, —I am not speaking here of philosophical hypotheses, but of this scientific approach—comparable to the attempt, when one sees this or that image in a mirror, to investigate what lies behind the mirror: if, in order to see how these images emerge from the mirror, one were to go behind the mirror to see where the origin of the images lies. But the origin of the images is not behind the mirror at all! Rather, the origin of the images lies in front of the mirror: right where we are standing! We are already inside the realm from which the images come, and we would be succumbing to an incredible illusion if we believed we had to reach behind the mirror to find something there from which these images originate. As grotesque and paradoxical as it sounds: scientific concepts are based on the illusion that we must reach behind the mirror. For this illusion, the “thing-in-itself” lies behind the mirror. But in reality, it is not there.

[ 19 ] Where does this come from? It comes from the fact that, as human beings, we find ourselves not only in the midst of an external material world—behind which lies a “thing-in-itself”—but also in the midst of everything that underlies this world; it’s just that not all of it is the content of our consciousness. We are right in the midst of it! And by analyzing external natural phenomena, we cannot get to the origin, any more than one can, by analyzing the mere image of a person in a mirror, come to recognize the essence of the human being—that is, to recognize the physical personality behind that mirror image. One does not come to recognize the essence of these phenomena by analyzing them, but solely by—if I may put it this way—intensively raising one’s consciousness above what this consciousness brings about in everyday life. And this elevation takes place in the manner I characterized in my first lecture here.

[ 20 ] The consciousness we experience in everyday life as ordinary waking consciousness is only capable of forming, from within itself, the conceptual tools needed to organize phenomena into an orderly, systematic framework—what is called “regularity.” If consciousness is to penetrate further, it must transform itself; then it must develop from within itself powers that otherwise lie dormant within it; then what I have attempted to characterize as imaginative, inspired, intuitive knowledge—in short, as contemplative knowledge, as contemplative consciousness—must emerge from the depths of this consciousness—not in a nebulous sense, but in a strictly scientific sense.

[ 21 ] Just as one would never think to learn anything about the essence—the physical essence—of the human being from one’s reflection in a mirror if one were unconscious of oneself, without first gathering one’s strength and sensing oneself as a physical human being—one must sense oneself, one must know that one is standing there oneself—just as one cannot arrive at the essence of natural phenomena without strengthening one’s soul life—which is present within those phenomena—in such a way that it possesses a different nature of cognition than that of ordinary waking consciousness. With regard to what this intuitive consciousness is—that is, imaginative and other forms of knowledge—I would like to refer to my writings, in particular to my penultimate book, The Riddle of Man. I would simply like to say, as a matter of principle: It is not a matter of developing a physically new organ, but rather of developing, purely in the realm of the soul, a genuine capacity for vision—spiritual organs that add something as new to what the soul perceives in its environment during ordinary waking consciousness as the opened eye adds the world of colors to the world that the person born blind, after surgery, previously knew alone.

[ 22 ] The task, then, is not to arrive at a “thing-in-itself”—something lying “behind the phenomena”—through some hypothetical concepts or conclusions, but rather to strengthen the soul so that it can, as it were, see the essential in the mirror.

[ 23 ] It will, however, take a long time before such a contemplative consciousness is taken seriously in wider scientific circles, even though this contemplative consciousness is characterized neither by a miracle nor by anything inaccessible to any human being, but rather by something that every human being can discover within themselves—even if today’s habits of thought, habits of feeling and cognition, prove to be an obstacle to the awakening of such a contemplative consciousness.

[ 24 ] Now I would like to present some of the findings of this observant consciousness, specifically with regard to what one might call nature. In doing so, however, I will be compelled to discuss certain matters about which it is very difficult today to reach an understanding with those who are firmly entrenched in the natural sciences. Only on such an occasion, however, will it perhaps be permissible to make a personal remark: What I am presenting is by no means merely a whim or a collection of whims, nor is it something I have simply devised; rather, it has been gained through decades of research in full harmony with the development of modern natural science; and much of what I have to say today I would not have been able to formulate in this way even a short time ago.

[ 25 ] Above all, I would like to focus on concrete, specific examples. In recent times, what is known as the theory of evolution—the theory of descent—has exerted a major influence on scientific thought. And here one must say: unless one is an amateur in this field, one knows what benefits this theory of descent—setting aside all its downsides—has brought to modern thought and to the entire modern worldview. However, if one wishes to truly appreciate the essence of this theory of evolution, one must look beyond all the amateurish and lay attempts at forming a worldview, into which, unfortunately, scientific findings in this field have so frequently strayed in recent times. What is often presented as “monistic” or other worldview movements is based, first and foremost, on the fact that their proponents know little about the form that science itself has taken in recent times in the very field they are discussing. It is often grotesque how such attempts at world views lag behind scientific progress, which can no longer agree with such notions at all.

[ 26 ] But when one speaks of the theory of evolution, one is reminded of the early days of that theory, of all the great idealistic hopes that—I wish neither to underestimate nor overestimate him—Ernst Haeckel pinned on it in the 1860s and 1870s, hopes that he then inspired in his students. Today I do not wish to dwell on the radical conclusions Ernst Haeckel reached at the time, even though he made tremendous—and positive—scientific contributions. I do, however, wish to draw attention to the fact that even cautious researchers who have ventured into the field of evolutionary theory—names such as Nägeli and Gegenbaur need only be mentioned—have not only experienced the fruitfulness of evolutionary theory for themselves but have also demonstrated it through their contributions to the scientific development of recent times. A large number of names could be mentioned here. Yet something peculiar has emerged, especially when we consider the relatively brief historical development of this theory of development,

[ 27 ] With what great hopes—in the spirit of the pure application of Darwinian principles—Haeckel and his students once sailed through the scientific currents of modern times! What a role the buzzwords “theory of selection” and “survival of the fittest” played! What worldview-shaping hopes some people pinned on the fact that one could now say: Any wise forces supposed to intervene in the development of the world had been overcome. What one must recognize is this: that forces equivalent to forces of chance confront the stages of development of this or that organism—which likewise arise from purely natural necessity—in such a way that the fit remains alongside the unfit, and the suitable thereby appears, so to speak, ever more perfect in contrast to the imperfect, which has been eliminated, so that perfection can be conceived without any kind of teleological principle of purpose! And even today there are people who believe they are standing firmly on the ground of a modern worldview when they say: May everything that Darwin himself put forward for his theory of evolution be overcome; the achievements cannot be swept aside—namely, that we have come to dispense with purposeful forces, with, as Eduard von Hartmann says, “higher forces” that intervene in the purely inorganic laws of the natural world when organic life arises!

[ 28 ] From certain worldview perspectives, one sees a very special value in what thought has grasped—what has taken root in human beings in order to free them from certain prejudices to which they were previously bound. Yet we have experienced something remarkable: When Darwinism emerged with its rejection of all higher forces said to intervene in organic development—and I do not wish to defend Eduard von Hartmann, but what I am recounting is simply a fact—the “Philosophy of the Unconscious” appeared in the late 1860s, that is, during the heyday of nascent Darwinism. Eduard von Hartmann opposed the theory of mere chance. He asserted that something entirely different—directing forces, higher essential forces—must intervene in the lifeless, dead workings of purely inorganic natural laws if organic development is to come about. What natural selection brings about cannot create anything new; what arises anew must arise from inner driving forces; natural selection can only choose from what already exists; it can eliminate the unsuitable, but it cannot gradually conjure up something perfect from the imperfect. In his Philosophy of the Unconscious, Eduard von Hartmann put forward many insightful arguments against Darwinism—which was then rising so promisingly—and against the theory of evolution, which thinks in purely mechanistic terms. Because he was a philosopher and not a natural scientist, the “philosopher of the unconscious” was not taken seriously. People said: “Oh, what such a dilettante—who understands nothing of scientific principles—says can have no particular value for scientific development.” — With such and similar remarks, people dismissed what Eduard von Hartmann had to say.

[ 29 ] Counter-essays were published against this “amateurish, dilettantish philosopher.” One counter-essay appeared: “The Unconscious from the standpoint of physiology and the theory of descent” by an anonymous author—a man who did not reveal his name—who brilliantly refuted this Eduard von Hartmann from the standpoint of Darwinism as it was understood at the time. Oskar Schmidt, Darwin’s biographer, Haeckel himself, and others, reacted very favorably to this work by the anonymous author and said: It is good—this is roughly how one can summarize these judgments—that someone in whom one can see on every page how deeply he is immersed in the true scientific way of thinking should dismiss such a dilettante as this Eduard von Hartmann. “This anonymous author,” said one of the die-hard Darwinists, “just let him reveal his name to us, and we’ll consider him one of our own!” And another, who stood firmly on the ground of Darwinian-mechanistic “theory,” said: “Everything I myself could have said against Eduard von Hartmann’s dilettantism, he has said.” — In short, the Darwinists spread a great deal of propaganda for this pamphlet, and it soon sold out. A second edition was soon necessary. Then the author revealed his identity: it was Eduard von Hartmann! From that point on, a general silence fell among those who had previously praised the pamphlet; and the fact was scarcely mentioned.

[ 30 ] But as strange as this is, what follows seems to me to be far more remarkable: One of Ernst Haeckel’s most significant students—one of those who spent their student years entirely in the spirit of the burgeoning modern theories of evolution associated with the name Darwin—is Oscar Hertwig. And Oscar Hertwig—just consider how little time has actually passed since the heyday of Darwinian theory—Oscar Hertwig published a book last year, in 1916, a book that is truly exemplary in its scientific presentation: “The Origin of Organisms: A Refutation of Darwin’s Theory of Chance.” And among the people whom Oscar Hertwig mentions in this excellent book as those who should be heeded when forces other than those at work in the inorganic world are posited as governing the realm of organisms is Eduard von Hartmann!

[ 31 ] It is indeed a very curious phenomenon that, in such a relatively short time, from the very camp that produced the foremost proponents of the older theory of evolution of the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s, there has emerged someone who refutes one of the fundamental tenets of that very theory. This should give pause to those who, today, cobble together worldviews—so-called “monistic” ones—using a few half-baked, amateurish concepts.

[ 32 ] Now I must address some specific questions—not so much regarding the more recent theory of evolution, but rather the theory of evolution in general—in order to show how anthroposophically oriented spiritual science must position itself in relation to them. This theory of evolution is based on the conclusion drawn from the facts: that the perfect—or so-called perfect—as it stands before us today, or perhaps more accurately, the more differentiated and organized, has gradually evolved from the less perfect, less differentiated, and less organized. Not only geology and paleontology are invoked to support this view, but also embryology—the study of the development of the individual organism. And it is precisely through its exploration of the development of the individual organism—albeit in comparison with animal embryology—that Oscar Hertwig’s new book, The Development of Organisms, serves as a model. It beautifully summarizes what is being said in this field. And all theories of development must, after all, proceed from individual development; Haeckel, in fact, sought precisely to express through his so-called “biogenetic law” that the entire phylogenetic development is repeated in the development of the individual, so that the morphological forms and physiological functions of simpler, earlier animals can be found again at a certain stage in the embryonic development of higher animals.

[ 33 ] Strange as it may seem, however, the theory of individual development cannot avoid addressing a very trivial question if it is to apply its laws to the development of organisms as a whole. I even apologize for bringing up this trivial matter; it has been raised countless times, but, as we shall see shortly, it is nonetheless of fundamental importance. The question is simply this: Which comes first in evolution, the egg or the chicken? The chicken develops from the egg, but—the egg can only come from the chicken.

[ 34 ] Today, when the facts extend, so to speak, forward and backward into the indefinite, the question does not carry much significance once one examines the matter. But if one now wishes to form ideas about the relationship between individual development and the development of the world, then it does have significance. For then one is compelled to consider that circumstances must somehow have existed under which the germ—that is, what today serves as the foundation of individual development—could develop on its own, without descending from any beings that were already somewhat perfect. As I said, I can only hint at the matter; but anyone who examines the question more closely will find that the matter, trivial as it is, has great significance.

[ 35 ] Now, precisely when one conscientiously and honestly grapples with this question, one does not get to the heart of the matter if one approaches it solely with the embryological concepts that modern science can provide. One somehow arrives at what I referred to in the first of my lectures as “the frontiers of knowledge”; one arrives at one of those “places” where the higher powers of the contemplative consciousness must develop. One might even say: Such questions provide significant impetus for the development of soul powers that might otherwise have remained dormant in the soul for a long time. If one now approaches this matter not with the attitude of reaching behind the mirror, but rather by regarding what is in front of the mirror as the cause of what appears as a phenomenon—that is, what appears through the mirror—then, as one ascends to the contemplative consciousness, one finds that even today one can say this only if one succumbs to a grave error: The egg arises in the hen through the hen or through the mere fertilization by the hen. That is how the matter appears from the outside; that is, in a sense, what the reflection looks like. But if one is able, in the observing consciousness, to perceive what is really there, one arrives at something else; one comes to the realization that, in fact, the egg is by no means formed and matures in the hen’s body solely through the forces emanating from the pair of chickens.

[ 36 ] A scientific view that focuses solely on sensory reality cannot, of course, arrive at any conclusion other than that the egg is formed through the interaction between the rooster and the hen and through the processes taking place within the hen’s body. But if one then wishes to form views on such a matter, one must inevitably arrive at what are rightly called mystical concepts—concepts that are mystical in the pejorative sense, concepts with which very many people operate, including Hertwig himself—for example, the concept of “predisposition.”

[ 37 ] When one speaks of a “disposition”—toward something that develops—then one can find an explanation for everything that arises in the world by saying: Well, now it’s there; it wasn’t there before; the first thing that was there was precisely its “disposition”! — That’s about as sensible as speaking of a “disposition” when certain diseases arise in some people under the same conditions but not in others. That way, you can push everything back, can’t you, in these matters! And if you don’t try to arrive at some clarity with this, you’ll end up with words that aren’t fully filled with real conceptual content, but remain unclear. “Predisposition,” “disposition”—these are inverted, mystical concepts that only make sense if one can address the real, the intellectually perceptible.

[ 38 ] Now the perceiving consciousness sees all sorts of other things. Just as a blind person who undergoes surgery then sees colors, so the perceiving consciousness sees all sorts of other things. And these other things that it perceives in our case make it clear that what is still formed today as an egg within the hen actually arises from forces that do not lie within the hen, but are exerted upon the hen from the cosmos. What constitutes the hen’s body and surrounds the egg really serves only as the nurturing ground. The forces that shape the egg come from the cosmos; they come in from the outside. And fertilization is in fact—I cannot go into such details today, but they can be determined quite precisely—merely the creation of the possibility that, at this specific location, certain forces acting from the cosmos may find a point of anchorage.

[ 39 ] What develops as an egg inside a chicken’s body is derived from the cosmos; it is a reflection of the cosmos. If someone finds this inconceivable and cannot find an analogy in other fields, let them imagine what it would mean to try to derive the direction of a magnetic needle solely from the needle’s internal forces. They do not do this; instead, they derive it from a terrestrial influence—that is, from forces related to the entire Earth. Forces from the environment act upon the magnetic needle. Here, in the inorganic realm, one can arrive at such insights through mere external sensory perception. The fact that forces act upon the egg—forces that must not be sought merely in the ancestors but out there in the entire cosmos—will be an achievement of natural science enriched by spiritual science. And various results, some of which are also significant for practical applications, will come to light once we take into account that, fundamentally speaking, what external natural science currently has at its disposal—no matter how sensory and factual it may be—is merely an abstraction, merely something on which we rely because we do not know the stronger forces.

[ 40 ] The observing consciousness perceives, in every process of fertilization and embryonic development, extra-individual forces from the cosmos at work, which could be described in detail. In my short treatise Human Life from the Perspective of Spiritual Science, I point to this entire approach to research in other fields; today I would like to focus specifically on this area.

[ 41 ] Now, if the so-called “empirical natural scientist”—whom I certainly do not look down upon, but rather admire to the highest degree, for what natural science has brought to light through its empirical methods yields a far richer harvest of human knowledge, I would say a hundred and a thousand times more in terms of human knowledge than the rudimentary concepts that natural science itself is able to offer and apply today; so when the embryologist brings his facts to light—especially when he makes use of microscopy, which has already been developed so admirably—and when the humanities scholar then engages with this work, the humanities scholar says to himself: Certainly, what the embryologist actually observes is all external, sensory-factual; but as he describes how the male germ unites with the female germ and so on, how this or that then forms through the rearrangement of the cell nucleus components and so on—the descriptions are, after all, extraordinarily interesting and significant— then the person who stands on the standpoint of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science sees in all of this the traces of a comprehensive spiritual activity that finds expression only in this sensually perceptible realm. And if one were to see in what appears under the microscope through all manner of staining methods something that stands absolutely on its own—something that one need only describe in order to understand the process of germination and development— one would be like someone following a path on which a person has left footprints, and who would believe that these footprints were raised to the surface by the earth’s inner forces, rather than having been imprinted by a human being. Just as these footprints would be entirely misinterpreted if I were to say: “There are all kinds of forces down there that raise these footprints to the surface” — but just as I must assume that a person walked there and trod the ground, so too, if I wish to get to the real facts, I must look to the spiritual, which imprints its ultimate traces—if you’ll pardon the expression—through processes of separation that bring about what then appears under the microscope and through staining methods.

[ 42 ] But when the observing consciousness takes hold of the matter, one arrives at something else entirely. One is led to compare this process—which occurs through pure empiricism, through pure external, actual sensory experience—with something that can be known only through the inquiry of the observing consciousness.

[ 43 ] In the first lecture, I outlined what takes place within a person when they process their sensory perceptions through thinking, when they form mental images. What unfolds in the soul as a real process is not regarded as such by materialistic thinking at all, but is sought only in nervous processes. But if one truly traces this inwardly real process—which the soul experiences for itself—through awakened imaginative insight, if one is not merely preoccupied with those abstractions in the soul that modern psychology or even logic conjure up—such as how mental images “connect,” “reproduce,” and so on—but if one is able, through a developed science of the soul in the sense I outlined here in the first lecture, to grasp this inner aspect of imagination and a part of feeling with the eye, with the inner eye of the soul, then what one thus perceives in the soul’s eye is something that belongs together with what the embryologist finds in embryonic development—and indeed in the course of cellular development in general. One sees, as it were, as if one were actually comparing the original and the image: on the one hand, the processes of imagination and feeling in the soul, and on the other hand, the process of fertilization, the process of nuclear division, and so on, including cell division itself; and one sees how these two processes are related—I want to express myself as carefully as possible: they are related in such a way that one, as it were, represents in the material realm what the other is in the soul-spiritual realm.

[ 44 ] And when one truly takes this spiritual-soul process into account, something else becomes apparent. One realizes: just as this soul-spiritual process unfolds in human beings today, it can only unfold because the entire natural environment—with the human being within it as a physical body—provides a foundation for it. In those who truly attain spiritual insight, the faculties that enable them to truly perceive the essence of the soul-spiritual expand. And so one recognizes: under present-day conditions, what develops as a process of imagination and feeling is indeed only possible in the way it actually happens today—only on the condition that the whole process takes place in the presence of a human body; but through its inner nature, the process reveals itself as one that extends backward in time. Time becomes something real. It shifts backward in time. And one actually comes to recognize that what takes place within one today—through thinking and a portion of feeling—is in fact something that, in a far, far more distant past, when such an earthly environment did not yet exist, was able to develop on its own without the human body.

[ 45 ] And by proceeding in this way—since time is short, I can only, so to speak, sketch out here the starting points of a far-reaching path of knowledge — one comes to relate the spiritual-soul aspects to what is actually taking place before our eyes in the sensory realm; and in doing so, one now perceives in an entirely different way the relationship that exists between what is external, sensory, and physical nature, and what surges and undulates through the world in a spiritual-soul manner. And if one now expands upon what I have been able to set forth—I would say—only in its most elementary foundations, one arrives—if one truly proceeds along the path of spiritual science—not via that external, scientific path followed by geology, paleontology, or the Kant-Laplacean theory, but rather via the path of inner, spiritual and soul-related experience, to long-past states of the world in which it was indeed not possible to carry out external physical processes—such as embryonic development today—with a physical cell, but in which what could have been real at that time was still possible in a spiritual-soul form. One looks back upon spiritual-psychic realities that preceded what occurs today in the physical-sensory realm.

[ 46 ] The spiritual-soul aspect has, in a sense, withdrawn into the cosmic realm today; it acts indirectly through the physical realm and brings about—to return to our example—in the chicken, for instance, the egg today with a density of substance that it did not need in ancient times. But from these forces, which one comes to know—about which one does not speculate or formulate hypotheses, but which one comes to know when observing imagination and thinking from within, according to their inner laws— in those ancient times, the spiritual-soul aspect—without the need for the chicken’s physical environment to be present—was capable of forming not a mystical “disposition,” but a primal entity, which then, as conditions in the environment changed, necessarily required protection by the chicken’s “outer body,” as it is today.

[ 47 ] Thus, on the one hand, the scholar of the humanities fully takes the natural sciences into account, but on the other hand must go beyond the natural sciences—beyond what is currently regarded as scientific— not through speculation, but by developing powers of insight that truly perceive, powers that are intended to replace theories and hypotheses—which are merely speculated upon, merely added to experience—with actual spiritual experiences. And once one has advanced in this way—and truly advanced in such a way that one does not in any respect contradict the established findings of modern natural science—then, for human beings in particular, what the current theory of evolution presents is rectified. I will have to speak of paradoxes at every turn today, but I wish to stimulate thought. I expose myself to the risk of being ridiculed under certain circumstances; but I want to inspire. I simply want to say that this spiritual science, this anthroposophy, exists; and although it is not yet recognized today, it has certain research findings of its own to offer, about which it believes it can speak with just as much scientific justification as the science based on the sensory world—equipped with microscopes and telescopes—speaks of its findings. Not out of arrogance, but based on the facts, it must be said, however, that this branch of spiritual science—which is to be represented here in these lectures—does not have it as easy as natural science in many respects. Therefore, it is understandable that some might say: “Yes, what he’s saying is really quite difficult to understand!” — Certainly, what takes into account only the purely factual—the things one stumbles upon—is easier to understand; and the very nature of the matter demands that difficulties of understanding lie in such things as are here only hinted at. But even in terms of content, anthroposophy does not have it so easy, and this becomes particularly evident when, for example, human beings are viewed—in accordance with its principles, that is, not merely theoretically—as beings of nature.

[ 48 ] As I have said, I do not underestimate the theory of evolution. In fact, I believe that this theory of evolution is one of the most significant achievements of human intellectual development. And it is precisely because I have vigorously defended the validity of the theory of evolution in my book The Riddles of Philosophy and in other writings that I have had to endure attack after attack from those who do not understand it. One need only look in the second volume of my The Riddles of Philosophy to see whether I speak from any perspective that does not do full justice to this theory of evolution! But just as simple as things are for pure—as one says today—“empirical” natural science, so it is not for the spiritual science of anthroposophy. For when we consider human beings, we must say: The notion that human beings, as they exist in their physical form, simply emerged from animal forms, which in turn emerged from lower animal forms, and so on—this notion is utterly amateurish when compared to the spiritual science of anthroposophy.

[ 49 ] If one wishes to consider the development of the human being as a natural being in the humanities sense—as is intended here—then one must—and this certainly seems quite paradoxical, but it is true—first divide this human being into parts. By—and anyone who has followed my writings will see how much effort I have devoted to this field—by scientifically elaborating and refining what appears in Goethe’s theory of metamorphosis, one must break down the human being. One cannot simply take the human being as a whole, but must make a certain assumption—albeit a well-founded one. This is it: That one takes the head on its own, that one becomes clear about this: just as the human being stands before us today, he can be scientifically understood only if one takes the head on its own and the rest, so to speak—take this for now as an auxiliary concept—as an appendage. So: the head on its own; one must seek what one might call descent or lineage for this head on its own. This head of the human being—it is not strictly speaking the head, but only approximately so, because the head continues into the torso. That changes the matter; but one can, after all, only speak in approximate terms about these things—this head of the human being is, in fact, a morphologically transformed form derived from other forms from far, far back in time. So one can say: insofar as the human being is a head-being, he traces back to a distant lineage. And—regarding the details, I refer to my Outline of Esoteric Science and to other writings of mine; it even becomes apparent that the being whose transformation made the modern human head form possible must be sought in a time far more remote than that of all present-day animals or plants; thus, when we regard the human being as a head-being, we must go back to a much more distant past.

[ 50 ] What is found in humans today as, so to speak, an appendage—which has been added to the head—roughly speaking, since appendages already existed in ancient times—has formed on the basis of the head. And when the being that, in its development, had become the human head being and had the capacity to form the other human organization—which is closely related to today’s animal body—came to this organization, that was the time when general evolution had progressed so far that animal beings could now also come into being.

[ 51 ] This leads us to a curious theory of evolution—curious, however, only in light of modern ideas. We must say: Insofar as human beings are rational beings, they descend from ancestors who gradually transformed themselves—ancestors who were certainly shaped differently in primeval times than human beings are today, but whose descendants are, in fact, found only in the human head. And during the period when the general conditions of evolution allowed for the formation of beings such as those we find today in the animal kingdom, human beings added to their humanity precisely that which is part of their animal nature.

[ 52 ] Here again you see the beginning—and I can only offer a rudimentary outline here—of a theory of development that arises when one does not believe that the human head has simply, as it were, grown out of the rest of the organism, but rather that this human head is in fact the primordial structure of the human being, and the rest of the organism is attached to this head. And because such an organism became attached at a late stage of development, human beings have entered a current of evolution that can in fact be aligned with the current of evolution, with the descent of animal beings.

[ 53 ] True understanding in this field is derived from what the theory of evolution has brought to light. If one is familiar with this—if one truly understands it thoroughly—if one considers paleontology, embryology, all the findings in the field of myology, and the studies that can shed light on the structure of the human skull; if one carefully consults all this research—much more carefully than is customary in today’s conventional natural science—then one comes to say to oneself: Precisely that which is not derived from theory—that is, from the theory refuted today by natural science itself, as by Oscar Hertwig—but rather what is present through experience, what lies before us, what one need only take in and examine in the light that can be gained through spiritual science, all of this opens up immensely broad perspectives, so that modern evolutionary theory was by no means unnecessary, by no means merely a aberration, but on the contrary belongs to the most fruitful of theories, and will belong to the most fruitful in the future, because it will shed light on the mysteries of the universe to an unprecedented degree.

[ 54 ] If I were to add anything from the heart to what I have said about spiritual science going beyond mere, purely factual natural science, it would be this: Yes, it is indeed this theory of evolution from the second half of the 19th century that is the seed of great, significant insights—the seed of something that is not yet present in the general consciousness of humanity, something that provides precisely the best inspiration for a truly anthroposophically oriented worldview. This worldview shows precisely that those intellectual activities which are believed to be already conclusive—and which merely need to be applied to what is given in sensory reality in order to explain it—that these intellectual activities, which prevail even in such an excellent book as that by Oscar Hertwig or in others, do not at all lead to truly answer questions, but only to ask them in the right way. They must then be answered once they have been asked correctly. And the external world always answers us in turn when we know how to ask questions correctly. When they are asked correctly, it answers through that which can be attained as spiritual vision.

[ 55 ] However, when I speak in this way of a modified theory of descent—that is, that one must, so to speak, conceive of human beings in reverse: one must seek his origin in what underlies the head and must proceed from the head in order to understand the human being—whereas one usually attempts to do so in the opposite way—what I am saying must at the same time be grounded in a true, genuine conception of the present-day human being. And this brings me to another specific finding of anthroposophical research regarding the natural foundation of the human being.

[ 56 ] When people speak today of the relationship between the soul and the human body, they actually consider the body to be merely a physical “instrument,” as they say—but it is not an “instrument”—we will discuss these matters the day after tomorrow—the nervous system is merely sought out in the body as a counterpart to the soul. And if you look at psychology books today, whose first chapters always cover a kind of physiological prelude to psychology, you will find that they really speak only of the nervous system as the “organ of the soul.”

[ 57 ] Those esteemed listeners who hear me speak frequently know how rarely I speak of personal matters. But this may be necessary here, since I can only sketch out this topic briefly: What I now have to say in this area is the culmination of more than thirty years of research, which also draws upon everything relevant in the fields of physiology and related disciplines; anyone who is truly familiar with the findings of today’s physiologists and biologists in this field will find—once they have been given a basic orientation—that what I have to tell you is proven at every turn. By simply drawing a parallel between the nervous system and mental life, one adopts an extraordinarily one-sided approach. And no one illustrates how one-sided this approach is more clearly than a researcher whom I hold in particularly high regard as one of the most outstanding psychologists, Theodor Ziehen. Because he starts from the prejudice that one should speak primarily of the nervous system when discussing certain relationships between the psychological and the physical—that is, the natural foundations of the human being—he ends up treating the emotional life—which, when truly considered, is just as real as the life of thought or imagination—merely, I would say, as an appendage to the life of imagination. Theodor Ziehen does not actually address emotional life in his psychology. Others are in the same boat. They speak instead of the “emotional emphasis of representations”; the representations, which have their physical counterpart in the nervous system, are said to be “emotionally emphasized”; one is not to think of a specific physical counterpart to emotional life.

[ 58 ] And first of all—look it up in Theodor Ziehen’s Psychology or in other books; I could cite a whole series of truly excellent works in this field—when these authors discuss the will, you will see that any possibility of truly speaking about the will—which is a very real realm within psychological experience—is simply ruled out. The will simply eludes Theodor Ziehen as he writes about his physiological-psychological matters; it is simply argued away; it does not exist for him at all; in a sense, it exists only as a play of ideas. Thus, through the influence of one-sidedness, something that is quite obviously present in experience is distorted, just as other things are fundamentally distorted by such research.

[ 59 ] But if one truly takes into account everything that physiology—this exemplary science—has accomplished up to the present day—even if much remains uncertain and questionable—and if one takes into account everything that has not yet been properly elucidated, then one arrives at the conclusion—I can only sketch out the result here—that the entire human organism is a counterpart to the entire human soul. In my latest book, On the Riddles of the Soul, which will be published in the coming weeks—and may even already be available—I have addressed, in the concluding chapters, the borderline issues between conventional science and anthroposophy; and among these borderline issues, albeit only in terms of conclusions, I have addressed what can be said about the question just raised.

[ 60 ] There is nothing wrong with the idea that the life of the imagination has its physical counterpart primarily in the nervous system, although the connection must be understood quite differently than contemporary science does; I will speak about this the day after tomorrow. If one is looking for a physical counterpart to the life of the imagination, one must look to the nervous system.

[ 61 ] Not so with emotional life! I would almost say that I hesitate to express something so far-reaching in such few words—something that has become clear to me not through years, but through decades of research. When one speaks of emotional life, one cannot, in the same sense that one seeks a relationship between the life of the imagination and the nervous system, seek any relationship between this emotional life and the nervous system. There is only an indirect connection—a connection, of course, but it is only indirect. Emotional life—and this seems almost unbelievable given the prejudices of modern science—stands in a direct relationship, similar to that between the life of the imagination and the nervous system, to what one might call the respiratory rhythm in all its ramifications. Just as one must delve into the finest branches of the nervous system, so too, naturally, with what are rhythmic movements—movements that have their starting point only in the respiratory rhythm and then branch out and ramify everywhere, affecting the brain. Comte’s ideas about the mechanics of the human body are very interesting in this regard. In this rhythmic interplay of movements within the human being—which are, in fact, all dependent on the respiratory rhythm—and in what occurs as such rhythmic movements that transcend the blood rhythm, one must seek the physical counterpart to the emotional life.

[ 62 ] I know, distinguished audience, that there now seem to be countless objections to what I have just said. But all of these objections can be refuted. I would like to draw your attention to one of them first, just briefly. One could easily say, for example: Well, yes, music’s aesthetic effect is actually based on emotion; but this emotion is stimulated by the perception of sound—that is, by an external sensory impression—which, of course, continues to have an effect within the nervous system; there you see—one might object—how you are mistaken: you claim that something whose aesthetic effect is decidedly based on emotional life is connected to the rhythm of breathing, whereas musical perception—gained indirectly through the ear and the auditory nerve—is actually the foundation! — That is merely an illusion when one raises this objection, for the actual process is much more complicated. Only that kind of insight—guided by the forces one gains in the contemplative consciousness—can lead one into such matters: In our brain, the respiratory rhythm interacts with what is taking place in the nervous system. And the musical emotional experience arises solely from this interaction—from this convergence of what extends from the respiratory rhythm into nervous life with the structure of the nervous system. As this structure reacts to the respiratory rhythm, the musical emotional experience arises. Thus, emotional experiences can truly be explained if, as mentioned, one regards the respiratory rhythm—and the life of breathing in general—as the physical counterpart to the emotional life, just as one must regard the nervous system as the physical counterpart to the life of imagination.

[ 63 ] And now we come to the will. When one examines all physiological considerations in the way that the oriented cognitive power of the perceiving consciousness is capable of doing, it turns out that everything experienced by the soul as the will has its physical counterpart in metabolic processes. Physical life, however, consists essentially of metabolic processes, respiratory rhythms, and nervous processes—with the exception of two things, which I will mention shortly.

[ 64 ] The matter becomes difficult only because, of course, the nerve must also be explained in such a way that the nutritional life—the metabolic life—continues into the nerve. But it is not the nerve’s nutrition, nor the nerve’s metabolic process, that is the physical counterpart of mental life, but rather an entirely different process. I have drawn attention to this in my book On the Riddles of the Soul: insofar as the nerve depends on metabolism, it is merely a mediator of the volitional process. Because one system—the metabolic system, the rhythmic respiratory process, the nervous system—interpenetrates the other; because the systems do not lie spatially side by side but merge into one another, extending into one another—this makes the analysis particularly difficult. But essentially, the situation is this: In the nerve, what underlies the life of imagination is not the fact that it is influenced by rhythm, nor the fact that it is nourished, but rather an entirely different inner activity; in the finest ramifications of the respiratory rhythm, it is this respiratory rhythm itself that underlies emotional life, and everything recorded in the organism as metabolism, right down to the finest ramifications, is the physical counterpart of volitional processes.

[ 65 ] There we have related the entire soul to the entire human body. And from the perspective of that anthroposophical spiritual science that I represent, I believe—and I believe this no differently than one believes in a truly rigorous scientific field—that the facts of physiology are already sufficient today to fully substantiate what I have just explained. And I am convinced that the empirical sciences, if they are further developed along these lines of orientation, can become immensely fruitful for life in every direction: medicine, psychiatry, and all possible fields will be able to gain significant inspiration if the entire human soul is considered in conjunction with the entire human body in this way.

[ 66 ] Two aspects emerge from the human organism: what I would like to call the sensory realm and the life of movement. And contemporary science stands on very shaky ground, particularly in the study of the senses on the one hand and the study of movement on the other. These—I would say—two poles of the human being are very poorly understood, neither by psychologists nor by physiologists nor by researchers in related fields, because in both the sensory zone—the realm of sensory life—and the realm of motor life, the human being is no longer entirely itself but already belongs to the external world, living with its soul into the external world: when a human being performs movements, there lies within the movement a state of equilibrium or a dynamic state through which the human being is integrated into the realm or the interplay of forces in the external world; and as a human being extends psychologically from mere nervous life into the life of the sensory realm—that is, as the soul experiences itself within the actual sense organs—it happens that the human being truly transcends his or her own realm. The senses reach into our lives like waves from the external world, and only when this is taken into account will we arrive at a rational theory of the senses—one that cannot be arrived at along the paths currently taken by the natural sciences.

[ 67 ] I did not intend to discuss general principles or provide general characteristics, particularly in describing the relationship between anthroposophy and the natural sciences and the natural foundation of the human being; rather, despite all the risks that such an approach entails, highlighted individual concrete findings and areas of research in order to use these concrete examples to characterize the manner in which anthroposophy seeks to stand alongside established natural science. However, it will become apparent from this that certain prejudices—as well as certain preconceptions, predispositions, and ingrained habits—in the scientific realm will need to be overcome if anthroposophy is to be understood. Today, the sensory—I mean the sensory-factual aspect of perception, not the sensory in the moral realm—is still much more powerful than it was back then, when the whole world objected to Copernicanism on the grounds that it contradicted sensory appearance and therefore rejected it. Copernicus contradicted sensory appearance by having to postulate, for the external sensory world, something that external sensory appearance cannot provide. Spiritual science is compelled to go beyond external sensory appearance in yet another respect. It will certainly encounter resistance upon resistance in this realm. And one can always offer only individual suggestions in a lecture such as this; but I ask you to bear in mind that my intention is precisely to offer suggestions. To criticize these suggestions from a preconceived standpoint is an easy thing to do! Of course, they can be thoroughly criticized; and everything that can be raised as such criticism, I could—quite naturally—raise myself. But on the other hand, it will become apparent that what is alive in the natural sciences, if one does not seek to hold it back, can develop into a far-reaching revelation of profound cosmic mysteries.

[ 68 ] I will discuss the extent to which such a concept must become fruitful and significant for all of human life in the broadest sense the day after tomorrow, when I will examine its practical application to the realms of morality, social and religious life, political life, the doctrine of the freedom of the will, and other practical areas.

[ 69 ] I had to run the risk of being misunderstood by citing specific, concrete examples. For today, there are many factors working against humanity’s ascent into the realms of true and authentic spiritual life. And people today believe that one can only be an enlightened person if, when it comes to the deepest question of the soul’s life—the question of immortality (which I will also discuss the day after tomorrow)—and other questions, one says: “This simply eludes scientific assessment; human cognitive faculties are not sufficient for it.”

[ 70 ] The witty Fritz Mauthner has, in fact, written about this human capacity for knowledge in his Dictionary of Philosophy, which is truly stimulating to read, because one feels transported into an intellectual sphere in which one goes round and round in circles endlessly, without ever arriving at anything; rather, just when one thinks one has arrived at a partial conclusion, it is refuted, and one is led further on, continuing to go round in circles. Mauthner, however, deserves great credit for having shown precisely how inadequate is whatever already exists as “established science”—Mauthner even believes that this talk of the spirit is a sophisticated invention of Hegel’s; he says something to the effect of: It was Hegel alone who first infected philosophy with the concept of the “Spirit” as we understand it today; the older concept of the “Spirit,” he argues, is derived solely from the concept of the Holy Spirit. — And he finds that with many who today imagine themselves to be critical minds, particularly enlightened minds—indeed, minds—perhaps they do not put it that way themselves, since they do not accept the term “mind”; that is to say, people who stand at the very pinnacle of science—Mauthner says that with many of these, the situation is as follows: Human beings seek to understand through intellect and reason; but “the intellect is a silver axe without a handle, and reason is a golden handle without an axe,” and with these two imperfect things, human beings somehow seek to penetrate the essence of the world!

[ 71 ] Such people are very fond of invoking the comprehensive concept of nature that Goethe established. We also find Fritz Mauthner quoting Goethe to attribute to him the idea that Goethe, too, viewed human beings merely as beings of nature! But even in the essay “Nature,” which Fritz Mauthner cites, there are statements about nature such as this: “It has thought and is constantly pondering,” albeit not as a human being, but as nature itself. A nature such as Goethe conceived—that one could certainly accept! This is something different from the nature that often underlies modern natural science. And especially when we consider what Goethe said to Schiller: “If my laws of natural science are to be ideas, then I see my ideas with my eyes”—from such a mindset, we can also accept naturalism, for it is a naturalism that by no means excludes spiritualism, but rather includes it. And I believe that precisely what Goethe intended in The Elements in his grand theory of metamorphosis—what he developed to a high degree, though only in The Elements—is, when further developed and carried over into the spiritual realm, the true foundation for a genuine, anthroposophically oriented spiritual science.

[ 72 ] In what I have said today about the origin of humankind and the relationship between the human soul and the body, I find myself in harmony with Goetheanism, albeit with a form of Goetheanism that has continued to evolve into the present day and taken on a scientific character.

[ 73 ] And to those who, in their seemingly enlightened and critical rejection of any genuine spiritual insight, believe they can invoke Goethe—to them one must say—and let me conclude today’s remarks with this: Consider Goethe’s attitude in its deepest essence. What you believe you find in him, and what you also have within yourselves, is already captured in the words he addressed to another researcher—a highly distinguished researcher—who had made the following statement:

[ 74 ] “No creative spirit
penetrates the innermost depths of nature,...
Blessed is he to whom she
reveals only her outer shell.”

[ 75 ] Goethe, on the other hand, said:

[ 76 ] I’ve heard that repeated for sixty years,
I curse it, but secretly;...
Nature has neither core
Nor shell,
She is all at once;
Just examine yourself above all else,
Whether you are core or shell!

[ 77 ] If a person develops his or her innermost being in this Goethean spirit, then—even if only through an infinitely long, serious, and sincere process of inquiry—he or she will penetrate to the core, to the very essence of nature. For this essence of nature is imprinted within the human being. And what is reflected in human beings is, properly understood, nothing other than this essence of nature. Spirit is nothing other than nature’s blossom and fruit. In a certain sense, nature is the root of the spirit.

[ 78 ] That, too, is true Goetheanism! And spiritual science will have to develop it in a scientific form.

Question and Answer

[ 79 ] Question: If consciousness is correlated with death, how do we explain the fact that animals also die, yet their consciousness must, under all circumstances, be considered distinct from that of humans?

[ 80 ] When I speak the day after tomorrow about practical matters, I also intend—though I always shy away from doing so—to briefly address various questions relating to a concept that is very common today: the concept of the “unconscious,” which, of course, also plays a major role in psychoanalysis and analytical psychology, both of which are well known here in Zurich. In this field, one encounters significant, profoundly far-reaching questions; and the day after tomorrow we will see, at least in outline, how what psychoanalysis attempts to offer as answers to these far-reaching questions relates to the questions themselves. Today, following up on what was just asked, I simply wish to draw upon the concept of the unconscious. Eduard von Hartmann, after all, also established the concept of the “unconscious mind” from a philosophical perspective and thus posits as the foundation of existence—one might say—first, nature; second, the conscious mind, which, however, must always have a natural basis; and third, the unconscious mind, which is purely mental but, precisely, unconscious.

[ 81 ] The point, however, is that spiritual science, too, does not know what to make of the concept of the “unconscious” as such. “Unconscious spirit” is, for spiritual science, roughly the same as a “headless human” in the natural realm. One can, of course, conceive of “spirit” in the abstract, without consciousness, just as one can abstract the human head. One can also depict a headless organism. And there are even people who are hysterically partially blind—that is, not organically blind, but hysterically blind—who suffer from the distortion that, when they walk down the street, they see only people’s bodies and no heads on any of them. There are people who suffer from this particular form of a hysterical disorder: they see only the body and no head—in other words, all people are headless to them. They see—and this appearance might even provide proof, even for a few exceptional individuals, that one could conceive of a human reality without heads. But it is simply not reality. — Thus, the “unconscious spirit” is simply not a reality; it can never be a reality. We will discuss where this leads the day after tomorrow. But now let us turn to the question that has been raised: Animals, as such, certainly do not possess human consciousness, but they do possess consciousness. However, I have already had to note on one occasion today: Spiritual science is often at a disadvantage compared to today’s established science, which treats all things more conceptually and less in terms of reality; even in its mode of thinking, spiritual science must proceed differently from what we are accustomed to today. In physics textbooks, I said, it is stated: Bodies are impenetrable, that is, in the space occupied by one body, no other can exist. — Spiritual science cannot immediately accept this definition as such; rather, based on its own orientation, it must state: A body or a being that fills a space in such a way that no other can be in that space at the same time is, in fact, impenetrable. Thus, what I have conceived as a definition simply transforms, for the spiritual scientist, into a postulate or something similar.

[ 82 ] Now, one must be clear about this: Although animals do not possess human consciousness, they do possess consciousness. The point is that anyone who thinks in the modern sense, with today’s habits of thought, believes: Death is death. People die, animals die, and even plants are allowed to die. Yes, but for spiritual science, the matter is not that simple. One cannot infer equality in reality from the equality of conceptual content. Viewed from within, viewed in terms of reality, the death of a human being is something entirely different from the death of an animal. That is the concrete reality! And to speak of death in the case of a plant has, in spiritual science, essentially the same meaning as speaking of death in the case of a clock that also “dies” at some point; doesn’t it, since it, too, can “die” at some point. So this must stop. That is not the concept of death! Rather, the concept of death encompasses many things that make human death something fundamentally different.

[ 83 ] And now the following comes into consideration: The animal has a consciousness that is essentially such that what a human being sends into the sensory realm—and experiences separately within that sensory realm I mentioned today—is not experienced by the animal within the sensory realm; rather, what the animal experiences in the sensory realm is of the same nature as what it also experiences in its life of imagination. That strict distinction between perception and imagination, as it can be drawn in humans, does not apply to animals. This can be recognized directly, first of all, through observation, through the observing consciousness; on the other hand, however, you can also recognize it anatomically and physiologically. I’ll just remind you that, let’s say, the eye has a completely different internal organization in animals than it does in humans. In humans, certain aspects of the eye’s function are integrated into the inner organization—more specifically, into the nervous system—whereas in animals, these aspects are extended outward into the eye. In certain animals, you find the fan-shaped structure, the spade-shaped process: this is the external, anatomical structure that could demonstrate how the vital force in animals extends into the sensory zone. In humans, this vital force withdraws, so that in the sensory zone—and I ask you to take this expressly into account—the human being experiences the presence of their soul in such a way that they experience something entirely different in this sensory zone than what the animal experiences there. And this—what the human being experiences in the sensory sphere, and whose further development then constitutes imaginative, inspired, and intuitive consciousness, which in turn is continued in the life of the imagination and the life of memory—this experience in the sensory sphere is precisely what gives human consciousness a completely different character — if I may use that expression — than that of animal consciousness.

[ 84 ] Many concepts need to be clarified. If you ask someone today: What are the most spiritual ideas, the ones least connected to the physical basis? — well, I believe a large number of people would agree if one were to say: The most philosophical concepts are the most spiritual! — You see, of all concepts, it is precisely the philosophical ones—the most abstract, including mathematical concepts—that are the most closely bound to the physical body in the context of spiritual science! And if there were only philosophical ideas, one could be an absolute materialist; for they are actually only physical and have meaning only between birth and death. What is usually regarded as the most spiritual of all has its foundation in the physical world, in the physical body.

[ 85 ] But this is the essential point: that human beings, as spiritual beings, have such a share in their sensory life that—in that sensory life, where external nature extends inward like a gulf because vitality has withdrawn—they are in fact continually experiencing death within the sensory realm. And to the extent that this sensory zone is reflected inward, the result—the conscious result of this sensory zone—penetrates the life of the soul with what I have called “atomistic death.”

[ 86 ] So this is how it should be understood: that in humans, the phenomenon of death is intertwined with life in the sensory realm, which justifies linking death and consciousness in humans, whereas in animals, the following must be linked: not spontaneous death—as it can also occur in humans—with consciousness, but in animals, the gradual extinction of the reproductive power must be associated with what consciousness is. And then, once the reproductive power has ceased, death occurs for the animal, whereas in humans, the phenomenon of death occurs at a later stage than is the case with any animal. Humans stand on entirely different ground.

[ 87 ] So I would like to emphasize this in particular: One can only gain a true understanding of the relationship between birth and death by bringing together the specific characteristic of human consciousness—which is connected to the particular experience in the sensory realm—with the much more vital experience in the sensory realm that animals have, so that animal consciousness is not, if I may put it that way, imbued with what is imbued in human consciousness—namely, the constant presence of death at work within it. And this, in turn, is illuminated from the other side, because in animals, an immortal soul does not intervene in the phenomenon of death from the other side in a polarized manner, as is the case with humans.

[ 88 ] Question: Can the humanities shed any light on the modern concept of entropy in physics?

[ 89 ] As for the modern concept of entropy, it must first be said that what is included in the concept of entropy is, above all, merely an abstraction derived from the conception of inorganic natural science. If, therefore, we define the concept of entropy as follows: a final state of the present process of becoming would be brought about by the fact that, in the transition from mechanical energy to thermal energy, more and more heat remains behind, so that in the end the state of the universe can be nothing but a state of heat—then we are dealing here with an abstraction derived purely from inorganic laws. As such, however, there is no need to object to it from the standpoint of spiritual science. The proponents of the concept of entropy themselves know that this definition of the final state necessitates the assumption of an initial state as well; both logically and scientifically, it is then necessary that, if one allows everything to be driven toward heat death in this way, one must also assume an initial state.

[ 90 ] Now, the point is that the following emerges from the perspective of the humanities; I will get right to the specifics here as well: First, based on its observations, spiritual science cannot make sense of a concept that is commonplace today in the realm of speculation about inorganic nature—namely, the concept of the dispersion of energies, whereby one always assumes that the dispersion of energies can extend into infinity. So when I speak of energies, I always imagine, in the sense of modern natural science, something extending into infinity. Based on its own experiences, spiritual science cannot make sense of this concept, because all energies—viewed from a spiritual-scientific perspective, so to speak, in terms of their morphogenesis—prove to be elastic. That is to say, energies that spread out do not disperse into infinity, but only up to a finite limit, and then return to themselves. This can, however, take so long that it is initially out of the question for what is considered our upcoming earthly period. But in the field of spiritual science, one must indeed recognize that the concept of dispersing into infinity is nebulous, and that any energies that spread out do not disperse into infinity but return to themselves. When this concept is applied to the field of entropy, we find that in the final state we also have the other, polar opposite: that, in a sense, the dispersing energies can return to themselves. That is one aspect.

[ 91 ] But the other point is as follows. If you pick up my Outline of Esoteric Science, you will find that in fact—according to a spiritual system of observation, which is merely a further elaboration of what I have outlined today in basic terms—by going back and constructing an initial state from a spiritual-scientific perspective, it is not constructed, but perceived—this initial state, which I call the “Saturn state” using a technical term, is depicted as a pure state of heat. And the entire subsequent development arises from this state of heat. When physics, with its concept of entropy, arrives at a final thermal state, it arrives at a final state that I myself must accept as an initial state. The consequence of this is that one must then start over again: considering how it proceeds from there. One does not arrive at a “beginning and end”; rather, the beginning and end are merely links in a continuous process of development. The final state that occurs would then merely be the starting point for further development.

[ 92 ] Question: Wouldn’t it be possible for you to create human beings as simple organisms in such a way that it wouldn’t be necessary for them to first emerge as beings with a head and then have an appendage added to them? After all, natural science also operates with very long time frames and an infinitely long period of development, and I believe that one could just as well have humans emerge as a unified organism.

[ 93 ] When one discusses such a matter in such general terms, one can, of course, always cite what the gentleman has just mentioned. I wish to emphasize explicitly that my focus today has been on examining the positive, concrete results of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science—that is, on citing individual examples of positive results. One such example of positive results is precisely this: that human beings—if one wishes to understand them not merely theoretically as natural beings (which was the focus of my lecture today)—cannot be understood if viewed in the manner customary today. Human beings are, of course, also viewed as “unified beings”—which is not the opposite—even when they are regarded as head-centered beings with appendages—as I said, this is speaking in approximate terms. What is essential here is where one seeks the starting point for human development—not whether one regards the human being as a “unified being,” but rather what one seeks in the human being that lies further back in time. If one seeks what is primarily manifesting itself today in a state of metamorphosis further back in time, and regards the rest as an acquisition, then human beings, as natural beings, become a different kind of being than when one places them within the development of the world according to evolutionary theory, as today’s trivial Darwinism—the trivial theory of descent—still does.

[ 94 ] The long time periods do not matter. For today’s hypotheses, long time periods are, after all, also something purely hypothetical. Time can only have any meaning within an explanation if one is able to derive time from other, concrete premises—if, so to speak, one is able to shape the before and after out of the concrete—but not if one simply posits a trend of development and then introduces time as something external. The proponents of the theory of descent say it themselves: Time is at one’s disposal without limit. Of course, time is at one’s disposal without limit. But the question is whether what is available to one’s thought also plays the same concrete role in reality when one actually considers the concrete human being.

[ 95 ] The concrete itself is structured in such a way that, in the process of development, what I have called the “appendage organism”—which is, after all, merely an approximate term—turns out to be the younger, and the “head organism” the older. In this way, time itself takes shape. The descent of the head organism goes back to a more distant past than that of the younger one. The point is really that, in the field of spiritual science, one must take into account that thinking becomes actual and concrete. I would like to emphasize once again today that one cannot make progress in spiritual science unless one is able to place oneself within reality in a completely different way than does today’s so-called empirical science, which I certainly do not underestimate. No one will be able to accuse me of underestimating it based on my writings. But one must engage with reality in a completely different, concrete way.

[ 96 ] Last time, in response to a question here, I said that concepts must be much more real, much more genuine. The day after tomorrow, we will return to this reality-based thinking once again when discussing practical human issues and matters of the human soul. Thinking in accordance with reality is that which, with every concept it holds, is conscious of the extent to which that concept is embedded in reality. You see, taken abstractly, a rosebud that I have before me is a real thing; and one can regard it as a real thing. For the thinker who is truly embedded in reality with his concepts, the concept of a rose blossom does not exist in any other way than that he is aware: this rose blossom is, in and of itself, something abstract; it is possible only in relation to the entire rosebush, which in turn is connected to the entire Earth, and so on. Thus, the humanities scholar does not present as a separate concept that which is connected to something in reality and can be artificially isolated. That is why, whenever the humanities scholar pursues his concepts, he is aware of the extent to which the inner, substantial core of the concepts carries him into reality. Here is another paradoxical example: one uses a microscope; one places a cell nucleus under the microscope. Yes, this cell nucleus under the microscope—one now observes it in isolation from everything that belongs to it. The spiritual scientist is fully aware of this; he knows that observing a cell nucleus through a microscope is different from, say, observing a small animal through a microscope. In the latter case, I observe the animal in its entirety. But when I observe something like a cell nucleus, I am not observing reality in the same sense as I do with the small animal, which does not grow larger and is thus self-contained.

[ 97 ] This constant accompaniment by the realistic character of the life of the imagination is one of the primary prerequisites for contemplative consciousness. I emphasized thinking grounded in reality—as opposed to the unrealistic thinking that prevails in many quarters today—in my book The Riddle of Man, which was published two years ago. This must be taken into account when considering such a question. I have therefore said that the scientific theory of evolution from the 19th century to the present day naturally has its great merits. But it does not address the question concretely enough. If one wishes to study human evolution, it is not irrelevant what aspect of the human being one takes as the starting point. For example, it is not an objection if someone says: Here I have a living being; this living being, in its present form, has climbing feet; there are such living beings which, in their present form—forgive me for comparing a very small animal to a human, but that doesn’t matter in the realm of natural science—there are, then, small animals, lice, forgive me for using the harsh word, ‘lice,’ which develop climbing feet. These climbing feet are a later product of evolution. The ancestral forms do not have these climbing feet. This is an adaptation to later conditions. Now it is important to realize that the ancestral form did not have climbing feet under different conditions; under later conditions, this species of louse developed climbing feet. One could cite many examples. The point, then, is to understand this specific relationship. Please forgive me for turning to the human being: the point is to recognize that the ancestral form possesses the predisposition for what, through direct descent and a direct line of development, leads to the principal organ, and that the other features are later acquisitions. This is the specific relationship at stake. And if one does not view the human being in this way, one cannot understand him in the context of the entire development of nature.

[ 98 ] Of course, I can only touch on these things. As I said, I would have to give a long course if I were to present all the details to you. But anthroposophy is still in its infancy today, and please do not take it as some kind of nonsense when I say this: we are not yet in a position to teach anthroposophy in officially recognized courses. We must present it as inspiration in individual lectures, in which we can only ever point to one aspect or another. That is the source of all the imperfections that are, of course, inevitable in such communication. But what I have said speaks just as little against the view of human development as a unified being as the development of lice—which do not yet have climbing feet—into lice with climbing feet speaks against the idea that they have developed as a unified being. So what is at issue is the characterization of the developmental process, the specific nature of the developmental process. That is what matters in this case.