The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. Anthroposophy and the Sciences Anthroposophy and Contemporary Sciences

[ 1 ] Introductory remarks by Roman Boos: Distinguished guests! The purpose of bringing together this group of scholars is, of course, not to present anything fixed, definitive, or conclusively formulated for public discussion; rather, these lectures are intended to show in which direction the approach advocated here at the Goetheanum—as an anthroposophically oriented spiritual science—can be further developed within the individual academic disciplines; an approach that has, through its artistic manifestations, been brought to the public’s attention for some time now in numerous eurythmy performances and in the construction of the Goetheanum as an architectural work. In all modesty, however, we believe that even with our lectures—which are, after all, intended to be only a beginning—we can hold our own against what is currently being presented in the circles of academies and universities.

[ 2 ] For anyone who has completed their studies in any field with a living soul must have become increasingly aware in recent times of how human beings are burdened with a mass of facts derived from the purely material and the purely quantitative, to the point where one can no longer cope with them—not only on a personal level, but absolutely on a spiritual level as well. This means that human beings, with their spiritual faculties, are increasingly unable to grasp what is referred to as

[ 3 ] 21 to truly come to terms with the immense amount of material presented to him. And because anthroposophy directs our gaze toward the human being—not merely toward the human being in and of himself, but toward the human being as a point within the whole of reality—what lies within these realities themselves can come to expression, but in such a way that these realities do not merely weigh upon him quantitatively and oppressively, but rather, as they express themselves within the human being, the union of the human being with the spiritual—and thus also with objective reality—can take place.

[ 4 ] An opportunity will be provided here for a discussion among those engaged in scholarly work. Through discussions, questions, and so on, there will be an opportunity to further explore various points touched upon in the lectures. For anyone who approaches scientific movements with the same spirit from which the entire anthroposophical movement builds its work will see it as a primary task to purge the realm of the sciences and social life of the polemical spirit that manifests itself in the realm of science as debate and polemics, and in the realm of social life as throwing hand grenades and firing machine guns; they will see the main task in the necessity of further developing and deepening the problems, as is to be done here.

[ 5 ] And we also hope that, during the specialized academic lectures, Dr. Steiner will be able to add further insights to what is presented by the experts in the field.

[ 6 ] We would also ask that, for now, you limit your questions to those related to today’s lecture topic, and save specific cases for discussion in the upcoming specialized lectures.

The topics of the specialized lectures are:

March 25, 1920: Dr. Carl Unger on “Anthroposophy and the Epistemological Foundations of Natural Science”

March 26, 1920: Dr. Friedrich Husemann on “Worldview, Nervousness, and Spiritual Science”

March 27, 1920: Dr. Rudolf Steiner on “The Worldview of Modern Natural Science”

March 29, 1920: Dr. Walter Johannes Stein on “Anthroposophy and Physiology,”

March 30, 1920: Dr. Eugen Kolisko on “Anthroposophy and Chemistry”

March 31, 1920: E.A. Karl Stockmeyer on “Anthroposophy and Physics”

April 1, 1920: Dr. Oskar Schmiedel on “Anthroposophy and the Theory of Colors”

April 6, 1920: Dr. Roman Boos on “Anthroposophy and Jurisprudence”

April 7, 1920: Dr. Rudolf Steiner on “Hygiene as a Social Issue”

[ 7 ] Rudolf Steiner: Ladies and gentlemen! Today’s lecture is intended to serve as a kind of introduction to the following eight lectures, which stem largely from a circle of friends who have gathered here at this time with a very specific scientific goal. Lectures will be given on a wide variety of scientific topics, including epistemology and physiology; biological questions will be addressed; physics and chemistry will be discussed; and finally, I would like to draw attention to the problem of hygiene as a sociological issue. If the outside world often judges—albeit superficially—that everything presented here by the spiritual movement represented by the Goetheanum is, on the one hand, sectarianism and, on the other hand, scientific dilettantism, then these lectures are intended, at least in part, to draw attention to the fact that both of these views are a great mistake with regard to what is presented here. Neither scientific dilettantism nor religious sectarianism is practiced here.

[ 8 ] Proof of this is the fact that, over the past few weeks, a group of earnest, dedicated physicians has come together here, and that they have been joined by a small circle of individuals who are inclined to build bridges between medical science and other areas of life. This group has come together here out of the conviction that something like medical life today is in need of genuine renewal; it has come together with the goal of receiving and offering inspiration for this renewal. What is currently being held here—I do not wish to call it a medical course, but rather a course for physicians—implies that it involves serious endeavor and a serious commitment to the great tasks of our time. This course follows on from two courses I have already given in connection with the Waldorf School in Stuttgart on the need for a new foundation for the physical sciences. All of this will be sufficient proof—even for those who, based on a superficial assessment, express the opinion I alluded to earlier—that we are focusing here on the great, serious challenges of our time, and that, based on what these serious, great challenges demand, we are seeking what is necessary as an impetus for spiritual culture and thus for the entire culture of the present and the near future. If one looks today at the horrific events of recent years in such a way as to ascertain, through an unbiased judgment, how these horrific events are connected to aberrations of human consciousness, then one will abandon much of what many—I would say, lightheartedly—currently consider sufficient for a renewal of life.

[ 9 ] How often, for example, is it said today that, in the face of what is swirling around us—what is taking shape as chaos in our times—we must ensure a broadening of knowledge and a broadening of understanding. And in wide circles, on all sorts of occasions, it is emphasized that something is lacking in our time; on all sorts of occasions, it is emphasized that knowledge must be disseminated—say, through adult education centers or similar institutions. The spiritual-scientific worldview, represented here by the Goetheanum, cannot simply concur with these assessments that are being made in this direction. For, ladies and gentlemen, such assessments inevitably raise the question: Do we actually already have a science capable of shaping the future, a science capable of intervening in life? Do we have something to convey to the widest possible circles through adult education centers?

[ 10 ] Based on judgments that are by no means superficial, those who champion the spiritual science pursued here are convinced that, above all else, a renewal of scientific life itself is needed—an infusion of new elements into scientific life—before we can even think of disseminating knowledge to the widest possible circles, for example through adult education centers or similar institutions. The aim here is not merely to popularize current science; rather, an anthroposophically oriented worldview must, based on an understanding of the state of these sciences, strive for a genuine renewal of them. Of course, in this introductory lecture today, I can only sketch out what the task of these evenings will be. And so I would like to begin by pointing out the two main directions of current scientific endeavor, in order to show how these contemporary sciences actually relate to life.

[ 11 ] On the one hand, we have everything that we can characterize by saying that it is of a natural-scientific nature in science; we must refer to everything that occurs in the field of natural science. In speaking about this field here, however, I must repeatedly emphasize that I am not proceeding from a superficial polemic against the current trend in the natural sciences, but that, on the contrary, because I must fully acknowledge all that natural science has accomplished in the course of the 19th century and up to the present day, and because I must admire the magnificent progress of natural science itself and of the most diverse branches of human technology—it is precisely out of this admiration that I am led to think differently about the future course of natural science than it has developed up to the present day.

[ 12 ] On the other hand, we have the historical sciences with all that they entail, including, for example, jurisprudence. As you know, ladies and gentlemen, the natural sciences have increasingly come to be absorbed in the observation of external facts and the conduct of experiments. You know that, especially in the 19th century, there was a strong drive to connect the immense wealth of facts—which had emerged through observation and experimentation—with grand ideas and to strive toward certain so-called laws of nature. Yet anyone who is truly immersed in this entire world of natural science knows that today, in a wide variety of fields—in physics, chemistry, and biology—we are confronted with the most profound facts, and that what is commonly regarded as science, based on what the facts tell us, does not enable us in any way penetrate the essence of that which must obviously lie behind it; indeed, that the facts, in a certain sense—I would say—numb us, so that we cannot keep up with the abundance of facts using scientific methods. The outward course of the sciences actually confirms this.

[ 13 ] Even though very few people still pay attention to this today, it must be said: the last twenty years have actually brought about the greatest revolution imaginable, particularly in the field of physics. Ideas that were still considered unshakable thirty years ago have been completely revolutionized today. One need only mention the name Einstein or the name Lorentz, the Dutch physicist, and by mentioning these names, one can point to a whole wealth of facts and debates that have thoroughly revolutionized and shaken physics as it was just thirty years ago. Naturally, I cannot go into the details of what is at hand here. But this fact—the revolution in physics, which is, after all, already well known in certain circles—must be pointed out. Now, however, one might say: While, for example, something as significant as the revolution in the old concepts of mass and matter brought about by the newer radiation theory of electricity is before us, our scientific ways of thinking find no way to come to terms with what has actually been presented to humanity through the abundance of experiments. From the observation of radiating matter in a glass vacuum, it became clear that the very properties previously ascribed to matter—such as a certain velocity and acceleration—must now be ascribed to radiating electricity; in other words, the concept of matter has, so to speak, slipped through our fingers. It became clear from the wealth of experiments that nothing could have been substituted for the old concept of matter; and from Einstein’s theory of relativity, with its terribly cold abstractions, one cannot derive anything like a real understanding of what one is actually dealing with in the external world.

[ 14 ] All this is said merely to point out how the work has taken on a momentum of its own, developing to the point where there is such an abundance of observed and experimentally verified material that it cannot be fully grasped by our existing modes of thought. I would like to say that the course of scientific development has shown that, with the modes of conception preserved from earlier times, we can indeed observe nature on its surface, but we are not in a position to interpret what nature presents to us today in the form of various types of radiation in countless phenomena. We cope with this—I would say scientific—experience in a peculiar way. A peculiar method has crept into modern physics in particular. It is called the statistical method. Whereas it was once believed that precise measurements in the fields of observation or experimentation would lead to precisely formulated laws of nature, today we already rely heavily on a method that is truly similar to the statistical method that draws on probability theory—the same method we apply, for example, when establishing insurance companies. There, too, we base our calculations on assumptions of the sort that, out of a certain number of people of a certain age, a certain number will inevitably have died after a certain number of years. With these statistical methods—which are based on probability theory and to which the methods of modern physics are similar—one gets along quite well when, for example, one has to arrange something like life insurance; there, everything holds true, and one can rely on this method. But the method has one fundamental flaw: it says absolutely nothing about the essence of that for which this method is employed—which is already evident from the fact that probably not a single person will believe that he must actually die in the year that has been calculated as his year of death according to probability theory and statistical methods. Such methods serve to summarize the facts, and also to guide certain actions based precisely on statistics, but they reveal nothing about penetrating any kind of essence. Thus, in the external realm of the natural sciences, we are, so to speak, condemned to remain on the surface of things.

[ 15 ] This, my esteemed audience, becomes most evident when this scientific method is to be applied in the practical treatment of the sick—that is, when it is to be applied in medicine. And it is precisely from the shortcomings that arise today from the scientific foundations of medicine that an initiative such as the course for physicians taking place here in recent weeks has emerged. When approaching a sick person, one cannot subject them to treatment without truly understanding their nature. Physical and scientific methods must also hold up when one approaches human beings. And everything that is cause for complaint today regarding medicine and its effects is connected to the flawed scientific foundations of our current sciences. Herein lies one of the tasks of anthroposophy in relation to the modern sciences. Its task is to find genuine scientific methods through which the wealth of facts available to us today can truly be penetrated in such a way that, through these facts, we can penetrate to the essence of that which surrounds us in the world.

[ 16 ] A very similar situation exists with regard to the historical sciences. While at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century we still have attempts to observe the course of human life in such a way that the foundation is laid both by the natural course of human development and by that which arises from within human beings in a psychological and spiritual sense— while at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century we have studies such as Herder’s “Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind,” what constitutes historical science becomes increasingly abstract and abstract, increasingly intellectualistic and intellectualistic, over the course of the 19th century. We see how those who cannot bring themselves to embrace a certain materialism in history speak of ideas that are supposed to be at work in history. As if abstract ideas could be some kind of real agents that drive historical development! As if ideas were not, at first, merely something passive! Because our modes of conception are incapable of penetrating, through observation or through the facts provided by experiment, to the foundation of natural existence, we remain with our modes of conception—I would say—merely on the surface of what takes place in human life. We are unable to connect what we grasp through our thoughts about the people acting in history or the events occurring in history with the great forces that sustain history.

[ 17 ] We see—and this is particularly interesting—how figures such as Herman Grimm emerged in the 19th century. He is truly very representative of the historical method of the 19th century. There is perhaps nothing that speaks about historical phenomena in such a wonderful, deeply satisfying way as Herman Grimm does in his treatises, for example, on Goethe’s *Tasso* or on Goethe’s *Iphigenia*. Here we have something that already belongs to the realm of human intellectual creation. Here Herman Grimm can engage with something that thought can grasp precisely because it has already been elevated to the level of thought itself. But in those moments when Herman Grimm wants to go further, when he wants to delve into reality, when he does not merely want to examine something like Goethe’s *Tasso* or *Iphigenia*, but where he wants to portray Goethe himself as a real human personality—Herman Grimm has also written a book about Goethe—that is when one sees that the whole of Goethe he describes is actually a kind of shadow figure, and there is nowhere the possibility of penetrating the full intensity of reality. What Herder had still attempted—to grasp thoughts that are historical and at the same time encompass nature—the historical method of the 19th century could no longer achieve. These thoughts are too thin to penetrate reality from a historical perspective. And so we have a historical science that cannot move beyond thought, remains within thought, and cannot penetrate reality from within thought.

[ 18 ] Here again, the necessity arises for the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science not merely to grasp what the soul experiences in abstract thoughts, but to grasp it in such a way that the forces underlying the external reality are perceived within these soul experiences. We must strive, on the one hand, to understand nature in such a way that we extend our understanding all the way to the human being—so that we can understand the human being as we do in the art of medicine or in the art of education— and, on the other hand, to seek not to remain at the level of abstract thoughts and ideas of history, but to penetrate to such a living inner soul life that truly grasps what has historically taken place—an understanding so saturated with reality that it, in turn, is close to natural events, to the unfolding of nature.

[ 19 ] Just as the inadequacy of the natural-scientific foundation has become apparent in medicine, so too has the inadequacy of the historical method become apparent in social life. What, then, has caused so-called historical materialism—the Marxist worldview—to begin to take hold in our time, to the misery of humanity in this much-tried Europe? What, then, has caused people to emerge who declare everything spiritual—law, customs, and so on—to be mere ideology, and who see reality solely in the economic process of production? What has caused this? It has caused the historical methods of the 19th century to prove incapable of grasping this reality. Historians—or those who aspired to be historians in any field—remained stuck in abstractions that have nothing to do with reality. And Social Democracy has, in the meantime, developed for itself what was not offered to it by the leading circles—namely, based on the only thing it knew anything about: the economic process. The fact that we have a materialist foundation for history and, today, an economic policy that is ruining Europe to its very foundations—this is the sin of the absence of historical thinking. The facts today are serious, and only those who refuse to see this seriousness can deny that it is necessary to seek a deeper understanding in these two fields—the natural sciences and history—and to work toward a new foundation.

[ 20 ] This is what must be understood within the spiritual movement represented by this building, the Goetheanum, so that—and this should be explained here in all humility—a science may arise that can truly make its way into our elementary schools, that can truly flow into life. And one would like these endeavors to capture not only the intellectual impulses of people today, but above all, one would like the hearts of people today to be part of this process and for them to feel how deeply the entire social misery of our time—the entire decline and chaos of our time—is connected to the aberrations present in our era’s pursuit of knowledge and scientific endeavors, which must be healed.

[ 21 ] What I have characterized in this way should be contrasted with what can be derived from the method of the humanities for the natural sciences and for the historical sciences. And I do not wish to speak in abstract terms, but rather to point out two facts, which are intended only as examples of what is being sought here. Let one example be taken from the realm of the natural sciences. It is meant to indicate precisely the point at which the natural-scientific foundation of our scientific endeavor becomes insufficient in relation to concepts of the human being. If you look around at contemporary scientific endeavors today, you will repeatedly find a conception of the human heart. This conception of the human heart is, in fact—I would say—directly derived from what constitutes the scientific foundation of life today. Just as mechanics, physics, chemistry, and biology are today, so is our conception of the human heart—because we have a specific kind of chemistry, physics, biology, and so on, because we have a specific kind of scientific foundation. What is this conception of the human heart? Well, you’ll find it characterized everywhere as follows: The human heart is a pump that pumps blood through the human organism in such a way that this blood washes away certain waste products, exchanging them for others that it carries to specific locations within the human organism. — If today one were to express even the slightest doubt to certain people that the human heart might be a perfectly ordinary pump—that the human heart works right there in the center and pumps blood out to the various parts of the body—then the people who have adopted scientific views today—I have experienced this myself—will become downright furious. And yet, my esteemed audience, this is the point where a restoration of the scientific foundation can bring about a complete reversal.

[ 22 ] Here, the humanistic worldview will have to demonstrate that the heart is not a pump, but rather that the heart’s activity is, in its entirety, merely the result of self-regulating currents and interactions within the human organism. Human beings are dual beings. Everything that lies—to speak schematically—below the heart, so to speak, and everything that lies above the heart is organized in fundamentally different ways. Fundamentally different from one another are the forces that drive the development of carbon and those that then come into play when carbon combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. But the actual agent, the actual driving force, lies in the forces that interact with one another from the lower human being and the upper human being—from the upper and the lower. Just as in an electrical voltage the positive and negative electricities are drawn to one another, and just as a device connected to this voltage of positive and negative electricity would perform certain actions, so the human heart performs actions as a result of the currents within the human organism. The activity of the human heart is not that of a pump for the human organism. Everything the human heart does is merely the result of inner life, of a certain current within the human organism. The opposite of conventional wisdom is true.

[ 23 ] But with this, my esteemed audience, we are simultaneously pointing to a complete reversal of the science of human nature. For it is only by grasping this great contrast between the upper and lower human beings—in which the activity of the heart is engaged and, in a sense, expresses itself as mediation—that one is able to place the human being in the proper contrast to the entire environment, to understand how the lower human being stands in a certain relationship to the external world of solid, liquid, and gaseous bodies, as well as to the external world of thermal phenomena, whereas everything that is in the higher human being—and which stands in a certain contrast to the modes of action of the lower human being—must be paralleled with light and other ethereal processes in the earthly and extraterrestrial realms.

[ 24 ] One learns to place human beings in the proper context within the entire cosmos only when one stops believing that the heart is the pump that pumps blood through the organism. In truth, the blood has an inner life, and in the congestion that arises between the lower human being and the higher human being, the heart is so engaged that the result of this congestion manifests itself in the heartbeat. Essentially, the heartbeat is nothing other than the point where the higher self and the lower self come into contact, and where, in certain unconscious regions, the activity of the lower self is perceived by the higher self. The heart is, in a sense, a sensory organ within the human being. Just as the external sensory organs serve to mediate a person’s external experiences, so the heart is the organ that mediates experiences of one’s own being—albeit in the subconscious. My intention in mentioning these things is simply to point out that something as fundamental as the science of the heart—which is capable of reforming the entire medical perspective—is in need of a thorough reform today. But this is only one example—it is an example of how cause and effect are today, I would say, virtually confused in all fields of natural observation.

[ 25 ] Ladies and gentlemen! Spiritualists claim to have photographed spirits. Photography is an external process, and I do not wish to dwell further here on whether or not spirits can be photographed. But just as spiritists have no more justification for claiming that they have photographed spirits, so too do certain physicists today claim that they have photographed the configuration of atoms. Certainly, one can bombard crystals with X-rays; one can cause these X-rays to be reflected, the reflected rays to interfere, and then photograph them; and one can claim to be photographing the configuration of atoms. The essential question is simply this: Are we really photographing the atomic agents here, or are we photographing certain effects that originate from the macrocosm and manifest only at the points where we believe atoms to be present? What matters everywhere is finding ways of thinking and conceiving that are capable of proceeding correctly from phenomena to the essence of things. Because scientific methods are so inadequate, they cannot suffice for application to human beings, whether in the medical field or when it comes to applying such methods in a social context.

[ 26 ] Thus we see that people who believe they are trained in the natural sciences are today setting out to solve social problems, such as Lenin and Trotsky. But what is actually happening is simply that individual people have learned what the natural sciences establish from their facts—which, however, is insufficient as conclusions or results. Such people generally do not bother to actually test—against the individual facts—what they believe they know about things and what they believe they have deduced as laws. If someone tells them they have photographed the configuration of atoms, such people do not stop to consider what value such a photograph has. Of course, it makes a tremendous impression when one proclaims to the world in popular accounts: Atoms exist; they have even been photographed. — The layperson naturally says: Well, how can anyone who isn’t a dilettante now deny that atoms exist—that they are the agents in all natural phenomena—when these atoms have even been photographed?

[ 27 ] The point, however, is to gain insight into how something like this comes about. We suffer immensely in the present from the fact that certain ideas—whether monistic or otherwise—are asserted as popular worldviews, even though they consist of nothing more than summaries, conceptual summaries of all sorts of findings, without ever going back to their actual foundations. What else do people present at monistic gatherings other than what they have read in books or heard in lectures as supposed findings? Where, in reality, is there any opportunity to delve into the actual substance from which such findings are actually drawn? Consequently, in this field, there is also no possibility of truly grasping the full scope of the findings. We see this in modern science—when it develops into a worldview and believes itself to be very precise—that the processes we observe in history are then used to calculate the processes that are supposed to take place on our Earth over millions of years or that are supposed to have taken place millions of years ago. These calculations are always correct; for example, if one calculates how much debris Niagara Falls deposits over a certain number of years, one can of course deduce a great deal from such stratifications. But what method is actually used here? The method is as follows: One observes, say, the processes in the human stomach over a period of five years, and then calculates what these processes were like 10, 20, 150, 200, or 300 years ago. One will obtain precise results—except that the person who has this stomach and its processes certainly did not exist as a physical human being 300 years ago! One can also calculate the changes in how the human stomach—and subsequently the entire human being—will be constituted in 10, 20, 30, 100, 200, or 300 years—but by then the person will have long since died, and the entire calculation—which in itself is completely correct as a calculation—has not the slightest value. Calculations that refer to the state of the Earth millions of years ago or millions of years from now have the same value, because they do not take into account whether the Earth even existed back then or will still exist then. What good is it to know that after so many millions of years—if, say, we paint protein on the wall and it will glow due to changes in the Earth—the Earth will have long since ceased to exist! People still do not realize today that while a calculation or similar result may be absolutely correct, it is not at all applicable to reality.

[ 28 ] Two things are necessary today if one wishes to form a judgment: first, that the judgment be based on a correct logical method—the method of calculation is also a logical method—and second, that the judgment also be based on an appropriate understanding of reality. A judgment must be both true to reality and logically sound. The former is usually forgotten today; that is why, in our everyday scientific life, judgments that are merely logically correct play such a major role, even though under certain circumstances they may have no application to reality at all. This is what matters to the spiritual movement of which this Goetheanum stands as a representative: not merely to hold logically correct views—which can then lead to errors—but to hold views that correspond to reality, views that truly build a bridge between what lives within the human being as a worldview and what unfolds outside as reality; for only such views that correspond to reality are of any use in life. Only through such views in harmony with reality can our present life—which is being driven so deeply into chaos—find healing again.

[ 29 ] So I have shown you, using one example—I was only able to present this one example today, but there are many more—namely, the example of cardiology, just how necessary it is to strive for a science grounded in reality, and how the spiritual movement cultivated here has set itself the serious task of working toward such a necessary reform of this science. I would also like to use an example to show how work should be approached in the field of the historical sciences. With this example, I would like to demonstrate how people have simply attempted to apply a rudimentary scientific method—I would even say a stunted scientific method—to the historical reality, and how this has led to disastrous errors.

[ 30 ] You see, in the field of natural science, I would like to draw attention to the so-called biogenetic law. I do not wish to discuss the more or less limited validity of this law at this time; rather, I would first like to treat it as a kind of hypothetical natural law. What does this biogenetic law state? It states that every higher animal, including humans, during embryonic development—that is, during the development from conception to birth—briefly passes through the same stages of form that were undergone in phylogenetic development. For example, the human embryo exhibits a fish-like form during a certain period, followed by other forms. These forms—the metamorphoses through which the embryo passes—are reminiscent of what occurred in the evolutionary lineage, enabling the species to evolve through various forms into human beings. — This so-called fundamental biogenetic law has a certain limited significance. That ontogeny is a brief repetition of phylogeny, and that individual development is a brief repetition of phylogenetic development, is beyond doubt. However, attempts have been made to apply what has been discovered in the natural world to the historical realm. It was believed that what exists in a later culture must also, in a brief repetition, reflect what existed in an earlier culture. Thus, whenever a new people emerges, it must, in its early stages, pass through—as it were—the stages of human development as they have been experienced thus far, and then build upon them, just as human beings build their mature lives upon the embryonic repetition of phylogenetic history. Not much has come of it, however, when one attempts to apply this law—which was initially formulated purely abstractly for historical development, modeled on a series of scientific observations—to life itself. I would say that life experiences do not actually confirm this law in the historical realm to such an extent that it can be of any practical use in dealing with reality.

[ 31 ] In contrast, the following becomes apparent to the spiritual scientist’s keen sense of observation. This is, in fact, the essential point: that the inner work the humanities scholar must perform in order to arrive at his modes of perception—and thereby penetrate nature in the manner I have demonstrated—that this inner work sharpens the eye for reality, the sense of observation for reality. Thus, the following becomes evident regarding this sharpened sense of observation: In the early stages of their development, human beings undergo certain metamorphoses. One need only have an unbiased mind to observe correctly what takes place during the early stages of human development. Here we have, first of all, an important phase of human life: from birth until the change of teeth around the age of seven. The human soul manifests itself in a very specific way during this period, and with the change of teeth, it undergoes a transformation. Until the change of teeth, the human being is in that phase of life where they are an imitative being who, right down to their movements and the formation of speech sounds, seeks to imitate—through inner forces—what is modeled in their environment. Until around the age of seven, they adapt so fully to their human environment that, until the next important stage of life—which is linked to the onset of puberty—they feel the need to accept, on the authority of others, whatever they are told to believe. At that point, the entire human constitution undergoes a transformation, and their inner life changes once again. And anyone with a sufficiently keen sense of observation will then be able to notice, even in the early twenties—perhaps even at the end of the twenties—how the human being degenerates. Later on, what corresponds to this youthful degeneration of the human being becomes observable only to the keenly attuned sense of observation of the spiritual researcher. It becomes apparent—if a person has truly undergone training in spiritual science—that toward old age certain, I might say shadow-like, transformations of the soul life occur. They appear only in hints, but one notices quite clearly: in one’s forties, at the end of one’s forties, one becomes a different person, and at the end of one’s fifties, one becomes yet another. These metamorphoses occur in a shadowy, rudimentary way—as merely hinted-at changes within—but anyone who can observe them can compare them to the hints that appear in embryonic life, which are repetitions of earlier physical forms that have been passed through in the course of phylogenetic development.

[ 32 ] But one must not simply apply the fundamental biogenetic law of natural science to history; rather, the historian is compelled—instead of looking to the beginning of life, as the natural scientist must—to look to the end of life, to these shadowy, rudimentary transformations of the life of the soul. And just as, for the natural human being, the beginning of life appears as a repetition of ancestral history, so these rudimentary hints at the end of life turn out to be repetitions of what the human race as a whole has gone through on Earth. One comes to understand that what is present today only in a rudimentary form as we age was present in the full sense among prehistoric humans; one comes to understand that we can trace humanity back to a time when, well into old age, people underwent such transformations of organic-psychic life as we experience during tooth replacement and sexual maturation. And as we age, we experience a rudimentary repetition of what humanity has undergone in the course of historical development. Here we will discover what, for historical science, must be the correlate to the fundamental law of biogenetics.

[ 33 ] Those who think in abstract terms are always satisfied when they have found something; they then expand upon it and build an entire system of worldviews out of it; they want to extend the fundamental biogenetic law to the historical development of humanity. To the true observer—and this observable reality becomes apparent to the spiritual researcher—to the true observer, something entirely different reveals itself. It becomes evident that we are able, precisely in our aging and its rudimentary changes, to observe the repetition of what we must seek in earlier historical stages of human development. We look back to ancient Indian and Persian times and know that people there remained capable of development well into old age, to the extent that a metamorphosis could still be observed in their organisms even in their forties and fifties—a phenomenon that today is only observed during tooth replacement and sexual maturation. You see, this is where the difference becomes apparent between true observation of reality and that abstract tendency to generalize, which has arisen precisely through materialism. And we then understand how, in ancient times, human beings—as children and young people—lived alongside the elderly and said to themselves: In old age, one experiences something that brings something entirely new into life. — Let us consider how deeply this true law allows us to look into the inner course of human development, how it enables us to look into a state of humanity in which we understand patriarchal life, because the young person anticipated old age in such a way that he said to himself: “This age offers me something entirely new.” — And so we do not view primeval humanity the way today’s materialistic anthropologist does. We look upon this primeval humanity and understand it—I would say in an intimately human way—and through this we can also recognize that, within its entire environment, something entirely different existed for this primeval humanity than for present-day humanity. But we must take an interest—because we are approaching something directly human here—in this metamorphosis from early humanity to our present day. And if we must admit that the human organism has undergone a transformation, we will also be able to point out other transformations of the human organism in the proper way.

[ 34 ] I would like to point out just one thing, my esteemed audience, which stems from spiritual science but which—because it is relatively close to us—can even be substantiated externally through philological and historical research: namely, that the Greeks possessed a culture that has had such a profound effect on us because they viewed the world differently than we do today. Spiritual science shows us that what lay within the Greeks was capable of organic development well into a much later stage of life than is the case with us. We reach the end of this upward organic capacity for development by the end of our twenties; the Greeks continued it well into their thirties. This led to greater activity among the Greeks; it meant that the Greeks channeled even more activity into their sense organs than we are capable of doing. That is why

[ 35 ] The Greeks were not yet a contemplative people. Humanity has only become contemplative since the mid-15th century. The Greeks were a people who still projected all their inner activity into the world of the senses; they still viewed the entire world—I would say—as more radiant and warmer than we do. We must imagine that the Greeks had no interest in dark colors, that they had the liveliest interest and the greatest sensitivity for light, warm colors. And we find external confirmation of this when we discover that the Greeks have a single word with which they designate dark hair color, but at the same time also lapis lazuli—that is, the blue gemstone. People have probably never had blue hair; so if one uses the same word to describe both dark hair and lapis lazuli, it is clear that blue is regarded as dark. And the other peculiar thing is that the Greeks had a word for green—chloros—and at the same time used this word to describe honey, which we consider yellow. And I could cite many more examples that would demonstrate to us, even outwardly, that the Greeks’ vision was similar to that of someone who is color-blind to blue. Roman historians tell us that the Greeks painted using only four colors: black, white, red, and yellow.

[ 36 ] From this we can indeed see that, when we look at history, we need not focus on the great so-called military events or the great so-called rise and fall of states, but rather we must look at the intimate details; we must observe how the individual human being has developed. In this way, we in turn address the needs of our present time. People’s interest in the conquests of Alexander the Great stemmed from having been guided toward that interest through school. Today, the broadest masses are being called upon to engage in education and intellectual life, and they want to take an interest in something other than the conquests of Xerxes or Alexander the Great, Caesar, or even later figures; they want to take an interest in what appears in every human being as what is truly human. But a science of history is emerging before our inner eye, one that describes how human beings were different five, six, or seven millennia ago, how they were different in the Greek era than they are now. A history emerges that approaches everything individually human directly, that brings to life before our inner eye what the Greeks were like, so that people today can compare the Greeks with themselves in a soul-spiritual sense. That which concerns every human being will be of interest to those who, as the broad masses of today, strive for education—that which concerns not only Alexander the Great, Alcibiades, and Caesar, but every human being; that which, so to speak, lies within every human being, because each person is a descendant of those who saw the world in such a completely different way.

[ 37 ] Once again, it is a serious matter—especially in light of the social needs of the present—to strive for a historical science that is closely attuned to human beings; and such a science, precisely because it touches the innermost core of the human being, can also unleash the moral and legal impulses within people. In the externalized life of the state, we have gradually arrived at something that is nothing more than legislative convention. Yet what lives in our state laws does not penetrate to those depths of the human soul where moral impulses spring forth. How, then, do today’s legal measures live within individual human beings? They do not. Even the lawyer himself often has to look them up in law books first, because he usually knows very little about them before consulting the relevant section. But what has gradually become a mere historical abstraction does not live vividly within people. If we were to reestablish a historical science, it would be something capable of triggering impulses in life. Only such a historical science will be capable of stirring people and inspiring them to rational social will—in contrast to the historical materialism that Lenin and Trotsky have elevated to such heights. Because people have been offered nothing but abstract, insubstantial ideas, Lenin and Trotsky have been able to counter them with the only thing people truly understand: the results of economic life.

[ 38 ] Today, it is the great, serious demands of life that raise the question: In what way can the natural sciences and the historical sciences be revitalized? If we are to take life seriously today, we must consider such a revitalization of the sciences. I can well imagine that those people who today receive their education through everything that currently constitutes such an education will be shocked by what I am saying here and will likely find it radical—even though we must simply regard it as absolutely necessary out of a sense of the seriousness of life. But is it not our very own time that points to the seriousness of life at every moment?

[ 39 ] Ladies and gentlemen, one might hypothesize that this hall would be very full today if it weren’t for the postponed Carnival celebrations—if one can even call that “celebrating.” But I am quite content that this evening is being held here on this very day to show that there are still places where people feel that serious matters must be discussed in a time of need, in a time such as the one in which we live today. In such times, there is still much, much that fails to attain the seriousness of life necessary to contemplate such matters as were alluded to in today’s introductory lecture.

[ 40 ] But when one says something like this, ladies and gentlemen, one is reminded of a statement once made by someone—appropriate for his time—who also felt compelled to speak of the great impulses in contrast to people’s petty interests: Johann Gottlieb Fichte once spoke about the calling of the scholar and gave lectures on the subject. When he published these lectures, he introduced them with just a few words. He said, addressing all those who had so convincingly demonstrated through their practical experience that ideals cannot, after all, be realized—he did not actually address them directly, for they are, after all, beyond instruction, but he spoke with reference to them—he said: “That ideals are not realizable in immediate life, we others know just as well as these so-called practical people.” But we must state in all seriousness that life must be directly oriented toward them. — And Johann Gottlieb Fichte added that the fact that there are people who are unable to grasp how necessary it is, in the serious hours of world history, to undertake correspondingly serious endeavors, only proves that these very people simply cannot be counted on in the world’s plan. And so, said Fichte, may the Spirit that guides this world plan grant them “rain and sunshine at the right time, nourishing food, and the undisturbed circulation of vital fluids”—and, if possible, “wise thoughts” as well; but otherwise, one cannot count on them when speaking of the impulses that lie within the grand plan of the world.

[ 41 ] But one would hope that, especially in today’s grave global situation, a sufficiently large number of people can be found who are able to sense this gravity and, from it, feel the necessity that it is not small but great impulses that must take place—and indeed must take place precisely in the realm of human consciousness itself—so that we may move forward. It is these kinds of impulses that I meant to convey today as I tried to speak to you, using individual examples, about the relationship between anthroposophy and contemporary science. I was only able to sketch out what I wanted to say, but if, through this sketch, I could evoke in a small—yet sufficiently large—number of people impulses that might then have a stimulating effect on what must happen—a renewal of our entire scientific life—then I would regard what can actually come about through such inspirations as at least provisionally fulfilled.

[ 42 ] In our time, science takes great pride in claiming that it seeks pure knowledge. In ancient Greece, when imagination was more closely tied to life, the term “catharsis” was used to describe the most crucial moment in a tragedy—the moment when the hero’s fate was decided. They introduced into aesthetics a concept that had been taken from medicine. For in Greek life, “catharsis” was regarded as a kind of crisis that occurred so that certain pathological processes within the organism might be balanced out or neutralized by other processes. In that healthy Greek era, the concepts derived from what unfolds in the natural world were transferred to the realm of art. Today, we need once again a science that leaves no gap between theory and practice; we need a viable, vibrant science; we need a science that can build life.

[ 43 ] However, only those who truly understand and feel the gravity of present-day life will yearn for such a powerful science. And as for the rest of you, my esteemed audience—let me say this in closing—we must, in accordance with Fichte’s old saying, leave them even today to a benevolent cosmic plan that provides them with food and drink at the right time, that gives them sunshine and rain at the right time, that grants them postponed carnival revelry, and—if possible—also wise thoughts. It will be difficult!

[ 44 ] But what is necessary today lies in a different realm, which can be described as follows: Research that has become estranged from the spirit must find its way back to the spirit. And it is this path back to the spirit that the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science seeks to find; to this end, it calls upon humanity. This is the truth—in the face of all the prejudices and all the slanders that are otherwise leveled against this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science throughout the world.

[ Lively applause ]

[ 45 ] Roman Boos: As a token of gratitude for this lecture, I would like to express the hope that the lectures that will now follow will have the same effect—both within our circle and beyond—as was demonstrated in Dr. Steiner’s lecture. I would now like to ask that, after a short break, those who may still have questions regarding today’s lecture come forward. In particular, I would like to ask all our friends engaged in scientific work to take advantage of this opportunity, as Dr. Steiner is willing to provide further clarification on various points.

[ 46 ] Eugen Kolisko: Based on what Dr. Steiner said about research into the inverse biogenetic law, how can we actually determine that we are dealing with a time that lies so far in the past—a time corresponding to a specific period? How can we determine, based on the processes observed in the phenomena of old age, how far back in time this period lies?

[ 47 ] Friedrich Husemann: Is the Greeks’ “blue blindness” something that has to do solely with the individual development of this people, or is it perhaps something that occurs in the general course of development of a race or a people—something that would thus correspond to a certain stage in the history of that race? What about the Chinese, for example, of whom we have depictions in blue colors dating back to very early times? Are there other factors to consider?

[ 48 ] Walter Johannes Stein: How is the change in sensory perception related to the shift in thinking among the Greeks, who, according to the book *The Riddles of Philosophy*, still had a much more vivid perception?

[ 49 ] Roman Boos asks Dr. Steiner to deliver the closing remarks.

[ 50 ] Rudolf Steiner: By way of a closing remark, I would like to address the questions that have been raised. The first question, ladies and gentlemen, is of course one that would require a very comprehensive explanation to answer.

[ 51 ] First of all, I must mention that a genuine investigation of these matters is only possible on the basis of the spiritual-scientific method—that is, the method that actually teaches us to view from the inside what we are otherwise accustomed to viewing from the outside. You can get an idea of what is actually at stake in roughly the following way. When you look at the physical organism, you must take the present moment as your starting point. You must limit yourself to the configuration and external activity that the physical organism possesses in the present moment. When you move from there to the observation of the life of the soul, you will not find in this life of the soul the necessity of limiting yourself to the present moment; rather, you will find in the life of the soul—first and foremost in the individual life of the soul—an extension back to the sixth, fifth, and fourth years of life. These experiences are incorporated into memory, so that when you ascend from the observation of the physical human being to the observation of the soul, you move from the present to an individual past. To master the methods of spiritual science means to develop certain abilities that go beyond ordinary soul life. These abilities, which go beyond ordinary soul life, then also expand that which, in the transition from the physical to the soul realm, extends over a certain period of time, all the way back to childhood. These spiritual scientific methods expand one’s perception beyond the individual human being, and what emerges is an inner perception of the world process. It is, however, a long path—one you will find described in my books—but it is a path that can certainly become a reality for human development.

[ 52 ] Just as, when reviewing one’s individual life course in memory, time is in a certain sense immanent in the recurring inner experiences, so too—though only through a comparative analysis of what one holds in memory—will one arrive at a conceptual framework of time, even for what presents itself to inner contemplation, provided one truly knows how to work methodically. This leads to a truly methodical elaboration. Anyone who cultivates an observant sense for what I have called the rudimentary metamorphoses of the soul in old age—which, however, are certainly accompanied by rudimentary metamorphoses of the body—will find that there are certain periods of time in which such metamorphoses take place. One such period lies at the end of one’s forties, another at the end of one’s fifties, and yet another in the middle of one’s fifties, so that one does indeed identify certain periods of inner experience corresponding to this rudimentary metamorphosis of the soul. Now, if one truly applies an inner methodology in extending inner contemplation to the extra-individual realm and thereby arrives at certain time specifications, one can either rely on them directly—which is certainly the case with a developed spiritual-scientific method—or one can attempt to corroborate what presents itself in this way through external verification. One might say, for example, that today—if one has already sharpened one’s sense of observation for this purpose—one experiences a certain life metamorphosis around the age of 35. One then seeks this out based on what presents itself in external historical life, and in this way establishes a specific historical point in time. If one then tries to identify another life metamorphosis—for example, what presents itself at the end of one’s twenties—one arrives at a later point in time. In this way, one identifies individual epochs corresponding to historical events and to an inner metamorphosis of life. This allows one to relate these individual life epochs to the historical development of humanity up to that point. Does this point the way forward? Of course, I can only sketch out this path. If you follow this line of thought, you will find that this path is a very precise one.

[ 53 ] As for the so-called “blue blindness” of the Greeks, I would ask you first and foremost to bear in mind that I really only wish to speak of a so-called “blue blindness.” It is more a matter of the Greeks’ sensitivity to bright, warm colors and their lesser interest in dark, blue, and cold colors. One must be clear that the process itself taking place here is far more psychological for the Greek people than it is for those who are partially color-blind today. It is merely an analogy, but this psychological “blue-blindness” is so strongly present among the Greeks that we can still find evidence of it in the Greek language. However, you have likely already gathered from the lecture that we should not view this as an individual characteristic of the Greek people, but rather as something that occurs during a specific period of a people’s development. Of course, we must bear in mind that the peoples living side by side on Earth do not all experience their relative epochs in exactly the same time periods. We must be clear that, for example, the Chinese people had long since moved beyond the period of “blue blindness” by the time they entered history. So one must, in a sense, perceive these periods as layered side by side; then one will see what I have said in the proper light. I have attempted to describe the thought process as it manifested itself among the Greeks in my *Riddles of Philosophy*; this Greek thought process was also somewhat different from our present-day thought process. Our thought process is such that we are conscious of a certain activity of thought with which we accompany external facts; through this activity of thought—of which we are conscious—we attribute the formation of thoughts to ourselves and attribute only the sensory impression to the objective world. It was different with the Greeks. The Greeks—you can easily verify this if you look at the Greek philosophers with an unbiased judgment—had a clear awareness that just as they saw colors in things, they also saw thoughts in things; that is, they perceived thoughts. The Greeks experienced thought as something perceived, not as something actively formed. And that is why the Greeks were not really a reflective people in the sense that we are. People have only truly become reflective since the mid-15th century. The thought process has become internalized. It has become internalized simultaneously with the course of the sensory process. The Greeks looked—I would say—more toward the active part of the spectrum, toward the red, warm side of the spectrum; they perceived the cold, blue side of the spectrum only vaguely. And today we certainly have a very different conception of the red and warm side of the spectrum; we see it shifted much more toward the green than the Greeks did, who were still able to perceive it sensitively beyond our outermost red. The Greek spectrum was shifted entirely toward the red side. The Greeks therefore also saw the rainbow differently than we do. And because we have shifted our sensitivity more toward the other side of the spectrum, we are, in a sense, turning our attention toward the dark, and this is already something like entering a kind of twilight. It makes one thoughtful. If I now describe it in more figurative terms, please do not take offense; after all, there is a very real process of human development underlying it. As sensitivity shifts from the warm part of the spectrum to the dark part of the spectrum, something similar occurs in the development of humanity as a whole as happens to an individual when, emerging from full light, they experience twilight—a time when they begin to rely more on themselves, to follow the inner path of thought, and to become contemplative. One thinks more actively, I would say, in twilight and in the dark than one does when sensitivity is directed toward the lively, vibrant, warm colors—when one lives more in the outer world and experiences more of what is in the outer world. The ancient Greeks were more absorbed in the external world with their entire thinking. They therefore also saw their thoughts in the external world. Modern people, who have shifted their entire spectrum of perception more toward the dark side, cannot see their thoughts in the external world. Just as at night, when it is dark all around, one would not claim that what the soul experiences is outwardly visible, but knows that it takes place within the soul, so too what human beings have experienced since the shift in spectral perception takes place more on the dark side within the soul, and one can say, a shift in thinking has taken place since Greek times.

[ 54 ] Such matters arise from research in the humanities. I can only outline them here; I hope that some of what has been touched upon today can be elaborated upon further here in the coming days, and I wish the speakers who will follow me the very best of luck in addressing questions that are as interesting as possible in the coming days.