The Rudolf Steiner Archive

14. Essays on the Relationship Between the Humanities and the Individual Disciplines IV

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! When, as in these lectures, we speak of the relationship between anthroposophical spiritual science and the individual specialized sciences, we may at first feel least inclined to emphasize the need to include the technical sciences as well—sciences that, like the others, are to be enriched by this spiritual science—examples of which I have already outlined in my previous lectures. However, even if this can only be done in outline form, I would still like to point out that there is indeed a significant inner relationship between the spiritual science referred to here and what might be called the technical sciences, with their practical implications for modern life. Here I may—and this is not meant personally, but is entirely relevant to the matter at hand—point to what I attempted as early as the beginning of the 1890s with my *Philosophy of Freedom*.

[ 2 ] This “Philosophy of Freedom” is, after all, intended first and foremost as a foundation for human ethical and social life. It is conceived as a foundation that is to be thoroughly rooted in the spirit of the present age. And if I were to characterize the essence of what lies at the heart of this “Philosophy of Freedom,” I must point to the way in which this “Philosophy of Freedom” has grown out of contemporary life. It is not built upon traditional philosophical premises. It did not come into being the way many things in this field do—where some philosophical current is taken for granted, where one has become a follower of this or that philosophical school, and then attempted to develop a certain direction that is supposed to hold some validity alongside one or the other—but rather, what I sought to develop there as a Philosophy of Freedom, as an ethical and social foundation for life, arose from a very particular way of thinking, which was first shaped by an observation of modern social life. And here I must interject a few personal remarks, because they may more easily characterize what I wish to say than a detailed discussion would, and because the time allotted for these four lectures is too short for a discussion that might otherwise be possible.

[ 3 ] My school—my most important school—was the experience of modern transportation life, which I witnessed every day from my earliest childhood as the son of a low-ranking railroad official who was introduced to everything technically related to the railroad system, as well as in everything that was directly related—albeit perhaps from a narrow perspective at the time—to the commercial aspects of such a situation. Then again, I was able to continue my studies more effectively than any school could have provided, since for years, as a tutor, I had to work with the sons of people who were essentially involved in important industrial and transportation sectors of the present day or, respectively, of the last decades of the 19th century. What emerged there in terms of thought and feeling—I would say what crystallized there—what flowed from the forces that were incorporated into the very most modern aspirations of humanity, demanded a certain justification of the ethical and social outlook on life.

[ 4 ] If one views life from the perspectives I have just described, then one sees it in those functions in which it, so to speak, becomes more and more detached from human subjectivity, in which it increasingly becomes, so to speak, an external technology. I would say that one is then constantly confronted in life with what modern science repeatedly and consistently demands as a principle. Modern science, after all, demands that phenomena be treated entirely separately from human beings. And when one allows life—into which these very technical achievements are now playing a role—to take effect upon oneself, then one is dealing first and foremost with what takes place through machines, through traffic, and so on—that is, with something that stands in stark contrast to human subjectivity, something that operates almost exclusively in the objective realm—so much so that one can say: “There, the human being loses their subjectivity; there, much of their personality is lost; there, the human being is placed within the objective, mechanical workings of life.”

[ 5 ] On the one hand, this became evident in modern scientific life in that, in sciences such as optics, thermodynamics, and the like, there was a desire to completely disregard what arises from the interrelationship between the human being and the external world, and to establish a science that, in the last third of the 19th century, tended toward atomistic theories, whose dominance has by no means been overcome even today. On the one hand, we have this. On the other hand, however, we also see that, in the entire development of modern life, there lies at the root of reality something that is separated from life and from human beings, from subjectivity, and from the human personality. Now, in such a context, one can either thoughtlessly integrate oneself into the mechanical workings of life, one can believe that the old traditional creeds and views might still provide certain ethical forces for this modern life, which has become separated from human beings; and one can then demand, from certain subconscious depths, an objective science such as has been demanded in atomism, in physics, chemistry, and even in biology.

[ 6 ] But one can also arrive at a different perspective. One can observe this life of modern times, which is separated from the human being, from the perspective of a full, whole sense of human personality. One can feel and sense it with all the effects it has on the human personality, and one can best feel it when one acquires a technical education oneself, when one goes through precisely those spiritual currents that are at work in technology. If I may also add a personal remark here: My university education was entirely technical—not philosophical in any sense, but rather focused on engineering and the natural sciences. When one, so to speak, grows fully into this life that has become separated from the human being, then precisely at the center of one’s personality will stir that which I felt compelled to present as the other force of modern social life in *The Philosophy of Freedom*. For the more, on the one hand—and one can certainly take an affirmative stance toward this technical, interconnected life of the modern age—the more this life reveals itself as a historical necessity, the more, so to speak, the human being must lose himself in external events, the more the inner reaction must assert itself: to build ethics, and also to build religious feeling, upon the innermost core of the human personality—upon that which can be drawn from the deepest possible immersion in the very essence of the human being. And one might perhaps imagine how, on the one hand, one can stand fully within modern technological life in a positive way and say to oneself precisely for that reason: Yes, human beings are losing more and more of their personality; all the more must they take refuge in the innermost source of their spiritual life, all the more must they shape from there that which then brings light into what the personality would otherwise completely cast aside. — And from this innermost core of human life, an ethical individualism was drawn forth—an ethical individualism, however, that first and foremost appeals to a very significant social force.

[ 7 ] It is very easy today to thoroughly criticize the kind of ethical individualism that is laid out in my *Philosophy of Freedom*. Certainly, one can do so if one clings to old traditions, if one does not wish to counter what has occurred as external progress in humanity with internal progress as well. But on the other hand, one can also say to oneself: The greater the external progress, the greater and stronger must also be the power of the inner striving of the human soul. — And so one comes to say to oneself: That way of grouping people together, as it existed in the old ethical systems, is no longer possible within modern human development, for within such groupings, people rely too heavily on what flows into their souls from their environment and other sources to provide the ethical impulses. The modern era necessitates that people delve much deeper into their inner lives to draw out ethical impulses. But then, of course, it is necessary to appeal to that force which, within social human life, can be called trust. This trust must become an ethical force in its own right. For only when one recognizes that when people appeal to the innermost core of their being—when they draw their ethical motives from there—can they then also interact socially in freedom; indeed, will interact socially in freedom precisely then—if one can have confidence in this kind of authenticity, in this kind of integrity and fruitfulness of the human personality—only then will one find the forces necessary to ensure that contemporary social life progresses in the right way.

[ 8 ] One might say, of course, that we would have to wait a long time for people to mature to such a degree of ethical individualism. — Anyone who says such a thing usually suffers greatly from personal arrogance, for he considers himself mature and others immature. But besides that, theoretical consideration ends when these questions arise, for there is only an either-or. Either we follow Spengler’s path into the decline of our ethical and social—and thus also our technological—life, or we resolve to draw from the depths of the human soul those ethical impulses that are precisely necessary for humanity’s continued progress. And all the ranting and theorizing about whether this is possible is of no value; what matters is solely the will toward such ethical individualism—for it appeals to the will imbued with pure thought. And so I believe that, in fact, it is precisely the perspective of the most modern way of life that should give rise to this particular kind of ethics. That is why I also hold the view that this ethical individualism, this freedom must, in essence, assert itself precisely as a science that addresses human beings—the whole, complete human being—who is meant to engage in social life, precisely where, on the other hand, it is recognized that people are being introduced into technical, commercial, and modern economic life, as well as into other spheres of life, all of which, incidentally, are becoming modern and mechanized. We need such a conception alongside that which has emerged precisely from the scientific way of thinking and mindset that has developed into technology. We need the deepest immersion in and strengthening of human life precisely where, on the other hand, that which is separated from the human being is being strengthened.

[ 9 ] Therefore, it was necessary to establish a philosophy that could not be like the other philosophies. After all, these other philosophies traditionally stemmed, to a greater or lesser extent, from the old scientific tradition. This old scientific tradition had still retained something, one might say, from the perception of inner concepts and ideas and so on. We need only look back a few centuries to see that people did not view nature the way we do—whatever one may call it, for example, an “animistic worldview,” which persisted quite generally well into the 15th century, and perhaps even much later—but rather that people always considered something spiritual when they thought about natural entities; and from what they conceived in this way—down to the details of inorganic nature—they were able to derive fresh principles and, from these in turn, ethical impulses. Well into the 19th century—indeed, into the second half of the 19th century—people were not yet reliant on drawing ethical and philosophical impulses entirely from within, because they still associated the observation of the external world and the technical handling of that world with something spiritual, something that was also connected to human beings. The last third of the 19th century gave rise to a technology that demanded forms of thought completely detached from the human being. There is then nothing left to be gained in terms of impulses that might, for example, also become ethical impulses. Therefore, these ethical impulses must be drawn entirely from the human being itself; the entire individual ethical intuition must be placed at the center of the ethical view of the world. The age of natural science, of which so much has been spoken, does indeed demand such a purely scientific foundation for ethics.

[ 10 ] This, my esteemed audience, is meant to shed a little light on how there is a very real connection between what modern life is—insofar as this modern life has been shaped by science—and what this modern life necessitates in terms of an ethics strictly grounded in science. Now, however, such an ethics is possible only if one develops within oneself what I attempted to characterize just yesterday: flexible concepts—concepts that are so flexible that one does not remain stuck in contexts that are entirely detached from the human being, but rather is capable of I would say, to turn around and also encompass that which pulsates as reality from the depths of the human being. But in order to progress far enough in such a scientific worldview, there are still many other obstacles to overcome. Above all, it is necessary that we also find ideas—scientific laws—that have grown, on the one hand, out of a natural-scientific view of the world and, on the other, out of a historical view of the world.

[ 11 ] History, as we conceive of it today, is, after all, a young science. It is also something quite different from what it was even in the 18th century. No wonder, then, that what we call the science of history is still not very widespread and, in fact, lacks any internal driving force of its own. People speak, for example, of the guiding ideas in history. Well, only pure intellectualism can speak of the guiding ideas in history—that is, the belief that thoughts, just as humans conceive them, then manifest themselves as forces of history, that thoughts could somehow be driving forces in history. Thoughts are purely contemplative; thoughts cannot do anything. On the one hand, people speak of the driving “powers of thought,” and when one says “powers of thought,” one is already expressing something that is actually a contradiction in terms. And on the other hand, one falls into the opposite extreme: one actually depicts what happens historically only by portraying the external, material transformations of cultural life. One then goes as far as the materialist conception of history has gone, or one makes compromises by attempting to construct history from the mere observation of external cultural phenomena; one then infuses this with a few symbolic concepts, as some historians of the 19th and early 20th centuries did. But such knowledge—regarding how one should even attempt, within this science, to arrive at conceptions of what actually underlies the historical development of humanity—such conceptions have not yet actually been attained. And if one draws attention to this today—I am about to draw attention to it through a leitmotif—if one draws attention to this, then, yes, then one is still denounced as a fantasist today, because what is regarded as reality today is vastly different from what true reality is.

[ 12 ] Today, anyone who has looked into this field even a little will readily agree with the statement: Human beings, as physical beings, must be understood in terms of their physical structure by going back to embryology. And one will then, in a certain way—even if much that is unfounded has crept into the relevant sciences—attempt, with some justification, to compare the forms that emerge as the developmental stages of the human embryo with the forms found in the non-human organic world; and one will then attempt to find a connection between the animal kingdom and human form. Certainly, there is much that is unfounded in what has been called the “biogenetic law.” But in the methodological approach based on this principle there is nevertheless something that holds extraordinary promise for a realistic understanding of the human form. We are thus reminded: One must consider the beginning of life if one wishes to understand the physical form of the human being; one must consider the beginning of human life in order to then comprehend its further development.

[ 13 ] From a historical perspective, one can at most engage in a sort of game of analogies. This game of analogies has, in fact, been played very frequently. It was precisely the fanciful proponents of the biogenetic law who sought to apply this law to a certain materialistic way of thinking regarding the historical development of humanity. And so we have encountered those peculiar views that trace what constitutes the essence of our civilization today back to earlier phases of human development—in a manner similar to how one proceeds in formulating the biogenetic law. People said to themselves: What a child goes through can be traced back to very early stages of development, to very early cultures; and what is then experienced later in childhood can be traced back to later stages of development, and so on, until human beings have finally reached what they now possess as their civilization. This is an external exercise in analogy; and such external exercises in analogy are far more prevalent in scientific inquiry than is commonly believed, especially when we turn to the historical realm, for what I would call a faithful observation of reality—an engagement with the conditions of reality—is not actually close at hand for people today. For this reason, the spiritual science referred to here strives to develop pure phenomenalism within inorganic and organic natural science and, without speculation and without relying on underlying atomistic or other hypotheses, to depict purely the processes themselves as they present themselves.

[ 14 ] Phenomenology is the ideal of scientific inquiry as it exists in anthroposophy. One does not wish to move from what are, in essence, merely modifying contents of sensation to all sorts of wave oscillations and the like, which are hypothetically assumed and speculated upon. One wishes to remain within the realm of pure phenomena, for they reveal a great deal. And all this talk of the “thing-in-itself” is, in essence, groundless. People say, for example: “Yes, but you can’t see the underlying reality from the phenomena; a phenomenon always points to what lies beneath, and so one must go beyond the phenomenon—that is, assume something that the phenomenon evokes in interaction with human subjectivity.” — Those who speak this way do not realize that they are employing a completely flawed way of thinking. I would like to illustrate this flawed way of thinking with a parable: Someone who sees individual letters—for example, S, I, F—will say that these S, I, or F do not signify anything on their own; they must point to something else. — Anyone who surveys a written context—which, after all, consists only of individual letters—will not relate that written context to anything lying behind it—following the pattern that the atomic world is supposed to lie behind sensory phenomena— they will not relate this sequence of letters to anything imagined or lying behind it, but rather they will read the sequence, and they will know that, once they have the entire sequence, it points to the corresponding reality.

[ 15 ] It is also a matter of allowing these natural phenomena to remain in their purity within the world of natural phenomena, for by learning to interpret natural phenomena purely—in a way that corresponds to the inner nature of the phenomena themselves—one learns to look into that which underlies reality—not through any speculation about a “thing-in-itself” or the presupposition of some “thing-in-itself,” as is, after all, always the basis of atomistic theories and hypotheses. By accustoming oneself to such a pure contemplation of phenomena, by weaning oneself from all mere speculation, from all reliance on hypothetical assumptions, and by limiting oneself to pure observations—particularly in the inorganic and organic realms—one develops within oneself the capacity to observe in the realm of humanity’s spiritual development as well. One then comes to realize that one cannot apply the fundamental law of biogenesis to historical development through a game of analogies; rather, one learns to recognize that one must take into account the whole human being, the whole of human life—just as in the natural sciences, when one wishes to understand something, one should not isolate a single aspect but rather consider the totality of interrelated phenomena. One is then compelled to approach the understanding of historical life—unlike the understanding of human natural life—not by starting at the beginning of individual existence, but at the end. One must also consider the end. Even if it is a form of self-reflection, this self-reflection is thoroughly objective: Once one has become accustomed to viewing spiritual life as concretely as one otherwise views external, natural life, one finds that when a person has passed the midpoint of life—when they have passed the age of 35 or 40—this spiritual life, quite apart from all external factors, reveals certain phenomena within itself — phenomena that unfold in such a way that one can say one is taken by surprise by them.

[ 16 ] Spiritual life itself takes on a certain configuration. The reason this receives so little attention today is that the capacity for observation is poorly developed in youth. Consequently, very few people will perceive such things in old age. Very few people retain such a keen sense of observation in old age that they take these things into account. If one does not disregard them, one notices how something rises up from the depths of the soul—something that can be described as a repetition, an inner repetition of what ancient cultural epochs of humanity reveal in terms of their imaginative mindset and imaginative structure. By this I am pointing to a phenomenon that is of the utmost importance for the historian to observe. One need not make a great show of it outwardly, for it is not necessary for older people to make the signs of aging the very foundation of their lives. But it is necessary that life be viewed in its entirety, and as we ascend through life, as we grow older and older, it becomes evident that something seeks to enter our consciousness that is, at first glance, similar to the way of thinking of immediately preceding cultural epochs. One becomes like the Greeks. And if one experiences this entire middle age in the same way as, say, Goethe did, then under certain circumstances one may also develop a longing to live through the Greek era, just as Goethe did, for whom this longing became irresistible. And if one then goes further back and observes what rises up within the human being, one arrives at even earlier cultural epochs. At that age, one realizes that one understands all the better the particular nature of the worldviews of even older times. And one is transported back into a prehistory of human development—one no longer recorded in documents—when one contemplates this now-polar biogenetic law. This is not carried over into human life through a game of analogy from the natural sciences, but is derived from direct observation.

[ 17 ] If one continues to develop this line of research—I can, of course, only provide guidelines—one will come to understand an extraordinarily important guiding principle for the historical development of humanity. One comes to realize that there were earlier cultures in which people, by simply developing their physicality, also developed their spiritual and soul aspects as they advanced in age; that, in a sense, their spiritual and soul development arose naturally from their physical development. We, in our advanced human civilization, still find ourselves dependent on our physical development in early childhood, and even in the later years of youth, but not beyond that. This dependence then ceases in the twenties. How dependent the child still is, in the entire configuration of its soul, on its physical development! How can we observe there how intimately the two are connected, what a profoundly significant effect sexual maturity—the age of sexual maturity—also has on a person’s spiritual-soul development! And as we move forward, we hardly notice anymore that something is changing again—that, for example, at the beginning of one’s twenties, there is a more inwardly directed dependence of the spiritual-soul aspect on the physical. But then this connection becomes so indistinct that we can say: Today, the situation is such that well into the twenties—and for some people, well into their thirties—the spiritual-soul aspect remains dependent on physical development; but then the spiritual-soul aspect emancipates itself, becomes more self-reliant, and undergoes a development that is more or less independent of the physical. This was not the case in earlier epochs of human history. We go back to the earliest periods of human development, when people, after reaching the age of fifty and well into their sixties, still felt what was taking shape inwardly and in the soul as a function of external physical development. These were the ages in which people could, so to speak, still wrest from their own nature the inner experiences one undergoes as one grows older. What one gains in the soul and spirit through the decaying body—these people had already experienced it.

[ 18 ] If I were to express this now through a law—which, of course, must be formulated, even if every formulation is open to challenge—I would say: These people of the earliest cultural eras remained young well into their fifties and sixties. If we then follow this theme further, we find in Egyptian and Indian cultures an era in which people remained young in this respect only into their forties. And the Greco-Roman era, from which such remarkable artistic and scientific perspectives have come down to us, can be understood when one realizes how these Greeks, between the ages of thirty and forty, were still quite youthful, because for them, the spiritual and soul aspects were still dependent on their physical development up to that age. Then came our era, in which this extends only into one’s twenties. And one must realize that we can derive something from our physical development only up to our twenties; that, at most, in a contemplative sense—as a reversal of the fundamental biogenetic law—what appears inwardly to the subtle observer of life is a repetition of things previously experienced by humanity. So the way in which the biogenetic law has been formulated—even if it is certainly open to challenge—contains a sound core. Just as it has been stated that, in their development from birth onward, human beings briefly pass through what constitutes phylogenetic development, so too must it be said: In the course of historical life, as human beings approach old age, they inwardly—spiritually and psychologically—repeat, in a contemplative manner, what was the actual impulse of history in earlier stages of life.

[ 19 ] Here again you have the integration of the study of spiritual life with the study of humanity’s physical life. Here you have a science that does not, on the one hand, develop one-sided concepts for natural phenomena and, on the other hand, formulate concepts about spiritual phenomena that then have nothing to do with natural phenomena—and vice versa. Here you have a unified way of thinking that—by not becoming one-sidedly materialistic or one-sidedly spiritualistic, but rather by encompassing the entirety of reality—regards external physicality as one current of this reality and the spiritual-psychic as another, while viewing both purely phenomenologically.

[ 20 ] This opens up extraordinarily promising perspectives even for individual fields of intellectual and scientific research, but one must have the courage to seek out true laws even in history. What is still often discussed today as a method of history is mere talk—something that has no real foundation. One finds a real foundation only when one has outgrown a phenomenalist, a phenomenological view of nature, which then creates concepts so flexible that these concepts are also capable of penetrating the phenomena of spiritual life.

[ 21 ] What is meant here by anthroposophical spiritual science—and I must emphasize this again and again—is not some amateurish pursuit, but rather a form of research that transcends the mere observation of phenomena from a natural-scientific perspective into the spiritual realm, and through this will find precisely that reconciliation for which the finest souls yearn today: the reconciliation of outer life with inner life, the reconciliation of science and art, the reconciliation of science and religious feeling. But if one simply concerns oneself with perpetuating the old, traditional religious creeds, one cannot create what modern human beings demand for their religious life. Today we need a science capable of penetrating the realms of the spirit just as we otherwise penetrate the realms of natural life. We need people who have the scientific courage to seek this out, even if it is often regarded as fanciful, because people do not think to apply the same rigorous scientific approach that is demanded for the realms of external nature to the realms of spiritual life.

[ 22 ] This is one aspect that follows from a human perspective on life when it comes to the view of historical life. The other aspect is that whoever gains such a view also develops this view within themselves into social impulses. It is only from such a perspective that the vitality of the soul’s life truly springs forth—a vitality that finds ethical impulses, but ethical impulses so devoted to human nature that they are also transformed into social impulses. With the concepts we derive solely from the natural sciences, we cannot make our ideas so vivid that they also function as ideas when they are to underlie social action.

[ 23 ] In a contemporary book that is actually quite scholarly, there is a curious quotation—one that, however, comes from a man who was not exactly very learned, namely Georg Brandes—but the quotation has been accepted by a highly learned figure. The work points out why it is so difficult to educate people ethically—to teach them, for example, about fundamental necessities—and it emphasizes this difficulty in influencing social life through intellectual means. It is pointed out—as if one were fully agreeing with what Brandes says—that the masses do not act according to reason, but according to vague instincts. Well, it is very easy to make such a statement. It is very easy to criticize what plays out—not in the life of the individual, but in the realm of human interaction. It is very easy to dismiss or criticize this as merely the instinctive expression of some impulses if one cannot view the nature of social life in a truly scientific spirit. If one can do the latter, then one knows: Even if there were countless rational considerations within the intellectual sphere of human beings, even if people were, so to speak, as clever as they could be according to the model of that cleverness which can be gained from one-sided natural science, social life would still always contain many, many elements of the unconscious, so that one could still dismiss it in the manner that Brandes does and as is still cited today even in books on economic theory.

[ 24 ] But what is actually underlying this? The underlying reality is that the rationality people so readily speak of is, in fact, something that develops within the human personality—something that is indeed suited to observing the world and to eliciting certain impulses for action from within the human being, but which, on its own, is by no means capable of bringing about social coexistence. If one believes that this inner rationality is capable of doing so, then one inevitably arrives at those social theories that are so commonplace today—theories that are not life-affirming, not life-sustaining, but rather life-destroying. And such life-destroying theories—which can shine only as long as they remain mere criticism, but which immediately reveal their absurdity when they are to be introduced into real life—often stem from that mindset that has emerged alongside the achievements of modern scientific life, which are quite rightly perceived as a triumph. The point at issue is that in human interaction—even in language itself—there is something that illuminates and warms—though it also torments—action and human empathy, something that cannot be reduced to intellectualistic concepts of reason.

[ 25 ] On the other hand, something is making itself felt in economic life itself that appears much more complicated than what must be taken as a basis in the natural sciences. I am simply drawing your attention to everything that has arisen within economic life—the definitions of commodity value and commodity price that have emerged in national economics, the definitions regarding the functions of value and price in economic life, and so on. In particular, I would like to draw attention to how vague and indefinite such definitions and characterizations of the value and price of commodities—as well as of other functions in economic life—are.

[ 26 ] What is the underlying reason for this? It is the fact that one cannot understand the social being at all using concepts based solely on intellectuality. What is necessary is an inner spiritual education toward those modes of perception that I have described in the course of these lectures as imaginative knowledge, and then, in higher realms, as inspired knowledge. An education in such modes of imagination is necessary to grasp what is not to arise from the individual, but rather what is to emerge from the social interaction of human beings. And the way in which human beings interact socially—even if one wishes to call it instinct—cannot be understood or influenced through intellectualistic concepts. One can only influence it through living, meaningful insights into social life itself. But these meaningful insights into social life open up to the life of the imagination in no other way than through imaginations, which I have also described in these lectures in connection with the other reality. Therefore, a true social science—one that can serve as a foundation for social action—will only come into being if it is developed from the method of anthroposophical spiritual science.

[ 27 ] You need not believe that I regard what I myself can present today as anthroposophical spiritual science as something already perfect that can remain as it is; rather, I am speaking of what this anthroposophical spiritual science is meant to become—quite independently of the form it currently takes. Certainly, it will be shaped much better than it is today by those who practice it. But it must be pointed out again and again that it alone can, through its methods, find concepts so flexible that these flexible concepts themselves can move, can flow on the waves of social life, and can enliven these waves of social life. And only when one can thus perceive the social structure directly does it break down into a spiritual life that requires autonomy, into a legal life, and into a practical political life—which in turn must be self-contained and require autonomy— and into an economic life that must be based on associations, because an economic life can only develop when people think together, whereas intellectual life can only develop when the individual is able to integrate into the social organism that which flows from his or her intellectual impulses.

[ 28 ] These three areas, which today are lumped together into a single, abstract social organism, can be distinguished from one another through a living imagination, a living perception. They are lumped together solely because people today do not think practically, but rather theorize; because they approach reality more or less hypothetically and, when they themselves wish to shape this reality, formulate hypotheses instead of infusing real impulses into it. Those who are inclined toward hypotheses in the theoretical sciences also fail to introduce concepts into social life that are fully real. Consequently, it is precisely those who have lost the habit of thinking practically who often regard as utopian what is found in my *Key Points of the Social Question*—which has now been republished in a new edition—and in other related books, in everything published in our newspaper, the weekly *Threefold Social Order*, and indeed in everything that emanates from the Association for the Threefold Social Order. It is regarded as utopian because those who view it this way do not themselves realize how utopian they are—how they regard precisely that which is entirely saturated with reality as utopian. Today, theorizing in the intellectualistic sciences has progressed to such an extent that people no longer sense, no longer feel, when true reality is pulsating somewhere. If one truly engages with what emerges from true reality, one will find that it is not necessary to say that decades are required for its realization; rather, one will see that as soon as it is present in people’s minds, it can be immediately translated into social life.

[ 29 ] That is what I wanted to say about how the ideas and impulses that arise from spiritual science can be incorporated into ethical, historical, and social thinking and feeling—and ultimately into ethical and social will. And when a person truly recognizes historical laws—when they survey human life in the way one does when observing the phenomena of spiritual life, not merely the external phenomena of culture—then one learns to recognize, with a sense of inner necessity, what was lived in a particular age. And from this awareness of a connection with one’s own age springs forth what can be a task for that age. One becomes filled with one’s inner life task. And today we need people who can find fulfillment in a real, meaningful life task.

[ 30 ] I was able to share only a little—and even then only in a sketchy way—about what is being pursued in the field of the humanities with the aim of enriching the individual academic disciplines. You will hear time and again how individual groups are working to enrich the various sciences—from astronomy all the way to the social sciences—and how they are striving to develop this spiritual science in a thoroughly scientific manner for each specific field. Such endeavors are still met with only a very limited understanding today. And precisely when one gives lectures such as this one, when one considers that here in Stuttgart, through the efforts of our Waldorf school faculty and other individuals, an attempt is being made to show how the individual academic disciplines can be enriched by anthroposophical spiritual science and how absolutely necessary this enrichment is if we are to strive for progress rather than decline, then one must also consider how such endeavors are met with hostility and rejected, particularly by older people who are currently at the heart of scientific life.

[ 31 ] And now, in closing, I would like to address that part of you to which I wish to appeal first and foremost, especially at this moment in time, for very specific reasons. Precisely now, when anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is facing so much hostility, one hears it emphasized time and again: Why doesn’t this spiritual science approach science itself in a strictly scientific manner? — Well, much could be said about that. Above all, one could say that those who voice such opinions pay little attention to how this spiritual science actually operates in the individual scientific fields. But perhaps something else may also be said. What I myself advocate today within this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science actually had its beginnings in the early 1880s. At that time, I certainly tried to introduce what needed to be said into the scientific currents—initially in a basic way—using established scientific methods. I drew on Goethe in an interpretation that was indeed taken very seriously and conscientiously. Well, I haven’t always been met with as much hostility as I am now—what I wrote based on Goethe has in many cases even been described as something very good. But how was it received? It was received in such a way that I could not be satisfied with that reception. People said: Yes, this does capture some of what Goethe meant; Goethe is interpreted correctly here. — But they did not notice—or did not want to notice—that there was something else meant by it. After all, the intention was not merely to interpret the man who died as Johann Wolfgang Goethe in 1832, but rather to seek within Goethe—within his worldview—that which can be carried forward, that which flows forth when we regard Goethe today as someone who is still alive, when we develop his ideas further. A stance was to be taken on the problems of scientific, philosophical, and social life.

[ 32 ] Moreover, what is often referred to today as “pure science” was by no means inclined to do so—especially now that one can read statements in scientific works such as those claiming that science does not have the task of shaping ethical, political, or social life, but must merely observe all these aspects of life objectively. Thus, in an age in which people essentially just want to sit down somewhere to observe the world and recognize as science only that which has arisen from the observation of the world—but not that which passes into the vitality of our souls to become will, action, and social deeds—in such an age, it may seem understandable that science initially took no stance on what was actually intended. Therefore, it was necessary to appeal to broader circles of humanity, to take broader circles of humanity into account, because the truth must, in some way, present itself to humanity. And when, out of certain feelings, broader circles of humanity had come to embrace what is here called anthroposophical spiritual science, people once again took it upon themselves to say that what is said there is not scientific. They did so, for example, in the manner of Professor Rein of Jena, who in 1918 characterized *The Philosophy of Freedom* as a work that could only have been born out of the war years. The man had only just picked up *The Philosophy of Freedom*, noticed the year 1918—the date of the new edition—and, in his academic scrupulousness, characterized this work, which had already been published in 1893, as a product of wartime thinking.

[ 33 ] You can find many such examples of scientific rigor today. I could point out many similar examples to explain why I actually feel particularly gratified to see today that there is now some interest coming from the younger generation—even if not, or at least not significantly, from those who distinguish themselves in science through a venerable age or even through a venerable age not yet fully attained. From this quarter, there is still little engagement with anthroposophical spiritual science, but all the more misunderstanding.

[ 34 ] That is why, among those gathered here today, I am addressing specifically those who, as students, wish to turn to this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science—which is certainly not meant to be presented to you in an authoritarian or dogmatic manner, but rather is meant to be approached only in a way that invites scrutiny. For it is convinced that the more one examines it, the more one will find it to be well-founded. It does not shy away from rigorous examination; it must only defend itself against what is truly very far removed from rigorous examination. If one were timid, one might well lose heart in the field of anthroposophical spiritual science in the face of the superficial examinations that are so prevalent today. Those who advocate spiritual science, as it is understood here, have no fear of truly rigorous scrutiny. The more closely it is examined, the more it will prove its worth, for it knows that it has emerged from a scientific spirit.

[ 35 ] That is what I would like to say to you today—especially to you, my dear fellow students, who are gathered here today; it is to you in particular that I would like to say that the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science that permeates my work has arisen from a faithful understanding of what I myself have experienced. I look back on a student life that passed during the heyday of atomism—the heyday of that worldview in which all of optics, thermodynamics, and so on were based on hypotheses in which people revelled — hypotheses, however, that led away from a grasp of reality, because they superimposed something purely imaginary onto natural reality. We have, of course, moved away from that in many respects; today we are realistic, especially in the field of the natural sciences. But the fruits of thought that developed there are still very much evident in the historical and social sciences, and in many ways they contribute to the misery of our present catastrophic existence. During my student days, science did not cultivate those concepts, ideas, and spiritual impulses that could then flow powerfully on the waves of social life. That is what we lack today: impulses. People today get quite upset when one speaks of impulses. Yet the word “impulses” is meant to signify nothing other than that which lives powerfully in the soul—in contrast to the abstract life of thoughts or ideas. Thoughts and ideas should spring from such an anthroposophical spiritual science, but they must be thoughts imbued with full life, so that they can become ethical, religious, and, above all, social reality.

[ 36 ] Anyone who has lived through the developments in our scientific progress over the decades, anyone who understands the connection between the scientific theories of the 1870s and 1880s and the helplessness of today’s ethical and social thinking—such a person, my dear fellow students, truly speaks from the depths of their heart to those who are young today. They then recall the reasons why speaking to the youth of that time was so futile. That generation still had ahead of them what later emerged as—I would say—a dazzling abundance of life, the very thing that prompted people from all sides to exclaim, “How wonderfully far we have come” with regard to material culture. Today, however, young people see something different around them; today they see material hardship all around them, and within that material hardship, spiritual hardship as well. On the whole, the situation today is quite different from what it was in my youth. Back then, one stood entirely alone with these thoughts. Today, my esteemed audience, dear fellow students, if you truly find the path to life-affirming impulses, today you may well find understanding among quite a few who are shaken by contemporary life. Today, life speaks: I need living ideas born of science that can become ethical and social impulses. Today, the world demands leaders who can act from the spiritual realm, because only this spiritual realm can be meaningful.

[ 37 ] Distinguished guests, dear fellow students—those of you who are moved by what anthroposophical spiritual science truly seeks will understand me, each in your own way. That is what fills me with a certain sense of satisfaction as I speak today to those with whom I actually feel a very close kinship—even though the stage of life that is yours today, dear fellow students, lies long behind me. But anyone who has lived through these last decades with full awareness also knows how strongly one must rely on those who are still young today and who wish to make a powerful impact in their youth. After all, one can always contribute only very little to the very things to which one would like to contribute so much.

[ 38 ] I was able to say very little in these few lectures; may this little be further developed by our local colleagues in the university courses. And may this little be judged more by its intended purpose than by what it was able to become in these four lectures. But I hope to have touched the hearts of today’s fellow students; I hope to have spoken to their hearts. I do not wish to speak merely—though certainly in the fullest sense—from a scholarly spirit, but rather to warm hearts; for when these two things come together—the will for true scholarship with the strength of courageous hearts—then, my dear fellow students, then we will make progress. If one may speak to people from such foundations, then one may still have hope for a flourishing development in the near human future—especially within our German people, who have been so sorely tested and are therefore perhaps called upon in a very special way to unfold their spiritual life.

Question and Answer

Question: When Dr. Steiner refers to “reminiscences” in the context of imagination, does he mean the same thing as what is generally understood by “associations of ideas”?

[ 39 ] Rudolf Steiner: If you follow what I have explained in my book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*, you will find that the greatest effort is required of anyone who wishes to advance to the imaginative life—precisely in the direction of combating everything that is mere reminiscence or a mere association of ideas, indeed, combating everything that is drawn up from the ordinary unconscious or subconscious life of the soul. In this regard, it can be said that much has already been well documented in today’s scientific literature. I myself have highlighted some points based on my own observations in the aforementioned book. I would like to cite just one example from a well-known work published in the Wiesbaden Collection to illustrate how such reminiscences actually work, how difficult it is to be aware of them, and how necessary it is to pay attention to them.

[ 40 ] A scholar—who describes the incident himself—is walking past a bookstore, surely a delight to many scholars. And he finds—he is a zoologist—a treatise on lower animals, that is, something that is most certainly closely related to his immediate, present life. It surprises even him that he suddenly has to start laughing at the very sight of such a serious title. He laughs—just imagine, a zoologist, a learned man, laughing at a scholarly title. He feels quite ridiculous. And he tries to figure out why he has to laugh like that. He closes his eyes; that helps, because now he hears, far off in the distance, a barrel organ playing a melody to which he used to dance in his youth. Back then, of course, he had other things on his mind—things he has long since forgotten, things that have long since sunk into the deepest recesses of his soul—but now they have resurfaced and caused him to laugh at the sight of the serious title. So something that had been part of his inner life for decades reemerges as a reminiscence.

[ 41 ] One must keep such things in mind when emphasizing that the development of an imaginative life must be guided by comprehensible concepts—specifically, those comprehensible concepts that can be made immediately present in consciousness in all their parts. For only when one develops within oneself the ability to bring such comprehensible images into consciousness—using the kind of thinking that is otherwise cultivated only in comprehensible mathematical and geometric concepts—and when one has the will to work with these images inwardly, only then does one gradually succeed in truly practicing the rejection of all reminiscence, all associations of ideas, and all activity in any subconscious contents of the soul. This overcoming of reminiscences and the like must, of course, first be acquired. And only then, once one has overcome—through conscientious practice—what reminiscences and the like are, is one actually capable of developing what imaginative life is; and this imaginative life, by its very nature, proves to stand in such a relationship to reality as I characterized it in the first lecture.

[ 42 ] Here, too, people often object—and these objections are sometimes downright typical—saying: “Yes, but something like that could just be autosuggestion or something similar, the origins of which one is unaware of.” — Yes, you see, even in external life one can succumb to illusions and deceptions, and it is only the context of life—life as a whole—that enables one to form a judgment about reality. In the same way, one must train oneself to form a reliable judgment regarding what presents itself as imaginative life. And if someone objects, asking whether it might not be the case with imaginations as it is with some people whose mouths water just from thinking about or hearing about lemonade—one would say that it is not reality, even though the subjective experience of the taste of lemonade is present. Certainly, they have this subjective experience. If one judges objectivity solely by this subjective content, one is naturally not yet ready to extract from the content of the imagination that which it objectively represents—that which it represents objectively and intellectually. But one must say: If one places something like autosuggestion within the full, real life—rather than remaining with an isolated fragment—then the relationship to reality already becomes apparent. For one can certainly assume that people experience an intense taste of lemonade when they think of it, but I do not believe that anyone has ever truly quenched their thirst with the imagined lemonade. So when one progresses from a fragment of reality to total reality—and this applies equally to the realm of external reality as to that of inner spiritual reality—then one ceases to be deluded by mere imaginings, mere autosuggestion. It has also been said time and again recently that what is claimed to be spiritual content is based on pent-up imaginative life, and that what is brought to life from these pent-up imaginations is driven up into consciousness, thereby giving rise to personifications and so on—that is how it is described; it sounds amateurish to anyone who sees through the matter.

[ 43 ] Yes, things like personifications and the like can arise in some vague mystics. For there are, after all, some mystics who speak of all sorts of inner experiences and yet mean nothing other than reminiscences. It is true that some claim to have experienced, in a mystical way, the *unio mystica*—the union with some divine presence within. But such experiences, which one had decades ago, can resurface in consciousness as reminiscences, not only in their original form but also transformed; one can experience that what was lived through decades ago—which had sunk into the depths of the unconscious—resurfaces after decades in a sublime form. What some mystics describe as the content of what they experienced in mystical union need not be anything other than a barrel organ they encountered decades ago.

[ 44 ] These things are all carefully avoided in the truly subtle process of spiritual research, and the methods are clearly defined so that such errors can be avoided. People could also be convinced of this by the fact that the anthroposophical spiritual science referred to here does not merely describe what exists in the spiritual worlds, but rather speaks about the subjects of ordinary science in exactly the same way as other people do. If one can speak about the subjects of ordinary science just as others do, then scientists have no right to claim that what is further presented by spiritual research is merely a figment of the imagination or stems from a repressed imaginative life.

[ 45 ] Furthermore, with regard to so-called “inner contemplation,” what actually emerges from true spiritual contemplation is not at all what the vague mystics believe. These vague mystics talk about all sorts of inner experiences. But in true spiritual vision—as one penetrates through ordinary soul life—inner contemplation becomes increasingly filled with one’s own material, physical inner being. Through inner contemplation, one truly learns anatomy and physiology, rather than prattling on about some mystical secrets. One learns to recognize true spiritual life by observing the world and living in harmony with it—not through a false, inward-turned asceticism or through a lazy retreat into a life detached from the world, but precisely through immersion in real life and, with that, through a form of self-contemplation that experiences within the human being precisely what the vague mystic does not seek.

[ 46 ] Thus, this imaginative life—which is what is meant here—does not culminate in otherworldly mysticism, nor in a fantasy world, nor in a state of mind sought by saying: “External reality is so terrible that one must withdraw from it; true reality lies in the hereafter.”

[ 47 ] True spirituality is understood as being connected to the will to immerse oneself in life. It is therefore not alien to life, but rather life-affirming. I ask that you judge what is meant here by “anthroposophical spiritual science” within the context of this entire view of life.

Question: What is the difference between monocots and dicots?

[ 48 ] Rudolf Steiner: The question of the difference between monocotyledons and dicotyledons cannot be answered briefly. I would just like to say the following: I generally avoid answering isolated questions in this way, for the reason that doing so gives the impression that spiritual science makes judgments out of thin air, whereas in fact everything is structured in an appropriate manner and traced back to its constituent elements. I would simply like to say this: For spiritual scientific investigation, it is also necessary to establish a system of plant classification that more accurately reflects reality than the one we commonly find today. As you have already seen: When I spoke about the human being yesterday, I had to point out that the human being cannot be viewed in such a way that one simply takes the whole human being and then conducts phylogenetic research as it is conducted today; rather, one must start with the organization of the head, trace it back, and conceive of a complete transformation of animal forms, whereas, when it comes to the organization of the limbs, one must think of a later stage. And yesterday I also first discussed the contrast between the spinal cord and the brain in morphological terms, to show that one cannot proceed in the history of development as is usually done.

[ 49 ] In botany, too, the approach is to start with plant stages that today lie more toward the center of the system. On the one hand, we will examine these plant stages that mark the point where monocotyledons and dicotyledons diverge, and we will move down through the monocotyledons to the lowest forms of plant life—fungi, algae, and so on—and on the other hand, we will move up to the fully developed plants and so on; this will result in a plant system that truly incorporates into the morphological analysis an understanding of why plants develop one organ downward and another upward. One will generally come to realize how two polar forces act upon plants, but in different ways on plants at various stages. And there one will see that a certain force—which, in terms of its direction, must be regarded as running parallel to the Earth’s radius—interacts with another force that has long been intuited in earlier times. One need only recall those older speculations made in the early 19th century, for example by Sprengel and others, regarding the spiral tendency. But these explanations are incomplete; they are largely speculative, and what has been developed there as morphology will have to be reworked. If one proceeds in this way, one will recognize why one organ is oriented one way and another differently. There are indeed efforts underway within our intellectual community to develop a system of plant classification that will already contain the foundations for explaining the individual morphological phenomena. Then, based on a natural arrangement, it will be easier to answer such questions in context than it is today, when one must refer to them in a more aphoristic manner.

Question: What is the connection between the lianas and the celestial bodies that affect them?

[ 50 ] Rudolf Steiner: It is impossible to provide an aphoristic answer at this time to such questions, which necessitate an explanation of the specific nature of the celestial bodies’ influence on plants. For one exposes oneself to the accusation of dilettantism if one speaks in any way about the influence of the celestial bodies without first specifying the context in which this is to be understood. It is absolutely necessary that anthroposophical spiritual science be taken as a genuine method. Just as one cannot explain anything in the scientific realm without addressing the full scope of a subject—just as, for example, one does not expect someone who is beginning to explain chemistry to start with the most complicated topics— nor can this be done on the basis of such lecture attempts as have been made here, nor can such questions be answered. And one might actually almost believe that precisely such questions are posed in connection with these lectures out of certain mystical inclinations that, fundamentally, should not be accommodated. You will understand me: It is indeed a matter of protecting the spiritual science referred to here from the accusation of dilettantism. And if such questions are answered without being placed in context—they can, of course, be answered—then the accusation of dilettantism inevitably arises.

[ 51 ] These questions are not even phrased in such a way that one can use the same words when answering them; they are posed in an amateurish manner. Therefore, it is not possible for me to speak about them in this way. I suspect that these questions are based on something heard elsewhere, for they bear no connection whatsoever to what has been presented here regarding the various examples of the relationship between spiritual science and the individual academic disciplines. You must understand that it is not possible to answer these questions without first having analyzed their fundamental elements. The fact is: if one wants such questions answered, then that is—I can’t call it anything else—amateurish. Please do not hold this against me, but I have a duty to present the scientific nature of this spiritual science in its proper light, including through my stance. Therefore, I will not allow myself to be led, even in the future, by those who would like to be followers but are unwilling to engage with the subject matter, to expose this spiritual science to the accusation of dilettantism by discussing all sorts of things. That is the hallmark of charlatan movements: that they discuss all sorts of things. Spiritual science also aims to be thoroughly scientific in its approach.

Question: How does muscle movement occur, given that the motor nerve does not transmit the voluntary impulse to the muscle? Is there a connection to the metabolic system?

[ 52 ] Rudolf Steiner: If it had been possible, I would have liked to have given the fifth lecture on this question, for it is a question that follows directly from what I have discussed in these four lectures; however, this question must be addressed in the following manner:

[ 53 ] The difference between sensory and motor nerves has been mentioned here, more or less merely as a general guideline. It has been emphasized that the so-called motor nerves are also sensory nerves; however, their function—as can even be seen from their anatomical structure—is to perceive inwardly—that is, to perceive what, for example, underlies a motor process—not to initiate that motor process itself, but to perceive what underlies it, what is happening in the metabolism—which is, after all, always part of a motor process. If one follows all this research on the nervous system and wants to draw on the image of wireless telegraphy for it, then that is not in the spirit of spiritual science; one leaves that to others. Isn’t it true that, back when telegraphy first emerged, all sorts of comparisons were drawn from the field of telegraphy to liken the centripetal and centrifugal nerves to telegraph input and output lines and so on? Spiritual science does not employ such comparisons. It seeks to address the matter itself and not to play with analogies.

[ 54 ] The point is this: Whenever there is a nerve pathway that empirically functions as an afferent—say, to the spinal cord or brain—and continues as the so-called motor nerve, the process always involves—let us take a reflex movement as an example—perceiving both external and internal stimuli; what the nerve conveys is merely sensation, either from the outside or from within one’s own body. And the transition—which is usually regarded as the endpoint of the afferent pathway and the [starting point] of the impulse—is simply what I would like to call—and not by drawing an analogy from telegraphy—a “switch,” whereby the entire process is experienced internally and psychologically. One then speaks of something very real when one says: Something jumps across, just as an electric spark jumps across when I cut a telegraph wire. — This is the process that takes place in the so-called central nervous organs.

[ 55 ] If we summarize what can be ascertained here about the nature of the nervous system, this will serve as the basis for further investigation into the nature of volitional impulses. After all, it is merely a hypothetical theory that what we call “will” is represented in any way by the motor nerve, which is also a sensory nerve. Rather, it is precisely through a genuine understanding of the phenomena that one is led to seek the relationship of the will to organs entirely different from the nerves. This, however, leads one to study precisely what is so often opposed—the higher aspects of human nature; one comes to see how the will cannot be understood at all if one regards it in the same relationship to materiality as, for example, one regards ideas in relation to materiality. In contemplating the will, one then comes to know something that must essentially be viewed spiritually, whereas the life of imagination is truly embedded within a material context. While brain structures can certainly be shown to correspond in a parallel manner to the structures of imagination, this is not possible in the same way for the life of the will. Admittedly, if one wishes to find material correlates, one must look for metabolic processes; however, this leads to entirely different insights, which in turn lead upward toward spiritual contemplation. This is roughly how the answer to the question can be summarized here.

[ 56 ] It is indeed somewhat shocking to have to view the life of the imagination—which, since the days of Scholastic philosophy, has been regarded as the spiritual aspect of the human being—as being, in its structure, closest to the material life of the body—even though it is based solely on that, as I have pointed out in these lectures. But that is simply how it is. In contrast, one is led into a far more spiritual realm when one considers the life of feeling with its structures. There, everything is so intimately connected with the rhythmic life of the physical body. And then one is led into the realm of metabolism when it comes to the will; but in truth, it involves the mastery of matter by spiritual forces, which one has before one in direct perception when one rises up in this way to what the will is—unclouded by the motor nerves. One sees how the will does not intervene in the material world in such a differentiated way as the life of imagination does.

[ 57 ] I remember a discussion that followed a lecture by a true, staunch materialist. He had explained the entire life of the imagination in terms of the brain, so that in the end nothing remained of the life of the imagination, for he had actually described nothing but brain processes—though he had described them very well—and had then also drawn figures on the blackboard, which the chair, who was a staunch Herbartian, proceeded to examine. The chairman then said that he was not a materialist like the speaker, but if he were to map out the connections and repressions of ideas based on Herbart’s teachings, the diagrams would turn out exactly the same as those of the materialist speaker. So when a staunch opponent of materialism draws the structures of representation, the same figures emerge as those of the materialist, who merely records what he has learned from Meynert about nerve phases, nerve centers, and so on.

[ 58 ] From this, however, one can clearly see how similar that which can be traced in the Herbartian sense as phenomena and the connection of phenomena in pure mental life is to that which someone then draws on the blackboard, disregarding this and describing the brain with Meynertian or similar hypotheses. You cannot do this with the life of feeling, and least of all with the life of the will. There you must turn to things that are made vivid—but made vivid mentally—not in the same way as what can be recorded in direct connection with material life.

Question: According to the anthroposophical perspective, why must one suddenly work with reversed signs in the Einstein problem when transitioning from the ponderable to the ether?

[ 59 ] Rudolf Steiner: Of course, this can be done entirely without an anthroposophical perspective, simply by proceeding as one does in numerous other fields of science: one studies the phenomena. In a course I gave here a few months ago to a small audience, I demonstrated how to observe the phenomena of so-called thermodynamics with an open mind. The point is to try to express what the phenomena present to us in mathematical formulas. The peculiar thing about such expressions in mathematical formulas is that they are correct only if they correspond to the process that can then be observed—that is, if what results from the mathematical formula also holds true in reality, if it can be verified by reality. If you have a heated, pressurized gas in a closed space and wish to understand the phenomena that arise there, you can—albeit in a very artificial way—apply Clausius’s and other formulas, but you will see—and this is acknowledged even today—that the facts do not agree with the formulas. With Einstein’s theory, the curious thing is that experiments are available first; these experiments are designed because a certain theory is assumed; the experiments do not confirm this theory, and one then constructs another theory, which is actually based on hypothetical experiments. If, on the other hand, you attempt to treat the phenomena of heat simply by inserting the appropriate positive and negative signs into the formulas, depending on whether you are dealing with conductive or radiant heat, then you will find these formulas verified by reality. However, when one moves on to other imponderables, one cannot simply stop at assigning positive or negative signs; rather, one must add other relationships. One must, so to speak, imagine a force acting within the ponderable in a radial direction, and that which belongs to the realm of the ethereal as coming from the periphery, acting only within the circular surface, but with a negative sign. And so, as one moves on to other ponderables, one must apply the relevant quantity differently; then one will find that one arrives at formulas that can be verified by the phenomena. This is a path that anyone can follow, even if they do not adopt an anthroposophical perspective.

[ 60 ] But there is something else I would like to emphasize here: Do not think that the things I have told you in these four lectures were presented to you because I have adopted an anthroposophical perspective; rather, I have told you these things because that is how they are. And what constitutes an anthroposophical perspective follows solely from viewing things objectively; the anthroposophical perspective does not precede the things themselves, but follows in their wake. One seeks to recognize and understand things impartially, and then the anthroposophical perspective can emerge. It would be a sorry state of affairs for what I have said if one had to start from a prejudiced attitude. No, that is not the point at all; rather, the point is to observe phenomena strictly empirically. The anthroposophical attitude must then be the last thing—though I certainly do not wish to claim anything other than that it can nevertheless always be the best.

Question: What can be said about Schleich's works?

[ 61 ] Rudolf Steiner: I prefer to speak about things in concrete rather than abstract terms. I have discussed many things with Professor Schleich and found that he is truly very open to certain ideas and has extraordinarily interesting views on some matters. But he cannot make the transition to the ultimate, because he forms theories based on certain presuppositions—not from a state of presuppositionlessness, but from assumed presuppositions. This struck me most of all—and I’d like to give an example now—in a case he described to me; Professor Schleich described it to me before his book was published. A man once came to him who had pricked himself somewhere in a harmless spot with a fountain pen, and he imagined that he had blood poisoning and would die that very night. He went to Schleich and wanted to have his arm amputated. Schleich examined the arm and said, “That’s out of the question; it’s not necessary at all. The prick is harmless, and I can’t amputate your arm.”—The man went mad with fear that he would die; he was determined to have his arm amputated, but Schleich sent him away. The man then went to another doctor, who also refused to amputate the arm. The next morning, Schleich—who is a great humanitarian and a compassionate man, and who, once he starts something, doesn’t simply let it go—went to see the man. The man had, in fact, died during the night. There was not a trace of blood poisoning, and Schleich diagnosed: death by autosuggestion. — Yes, that’s easy to diagnose. But this case involves something entirely different. It is a pity—perhaps it was not even possible—that the autopsy did not definitively determine the true cause of death. It lay in something entirely different. The man had sensed a certain intuition, a certain premonition, which did not come to consciousness in a form that could have been grasped as a fully articulated premonition. In this man’s case, the approach of death—which was not felt as any physical sensation—manifested itself solely as a frenzied fear; and the pricking with the pen was nothing more than the man having become clumsy and pricking himself. And his entire behavior was nothing other than a certain premonition; he would have died—whether pricked or not. What was at play here was the premonition of death living within the body, and the other aspects were merely symptomatic. One should examine this case more closely from a psychophysical perspective and not simply say: death by autosuggestion. — The matter stood as I have now explained it, at least in all likelihood. But this is something Schleich refused to accept; he stuck to his theory of autosuggestion, for which there is no evidence and of which one can only say that it is a bold hypothesis.

[ 62 ] This is also the case with other issues. The spiritual sciences certainly seek to investigate everything empirically and not to start from preconceived assumptions, whereas Schleich, in particular, often holds such favorite notions. He is a witty and very humane man, but he cannot bring himself to achieve complete impartiality and freedom from prejudice. But that is precisely what must be strived for in anthroposophy, even when it comes to things one holds in high regard. And I can assure you that I value Schleich’s ideas and work, which I know well; but when asked, it must be pointed out that, in this way, he always stops short at some point. Anthroposophy seeks to observe phenomena with complete impartiality in order to fathom reality, so that one can penetrate this reality with mathematical clarity.

[ 63 ] I can only emphasize again and again that what is seeking to establish itself here in Stuttgart as an anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is truly not motivated by any form of sectarianism or dilettantism. What we are striving for—even if this can only be achieved today with such limited resources—is genuine, true scientific rigor. And the more one examines spiritual science in this light, the more one will recognize that it is fully capable of withstanding any scientific method of scrutiny. Spiritual science is by no means showered with such misunderstandings—as it is today—out of a genuine scientific spirit; its opponents do not, in truth, oppose it because it is too scientific, but—if one examines the matter closely—because it is not scientific enough. But in the future we need not a decline, but rather an increase, a genuine and true progress in scientific rigor, and ultimately this can only be a progress that leads with complete precision not only into the material but also into the spiritual realm.