The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. Anthroposophy and the Natural Sciences

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! It was the wish of the committee organizing this university week that I open each day with a few remarks to introduce the scientific topics to be discussed throughout the day. This arrangement was undoubtedly made based on the view that anthroposophy is intended to provide a certain stimulus to the various branches of science and life; and it is only in this sense—as introductory remarks to the day’s discussions—that I ask you to regard these first lectures. What has always surprised me most in the reception of the anthroposophical research method is the resistance it encounters, particularly from the philosophical-scientific side—I do not mean: purely from the natural-scientific side—is directed against anthroposophy, namely on the grounds that it is believed anthroposophy stands in unjustified opposition to the methods of natural science, which have developed so fruitfully over the course of the last few centuries, especially the nineteenth century. And it seems to me that, of all the things that our contemporaries find most difficult to grasp about anthroposophy, it is precisely this: that, with regard to natural science, anthroposophy seeks nothing other than to further develop, in an appropriate manner, the methods that have proven so fruitful in natural science. However, if one wishes to come to an understanding of anthroposophy from this perspective, one must be able to understand the idea of “further development” as something other than what is commonly referred to today as the further development of theoretical views.

[ 2 ] A further development of theoretical views is this for most people today: that the particular way in which thoughts are linked—especially, if I may put it that way, the “field of thought”—remains the same, even when the systems of thought in question are extended to other areas of the phenomena of the world. For example: When engaging in scientific inquiry, one is confronted with inanimate, inorganic nature and finds it necessary to base one’s understanding on certain connections of thought—a certain “field of thought,” that is, a set of interconnected thoughts—in order, so to speak, to arrive at a theory of inorganic, inanimate natural phenomena. One then seeks to extend this system of thought, just as it is, when striving to understand another realm of the world—for example, the realm of organic natural phenomena. Thus, one simply seeks to carry over the causal orientation—which has proven so fruitful in the inorganic realm—into the realm of living beings and to imbue and explain them with the same concepts; in other words, to conceptually transform the realm of living beings into a system of inorganic causalities, just as one is compelled to do so when dealing with inanimate, inorganic nature. Thus, the system of thought one has acquired from inanimate nature is simply carried over into organic nature. And this is what is commonly understood today as the “extension” of ideas and theories.

[ 3 ] This, however, stands in complete contrast to what anthroposophy must understand by such an expansion of thought. It must realize the concept of a certain independent growth, a self-metamorphosis of the idea, when moving from one realm of worldly phenomena to another, so that one cannot merely “logically transfer”—as it were—what one has learned from inanimate natural phenomena to animate natural phenomena. Just as, by way of comparison, things in the living world themselves undergo great changes as they grow and undergo metamorphoses—and just as they are often completely unrecognizable in the form they have assumed—so, too, must thoughts take on different forms when they enter a different realm. But what remains the same across all fields—and what thereby gives the entire scientific worldview a monistic character from a methodological standpoint—is the way one internally relates to what one might call “scientific certainty,” which provides the foundation for scientific conviction. Whoever is able to examine why one cannot satisfy the human need for causality—if I may borrow Du Bois-Reymond’s expression—using the concepts one is already accustomed to applying in inanimate nature, who truly comes to know this inwardly can then carry it over into the way one is convinced, in the world of the living, by entirely different concepts—which are, after all, merely metamorphoses of the earlier concepts. This way in which a person positions themselves within the scientific enterprise is thoroughly monistic throughout the entire scientific worldview. This is something that is usually misunderstood and that leads people to attribute a dualistic rather than a monistic character to the anthroposophical-scientific worldview.

[ 4 ] The second factor that very often leads to misunderstandings is phenomenalism, which anthroposophy must embrace, particularly in relation to the natural sciences. Indeed, it was precisely during the most fruitful era of scientific development—for example, the period in which the eminent natural scientist Virchow delivered his speech on the replacement of the philosophical worldview by the scientific one—that we experienced how everything that had been gained at that time, with a certain historical justification, in the form of fruitful concepts concerning the inorganic world, led to the establishment of a certain rationalism within the natural sciences. And the era, which on the one hand worked rigorously toward empiricism in relation to the external world of facts, nevertheless indulged in a very far-reaching rationalism when it came to explaining the empirically investigated facts of nature.

[ 5 ] In contrast, anthroposophy takes a standpoint that arises—at least for me, if I may make this personal remark—from Goethe’s conception of nature. Anthroposophy is grounded in a phenomenological conception of nature. In a certain sense, Ernst Mach has reestablished this phenomenology in more recent times, and as he formulates it, it certainly seems to contain fruitful perspectives, provided one remains within its limits. With Goethe, it is simply a matter of what is implied in his words: The world of phenomena itself is theory enough; there is no need to proceed to artificial theories. The blue of the sky is a phenomenon within which one should pause and refrain from seeking—in a rationalistic manner through mere thought—initially hypothetical, assumed explanatory reasons behind the phenomena. It was through this path that Goethe arrived at the formulation of what he called the “primordial phenomenon.” Even though, as is only natural, much of what Goethe envisioned for the natural sciences has been superseded in the course of the 19th century—a century so fruitful for the natural sciences—one can still say: The methodological approach, the very way of thinking that Goethe introduced into the natural sciences, is not only not yet obsolete today, but it seems to me that it has not yet been thoroughly understood at all.

[ 6 ] I am well aware that in the 19th century, many—one might say almost all—of the details in Goethe’s descriptions of scientific phenomena have been superseded. Nevertheless, I would still like to uphold the statement I made in the 1880s regarding Goethe’s view of nature: that Goethe is the Copernicus and Kepler of organic natural science. I wish to uphold this statement even today because I believe that the following is entirely justified.

[ 7 ] How, then, do we ultimately arrive at a genuine view of nature in the field in which the 19th century in particular achieved so much? I can define what I mean only in terms of this historical category. The achievements of the 19th century in the natural sciences ultimately trace back almost everywhere to the application of mathematical methods; for even where one does not proceed in a purely mathematical manner but thinks according to other principles of causality—where theories have been developed—the mathematical way of thinking was certainly at the foundation.

[ 8 ] The following is a case in point: We have seen how, over the course of the 19th century, certain branches of the natural sciences were to be justified in a distinctly rationalistic manner by introducing mathematics into them. Kant’s famous statement holds that, in every science, there is actually only as much real certainty as can be found in its mathematics. — Now, of course, mathematics cannot be applied everywhere. Explanations of causality go beyond the scope of mathematical conceptualization. Yet the attempts made to explain causality were, to a large extent, modeled after mathematical conceptualization. And when Ernst Mach then set out to survey this conceptual system from his more phenomenological standpoint, he also had to look back at the concept of causality as it had developed in the natural sciences over the course of the 19th century, and he sought to arrive at a specific definition for this concept of causality. Ultimately, he told himself: When I conceive of an effect together with a cause, there is really nothing more to it than a mathematical concept of a function; for example, when I say: x equals y—whereby I summarize the causes under x and the effect under y—I have reduced the whole thing to the concepts I have in mathematics when I form the concept of a function. So one can also see from the history of science how the mathematical concept has been carried over into the entire field of natural science.

[ 9 ] Goethe is usually regarded—and with some justification—as a non-mathematician; after all, he described himself as such. But if one simply labels Goethe a non-mathematician, this in turn leads to misunderstandings—in the sense, for example, that Goethe was not capable of much in the way of specific mathematical achievements, or that he was not particularly skilled at solving mathematical problems that were certainly already in existence in his day. This, of course, must be fully acknowledged. Nor do I believe that, given his whole nature, Goethe would have had much patience to engage in solving individual mathematical problems if they had ventured more deeply into algebra. That must certainly be acknowledged. But Goethe was, in a certain sense—as paradoxical as it sounds—more of a mathematical mind than many a mathematician; for he had a keen insight into the nature of mathematical thinking, into the nature of forming mathematical concepts, and he valued this way of thinking, which remains entirely within the inner process of the soul, even with the content of the idea, when it forms concepts.

[ 10 ] In mathematics, when one formulates concepts, one has a complete internal overview of everything. Take, as a simple example in Euclidean geometry, the standard proof that the three angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees: you draw a line parallel to the base through the apex of the triangle, examine the angles formed there—which, as alternate interior angles, are equal to the other two angles of the triangle —since the angle between them remains the same—and where one can then see how these three angles at the vertex add up to 180 degrees, that is, their sum is equal to the three angles of the triangle. — Once one grasps this, one has a mathematical proof, but at the same time one has something in which one is not at all dependent on external perception, but can fully grasp the concepts through inner construction. If one then has an external triangle, one finds that the external facts verify what one had previously grasped internally. This is the case throughout all of mathematics. The bottom line is that one does not need to rely on sensory perception to arrive at what is called a “proof,” but that everything one has discovered internally can also be verified externally, step by step.

[ 11 ] It is precisely this particular kind of mathematics that Goethe regarded as eminently scientific, and in that respect he truly had a keen mathematical mind. This, for example, also underlies the course of that famous conversation that Goethe and Schiller once had at the height of their friendship regarding the method of scientific inquiry. They had both attended a lecture given by the naturalist Batsch at the Natural History Society in Jena, and as they were leaving, Schiller remarked to Goethe that what they had heard there was a fragmented way of observing natural phenomena—one that leads to no coherent whole. — One can imagine that Batsch had simply arranged the individual natural objects side by side and had refrained—as was indeed entirely fitting for a naturalist of that time—from presenting anything that might lead to a holistic view of nature. Schiller found this unsatisfactory and voiced his thoughts on the matter to Goethe. And Goethe said he understood how to bring a certain unity, a certain wholeness, into such an observation of nature. And he began, with just a few strokes—as he himself recounts—to sketch the “primordial plant,” as it is to be conceived, as it can be contemplated inwardly—not as it manifests itself in this or that plant, but as it can be contemplated inwardly, with root, stem, leaves, flower, and fruit.

[ 12 ] In my introductions to Goethe’s *Scientific Writings* in the 1880s, I attempted to recreate the image that Goethe had once sketched on paper in front of Schiller. — Schiller looked at it and then said, based on his way of thinking: “That is not experience; that is an idea.” — Schiller had meant that when one sketches something like this, one has spun it out of oneself; it is quite good as an idea, as a thought, but fundamentally has no source in reality. Goethe did not really understand this way of thinking at all, and ultimately the conversation ended with Goethe replying—in a sense, summarizing the conversation—“If that is the case, then I see my ideas with my eyes.”

[ 13 ] What did Goethe mean by that? He meant—he didn’t put it that way, but that’s what he meant: If I draw a triangle, it automatically has a sum of angles of 180 degrees; and no matter how many triangles I look at, what I have internally constructed in this one triangle fits all triangles; so I have derived something from within that now fits perfectly with what I have experienced. In the same way, Goethe wanted to draw an “original plant”—in a sense, analogous to the “original triangle”—and this original plant was to possess a character such that it could be found in every single plant. And just as the sum of the angles of every triangle, once one has the primordial triangle, amounts to 180 degrees, so too should this ideal construct—the primordial plant—be found in every single plant when one surveys the entire plant kingdom.

[ 14 ] In this sense, Goethe wanted to shape the entire field of science. Essentially, he wanted—though he did not succeed in this—to structure the science of the organic and introduce a way of thinking similar to that which had proven fruitful for the science of the inorganic. This becomes particularly clear when Goethe writes from Italy about how he continued to develop the idea of the primordial plant. He says something like this: “There, among the plants of southern Italy and Sicily, in the diversity of the plant world, the primordial plant has become particularly clear to me, and surely there must be a form that contains within itself the potential for all real plants—a form that can vary in various ways; it then takes on this or that shape—elongated or other leaf forms—developing more of a flower at one time and more of a fruit at another, and so on—just as a triangle can be obtuse-angled or acute-angled. Goethe wanted to find a form according to whose pattern all plants are formed. It is entirely incorrect that Schleiden later claimed Goethe had meant an actual plant by the “primordial plant.” That is not the case—just as a mathematician speaking of a triangle does not have any specific triangle in mind—but rather, Goethe meant a structure that is generated internally, yet is found verified everywhere in the external world.

[ 15 ] So Goethe was, in essence, quite a mathematical mind—much more so than, say, those who study astronomy. And that is the crux of the matter. This also led Goethe to say in this conversation with Schiller: “Then I see my ideas with my eyes.” — He saw them with his eyes because he could trace them everywhere in phenomena. He did not at all conceive of something as merely an “idea,” because he found himself in complete harmony with experience when he formed ideas; just as the mathematician feels in harmony with experience when he forms mathematical ideas. But this led Goethe, I would say, through an inner consistency, to arrive at pure phenomenology—that is, to seek nothing behind phenomena as such, and above all not to construct a rationalistic atomic world.

[ 16 ] Well, this brings us into a realm where many—though I can only say—conflicts based on misunderstandings have arisen regarding certain scientific and philosophical views. To begin with, it is simply a matter of regarding what presents itself to the senses in the external world—that is, what is given in observation and experiment—purely as a phenomenon. Goethe, and with him the entire scientific phenomenology, limits itself to not immediately jumping from any sensory phenomenon to an underlying atomic process, but rather to first consider the sensory phenomenon and the individual elements of sensory facts in their own right—that is, not to relate them to something lying behind them, but to other elements in the sensory world of phenomena, and to seek out the connections within the sensory world of phenomena.

[ 17 ] It is very easy—and I fully understand where the relevant misunderstandings come from—to find such a phenomenology downright bleak. One could say, for example: If one wishes to limit oneself solely to describing the mutual relationships of sensory phenomena and then seeks out those phenomena that are the simplest, in which events unfold in as manageable a way as possible—and which Goethe calls “primordial phenomena”—, then, with such an approach, one does not arrive at an intuition of those infinitely fruitful insights that modern chemistry, for example, has yielded. How, one might ask, can one actually make sense of atomic weight ratios without an intuition of an atomistic world? Well, in such a case, however, one might well ask the counter-question: If one truly reflects on what is at hand, is it really necessary to depart from the phenomenon? One is not dealing with that at all. Even with atomic weight ratios, one is dealing with phenomena—namely, weight ratios. But one might also ask: Does it really lead anywhere to try to explain these atomic weight ratios—which can be expressed in numbers—by constructing certain molecular structures from the atomic weights in a purely intellectual, rationalistic manner? One can certainly raise this question as well. In short, what is at stake when the Goethean way of thinking is developed is this: remaining within the phenomena themselves. I would like to use a trivial comparison to illustrate this.

[ 18 ] Let’s suppose someone is presented with a written word. What will they do? Well, if they have never learned to read, they will stand before it as if it were something inexplicable. But if they have learned to read, they will unconsciously piece together the individual forms; they will experience the meaning of the word in their soul. But they will certainly not attempt to explain anything based on the shapes—for example, in the case of the letter W—by starting with the upward stroke, then moving on to the downward stroke, in order to arrive at something underlying this letter. No, he will read—and will not seek to explain by imposing interpretations. Phenomenology, too, wishes to “read” in this way. It wishes to remain within the context of phenomena and learn to read, rather than, when faced with a complex of phenomena, to trace back from it to atomic structures.

[ 19 ] The point, then, is to accept the realm of the phenomenal and learn to read it in terms of its own intrinsic meaning. Through this, one will then arrive at a natural science whose content contains nothing rationalistic—nothing constructed behind the phenomena—but which simply finds certain lawful structures in the very way it surveys the phenomena. The sum of the phenomena themselves will be integrated into this natural science throughout. One will speak of nature in a specific way. The laws of nature will be contained within this way of speaking, but the phenomena themselves will already be present in the forms of expression throughout. One will thus arrive at what I would like to call: a natural science immanent in the phenomena. Goethe strove for such a science. The way in which he pursued this must be adapted to the advances of modern times, but the fundamental principle can nevertheless be retained. And when this fundamental principle is retained, something emerges quite naturally for the human understanding of nature, which I would like to characterize as follows:

[ 20 ] It goes without saying that we, as modern humanity, initially formed our scientific concepts based on inorganic nature. This was due to the fact that inorganic natural phenomena are relatively simple; but it was also due to the fact that, as one ascends into the organic realm, the agents at work in the inanimate world certainly continue to operate. When one ascends from the mineral kingdom to the plant kingdom, it is not the case that the inorganic mode of action ceases in the plant; it is merely embedded within a higher principle, but it continues to operate within the plant. We are right to continue tracing the physical and chemical processes into the plant organism, using the same criteria by which we are accustomed to tracing them in inorganic nature. We must then also have the ability to transition, within our conceptual frameworks, to altered, metamorphosed concepts. We must indeed observe how the inorganic is also utilized in the plant and how the same processes found in inanimate nature also enter into the plant. But this gives rise to the temptation to pursue scientifically only what extends from the mineral world into plants and animals, while simply disregarding what then occurs in the higher kingdoms. This temptation became even more pronounced in the course of the 19th century due to a particular circumstance. This happened in the following way.

[ 21 ] When one observes inanimate nature, one feels, in a sense, a deep inner satisfaction because one can analyze its phenomena using mathematical reasoning. And it is quite understandable that Du Bois-Reymond, in such an eloquent and brilliant manner in his speech “On the Limits of the Knowledge of Nature,” celebrated the Laplacian worldview—which he calls the “astronomical conception” of the entire natural world, I might add. According to this astronomical conception, one does not merely view the starry sky in such a way as to summarize its individual phenomena through mathematical thought and then construct them as a whole, as far as possible, but one also attempts to delve into the constitution of matter through this approach. One attempts to construct a small world system within the molecule, where the atoms move and relate to one another just as the stars do in the cosmic order. In this way, one constructs the tiniest world systems on a small scale and derives satisfaction from finding the same laws on a small scale as on a large one. Thus, within individual atoms and molecules, one has a system of moving bodies, just as one has the system of fixed stars and planets out there in the cosmic order. This is characteristic of the approach that prevailed especially in the 19th century and through which, as Du Bois-Reymond said, humanity’s need for causality feels satisfied. It simply arose from the urge to apply mathematically fruitful concepts to all natural phenomena. This, in turn, gave rise to the temptation to remain stuck at this mathematical level when observing natural phenomena.

[ 22 ] It would never occur to anyone—not even an anthroposophist, unless he were speaking about these matters in a layman’s way—to dispute that all of this has its justification, especially when one remains within the realm of the phenomena and strives to understand the details—for example, in astronomy—in this sense. No one would think of waging a battle against it. But in the course of the 19th century, what happened was that, in regard to what the world presents, people overlooked everything that is qualitative and saw only what is actually there and contained within everything qualitative: that which can be grasped through mathematics. Here one must make a distinction: One can certainly admit that this mechanistic explanation of the world is entirely justified; there is nothing at all to object to it. But it is quite another matter whether one declares it to be fully justified in certain areas or whether one now wishes to present it as the only possible conceptual system and, with this conceptual system, consider everything in the world to be explained.

[ 23 ] This is where the difference lies. Anthroposophists do not in the least dispute what is justified. Anthroposophy does not, in fact, fight against the others, and it is interesting to observe in discussions how anthroposophy actually acknowledges everything within justified limits. It does not even occur to anthroposophists to dispute in any way what is asserted by the natural sciences. Rather, the question is whether it is justified to encompass the entire realm of phenomena with mathematical-causal thinking, or whether it is justified to extract from the sum of phenomena that which is, in mathematical-causal terms, a pure abstraction, and to present it as an “imagined” content of the world, as, for example, early atomism did. Today, atomism has already become phenomenological to a certain extent, and to this extent, anthroposophy certainly goes along with it. But the point is that even today, something still lingers from the 19th-century atomism—so un-Goethean in its nature—which did not limit itself to phenomena but constructed a pure conceptual system behind them. And if one is not clear that one is dealing merely with a conceptual system that seeks the world behind appearances, but instead succumbs to the illusion that one has grasped a reality through this conceptual system, then one becomes, as it were, pinned down by this conceptual system. For it is the peculiarity of such conceptual systems that they pin people down. Through them, one becomes a dogmatist, and then one says: There are people who want to explain the organic using entirely different concepts that they have derived from somewhere else entirely, but that is not possible; we have developed conceptual systems that encompass the world behind appearances, and that is the only world, and it must also be the only effective force with regard to the organic. — But in this way, what has been developed for the phenomena of inorganic nature is carried over into the consideration of the organic; one regards the organic as formed in the same way as inorganic nature.

[ 24 ] Clarity must be established here. Without this clarity, one can never create a genuine basis for discussion. Anthroposophy by no means intends to sin in an amateurish way against legitimate methods; it does not intend to sin against the legitimacy of atomism, but rather it seeks to clear the way for the formation of systems of thought, such as were previously developed for the inorganic realm and must now be developed for other areas of nature. This will happen when one tells oneself: I want only to “read” the phenomena; that is, what I ultimately glean about the content of the laws of nature lies within the phenomena themselves—just as, when reading a word, the meaning lies in the letters themselves. If I remain within the phenomena with genuine care and am not intent on imposing reality in any way through a hypothetical conceptual framework, then I will remain, in my scientific sense, free to further develop the concepts. And this freedom is what we must cultivate.

[ 25 ] We must not allow ourselves to be bound by a conceptual system—which we have quite legitimately developed for a specific area of nature—to the point of applying it to other areas. If we develop a mere phenomenology—which, of course, can only be done by interweaving and connecting the phenomena observed or represented through experimentation with thought, thereby arriving at natural laws—and thus remain within the realm of phenomena, we gain an entirely different relationship to thought itself; then one gains an experience of how the laws of nature are already present within the phenomena themselves, which then emerge in our thoughts. If we surrender ourselves to these thoughts in this way, then—as long as we remain within the realm of natural phenomena—we no longer have any justification for speaking of a contrast between subjective thought and objective natural law. We simply immerse ourselves in the phenomena and then find, within the content of the laws of nature, a thought content that the things themselves provide us. That is why Goethe said quite naively: “Then I see my ideas—which were actually laws of nature—in nature with my own eyes.”

[ 26 ] If one approaches the phenomena of inorganic nature in this way, it is possible to extend this to the organic realm, even in a scientific sense. When one then observes that a horse is brown or a gray horse is white, one will not attribute this to inorganic colors, but will relate it solely to something that lives as a spiritual-soul life within the organism itself. One will come to understand, based on the vitalized inner organization, that the animal—just like the plant—gives itself its color. Of course, one must gain an inner understanding of all the details, such as the functioning of metabolism. But one does not then carry over into organic life what one has found in inorganic life. One does not fixate on a particular system of thought, nor does one carry the same mindset that one had in one area into other areas. One remains a “mathematical mind,” more so than those who do not wish to transform concepts into the qualitative realm. In this way, one comes to apply inner contemplation to the higher realms of natural existence just as one applies it to lifeless mathematical constructs.

[ 27 ] This is what I can only briefly outline here, but which, if further developed, shows that the scientific aspect of anthroposophy is fully capable of what Goethe called: giving an account to everyone, even to the most rigorous mathematician. For that is what Goethe intended with the development of his idea of the primordial plant, which he did arrive at, and with the idea of the primordial animal, which he did not arrive at. And this is what anthroposophy aims to do: to draw from Goethe’s worldview what it was capable of in relation to the phenomena of nature—and to rise, through the grasping of the living in the imagination, to the archetype of the plant and to the archetype of the animal. I already demonstrated in the 1880s that, when it comes to organic nature, we must transform the concepts derived from the inorganic realm. I will have more to say about this in the coming days. Through this, however, one comes to see in organic nature that which is the actual principle of action, the principle of form. And here, at the conclusion of these reflections, I would like to add something that will be examined in greater detail in the coming days and that is intended to show how anthroposophy does not underestimate this materialistic phase of scientific development.

[ 28 ] Anthroposophy must view this materialistic phase of natural science as an important transitional principle, a method of education, so that one may eventually learn to devote oneself purely to external sensory experience. This was extraordinarily formative for the development of humanity, and only after having undergone this education can one come to perceive certain things with complete clarity. For whoever now observes the external material world, equipped with such a scientific sensibility, sees how this material world is “reflected” internally within the human being, if I may use that expression.

[ 29 ] The world as we experience it inwardly is more or less an abstraction—an inner image, interwoven with sensations and impulses of the will, of what the external material world is; so that when we move from observing the external material world to the spiritual-psychic realm, we arrive at something purely pictorial. Let us state this very clearly: on the outside, the sum of material phenomena that we observe in the phenomenological sense—on the inside, the spiritual-psychic realm, with a certain abstract character, with an image-like character. But when one approaches, with an anthroposophical perspective, the spiritual foundation underlying the external material world—the Spirit that acts in the movements of the stars, in the development of minerals, plants, and animals—if we enter into the spiritual aspect of the outer world’s becoming and come to know it through imagination, inspiration, and intuition—then this, too, gives us an inner reflection of the human being. But what is this inner reflection of the human being? It is our physical organs. They now respond to what I have previously come to know as the nature of the sun, the nature of the moon, of minerals, plants, animals, and so on; the internal organs respond to this. I come to know the unique nature of the human organism only by coming to know the outer world. The material world outside is reflected inwardly in the spiritual-soul realm; the spiritual-soul world outside is reflected inwardly in the forms of the lungs, liver, heart, and so on. When one looks at them, the internal organs stand in the same relationship to the external spiritual world as our thoughts and feelings do to the external material world.

[ 30 ] This shows us that anthroposophy by no means seeks to reject materialism in a fanciful sense. Consider the full scope of natural science: Thousands will be dissatisfied with what natural science yields using conventional methods. Through its methods, anthroposophy will gain a perspective on the material aspects of the world that will not leave one unsatisfied. It acknowledges the material in its own inner organization and in the phenomenological aspects of the environment; but at the same time, it must recognize that this inner organization is a result, a consequence, of cosmic spiritual and soul forces. It therefore also seeks to supplement what is achieved in astronomy, astrophysics, physics, or chemistry solely through mathematical means. It will explore this within an organic cosmology and so on, and thereby also advance toward an understanding of the material human being. Herein lie the foundations for what anthroposophy aims to contribute to medicine, biology, and so on.

[ 31 ] Thus, through these remarks—which I have been able to present only in a very sketchy manner—I believe I have indicated how anthroposophy, when properly understood, cannot be viewed as if it were, of its own accord, seeking to enter into conflict with contemporary science; but rather, the situation is such that the current representatives of science have not yet built a bridge to anthroposophy in order to see how anthroposophy also seeks to approach natural phenomena in a strictly scientific manner.