The Rudolf Steiner Archive

86. Natural Science at a Crossroads

[ 1 ] Natural Science at a Crossroads. On Sunday evening, Dr. Rudolph Steiner of Berlin delivered a highly interesting lecture on this topic in the convention hall of the Artists’ Association, which culminated in the following remarks. About 100 years ago, Schiller made the following statement: “Natural science and philosophy must continue to go their separate ways for a long time to come,” and this prophecy has held true to this day. Philosophy drifted among the lonely heights of the purely abstract and scorned descending to the things of reality, while natural science refused to meet philosophy halfway, the more it took pleasure in explaining everything we call mental processes in kinetic terms and positing that human beings, like all other things in the physical world, arise from the lowest form of existence. This proudly presented, purely materialistic approach to explaining the world’s mysteries suffered its first major shakeup at the hands of the famous physiologist du Bois-Reymond. He rightly argued that even if we were able to observe, within a gigantic brain, every form of movement of the brain molecules caused by external impressions, we would by no means have explained any mental process. A sleeping person could be explained in this way, but no bridge had yet been built to conscious mental life. The chemist Ostwald took an even more decisive stand against the atomic theory as the highest form of knowledge, pointing out that the observation of atomic motion did not yet explain the energy causing it. Thus, natural science itself has surrendered to the humanities. Certainly, the scientific research of the past century deserves the greatest admiration, so long as it did not presume to formulate material theories of knowledge that extend beyond the boundaries of the physical realm. It can fathom the physical body, but this does not yet explain the human being. This is where spiritual science, also called theosophy, comes in. It aims to guide human beings toward becoming capable of experiencing and exploring the spiritual realm just as they do the physical world. It teaches that all things in the physical world are manifestations of the spirit, just as ice is a manifestation of water. Every person who has the sincere will to sharpen the faculties needed to penetrate this spiritual world that surrounds us in the physical world is capable of doing so. Thus, natural science is indeed at a crossroads right now, especially following [the discovery] of radium, which has marked an epoch and opened up broad new perspectives. It will have no choice but to embark on the path pointed out by Theosophy, and the sooner it does so, the sooner it will set out on a path that will benefit all of humanity.