The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Anthroposophy I

[ 1 ] Here in Berlin and in other places where our Theosophical Society is active, we have heard so much in recent years from the entire field of Theosophy—drawn, so to speak, from the higher realms of clairvoyant research—that the need has arisen, or rather, must arise, to do something to establish a serious and dignified foundation for our spiritual movement. And it is likely that this very General Assembly, which brings our dear members together after seven years of existence of our German Section, will be a fitting occasion to contribute to a more solid foundation, to the creation of a more stable order for our cause. I shall attempt to do this in the four lectures under the title “Anthroposophy” over the coming days.

[ 2 ] The Kassel lectures on the Gospel of John, the Düsseldorf lectures on the Hierarchies, the Basel lectures on the Gospel of Luke, and the Munich lectures on the teachings of Oriental theosophy—all of them have given us cause to ascend to the higher realms of spiritual research and bring down spiritual truths that are difficult to access. That was what always occupied us there; theosophy was, at least in part, an ascent to the lofty peaks of spiritual human knowledge.

[ 3 ] And now, as we stand at the beginning of a new cycle in our movement, we must bear in mind that, in what is called the cyclical course of world events—once one gradually develops a sense for it—one can indeed, with good reason, perceive something deeper. It was precisely during the days of our very first General Assembly, when we were to establish the German Section, that I gave lectures before an audience consisting only of a very small proportion of Theosophists; at that time, these lectures were also described as a chapter of Anthroposophy, as a historical chapter of Anthroposophy. Now, seven years later, the time seems to have come again when, so to speak, a cycle has been fulfilled in this regard as well, and when we may once more speak in a broader sense of what is meant by Anthroposophy.

[ 4 ] Let us first clarify what anthroposophy is by means of a comparison. If you want to get to know a region, you can look at all the villages, forests, meadows, roads, and so on that stretch out before you by walking around down below, from village to village, through street after street, through meadows and forests, from place to place. Depending on where you happen to be at any given moment, you will always have only a small, very tiny part of the entire area in view. But one can also climb to the summit of a mountain and, from that high mountain peak, survey the entire landscape. Then, to the ordinary eye, the details will appear only very indistinctly; but in return, one will have an overview of the whole. This is roughly how one might describe the relationship that exists between what is called human knowledge and human science in ordinary life, and what Theosophy is. Ordinary human cognition moves through the world of facts from detail to detail.

[ 5 ] Theosophy ascends to a high mountain peak, and the higher it climbs, the wider the expanse it surveys. However, it must then employ special means in order to see anything at all of what lies below. The means that must be employed there have been described time and again, including in my work *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*. There it is shown how it is possible for a person to ascend to this ideal summit without losing the ability to see anything at all below.

[ 6 ] But there is—and this can be seen immediately from this comparison—a third possibility: one does not climb all the way to the mountain peak; one stops, so to speak, halfway up. When one is at the bottom, one sees nothing but details before one’s eyes; one has no overview, and one sees what is above from below. When one is at the top, there is nothing above one except the divine heavens, and one sees everything below only indistinctly, blurred, shrouded in mist. When one is in the middle, this is a special vantage point: one has something below and something above, and one can compare the two views.

[ 7 ] Of course, every comparison is imperfect, but the intention was simply to illustrate to you how theosophy differs from anthroposophy at first glance. Theosophy is like standing on a mountaintop; anthroposophy is like standing in the middle, looking both up and down. The vantage point is simply different. But now the comparison is no longer sufficient to describe what follows. When one surrenders to theosophy, it is necessary to rise above human perception, to ascend from the lower self to the higher self, and to be able to see with the organs of the higher self. For the summit from which theosophy is able to see lies above the human being, whereas ordinary human cognition actually lies below the human being, and the human being himself stands right in the middle between the natural and spiritual worlds. The higher reaches into him, for he is permeated, filled with the Spirit. He can see the spirit above him; yet he does not take his starting point from the spirit, from the summit, but rather in such a way that he has the summit above him. At the same time, however, he sees that which is merely nature beneath him, for that reaches up into him from below. Theosophy is subject to the danger that, if the means described, for example, in my treatise “How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?” , the human aspect is overlooked, and that the human being loses the ability to perceive anything adequate at all. In theosophy, the danger is ever-present of no longer seeing reality at one’s feet. Of course, it need not lose this ability if those proper means are applied to develop the organs with which one sees through the higher self.

[ 8 ] But then we can say: Theosophy is what is explored when the God within the human being speaks. — That is, in essence, the true definition of theosophy: Let the God within you speak, and what he then tells you about the world is theosophy. Anthroposophy can be characterized by saying: Place yourself in the middle between God and nature; let the human being within you speak about what is above you and shines into you, and about what reaches into you from below; then you have anthroposophy, the wisdom spoken by the human being. - This wisdom spoken by the human being, however, can become an important foundation and key to the entire field of theosophy. And once you have been studying theosophy for some time, you can hardly do anything better than to gain this firm foothold by truly seeking it. Therefore, I will ensure that a brief outline of what anthroposophy is will be available as soon as possible following these lectures.

[ 9 ] What I have said here can also be historically substantiated from a wide variety of perspectives. We don’t have to look very far. We have, for example, a science—you can read about it in a wide variety of popular handbooks—that is commonly called anthropology. As it is practiced today, it encompasses not merely human beings, but—if the term is understood correctly—everything that pertains to humanity, everything that can be experienced in nature, everything needed to understand human beings. But how does anthropology proceed? This science takes its starting point from moving among things; it is itself at the very bottom. It proceeds from detail to detail. It is the research that observes the human with the senses, with the aid of the microscope. This science, anthropology—which, after all, is today accepted in the widest circles as the sole science of humanity—truly takes its standpoint below the capacities of humanity. It does not apply all the capacities for research that humanity possesses. Compare this anthropology, which, so to speak, clings to the ground and cannot penetrate to any answer to the burning riddles of existence, with what is presented to us as Theosophy. There, one ascends to the highest heights; there, the aim is to find an answer to the most burning questions of existence. Yet you will have experienced that those who have not slowly and gradually found their way into it, who have not had the patience to go along with all that we have been able to say in recent years, who have not been able to keep up step by step—that those who have remained at the level of anthropology perceive Theosophy as a flimsy edifice, as something lacking any foundation whatsoever. They cannot grasp how the soul ascends from step to step, from imagination to inspiration and intuition. They cannot rise to the summit, cannot survey what the goal of all human and cosmic becoming is.

[ 10 ] Anthropology, so to speak, stands on the lowest rung of the ladder; at the top, where many lose the ability to perceive, stands theosophy; and in the middle stands anthroposophy.

[ 11 ] To aid our understanding, let us consider a historical example that illustrates what happens to Theosophy when it seeks to ascend to the summit but is unable to do so using the methods described in the book *How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds*. We find such an example in the German theosophist Solger, who lived from 1780 to 1819. In his views, we certainly find what theosophy is in concept. But by what means did Solger seek to ascend to the highest heights? With the concepts of philosophy, with the drained and exhausted concepts of human thought! It is truly as if someone were to climb to a summit to look around, but forgot their telescope and could no longer make out anything below. The telescope in this case is a spiritual one; it is imagination, inspiration, and intuition. Thus Solger sought to ascend to the summit with inadequate means.

[ 12 ] For a long time, people have sensed that, over the centuries, human capabilities have become increasingly unable to ascend to this summit. Throughout the Middle Ages, people sensed this and admitted it to themselves. In more recent times, people still sense it, but they no longer quite admit it to themselves. It has long been felt that human faculties were once able to ascend to the summit from which one could speak as an ancient theosophy indeed did. Such an ancient theosophy did exist. But then what was revealed there on the summit was to be brought to a close. It was to be protected from being received through the ordinary means of knowledge. This ancient theosophy became a theology that regarded revelation as complete. And so, alongside anthropology—which, using ordinary means of knowledge, proceeds only from detail to detail—stands theology, which, while it seeks to ascend and know something of what can be seen in the heights, but in turn relies on something attainable by ordinary human means, namely historical tradition—that which has once been revealed and is not meant to be revealed anew, time and again, to the aspiring human soul. Anthropology and theology stood opposite one another throughout the entire Middle Ages without coming into conflict. Even in modern times they stand opposite one another, only in a different form. Modern times, from the standpoint of anthropology, generally reject theology as a science rather abruptly. If you do not dwell on the details but rise up, ascend to that center I have described to you, then you can place Anthroposophy alongside Theosophy, just as in the Middle Ages Anthropology stood alongside Theology.

[ 13 ] Attempts have also been made to establish anthroposophy within modern intellectual life, but again with entirely inadequate means—namely, merely through the abstract, stripped-down concepts of philosophy. If one wishes to understand what this is all about, one must first understand what philosophy actually is. What philosophy really is can, in essence, be understood today only by theosophists, but not by philosophers themselves. What is philosophy? One can understand it only by first considering its historical development. An example will illustrate this. In ancient times there were the so-called Mysteries as centers of higher spiritual life. There the students could be led to spiritual vision through the development of their abilities. One such Mystery was, for example, in Ephesus, where the mysteries of Diana of Ephesus were explored. There the students gazed into the spiritual worlds. Whatever could be publicly communicated of what was received there was indeed communicated. Then others received it as something beheld in the Mysteries, as something communicated to them, as a gift. There were people there who were aware that they had received the higher secrets from the Mysteries. One such man, for example, was the great sage Heraclitus. The secrets of the Mystery of Ephesus, the facts that the clairvoyant people there were able to fathom, had penetrated him in particular. What he had received there as a communication and what he owed to his partial initiation, he proclaimed in such a way that it could be generally understood. Therefore, anyone who reads the teachings of Heraclitus, the so-called “Obscure One,” sees that there is something “deeper” underlying them, so that one can still perceive shining through these original teachings the direct experience of the higher worlds. Then came the successors of Heraclitus. They no longer had any inkling that what had been communicated to them stemmed from the direct experiences of the higher worlds. They began to speculate with their intellects; they believed they could find something incorrect here and there with their mere philosophical intellects, and they tinkered with it. This was spun out further into concepts and passed down from generation to generation. And when we have anything of philosophy before us today, we have nothing before us but a relic of ancient teachings, from which life has been blown out, squeezed out, and of which only the dead skeleton of concepts remains. Philosophers are unaware of where these concepts originate. Philosophies are abstractions, heirlooms of ancient wisdom that have been reduced to squeezed-out concepts. There is no philosopher who can conceive of anything from within themselves. This requires a journey up into the higher worlds.

[ 14 ] And it was essentially only such a skeletal framework of philosophy, such stripped-down concepts, that were available to the philosophers of the 19th century when they undertook what might be called anthroposophy. The word has been used before. Robert Zimmermann wrote an “Anthroposophy,” but he undertook it with highly inadequate means, just as Solger did with Theosophy. He spun it out of the most hollowed-out, most abstract concepts, and this web of concepts was then his Anthroposophy. What we have here is truly the most abstract, driest web of concepts, one that no longer touches the subject at all. This is, in fact, the defining characteristic: that whatever in the 19th century sought to go beyond external, individual experience and beyond anthropology to become anthroposophy has turned into a dry web of concepts.

[ 15 ] Theosophy, in turn, by providing the means to recognize reality within spiritual life, also deepens the understanding of humanity that can be called anthroposophy. Anthroposophy is a spiritual understanding of the world that takes a purely human, middle-ground perspective, rather than a subhuman one, as in anthropology. Solgers’ theosophy stands on a superhuman standpoint, but has no substance. The concepts there merely seek to skim over humanity. Because such people, from their world up there, can see nothing, they spin their fine webs on the loom of concepts. We do not wish to spin on the loom of concepts in this way. We want to go to reality. And you will see that the reality of the entire human life will meet us. You will recognize the old friends, the old objects of our contemplation, but illuminated from a different point of view, namely from the point of view that looks both up and down.

[ 16 ] The human being is truly the most important object of our consideration. Even when we examine the first aspect of the human being—the physical body—and reflect on what we have gained through theosophy, delving deeper into it, we come to realize just how complex a structure this physical body actually is. To help you gain at least an intuitive understanding of what anthroposophy actually aims for, consider the following: What we today call the physical human body is, so to speak, an ancient product. We know that its first embryonic form arose on ancient Saturn and underwent changes on the ancient Sun, the ancient Moon, and on Earth. The etheric body was added on the Sun, the astral body on the Moon. These members of the human being have always changed in the course of evolution. What we encounter today as the complex human body with heart and kidneys, eyes and ears, and so on, is the product of a long evolution. Everything arose from a form that existed in a rudimentary state on ancient Saturn. Over millions of years, this has changed and transformed time and again, so that it could finally ascend to its present perfection and complexity. If you look today at any part of this physical body—the heart or the lungs—you cannot understand it unless you have that deeper insight into how these parts came into being and took shape. Of course, nothing of what is now the form of the heart or the lungs existed on ancient Saturn. Little by little, these organs have taken on their present form. One formed earlier, the other later, and was incorporated into the physical body. We can speak of one organ as a solar organ, because it first became attached and manifested itself during the ancient solar state. We can refer to another as a lunar organ, and so on. In this way, we can derive these concepts from the cosmos, from the observation of the entire world, if we wish to understand how this complex structure, the physical human body, actually came into being and what it signifies today.

[ 17 ] This is a theosophical view of human beings. What, in contrast, is the anthropological view of human beings? When one views them anthropologically, one takes the heart and considers it on its own, one takes the stomach and considers it on its own. One examines them in their juxtaposition, as if it were irrelevant which organ is younger and which is older. No account is taken of this; everything is mechanically placed side by side as a detail. Theosophy ascends to the highest heights and explains every detail from the spiritual. Anthropology remains at the very bottom, proceeds from the individual, and has today reached the extreme: it considers the individual cells in their juxtaposition, as if it were irrelevant that one cell complex arose during the old Moon era and another during the old Sun era. The individual cell complexes did indeed arise at different times. One can cite the details externally, but one will not understand them unless one views them from a spiritual perspective. Thus, anthropology wanders about at the very bottom, while Theosophy occupies the highest summit.

[ 18 ] Now you might think that things get even more complicated. The human heart is one of the oldest organs, at least in terms of its embryonic origin. As things stand today, however, it clearly did not develop until a later period. And now let us consider the ancient Sun era. For example, the embryonic form of the human heart was dependent on the forces that prevailed on the ancient Sun. Then development continued. In the first period of the Lunar Age, the ancient Moon was united with the Sun, and the heart underwent further development. But then the great event occurred: the Sun separated. It now acted from the outside, so that from that point on, the heart underwent a completely different development. From that time on, development proceeded in such a way that there was a solar and a lunar component, and one can only understand the heart if one can distinguish between the solar and the lunar component. Then the Sun united with the Moon again. During the Earth’s evolution, the Sun first stepped out again and exerted a sharper influence on the development from the outside. Then the separation of the Moon occurred, and the Moon acted from the outside, so that we have a new phase in the development of this ancient organ.

[ 19 ] Thus we see the most diverse forces shining into the human physical body from the most diverse perspectives. Because the heart is one of the oldest organs, we truly have a solar component, a lunar component, a second solar component, and a second lunar component, and then an additional earthly component following the separation of the Earth. When all these components in an organ or in the human physical body are in such harmony with one another as they are in the harmony of the cosmos, then health is present in the human being. As soon as one of these elements predominates—let us say, for example, that the solar element becomes too great in relation to the lunar element with regard to the heart—then the heart becomes ill. And you understand this illness when you know how, through certain circumstances, the lunar element has, so to speak, fallen behind. All human illness is based on the fact that these various elements have become disordered, have become irregular. All healing consists in restoring this harmony. But merely speaking of it is not enough; one must truly understand this harmony, one must truly delve into the wisdom of the world in order to be able to identify the various elements in each organ.

[ 20 ] Thus, the physical body is an immensely complex structure. You can already sense this from what we have considered so far. You can begin to grasp what a truly occult physiology and anatomy entails—one that must take all these factors into account and that understands the human being within the context of the entire cosmos. It speaks of the solar and lunar elements in the heart, larynx, brain, and so on. But since all these elements are at work within the human being himself, just as the human being stands before us today, he is, so to speak, the solidified, crystallized product of all the processes that have taken place from Saturn to the Sun, Moon, and Earth. Thus, standing before us in the human being is something in which all these elements are solidified.

[ 21 ] If we look not out into the world but inward into the human being itself, and understand the individual organs—the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the soul of sensation, the soul of understanding, and the soul of consciousness—as the human being is today, then that is anthroposophy. In anthroposophy, too, we must begin with the lowest level in order to gradually ascend to the highest. The lowest level for human beings is the sensory-physical world, that which is given through the senses and the sensory-physical intellect. In Theosophy, we consider this, starting from the whole of the world, within the cosmic context of the physical-sensory, the outer phenomena. That is the Theosophical approach. The Anthroposophical approach must, with regard to the physical-sensory world, start from the human being; it must consider in the human being that which is physical-sensory in him. It must start from the human being and consider him insofar as he is a sensory being. That will be the first step. Then we will have to consider the human etheric body, then the astral body and the I, that which is to be found in him himself.

[ 22 ] What should be of particular interest to us when considering the physical-sensory world? What pertains to human beings themselves. First and foremost, these are the senses, for it is through them that human beings actually gain knowledge of the physical-sensory world. In anthroposophy, when starting from the physical plane, one must first speak of the human senses, for they are the means by which human beings come to know anything at all about the physical-sensory world. And we shall see how important it is, in order to truly understand human beings, to begin with a consideration of their senses. Let this, then, be our first chapter. Then we shall ascend to a consideration of the individual spiritual realms within human nature.

[ 23 ] When one considers the human senses, as an anthroposophist one inevitably comes into conflict with anthropology, for anthroposophy must always proceed from what is sensually real, but it must be clear that the spirit acts from above. Anthropology deals only with what it can investigate from below and confuses everything. Especially in the chapter on the human senses, everything in conventional anthropology is thrown into disarray, and important aspects are specifically overlooked because people lack a guide to truly and correctly identify the relevant facts. If the thread that is supposed to lead through the labyrinth of facts is missing, then it is impossible to find one’s way out of this labyrinth. The ball of thread that, in the legend, leads Theseus out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth—that is what spiritual research must spin. Ordinary anthropology remains inside the labyrinth and falls victim to the Minotaur. Thus we shall see that anthroposophy indeed has something different to say about the senses than ordinary external observation.

[ 24 ] But it is also interesting to see how modern science is already being compelled by external facts to examine things a little more thoroughly and seriously than was previously the case. The most trivial thing, of course, is that we speak of the five human senses: the sense of touch, smell, taste, hearing, and sight. We will see that in this entire enumeration of the five senses, everything is already in a state of utter confusion. To these senses, modern science has, however, already added three other senses, with which it admittedly does not quite know what to do. Today we will lay the very first foundations for an anthroposophical theory of the senses. We will list the senses insofar as they truly have significance in light of the thread discussed above.

[ 25 ] The first sense of the human being that comes into consideration is what can be called, in spiritual science, the sense of life. This is a real sense, and just as one speaks of the sense of sight, one must speak of the sense of life. What is the sense of life? It is something within a person that, when everything is in order, they do not actually feel, but only feel when something within them is not in order. A person feels a sense of weariness, which they perceive as an inner experience, just as they perceive a color. And what is expressed in the feeling of hunger or thirst, or what one might call a special sense of vitality, you must also perceive inwardly, just as you would a color or a tone. One usually perceives this only when something is not right. The first human self-perception is provided by the sense of life, through which a person becomes aware of their physicality as a whole. This is the first real sense, and it must be taken into account just as much as the sense of sight, hearing, or smell. No one can understand the senses who does not know that there is a possibility of feeling oneself as a whole inwardly, of becoming aware of oneself as an inwardly unified, physical totality.

[ 26 ] The second thing, which is entirely different from this sense of the meaning of life, is what you can discover when you move any of your limbs. You move your arm or your leg. You would not be a human being if you could not perceive your own movements. A machine does not perceive its own movement; only a living being can do so, by virtue of a real sense. The sense of what we move within ourselves, from the twitching of an eye to the movement of the legs, is a real second sense, the sense of self-movement.

[ 27 ] We become aware of a third sense when we consider that humans distinguish between up and down. If they can no longer perceive this, it is very dangerous for them; they can no longer maintain their balance and fall over. We can point to an organ that has much to do with this sense, namely the three semicircular canals in the ear. If this organ is damaged, a person loses their sense of orientation. This sense can also be observed in the animal kingdom. There it manifests as certain organs of balance. If certain small, pebble-shaped structures, the so-called otoliths, are positioned in a specific way at a certain location, we have a state of equilibrium; otherwise, only a sense of staggering. This is the sense of balance or the static sense.

[ 28 ] Through these senses, which we have listed so far, a person perceives something within themselves, feels something within themselves. Now let us step outside the human being, where they begin to interact with the external world. The first interaction with the world is that in which the human being unites with matter and perceives this matter. This is possible only if this matter can truly be united with the human body. This applies only to gaseous substances. These are taken in through the organs of the sense of smell. This is where interaction with the outside world first begins. Unless a body emits gaseous substances, it cannot be smelled. The rose must emit a gaseous substance in order to be smelled. The fourth sense is therefore the sense of smell.

[ 29 ] The fifth sense arises when a person no longer merely perceives matter, but takes the first step into it, that is, enters into a deeper relationship with it. At that point, the matter must already be exerting some effect within the person. This is the case when a solid or liquid substance comes into contact with our taste organs. Here, one does not perceive the material world directly; rather, the substance must first be dissolved by the fluids in the mouth. Here, only an interaction between the tongue and the substance can be perceived. Things tell us not only what they are as matter, but also what effects they can produce. The relationship between human and nature has become a more intimate one. This is the fifth sense, the sense of taste.

[ 30 ] The sixth sense is the one in which what a person perceives in things reveals the essence of those things even more intimately. Here, things tell us more than they do through the sense of taste alone. This happens because special arrangements have been made so that things can reveal themselves to us in a very specific way. With smell, the human body perceives things as they are. The sense of taste is already more complex; here, things reveal a little more of their inner nature. With the sixth sense, however, we can penetrate even deeper into the world. This is the case when we distinguish whether an external material object transmits light or not. The fact that it transmits light in a certain way is shown by whether and how it is colored. An object that allows green light to pass through thereby reveals that its inner nature is such that it can allow this light to pass through. While the outermost surface reveals itself through the sense of smell, the sense of taste already reveals something of an object’s inner nature to us; the sense of sight, on the other hand, reveals something of the very essence of things. This is the essence of the sixth sense, the sense of sight. The eye is such a marvelous organ because it allows us to penetrate much deeper into the nature of things than the sensory organs just discussed. With the sense of sight, we have something very peculiar. When we see, for example, that the rose is red with our eyes, its inner nature reveals itself through the surface. We see only the surface, and because it is conditioned by the inner being, we come to know this inner being to a certain degree through it.

[ 31 ] With the seventh sense, humans must become even more intimately acquainted with the object. When we touch a piece of ice or a piece of hot steel with our hand, we penetrate even deeper into the inner nature of a thing. With color, we have only what takes place on the surface. Ice, on the other hand, is cold all the way through, and with hot steel, too, the heat permeates the entire body. With heat and cold, we thus have an even more intimate acquaintance with the nature of things than with the sense of sight, which informs us only about the surface texture. The sense of heat penetrates more intimately into the inner nature of things. Such would be the sense of heat, or the seventh sense.

[ 32 ] Now let us consider how things will proceed from here. Can human beings, through their senses, penetrate even deeper into the innermost nature of things? Can they come to know the intimate inner essence of things even more precisely than through the sense of warmth? Yes, they can, because things reveal to them what they are like in their innermost being when they begin to sound. Heat is distributed quite evenly within things. What sound is within things is not evenly distributed. Sound causes the inner nature of things to vibrate. Through this, a certain inner quality is revealed. You perceive how a thing moves internally through the more intimate sense of hearing. It provides us with a more intimate knowledge of the external world than the sense of warmth. This is the eighth sense, the sense of hearing. Through sound, an object reveals to us what it is like internally when we strike it. We distinguish objects according to their inner nature, according to the way they can vibrate and tremble internally when we make them sound. In a certain sense, the soul of things speaks to us there.

[ 33 ] Are there senses even higher than the sense of hearing? Here we must proceed with even greater caution in order to explore the higher senses; for we must not confuse the senses with anything else. In ordinary life, where people remain at a lower level and confuse everything, they still speak of other senses, for example, the sense of imitation, the sense of concealment, and so on. But here the word “sense” is used incorrectly; a sense is that through which we gain knowledge without the involvement of the intellect. Where we gain knowledge through judgment, we do not speak of a sense, but only where our power of judgment has not yet come into play. When you perceive a color, you use a sense. If you wish to judge between two colors, you do not use a sense.

[ 34 ] In this sense—though the word “sense” is not strictly correct here—are there any other senses besides the eight mentioned so far? Yes, there is a ninth sense. We discover it when we consider that there is, in fact, a certain capacity for perception within the human being. This is particularly important for the foundations of anthroposophy. There is a faculty of perception that is not based on judgment, yet is present within it. It is that which we perceive when we communicate with our fellow human beings through language. In the perception of what is given to us through language lies not only an expression of judgment, but a genuine sense of language underlies it. This sense of language is the ninth sense. One must speak of it just as one speaks of the sense of sight or smell. The child learns to speak before it learns to judge. The entire people have a language; judgment is the responsibility of the individual human being. What speaks to the senses is not subject to the soul activity of the individual human being. Hearing announces to one the inner trembling. The perception that a sound means this or that is not mere hearing. The sense that expresses itself therein as the sense of language reveals itself to another sense, the sense of language. That is why the child can speak or understand what is spoken long before it learns to judge. It is only through language that it learns to judge. What a teacher the sense of language is, just as the sense of sight and the sense of hearing are such teachers during the first years of life! One cannot change what the sense perceives; one cannot spoil it. This is as true of color as it is of the perception of the inner nature of the speech sound. The sense of language must necessarily be designated as a special sense. It is the ninth sense.

[ 35 ] We now come to the tenth of the senses. This is the one that is the highest in ordinary human life. Through it, human beings become capable of perceptually understanding the concept that is not clothed in the sounds of language. The conceptual sense is just as much a sense as any other. In order to judge, we must have concepts. If the soul is to be stirred by the concept, it must be able to perceive concepts. It is able to do this through the conceptual sense. Thus, we have listed it as a tenth sense.

[ 36 ] But one sense has been completely forgotten, you might say: the sense of touch. Indeed! The sense of touch is usually conflated with the sense of heat. The fact that such a distinction can be made stems from the confusion caused by those who lack spiritual insight. To begin with, the sense of touch is, of course, significant only as the sense of warmth. As such, the entire skin can be described, so to speak, in broad terms. It also serves, in a certain sense, the sense of touch. Yet, viewed correctly, touching is not only what we do when we touch an object and feel its surface; it is also touching when we search for something with our eyes. The sense of smell and the sense of taste can also touch. When we sniff, we are touching with the sense of smell. Up to and including the sense of warmth, touching is a shared characteristic of senses four through seven. We can therefore speak of these senses as senses of touch. Only our crude, simplistic view of physiology can attribute to a single sense something that belongs to a whole range of senses: the sense of smell, the sense of taste, the sense of sight, and the sense of warmth. With the sense of hearing, we can hardly speak of touch anymore; it is present only to a very small degree; even less so with the sense of speech, and even less with the sense of understanding. These senses are therefore referred to as the senses of comprehension. While with the sense of touch we have something that remains on the surface, something that cannot penetrate into things, with the sense of warmth we first penetrate into things and then deeper and deeper. These higher senses provide us with the understanding and comprehension of things in their innermost being, and they are therefore referred to as the senses of comprehension.

[ 37 ] You can see from this that, before we come to the sense of smell, we must list three other senses that inform us about our own inner selves. It is from this inner self that they draw their insights. Then we reach the boundary between the inner and outer worlds, first through the sense of smell, and then, through the higher senses, we penetrate ever deeper and deeper into the outer world.

[ 38 ] Is there anything above and below this? What has been listed is only a partial view. Above and below this lie other senses. From the conceptual sense, we could ascend to the first astral sense and would then come to the senses that can penetrate into the spiritual realm. There we would first find an eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth sense. These three unknown senses are to be mentioned here only briefly for now. We will speak of them in more detail when we ascend from the physical to the spiritual realm tomorrow or the day after. They will lead us deeper into the depths of spiritual life, into which the concept does not penetrate. Concepts come to a halt at a certain point. Beyond the concept lies that which can only be perceived through the higher senses. Smell stops short of one’s own inner self. Just as you have three senses below smell, so too are there three higher senses above the concept, through which we penetrate the outer aspect of spiritual things, just as we do with those lower senses into the outer aspect of physical things.

[ 39 ] But today we will remain on the physical plane. That is why we have listed what pertains to the perception of the physical. It was not unnecessary for us to engage in such a foundation of things. Because it has been forgotten, everything in the sciences has been thrown into the most appalling confusion, extending even into philosophy and epistemology. People generally ask: What can a human being perceive through the individual senses? — One cannot specify the difference between the sense of hearing and the sense of sight. People speak of sound waves just as they do of light waves, without taking into account that the sense of sight penetrates less deeply into the essence of things than the sense of hearing, which reveals something of the soul-nature of the external world. Through the three even higher senses—the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth senses—we will also penetrate into the spirit of things. Each sense has a different nature and essence. This must be taken into account first and foremost. Therefore, you can regard a great many of the explanations offered today regarding the nature of the sense of sight and its relationship to the environment—namely, those provided by physics—from the outset as something that has never taken into account the nature of the senses at all. Countless errors have arisen from this misunderstanding of the essence of the senses. This must be emphasized, because popular accounts do not do justice to what is said here. Indeed, popular books may say precisely the opposite. There you read things written by people who cannot even begin to grasp the inner nature of the sensory being. We must realize that science, from its standpoint, must speak differently; that it must fall into error because developments have been such that the truth has often been forgotten. This is the first chapter of anthroposophy: the true nature and essence of our senses.