The Rudolf Steiner Archive

6. The Current State of Philosophy and Science

[ 1 ] If I wish to attempt today to sketch out the current state of philosophy and science with a few rough strokes, it is because, within the broadest circle of spiritual-scientific views, there is not always clarity regarding how one, as an anthroposophist, can establish a proper relationship to the spiritual and scientific endeavors that otherwise exist in the present. I have occasionally included philosophical elements in my courses on spiritual science, relating them to specific fields. In particular, I have spoken about Hegel’s philosophy and its connection to the present. Today I would like to take the topic a bit more broadly and speak generally about the current state of philosophy and science. Since I have announced the topic to you and the participants in my courses are already familiar with the nature of such philosophical interludes, you will not be surprised if I say from the outset that I will not impose any particular constraints on myself regarding accessibility. I wish rather to evoke a sense of how, as a strictly scientific person, one might discover the connections between spiritual science and other spiritual endeavors of the present day. That there is ultimately little awareness of this in the realm of theosophical literature—which must be stated in a lecture such as today’s—is, of course, not surprising. As a rule, theosophical writers are not actually philosophers and are completely unaware of the difficulties that arise for the philosopher when he seeks to approach the field of spiritual science with his fundamentally scientific mindset. |

[ 2 ] Of course, I can only pick out individual points, but I want to highlight them in such a way that, by the time I have finished, you will have a sense of how the relationship I have hinted at might be understood. I would like to begin by saying that it can make a certain impression on a receptive soul from the very outset when, in the field of spiritual science, one speaks of supersensible knowledge, of the ascent of clairvoyant research toward supersensible knowledge. But to those who believe they must approach these matters from the premises of contemporary philosophy, the thought can and must immediately occur—if such a thing is even being discussed— the thought must immediately occur that the objections which philosophy raises against various aspects of what it calls direct experience or direct perception must apply in the same way to everything we produce, so to speak, in the field of spiritual science. As long as we, for example, clothe our clairvoyant experiences in such words that, in uttering them—perhaps you do not even notice it—we make use of spatial or temporal concepts, as soon as it can be demonstrated to us that we do so, as soon as we are not in a position to formulate our terminology in such a way that we do not covertly insert concepts of space and time into our statements at the relevant points, as long as that is the case, a Kantian or any other contemporary epistemologist can always come along and object—either in the old form or in the various forms these theories have taken in more recent times—that it is epistemologically established that space and time themselves are mere categories or forms of our imagination. Even if we were to clothe our intuitive findings in forms derived from time and space, we would nevertheless, by doing so, be offering something that is bound to our capacity for imagination. So, in essence—I know that the expression is debatable here—we would then be expressing, through all our intuitive findings, only something subjective. This is a possible objection that can always be raised. I mention it as an example of numerous other objections that can rightly be formulated on the basis of epistemological premises.

[ 3 ] If we, as scholars of the humanities, can properly address such objections ourselves, only then have we truly earned the full inner right to make certain assertions. This does not mean that we should not, out of our inner sense of truth, engage with certain ideas. We should do so, for our inner sense of truth can guide us in the right way. But we are only truly equipped to face the spiritual movement of the present when we raise such objections ourselves and—at least within our own work—are able to overcome them.

[ 4 ] We must distinguish between two kinds of objections. Certainly, objections to the science of the spirit will come pouring in from all sides. If we are able to know for ourselves what is coming at us, to discern it for ourselves, and then simply are not heard with what we have to say about it, then the fault lies with the others; then we can wait—as we must—until people have matured enough to understand our propositions. But if our positions bear the stamp of dilettantism in relation to the spiritual movements of the present, then the fault lies with us if we cannot consolidate our body of teaching in the appropriate manner. To do this, we must be able to distinguish between what is our fault—and in many, many areas it is solely our fault; it lies in theosophical literature, in the ease with which some believe they should find their way into the field of spiritual science— we must therefore distinguish between what is our fault and what we can calmly wait out, because we can tell ourselves exactly what the spiritual movements of the present have to object to from their standpoint. But if we want to do this, then we must first and foremost be clear to ourselves as to where the actual inadequacy of the spiritual movements of the present lies. We must be able to ask ourselves to some extent how these contemporary spiritual movements have developed.

[ 5 ] You know from my lectures that I do not like to parade my opinions in public. The opinions of a single individual are, after all, of little value. I always strive, even in the field of spiritual science, to let the facts speak for themselves. That is why I do not wish to present theories rooted in opinions today, but rather to let the facts speak. I would like to present a fact that illustrates how, over the course of the 19th century, intellectual inadequacy has developed—an inability to penetrate in a certain deeper way into what thought can indeed offer, provided it draws conclusions that are sufficiently incisive, truly sharp, and truly grounded in its premises. Theosophy often proves so feeble in the face of the objections raised against it because its intellectual weapons have become blunt.

[ 6 ] If we speak purely in terms of thought—I am aware of every possible objection that could be raised against what has just been said, but the matter will present itself in this way to anyone who delves into the intellectual development of the 19th century— —if we start from the purely intellectual realm, then we must say that, in terms of the sharpness of thought and the crystallization of thought in the soul, a certain high point of philosophical development was indeed reached by Hegel. One misunderstands Hegel if one speaks of him so lightly, as his opponents did in the second half of the 19th century. They imagined that Hegel intended to spin everything he had to say about the world out of pure thought. They simply failed to take into account: Hegel nowhere claims that the human subject seeks to extract anything of real worldly content from pure thought. One must bear in mind: Hegel certainly takes the position that it is thought itself—the inwardly living thought, the active and productive thought—that draws the content of the world out of itself, and that we, with our cognitive subject, are nothing other than the stage upon which thought works. If we take the matter as it actually presents itself in the course of spiritual life, we must say: In this tendency of Hegel lies his entire monumental greatness. But also: the entire weakness of Hegelian philosophy lies therein. The greatness lies in the fact that Hegel, for anyone who truly wishes to penetrate his thought, can become, in a previously almost unimaginable way, the teacher of a discipline of thought that we cannot acquire by any other means. Theosophists, in particular, should acquire this rigorous discipline of thought. After all, a vast number of errors and erroneous convictions arise simply because our thinking cannot attain the crystalline clarity of a discipline of thought, as one can learn it through the Hegelian system. One can educate oneself through the Hegelian system. One should, so to speak, be imbued with the results of such intellectual discipline in every lecture where one feels a responsibility toward knowledge and truth. One should accustom oneself to never using a word at any point that has not first been fully grasped and experienced by us in all its scope and content. If, by penetrating what seems to many so abstract, so dry, and so sober—by penetrating Hegel’s logic—one instills this discipline of thought in oneself, then one comes to never speak of the word “Being,” Becoming, or Existence in such contexts where, within the overall structure of the lecture, these words may be inserted, because one has first traced the entire development of the content of such concepts, from the simplest, most empty concepts to the most substantial ones. In essence, today’s philosophical lecturer and all of contemporary literature are also immensely far removed from this inner discipline of thought. I could easily demonstrate to you that in world-famous contemporary philosophical books, the authors are not even capable of concisely and accurately capturing the content of a concept over the course of three lines, and after three lines already reuse a concept they previously employed in an entirely different manner. That an inner confusion must then arise in the entire edifice that our thoughts represent seems quite natural. As I said, it would be easy to demonstrate this to you using world-famous contemporary philosophical books.

[ 7 ] Now, Hegel’s opponents believed they could easily defeat him by failing to understand this weaving and essence of thought within the realm of our knowing subject, but rather by believing—something that never occurred to Hegel— he wanted to spin the content of the world, so to speak, out of the immediate content of thought of the subject of cognition. One need only be clear that this cannot be the case, that one can never spin any substantial content of cognition out of the respective subject of cognition, if the latter remains solely in concepts. Therefore, Hegel’s philosophy—and this is its weakness—had to remain unproductive with regard to the productive progress of spiritual life, precisely because its fundamental idea, that it is thought itself that works itself out, may be correct, but because it does not follow from this that the subject of knowledge itself must produce the objective content of the world. How is it possible for the subject of knowledge to derive the content of knowledge from within itself? This is possible only if the subject of knowledge fertilizes itself, makes itself capable of producing the content of knowledge. But this self-empowerment can never take place on the level of mere thinking. Through mere thinking, one gains a kind of overview, a kind of broader retrospective view of what the human spirit has produced in the course of world history. One can survey the thoughts that have been produced from a certain vantage point. But one cannot gain new content of knowledge. Hegel’s opponents sensed this. Yet they had based their opposition entirely on false premises. It is on this, however, that the fact rests that mere Hegelianism achieves two things: an almost immeasurably magnificent discipline of thought, but that productive content of knowledge cannot be attained. In other words: Hegelian philosophy cannot continue to have a productive effect through itself. This is where the productive powers of knowledge must come into play, where even Hegel’s subject of knowledge—raised to the height of thought—must resolve to allow to flow in what you will find described, for example, as the fertilizing agent of the subject of knowledge in my book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*

[ 8 ] I would like to say this: If one starts from immediately sensible existence and from the way the human mind processes it, one reaches a level that can be described as the life and activity of the knowing subject within the realm of the plane of thought. But then further progress is possible only if, from the other side—the side opposed to sensually perceptible existence—there comes the inspiration through those means described in this book, *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*. You will now find in the literature with which I have sought to point to these things step by step—prepared, as it were, by my earlier writings and summarized most recently in my Philosophy of Freedom—a path that can be taken from external sensory perception, from the external processing of the material of existence, up to the realm of thought. There you will also find characterized the peculiarities of both the realm of thought and the significance of pure thinking for the subject of knowledge. In the following writings, which lie within the proper realm of spiritual science, you will find the other side of the world characterized with its forces that fertilize knowledge. You will find the clairvoyant research characterized epistemologically, the scope of the clairvoyant research, which thus flows in, as it were, from the other side.

[ 9 ] If we were to sketch this out, we could say: When we characterize the plane of thought along with the subject of cognition on this plane, everything that can be apprehended through the senses—all the external, sensually perceptible material of existence—flows in from the side of sensory perception. Within the plane of thought, we sense the Hegelian Self weaving, that which is called the dialectic of pure thought. But then, if we take only this path, we must come to a standstill. We must wait until we are in a position to allow that which we can receive on the path characterized by my writing “How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?” to flow into us from the other side. Thus you see that these things come together, and that the Hegelian system was, for a certain period, a wonderful summary of the human spirit; but that, once this was established, what the Hegelian system cannot rise to must quite appropriately come to pass. The plan is fixed as to where the subject of knowledge must stand; it cannot be elevated, it can only be described from the other side with what can likewise be established epistemologically. So that we do not remain one-sided, but acquire the ability to recognize the strict epistemological method even where mere sensibility is left behind.

[ 10 ] When we consider all of this, we may ask: How is it that philosophy itself seems so reluctant to engage with those logical forms through which what comes from the other side can be established just as surely as what comes from this side can be established epistemologically? — This stems from the fact that this philosophy of the 19th century and into the 20th century has, up to now, failed to take the step that should have been taken based on a correct understanding of Hegelianism. And so it is that this philosophy of the 19th and 20th centuries has been unable to connect with what lies beyond the realm of thought. However, the deeper reason lies in the fact that Hegelian philosophy has been little understood by the philosophy that has continued to develop. For when one rises to the realm of pure thought, it is quite inevitable—because one stands at the threshold of the supersensible world—that one can also sense those logical justifications which, as something legitimate, reveal the inflow of the supersensible world. You can truly feel this when, in the invaluable lectures of our dear Dr. Unger, you encounter this elevation of human cognitive power to pure thought and then the letting in of the light of the higher worlds. Therefore, it must be emphasized: It is a great blessing that we are in a position to have among us a figure such as Dr. Unger, who, in this spiritual-philosophical realm, is capable of elaborating and expounding in detail the epistemology of pure thought of the knowing subject, which lies as the “I” on the plane of thought. And so, in these very lectures, you have been given what can serve as a guide to help you gain firmness in your approach to the relationship between spiritual science and other spiritual endeavors.

[ 11 ] If you follow this philosophy—which has already been developed in part through Dr. Unger’s writings and will be further developed in the future—and if you continue along the path you have chosen, you will see that this philosophy, as a philosophy, will have a character quite different from what exists today as contemporary philosophy. A truly not insignificant thinker recently said something about the latter that, in essence, cannot be disputed. If one lets one’s gaze wander impartially over what is being brought to light in Germany and other countries, then one sees that what this thinker said is truly coming to pass, namely: we have today a metaphysics without transcendental conviction, an epistemology without objective meaning, a logic without content, a psychology without a soul, an ethics without binding force, and a religion without a rational foundation. — This is a characterization of our time drawn from the immediate perception of a not insignificant contemporary philosopher. As I said, I would like to let the facts speak for themselves, let what is happening speak for itself. Whether it must be said that he has no desire to embark on the path of the humanities, or whether, according to his own intellectual suggestions, he is unable to do so, may be left open—but it must be said that this is how one who is fully immersed in the contemporary maelstrom might think, yet who, from within the realm of thought, cannot find a way out to a supersensory content. Certain intellectual prerequisites must be fulfilled here, such as those found today in no other philosophy than in what I attempted to establish in my book on “Truth and Science,” in what is presented in “The Philosophy of Freedom,” and in the carefully elaborated thought processes of Dr. Unger. Here, from the field of the spiritual sciences, the foundation is laid for an active philosophy that avoids mixing theosophy into its expositions at every turn, that aims to be strictly philosophical, and that will fulfill its task into the future precisely through this rigorous scientific approach.

[ 12 ] But let us ask ourselves: Why is it that, after believing that Hegelianism had been discarded, 19th-century thought in all civilized countries was unable to rise to such a philosophical elaboration of the intellectual aspect of our cognitive subject—why is that? It cannot be my task to go into the deep cultural-historical reasons—though I do so in some places—; today I wish to remain within the realm of purely philosophical characterization. This is because certain facts have come to pass; anyone who closely follows the course of intellectual life in the 1850s, 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s cannot fail to notice how, in the development of the spirit in the 19th century, thinking itself has remained strong in essentially only a single field, while everywhere else it has become too dull to draw the consequences inherent within it. In only one single field does the science of the 19th century and the early 20th century command the highest respect even from the rigorous thinking of the spiritual researcher, and this is none other than mathematics. Everything that has been accomplished within the scope of the mathematical field bears the marks of sharp, penetrating thought. Hence, even those who, for example, pursued their theoretical scientific studies in theoretical physics and chemistry toward the end of the 19th century could feel so strongly: it is not the mathematicians’ fault that we are handed down these complicated formulas that one had to work through when approaching, for example, the theory of heat, the theory of vibrations, Clausius’s theory, and so on. Once one had gone through that, once one had it philosophically within oneself, one had the feeling: it is not the mathematicians’ fault—mathematics has become a wonderful instrument for working everything out in finely chiseled systems; but the intellectual weapons were blunt. So one could have the feeling, when working with mathematical formulas in the various fields of physics and chemistry: as long as one remains purely within the realm of mathematics, one feels secure everywhere; but as soon as one comes to the philosophical characterization of what one is actually calculating, the ground is shaky everywhere. This is how it appeared from the minds of those who spoke philosophically at the time. There was nothing to be felt there but the purest philosophical dilettantism, which was particularly evident when natural scientists began to philosophize, such as Da Bois-Reymond in his “Seven World Riddles” or in his lecture “On the Limits of Knowledge of Nature.” But this has not improved. We may therefore say: We have witnessed the peculiar phenomenon that thinking, as it must necessarily be demanded by the humanities, has remained strong and precise only within mathematics. — The strict demands on thinking are not met today in any other field of research—the strict demands we make from the standpoint of the humanities—except in the field of mathematics.

[ 13 ] Now, I do not wish to delve here into certain contributions—or their characteristics—which, from a purely mathematical standpoint, can also be applied to the realm of knowledge. I merely wish to point out the symptomatic nature of these things, to point out that it is precisely in the field that has retained its wonderful inner strength—the field of mathematics—that it has become most clearly evident how the thinking of the 19th century has, through its own development, matured to the point of shattering the shell that separates the human subject of knowledge from the supersensible world. And even if they are only hypotheses, sometimes boldly asserted, that have been pursued purely mathematically, we must nevertheless regard what has happened in the mathematical realm as an expression of the human spirit’s yearning to reach beyond the sensory world. And it is precisely in the field of mathematics that we have seen this longing come to fruition. After all, mathematics in its forms—where it is called geometry—has, since the time of the ancient Euclid, held certain things to be unshakable! Who, for example, could believe that there is anything more unshakable than the theorem: “The three angles of a triangle are equal to 180 degrees”—or the other theorem: If you have a straight line here and a point next to it, then, in the sense of Euclidean geometry, you can draw only a single parallel line to the straight line through that point. — That is to say, in the sense of Euclidean geometry, the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to 180 degrees, and in its sense, one can draw only a single parallel line to this straight line. This follows from the premises of Euclidean geometry. Who could possibly believe that it could be any other way! Nevertheless—and this is the significant point—as I said, I could raise many arguments for and against the content itself, but I am addressing only the symptomatic aspect of it, the longing: to break out of the realm of the sensory; I merely wish to characterize—the peculiar thing is that in the 19th century we saw geometries emerge other than the Euclidean one. Thus, the inner sharpness of thought, with what one intellectually takes as the foundation for chiseling out geometric truths, it attempted to crystallize from this thinking itself a geometry—or geometries—that apply to something other than our ordinary sensory space, for in this space it holds that the three angles of a triangle must together total 180 degrees, that through a point adjacent to a line one can draw only a parallel. And in the 19th century we acquired geometries that do not merely apply to our sensory space—no. Riemannian and Lobachevskian geometry are two genuine geometries, born of human thought according to strict mathematical laws.

[ 14 ] In Lobachevsky’s theory, the sum of the three angles of a triangle is always less than 180 degrees; in Riemann’s theory, it is always greater than 180 degrees. In the latter theory, you cannot draw a single straight line through a point that is parallel to any other line; in the former, you can draw two such lines. And these things are not so easy to accept. For if the mathematician sets a certain constant equal to zero in certain formulas—through which one can express every specific ratio given in Lobachevsky’s theory—he obtains Euclidean geometry as a special case of Lobachevsky’s geometry. You can extract Euclidean geometry from Lobachevsky’s geometry.

[ 15 ] I do not wish to point out that the findings of clairvoyant research do not correspond to the postulates of either of the two geometries. They are merely proof that mental operations can extend beyond the realm that initially encompasses our space. But this must be said: If one grasps the scope of these geometries, one can conceive that there are entirely different factual relationships than those in the sensory world. For the latter is ultimately expressed in the formulas of geometry. If, then, different formulas than those of Euclidean geometry apply to a world, that world is a world other than our own. And we can say: Riemannian and Lobachevskian geometry embody the geometer’s longing to transcend the sensory world, to grasp intellectually something that lies entirely outside the realm of the sensory world. That is why these non-Euclidean geometries are symptomatically significant for our century.

[ 16 ] And no less significant is the fact that the Frenchman Poincaré has treated these various theories with great intellectual rigor from an epistemological perspective. However, if one limits oneself to merely applying these non-Euclidean postulates without wishing to venture into the realm of the humanities, one arrives precisely at what Poincaré arrived at: seeing nothing in all our geometric statements but formulas that our cognitive faculties have devised to grasp the facts in the most convenient way possible. And this is very clearly elaborated in Poincaré’s work. And Germans, too, have the opportunity, through the commendable translations of these books provided by the Munich mathematician Lindemann, to gain an understanding of the significance of what actually underlies the whole matter.

[ 17 ] Thus, we must say—if we can even hint at the fact that, in our time, the sharpness of thought has indeed found its full expression in a particular field, and that this sharpness of thought is sufficiently evident in such attempts—however dreary and hypothetical they may rightly appear to the individual—that there is a thirst for knowledge reaching beyond the world immediately before us.

[ 18 ] It is generally useful to be familiar with at least the rigor that one can acquire through mathematical training. For everything that is legitimately produced in the field of the humanities must, insofar as a cognitive element is involved, be imbued with this strictly disciplined thinking. This may disappear behind the facts; but anyone who produces work in the field of spiritual science should be aware that this thinking should be present in the background. Otherwise, spiritual science will be something that can easily be trampled to death by those who live outside the spiritual realm. And one will not be able to claim everywhere that there is ill will at play when we are not understood. For in the field of spiritual science, it must become increasingly evident that we impose upon our own thinking the demands that, one might say, the strictest mathematician imposes upon himself. Because we have clairvoyant research at our disposal, we will be protected from, so to speak, building mathematical structures into the wind. I say this because there is indeed much to be said against the edifice of Riemannian and Lobachevskian geometry. I merely wished to characterize the thirst for knowledge. However, I attempted to show in my *Philosophy of Freedom* that it would be useful to be familiar with mathematical structures. There is a chapter in it that I would like to call “On the Pleasure Value of Life.” Up until the moment I had written this chapter on the pleasure value of life, there was much talk in philosophical circles of the pleasure balance of life, and one would insert the “real world” into a seemingly mathematical formula intended to yield the pleasure balance in such a way that, for my sake, one would sum all the pleasures of a life to an “a” and all the displeasures of the same life to a “b,” and call the difference the pleasure balance—the surplus of pleasure over displeasure. When one expresses pleasure and displeasure in a formula in this way, one has chosen a difference, that which one might call the mathematical formula of subtraction. The essential point in that chapter is that I have shown how it is impossible to summarize pleasure and displeasure in such a way that they are brought into a relationship of minuend and subtrahend. Whatever one derives from this will never correspond to actual experience. I have shown that one obtains the pleasure value only if one proceeds as follows: If one divides a by 5, then c, as the quotient, gives the pleasure value:

$$c = \frac{a}{b}$$

[ 19 ] If you carefully examine the facts of life, you will find this to be true everywhere. In order to grasp what is expressed in abstract terms about a fact of life in this formula, one must have at least a basic understanding of what can be derived from mathematical structures.

[ 20 ] Consider the question: How can the pleasure value—if the formula holds true—become zero; in other words, how can complete weariness of life arise? — By no other fact than when the fraction has an infinite value in its denominator—in its \(b\). For when you form a quotient, you can only get a zero if the denominator is infinite, as long as the numerator is even just \(1\). That is to say, this premise corresponds to the facts of life in a completely different way. The latter shows you—even if people indulge in illusions—a certain zest for life everywhere. It is present wherever life exists at all.

[ 21 ] Thus we see how useful it can be to apply arithmetic formulas correctly. If you apply the wrong formula for the difference, you can easily develop a certain excess of discontent and say: Weariness of life is justified as a quantity. There you also see how useful it is to be able to make strict mathematical logic, so to speak, your ideal.

[ 22 ] If we set mathematics aside and look at the various individual fields of philosophy, we must say: Everywhere we look—even in the field of logic, which has, admittedly, been enriched once again by mathematics through the theory of probability—we find that self-contained thought is incapable of drawing its own conclusions. And in this context, I would like to draw your attention to the most important fact in the development of our spiritual life throughout the 19th century—a fact in the field of the humanities that occurred with a certain significance in spiritual life around the middle of the 19th century.

[ 23 ] At that time, Julius Robert Mayer, and later Helmholtz independently of him, discovered what has since been called the theory of the mechanical equivalent of heat, or the so-called conservation of vital force. Now, shortly after that happened, Helmholtz built upon this theory of the conservation of vital force to develop another theory, which was then widely accepted and is still considered by many to be indisputable: namely, that in the interplay of vital forces in the universe, transformations are constantly taking place—from some other processes, let us say, in the world-governing vital forces, be they the forces of magnetism or electricity, or other purely mechanical forces—into heat. Now, in accordance with the so-called Carnot’s theorem, it is never possible to carry out the process of conversion from force to heat in a complete manner while maintaining the same quantity of force. One must say: It is never possible to convert all heat back into active force. — Incidentally, if I were to describe this so-called second law of thermodynamics, I would have to give a few lectures on the subject. But today I only wish to outline it. It is not essential that every single detail you might wish to learn about it be stated here. In the sense of the second law of mechanical thermodynamics and in the sense of what Hermann Helmholtz derived from it in the 1850s, it follows that in all processes of our existence, ultimately in the conversion of heat into force, there must be a quantum of heat that can no longer be reconverted into another form of force. Consequently, all our physical-mechanical processes must ultimately proceed in such a way that their forces are converted into heat. And since there is always a residual amount of heat, these processes must ultimately culminate in a state where all other forms of energy have been converted into heat—where, so to speak, all living forces will ultimately be converted into heat. We would thus have arrived at what we might call the heat death of our Earth. Naturally, no other process could take place once everything has been converted into heat. Thus, so to speak, physical thinking up to the mid-19th century converges on this law, converges on the statement which, when one consulted what could be conceived physically at the time, was actually quite correct: it converges on the assertion of the heat death of our Earth. And the only consolation Helmholtz found was this: It is still a long way off, and no one need fear that the heat death will befall them so soon. And everything we can observe reveals this process to us in such a minor degree that we can hope life will continue undisturbed for millions of years to come, without the Earth being struck by the heat death. — For those who proceed more thoroughly in their understanding, this remains nothing more than a philistine consolation.

[ 24 ] However, I merely wanted to illustrate what I could have illustrated using numerous other examples: how, so to speak, the progression of scientific thought up to that point—the lecture in which Helmholtz presented his ideas was given around 1852—must have led to certain results.

[ 25 ] At the time (1856), a Hegelian—Karl Rosenkranz—took issue with this lecture. He brought to bear every weapon he could muster from the arsenal of Hegelian philosophy. And anyone who knows Karl Rosenkranz—a devoted, one might say, deeply devoted Hegelian—a little better knows that Karl Rosenkranz is not as easy to dismiss as people very often try to do. He brought out everything he could muster from the arsenal of the Hegelian school. So we have here the other current, namely the one that developed along the line of thought. This ran in the direction I have sought to show. Where physical thinking has arrived can be seen in Helmholtz; where philosophical thinking has arrived, in Rosenkranz. There we see that important objections are raised against the mechanical theory of heat. Rosenkranz criticizes Helmholtz for thinking, in essence, only in terms of analogies. His law, he argues, must be abstracted from the processes that take place in a clock, a wind box, or other objects. It is true of the steam engine that some of the living forces we generate are lost to the environment and cannot be recovered. As long as we proceed from such processes—I would say, processes surrounded on all sides by finite environments—it cannot be ruled out that the results we obtain will be similar to those Helmholtz arrived at in his treatise on the mechanical theory of heat. Karl Rosenkranz then rightly points out that it by no means follows, as soon as we go beyond the immediate conditions on Earth, that there would be no possibility that the heat radiated out into space would be lost in the same way as with the steam engine. Entirely different circumstances could be at play there. I cannot go into today what spiritual science has to say when it comes to the theory of heat. It is only there that we find the solid ground I was able to describe to you in the lectures I have recently given on the biblical story of creation. The Hegelian remained unproductive because he could not find the transition to this ground. Thus, heat remained for him nothing more than an inner tremor. Nevertheless, with the concepts that are simply given when one thinks in the strictly disciplined manner of so-called finite mechanics—which applies only to the immediate surroundings with all its formulas, including the formulas

$$\frac{mv^2}{2}$$

[ 26 ] — all these formulas apply to our immediate circumstances —; using these concepts, he turns to absolute mechanics. In the development of his scientific system, Hegel has made the transition from so-called finite mechanics to absolute mechanics, which he applies to the motion of celestial bodies. There the formulas transform in such a way that one simply cannot apply the formulas derived from the steam engine—in the Helmholtzian sense of our ordinary thermal conditions—to the processes that encompass larger entities in space. But to even grasp such a thought—to grasp the possibility that one can ascend from finite mechanics to absolute mechanics—requires an internally self-directing logic, which was precisely what the philosophy of the 19th century, and also Karl Rosenkranz, lacked. For running through all his objections is the ever-present, powerful suggestion to which he, too, is devoted—a suggestion stemming from the overwhelming scientific conceptions of the 19th century. These subdue much thought. —This truly requires self-directing thought if one is to penetrate these scientific views. I could easily demonstrate that even regarding the law of the so-called conservation of matter, which plays such a major role, the truth can only be known if one understands the inner structure of thought. I could prove that this law, as it exists in physics today, is nothing other than a projection of one’s own laws of thought into space, whereby thought, moreover, operates with blunt instruments. Here we see what we know today in the field of spiritual science: that in higher realms, what is within us appears to us as objective—I do not even wish to speak of the conservation of energy—and that, in a broader sense, what I myself have just cited regarding the conservation of matter still holds true. Thus we see how, through the suggestion of scientific findings—toward which one ought to remain on purely factual ground—the human element of thought has proved blunt in this realm, because philosophy was unable to pierce the veil formed not by scientific fact-finding, but by the interpretation of the facts that have been investigated. Spiritual science stands firmly on the ground of scientific facts. I would regard it as one of the greatest shortcomings of spiritual science if it were unwilling to go hand in hand with genuine scientific fact-finding. But the interpretation of the researched facts is another matter. When natural scientists tell us what they have produced in the laboratory in terms of factual objects, then we must gratefully accept their findings; then we accept the utterances of nature itself, and if we deny them, then we are caught up in nonsense. If we do not submit to them, then we show that we have no sense of truth. But if we were also to accept the so-called monistic considerations and allow ourselves to be persuaded that these are facts, then we would be taking people’s opinions as facts. This happens, however, because people’s opinions have insidiously—I would say—crept into popular literature, though no one is to blame for this as a fanatic. For twenty pfennigs, we can obtain not only scientific facts handed down to us, but also opinions that appear as if they were facts, so to speak, so strongly emphasized that if a person does not believe in them, he does not believe in the scientific findings. One can, however, hold fast to the latter and still say that the explanations are nothing more than interpretations, made with blunt intellectual weapons.

[ 27 ] Just as this way of thinking is blunt when applied to the simplest physical and chemical phenomena, it must naturally prove even more blunt when higher fields are considered, such as physiology. The days are long gone when a brilliant anatomist like the late Hyrtl could bring the anatomical structure of the human body to life for his students in the early years of their medical studies. Today we are dealing with an institution that, above all, is completely unaware of one thing. To characterize this thing, I would like to present it in a slightly different light.

[ 28 ] In keeping with what I myself must regard as the spiritual science movement, it is my most urgent wish that those with a background in physiology and medicine familiarize themselves with the facts of spiritual science to such an extent that they can work through the findings of physiology in light of their factual nature. Next spring, I myself will be able to outline at most the basic principles of this spiritual-scientific physiology. There is much work to be done. Our physiological literature contains the most wonderful material—one only needs to be familiar with it—but one must also be familiar with the borderline areas, and one must, in turn, understand how physiology is influenced by a true psychology, which today lies largely buried in the rubble. It would be a desire of spiritual research that those among us with a background in physiology take a strictly exact look at certain recent physiological and anatomical findings. Admittedly, anyone familiar with the factual material knows that in certain areas—which we would need most at this very moment—nothing has yet been done. But this can be accomplished with relative ease by those who assimilate what has already been achieved in this field; who assimilate it in such a way that they make productive use of it. Then, if at the same time they are imbued with spiritual insight, they will not end up creating a foundation for physiology where, as it were, in the dissection of the organism, every organ is regarded as equal. What is the essential point that modern physiology fails to recognize? It is that the organism is dissected. One has the heart, lungs, liver, and so on; one studies them all as if they were equal organic parts lying side by side. But that is not the case. All these individual parts have different antecedents of their values. And in a piece of liver, one does not have the same matter at hand as one has in a piece of heart muscle and the like. The point here is that one must add a certain factor to what the purely external sensory data provides, a factor I can only describe as a certain objective value of the organ in question. This will become clear to the physiologist once he undertakes the task of comparing a single organ in the fully developed human organism with actual embryology. He will then realize that embryology today operates in such a one-sided manner because it, so to speak, follows only an ascending process and not a descending one that runs parallel to it. One proceeds correctly only when, at every stage of embryological development, one brings out something that contains, as in a mathematical function, a factor of decay and another factor of productivity. And when one is able to apply what one has thus gained in terms of value assessments to the organ in its full form within the organism—when one does not simply place the heart and liver side by side as organs of equal value (they are of different qualitative value)—then one will stand at the moment when precisely the magnificent results of our physiological world of facts will receive the greatest illumination.

[ 29 ] What I have described in this way for physiology, I could describe for biology, for history, and for cultural history. There you see a field of work that lies before us, one that must be cultivated. There you see, in living color, the situation of contemporary philosophy and science in relation to what we have—I would say—through the favor of circumstances, through our human karma, in terms of positive results. All around us, thanks to empirical research, are the most beautiful results. Anyone who familiarizes themselves with these facts beholds a marvelous development. What is lacking is the sharp incisiveness, the energy of philosophical thought, which can only—when applied, but applied courageously to the facts—present these facts in their proper light. This was expressed epistemologically in my foundational epistemological work *Truth and Science*. There you will find a reference to that kind of epistemology which anticipates that our epistemology does not remain without objective significance, but must take such a form that the epistemological results serve to enrich our subject of knowledge, so that it can immerse itself in what is given to us by the current state of science. If we work in the right way, with seriousness and dignity, in all fields of science—starting from the beginnings that should develop from our spiritual-scientific movement in this area—if we do not remain stuck in a certain theosophical dilettantism but instead immerse ourselves rigorously in what is scientifically given, we will arrive at —instead of having, as is truly the case today, a metaphysics without transcendental conviction—to have a metaphysics that, through the tools shaped for it by a productive theory of knowledge, penetrates through the outer realm of the sensory into the supersensory. Then it will have conviction, because it will rest on a theory of knowledge, because it will be able to enrich the human subject of cognition. Logic will gain its content, because the laws of thought will emerge as laws of the world. Ethics, too, will be able to possess what one might call a sense of obligation, because productive cognition pours into our impulses. We will have an ethics with a sense of obligation. Then we will also have what is not a psychology without a soul, but a psychology with a soul, for the human thirst for knowledge is directed toward the questions of the soul and its fate in the world.

[ 30 ] This was meant to be a modest attempt to show you where we actually stand when we shift our gaze from what we can feel spiritually within ourselves to the realm of what has been researched, of what exists scientifically around us. If I were to describe to you every single aspect of what exists scientifically, I would have to give many lectures. But many things will emerge in the course of time. I only wanted to show what kind of ‘tendency’ may lie within our spiritual science if the possibilities it holds are sought not merely for selfish reasons—to satisfy the most immediate personal goals—but if they are sought in order to contribute to the spirit, to the cultural process of humanity.