The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Relationship Between the Spiritual Science and the Natural Sciences II

[ 1 ] Yesterday, in connection with a description of the materialistic-mechanistic worldview presented by Mr. von Wrangell, I also spoke of the poet Marie Eugenie delle Grazie as an example of truly taking the materialistic worldview seriously—or, I might say, taking it at its word. Isn’t it true that one could raise the question: How must a person—who has deep, fundamental feelings for everything human, feelings instilled in people through the course of history—how must such a person feel when they accept the materialistic-mechanistic worldview as true? That is roughly how—25 to 30 years ago now—Marie Eugenie delle Grazie confronted the materialistic-mechanistic worldview. She called Haeckel her master and assumed that, in a sense, Laplace’s mind was correct in its conception of the world. But she did not express this worldview merely in theoretical terms; rather, assuming it to be true, she also gave voice to human emotion. And so her poems are perhaps the most eloquent testimony to the way in which the feeling human heart can respond to the materialistic-mechanistic worldview in our time—to what one can sense, feel, and experience under its premise. And so that you may have a vivid example of the impact of the materialistic-mechanistic worldview on a human heart, we will first present some of these poems by Delle Grazia.

[ 2 ] [Recited by Marie Steiner]

At midnight

When, weary and half-intoxicated
By the day’s ever-changing life
The earth dreams in blissful peace,
The moon’s bluish glow
Floods the deserted streets
And holy oblivion
Lifts its gentle wings
In these blessed hours,
So rich in delight and slumber
Why, heart pounding loudly,
Can you alone find no rest?
Why, feverish brow,
Does it swirl so sleep-robbing
And, driving away your dreams, only you
Are tormented by this army of thoughts?

The stars move peacefully
Across the sky above,
And the city lies motionless,
The vast, vast metropolis—for behold,
It is midnight, and both the poor and the rich
are equally blessed by the dream god’s alluring cup,
the heavy one, crowned with poppies...

Only you groan
and whimper into your pillows at midnight,
unfortunate one, and weep and brood—for
It is a demon, dark yet enchanting
That hovers around your bed, and demonic whispers chase away
The fairy-tale messengers of dreams from your vicinity,
So that their lovely dance shatters without splendor
And the night fiends of madness encircle you.
And with shining eyes, she beckons to you
The enchantress Fantasy with her golden wings,
With the dance of the poppies and the sweet, rejuvenating fire-drink
Of inspiration—grinning satanically,
Your evil enemy drives even this comforter away
And gazing into your eyes with a touch that stirs the soul, he lingers
So long, wretched one, by your bedside,
Until you spread your arms, press him to your heart
And, longing, breathe back at him only slavishly,
A victim who surrenders herself without will.
Then he spreads his black demonic wings
And shakes the nocturnal splendor from his curls,
Frostily kisses love and faith from your soul,
Softly drips the poison of despair into your breast,
Tears apart your heart with convulsively twitching predatory claws
And embraces you lustfully like a vampire
And whispers with an icy smile: “My name is Knowledge!”

2.

With iron bonds,
And chained to dust and decay,
Nature, your creator, holds you fast;
Nature, the alluring monster,
Now smiling and sun-gilded
Spurring you on to a furious joy of existence, now
Giving birth to horror and distress,
Whipping you with the rod of misery,
Yet always destructive and enigmatic, always
Medusa and Sphinx at once!
Your pulse races
And races in feverish beats
Her merciless law,
The eternal law of destruction;
She gave you will and strength
To destroy yourself—yourself
But you can never, ever save yourself!
Pulling her triumphal chariot
— gasping, drenched in sweat, and yet
Also blissful: for like a mirage,
Hope sways before us, and happiness, and every illusion,
Which she created to mock us,
And we, the army of slaves poisoned by desire,
Call them ideals! — Thus, in a thirsty rush
And a frenzied chase, we rush on, until treacherously
Our strength abandons us, our breath fades, and farther
Than ever our goal floats on golden clouds,
Until, helpless and gasping, we
Collapse—then she shouts demonically,
Then she cries out her cruel “Evoe!” and steers
Crushing over a thousand victims
The bronze spokes of her Biga!

3.

What cruel demon could
Have inscribed the tormenting urge of love
Into our throbbing hearts?
What treacherous hellish delusion
Is it that we tremble with longing and foolishly
Crave and thirst for divine bliss,
For the Infinite
To consume ourselves in feverish fervor
And above the seething swamp
Of finitude, the most alluring fairy-tale realm
Of dreams—ah! lamenting and unresolved
This anxious question echoes into eternity...

Enchantingly smiles and beckons
In those enigmatic hours
The Divine beckons us to
Yet we too wish to seize it,
To bind it, to clothe it in the garb of transience
And cry out, a second, foolish self
Chaining itself to our fate: “Found—found!”

But only gods and fairy-tale heroes are refreshed
The nectar of eternal folly,
Reason guides the little people,
And Reason, that voracious giantess,
She feeds and strengthens herself only
On shattered ideals!
Disenchanted and shivering,
The heart and the sober soul of everyday life awaken,
They smile at the dream that once intoxicated them...
The shining star of divinity,
Not proudly and titanically could
They snatch it from the heavens—no, they reached
And grasped, more foolish than a foolish child,
Its murky reflection
In the puddle of its own kind...

Among the living, there goes
And passes from mouth to mouth
A little word whispered in terror
Its brazen sound causes
Rosy cheeks to pale,
The jubilant hymns of delusion,
The dazzling fairy tales of lies
Of existence are torn apart by it, and
Fade away with it into eternity.
The crown of thorns of suffering,
The rosaries of happiness
And the diadems of glory
All of them, all of them are entwined,
Enveloped and overgrown
By the asphodel of pale death!
Whoever is touched by its wings,
Trembles, and whoever hears its hollow voice,
Has lied for the last time...

Decay and rot ferment
In our veins; decay guides us
According to its law, and whatever lives and breathes there,
Decay has created it,
Decay also destroys it!
A filthy vortex full of riddles and madness swirls
Life, and our pygmy race, swirls
With it: in blind weakness, comical dignity
And powerlessness...

Omniscient and free, he alone reigns
The giant Death: with a flashing sword he mows down
The glistening lie of existence
And speaks, for all eternity
Pointing to dust and decay,
The only, eternal truth: “There is nothing!”

[ 3 ] It is precisely in examples such as this, I believe, that one can see where a materialistic-mechanistic worldview must inevitably lead. If this worldview had become the only dominant one and people had retained the capacity to feel, then a mood such as that expressed in these poems would have swept people up far and wide, and only those who wished to continue living without feeling—only these unfeeling people—would have been able to avoid being swept up by such a mood.

[ 4 ] One does not come to know the workings of the world—and understand them correctly—through those purely theoretical ideas with which people usually construct their worldviews; rather, one only comes to understand the power of a worldview when one sees it flowing into life. And I must say, it made a deep impression on me—though it was a very long time ago now—to see the mechanistic-materialistic worldview take root in the brilliant soul—for it may indeed be called a brilliant soul—of Marie Eugenie delle Grazie.

[ 5 ] But one must also consider the preconditions that led a human heart to take such a stance against the mechanistic-materialistic worldview. Marie Eugenie delle Grazie is, by virtue of her ancestry alone—I would say—a cosmopolitan figure. Through her ancestors, she has the blood of all manner of nationalities flowing through her veins. She became acquainted with life’s sufferings in early childhood, and she also learned at an early age how to rise above the outward meaning of life to find something that, through a higher power, elevates this life to a higher plane; for her tutor was a Catholic priest who died a few years ago. Delle Grazie’s genius manifested itself in the fact that, by the age of 16 or 17, she had already written a book of lyric poetry, a comprehensive epic, a tragedy, and a small volume of short stories. No matter how much one might object to these works from one perspective or another, genius expresses itself in them in a captivating manner. I came across these works back when they were first published in the 1880s, and at the same time I heard people talking about delle Grazie through various acquaintances. I heard, for example, that the aesthetician Robert Zimmermann—who wrote a treatise on aesthetics and a history of aesthetics and was a leading representative of Herbart’s school of philosophy (the Herbartians are now extinct)—and who was already an old man at the time, said: delle Grazie was the only true genius he had ever known in his life.

[ 6 ] Various circumstances led to my becoming personally acquainted with and befriending delle Grazie, and to our discussing many worldviews and other matters. It was a significant lesson to see, on the one hand, delle Grazie’s educator—the Catholic priest who, while professionally immersed in Catholicism, had arrived at a worldview that he expressed only with irony and humor when speaking more intimately—and, on the other hand, delle Grazie herself. Even during my very first conversation with her, it became clear that she possessed a profound perspective on the world and life. As a result of her education under the priest, she had become acquainted with Catholic Christology, along with all the positive aspects one could discover by being close to Professor Müllner—that is, this priest—who, for his part, had also looked deeply into the nature of life. All of this had taken shape within delle Grazie in such a way that she had integrated the worldview initially imparted to her by this priest—you must bear in mind that I am speaking of a seventeen-year-old girl— with everything that life brings in terms of evil and wickedness, pain and suffering, so that from this arose the idea for a work of fiction, which she explained to me in a long conversation: she wanted to write a “Satanide.” She wanted to show, on the one hand, how suffering and pain exist in the world, and on the other hand, the worldview that had been handed down to her.

[ 7 ] Now, the materialistic-mechanistic worldview took root in such a soul. This worldview exerts a powerful persuasive force and unfolds an immense power of logic, making it very difficult for people to escape its influence. I later asked Delle Grazie why she had not written *Satanide*. She told me that, since she did not believe in God according to the materialistic-mechanistic worldview—and therefore could not believe in God’s adversary, Satan either—she could not write *Satanide* in keeping with the truth of her feelings.

[ 8 ] But she possessed an immense power of human experience, which she then channeled into the great two-volume epic *Robespierre*, which is entirely permeated by the very moods you have heard. I heard her read many of the cantos aloud myself while the work was still in progress. Two women once felt sick while listening to it. They couldn’t bring themselves to hear it through to the end. This is characteristic of how people delude themselves. They believe in the science of materialism, but if one were to show them the logical consequences, they would faint.

[ 9 ] The materialistic worldview truly makes people weak and cowardly. They view the world through a veil and yet still want to be Christians. And it was this, in particular, that later seemed to Marie Eugenie delle Grazie to be the worst aspect of existence. She told herself something like this: Everything is just swirling atoms, atoms swirling chaotically. What do these chaotically swirling atoms do? They clump together—after they have clumped together to form celestial bodies, after they have caused plants to grow—they clump people and human brains together, and within these, through that clumping of atoms, ideals arise: ideals of beauty, of all manner of greatness, of all manner of the divine. “What a terrible existence this is,” she said to herself, “if atoms swirl and swirl in such a way that they make humans believe in an existence of ideals. The entire existence of the world is deceptive and false.”—That is precisely what those say who are not too cowardly to draw the ultimate conclusions of the materialistic-mechanistic worldview. Delle Grazie says: If only this world of swirling atoms were at least truthful, then we would have swirling atoms before us in our minds. But as it is, the swirling atoms deceive us even further, lying to us as if there were ideals in the world.

[ 10 ] Once one has come to recognize the consequences the human mind must face when it approaches the materialistic-mechanistic worldview with honesty, one has found yet another reason to work toward a spiritual worldview.

[ 11 ] To those who always say, “We have everything; we have our ideals; we have what Christianity has brought us so far”—we must reply: Hasn’t the way you have behaved led to this powerful mechanistic-materialistic worldview? Do you want to continue like this? — Those who seek to demonstrate the unnecessary nature of our movement because this or that is put forward by other sides should reflect on the fact that, despite the influence of these other sides over the centuries, the mechanistic-materialistic worldview has grown to prominence. The point is precisely that we strive to grasp life where it truly manifests itself. What matters is not what thoughts we entertain, but that we look at the facts and allow ourselves to be instructed by them. I have mentioned on several occasions that I once gave a lecture in a city on Christianity from the standpoint of Spiritual Science. There were also two priests in the audience. They came up to me after the lecture and said: “What you’re saying is all well and good, but the way you present it, only a few people can understand it; the more correct approach is the way we present the matter, because that is for everyone.” — To that I could say nothing other than: “Excuse me, but do all people really go to you? The fact that you believe it is for everyone does not determine the matter; what really matters is the truth, and so you cannot deny that many people no longer go to you. And we speak to these people, because they, too, must find the path to Christ.” — That is how one speaks when one does not choose the easy path, when one does not simply consider one’s own opinion to be correct, but allows oneself to be guided by the facts.

[ 12 ] That is why, as you saw yesterday, it is not enough simply to read the sentences of a text such as Wrangell’s one after another; rather, one must build upon what one can build upon. I would like to give you an example of this—and there are various ways to do so—of how different writings can be discussed in our branches, and how what is alive in our Spiritual Science can clearly emerge when we measure it against what is discussed in such pamphlets.

[ 13 ] The next chapter in Wrangell's brochure is titled:

Formation of Concepts

The world around us is multifaceted. Every thing is different from every other thing. Even if several things share some of their properties—that is, if they evoke the same or at least similar sensory impressions—they differ in at least one attribute: every thing I perceive through my senses currently occupies a specific part of space.

To make this diverse world more comprehensible, humans group similar things—that is, things with similar properties—under common designations. They form words for these concepts created in the mind. They also use words to describe identical or similar properties, such as red, hard, warm, hot, etc.

[ 14 ] Here, Mr. von Wrangell discusses the formation of concepts in a way that is very common and frequently presented in this manner. People say to themselves: I see a red flower, a second one, a third red flower with a certain shape and arrangement of petals, and since I find them to be the same, I form a single concept about them. A concept would thus be formed by my summarizing the same from different things. For example, the concept of “horse” is formed by my synthesizing, in a certain way, a number of animals that share certain similarities into a single thought, into a single mental image. I can do the same with properties. I see something with a certain shade of color, something else with a similar shade of color, and form the concept of the color “red.”

[ 15 ] Anyone who wants to get to the bottom of things, however, must ask: Is this really the way to form concepts? I can only offer hints at this point; otherwise, we would never get through the text, for one can, in fact, always connect the entire world to any given thing.

[ 16 ] To illustrate how Mr. von Wrangell describes the formation of concepts, I will choose a geometric example.^{1This was obviously demonstrated on the blackboard; the drawing has not been preserved.} Let us suppose we have observed various things in the world and found, on one occasion, something bounded in this way; on another, something bounded in that way; and on a third, something bounded in yet another way—and so on countless times. We frequently observe these boundednesses that are so similar to one another, and now, according to Mr. von Wrangell’s definition, we would form the concept of a “circle.” — But do we really form the concept of a circle based on such similar limitations? No, we only form the concept of a circle when we do the following: Here is a point that is a certain distance from this point. There is a point that is the same distance from that point, and there is another point that is the same distance, and so on. I locate all the points that are the same distance from a specific point. When I connect these points, I get a line that I call a circle, and I arrive at the concept of a circle when I can say: A circle is a line on which all points are equidistant from the center. And now I have a formula, and that leads me to the concept. The inner elaboration, the inner construction, actually leads to the concept. Only those who understand how to form concepts in this way—who understand how to reconstruct what exists out there in the world—have the right to speak of concepts. We do not discover the concept of a horse by looking at a hundred horses to find what they have in common; rather, we discover the essence of the horse by reconstructing it, and then we find what we have reconstructed in every horse.

[ 17 ] This aspect of activity—the process of forming mental images and concepts—is often overlooked. In this chapter, too, the aspect of inner activity has been neglected.

[ 18 ] The next chapter is titled:

Mental images of Space and Time

The sense of touch, in conjunction with sight, gives rise to the mental image of space. The immediate experience of the succession of sensations leads us to the mental image of time. Space and time are the forms of thought in which our mental images of the world outside ourselves take shape, insofar as we perceive it through our five senses.

The mental image of motion—defined as the change in the position of an object in space over a period of time—is likewise a fundamental mental image, initially derived from the movement of one’s own body.

When things we perceive through our senses evoke the same sensory impressions in us within a certain period of time, we gain the mental image of “being,” of existence. If, on the other hand, the impressions received from the same thing change, we gain the mental image of “happening.”

[ 19 ] So, in a clear and precise manner, as they say, Mr. von Wrangell seeks to gain mental images of the concepts of space and time, of motion, being, and becoming. Now, it would be most interesting to study how, in this chapter nonetheless, everything is—I would say—“slightly abridged.” It would be quite beneficial for many—I won’t say specifically for you, my dear friends, but for many people—if they were to consider that a very astute man, an outstanding scientist, forms such mental images for himself and goes to great lengths to form ideas about these simple concepts. At the very least, one can recognize a great deal of conscientiousness in his thinking. And that is important; for there are so many people who, before reflecting on all manner of things—the cosmos—do not feel the need to first ask themselves: How do I arrive at the simple mental images of being, becoming, and movement? —That is generally too boring for people.

[ 20 ] Well, a more in-depth examination would show that the concepts, as formulated by Mr. von Wrangell, are actually quite simplistic. For example, Mr. von Wrangell states quite casually: “The sense of touch, in conjunction with sight, produces the mental image of space.” Just think about it for a moment, my dear friends: if you do not use a blackboard to draw a circle, but instead draw the circle in your imagination, what does the sense of touch have to do with it, and what does sight have to do with it? Can one still say, in this context: “The sense of touch, in conjunction with sight, produces the mental image of space”? One cannot. Someone might object, however, that before one can draw a circle in one’s imagination, one must have acquired the mental image of space—and that this mental image is gained precisely through the sense of touch in conjunction with sight. — Yes, but the point here is to consider what kind of mental image we form at the very moment we touch something with our sense of touch. Let us imagine that we are endowed only with the sense of touch and that we are touching something; we then form a mental image: “What we are touching is outside of us.” Now take this sentence: “What we are touching is outside of us.” The phrase “outside of us” implies space; that is to say, when we touch an object, we must already possess space within us in order to be able to perform the act of touching at all. — This is what led Kant to assume that space precedes all external experiences—including the experiences of touch and sight—and, similarly with regard to time, that it precedes the multiplicity of processes in time; that space and time are the preconditions of sensory perception.

[ 21 ] Essentially, such a chapter on space and time could only be written by someone who has not only thoroughly studied Kant but is also familiar with the entire history of philosophy; otherwise, one’s concepts of space and time will always be superficial. The same is true of the other concepts, the concepts of “being” and “becoming.” It could easily be shown how the concept of being could not exist at all if the definition given by Mr. von Wrangell were correct. For he says: “When things that we perceive through our senses evoke the same sensory impressions within a certain period of time, we gain the mental image of ‘being,’ of existence. If, on the other hand, the sensory impressions received from the same thing change, we form the mental image of ‘becoming.’ One might just as well say: When we see that the sensory impressions of the same thing change, we must assume that this change is attached to a being, that it occurs in a being. We could just as well assert that being is recognized only through change. And if anyone were to claim that we arrive at the concept of being only when the same impressions are evoked within a certain period of time—just think!—if we were to arrive at the concept of being in this way, then it would well be possible that we could not arrive at the concept of being at all; there would be nothing at all that could be associated with the concept of being.

[ 22 ] It is precisely from this chapter, “Mental Images of Space and Time,” that we can learn how, with great acumen and extraordinary scientific integrity, one can arrive at concepts that are fragile in all sorts of ways. If one wishes to form concepts that can withstand the test of life to some extent, then one must have arrived at them in such a way that their practical value has been at least somewhat tested by us.

[ 23 ] You see, that is why I said I had only found the courage to speak to you about the final scenes of *Faust* because, for more than thirty years, I have lived through those final scenes of *Faust* again and again, trying to put the concepts to the test in life. That is the only way to distinguish valid concepts from invalid ones; not logical speculation, not scientific theorizing, but the attempt to live with the concepts, to examine how they hold up by introducing them into life and letting life itself provide the answer—that is the necessary path. But this presupposes that we are always inclined not merely to indulge in logical fantasies, but to integrate ourselves into the living current of life. This has various implications; above all, that we learn to believe that even if someone can present seemingly logical proofs for this or that—I have mentioned this often—they have by no means thereby demonstrated the value of the matter itself.

[ 24 ] The next chapter is titled:

The Principle of Causality

The principle of causality, which underlies our thinking, compels us to assume that when something happens—that is, when a change takes place—there must be a cause that brought it about. All rational thinking is based on the “principle of sufficient reason.” Every thing has a reason for its existence; every change in what exists is brought about by a cause.

This principle is not an empirical principle; it precedes all experience—indeed, it is what makes experience possible in the first place, because without the premise expressed in it, coherent thinking is impossible.

[ 25 ] Here, Mr. von Wrangell adopts the standpoint of the so-called principle of causality. He says: All rational thinking must assume, with regard to everything we encounter, that there is an underlying cause. In a certain sense, one can agree with this principle of causality. However, if one wishes to gauge its significance for our vibrant worldview, one must bring into play concepts that are much, much more nuanced than this formal principle of causality.

[ 26 ] For you see, in order to be able to identify a cause—or a complex of causes—for a thing, much more is required than merely tracing the thread of cause and effect, so to speak. What, fundamentally, does the principle of causality state? It states: A thing has a cause. The thing I am drawing here [the drawing has not been preserved] has a cause; this cause, in turn, has a cause, and so on; one can continue in this way beyond the beginning of the world, and one can do the same with the effect. Certainly, this is a perfectly reasonable principle, but it does not take us very far. For if, for example, one seeks the cause of the son, one must certainly look for a complex of causes in the father and mother in order to be able to say that these are the causes of the child. But it is undoubtedly also the case that, although such causes may exist, they have no effect—namely, when a man and woman have no children. In that case, the causes are present but have no effect. The point about a cause is precisely that it is not merely a cause, but that it also brings about something. There is a difference between “being a cause” and “causing.” But even the philosophers of our time have not yet come to terms with such subtle distinctions. But anyone who takes things seriously must grapple with such distinctions. In reality, the issue is not that causes exist, but that they bring about an effect. Concepts that exist in this way do not necessarily correspond to reality; rather, one can use them to indulge in a vivid imagination.

[ 27 ] Goethe’s worldview is fundamentally different from this; it does not go back to the causes, but to the primordial phenomena. That is something entirely different. For Goethe takes something that exists as an appearance—that is, as a phenomenon in the world—let us say, the fact that certain color series appear in a prism—and traces it back to the primordial phenomenon, to the interaction of matter and light, or, if we take matter as representative of darkness, to darkness and light. In exactly the same way, he addresses the primordial phenomenon of the plant, the animal, and so on. This is a worldview that confronts the facts and does not merely spin concepts further along the thread of logic, but rather groups the facts in such a way that they express a truth.

[ 28 ] Try reading what Goethe wrote in his essay “The Experiment as Mediator Between Subject and Object,” as well as what I was able to publish as a supplement to that essay, and also try reading what I said in my introductions to Goethe’s scientific writings in Kürschner’s *Deutsche National-Literatur*; then you will see that Goethe’s view of nature is based on something entirely different from that of modern natural scientists. We must take the phenomena and group them not as they exist in nature, but in such a way that they reveal their secrets to us. To find the primordial phenomenon within the phenomena—that is the essential point.

[ 29 ] That is what I was trying to imply yesterday when I said that one must delve into the facts. What people like us think about the mechanistic-materialistic worldview is of little consequence. But if one can show how, in 1872, one of its representatives stood before the assembled natural scientists in Leipzig and said that the task of natural science is to reduce all natural phenomena to the movements of atoms—then one thereby points to a fact, as it were, to a primordial phenomenon of historical development. One demonstrates the reduction of historical development to primordial phenomena by pointing to what Du Bois-Reymond stated, for that is a primordial phenomenon within the process of the mechanistic-materialist worldview.

[ 30 ] If one proceeds in this way, one no longer learns to think as if in a glass dream, but rather to think in such a way that one becomes an instrument for the facts as they reveal their secrets, and one can then test one’s thinking to see whether it truly conforms to the facts.

[ 31 ] Truly, not to seek fame, but to recount as much as possible what I have experienced myself, I wish to state the following. I prefer to speak of concepts I have experienced rather than all sorts of imagined ones. Anyone who insists on believing that what I am saying now is said for the sake of self-aggrandizement may believe it, but that is not the case.

[ 32 ] When I attempted to describe Goethe’s worldview in the 1980s, I said—based on what one discovers when one immerses oneself in his work—that Goethe must once have written an essay that expressed the most intimate aspects of his scientific outlook. And I said, after I had reconstructed the essay, that this essay must have existed, at least in Goethe’s mind. — You can find this in my introduction to Goethe’s scientific writings. You will also find the reconstructed essay there. I then went to the Goethe Archive, and there I found the essay exactly as I had reconstructed it. So one must go with the facts. Whoever seeks wisdom lets the facts speak for themselves. That is, admittedly, the more inconvenient path, for one must grapple with the facts, whereas one need not concern oneself with the thoughts that simply come to mind.

[ 33 ] The next chapter is titled:

Applying the Mental Image of Arbitrariness to the Environment

Since our sensation is that which we take as our starting point in all thinking—as something immediately given—we also judge what we refer to as the external world, at first, according to what is going on within us.

[ 34 ] If I were to read “Truth and Science” to you, I could show you which is the correct idea, the correct view, and how this is yet another example of superficial thinking. First of all, I would like to know how mathematics could ever exist if we were to base all our thinking on our sensations. Then we would never be able to arrive at mathematics. For what would our sensation be in response to the question: How large is the sum of the squares of the two legs of a right triangle relative to the square of the hypotenuse? But Wrangell argues: “Since our sensation is that from which we, as something immediately given, proceed in all our thinking, we also judge what we refer to as the external world, first and foremost, according to what is going on within us.” — One cannot make much of this statement. Let us continue:

We are aware that the changes in the environment which we ourselves consciously bring about through the movements of our limbs are caused by internal processes that we call volitional impulses. For this reason, an unbiased person initially assumes similar causes for other changes in the environment as well; that is, he assumes that they, too, are caused by volitional impulses from beings similar to himself. The mythologies of all peoples are expressions of this anthropomorphic animation of nature, and the belief in spiritual beings—which even today serves as an explanation for many events in the environment for many people—has the same origin. Finally, observation of children shows that they even attribute a will, similar to their own, to inanimate objects. A child bumps into a table and scolds the table for this misbehavior.

[ 35 ] I have said this many times before: the child bumps into the table and hits it because it projects its own will onto it. It regards the table as its equal because it has not yet developed a mental image of the table within itself. The exact opposite is true, and this confusion also underlies the next chapter:

Observation of Regularly Recurring Phenomena

Although humans initially attribute many events to impulses of free will, daily observation nevertheless shows them that, with regard to certain phenomena, they can reliably count on a regular, familiar pattern of recurrence. They know, for example, that after the sun sets in the west, it will reappear in the east the next day; and that light and warmth are associated with this. They know that the seasons, in their regular course, influence the life of plants, and so on. This knowledge enables people to adapt their actions appropriately. They soon discover that the more closely they observe nature and the more regularities they discover in it, the better they can bring themselves into harmony with it.

[ 36 ] If one wishes to speak in this way about regularities in nature, one must not overlook the fact that we are referring to very different kinds of such regularities. I drew attention to this in *Truth and Science*. Let us take the following example: In the morning, I get dressed, go to the window, and see a person walking by outside. The next morning, I get dressed again, look out the window again, and the person walks by again. On the third morning, the same thing happens, and on the fourth as well. There I see a regularity. The first thing I do is get dressed, then go to the window; the next thing is that I see the person walking by outside. I see a pattern because the events repeat themselves. So I form a judgment, and it would have to go like this: Because I get dressed, and because I look out the window, that is why the person walks by outside. — Of course, we don’t actually form such judgments, because that would be crazy. But in other cases, it seems as though we do; yet in reality, we don’t do that either. But we form concepts, and from the internal structure of these concepts we find that there is an inner regularity in phenomena. And because I cannot establish a causal relationship between my getting dressed, looking out the window, and what is passing by out there, I do not recognize any causality either. You can find more detailed information on this in *Truth and Science*. There you will find all the premises, including the one presented by David Hume, that we can gain insight into the regularity of the world through repetition.

[ 37 ] The next chapter is titled:

The Essence of All Science

This is, in fact, the beginning of all science, the essence of which lies in systematically summarizing empirical facts in order to derive rules from them that enable people to know in advance what will happen. Therefore, every science contains a descriptive part—the systematic compilation of facts—and a theoretical part—the derivation of rules from these facts and the conclusions to be drawn from these rules.

[ 38 ] Goethe objected to such conclusions: Did Galileo really need to observe many phenomena—such as the swinging chandelier in the Pisa Cathedral—to arrive at his law of falling bodies? No, he recognized the law after observing that single phenomenon. That’s when it dawned on him. It is not through the repetition of facts, but through the internally experienced construction of facts that we learn something about the nature of things. It was a fundamental error of modern epistemology to assume that by summarizing the facts we can arrive at something like the laws of nature. This so obviously contradicts any genuine discovery of natural laws, and yet it is repeated over and over again.

[ 39 ] The next chapter:

Astronomy, the oldest science

When we survey the immeasurable realm of what we perceive through our senses, we find in no other group of phenomena a regularity of occurrence as striking, as easy to discover, and as easy to express as in the apparent motion of the celestial bodies. It is therefore understandable that astronomy is the oldest of all sciences based on sensory perception.

It is above all the uniform, day-after-day repeating apparent motion of the celestial bodies that captivates the attentive observer, inspires him to observe, and compels him to form a vivid mental image. In the cloudless regions of the Near East and North Africa, the external conditions were particularly favorable for the study of celestial phenomena. Following their immediate sensory impressions, the astronomers of antiquity assumed that the countless fixed stars, which remain unchanged in their relative positions, were attached to a transparent but solid celestial sphere, at the center of which the Earth rests. The celestial sphere, rotating uniformly around an axis, provided a vivid mental image of the observed phenomenon.

[ 40 ] The chapter is thus titled “Astronomy, the Oldest Science.” Now, one should actually begin by discussing what the oldest astronomy was like. For what is most important to consider is that the oldest astronomy was such that attention was not focused on regularity, but rather on the will of the spiritual beings who bring about the movements. The author, however, has modern astronomy in mind and labels it the oldest science. Sometimes it is truly necessary to pursue the truth in one’s method in a completely unvarnished way—that is, without resorting to any embellished method. And when the chapter here on page 13 is titled “Astronomy, the Oldest Science,” I compare this—because I stick to the facts and do not speculate—with what is written on page 3. There it says, “that, by my training, I am an astronomer.” Perhaps someone who is a mathematician or a physiologist might arrive at a different perspective; so one must not forget what is written on page 3. It is of great importance to draw attention to a person’s subjective motives far more than is usually done; for it is these subjective motives that most often explain what needs to be explained. But when it comes to subjective motives, people are truly peculiar. They want to admit as little as possible to being driven by subjective motives. I have mentioned on several occasions a gentleman I met who said that, in doing this or that, what mattered most to him was not to do what he personally preferred to do, but rather to do what was least in line with his personal preferences—which he, however, had to regard as his mission imposed upon him by the spiritual world. It was of no use trying to make him understand that he would also have to count licking his fingers as part of his spiritual mission if he told himself: “I do everything in accordance with the mission imposed on me by the spiritual world.” — But he masked this, for he preferred to present what he so terribly enjoyed doing as a strict sense of duty.

[ 41 ] The next chapter:

Uniform Motion

When we speak of uniformity in the motion of an object, we mean that the object in question travels equal distances in equal intervals of time.

[ 42 ] Do you remember the lecture on speed that I once gave here? [In this volume.]

However, mere perception is not sufficient to determine this; one must be able to measure both spatial intervals and time intervals. Only when we can express both spatial intervals and time intervals numerically through measurement—that is, by comparing them to an unchanging, homogeneous quantity chosen as a unit—can the actual uniformity of a motion, as well as the effect of a specific cause that is always the same in magnitude, be empirically demonstrated.

[ 43 ] Here the learned scientist begins to speak. You need only look around a little to see the desire that drives scientists to strive for objectivity by measuring what is independent of the subjective human being, by striving to apply objective standards. This is achieved most objectively when we actually measure. That is why what is gained through measurement is considered true science. That is why Mr. von Wrangell discusses measurement itself in the next chapter.

Measurement

Every measurement operation is based on the assumption that the unit of measurement chosen—for example, a meter, a gram, a second, etc.—is unchanging. We cannot prove this unconditionally for our units of measurement, but we can be certain that our measurement operations are accurate within certain limits that we can recognize. To illustrate this point, let us consider a concrete example: We want to compare the lengths of two objects and measure them using the same meter stick, assuming that it retains its length. However, we know that all objects change under the influence of temperature, humidity, etc., so our meter stick may also have become longer or shorter. Without knowing the magnitude of the presumed change, we nevertheless have a well-founded conviction that the change cannot have reached a magnitude of, say, 1 mm in such a short time. We can therefore be certain that we have not made an error in this measurement that exceeds 1 mm per meter measured. Through such a measurement, we have obtained an empirical fact—in our case, the ratio of two lengths—that is valid for us within the limits of accuracy to be determined by critical analysis.

[ 44 ] This is a very nice little chapter that clearly illustrates how measurement can be used to make initial statements about proportions.

[ 45 ] The next chapter:

The principle underlying clocks

The same applies to the measurement of time intervals. The instruments used for this purpose—clocks—are essentially based on the conviction that equal causes produce equal effects. The ancients mostly used water clocks (clepsydras) for this purpose, in which the outflow of water from a container was kept as uniform as possible (the water level maintained at a constant height, the outlet tube of a specific shape, etc.), and the length of the time interval was determined based on the volume of water that had flowed out. Our pendulum clocks are based on the observation that, all other conditions being equal, the speed of a pendulum’s oscillation depends on the length of the pendulum. By ensuring that the length remains as constant as possible, that resistance is minimized, and that the force overcoming it acts uniformly, one achieves a clock that runs evenly. There are methods for testing this rate, which allow one to specify exactly by how much, at most, the clock has run fast or slow over the course of, for example, a day.

[ 46 ] You see, this chapter is so good because it allows us to realize, in simple terms, how we take shortcuts in life, so to speak. We can easily see this if we first consider old clocks and water clocks. Suppose a man who used a water clock had said: “It took me three hours to do this work.”—What does that mean? One might think that everyone understands something like that. But one doesn’t consider that in doing so, one is already relying on certain assumptions. For if he had been stating facts, he should actually have said: “While I was working, from the beginning to the end of my work, such-and-such an amount of water flowed out.” Instead of always saying, “From the beginning to the end of my work, such-and-such an amount of water flowed out,” we compared the flow of water to the course of the sun and used a shorthand, the formula: “I worked for three hours.” We then continue to use this formula. We believe we have something factual in mind, but we have omitted a thought, namely, that so much water flowed out. We have only the second thought as an abbreviation. But by allowing such a fact to become formulaic, we distance ourselves from the fact. And now just consider that in life we do not merely combine a task and a formula, but that we speak in formulas altogether—we speak strictly in formulas. Just think, for example, of what it means to “be diligent.” If we go back to the facts, there is an immense number of facts underlying the formula “to be diligent.” We have witnessed many things happen and compared them to the time it takes for them to happen, and so we speak of “being diligent.” A whole host of facts is contained therein, and we often utter such formulas without reflecting on the facts.

[ 47 ] Returning to the facts, we feel the need to express our thoughts in a vivid way and not to speak in nebulous formulas. I once heard a professor give a lecture; he began a course on literary history by saying: “When we turn to Lessing, in order to grasp his style, let us first ask ourselves how Lessing used to reflect on the world, what his way of working was like, how he intended to apply it, and so on.” And after he had been asking questions like this for an hour, he said: “Gentlemen, I have led you into a forest of question marks!” — Now just imagine a “forest of question marks”—imagine you want to go for a walk in this forest of question marks; imagine that feeling! Well, I’ve also heard this man say that this or that person is throwing themselves into a “fire bath.” I always had to wonder what people look like when they throw themselves into a fire bath like that. One often encounters people who are unaware of how far removed they are from reality. When you delve into their words, into their concepts of language, and try to figure out what their words mean, you find that everything shatters and scatters to the four winds, because what people say like that is simply not possible in reality. So you can learn quite a lot—really, a great deal—from these insightful chapters on “Measurement” and “The Principle Underlying Clocks.”

[ 48 ] I cannot say with certainty when I will be able to continue discussing the subsequent chapters of this little book. Today I would just like to note that I, of course, only wanted to highlight a few examples, and that this can naturally be done in a hundred different ways. But if we do so, we will ensure that our Spiritual Science movement is not isolated, but truly reaches out to the whole world. For that would be the worst thing of all—if we were to isolate ourselves, my dear friends.

[ 49 ] I have pointed out that thinking is of particular importance and significance, and that is why it is important that we also approach some of the things that have presented themselves to our souls in recent weeks in such a way that we reflect on them, rather than interpreting them in the most one-sided manner and seeking to put them into practice. For example, when people have spoken of “mystical eccentricity,” they have done so with good reason. But if people now think that we should no longer speak of spiritual experiences, that would be utter nonsense. If spiritual experiences are true, then they are realities. The important thing here is that they are true, and that we remain within spiritual boundaries. It is important that we do not fall from one extreme into another. What is more significant is that we truly strive not only to accept Spiritual Science as such, but also to become aware that Spiritual Science must be integrated into the fabric of the world.

[ 50 ] Of course, it would also be wrong to believe now that one should no longer engage in Spiritual Science at all, but only read such pamphlets in the branches. That, too, would be an incorrect interpretation. We must reflect on what I meant. But the great evil I alluded to—that many take notes instead of listening—is prevented by the fact that we listen and do not take notes. For if transcribing only produces the kind of material that actually results when transcribed lectures are read aloud—and we believe that we absolutely need such transcribed lectures—well, my dear friends, then I must say: first, we are showing that we attach little value to what has appeared in print, for there is actually a wealth of material already in print; and second, it is not at all necessary for us to always chase after the very latest. This is a habit adopted by people through journalism, and we must not cultivate it among ourselves. Thoroughly working through what is already available is something essential and meaningful, and we will not spoil our ability to listen attentively by taking notes; rather, we should have a longing to listen closely. For when we scribble notes, the result is rarely anything other than spoiling the attention we could develop while listening. Therefore, I believe that those among us who wish to work in the various branches will find opportunities—even when they think they lack material—to discover such material after all. They no longer need to pester everyone who has taken notes to obtain transcribed lectures, just so that they can always read the latest material aloud. Truly, it all comes down to seriousness, and the fact that work in this direction has not been taken very seriously has produced many manifestations—albeit indirect ones—that are actually causing us harm.

[ 51 ] Well, my dear friends, I’m not quite sure yet; but if things allow, then perhaps on Saturday I will continue my discussion of Mr. von Wrangell’s excellent, insightful pamphlet, which I chose because it was written by a scholar and has an affirmative rather than a negative tone.