The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. The Humanization of Scientific Life

[ 1 ] My dear fellow students! One thing that emerges from many statements of this kind is that we are indeed counting on you with all our might in what we here regard as an anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. We are counting on you with the utmost emphasis for the following reason: if we are to counteract the impending downfall of Western civilization, this can in fact—given the current state of affairs—only come from science. Consider that what has brought us into our present situation also stems, fundamentally, from science. I want to focus much less on what is, so to speak, obvious: that the destructive anti-cultural institutions of recent times are, in essence, scientific outcomes. It is easy enough to form a picture of this, so we need not discuss it here. But let us consider something else. You see, the proletariat today—if I may use this grotesque expression—has a sort of Janus face. It is quite true that the proletariat must absolutely be brought into the picture when it comes to reshaping conditions today. That, in turn, is something as self-evident as can be. And perhaps I may remind you that in Stuttgart and its immediate and wider surroundings, people were most upset when I once used a certain word in a public lecture—a word which, however, I believe, was spoken out of a genuine understanding of current conditions. I said, in fact, that the bourgeoisie suffers first and foremost from a decadent brain, and that it is absolutely dependent on replacing brainwork with the work of the etheric brain—with something spiritual. This is as obvious as anything can be. In contrast, the proletarian, amid the current vertical migration of peoples, possesses a brain that is not yet decadent. He can still work from the physical brain, if only he can be persuaded to do so. — Naturally, this has caused quite a stir in bourgeois circles both near and far. But today the issue is not whether one upsets people more or less, but rather that the truth comes to light.

[ 2 ] But it is precisely the proletariat that demonstrates this. On the one hand, the proletarians will always be inclined to say to themselves: Yes, we want nothing to do with what you’re presenting to us. That’s too difficult for us; it doesn’t interest us at first. But on the other hand, these proletarians are completely fed on the byproducts of nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century science. After all, they work only with what has fallen away from it. We really must bring ourselves to view the matter in this way. We must tell ourselves: Certainly, it will be quite difficult to reach the proletariat with what we are seriously developing from science. But if we do not give up, if we do not let ourselves be deterred, but instead base ourselves on this social action—we must win over the proletariat through science! — then we will just as surely reach the proletariat with something sound as Marxism and Bolshevism did. It is simply a matter of not running out of steam too soon, of actually carrying out without fail what we have once recognized as correct. That has always been my guiding principle in anthroposophical work. That is why I have never made compromises, but rather—there was no other way—have made enemies of myself with full understanding of the matter by simply rejecting everything that has emerged out of dilettantism. And if one were to take the trouble, one could very easily prove that the bulk of our current enemies are precisely those people who were once rejected because of their excessive dilettantism. You would see for yourselves, if you looked into the details, that this is indeed the case. All one needs is a substitute for memory. After all, one’s memory is no longer as well developed! Anyone who has undergone training in the humanities knows this. Then one knows how to assess one’s enemies. They often resurface from the depths, even years later.

[ 3 ] That is why you must not shy away from firmly upholding what has once been recognized as right; then the same will hold true for the proletariat. For the proletariat suffers only from an exaggerated sense of authority. But as soon as you win it over to your side, you will have won it over. It is still difficult today to make people understand that their leaders, from the bottom to the top, are their greatest enemies; that they are parasites. But we must teach people this little by little; then it will work out. Then we will likely be able to spark the proletariat’s interest in this sound scientific work that we are developing through scientific inquiry. Then we will find an exceptionally receptive audience precisely within the proletariat. And for a long time to come, the proletariat as a whole will, of course, have to be our “audience.”

[ 4 ] But now I would like to point out something else. You see, ever since I became active in the anthroposophical movement, I have actually always strived to work in a certain direction, which consisted of bringing together anthroposophy with the specifically scientific. I could give you specific examples here of the difficulties that have always stood in the way of this. For instance, many years ago, a scholar approached me who was an extraordinary authority on Oriental studies and Assyriology. At the same time, he was enthusiastic about anthroposophy. It would, of course, have been natural for someone who, as a scholar, truly had Oriental studies and the like at his fingertips and who, on the other hand, was enthusiastic about anthroposophy, to work on these two things side by side. But he could not be persuaded to do so; the man could not be persuaded to build a bridge from one field to the other. He could make progress in both, but he could not build a bridge. Nevertheless, it must also be the case that this bridge must absolutely be attempted. And one finds it; through anthroposophy, one finds the entrance into every single science.

[ 5 ] On the other hand, I found a very well-known professor of botany who was also an enthusiastic Theosophist. This man wrote works on botany, and he wrote about Theosophy. He did not belong to the Anthroposophical Society, but to the Theosophical Society. He wrote about Theosophy in much the same way that Annie Besant wrote about it. He was a botanist through and through when he closed his book on Theosophy, and a Theosophist through and through—without anyone being able to tell that he was a botanist—when he taught Theosophy or wrote books on the subject. It was even an abomination to him when I spoke to him about botany in an attempt to build a sort of bridge.

[ 6 ] You see: this is the result of the culture of the past few centuries—this double-entry bookkeeping—that’s what I always have to call it. People want to find what relates to life in scholarly journals, and what they then need for the soul, for the “inner self,” as it’s called, in the Sunday supplement of their political newspaper. Politics is taken in between; people want to get that from the political newspaper according to the “threefold social order” that has existed until now. These are the things you must, above all else, see through. And you may then be precisely the ones best suited to help find this bridge everywhere. In a certain sense—though it may not always seem so radical—that is indeed how things are.

[ 7 ] You see, poor Hölderlin already uttered those beautiful words at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century, when he said to himself that when he looks around his Germany, he finds civil servants, factory owners, carpenters, and tailors everywhere—but no human beings. He finds scholars, artists, and teachers, and so on, but—no human beings. He finds young people, middle-aged people, and the elderly, but—no human beings.

[ 8 ] One might say today: It is actually precisely in our scholarly professions that we have the least of that—that there are people there! We have the sciences, and the scientists are, in a sense, just floating around as something abstract. When it comes down to it, we actually live to a large extent completely apart from science insofar as we feel ourselves to be human beings. Just think about it: if today—I mean, if we were to summarize all scholarly knowledge—if we were to write a dissertation for our habilitation, what would we do? We couldn’t simply sit down and write whatever flows from our soul into such a scholarly work. That just wouldn’t work. We’d very soon be accused of writing off the cuff. That’s not allowed. You’re not allowed to write off the cuff; instead, for your doctoral dissertation, you have to study books you wouldn’t otherwise bother with—books you might not even read, that you only open to the pages containing something you need to cite. In short: you must maintain as detached a relationship as possible with the subject of your work, and under no circumstances should you have an intimate connection to it! Then, when people get together again—I can tell you about a strange gathering in Weimar, for example, which used to take place even during my working hours at the Goethe-Schiller Archive there, where I was able to attend the meetings of the Goethe Society. As soon as anyone said anything even remotely related to Goethe, or as soon as anyone broached a scholarly topic, people would say: “There’s another group talking shop—that just won’t do!” The very purpose of the gathering was precisely what one had to avoid at all costs, so as not to be tainted by the stigma of “talking shop.” Essentially, however, all of this is partly to blame for the fact that we have ended up in this situation. In Weimar, one could indeed see all the experts—many of whom had already offered a kind of synthesis of all disciplines—come and go over the course of these seven years, just as, fundamentally speaking, there is no strong differentiation based on nationality. For example, when Mr. Thomas writes from a thoroughly Western university in America, even in his work and his thinking—he was working on Goethe’s Faust—there is no real difference between what he does and what any student of Schmidt or Scherer might do. It was, in essence, international, for Thomas differed from the others in only one respect: he would sit on the floor and cross his legs when he sat on the floor in front of the bookcase. This is what distinguished him as an American. But otherwise, he worked just like the others. The only exception was a Russian State Councilor. The man didn’t know what questions he was researching. But when he came into a tavern in the evening where people were sitting together, they would always say to the others: “Don’t look around, because the State Councilor is on the loose!” — Because he kept bringing up what he knew about Goethe’s Faust, people avoided sitting with him. — Well, these things are actually more important than one usually thinks; for they could be multiplied abundantly and would nevertheless shed some light on how academic life has developed little by little. And we want to break free from that! We certainly do not want to become pedants or new technical snobs, but we must be clear that human beings stand above all sciences, that they need not allow themselves to be tyrannized by them. And the emancipation of intellectual life actually aims to combat science as such in its abstraction and to place human beings in the first position. So that we do not merely have science as Bölsche writes about the “immortality” of science. Wilhelm Bölsche has also established a kind of spiritual science, but he seeks it in libraries—which are, however, nothing but a pile of paperwork and ink stains obscuring the true spirit.

[ 9 ] But this is what we must strive for: this humanization of scientific life, this placing of the human being at the forefront of so-called objective science. Objective science must, in fact, find its very reason for being in human life. And one does not become a withered human being by embracing this. On the contrary, through what I would now like to call “the struggle against abstract existence,” one becomes precisely a useful contributor to what we so desperately need: the struggle against the barbarization of Western civilization.

[ 10 ] This is, in essence, what is most essential for those entering the scholarly professions—or, indeed, professions grounded in the sciences. That is why I believe it will be extraordinarily beneficial if you join forces at the various universities and, in a free and open manner, approach such topics scientifically and develop them—as we are attempting to do within the institutions we already have, above all within the Waldorf School. I do not mean by this that a school-like operation should be established—not at all, my dear fellow students—but rather I have something else in mind. We will, so to speak, try to shape the threads in such a way that they are woven from the necessities of the times, that they are essentially found in light of what actually lies at the heart of the overall context of our culture. And then the task of identifying precisely those topics that must be addressed today should simply be entrusted to certain members of our Waldorf school teaching staff—specifically, the body of teachers—which, for its part, should maintain a sense of solidarity with those who have spoken here. And the student body should simply be informed of the tasks that are necessary, based on the insights that these circles may have. So the rest of it is by no means a matter of simply having tasks imposed on us or anything of the sort, but rather a process of exploring what is particularly necessary today. And there will certainly be an opportunity to work out these issues properly, based on sound scientific foundations. I would just like to emphasize that we must avoid the formation of small academic circles—whether they are actually or merely supposedly engaged in research—that close themselves off, and the belief that this alone is sufficient for today’s needs. This could, of course, be very useful—and will indeed be very useful; after all, it must be done—but alongside it we need a broad-based student movement that is truly aware today that things cannot continue among the youth as they would if these young people were to follow, in their intentions, only those who still stem from the old days and old traditions and who currently hold office. When we speak of the Social Democrats needing to rid themselves of their leaders, it is above all necessary for today’s youth to, in a certain sense, break free from the old leaders. This will be more difficult than it really ought to be.

[ 11 ] You see, I naturally cannot avoid addressing the issue that really matters here. And I must ask you to be fully aware that I am speaking about these things with complete honesty and sincerity. You can be absolutely certain: we would make rapid progress in the anthroposophically oriented spiritual movement if we were free within ourselves to recognize that we need only work for the spirit and as an inspiration to the spirit. Assigning positions, conferring degrees, failing students in state examinations—that is what the others do. And that is an important factor. We certainly do not underestimate this factor in our own context. For we know very well what courage and boldness are required today, especially for the aspiring scholar and aspiring scientific researcher, to join us and remain with us. After all, we can actually offer them very little at present. If we gradually build up the capacity of our individual movements, then things will certainly improve. When the Waldorf School was founded, I said: The founding is wonderful, but it has no significance unless at least ten more schools are established within the next three months; only then will it truly be established. And I certainly envisaged—since I always pursue practical ideas, not merely ideas that can simply be passed down—that if we can establish schools everywhere, then we will also be able to appoint to our schools those who, under certain circumstances, do things the way Dr. Stein himself has told us. But this is not a system. He enrolled, observed how a few lectures were conducted, but otherwise he read course series and other materials, studied what was cited there, and managed to complete his academic studies. Of course, this cannot be generalized, because probably only three-quarters of the professors would agree that, if there were only students like Dr. Stein, they would actually only need to attend the first three lectures and then go for a walk. That cannot be easily implemented for the general public today. So, I don’t want to advocate for that. But I would just like to draw your attention to the fact that, in any case, the spirit that sits on the lecterns in the lecture halls today—if it were to spread to the school desks—would not bring us a future. Out of this necessity, you must find the courage to at least, in a certain way, align yourselves with what is intended here. But on the other hand—I was thinking practically about how the Waldorf School was founded—if we are able to truly emancipate spiritual life, then we will have more and more Waldorf Schools, and then we will also be able to offer our young friends among the student body a future. I do not mean this in an unidealistic way at all. But then things will certainly go more smoothly. However, we must support one another from both sides. We will only be able to work toward establishing free schools, all the way up to the universities, if we see an understanding student body meeting us halfway. This requires not just small groups, but a student movement that wants to work on a large scale and advocate on a large scale for what is being envisioned here.

[ 12 ] I must emphasize that I am entirely serious about what I have been explaining to you these past few days as the rationale for the World School Association. I envision it as an internationally oriented organization, one that is to be created, so to speak, out of the thinking and sensibilities of our time. Once we help the world understand that there are really only two movements today that are in conflict with one another—on the one hand, Bolshevism, which is leading the world into a quagmire, and on the other, the threefold social order—then people will also be faced with a choice as soon as they see that things can no longer continue with the old impulses! Either those who wish to advance culture in a reasonable way must gradually immerse themselves in the impulse toward threefolding, or—if people are too complacent to do so—Bolshevism will flood Europe and reduce European culture to barbarism. Once people understand this, they will be easier to win over than they are today.

[ 13 ] There are three things that must definitely be taken into account. When you talk to the world—to the international community—today about something like the Dornach Building, and mention that money is needed for it, people tend to think: “That must all be idealism! You can’t possibly be so foolish as to give money for that! Money is far too dirty to be used for such an idealistic cause. In short, unless they’ve been prepared for it over a long period of time, people aren’t readily open to such a thing. And since we, coming from Central European countries, have no way of completing our building due to currency issues, we are simply dependent on other parts of today’s civilized world. But they won’t give us money just like that. Their pockets are actually very tight. On the other hand, people today are still relatively easy to win over if you tell them you want to establish sanatoriums. Then you can get as much money as you want. We can’t do that—establish sanatoriums—but we can engage in something in between. The middle ground is what I mean by the World School Association. The World School Association can finance all cultural institutions if it is understood in the right way. And there is still some understanding for the establishment of school-like institutions, though less so for something like construction itself. We must work toward what lies in the middle, so to speak. Therefore, it is essential that the establishment of the World School Association—which we will have as something universal—be prepared in a certain way, and that support be generated for this World School Association. And so I would suggest that it would be best if you were to incorporate into your resolutions and your most vigorous initiative the idea of approaching everyone within your reach and convincing them that this World School Association must be spread across all countries, that it is up to this association to emancipate spiritual life. That it must finance as many free schools across the entire earth as is at all possible. The emancipation of spiritual life must indeed be pursued on the grandest scale. We must reach the point where we emancipate ourselves from what, in essence, enslaves us spiritually. But we can only do this if we create a favorable atmosphere for it. This tyranny is, after all, greater than one might think. From a location in Europe, I myself will attempt to launch this initiative for the World School Association. But what must come first is creating a movement for it. For today, one cannot achieve anything simply by forming groups of twelve or fifteen people to work out the details. Rather, what matters is that we spread this idea as widely as possible: a World School Association must be established. Now, I can well imagine—and I’m perfectly content with the fact—that, of course, students can’t exactly open their wallets very wide. That isn’t necessary. That’s what the others are for. But what a student can open—you know I mean this cum grano salis—is his mouth. That is what I mean: that you can make it possible, for the World School Association, to speak up wherever you go. So that when we establish this World School Association in the very near future, we will not fall on deaf ears, but rather find people who are already prepared. That is what must happen.

[ 14 ] As you can see, we have plenty of tasks ahead of us. What we need is nothing less than true courage and an unobstructed view of the world. Why shouldn’t we be able to use the energy of youth to truly overcome those things that must be overcome—because they still intrude into our time with all the hallmarks of the old era and seek to subdue us? We must not allow ourselves to be subdued. We must realize today that we are dancing on a knife’s edge—one might even say, dancing on a volcano. It is not the case, my dear fellow students, that things will continue as they are now. We are heading toward very, very sad times. But we can counter these sad times by growing into them with courage and energy. And I believe that spiritual science—anthroposophy—can already be a source of support for you in this. It can be a source of support for everyone.

[ 15 ] In closing, I ask only this of you: Do not pursue these matters in a parochial or sectarian manner, but in the broadest possible spirit. Do not exclude anyone; instead, include everyone who wishes to contribute. Nothing else can be decisive except the simple willingness of someone to work honestly with us in the direction that is laid out for us as we grow into scientific professions. It truly seems to me, my dear fellow students, that we must no longer stray from this path. We must be open-hearted. We must regard as a most welcome collaborator anyone who sincerely wishes to work with us. We must not allow any distinction to arise between one person and another; rather, we must allow everyone to collaborate who simply has the will to do so. Things should be just as they have always been, fundamentally, within the anthroposophical movement. We have never demanded that anyone renounce anything they otherwise stand for in the world. No one has ever had to renounce anything; rather, one has only had to accept what the anthroposophical movement has been able to offer. And perhaps I may recall a personal anecdote here. As you know, I am always reproached for having once been associated with the Theosophical Society. It was no such association! The Theosophical Movement actually came to me; it aligned itself with me for a time, until it rejected what I stood for. But at the very first meeting in London back then, I told the Theosophists that it was not a matter of us accepting anything from the headquarters, but rather: we bring to the common altar whatever it is we have to offer at that moment.

[ 16 ] In this spirit, we can then collaborate to the greatest extent possible. And if you work in this manner, particularly among student circles, then we will make progress.