The Rudolf Steiner Archive

11. Discussion Vote

[ 1 ] At the end of her truly remarkable remarks, Dr. Rabel mentioned that I had once observed that these more recent experiments could actually serve to confirm Goethe’s theory of colors. Dr. Rabel was kind enough at the time to give me one of her papers, which is precisely along these lines, and I said that the facts emerging in this way through modern physics do indeed follow a line of reasoning that must gradually lead to a confirmation of Goethe’s theory of colors.

[ 2 ] Now, there really is no way today to delve into all the pros and cons of Goethe’s theory of colors and, let’s say, the anti-Goethean theory of colors. The fact is that, to begin with, the physical concepts that are commonplace today are based on theoretical assumptions such that what I once heard from a physicist—with whom I had a conversation about Goethe’s theory of colors—is indeed true. He simply said—and I must explicitly verify this—he said quite honestly: A physicist today—and he rightly described himself as such—cannot conceive of Goethe’s theory of colors at all!—And that is something that is, in fact, absolutely correct.

[ 3 ] We must not forget that there are certain obstacles that still need to be overcome if physics is to take Goethe’s theory of colors seriously—and only seriously. Isn’t it true that physicists today are initially led to investigate what they call “light” in such a way that, within the field of investigation, what they designate as “subjective” no longer plays a role—that, so to speak, the experience associated with light phenomena serves, at most, to make one more attentive in observing that something is happening here or there? But what the physicist wishes to include in his interpretations of light phenomena—which he then extends to color phenomena as well—is supposed to be an entity completely independent of subjective experience.

[ 4 ] Goethe, after all, starts from entirely different premises when it comes to his thinking in general. That is why I still consider it correct, in a certain sense, what I said in 1893 in a lecture on Goethe’s view of nature in Frankfurt am Main: Regarding Goethe’s statements in the field of morphology, there is room for discussion, and I gave a lecture on this very topic back then, because in a certain respect, even today, Goethe’s ideas about metamorphosis—and, in connection with metamorphosis, about the origins of species—converge with those that stem, albeit in a completely different way, from the Darwin-Haeckel perspective. So there is, at least in a certain sense, already a field where these views intersect. But with regard to Goethe’s theory of colors—which, incidentally, does not claim to be optics—this is by no means the case. Therefore, while it is certainly possible—let us say—to speak about Goethe’s theory of colors from an anthroposophical perspective—discussion is certainly possible there—a discussion with what a physicist today has to say about colors, what he derives from his physical foundations, will still prove to be rather fruitless today. For this to happen, it is necessary that certain fundamental concepts—which Goethe implicitly held and from which he proceeded in his theory of colors—be made explicit, so that they can truly serve as a foundation.

[ 5 ] That is why I also consider everything I have said in my books about Goethe’s theory of colors to be something that has, for the time being, been thrown out into the world—and which actually makes no claim whatsoever to entering into a fruitful—and I mean fruitful— — discussion with the ideas of physics, which are not opposed but come from an entirely different perspective. Well, in fact—and you can be quite certain of this, as the previous speaker has already made very clear—Goethe would recognize in all the phenomena that Dr. Rabel has so graciously presented today a confirmation of his fundamental views. And that is precisely what I would like to advocate.

[ 6 ] It does indeed apply to one aspect of the matter, but it does not apply fully when, in Goethe’s work, one speaks of one side of the spectrum—that is, what has been called long-wave rays here, as opposed to short-wave rays—as being in a relationship of polarity. Polarity is a very abstract relationship that can be applied to various opposites, including this one. But here, that is by no means what is actually important in Goethe’s view... (Postscript incomplete). But no matter how much one believes that one can eliminate error through some experimental setup by making the beam of rays ever narrower and narrower, so that one ultimately eliminates the entire thickness of the beam of rays—which, incidentally, is not really an expression, but one I am entitled to use—and then speaks of a “ray”—in reality, there is ultimately no difference between using a wide beam or a narrow one; in principle, it makes no difference. But Goethe did point out a fundamental difference—and that is what matters—when he himself conducted experiments using the small slit.

[ 7 ] In the prism, one cannot rule out what modern physics would like to rule out, because, of course, one cannot somehow introduce a so-called “beam of zero thickness” into the experimental setup. But what one can do is focus on the sharp boundary between the dark region and the bright one. There, in fact, lies the sharp boundary! When one speaks of this sharp boundary, then, in a certain sense, one has—precisely from Goethe’s experiment—what modern physics seeks. Goethe worked with the boundary and not with the beam of light—that is what matters. This requirement, which is rightly raised in an ideal sense, is in principle actually fulfilled precisely by the fact that Goethe works with the boundary, and not with a beam or a bundle of beams. And Goethe takes as his starting point what then emerges as a phenomenon at the boundary and attempts to design his experimental setups from there—though, of course, if they were to be carried out today in the Goethean sense, they would have to be quite different from the way Goethe carried them out.

[ 8 ] I hope that, particularly in this regard, we will conduct fundamental experiments at our physics research institute in Stuttgart, and that this will, in a sense, eliminate what Dr. Schmiedel has called “obscuration” will, in a certain sense, be eliminated, and that we will learn to work with the boundaries in a truly precise manner, thereby becoming capable of understanding the spectrum first and foremost as a phenomenon in which the boundary phenomena are processed as the primordial phenomena. That would be the path we need to take.

[ 9 ] But when one works with the boundary in this way, one obtains precisely what Dr. Schmiedel called the polar relationship between one part and the other of the so-called spectrum.

[ 10 ] In other words: “Polarity,” in the Goethean sense, is a term used here in a far too abstract way! One can, of course, use it to describe all sorts of natural phenomena. Goethe—and I cannot, of course, go into the details tonight due to time constraints—arrives at the fundamental opposition he posits between “red nature” and “blue nature” by constantly conducting experiments; it should also be noted that Goethe does not speak of red and blue light, one can disagree in Goethe’s sense—but rather of red and blue nature. Light is utterly undifferentiable, and what appears as differentiations are phenomena in the light. It is rightly emphasized as a finding of modern physics that Goethe contrasts what he calls the entity of light with the entity of darkness—not as nothingness, but as a real entity. And now I can only roughly hint at what is a rather complicated concept in Goethe’s work by saying the following: In both the red and the blue parts of the color spectrum, we are not dealing with a mixture, but with a dynamic interplay of light and darkness—though in the red part, this interplay is such that, in a sense, red emerges as the activity of light within darkness. We are therefore dealing with the interplay of light and darkness. When we deal with the red—that is, with a red field—we are dealing with the active light within the darkness; when we deal with the blue side, we are dealing with the activity of darkness within the light. This, then, is the precise expression of polarity.

[ 11 ] This is, of course, a concept that—as I readily admit—the modern physicist cannot relate to very much. But for Goethe, red is the activity of light in darkness, and blue is the activity of darkness in brightness—that is, in light. One might call this a polarity; it is a polarity. And Goethe now applies this to physical color—that is, spectral color—as well as to chemical color, and he is well aware that he is stumbling upon uncertainties everywhere, because he naturally cannot apply this general principle in every detail. But if we take this—which I have just briefly touched upon—then wherever colors occur, wherever colors appear, there we have something qualitative. And there we stand at the point where a decision will eventually be made in this regard.

[ 12 ] You see, even today it is still the case that—one might say—one experiences a wealth of phenomena. Even today, a whole wealth of phenomena has been presented to you—for which we are grateful—phenomena that would actually require a whole series of lectures to demonstrate how they actually fit into Goethe’s theory of colors and into the entire field of natural science. But today we are experiencing phenomena that—in a completely different way than, for example, the theoretical considerations of the theory of relativity and so on regarding the concepts of the speed of light—must lead to corrections. We are witnessing precisely what Dr. Rabel herself has just emphasized: that the physicist feels compelled—albeit in a very modified form—to return once again to Newton’s emission theory. There is, however, a very great difference between Newton’s theory, which was derived from relatively simple phenomena, and the present day. For I believe that today’s view is based primarily on the fact that, according to the usual concepts of wave theory, one cannot form a picture of how, for example, the following is possible: When ultraviolet light is directed at a metal, electrons are scattered back, and these electrons can be examined. They then exhibit a certain intensity. This intensity does not depend on the distance of the ultraviolet light source from the metal. You can place the source far away and still obtain the same voltage. Now, of course, if—as is assumed—the light intensity remains constant, the intensity should decrease with increasing distance. But this is not the case for the electrons that are scattered back to you from the metal. One sees that their intensity does not decrease at all with distance, but depends solely on color. Whether the color is close by or at a greater distance, the result is the same. This leads one, at first, to conclude that we must think differently about what is called “light” in the first place. Today, we rely on quantum theory, which states that light does not propagate as a continuous entity—as gravity, for example, is thought to—but rather propagates in discrete quanta. If it propagates atomistically, then the quantum in question is present at a specific point and exerts its effect there. It is not a matter of... the quantum can only be at one point. If it is there at all, then it triggers the electronic effects.

[ 13 ] So, these ideas led back to the emission theory. While Newton imagined that substances—entities—somehow expand in a ponderable manner, but in such a way that one would have to say that the intensity decreases with the square of the distance, it is now the case that these are replaced by the propagation of electromagnetic fields, which then actually travel through space, specifically in the sense of quantum theory. So we are actually dealing with the emission of electromagnetic fields, whereas in the undulation theory—which was quite common in the time when, for example, I myself was young—it was simply a matter of the mere propagation of motion, so that nothing actually radiates into space, but only the motion is carried forward. These conceptions of what objectively exists are actually—at least as I see it—in a state of constant flux today, and the available experiments all point to what Dr. Rabel rightly emphasized: that one cannot get by with the mere assumption of wavelengths, that this contains a kind of contradiction within itself. But that is precisely the issue at hand. When all is said and done, the reality is simply that, over long periods of time, we have become thoroughly accustomed to relying solely on wavelengths and the like in our calculations. The concept was, after all, extraordinarily simple. People simply calculated objectively with waves of certain wavelengths and oscillations of certain speeds; they described what lies in the spectrum from violet to red by saying that it simply makes an impression on the retina of the eye. Beyond red, there are other oscillations that make no impression, but they do not differ qualitatively from those in the red spectrum, nor do those beyond violet. Some individuals have objected, and others have rejected it in interesting ways—for example, in the 1870s and 1880s, Eugen Dreher, who conducted a great many experiments to prove that light, heat, and chemical entities are three fundamentally distinct entities. This could indeed be substantiated to a certain extent. And the current state of affairs proves precisely that the entire complex of questions is, in essence, in a state of flux. As soon as one arrives at what, apart from the subjective, actually exists under the umbrella term “light phenomena”... (gap)... The essential point with Goethe is that he incorporated what is now becoming evident to physics. Certainly, he incorporated it based on the limited state of physics at the end of the 18th century. But he did incorporate it.

[ 14 ] When you look at the matter today, you say to yourself: Certainly, this is all incredibly interesting. And I must admit, the whole treatment of the undulation theory was more interesting when I was young, because the undulation theory had been developed to the extreme, and everything had really been calculated quite precisely down to the smallest detail. But today, young people are no longer bothered with this outlandish undulation theory. After all, it makes quite a difference whether one calculates undulations from theoretical mechanics using some ether hypothesis, or whether one starts from the mode of action of electromagnetic fields. In the latter case, everything seems a bit more indefinite. Today, there isn’t really the same need to calculate all these precise details within the phenomena of light, as was the case forty or thirty-five years ago. It is, of course, extraordinarily interesting to uncover all these subtleties, but they are the result of calculations, and the entire decisive proof for this calculated result is, after all, seen in the interference experiment. Today, the interference experiment stands in such a way that it requires a new explanation. Modern physics admits this. And in this regard, quantum theory has not really achieved much. The situation is simply this: It hasn’t progressed very far yet, but we are seeing more and more how we have certain very useful numbers—auxiliary numbers—in the frequencies or wavelengths; these are all good tools for calculation, but no one today can really say that anything real underlies them. I would like to say that when one specifies the frequency for the so-called red rays and the blue ones, there is a certain ratio that exists between red and blue, expressed as the relationship of one number to the other. One can already say today: The relationships of the individual numbers to one another are far more important than the absolute value of the individual vibration numbers. And this leads from the quantitative to the qualitative. Today, we are on the path to realizing: Wavelengths alone are not enough; we need something else.

[ 15 ] But this other thing is becoming more and more like what Goethe sought on his journeys. This is not yet so clearly apparent today, but for those who know the subject well, it is certainly evident how physics is gradually leading in that direction; and, as I said, Goethe would certainly interpret the phenomena mentioned today in such a way that he would see them as a confirmation of his own view.

[ 16 ] It is, of course, difficult to go into specifics, because the groundwork for that has not been laid today. I just want to address the issue of plants, for example, in general terms. I would rather not get into details such as whether or not one is allowed to use a term like “absorbed.” If one takes it as a mere description of what is present, I have no objection, but if one then simplifies the matter to the point where—if, for example, something bright catches the eye and a piece of glass is placed in the way, and there is a red patch behind the glass—one says: ‘All the other colors have been swallowed up by the glass; only the red has been allowed to pass through’—then one is simply substituting an explanation for an observed phenomenon, an explanation that is entirely speculative and for which there is actually no real basis. One can certainly stick to the phenomenon; that is fine. But take what is perhaps even expressed rather imperfectly by Goethe: The activity of light, of brightness within the darkness, underlies red; the activity of darkness within the brightness, within the light, underlies blue. What underlies the nuances—as a shading—of green or orange, that is not what matters now; one cannot go into that. I can only point out the basic phenomenon. And there, you do indeed have what I am now merely, I would say, have only roughly hinted at—then one is dealing with darkness as a reality, and one must be clear about this—there is, of course, a great deal of evidence to support what I am about to say, but even a very superficial consideration of the matter makes this clear—that this darkness, in a certain sense, stands in opposition to the light. This is evident not only in subjective perception but also in objective facts. - One must, of course, assume a polarity here if one does not wish to remain in the abstract but instead address the concrete aspects of the matter. If you now consider this polarity of light and darkness, you will gradually arrive at the idea that reveals a certain impossibility: that of speaking of the propagation of an entity in the same way for darkness as for light. The experiments conducted to date have no bearing whatsoever on this! For you see, if you imagine—of course there is more to it, but that is based on extrasensory or semi-extrasensory observations; for now, however, let’s just accept it as a possibility, as a hypothesis—that brightness would be schematically characterized by the fact that an expansion takes place. You cannot then describe darkness by saying that a spreading takes place, but must describe darkness by saying that, as it were, something like a suction is taking place from the infinite. So you would not be allowed to say of a room lined with black walls: “There is a spreading taking place there, an emission or the like,” but rather: “There is a suction taking place, suction effects,” which of course must have a source of the suction, for one naturally needs a center. But the possibility of suction effects is, to put it trivially, what is present in the black room, in contrast to the illuminated one, where one is dealing with propagation effects.

[ 17 ] If you keep this in mind, the color composition will become increasingly concrete, and you will find in the blue something of the “absorbing” — though this is, strictly speaking, only an approximation — and in the red something of the “spreading,” and in the green, so to speak, the “neutralization.” And now consider—here we must delve into a deeper layer of imagination—if you observe that which is present as a suction effect in relation to the plant organism, you will find the suction effect underlying the color, which stands in contrast to certain inner forces of the plant. These forces are at work within the entire configuration, within the entire organization of the plant.

[ 18 ] So, in a sense, we must look beyond the phenomena of color. In these phenomena, we find only the symptomatic expression of what lies deeper beneath the effects of color. We thus arrive at a polarity; if we do not regard this merely as an abstract polarity, but delve into this very special kind of polarity, so that when we experience it subjectively—for example, when we see blue—we are essentially exposing the eye to a suction effect, and in the case of red, to a pressure effect in a certain sense—which, however, must be conceived not mechanically but intensively.

[ 19 ] Once we have that, we also arrive at ideas that are, of course, much more complicated than this one, where I say: I place a glass pane in the path of an illuminated beam and get a red field at the back. Everything else has been absorbed except for the red. We are then led to a completely different approach, a completely different formulation of the problem. The need arises to investigate, based on the phenomenon before me, the nature of the material placed in the path. When we begin there, we are led to a completely different method—let’s say, that of polarization phenomena. Through a certain detour, one arrives at a very strict conception of this, as Dr. Rabel also mentioned. (Turning to Dr. Rabel): You mentioned an English physicist. However, a whole series of physicists have already drawn attention to the fact that these phenomena do not actually point to the essence of light, but rather to the matter that is set in opposition to the light—and, of course, especially to organic matter, that is, to plants.

[ 20 ] This is precisely what we will increasingly be led to do: to move away from, let’s say, constructing polarization figures directly into the light. This is something that worked wonderfully well in the old, purely mechanical wave theory, but which will no longer hold true in the same way in today’s context. The physicist is led not merely to observe the course of the polarization figures—constructing them, as it were, into the light—but to perceive an interaction between light and matter, so that, in a sense, the constitution of matter is revealed by what occurs there, as well as in other phenomena that manifest themselves in such a way that they are regarded as the emission of electromagnetic waves. It is much more interesting today to view things in such a way that one examines how to gradually move away from a way of thinking that is really based solely on having become so accustomed to this mechanical view involving the ether—which some conceive of as a solid ether, while others view it as a liquid. ... (gap) ... We have become accustomed to certain ideas, and truly cannot shake them off... If one sticks with wave theory, one must assume that there is still something more to be accounted for... And here it must be pointed out: Goethe was in the process of examining these underlying factors. He was not really interested in the entire undulation theory—which he, of course, was familiar with during his lifetime—but rather, as I have indicated in a wholly inadequate way by tracing polarity back to the concrete, he was interested in something else.

[ 21 ] One gains a deeper understanding of what Goethe intended precisely by working through his *Theory of Colors* chapter by chapter, right up to the sensory and moral effects of colors, where, in a sense, the colors themselves disappear from view and—one might say—spiritual, psychological, and moral qualities come to the fore. One experiences them in the realm of red and blue, where one is led into the realm of the soul. And Goethe would say here: It is actually only then that one learns something about the essence of color, when the color itself disappears and something entirely different emerges.

[ 22 ] Here we encounter what is the beginning of the paths to higher knowledge, as described by anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, which lead to a point where one no longer makes this distinction between subject and object—a distinction that, at a certain level of knowledge, no longer applies—but rather to a transition of the subject into the object. This must be observed. There can be no theory of knowledge that is ever satisfactory if there is an absolute gulf between subject and object, but only if this very distinction between subject and object—which, when all is said and done, is merely a provisional assumption, as has been shown in epistemology—is recognized. Modern physics, as defined, say, by Blanc, does indeed aim to completely exclude the subjective and to present phenomena as they occur in the objective realm, without taking human beings into account in any way. Louis Blanc says: Physics should, in fact, seek only what even a Martian—even if he were organized entirely differently—could assert about the objective world. And that is, in fact, entirely correct. But the question is this: whether one might not also find within human beings themselves something that corresponds to the results of physics—which are sought purely in terms of measure, number, and weight—and whether, with a corresponding higher level of understanding, there is not something in human beings that corresponds to this as well. And here one must say: Yes, that is it! We are moving very precisely through the region that is then experienced—and which the modern physicist actually gains only through a construction, a certain construction derived from the phenomenon. Only this region appears in such a way that the substantial element underlying it is no longer material, but spiritual. One even acquires the right there to apply the formulas of physics in a certain way, simply substituting a different substance into them. Newton believed that a kind of ponderable matter is introduced into the equations and formulas; Huygens’ wave theory posits that only the number of waves is introduced; and the more recent theory posits that electromagnetic fields are introduced.

[ 23 ] So what is actually “floating” on those formulas is something about which a certain degree of flexibility already prevails today, even within the theories themselves. And that is why one should not resist too strongly when spiritual science is compelled to introduce spirit into these equations that fly and dance through the cosmos. Neither what Newton wanted, nor what the very modern physicist wants, but simply to introduce spirit into them! But first, one must know what spirit is. This is based not on any theory, but on a higher experience.

[ 24 ] I therefore believe that what Dr. Rabel so graciously presented today is indeed contributing more and more to a proper understanding of Goethe’s Theory of Colors. However, I do not believe it is possible today to address questions such as those raised, for example, by Dr. Stein. For that would require delving into the very nature of electricity. And that touches on questions that can really only be—I won’t say solved, but rather discussed—in the field of anthroposophy. For there we naturally encounter concepts that, one might say, turn everything we are accustomed to recognizing theoretically in physics today on its head.

[ 25 ] Even though we have moved away from that somewhat now, it wasn’t long ago that people were still dealing with electric currents and the like. But in reality, — and this is simply the result of a higher understanding, as I will now explain to you — with electric currents, we are not dealing with something that flows into it, but rather, if I may illustrate this schematically, we are actually dealing with the fact that, when we have a wire through which a so-called electric current flows, there is a void in reality.

[ 26 ] If I want to designate reality—I’m talking now about a degree of reality that many will not accept—if I want to designate reality here, for example, as +a, then I would have to designate the reality inside the wire as -a. And then we have a sort of “sucking in” of that which is actually always regarded as a “flowing in.” And essentially, what we are dealing with is this: when an electrical conductor is present, it does not actually represent something that fills a space, but rather a hollow space in the spiritual realm. And this then leads us over to the nature of the will, which Dr. Stein has here only intuited, and which is actually based on the fact that we are not dealing, let’s say, with nerves that fill a space, but with hollow channels, hollow tubes, through which the spiritual is drawn in and through which the spiritual passes.

[ 27 ] But, as I said, that would take us far too far afield today, and I have really only been able to set myself the task of showing to what extent—or rather, how—that was meant at the time when I said: These more recent developments are actually in line with the further development of Goethe’s theory of colors.

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Question and Answer

[Question not recorded]

[ 28 ] I am not at all opposed to the use of the word “absorption,” but whether one can [name something or not, or can only name it after Goethe] says nothing about the phenomenon. Whether [this word] embellishes [the usage] for better or worse, however, is not thereby settled. So there is no cause for offense in the use of the word “absorption,” or even in a certain justification for it—though I do see a further problem in it—but this actually makes the problem very simple, in that one speaks of absorption in a conclusive sense, not in the sense of raising a problem.

[Question not recorded]

[ 29 ] [But this is, after all, part of the course of development of modern physics, and in general it will still be true that even regarding the views Miss Rabel has put forward, an average physicist will still say, just as he said to me back then: “A modern physicist can’t make head or tail of that at all.”] Physicists are very committed to these wave functions, and it is sometimes quite remarkable to what extent people still talk about wave theory, even though they could actually be working with [quantum theory].