The Science of Knowing
GA 2
XVI. Organic Nature
[ 1 ] For a long time science stopped short of entering the organic realm. It considered its methods to be insufficient for understanding life and its manifestations. It believed altogether, in fact, that all lawfulness such as that at work in inorganic nature ceased here. What was acknowledged to be the case in the inorganic world—that a phenomenon becomes comprehensible to us when we know its natural preconditions—was simply denied here. One thought of the organism as having been purposefully constructed according to a particular design of the creator. Every organ's use was supposedly predetermined; all questioning here could relate only to what the purpose of this or that organ might be, to why this or that is present. Whereas in the inorganic world one turned to the prerequisites of a thing, one considered these to be of no consequence at all for facts about life, and set the primary value on the purpose of a thing. With respect to the processes accompanying life one also did not ask, as in the case of physical phenomena, about the natural causes, but rather believed one had to ascribe these processes to a particular life force. One thought that what takes form there in the organism was the product of this force that simply disregards the other natural laws. Right up to the beginning of the nineteenth century science did not know how to deal with organisms. It was limited solely to the domain of the inorganic world.
[ 2 ] Insofar as one sought the lawfulness of the organic, not in the nature of the objects but rather in the thought the creator follows in forming them, one also cut off any possibility of an explanation. How is that thought to become known to me? I am, after all, limited to what I have before me. If this itself does not reveal its laws to me within my thinking, then my scientific activity in fact comes to an end. There can be no question, in a scientific sense, of guessing the plans of a being standing outside.
[ 3 ] At the end of the eighteenth century the universally prevailing view was that there was no science to explain living phenomena in the sense in which physics, for example, is a science that explains things. Kant, in fact, tried to establish a philosophical basis for this view. He considered our intellect to be such that it could go only from the particular to the general. The particular, the individual, things are given to him, and from them he abstracts his general laws. Kant calls this kind of thinking “discursive,” and considers it to be the only kind granted to the human being. Thus, in his view there is a science only for the kinds of things where the particular, taken in and for itself, is entirely without concept and is only summed up under an abstract concept. In the case of organisms Kant did not find this condition fulfilled. Here the single phenomenon betrays a purposeful, i.e., a conceptual arrangement. The particular bears traces of the concept. But, according to the Königsberg philosopher, we lack any ability to understand such beings. Understanding is possible for us only in the case where concept and individual thing are separated, where the concept represents something general, and the individual thing represents something particular. Thus there is nothing left us but to base our observations about organisms upon the idea of purposefulness: to treat living beings as though a system of intentions underlay their manifestation. Thus Kant has here established non-science scientifically, as it were.
[ 4 ] Now Goethe protested vigorously against such unscientific conduct. He could never see why our thinking should not also be adequate to ask where an organ of a living being originates instead of what purpose it serves. Something in his nature always moved him to see every being in its inner completeness. It seemed to him an unscientific way of looking at things to bother only about the outer purposefulness of an organ, i.e., about its use for something other than it self What should that have to do with the inner being of a thing? The point for him is never what purpose something serves but always how it develops. He does not want to consider an object as a thing complete in itself but rather in its becoming, so that he might know its origins. He was particularly drawn to Spinoza through the fact that Spinoza did not credit organs and organisms with outer purposefullness. For the activity of knowing the organic world, Goethe demanded a method that was scientific in exactly the same sense as the method we apply to the inorganic world.
[ 5 ] Although not with as much genius as in Goethe, yet no less urgently, the need for such a method has arisen again and again in natural science. Today only a very small fraction of scientists doubt any longer the possibility of this method. Whether the attempts made here and there to introduce such a method have succeeded is, to be sure, another question.
[ 6 ] Above all, one has committed a serious error in this. One believed that the method of inorganic science should simply be taken over into the realm of organisms. One considered the method employed here to be altogether the only scientific one, and thought that for “organics” to be scientifically possible, it would have to be so in exactly the same sense in which physics is, for example. The possibility was forgotten, however, that perhaps the concept of what is scientific is much broader than “the explanation of the world according to the laws of the physical world.” Even today one has not yet penetrated through to this knowledge. Instead of investigating what it is that makes the approach of the inorganic sciences scientific, and of then seeing a method that can be applied to the world of living things while adhering to the requirements that result from this investigation, one simply declared that the laws gained upon this lower stage of existence are universal.
[ 7 ] Above all, however, one should investigate what the basis is for any scientific thinking. We have done this in our study. In the preceding chapter we have also recognized that inorganic lawfulness is not the only one in existence but is only a special case of all possible lawfulness in general. The method of physics is simply one particular case of a general scientific way of investigation in which the nature of the pertinent objects and the region this science serves are taken into consideration. If this method is extended into the organic, one obliterates the specific nature of the organic. Instead of investigating the organic in accordance with its nature, one forces upon it a lawfulness alien to it. In this way, however, by denying the organic, one will never come to know it. Such scientific conduct simply repeats, upon a higher level, what it has gained upon a lower one; and although it believes that it is bringing the higher form of existence under laws established elsewhere, this form slips away from it in its efforts, because such scientific conduct does not know how to grasp and deal with this form in its particular nature.
[ 8 ] All this comes from the erroneous view that the method of a science is extraneous to its objects of study, that it is not determined by these objects but rather by our own nature. It is believed that one must think in a particular way about objects, that one must indeed think about all objects—throughout the entire universe—in the same way. Investigations are undertaken that are supposed to show that, due to the nature of our spirit, we can think only inductively or deductively, etc.
[ 9 ] In doing so, however, one overlooks the fact that the objects perhaps will not tolerate the way of looking at them that we want to apply to them.
[ 10 ] A look at the views of Haeckel, who is certainly the most significant of the natural-scientific theoreticians of the present day, shows us that the objection we are making to the organic natural science of our day is entirely justified: namely, that it does not carry over into organic nature the principle of scientific contemplation in the absolute sense, but only the principle of inorganic nature.
[ 11 ] When he demands of all scientific striving that “the causal interconnections of phenomena become recognized everywhere,” when he says that “if psychic mechanics were not so infinitely complex, if we were also able to have a complete overview of the historical development of psychic functions, we would then be able to bring them all into a mathematical soul formula,” then one can see clearly from this what he wants: to treat the whole world according to the stereotype of the method of the physical sciences.
[ 12 ] This demand, however, does not underlie Darwinism in its original form but only in its present-day interpretation. We have seen that to explain a process in inorganic nature means to show its lawful emergence out of other sense-perceptible realities, to trace it back to objects that, like itself, belong to the sense world. But how does modern organic science employ the principles of adaptation and the struggle for existence (both of which we certainly do not doubt are the expression of facts)? It is believed that one can trace the character of a particular species directly back to the outer conditions in which it lived, in somewhat the same way as the heating of an object is traced back to the rays of the sun falling upon it. One forgets completely that one can never show a species' character, with all its qualities that are full of content, to be the result of these conditions. The conditions may have a determining influence, but they are not a creating cause. We can definitely say that under the influence of certain circumstances a species had to evolve in such a way that one or another organ became particularly developed; what is there as content, however, the specifically organic, cannot be derived from outer conditions. Let us say that an organic entity has the essential characteristics \(a\) \(b\) \(c\); then, under the influence of certain outer conditions, it has evolved. Through this, its characteristics have taken on the particular form \(a'\) \(b'\) \(c'\). When we take these influences into account we will then understand that \(a\) has evolved into the form of \(a'\), \(b\) into \(b'\), \(c\) into \(c'\). But the specific nature of \(a\), \(b\), and \(c\) can never arise as the outcome of external conditions.
[ 13 ] One must, above all, focus one's thinking on the question: From what do we then derive the content of that general “something” of which we consider the individual organic entity to be a specialized case? We know very well that the specialization comes from external influences. But we must trace the specialized shape itself back to an inner principle. We gain enlightenment as to why just this particular form has evolved when we study a being's environment. But this particular form is, after all, something in and of itself; we see that it possesses certain characteristics. We see what is essential. A content, configurated in itself, confronts the outer phenomenal world, and this content provides us with what we need in tracing those characteristics back to their source. In inorganic nature we perceive a fact and see, in order to explain it, a second, a third fact and so on; and the result is that the first fact appears to us to be the necessary consequence of the other ones. In the organic world this is not so. There, in addition to the facts, we need yet another factor. We must see what works in from outer circumstances as confronted by something that does not passively allow itself to be determined by them but rather determines itself, actively, out of itself, under the influence of the outer circumstances.
[ 14 ] But what is that basic factor? It can, after all, be nothing other than what manifests in the particular in the form of the general. In the particular, however, a definite organism always manifests. That basic factor is therefore an organism in the form of the general: a general image of the organism, which comprises within itself all the particular forms of organisms.
[ 15 ] Following Goethe's example, let us call this general organism typus. Whatever the word typus might mean etymologically, we are using it in this Goethean sense and never mean anything else by it than what we have indicated. This typus is not developed in all its completeness in any single organism. Only our thinking, in accordance with reason, is able to take possession of it, by drawing it forth, as a general image, from phenomena. The typus is therewith the idea of the organism: the animalness in the animal, the general plant in the specific one.
[ 16 ] One should not picture this typus as anything rigid. It has nothing at all to do with what Agassiz, Darwin's most significant opponent, called “an incarnate creative thought of God's.” The typus is something altogether fluid, from which all the particular species and genera, which one can regard as subtypes or specialized types, can be derived. The typus does not preclude the theory of evolution. It does not contradict the fact that organic forms evolve out of one another. It is only reason's protest against the view that organic development consists purely in sequential, factual (sense-perceptible) forms. It is what underlies this whole development. It is what establishes the interconnection in all this endless manifoldness. It is the inner aspect of what we experience as the outer forms of living things. The Darwinian theory presupposes the typus.
[ 17 ] The typus is the true archetypal organism; according to how it specializes ideally, it is either archetypal plant or archetypal animal. It cannot be any one, sense-perceptibly real living being. What Haeckel or other naturalists regard as the archetypal form is already a particular shape; it is, in fact, the simplest shape of the typus. The fact that in time the typus arises in its simplest form first does not require the forms arising later to be the result of those preceding them in time. All forms result as a consequence of the typus; the first as well as the last are manifestations of it. We must take it as the basis of a true organic science and not simply undertake to derive the individual animal and plant species out of one another. The typus runs like a red thread through all the developmental stages of the organic world. We must hold onto it and then with it travel through this great realm of many forms. Then this realm will become understandable to us. Otherwise it falls apart for us, just as the rest of the world of experience does, into an unconnected mass of particulars. In fact, even when we believe that we are leading what is later, more complicated, more compound, back to a previous simpler form and that in the latter we have something original, even then we are deceiving ourselves, for we have only derived a specific form from a specific form.
[ 18 ] Friedrich Theodor Vischer once said of the Darwinian theory that it necessitates a revision of our concept of time. We have now arrived at a point that makes evident to us in what sense such a revision would have to occur. It would have to show that deriving something later out of something earlier is no explanation, that what is first in time is not first in principle. All deriving has to do with principles, and at best it could be shown which factors were at work such that one species of beings evolved before another one in time.
[ 19 ] The typus plays the same role in the organic world as natural law does in the inorganic. Just as natural law provides us with the possibility of recognizing each individual occurrence as a part of one great whole, so the typus puts us in a position to regard the individual organism as a particular form of the archetypal form.
[ 20 ] We have already indicated that the typus is not a completed frozen conceptual form, but that it is fluid, that it can assume the most manifold configurations. The number of these configurations is infinite, because that through which the archetypal form is a single particular form has no significance for the archetypal form itself It is exactly the same as the way one law of nature governs infinitely many individual phenomena, because the specific conditions that arise in an individual case have nothing to do with the law.
[ 21 ] Nevertheless, we have to do here with something essentially different than in inorganic nature. There it was a matter of showing that a particular sense-perceptible fact can occur in this and in no other way, because this or that natural law exists. The fact and the law confront each other as two separate factors, and absolutely no further spiritual work is necessary except, when we become aware of a fact, to remember the law that applies. This is different in the case of a living being and its manifestations. Here it is a matter of developing, out of the typus that we must have grasped, the individual form arising in our experience. We must carry out a spiritual process of an essentially different kind. We may not simply set the typus, as something finished in the way the natural law is, over against the individual phenomenon.
[ 22 ] The fact that every object, if it is not prevented by incidental circumstances, falls to the earth in such a way that the distances covered in successive intervals of time are in the ratio \(1:3:5:7\), etc., is a definite law that is fixed once and for all. It is an archetypal phenomenon that occurs when two masses (the earth and an object upon it) enter into interrelationship. If now a specific case enters the field of our observation to which this law is applicable, we then need only look at the facts observable to our senses in the connection with which the law provides us, and we will find this law to be confirmed. We lead the individual case back to the law. The natural law expresses the connection of the facts that are separated in the sense world; but it continues to exist as such over against the individual phenomenon. With the typus we must develop the particular case confronting us out of the archetypal form. We may not place the typus over against the individual form in order to see how it governs the latter; we must allow the individual form to go forth out of the typus. A law governs the phenomenon as something standing over it; the typus flows into the individual living being; it identifies itself with it.
[ 23 ] If an organic science wants to be a science in the sense that mechanics or physics is, it must therefore know the typus to be the most general form and must then show it also in diverse, ideal, separate shapes. Mechanics is indeed also a compilation of diverse natural laws where the real determinants are altogether hypothetically assumed. It must be no different in organic science. Here also one would have to assume hypothetically determined forms in which the typus develops itself if one wanted to have a rational science. One would then have to show how these hypothetical configurations can always be brought to a definite form that exists for our observation.
[ 24 ] Just as in the inorganic we lead a phenomenon back to a law, so here we develop a specific form out of the archetypal form. Organic science does not come about by outwardly juxtaposing the general and the particular, but rather by developing the one form out of the other.
[ 25 ] Just as mechanics is a system of natural laws, so organic science is meant to be a series of developmental forms of the typus. It is just that in mechanics we must bring the individual laws together and order them into a whole, whereas here we must allow the individual forms to go forth from one another in a living way.
[ 26 ] It is possible to make an objection here. If the typical form is something altogether fluid, how is it at all possible to set up a chain of sequential, particular types as the content of an organic science? One can very well picture to oneself that, in every particular case one observes, one recognizes a specific form of the typus, but one cannot, after all, for the purposes of science merely collect such real observed cases.
[ 27 ] One can do something else, however. One can let the typus run through its series of possibilities and then always (hypothetically) hold fast to this or that form. In this way one gains a series of forms, derived in thought from the typus, as the content of a rational organic science.
[ 28 ] An organic science is possible which, like mechanics, is science in altogether the strictest sense. It is just that the method is a different one. The method of mechanics is to prove things. Every proof is based upon a certain principle. There always exists a particular presupposition (i.e., potentially experienceable conditions are indicated), and it is then determined what happens when these presuppositions occur. We then understand the individual phenomenon by applying the underlying law. We think about it like this: Under these conditions, a phenomenon occurs; the conditions are there, so the phenomenon must occur. This is our thought process when we approach an event in the inorganic world in order to explain it. This is the method that proves things. It is scientific because it completely permeates a phenomenon with a concept, because, through it, perception and thinking coincide.
[ 29 ] But we can do nothing with this proving method in organic science. The typus, in fact, does not bring it about that under certain conditions a particular phenomenon will occur; it determines nothing about a relationship of parts that are alien to each other, that confront each other externally. It determines only the lawfulness of its own parts. It does not point, like a natural law, beyond itself. The particular organic forms can therefore be developed only out of the general typus form, and the organic beings that arise in experience must coincide with one such derivative form of the typus. The developmental method must here take the place of the proving one. One establishes here not that outer conditions affect each other in a certain way and thereby have a definite result, but rather that under definite outer circumstances a particular form has developed out of the typus. This is the far-reaching difference between inorganic and organic science. This difference underlies no investigative approach as consistently as the Goethean one. No one has recognized better than Goethe that an organic science, without any dark mysticism, without teleology, without assuming special creative thoughts, must be possible. But also, no one has more vigorously rejected the unwarranted expectation of being able to accomplish anything here with the methods of inorganic science.a7It is interesting to know that Goethe wrote yet another essay in which he developed further his thoughts in the first essay about experimentation. We can reconstruct this second essay from Schiller's letter of January 19, 1798. There Goethe divides the methods of science into: common empiricism, which stays with the external phenomena given to the senses; rationalism, which builds up thought-systems upon insufficient observation, which, therefore, instead of grouping the facts in accordance with their nature, first figures out certain connections artificially, and then in fantastic ways reads something from them into the factual world; and finally rational empiricism, which does not stop short at common experience, but rather creates conditions under which experience reveals its essential being. [This note was to the first edition. To this, Rudolf Steiner added the further note in the second edition to the effect that the essay he “here assumed hypothetically, was actually discovered later in the Goethe-Schiller Archives and was included in the Weimar edition of Goethe's works.”]
[ 30 ] The typus, as we have seen, is a fuller scientific form than the archetypal phenomenon. It also presupposes a more a intensive activity of our spirit than the archetypal phenomenon does. As we reflect upon the things of inorganic nature, sense perception supplies us with the content. Our sense organization already supplies us here with that which in the organic realm we receive only through our spirit. In order to perceive sweet, sour, warmth, cold, light, color, etc., one need only have healthy senses. We have only to find, in thinking, the form for the matter. In the typus, however, content and form are closely bound to each other. Therefore the typus does not in fact determine the content purely formally the way a law does but rather permeates the content livingly, from within outward, as its own. Our spirit is confronted with the task of participating productively in the creation of the content along with the formal element.
[ 31 ] The kind of thinking in which the content appears in direct connection with the formal element has always been called “intuitive.”
[ 32 ] Intuition appears repeatedly as a scientific principle. The English philosopher Reid calls it an intuition if, out of our perception of outer phenomena (sense impressions), we were to acquire at the same time a conviction that they really exist. Jacobi thought that in our feeling of God we are given not only this feeling itself but at the same time the proof that God is. This judgment is also called intuitive. What is characteristic of intuition, as one can see, is always that more is given in the content than this content itself; one knows about a thought-characterization, without proof, merely through direct conviction. One believes it to be unnecessary to prove one's thought-characterizations (“real existence,” etc.) about the material of perception; in fact, one possesses them in unseparated unity with the content.
[ 33 ] With the typus this is really the case. Therefore it can offer no means of proof but can merely provide the possibility of developing every particular form out of itself. Our spirit, consequently, must work much more intensively in grasping the typus than in grasping a natural law. It must produce the content along with the form. It must take upon itself an activity that the senses carry out in inorganic science and that we call beholding (Anschauang). At this higher level, the spirit itself must therefore be able to behold. Our power of judgment must be a thinking beholding, and a beholding thinking. We have to do here, as was expounded for the first time by Goethe, with a power to judge in beholding (anschauende Urteilskraft). Goethe thereby revealed as a necessary form of apprehension in the human spirit that which Kant wanted to prove was something the human being, by his whole make-up, is not granted.
[ 34 ] Just as in organic nature the typus takes the place of the natural law (archetypal phenomenon) of inorganic nature, so intuition (the power to judge in beholding) takes the place of the proving (reflecting) power of judgment. Just as one believed that one could apply to organic nature the same laws that pertain to a lower stage of knowledge, so also one supposed that the same methods are valid here as there. Both are errors.
[ 35 ] One has often treated intuition in a very belittling way in science. One regarded it as a defect in Goethe's spirit that he wanted to attain scientific truths by intuition. What is attained in an intuitive way is, in fact, considered by many to be quite important when it is a matter of a scientific discovery. There, one says, an inspiration often leads further than a methodically trained thinking. One frequently calls it intuition, in fact, when someone by chance has hit upon something right, whose truth the researcher must first convince himself of by roundabout means. But it is always denied that intuition itself could be a principle of science. What occurs to intuition must afterward first be proved—so it is thought—if it is to have any scientific value.
[ 36 ] Thus one also considered Goethe's scientific achievements to be brilliant inspirations that only afterward received credibility through strict science.
[ 37 ] But for organic science, intuition is the right method. It follows quite clearly from our considerations, we think, that Goethe's spirit found the right path in the organic realm precisely because it was intuitively predisposed. The method appropriate to the organic realm coincided with the constitution of his spirit. Because of this it only became all the more clear to him the extent to which this method differs from that of inorganic science. The one became clear to him through the other. He therefore could also sketch the nature of the inorganic in clear strokes.
[ 38 ] The belittling way in which intuition is treated is due in no small measure to the fact that one believes the same degree of credibility cannot be attributed to its achievements as to those of the proving sciences. One often calls “knowing” only that which has been proved, and everything else “faith.”
[ 39 ] One must bear in mind that intuition means something completely different within our scientific direction—which is convinced that in thinking we grasp the core of the world in its essential being—than in that direction which shifts this core into a beyond we cannot investigate. A person who sees in the world lying before us—insofar as we either experience it or penetrate it with our thinking—nothing more than a reflection (an image of some other-worldly, unknown, active principle that remains hidden behind this shell not only to one's first glance but also to all scientific investigation) such a person can certainly regard the proving method as nothing but a substitute for the insight we lack into the essential being of things. Since he does not press through to the view that a thought-connection comes about directly through the essential content given in thought, i.e., through the thing itself, he believes himself able to support this thought-connection only through the fact that it is in harmony with several basic convictions (axioms) so simple that they are neither susceptible to proof nor in need thereof. If such a person is then presented with a scientific statement without proof, a statement, indeed, that by its very nature excludes the proving method, then it seems to him to be imposed from outside. A truth approaches him without his knowing what the basis of its validity is. He believes he has no knowledge, no insight into the matter; he believes he can only give himself over to the faith that, outside his powers of thought, some basis or other for its validity exists.
[ 40 ] Our world view is in no danger of having to regard the limits of the proving method as at the same time the limits of scientific conviction. It has led us to the view that the core of the world flows into our thinking, that we do not think about the essential being of the world, but rather that thinking is a merging with the essential being of reality. With intuition a truth is not imposed upon us from outside, because, from our standpoint, there is no inner and outer in the sense assumed by the scientific direction just characterized and that is in opposition to our own. For us, intuition is a direct being-within, a penetrating into the truth that gives us everything that pertains to it at all. It merges completely with what is given to us in our intuitive judgment. The essential characteristic of faith is totally absent here, which is that only the finished truth is given us and not its basis and that penetrating insight into the matter under consideration is denied us. The insight gained on the path of intuition is just as scientific as the proven insight.
[ 41 ] Every single organism is the development of the typus into a particular form. Every organism is an individuality that governs and determines itself from a center. It is a self-enclosed whole, which in inorganic nature is only the case with the cosmos.
[ 42 ] The ideal of inorganic science is to grasp the totality of all phenomena as a unified system, so that we approach every phenomenon with the consciousness of recognizing it as a part of the cosmos. In organic science, on the other hand, the ideal must be, in the typus and in its forms of manifestation, to have with the greatest possible perfection what we see develop in the sequence of single beings. Leading the typus through all the phenomena is what matters here. In inorganic science it is the system; in organic science it is comparison (of each individual form with the typus).
[ 43 ] Spectral analysis and the perfecting of astronomy are extending out to the universe the truths gained in the limited region of the earth. They are thereby approaching the first ideal. The second ideal will be fulfilled when the comparing method employed by Goethe is recognized in all its implications.
16. Die organische Natur
[ 1 ] Lange Zeit hat die Wissenschaft vor dem Organischen haltgemacht. Sie hielt ihre Methoden nicht für ausreichend, das Leben und seine Erscheinungen zu begreifen. Ja sie glaubte überhaupt, daß jede Gesetzlichkeit, wie eine solche in der unorganischen Natur wirksam ist, hier aufhöre. Was man in der unorganischen Welt zugab, daß uns eine Erscheinung begreiflich wird, wenn wir ihre natürlichen Vorbedingungen kennen, leugnete man hier einfach. Man dachte sich den Organismus nach einem bestimmten Plane des Schöpfers zweckmäßig angelegt. Jedes Organ hätte seine Bestimmung vorgezeichnet; alles Fragen könne sich hier nur darauf beziehen: welches ist der Zweck dieses oder jenes Organes, wozu ist das oder jenes da? Wandte man sich in der unorganischen Welt an die Vorbedingungen einer Sache, so hielt man diese für die Tatsachen des Lebens ganz gleichgültig und legte den Hauptwert auf die Bestimmung eines Dinges. Auch fragte man bei den Prozessen, die das Leben begleiten, nicht so wie bei den physikalischen Erscheinungen nach den natürlichen Ursachen, sondern meinte sie einer besonderen Lebenskraft zuschreiben zu müssen. Was sich da im Organismus bildet, das dachte man sich als das Produkt dieser Kraft, die sich einfach über die sonstigen Naturgesetze hinwegsetzt. Die Wissenschaft wußte eben bis zum Beginne unseres Jahrhunderts mit den Organismen nichts anzufangen. Sie war allein auf das Gebiet der unorganischen Welt beschränkt.
[ 2 ] Indem man so die Gesetzmäßigkeit des Organischen nicht in der Natur der Objekte suchte, sondern in dem Gedanken, den der Schöpfer bei ihrer Bildung befolgt, schnitt man sich auch alle Möglichkeit einer Erklärung ab. Wie soll mir jener Gedanke kund werden? Ich bin doch auf das beschränkt, was ich vor mir habe. Enthüllt mir dieses selbst innerhalb meines Denkens seine Gesetze nicht, dann hört meine Wissenschaft eben auf. Von dem Erraten der Pläne, die ein außerhalb stehendes Wesen hatte, kann im wissenschaftlichen Sinne nicht die Rede sein.
[ 3 ] Am Ende des vorigen Jahrhunderts war die Ansicht wohl allgemein noch die herrschende, daß es eine Wissenschaft als Erklärung der Lebenserscheinungen in dem Sinne, wie zum Beispiel die Physik eine erklärende Wissenschaft ist, nicht gebe. Kant hat sogar derselben eine philosophische Begründung zu geben versucht. Er hielt nämlich unseren Verstand für einen solchen, der nur von dem Besonderen auf das Allgemeine gehen könne. Das Besondere, die Einzeldinge, seien ihm gegeben und daraus abstrahiere er seine allgemeinen Gesetze. Diese Art des Denkens nennt Kant diskursiv und hält sie für die allein dem Menschen zukommende. Daher gibt es nach seiner Ansicht nur von den Dingen eine Wissenschaft, wo das Besondere an und für sich genommen ganz begrifflos ist und nur unter einen abstrakten Begriff subsumiert wird. Bei den Organismen fand Kant diese Bedingung nicht erfüllt. Hier verrät die einzelne Erscheinung eine zweckmäßige, das ist begriffsmäßige Einrichtung. Das Besondere trägt Spuren des Begriffes an sich. Solche Wesen aber zu begreifen fehlt uns, nach der Anschauung des Königsberger Philosophen, jede Anlage. Wir können nur da verstehen, wo Begriff und Einzelding getrennt sind; jener ein Allgemeines, dieses ein Besonderes darstellt. Es bleibt uns also nichts übrig als unseren Beobachtungen der Organismen die Idee der Zweckmäßigkeit zugrunde zu legen; die Lebewesen zu behandeln, als ob ihren Erscheinungen ein System von Absichten zugrunde liege. Kant also hat die Unwissenschaftlichkeit hier gleichsam wissenschaftlich begründet.
[ 4 ] Goethe hat nun gegen solch unwissenschaftliches Gebaren entschieden protestiert. Er konnte nie einsehen, warum unser Denken nicht auch ausreichen sollte, bei einem Organe eines Lebewesens zu fragen: woher entspringt es, statt wozu dient es. Das lag in seiner Natur, die ihn stets drängte, jedes Wesen in seiner inneren Vollkommenheit zu erblicken. Es schien ihm eine unwissenschaftliche Betrachtungsweise, welche sich nur um die äußere Zweckmäßigkeit eines Organes, das heißt um dessen Nutzen für ein anderes kümmert. Was soll das mit der inneren Wesenheit eines Dinges zu tun haben? Darauf kommt es ihm nie an, wozu etwas nützt; stets nur darauf, wie es sich entwickelt. Nicht als abgeschlossenes Ding will er ein Objekt betrachten, sondern in seinem Werden, damit er erkenne, welchen Ursprunges es ist. An Spinoza zog ihn besonders an, daß dieser die äußerliche Zweckmäßigkeit der Organe und Organismen nicht gelten ließ. Goethe forderte für das Erkennen der organischen Welt eine Methode, die genau in dem Sinne wissenschaftlich ist, wie es die ist, die wir auf die unorganische Welt anwenden.
[ 5 ] Zwar nicht in so genialer Weise wie bei ihm, aber nicht minder dringend trat das Bedürfnis nach einer solchen Methode in der Naturwissenschaft immer wieder auf. Heute zweifelt wohl nur mehr ein sehr kleiner Bruchteil der Forscher an der Möglichkeit derselben. Ob aber die Versuche, die man hie und da gemacht, eine solche einzuführen, geglückt sind, das ist allerdings eine andere Frage.
[ 6 ] Man hat da vor allem einen großen Irrtum begangen. Man glaubte die Methode der unorganischen Wissenschaft in das Organismenreich einfach herübernehmen zu sollen. Man hielt die hier angewendete Methode überhaupt für die einzig wissenschaftliche und dachte, wenn die Organik wissenschaftlich möglich sein soll, dann müsse sie es genau in dem Sinne sein, in dem es die Physik zum Beispiel ist. Die Möglichkeit aber, daß vielleicht der Begriff der Wissenschaftlichkeit ein viel weiterer sei als: «die Erklärung der Welt nach den Gesetzen der physikalischen Welt», vergaß man. Auch heute ist man bis zu dieser Erkenntnis noch nicht durchgedrungen. Statt zu untersuchen, worauf denn eigentlich die Wissenschaftlichkeit der unorganischen Wissenschaften beruht, und dann nach einer Methode zu suchen, die sich unter Festhaltung der sich hieraus ergebenden Anforderungen auf die Lebewelt anwenden läßt, erklärt man einfach die auf jener unteren Stufe des Daseins gewonnenen Gesetze für universell.
[ 7 ] Man sollte aber vor allem untersuchen, worauf das wissenschaftliche Denken überhaupt beruht. Wir haben das in unserer Abhandlung getan. Wir haben im vorigen Kapitel auch erkannt, daß die unorganische Gesetzlichkeit nicht ein einzig Dastehendes ist, sondern nur ein Spezialfall von aller möglichen Gesetzmäßigkeit überhaupt. Die Methode der Physik ist einfach ein besonderer Fall einer allgemeinen wissenschaftlichen Forschungsweise, wobei auf die Natur der in Betracht kommenden Gegenstände, auf das Gebiet, dem diese Wissenschaft dient, Rücksicht genommen ist. Wird diese Methode auf das Organische ausgedehnt, dann löscht man die spezifische Natur des letzteren aus. Statt das Organische seiner Natur gemäß zu erforschen, drängt man ihm eine ihm fremde Gesetzmäßigkeit auf. So aber, indem man das Organische leugnet, wird man es nie erkennen. Ein solches wissenschaftliches Gebaren wiederholt einfach das, was es auf einer niederen Stufe gewonnen, auf einer höheren; und während es glaubt, die höhere Daseinsform unter die anderweitig fertiggestellten Gesetze zu bringen, entschlüpft ihm diese Form unter seiner Bemühung, weil es sie in ihrer Eigentümlichkeit nicht festzuhalten und zu behandeln weiß.
[ 8 ] Alles das kommt von der irrtümlichen Ansicht, die da glaubt, die Methode einer Wissenschaft sei ein den Gegenständen derselben Äußerliches, nicht von diesen, sondern von unserer Natur Bedingtes. Man glaubt, man müsse in einer bestimmten Weise über die Objekte denken, und zwar über alle - über das ganze Universum - in gleicher Weise. Man stellt Untersuchungen an, die da zeigen sollen: wir könnten vermöge der Natur unseres Geistes nur induktiv, nur deduktiv usw. denken.
[ 9 ] Dabei übersieht man aber, daß die Objekte die Betrachtungsweise, die wir ihnen da vindizieren wollen, vielleicht gar nicht vertragen.
[ 10 ] Daß der Vorwurf, den wir der organischen Naturwissenschaft unserer Tage machen: sie übertrage auf die organische Natur nicht das Prinzip wissenschaftlicher Betrachtungsweise überhaupt, sondern das der unorganischen Natur, vollauf berechtigt ist, lehrt uns ein Blick auf die Ansichten des gewiß bedeutendsten der naturforschenden Theoretiker der Gegenwart, Haeckels.
[ 11 ] Wenn er von allem wissenschaftlichen Bestreben fordert, daß «der ursächliche Zusammenhang der Erscheinungen überall zur Geltung komme»,12Haeckel, Die Naturanschauung von Darwin, «Goethe und Lamarck», Jena 1882, Seite 53. wenn er sagt: «Wenn die psychische Mechanik nicht so unendlich zusammengesetzt wäre, wenn wir imstande wären, auch die geschichtliche Entwicklung der psychischen Funktionen vollständig zu übersehen, so würden wir sie alle in eine mathematische Seelenformel bringen können», so sieht man daraus deutlich, was er will: die gesamte Welt nach der Schablone der physikalischen Methode behandeln.
[ 12 ] Diese Forderung liegt aber auch dem Darwinismus nicht in seiner ursprünglichen Gestalt, sondern in seiner heutigen Deutung zugrunde. Wir haben gesehen, daß in der unorganischen Natur einen Vorgang erklären heißt: sein gesetzmäßiges Hervorgehen aus anderen sinnenfälligen Wirklichkeiten zu zeigen, ihn von Gegenständen, die wie er der sinnlichen Welt angehören, ableiten. Wie verwendet die heutige Organik aber das Prinzip der Anpassung und des Kampfes ums Dasein, die beide als der Ausdruck eines Tatbestandes von uns gewiß nicht angezweifelt werden sollen? Man glaubt geradezu den Charakter einer bestimmten Art aus den äußeren Verhältnissen, in denen sie gelebt, ebenso ableiten zu können, wie etwa die Erwärmung eines Körpers aus den auffallenden Sonnenstrahlen. Man vergißt vollständig, daß man jenen Charakter seinen inhaltsvollen Bestimmungen nach nie als eine Folge dieser Verhältnisse aufweisen kann, Die Verhältnisse mögen einen bestimmenden Einfluß haben, eine erzeugende Ursache sind sie nicht. Wir sind wohl imstande zu sagen: Unter dem Eindrucke dieses oder jenes Tatbestandes mußte sich eine Art so entwickeln, daß sich dieses oder jenes Organ besonders ausbildete; das Inhaltliche aber, das Spezifisch-Organische läßt sich aus äußeren Verhältnissen nicht ableiten. Ein organisches Wesen hätte die wesentlichen Eigenschaften abc; nun ist es unter dem Einflusse bestimmter äußerer Verhältnisse zur Entwicklung gelangt. Daher haben seine Eigenschaften die besondere Gestalt a' b' c' angenommen. Wenn wir diese Einflüsse in Erwägung ziehen, so werden wir begreifen, daß sich a in der Form von a' entwickelt hat, b in b', c in c'. Aber die spezifische Natur des a, b und c kann sich uns nimmermehr als Ergebnis äußerer Verhältnisse ergeben.
[ 13 ] Man muß vor allem sein Denken darauf richten: woher nehmen wir denn den Inhalt desjenigen Allgemeinen, als dessen Spezialfall wir das einzelne organische Wesen ansehen? Wir wissen ganz gut, daß die Spezialisierung von der Einwirkung von außen kommt, Aber die spezialisierte Gestalt selbst müssen wir aus einem inneren Prinzip ableiten. Daß sich gerade diese besondere Form entwickelt hat, darüber gewinnen wir Aufschluß, wenn wir die Umgebung eines Wesens studieren. Nun aber ist diese besondere Form doch an und für sich etwas; wir erblicken sie mit gewissen Eigenschaften. Wir sehen, worauf es ankommt. Es tritt der äußeren Erscheinung ein in sich gestalteter Inhalt gegenüber, der uns das an die Hand gibt, was wir brauchen, um jene Eigenschaften abzuleiten. In der unorganischen Natur nehmen wir eine Tatsache wahr und suchen behufs ihrer Erklärung eine zweite, eine dritte und so weiter; und das Ergebnis ist, jene erste erscheint uns als die notwendige Folge der letzteren. In der organischen Welt ist es nicht so. Hier bedürfen wir außer den Tatsachen noch eines Faktors. Wir müssen den Einwirkungen der äußeren Umstände etwas zugrunde legen, das sich nicht passiv von jenen bestimmen läßt, sondern sich aktiv aus sich selbst unter dem Einflusse jener bestimmt.
[ 14 ] Was ist aber diese Grundlage? Es kann doch nichts sein als das, was im Besonderen erscheint in der Form der Allgemeinheit. Im Besonderen erscheint aber immer ein bestimmter Organismus. Jene Grundlage ist daher ein Organismus in der Form der Allgemeinheit. Ein allgemeines Bild des Organismus, das alle besonderen Formen desselben in sich begreift.
[ 15 ] Wir wollen nach dem Vorgange Goethes diesen allgemeinen Organismus Typus nennen. Mag das Wort Typus seiner sprachlichen Entwicklung nach was immer noch bedeuten; wir gebrauchen es in diesem Goetheschen Sinne und denken dabei nie etwas anderes als das Angegebene. Dieser Typus ist in keinem Einzelorganismus in aller seiner Vollkommenheit ausgebildet. Nur unser vernunftgemäßes Denken ist imstande, sich desselben zu bemächtigen, indem es ihn als allgemeines Bild aus den Erscheinungen abzieht. Der Typus ist somit die Idee des Organismus: die Tierheit im Tiere, die allgemeine Pflanze in der speziellen.
[ 16 ] Man darf sich unter diesem Typus nichts Festes vorstellen. Er hat ganz und gar nichts zu tun mit dem, was Agassiz, Darwins bedeutendster Bekämpfer, einen «verkörperten Schöpfungsgedanken Gottes» nannte. Der Typus ist etwas durchaus Flüssiges, aus dem sich alle besonderen Arten und Gattungen, die man als Untertypen, spezialisierte Typen ansehen kann, ableiten lassen. Der Typus schließt die Deszendenztheorie nicht aus. Er widerspricht nicht der Tatsache, daß sich die organischen Formen auseinander entwickeln. Er ist nur der vernunftgemäße Protest dagegen, daß die organische Entwicklung rein in den nacheinander auftretenden, tatsächlichen (sinnlich wahrnehmbaren) Formen aufgeht. Er ist dasjenige, was dieser ganzen Entwicklung zugrunde liegt. Er ist es, der den Zusammenhang in dieser unendlichen Mannigfaltigkeit herstellt. Er ist das Innerliche von dem, was wir als äußerliche Formen der Lebewesen erfahren. Die Darwinsche Theorie setzt den Typus voraus.
[ 17 ] Der Typus ist der wahre Urorganismus; je nachdem er sich ideell spezialisiert: Urpflanze oder Urtier. Kein einzelnes, sinnlichwirkliches Lebewesen kann es sein. Was Haeckel oder andere Naturalisten als Urform ansehen, ist schon eine besondere Gestalt; ist eben die einfachste Gestalt des Typus. Daß er zeitlich zuerst in einfachster Form auftritt, bedingt nicht, daß die zeitlichfolgenden Formen sich als Folge der zeitlichvorangehenden ergeben. Alle Formen ergeben sich als Folge des Typus, die erste wie die letzte sind Erscheinungen desselben. Ihn müssen wir einer wahren Organik zugrunde legen und nicht einfach die einzelnen Tier- und Pflanzenarten auseinander ableiten wollen. Wie ein roter Faden zieht sich der Typus durch alle Entwicklungsstufen der organischen Welt. Wir müssen ihn festhalten und dann mit ihm dieses große, verschiedengestaltige Reich durchwandern. Dann wird es uns verständlich. Sonst zerfällt es uns wie die ganze übrige Erfahrungswelt in eine zusammenhanglose Menge von Einzelheiten. Ja selbst wenn wir glauben, Späteres, Komplizierteres, Zusammengesetzteres auf eine ehemalige einfachere Form zurückzuführen und in dem letzteren ein Ursprüngliches zu haben, so täuschen wir uns, denn wir haben nur Spezialform von Spezialform abgeleitet.
[ 18 ] Friedrich Theodor Vischer hat einmal in bezug auf die Darwinsche Theorie die Ansicht ausgesprochen, daß sie eine Revision unseres Zeitbegriffes notwendig mache. Wir sind hier an einem Punkt angekommen, der uns ersichtlich macht, in welchem Sinne eine solche Revision zu geschehen hätte. Sie hätte zu zeigen, daß die Herleitung eines Späteren aus einem Früheren keine Erklärung ist, daß das Zeitlich-Erste kein Prinzipiell-Erstes ist. Alle Ableitung hat aus einem Prinzipiellen zu geschehen und höchstens wäre zu zeigen, welche Faktoren wirksam waren, daß sich die eine Wesensart zeitlich vor der anderen entwickelt hat.
[ 19 ] Der Typus spielt in der organischen Welt dieselbe Rolle wie das Naturgesetz in der unorganischen. Wie dieses uns die Möglichkeit an die Hand gibt, jedes einzelne Geschehen als das Glied eines großen Ganzen zu erkennen, so setzt uns der Typus in die Lage, den einzelnen Organismus als eine besondere Form der Urgestalt anzusehen.
[ 20 ] Wir haben bereits darauf hingedeutet, daß der Typus keine abgeschlossene eingefrorene Begriffsform ist, sondern daß er flüssig ist, daß er die mannigfaltigsten Gestaltungen annehmen kann, Die Zahl dieser Gestaltungen ist eine unendliche, weil dasjenige, wodurch die Urform eine einzelne, besondere ist, für die Urform selbst keine Bedeutung hat. Es ist gerade so, wie ein Naturgesetz unendlich viele einzelne Erscheinungen regelt, weil die speziellen Bestimmungen, die in dem einzelnen Falle auftreten, mit dem Gesetze nichts zu tun haben.
[ 21 ] Doch.handelt es sich um etwas wesentlich anderes als in der unorganischen Natur. Dort handelte es sich darum, zu zeigen, daß eine bestimmte sinnenfällige Tatsache so und nicht anders erfolgen kann,weil dieses oder jenes Naturgesetz besteht.Jene Tatsache und das Gesetz stehen sich als zweigetrennte Faktoren gegenüber, und es bedarf weiter gar keiner geistigen Arbeit, als daß wir uns, wenn wir eines Faktums ansichtig werden, des Gesetzes erinnern, das maßgebend ist. Bei einem Lebewesen und seinen Erscheinungen ist das anders. Da handelt es sich darum, die einzelne Form, die in unserer Erfahrung auftritt, aus dem Typus heraus, den wir erfaßt haben müssen, zu entwickeln. Wir müssen einen geistigen Prozeß wesentlich anderer Art vollziehen. Wir dürfen den Typus nicht als etwas Fertiges wie das Naturgesetz einfach der einzelnen Erscheinung gegenüberstellen.
[ 22 ] Daß jeder Körper, wenn er durch keine nebensächlichen Umstände gehindert wird, so zur Erde fällt, daß sich die in den aufeinanderfolgenden Zeiten durchlaufenen Wege verhalten wie 1 :3:5:7 usw., ist ein einmal fertiges, bestimmtes Gesetz. Es ist ein Urphänomen, welches auftritt, wenn zwei Massen (Erde, Körper auf derselben) in gegenseitige Beziehung treten. Tritt nun ein spezieller Fall in das Feld unserer Beobachtung ein, auf den dieses Gesetz Anwendung findet, so brauchen wir nur die sinnlich beobachtbaren Tatsachen in jener Beziehung zu betrachten, die das Gesetz an die Hand gibt, und wir werden es bestätigt finden. Wir führen den einzelnen Fall auf das Gesetz zurück. Das Naturgesetz spricht den Zusammenhang der in der Sinnenwelt getrennten Tatsachen aus; es bleibt aber als solches gegenüber der einzelnen Erscheinung bestehen. Beim Typus müssen wir aus der Urform jenen besonderen Fall, der uns vorliegt, heraus entwickeln. Wir dürfen den Typus der einzelnen Gestalt nicht gegenüberstellen, um zu sehen, wie er die letztere regelt; wir müssen sie aus demselben hervorgehen lassen. Das Gesetz beherrscht die Erscheinung als ein über ihr Stehendes; der Typus fließt in das einzelne Lebewesen ein; er identifiziert sich mit ihm.
[ 23 ] Eine Organik muß daher, wenn sie in dem Sinne Wissenschaft sein will, wie es die Mechanik oder die Physik ist, den Typus als allgemeinste Form und dann auch in verschiedenen ideellen Sondergestalten zeigen. Die Mechanik ist ja auch eine Zusammenstellung der verschiedenen Naturgesetze, wobei die realen Bedingungen durchweg hypothetisch angenommen sind. Nicht anders müßte es in der Organik sein. Auch hier müßte man hypothetisch bestimmte Formen, in denen sich der Typus ausbildet, annehmen, wenn man eine rationelle Wissenschaft haben wollte. Man müßte dann zeigen, wie diese hypothetischen Gestaltungen stets auf eine bestimmte, unserer Beobachtung vorliegende Form gebracht werden können.
[ 24 ] Wie wir im Unorganischen eine Erscheinung auf ein Gesetz zurückführen, so entwickeln wir hier eine Spezialform aus der Urform. Nicht durch äußerliche Gegenüberstellung von Allgemeinem und Besonderem kommt die organische Wissenschaft zustande, sondern durch Entwicklung der einen Form aus der andern.
[ 25 ] Wie die Mechanik ein System von Naturgesetzen ist, so soll die Organik eine Folge von Entwicklungsformen des Typus sein. Nur daß wir dort die einzelnen Gesetze zusammenstellen und zu einem Ganzen ordnen, während wir hier die einzelnen Formen lebendig auseinander hervorgehen lassen müssen.
[ 26 ] Da ist ein Einwand möglich. Wenn die typische Form etwas durchaus Flüssiges ist, wie ist es da überhaupt möglich, eine Kette aneinandergereihter besonderer Typen als den Inhalt einer Organik aufzustellen? Man kann sich wohl vorstellen, daß man in jedem besonderen Falle, den man beobachtet, eine spezielle Form des Typus erkennt, aber man kann doch zum Behufe der Wissenschaft nicht bloß solche wirklich beobachtete Fälle zusammentragen.
[ 27 ] Man kann aber etwas anderes. Man kann den Typus seine Reihe der Möglichkeiten durchlaufen lassen und dann immer diese oder jene Form (hypothetisch) festhalten. So erlangt man eine Reihe von gedanklich aus dem Typus abgeleiteten Formen als den Inhalt einer rationellen Organik.
[ 28 ] Es ist eine Organik möglich, die ganz in dem strengsten Sinne Wissenschaft ist wie die Mechanik. Ihre Methode ist nur eine andere. Die Methode der Mechanik ist die beweisende. Jeder Beweis stützt sich auf eine gewisse Regel. Es besteht immer eine bestimmte Voraussetzung (d. h. es sind erfahrungsmögliche Bedingungen angegeben) und dann wird bestimmt, was eintritt, wenn diese Voraussetzungen statthaben. Wir begreifen dann eine einzelne Erscheinung unter Zugrundelegung des Gesetzes. Wir denken so: unter diesen Bedingungen tritt eine Erscheinung ein; die Bedingungen sind da, deswegen muß die Erscheinung eintreten. Das ist unser Gedankenprozeß, wenn wir an ein Ereignis der unorganischen Welt herantreten, um es zu erklären. Das ist die beweisende Methode. Sie ist wissenschaftlich, weil sie eine Erscheinung vollständig mit dem Begriffe durchtränkt, weil sich durch sie Wahrnehmung und Denken decken.
[ 29 ] Mit dieser beweisenden Methode können wir aber in der Wissenschaft des Organischen nichts anfangen. Der Typus bestimmt eben nicht, daß unter gewissen Bedingungen eine bestimmte Erscheinung eintritt; er setzt nichts über ein Verhältnis von Gliedern, die einander fremd, äußerlich gegenüberstehen, fest. Er bestimmt nur die Gesetzmäßigkeit seiner eigenen Teile. Er weist nicht wie das Naturgesetz über sich hinaus. Es können die besonderen organischen Formen also nur aus der allgemeinen Typusgestalt heraus entwickelt werden, und die in der Erfahrung auftretenden organischen Wesen müssen mit irgendeiner solchen Ableitungsform des Typus zusammenfallen. An die Stelle der beweisenden Methode muß hier die entwickelnde treten. Nicht daß die äußeren Bedingungen in dieser Weise aufeinander wirken und daher ein bestimmtes Ergebnis haben, wird hier festgestellt, sondern daß sich unter bestimmten äußeren Verhältnissen eine besondere Gestalt aus dem Typus herausgebildet hat. Das ist der durchgreifende Unterschied zwischen unorganischer und organischer Wissenschaft. Keiner Forschungsweise liegt er in so konsequenter Weise zugrunde wie der Goetheschen. Niemand hat so wie Goethe erkannt, daß eine organische Wissenschaft ohne allen dunklen Mystizismus, ohne Teleologie, ohne Annahme besonderer Schöpfungsgedanken möglich sein muß. Keiner aber auch hat bestimmter die Zumutung von sich gewiesen, mit den Methoden der unorganischen Naturwissenschaft hier etwas anzufangen.a7In meinen Schriften wird man in verschiedener Art über «Mystizismus» und «Mystik» gesprochen finden. Daß zwischen diesen verschiedenen Arten kein Widerspruch ist, wie man ihn hat herausphantasieren wollen, kann man jedesmal aus dom Zusammenhange ersehen. Man kann einen allgemeinen Begriff von «Mystik» bilden. Danach ist sie der Umfang dessen, was man von der Welt durch inneres, seelisches Erleben erfahren kann. Dieser Begriff ist zunächst nicht anzufechten. Denn eine solche Erfahrung gibt es. Und sie offenbart nicht nur etwas über das menschliche Innere, sondern über die Welt. Man muß Augen haben, in denen sieh Vorgänge abspielen, um über das Reich der Farben etwas zu erfahren. Aber man erfährt dadurch nicht nur etwas über das Auge, sondern über die Welt. Man muß ein inneres Seelenorgan haben, um gewisse Dinge der Welt zu erfahren.
Aber man muß die volle Begriffsklarheit in die Erfahrungen des mystischen Organes bringen, wenn Erkenntnis entstehen soll. Es gibt aber Leute, die wollen in das «Innere» sich flüchten, um der Begriffsklarheit zu entfliehen. Diese nennen «Mystik», was die Erkenntnis aus dem Lieht der Ideen in das Dunkel der Gefühlswelt - der nicht von Ideen erhellten Gefühlswelt - führen will. Gegen diese Mystik sprechen meine Schriften überall; für die Mystik, welche die Ideenklarheit denkerisch festhält und zu einem seelischen Wahrnehmungsorgan den mystischen Sinn macht, der in derselben Region des Menschenwesens tätig ist, wo sonst die dunklen Gefühle walten, ist jede Seite meiner Bücher geschrieben. Dieser Sinn ist für das Geistige völlig gleichzustellen dem Auge oder Ohr für das Physische.
[ 30 ] Der Typus ist, wie wir gesehen haben, eine vollere wissenschaftliche Form als das Urphänomen. Er setzt auch eine intensivere Tätigkeit unseres Geistes voraus als jenes. Bei dem Nachdenken über die Dinge der unorganischen Natur gibt uns die Wahrnehmung der Sinne den Inhalt an die Hand. Es ist unsere sinnliche Organisation, die uns hier schon das liefert, was wir im Organischen nur durch den Geist empfangen. Um Süß, Sauer, Wärme, Kälte, Licht, Farbe usw. wahrzunehmen, braucht man nur gesunde Sinne. Wir haben da im Denken zu dem Stoffe nur die Form zu finden. Im Typus aber sind Inhalt und Form enge aneinander gebunden. Deshalb bestimmt der Typus ja nicht rein formell wie das Gesetz den Inhalt, sondern er durchdringt ihn lebendig, von innen heraus, als seinen eigenen. An unseren Geist tritt die Aufgabe heran, zugleich mit dem Formellen produktiv an der Erzeugung des Inhaltlichen teilzunehmen.
[ 31 ] Man hat von jeher eine Denkungsart, welcher der Inhalt mit dem Formellen in unmittelbarem Zusammenhange erscheint, eine intuitive genannt.
[ 32 ] Wiederholt tritt die Intuition als wissenschaftliches Prinzip auf. Der englische Philosoph Reid nennt eine Intuition, daß wir aus der Wahrnehmung der äußeren Erscheinungen (Sinneseindrücke) zugleich die Überzeugung von dem Sein derselben schöpften. Jacobi vermeinte, in unserem Gefühle von Gott sei uns nicht nur dieses selbst, sondern zugleich die Bürgschaft dafür gegeben, daß Gott ist. Auch dieses Urteil nennt man intuitiv. Das Charakteristische ist, wie man sieht, immer, daß in dem Inhaltlichen stets mehr gegeben sein soll als dieses selbst, daß man von einer gedanklichen Bestimmung weiß, ohne Beweis, bloß durch unmittelbare Überzeugung. Man glaubt, daß man die Gedankenbestimmungen «Sein» usw. von dem Wahrnehmungsstoffe nicht beweisen zu müssen glaubt, sondern daß man sie in ungetrennter Einheit mit dem Inhalte besitzt.
[ 33 ] Das ist aber beim Typus wirklich der Fall. Daher kann er kein Mittel des Beweises liefern, sondern bloß die Möglichkeit an die Hand geben, jede besondere Form aus sich zu entwickeln. Unser Geist muß demnach in dem Erfassen des Typus viel intensiver wirken als beim Erfassen des Naturgesetzes. Er muß mit der Form den Inhalt erzeugen. Er muß eine Tätigkeit auf sich nehmen, die in der unorganischen Naturwissenschaft die Sinne besorgen und die wir Anschauung nennen. Auf dieser höheren Stufe muß also der - Geist selbst anschauend sein. Unsere Urteilskraft muß denkend anschauen und anschauend denken. Wir haben es hier, wie Goethe zum erstenmal auseinandergesetzt, mit einer anschauenden Urteilskraft zu tun. Goethe hat hiermit im menschlichen Geiste das als notwendige Auffassungsform nachgewiesen, wovon Kant bewiesen haben wollte, daß es dem Menschen seiner ganzen Anlage nach nicht zukomme.
[ 34] Vertritt der Typus in der organischen Natur das Naturgesetz (Urphänomen) der unorganischen, so vertritt die Intuition (anschauende Urteilskraft) die beweisende (reflektierende) Urteilskraft. Wie man geglaubt hat, dieselben Gesetze auf die organische Natur anwenden zu können, die für eine niedere Erkenntnisstufe maßgebend sind, so vermeinte man auch, dieselbe Methode gelte hier wie dort. Beides ist ein Irrtum.
[ 35 ] Man hat die Intuition oft sehr geringschätzend in der Wissenschaft behandelt. Man hat es für einen Mangel des Goetheschen Geistes angesehen, daß er mit der Intuition wissenschaftliche Wahrheiten erreichen wollte. Was auf intuitivem Wege erreicht wird, halten viele zwar für sehr wichtig, wenn es sich um eine wissenschaftliche Entdeckung handelt. Da, sagt man, führt ein Einfall oft weiter als methodisch geschultes Denken. Denn man nennt es ja häufig Intuition, wenn jemand durch Zufall ein Richtiges getroffen, von dessen Wahrheit sich der Forscher erst auf Umwegen überzeugt. Stets wird aber geleugnet, daß die Intuition selbst ein Prinzip der Wissenschaft sein könne. Was der Intuition beigefallen, müsse nachträglich erst erwiesen werden - so denkt man - wenn es wissenschaftlichen Wert haben soll.
[ 36 ] So hat man auch Goethes wissenschaftliche Errungenschaften für geistreiche Einfälle gehalten, die erst nachher durch die strenge Wissenschaft ihre Beglaubigung erhalten haben.
[ 37 ] Für die organische Wissenschaft ist aber die Intuition die richtige Methode. Aus unseren Ausführungen geht, denken wir, ganz deutlich hervor, daß Goethes Geist gerade deshalb, weil er auf Intuition angelegt war, im Organischen den rechten Weg gefunden hat. Die der Organik eigene Methode fiel zusammen mit der Konstitution seines Geistes. Dadurch wurde ihm nur um so klarer, inwiefern sie sich von der unorganischen Naturwissenschaft unterscheidet. Das eine wurde ihm am andern klar. Er zeichnete daher auch mit scharfen Strichen das Wesen des Unorganischen.
[ 38 ] Zu der geringschätzenden Art, mit der man die Intuition behandelt, trägt nicht wenig bei, daß man ihren Errungenschaften nicht jenen Grad von Glaubwürdigkeit beilegen zu können meint wie den der beweisenden Wissenschaften. Man nennt oft allein, was man bewiesen hat, Wissen, alles übrige Glaube.
[ 39 ] Man muß bedenken, daß die Intuition etwas ganz anderes bedeutet innerhalb unserer wissenschaftlichen Richtung, die davon überzeugt ist, daß wir im Denken den Kern der Welt wesenhaft erfassen, und jener, die den letzteren in ein uns unerforschbares Jenseits verlegt. Wer in der uns vorliegenden Welt, soweit wir sie entweder erfahren oder mit unserem Denken durchdringen, nichts weiter sieht als einen Abglanz, ein Bild von einem Jenseitigen, einem Unbekannten, Wirkenden, das hinter dieser Hülle nicht nur für den ersten Blick, sondern aller wissenschaftlichen Forschung zum Trotz verborgen bleibt, der kann allerdings nur in der beweisenden Methode einen Ersatz für die mangelnde Einsicht in das Wesen der Dinge erblicken. Da er nicht bis zu der Ansicht durchdringt, daß eine Gedankenverbindung unmittelbar durch den im Gedanken gegebenen wesenhaften Inhalt, also durch die Sache selbst zustande kommt, so glaubt er sie nur dadurch stützen zu können, daß sie mit einigen Grundüberzeugungen (Axiomen) im Einklange steht, die so einfach sind, daß sie eines Beweises weder fähig sind, noch eines solchen bedürfen. Wird ihm dann eine wissenschaftliche Behauptung ohne Beweis gegeben, ja eine solche, die ihrer ganzen Natur nach die beweisende Methode ausschließt, dann erscheint sie ihm als von außen aufgedrängt; es tritt eine Wahrheit an ihn heran, ohne daß er erkennt, welches die Gründe ihrer Gültigkeit sind. Er glaubt, nicht ein Wissen, nicht eine Einsicht in die Sache zu haben, er glaubt, er könne sich nur einem Glauben hingeben, daß außerhalb seines Denkvermögens irgendwelche Gründe für ihre Gültigkeit bestehen.
[ 40 ] Unsere Weltansicht ist der Gefahr nicht ausgesetzt, daß sie die Grenzen der beweisenden Methode zugleich als die Grenzen wissenschaftlicher Überzeugung ansehen muß. Sie hat uns zu der Ansicht geführt, daß der Kern der Welt in unser Denken einfließt, daß wir nicht nur über das Wesen der Welt denken, sondern daß das Denken ein Zusammengehen mit dem Wesen der Wirklichkeit ist. Uns wird mit der Intuition nicht eine Wahrheit von außen aufgedrängt, weil es für unseren Standpunkt ein Außen und Innen in jener Weise, wie es die von uns eben gekennzeichnete, der unserigen entgegengesetzte wissenschaftliche Richtung annimmt, nicht gibt. Für uns ist die Intuition ein unmittelbares Innesein, ein Eindringen in die Wahrheit, die uns alles gibt, was überhaupt in Ansehung ihrer in Betracht kommt. Sie geht ganz in dem auf, was uns in unserem intuitiven Urteile gegeben ist. Das Charakteristische, auf das es beim Glauben ankommt, daß uns nur die fertige Wahrheit gegeben ist und nicht die Gründe, und daß uns der durchdringende Einblick in die in Betracht kommende Sache abgeht, fehlt hier gänzlich. Die auf dem Wege der Intuition gewonnene Einsicht ist gerade so wissenschaftlich wie die bewiesene.
[ 41] Jeder Einzelorganismus ist die Ausgestaltung des Typus in einer besonderen Form. Er ist eine Individualität, die sich aus einem Zentrum heraus selbst regelt und bestimmt. Er ist eine in sich geschlossene Ganzheit, was in der unorganischen Natur erst der Kosmos ist.
[ 42 ] Das Ideal der unorganischen Wissenschaft ist: die Totalität aller Erscheinungen als einheitliches System zu erfassen, damit wir jeder Einzelerscheinung mit dem Bewußtsein gegenübertreten: wir erkennen sie als Glied des Kosmos. In der organischen Wissenschaft muß dagegen Ideal sein, in dem Typus und seinen Erscheinungsformen dasjenige in möglichster Vollkommenheit zu haben, was wir in der Reihe der Einzelwesen sich entwickeln sehen. Die Hindurchführung des Typus durch alle Erscheinungen ist hier das Maßgebende. In der unorganischen Wissenschaft besteht das System, in der Organik die Vergleichung (jeder einzelnen Form mit dem Typus).
[ 43 ] Die Spektralanalyse und die Vervollkommnung der Astronomie dehnen die auf dem beschränkten Gebiete des Irdischen gewonnenen Wahrheiten auf das Weltganze aus. Damit nähern sie sich dem ersten Ideal. Das zweite wird erfüllt werden, wenn die von Goethe angewendete vergleichende Methode in ihrer Tragweite erkannt wird.
16 Organic nature
[ 1 ] For a long time, science stopped at the organic. It did not consider its methods sufficient to comprehend life and its phenomena. In fact, it believed that all lawfulness, such as is effective in inorganic nature, ends here. What was admitted in the inorganic world, that a phenomenon becomes comprehensible to us when we know its natural preconditions, was simply denied here. The organism was thought to be purposefully designed according to a certain plan of the Creator. Every organ had its purpose predetermined; all questions could only relate to this: what is the purpose of this or that organ, what is this or that there for? In the inorganic world, if one turned to the preconditions of a thing, these were considered quite indifferent to the facts of life and the main value was placed on the determination of a thing. The processes that accompany life were not considered to have natural causes in the same way as physical phenomena, but were thought to be attributable to a special life force. What forms in the organism was thought to be the product of this force, which simply overrides the other laws of nature. Until the beginning of our century, science knew nothing about organisms. It was limited solely to the field of the inorganic world.
[ 2 ] By seeking the lawfulness of the organic not in the nature of the objects, but in the thought that the Creator followed in their formation, one also cut off all possibility of an explanation. How should that thought become known to me? I am limited to what I have before me. If this itself does not reveal its laws to me within my thinking, then my science simply ceases. There can be no question of guessing the plans that an external being had in the scientific sense.
[ 3 ] At the end of the last century, the view was probably still generally held that there was no science as an explanation of the phenomena of life in the sense that physics, for example, is an explanatory science. Kant even tried to give it a philosophical justification. He considered our understanding to be such that it could only proceed from the particular to the general. The particular, the individual things, are given to it and it abstracts its general laws from them. Kant calls this kind of thinking discursive and considers it to be the only kind that belongs to man. Therefore, in his view, there is only a science of things, where the particular in and of itself is completely devoid of concepts and is only subsumed under an abstract concept. Kant did not find this condition fulfilled in the case of organisms. Here the individual appearance betrays a purposeful, that is conceptual arrangement. The particular bears traces of the concept in itself. However, according to the Königsberg philosopher, we lack any ability to comprehend such beings. We can only understand where concept and individual thing are separated; the former represents a general, the latter a particular. There is therefore nothing left for us but to base our observations of organisms on the idea of purposefulness; to treat living beings as if their phenomena were based on a system of intentions. Kant has thus established the unscientific here, as it were, scientifically.
[ 4 ] Goethe protested strongly against such unscientific behavior. He could never see why our thinking should not also suffice to ask of an organ of a living being: where does it come from instead of what does it serve? This was in his nature, which always urged him to see every being in its inner perfection. It seemed to him an unscientific way of looking at things that was only concerned with the external usefulness of an organ, i.e. its usefulness for another. What should this have to do with the inner essence of a thing? He is never concerned with what something is useful for; always only with how it develops. He does not want to look at an object as a completed thing, but in its becoming, so that he can recognize its origin. What particularly attracted him to Spinoza was that he did not accept the external purposefulness of organs and organisms. Goethe demanded a method for recognizing the organic world that was scientific in exactly the same sense as the one we apply to the inorganic world.
[ 5 ] Although not in such an ingenious way as his, the need for such a method arose again and again in the natural sciences. Today, only a very small fraction of researchers doubt the possibility of such a method. But whether the attempts that have been made here and there to introduce such a method have been successful is another question.
[ 6 ] In particular, a great mistake has been made. It was believed that the method of inorganic science should simply be transferred to the realm of organisms. The method used here was thought to be the only scientific method at all, and it was thought that if organics were to be scientifically possible, then it must be so in exactly the same sense as physics, for example. However, the possibility that the concept of scientificity might be much broader than "the explanation of the world according to the laws of the physical world" was forgotten. Even today, this realization has not yet been reached. Instead of investigating what the scientificity of the inorganic sciences is actually based on, and then looking for a method that can be applied to the living world while retaining the resulting requirements, one simply declares the laws obtained at that lower level of existence to be universal.
[ 7 ] But above all, we should examine what scientific thinking is based on in the first place. We have done this in our treatise. In the previous chapter, we also recognized that inorganic lawfulness is not a unique entity, but only a special case of all possible lawfulness in general. The method of physics is simply a special case of a general scientific method of research, taking into account the nature of the objects under consideration, the field which this science serves. If this method is extended to the organic, then the specific nature of the latter is erased. Instead of investigating the organic according to its nature, a lawfulness foreign to it is imposed upon it. But by denying the organic, it will never be recognized. Such a scientific attitude simply repeats on a higher level what it has gained on a lower level; and while it believes that it can bring the higher form of existence under the laws established elsewhere, this form slips away under its efforts, because it does not know how to hold on to and treat it in its peculiarity.
[ 8 ] All this comes from the erroneous view that believes that the method of a science is something external to the objects of that science, not conditioned by them, but by our nature. One believes that one must think in a certain way about the objects, and indeed about all - about the whole universe - in the same way. Investigations are carried out to show that, due to the nature of our mind, we can only think inductively, deductively, etc.
[ 9 ] However, we overlook the fact that the objects may not be able to tolerate the way of looking at them that we want to impose on them.
[ 11 ] When he demands of all scientific endeavor that "the causal coherence of phenomena should everywhere come into its own",12Haeckel, Die Naturanschauung von Darwin, "Goethe und Lamarck", Jena 1882, page 53. when he says: "If psychic mechanics were not so infinitely compounded, if we were also able to completely overlook the historical development of psychic functions, we would be able to bring them all into a mathematical soul formula", one can clearly see from this what he wants: to treat the entire world according to the template of the physical method.
[ 11 ] When he demands of all scientific endeavor that "the causal coherence of phenomena should everywhere be brought to bear", when he says: "If psychical mechanics were not so infinitely compounded, if we were able also to overlook completely the historical development of psychical functions, we would be able to bring them all into a mathematical soul formula", we can see clearly from this what he wants: to treat the whole world according to the template of the physical method.
[ 12 ] This demand, however, is not the basis of Darwinism in its original form, but in its current interpretation. We have seen that to explain a process in inorganic nature means: to show its lawful emergence from other sensuous realities, to derive it from objects which, like it, belong to the sensuous world. But how does today's organicism use the principle of adaptation and the struggle for existence, both of which, as the expression of a state of affairs, should certainly not be doubted by us? We believe that we can deduce the character of a certain species from the external conditions in which it lives, just as we can deduce the warming of a body from the conspicuous rays of the sun. One completely forgets that one can never show that character according to its substantive determinations as a consequence of these conditions; the conditions may have a determining influence, but they are not a producing cause. We are well able to say: Under the impression of this or that fact, a species had to develop in such a way that this or that organ developed in a special way; but the content, the specific organic, cannot be derived from external conditions. An organic being would have the essential characteristics abc; now it has developed under the influence of certain external conditions. Therefore its properties have taken on the particular form a' b' c' . If we take these influences into consideration, we will realize that a has developed in the form of a', b into b', c into c'. But the specific nature of a, b and c can never be revealed to us as the result of external conditions.
[ 13 ] First of all, we must focus our thinking on this: where do we get the content of the general, as the special case of which we regard the individual organic being? We know quite well that specialization comes from external influence, but we must derive the specialized form itself from an inner principle. The fact that this particular form has developed is revealed to us when we study the environment of a being. But this particular form is something in and of itself; we see it with certain characteristics. We see what is important. The external appearance is confronted with a content that is formed in itself, which provides us with what we need to derive those properties. In inorganic nature we perceive one fact, and in order to explain it we seek a second, a third, and so on; and the result is that the first appears to us as the necessary consequence of the latter. It is not so in the organic world. Here we need one more factor besides the facts. We must base the effects of external circumstances on something that cannot be passively determined by them, but is actively determined by itself under their influence.
[ 14 ] But what is this basis? It can be nothing but that which appears in the particular in the form of the generality. But a specific organism always appears in the particular. That basis is therefore an organism in the form of generality. A general image of the organism that encompasses all of its particular forms.
[ 15 ] We want to call this general organism type, following Goethe's example. Whatever else the word type may mean according to its linguistic development; we use it in this Goethean sense and never think of anything other than what is indicated. This type is not developed in any individual organism in all its perfection. Only our rational thinking is capable of appropriating it by extracting it as a general image from the phenomena. The type is thus the idea of the organism: the animal in the animal, the general plant in the particular.
[ 16 ] We must not imagine anything fixed under this type. It has nothing whatsoever to do with what Agassiz, Darwin's most important opponent, called an "embodied idea of God's creation". The type is something quite fluid, from which all particular species and genera, which can be regarded as subtypes, specialized types, can be derived. The type does not exclude the theory of descent. It does not contradict the fact that organic forms develop apart. It is only the rational protest against the fact that organic development is purely absorbed in the successively occurring, actual (sensually perceptible) forms. It is that which underlies this whole development. It is he who establishes the connection in this infinite multiplicity. It is the inner aspect of what we experience as the external forms of living beings. The Darwinian theory presupposes the type.
[ 17 ] The type is the true primordial organism; depending on whether it is ideally specialized: Primal plant or primal animal. It cannot be a single, sensually real living being. What Haeckel or other naturalists regard as the primal form is already a special form; it is precisely the simplest form of the type. The fact that it appears first in time in the simplest form does not mean that the forms that follow in time arise as a consequence of the forms that precede them in time. All forms arise as sequences of the type, the first as well as the last are manifestations of the same. We must take this as the basis of a true organic system and not simply want to separate the individual animal and plant species. The type runs like a red thread through all developmental stages of the organic world. We must hold on to it and then walk with it through this great, diverse realm. Then it becomes comprehensible to us. Otherwise, like the rest of the world of experience, it disintegrates into an incoherent mass of details. Indeed, even if we believe that we can trace something later, more complicated and more complex back to a former simpler form and that we have an original in the latter, we are mistaken, for we have only derived special form from special form.
[ 18 ] Friedrich Theodor Vischer once expressed the view with regard to Darwin's theory that it necessitated a revision of our concept of time. We have arrived at a point here that makes it clear to us in what sense such a revision would have to take place. It would have to show that the derivation of a later from an earlier is not an explanation, that the first in time is not a first in principle. All derivation has to take place from a principle and, at most, it would have to show which factors were effective in causing one kind of being to develop temporally before the other.
[ 19 ] The type plays the same role in the organic world as the law of nature does in the inorganic world. Just as the latter enables us to recognize each individual event as a member of a larger whole, the type enables us to view the individual organism as a particular form of the primordial form.
[ 20 ] We have already indicated that the type is not a closed, frozen conceptual form, but that it is fluid, that it can take on the most diverse forms; the number of these forms is infinite, because that by which the archetypal form is a single, particular one has no meaning for the archetypal form itself. It is just as a law of nature regulates an infinite number of individual phenomena, because the particular determinations that occur in the individual case have nothing to do with the law.
[ 21 ] However, we are dealing with something essentially different from inorganic nature. There it was a question of showing that a certain sensible fact can take place in this way and not otherwise, because this or that law of nature exists. That fact and the law stand opposite each other as two separate factors, and no further mental work is required than that, when we become aware of a fact, we remember the law that is decisive. It is different with a living being and its phenomena. Here it is a question of developing the individual form that appears in our experience out of the type that we must have grasped. We must carry out a spiritual process of an essentially different kind. We must not simply juxtapose the type with the individual phenomenon as something finished, like the law of nature.
[ 22 ] That every body, if it is not hindered by any incidental circumstances, falls to earth in such a way that the paths traversed in successive times behave like 1 :3:5:7 etc., is a once-finished, definite law. It is a natural phenomenon that occurs when two masses (earth, bodies on it) enter into a mutual relationship. If a special case enters the field of our observation to which this law applies, we need only consider the sensually observable facts in the relationship that the law provides, and we will find it confirmed. We trace the individual case back to the law. The law of nature expresses the connection between the facts separated in the world of the senses; but it remains as such in relation to the individual phenomenon. In the case of the type, we must develop the particular case before us from the original form. We must not contrast the type with the individual form in order to see how it governs the latter; we must let it emerge from the same. The law governs the appearance as something above it; the type flows into the individual living being; it identifies itself with it.
[ 23 ] An organic science must therefore, if it wants to be a science in the sense that mechanics or physics is, show the type as the most general form and then also in various special ideal forms. Mechanics is, after all, also a compilation of the various laws of nature, whereby the real conditions are assumed hypothetically throughout. It should be no different in organics. Here, too, one would have to hypothetically assume certain forms in which the type develops if one wanted to have a rational science. One would then have to show how these hypothetical forms can always be brought to a certain form available to our observation.
[ 24 ] As in the inorganic we trace a phenomenon back to a law, so here we develop a special form from the original form. Organic science does not come about through the external juxtaposition of the general and the particular, but through the development of one form from the other.
[ 25 ] Just as mechanics is a system of natural laws, so organic science should be a sequence of developmental forms of the type. Only that there we assemble the individual laws and organize them into a whole, whereas here we must allow the individual forms to emerge vividly from one another.
[ 26 ] There is one possible objection. If the typical form is something quite fluid, how is it at all possible to set up a chain of particular types strung together as the content of an organic? One can well imagine that one recognizes a special form of the type in every particular case that one observes, but one cannot merely collect such really observed cases for the purpose of science.
[ 27 ] But one can do something else. You can let the type run through its series of possibilities and then always hold on to this or that form (hypothetically). In this way, one obtains a series of forms derived mentally from the type as the content of a rational organicism.
[ 28 ] An organic is possible that is science in the strictest sense like mechanics. Its method is just different. The method of mechanics is the method of proof. Every proof is based on a certain rule. There is always a certain presupposition (i.e. possible conditions are given) and then it is determined what happens when these presuppositions are fulfilled. We then understand an individual phenomenon on the basis of the law. We think thus: under these conditions a phenomenon occurs; the conditions are there, therefore the phenomenon must occur. This is our thought process when we approach an event in the inorganic world in order to explain it. This is the evidential method. It is scientific because it completely imbues a phenomenon with the concept, because through it perception and thought coincide.
[ 29 ] But we can do nothing with this method of proof in the science of the organic. The type does not determine that a certain phenomenon occurs under certain conditions; it does not establish anything about a relationship between members that are alien to each other, externally opposed. It only determines the regularity of its own parts. Like natural law, it does not point beyond itself. The particular organic forms can therefore only be developed out of the general type-form, and the organic beings that appear in experience must coincide with some such derivative form of the type. The method of proof must here be replaced by the method of development. It is not established here that the external conditions interact in this way and therefore have a definite result, but that under certain external conditions a particular form has emerged from the type. This is the fundamental difference between inorganic and organic science. No method of research is based on it as consistently as Goethe's. No one has recognized as Goethe did that an organic science must be possible without all dark mysticism, without teleology, without the assumption of special ideas of creation. No one, however, has more definitely rejected the imposition of using the methods of inorganic natural science here.a7In my writings you will find various kinds of talk about "mysticism" and "mysticism". That there is no contradiction between these different kinds, as one has tried to fantasize, can be seen each time from the context. One can form a general concept of "mysticism". According to this, it is the extent of what one can experience of the world through inner, spiritual experience. This concept is not to be contested at first. For such an experience does exist. And it not only reveals something about the human inner being, but about the world. One must have eyes in which processes take place in order to experience something about the realm of colors. But you don't just learn about the eye, you learn about the world. One must have an inner soul organ in order to experience certain things of the world.
But one must bring full conceptual clarity into the experiences of the mystical organ if knowledge is to arise. But there are people who want to flee into the "inner" in order to escape conceptual clarity. They call "mysticism" what wants to lead knowledge from the light of ideas into the darkness of the emotional world - the emotional world not illuminated by ideas. Against this mysticism my writings speak everywhere; for the mysticism which holds the clarity of ideas in thought and makes the mystical sense into an organ of perception of the soul, which is active in the same region of the human being where otherwise the dark feelings rule, is written on every page of my books. This sense is completely equivalent for the spiritual to the eye or ear for the physical.
[ 30 ] The type is, as we have seen, a fuller scientific form than the primordial phenomenon. It also presupposes a more intensive activity of our mind than the latter. In thinking about the things of inorganic nature, the perception of the senses provides us with the content. It is our sensory organization that provides us with what we receive in the organic only through the mind. To perceive sweet, sour, warmth, cold, light, color, etc., we only need healthy senses. In thinking we only have to find the form for the substance. In the type, however, content and form are closely linked. That is why the type does not determine the content purely formally like the law, but permeates it vividly, from within, as its own. Our mind is faced with the task of participating productively in the creation of content at the same time as the formal.
[ 31 ] A way of thinking in which the content appears to be directly related to the formal has always been called intuitive.
[ 32 ] Intuition repeatedly appears as a scientific principle. The English philosopher Reid calls it an intuition that from the perception of external phenomena (sensory impressions) we simultaneously draw the conviction of the being of the same. Jacobi believed that in our feeling of God we are not only given this itself, but also the guarantee that God is. This judgment is also called intuitive. The characteristic, as we see, is always that more is always supposed to be given in the content than this itself, that one knows of a mental determination without proof, merely through immediate conviction. One believes that one does not have to prove the mental determinations "being" etc. of the perceptual substance, but that one possesses them in undivided unity with the content.
[ 33 ] But this is really the case with the type. Therefore, it cannot provide a means of proof, but merely the possibility of developing each particular form from itself. Our mind must therefore work much more intensively in grasping the type than in grasping the law of nature. It must produce the content with the form. It must take upon itself an activity which in inorganic natural science is performed by the senses and which we call contemplation. At this higher level, therefore, the spirit itself must be contemplative. Our power of judgment must look thinking and think contemplating. We are dealing here, as Goethe explained for the first time, with a contemplative power of judgment. Goethe has thus demonstrated that as a necessary form of perception in the human mind of which Kant wanted to prove that it is not inherent in man as a whole.
[ 34 ] If the type in organic nature represents the natural law (primordial phenomenon) of inorganic nature, then intuition (contemplative power of judgment) represents the proving (reflective) power of judgment. Just as it was believed that the same laws could be applied to organic nature that are decisive for a lower level of cognition, it was also believed that the same method applied here as there. Both are a mistake.
[ 35 ] Intuition has often been treated with great disdain in science. It has been considered a shortcoming of Goethe's mind that he wanted to achieve scientific truths through intuition. What is achieved by intuitive means is considered by many to be very important when it is a matter of scientific discovery. They say that an intuition often leads further than methodically trained thinking. After all, it is often called intuition when someone hits on the right thing by chance, the truth of which the researcher only becomes convinced of in a roundabout way. However, it is always denied that intuition itself can be a principle of science. What falls under intuition must first be proven afterwards - so the thinking goes - if it is to have scientific value.
[ 36 ] Thus, Goethe's scientific achievements were also considered to be ingenious ideas that were only later authenticated by rigorous science.
[ 37 ] However, intuition is the correct method for organic science. From what we have said, we think it is quite clear that Goethe's mind found the right path in organic science precisely because it was based on intuition. The method inherent in organicism coincided with the constitution of his mind. This made it all the clearer to him how it differs from inorganic natural science. The one became clear to him from the other. He therefore also drew the essence of the inorganic with sharp strokes.
[ 38 ] The contemptuous way in which intuition is treated is due in no small part to the fact that people do not believe they can attach the same degree of credibility to its achievements as to those of the proving sciences. One often calls only what one has proven knowledge, all the rest belief.
[ 39 ] It must be remembered that intuition means something quite different within our scientific direction, which is convinced that we essentially grasp the core of the world in thinking, and that which relocates the latter to a beyond that is inscrutable to us. Whoever sees in the world before us, insofar as we either experience it or penetrate it with our thinking, nothing more than a reflection, an image of something beyond, something unknown, something active, which remains hidden behind this shell not only for the first glance but despite all scientific research, can only see in the method of proof a substitute for the lack of insight into the being of things. Since he does not penetrate to the view that a thought connection comes about directly through the being content given in the thought, i.e. through the thing itself, he believes he can only support it by the fact that it is in agreement with some basic convictions (axioms) that are so simple that they are neither capable of nor in need of proof. If then a scientific assertion is given to him without proof, indeed one which by its very nature excludes the method of proof, it appears to him as imposed from without; a truth approaches him without his recognizing the grounds of its validity. He believes that he has no knowledge, no insight into the matter, he believes that he can only surrender to a belief that some grounds for its validity exist outside his faculty of thought.
[ 40 ] Our view of the world is not exposed to the danger that it must regard the limits of the evidential method as the limits of scientific conviction. It has led us to the view that the core of the world flows into our thinking, that we not only think about the essence of the world, but that thinking is a merging with the essence of reality. Intuition does not impose a truth on us from outside, because for our point of view there is no outside and inside in the way that the scientific direction we have just characterized, which is opposite to our own, assumes. For us, intuition is a direct inner being, a penetration into the truth that gives us everything that comes into consideration with regard to it. It is completely absorbed in what is given to us in our intuitive judgment. The characteristic that is important in belief, that we are given only the finished truth and not the reasons, and that we lack the penetrating insight into the matter under consideration, is completely absent here. The insight gained through intuition is just as scientific as the proven insight.
[ 41 ] Each individual organism is the manifestation of the type in a particular form. It is an individuality that regulates and determines itself from a center. It is a self-contained whole, which in inorganic nature is only the cosmos.
[ 42 ] The ideal of inorganic science is to grasp the totality of all phenomena as a unified system, so that we face each individual phenomenon with the awareness that we recognize it as a member of the cosmos. In organic science, on the other hand, the ideal must be to have in the type and its manifestations that which we see developing in the series of individual beings in the greatest possible perfection. The implementation of the type through all phenomena is the decisive factor here. In inorganic science there is the system, in organic science the comparison (of each individual form with the type).
[ 43 ] Spectral analysis and the perfection of astronomy extend the truths gained in the limited field of the earthly to the world as a whole. This brings them closer to the first ideal. The second will be fulfilled when the comparative method used by Goethe is recognized in its scope.