The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Epilogue

[ 1 ] Two and a half centuries have almost passed since Angelus Silesius collected the profound wisdom of his predecessors in his "Cherubinischer Wandersmann". These centuries have brought rich insights into nature. Goethe opened up a great perspective for natural science. He sought to trace the eternal, iron laws of natural action to the summit, where they give rise to man with the same necessity as they bring forth stone at the lower level (see my book: "Goethe's Weltanschauung"). Lamarck, Darwin, Haeckel and others have continued to work along the lines of this conception. The "question of all questions", that of the natural origin of man, was answered in the nineteenth century. Other related tasks in the realm of natural processes have found their solutions. Today it is understood that one need not step out of the realm of the factual and sensual if one wants to understand the development of the stages of beings, right up to man, in a purely natural way. - And the ingenuity of J. G. Fichte has also illuminated the nature of the human "I" and shown the human soul where it should seek itself and what it is (cf. above, p. 17 , and the section on Fichte in my book: "Welt- und Lebensanschauungen im neunzehnten Jahrhundert", in a new edition as "Rätsel der Philosophie"). Hegel extended the realm of thought over all areas of being, and sought to grasp the external sensual existence of nature as well as the highest creations of the human spirit in their lawfulness through thought (cf. my account of Hegel in "Riddles of Philosophy", vol. 1). - How do the spirits whose thoughts have been pursued in this writing appear in the light of the world view that reckons with the scientific achievements of the times following its epochs? They still believed in a "supernatural" creation story. How do their thoughts compare with a "natural" one created by the natural science of the nineteenth century? This natural science has not given nature anything that does not belong to it; it has only taken from it what does not belong to it. It has banished from it everything that is not to be sought in it, but which can only be found within man. It no longer sees any being in nature that is like the human soul and that creates after the manner of man. It no longer allows the forms of organisms to be created by a human-like God; it follows their development in the world of the senses according to purely natural laws. Both Meister Eckhart and Tauler, as well as Jacob Böhme and Angelus Silesius, should feel the deepest satisfaction when contemplating this natural science. The spirit in which they wanted to contemplate the world has passed over to this contemplation of nature in the fullest sense, if it is understood correctly. What they were not yet able to do, even to bring the facts of nature itself into the light that had dawned upon them, that would undoubtedly have become their longing if this natural science had been available to them. They could not; for no geology, no "natural creation story" told them about the processes in nature. The Bible alone told them about such processes in its own way. They therefore sought the spiritual, as best they could, where alone it could be found: in the human interior. At the present time they had quite different means than in their time to show that a spirit existing in a sensuous form can only be found in man. Today they would unreservedly agree with those who seek the spirit as a fact not in the root of nature but in its fruit. They would admit that the spirit in the sense body is a result of development, and that at lower stages of development such a spirit must not be sought. They would understand that a "thought of creation" did not prevail in the emergence of the spirit in the organism, just as little as such a "thought of creation" allowed the ape to emerge from the marsupials. - Our present cannot speak about the facts of nature as Jacob Boehme spoke about them. But there is a point of view, even in this present age, which brings Jacob Boehme's way of looking at things closer to a world view that takes modern natural science into account. There is no need to lose one's mind if one finds only the natural in nature. However, many people today believe that one must fall into a shallow and sober materialism if one simply accepts the "facts" found by natural science. I myself stand completely on the ground of this natural science. I certainly have the feeling that only those who approach a view of nature such as Ernst Haeckel's can fall flat if they approach it with a shallow world of thought. I feel something higher and more glorious when I allow the revelations of the "Natural History of Creation" to have an effect on me than when the supernatural miracle stories of the creeds penetrate me. I know of no "sacred" book that reveals to me anything so sublime as the "sober" fact that every human germ in the womb repeats in succession the animal forms that its animal ancestors went through. If we fill our minds with the glory of the facts that our senses behold, then we will have little interest in the "miracles" that do not lie in the cycle of nature. If we experience the spirit within us, then we do not need one outside in nature. In my "Philosophy of Freedom", I described my world view, which does not believe that the spirit can be expelled because it views nature as Darwin and Haeckel do. A plant or an animal gains nothing for me if I populate it with souls of which my senses give me no information. I do not search in the outer world for a "deeper", "spiritual" essence of things, indeed I do not even presuppose it, because I believe that the knowledge that lights up within me protects me from it. I believe that the things of the sensory world are also what they present themselves to us as, because I see that proper self-knowledge leads us to seek nothing but natural processes in nature. I do not seek the spirit of God in nature because I believe I can hear the essence of the human spirit within me. I calmly acknowledge my animal ancestors because I believe I recognize that no soul-like spirit can work where these animal ancestors have their origin. I can only agree with Ernst Haeckel when he prefers the "eternal rest of the grave" to immortality as taught by some religions (cf. Haeckel's "Welträtsel", p. 139). For I find a degradation of the spirit, a repugnant sin against the spirit in the idea of a soul that endures in the manner of a sensual being. - I hear a shrill note of disapproval when the scientific facts in Haeckel's presentation clash with the "piety" of the confessions of some contemporaries. But for me there is nothing of the spirit of higher piety, which I find in Jacob Böhme and Angelus Silesius, in confessions that are in poor harmony with natural facts. On the contrary, this higher piety is in full harmony with the workings of the natural. There is no contradiction in penetrating oneself with the findings of modern natural science and at the same time treading the path that Jacob Böhme and Angelus Silesius sought to the spirit. Whoever embarks on this path in the spirit of these thinkers must not fear falling into shallow materialism if he allows the secrets of nature to be presented by a "natural history of creation". Whoever understands my thoughts in this sense will understand with me in the same way the last saying of the "Cherubinischer Wandermann", into which this writing should also end: "Friend, it is also enough. If you want to read more, go and become the scripture and the being yourself."

[ 2 ] Addition to the new edition (1924). These last sentences must not be reinterpreted in the sense of an unspiritual view of nature. I only wanted to emphasize through them in a strong way that the spirit that underlies nature must be found within it, and must not be brought into it from outside. The rejection of the "ideas of creation" refers to a creation that is similar to the human one, according to ideas of purpose. What is to be said about the history of development can be read in my book "Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung" (preface to the new edition).