Riddles of the Soul
GA 21
I. Where Natural Science and Spiritual Science Meet
[ 1 ] Max Dessoir's book Beyond the Soul (Vom Jenseits der Seele) contains a brief section in which the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science advocated by me is portrayed as scientifically invalid. Now it might seem to many that a discussion with people who take Dessoir's point of view about science must prove altogether unfruitful to anyone advocating spiritual-scientific anthroposophy. For, such an advocate asserts the existence of a purely spiritual region of experience that a Dessoir fundamentally rejects and consigns to the realm of fantasy. Discussion of the findings of spiritual-scientific knowledge, therefore, might only seem possible with someone who already has reason to believe that such a spiritual-scientific region exists.
This view would be correct if the advocate of anthroposophy presented nothing more than his own inner personal experiences and simply placed them beside the results of the science based on sensory observation and the scientific processing of such observations. Then one could say: the adherent of natural science refuses in fact to regard the experiences of the spiritual researcher as realities; the researcher in the spiritual realm can only make an impression with his findings on those who have already adopted his own point of view.
[ 2 ] This opinion, however, rests upon a misunderstanding of what I mean by anthroposophy. It is true that this anthroposophy is founded upon soul experiences that are attained independently of sense impressions and independently of scientific judgments based only upon sense impressions. Therefore the two kinds of experiences, sensory and extrasensory, seem at first to be separated by an unbridgeable chasm.
But this is not so. There is a common ground where both approaches must meet, and where discussion is possible. This common ground can be described in the following way.
[ 3 ] Out of experiences that are not just personal to him, the advocate of anthroposophy believes himself justified in stating that human activity in knowledge can be developed further from the point at which those researchers stop who want to base themselves only upon sensory observation and intellectual judgment of such observation.
To avoid continuous, long-winded paraphrases, I would like to use the word “anthropology” from now on to designate that approach in science which bases itself on sensory observation and the intellectual processing of such observation, asking the reader to permit me this uncommon usage. In what follows, "anthropology" means only what I have just described. In this sense, anthroposophy believes itself able to begin its research where anthropology leaves off.1Although the anthroposophy advocated by me stands on a completely different ground, with its results, than the presentations of Robert Zimmermann in his book Anthroposophy (1881), still I believe myself justified in using the concept by which he characterized the difference between anthroposophy and anthropology. As the content of his anthroposophy, however, Zimmermann only draws together into an abstract schema the concepts provided by anthropology. For him, the knowing vision that is the basis for what I mean by anthroposophy lies outside the domain of scientific procedure. His anthroposophy differs from anthropology only through the fact that the former first submits the concepts it receives from the latter to a process like that of Herbart's philosophy, before making these concepts into the content of its purely intellectual schema of ideas.
[ 4 ] The advocate of anthropology limits himself to relating his intellectual concepts—experienced in the soul—to his sense perceptions. The advocate of anthroposophy observes that these concepts—apart from the fact that we relate them to sense impressions—are able in addition to unfold a life of their own within the soul. And that, by unfolding this life within the soul, these concepts effect a development of the soul itself. The advocate of anthroposophy sees how the soul, if it is sufficiently attentive to this development, discovers spiritual organs within its own being. (In using this expression "spiritual organs," I am adopting and extending the linguistic usage of Goethe when he speaks in his world view of “spiritual eyes” and “spiritual ears.”) 2A more detailed presentation and justification of this notion of “spiritual organs” can be found in my book The Riddle of Man, Mercury Press, 1990, page 125ff. and in my books on Goethe's world view. Such spiritual organs, therefore, are for the soul what sense organs are for the body. These spiritual organs must of course be understood as being entirely of a soul nature. Any attempt to connect them with one or another bodily configuration must be strictly rejected by anthroposophy. Anthroposophy must not picture these spiritual organs as extending in any way beyond the soul realm or encroaching upon the structure of the body. It would regard any such encroachment as a pathological configuration, to be strictly excluded from its domain. The way anthroposophy portrays the development of our spiritual organs should be strong enough proof—to anyone who really informs himself about it—that the researcher in the real spiritual realm arrives at the same conclusions as anthropologists about abnormal soul experiences like illusions, visions, and hallucinations. 3The inner experiences that the soul must undergo in gaining the use of its spiritual organs are described in a number of my books, but especially in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment and in the second part of Occult Science, an Outline. Any confusion of anthroposophical findings with abnormal, so-called soul experiences rests entirely upon misunderstanding or insufficient knowledge of what anthroposophy actually maintains. And anyone who studies and understands anthroposophy's description of the path to development of our spiritual organs will certainly not fall prey to the notion that this path could lead to pathological configurations or states. The insightful person, in fact, will recognize that every stage of soul experience that a human being passes through on the anthroposophical path to spiritual perception lies in a realm that is entirely of a soul nature; alongside this realm, our sensory experience and normal intellectual activity will continue, unaltered, as they were before this soul realm opened up for us. The great number of misunderstandings holding sway in precisely this area of anthroposophical knowledge stems from the fact that it is difficult for many to bring something of a purely soul nature into the sphere of their attention. The power to picture mentally 4Sich Vorstellen means to visualize, to picture to oneself mentally. The ability to “place something before oneself inwardly is a crucial factor in spiritual development and as such is referred to constantly in this essay. How do we hold something up before our inner eye? What is the attention we focus upon it? Who does this? What is the nature of mental pictures (Vorstellungen) themselves? Such questions are among the many painful riddles that ordinary consciousness cannot solve, and that bring us up against an invisible world. Translator. fails such people the moment this ability is not supported by the sight of something sense-perceptible. Their power to picture mentally is then dampened down, even below the level of dreams, into dreamless sleep, where it is no longer conscious. One could say that such people, in their consciousness, are filled with the aftereffects or the direct effects of sense impressions, and that, alongside this fullness, a sleep is occurring that blocks out what would be recognized as being of a soul nature if it could be grasped. One could even say that the essential nature of soul phenomena is subject to such profound misunderstanding by many people just because they cannot wake up to the soul element as they can to the sense-perceptible content of consciousness.
The fact that there are people in this situation whose degree of attention is only at the level produced by ordinary external life need not surprise anyone who can grasp the point, for example, of a reproach which Franz Brentano made to William James on this subject.
Brentano writes that one must “differentiate between our activity of perceiving and its object, i.e., between perceiving and what is perceived” (“and these two differ from each other as certainly as my present memory differs from the past event I am remembering; or, to make an even more drastic comparison: they differ as much as my hatred of an enemy differs from the object of this hatred”), and Brentano adds that one sees this error cropping up here and there. He continues:
William James, among others, embraced this error and went to some length to validate it at the International Congress on Psychology (Rome, 1905). Because, according to James, when I look out into a room, my vision appears along with the room; and, furthermore, because my mental images of sense-perceptible objects differ only in strength from the visual images directly stimulated by these objects; and, finally, because we call some objects beautiful, yet the difference between beautiful and ugly is connected to differences in emotions: therefore, soul and physical phenomena should no longer be regarded as two different classes of phenomena!
I find it hard to understand how the speaker himself could not feel the weakness of these arguments. To appear at the same time does not mean to appear as the same thing; just as existing at the same time does not mean existing as the same thing. Descartes could therefore recommend without self-contradiction that one deny—at least initially—the existence of the room I see, and regard as indubitable only the existence of my vision of the room. But if James' first argument is invalid, then obviously the second is also; for, what does it matter whether imagining differs from seeing only in degree of intensity, since, according to James, even if the degree of intensity were the same in both, the total congruency of imagining with seeing would still only represent congruency with a soul phenomenon? In his third argument, James speaks of beauty.... It is certainly a strange logic that could conclude—from the fact that pleasure in the beautiful is of a soul nature— that the object with whose appearance the pleasure is connected must also be of a soul nature. If that were so, then every dislike would be identical with what one dislikes, and one would have to be careful not to regret a past mistake, since, along with this remorse, the mistake, being identical with the remorse, would repeat itself.
With arguments like these, however, we need not fear that his authority—to which, among German psychologists, there is unfortunately added that of Mach—will cause many to fail to recognize the most obvious differences.5See F. Brentano, Research into a Psychology of the Senses, Leipzig, 1907, p. 96f.
Actually, this “failure to recognize the most obvious differences” is no rare occurrence. It is based on the fact that our power of mental picturing can unfold the necessary attentiveness only for sense impressions, whereas the actual soul activity that is also occurring is present to consciousness as little as what is experienced in a state of sleep. We are dealing here with two streams of experience; one of these is apprehended in a waking state; the other—the soul stream—is grasped simultaneously, but only with an attentiveness as weak as the mental perception we have in sleep, i.e., it is hardly grasped at all. We must by no means ignore the fact that during our ordinary waking state, the soul disposition of sleep does not simply cease, but continues to exist alongside our waking experience, and that the actual soul element enters the realm of perception only when the human being awakens not only to the sense world—as this occurs in ordinary consciousness—but awakens also to a soul existence, as is the case in seeing consciousness. It hardly matters now whether this soul element is denied—in a crudely materialistic sense—by the condition of sleep (to the soul element) that accompanies our waking state, or whether, because unseen, the soul element is confused with the physical, as in James' case; the results are nearly the same: both lead to fatal nearsightedness. But it is not surprising that the soul element so often remains unperceivable, if even a philosopher like William James is unable to differentiate it correctly from the physical.6The awakening of those soul faculties which, in ordinary consciousness, are unawakened is described in more detail in my book The Riddle of Man, page 132ff.
[ 5 ] With people as little able as William James to distinguish between the actual soul element and the content of what the soul experiences through the senses, it is difficult to discuss that region of our soul's being in which the development of spiritual organs is to be observed. For, this development occurs precisely where his attention is unable to direct itself. This development leads from an intellectual knowing to a knowing that sees.7For a more extensive validation of what is stated here, please see addendum 1: The Philosophical Validation of Anthroposophy.
[ 6 ] But now, through the ability to perceive the actual soul element, we have as yet fulfilled only the very first precondition, which makes it possible to direct our spiritual gaze to where anthroposophy seeks the development of soul organs. For, what meets this gaze at first compares to anthroposophy's description of a soul-being equipped with spiritual organs the way an undifferentiated living cell compares to an organism endowed with sense organs. The soul becomes conscious of possessing the individual spiritual organs themselves, however, only to the extent that it is able to use these organs. For, these organs are not something at rest; they are in continuous movement. And when they are not in use, one also cannot be conscious of their presence. For them, therefore, perceiving and being used are synonymous. In my anthroposophical writings, I describe how the development—and along with it the perceptibility—of these organs comes to light. I will indicate here only a little of what can be said in this regard.
[ 7 ] Anyone who devotes himself to reflection on the experiences caused by sense-perceptible phenomena encounters questions everywhere that this reflection seems unable to answer at first. The pursuit of such reflections leads the adherents of anthropology to set certain limits to knowledge. One need only remember how Du Bois-Reymond, in his discourse on the limits of natural science, states that one cannot know the essential nature of matter or of the simplest phenomenon of consciousness. Now one can stop short at such points in one's reflections and surrender to the opinion: there human knowledge is in fact confronted by insurmountable barriers. And one can resign oneself to the fact that knowledge is attainable only on this side of the barrier, and that beyond this only inklings, feelings, hopes, and wishes are possible, with which “science” could have nothing to do.
Or else one can start at such points to form hypotheses about a region transcending the sense-perceptible world. In this case one employs the intellect, believing that it is justified in extending its judgments out over a region of which the senses perceive nothing. In such an undertaking, one runs the risk that nonbelievers will declare that the intellect has no right to judge a reality for which it lacks the foundations of sense perceptions. For only sense perceptions could provide a content for the intellect's judgment. Without such content, its concepts must remain empty.
[ 8 ] Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science does not relate to “limits of knowledge” in either of these two ways. It does not form hypotheses about the supersensible world because it must agree with those who feel that any basis for reflection is lost if mental pictures are left in the same form as when taken from sense perceptions, and yet are to be applied in a realm transcending the sense world.
Anthroposophy does not relate to “limits of knowledge” in the first way either, because it realizes that in our encounter with these so-called limits of knowledge, something can be experienced by the soul that has nothing to do with the content of mental pictures gained from sense perception. If the soul focuses only upon this latter content, then, if its self-examination is honest, it must admit that this content can reveal nothing directly to our activity of knowing except a copy of what we experience through the senses. The situation changes if the soul goes further and asks itself: What can be experienced within the soul itself when it fills itself with those mental pictures to which it is led when confronted by our usual limits of knowledge? After sufficient self-examination, the soul can then say to itself: Through such mental pictures I cannot, in the ordinary sense of the word, know anything; but in the event that I really make this powerlessness of my knowing activity inwardly visible to myself, then I become aware how these mental pictures work within my own self. As ordinary cognitive pictures, these mental pictures remain mute; but the more their muteness communicates itself to our consciousness, the more these mental pictures take on an inner life of their own that unites with the life of the soul. And the soul then notices how, with this experience, it is in a situation comparable to that of a blind being who has also not experienced much development of its sense of touch. Such a being would at first keep bumping into things. It would feel the resistance of outer reality. And from this generalized sensation, it could develop an inner life for itself, filled with a primitive consciousness that no longer has merely the general sensation of bumping into things, but that differentiates this sensation and distinguishes between hardness and softness, smoothness and roughness, etc.
[ 9 ] In the same way, the soul can hold and differentiate its experience of the mental pictures it forms in its encounter with the limits of knowledge. The soul learns to experience that these limits represent nothing more than what arises when the soul is touched by the spiritual world in a soul way. The dawning awareness of such limits becomes an experience for the soul that can be compared with the experience of touch in the sense world.8Limits to knowledge like those discussed above do not merely present themselves in the small number of which most people are aware; they occur in great number along the paths that intelligent reflection, according to its own inner nature, must take in order to gain a relation to true reality. Please see addendum 2: The Appearance of Limits to Knowledge. What the soul formerly regarded as limits to knowledge it now sees as a soul-spiritual touching by a spiritual world. And out of the soul's attentiveness to its experiences with the various pictures it makes for itself at this borderland, the general sensing of a spiritual world differentiates for the soul into diverse perceptions of a spiritual world. In this way, the spiritual world's lowest form of perceptibility, so to speak, becomes an experience. This characterizes merely the very first opening of the soul to the spiritual world. But it also shows that the spiritual experiences striven for in what I mean by anthroposophy do not point in the direction of general, nebulous, emotional experiences that the soul has of itself, but rather in the direction of something that can be developed in a lawful way into a true inner experience. This is not the place to show how this first primitive spiritual perception can be intensified by further soul practices in such a way that one can speak of other, in a certain way, higher kinds of perception besides this soul-spiritual blind groping. For a description of such soul practices I must refer the reader to my anthroposophical books and essays. Here only the basic principle of spiritual perception was to be indicated of which anthroposophy speaks.
[ 10 ] I would like, through a comparison, to clarify still further how the whole attitude of soul in anthroposophical spiritual investigation differs from that of anthropology. Picture to yourself a number of wheat kernels. These can be used as food. But one can also plant them in the earth so that other wheat plants can grow from them. Likewise, one can hold mental pictures—gained through sense impressions—within one's consciousness in such a way as to experience them as copies of sense-perceptible reality. Or, one can experience these mental pictures in such a way as to let work in the soul the power these pictures exercise through what they are, irrespective of the fact that they reproduce sense perceptions. The first way that mental pictures were described as working in the soul can be compared with what becomes of wheat kernels when they are taken up as food by a living being; the second way, with the production of a new wheat plant from each kernel.
This comparison, to be sure, is only meant to focus on the fact that from the seed there arises a plant similar to its progenitors; and that from a mental picture working in the soul there arises within the soul a power that is effective in developing spiritual organs. And one must also consider the fact that our first awareness of such inner powers can only be kindled by mental pictures that work as forcefully as those mental pictures we described as occurring at the borderland of knowledge; once awakened, however, this awareness of such powers can find other mental pictures that can also be effective—to a lesser degree, it is true—in helping one progress upon this path.
[ 11 ] At the same time, this comparison points to a result of anthroposophical investigation into the essential nature of our life in mental pictures. Just as a seed, when it is processed into food, is lifted out of the course of development that lies within its own primal being and that leads to the formation of a new plant, so a mental picture too is diverted from its own essential course of development when it is used by the picturing soul to reproduce a sense perception. The development particular to a mental picture through its own essential nature is to work as a power in the development of the soul. Just as little as one discovers the plant's laws of development when one investigates the nutritive value of its seeds, can one discover the essential nature of mental pictures when one investigates the way mental picturing brings forth a cognitive reproduction of the sense-perceptible reality it communicates. This does not mean to say that such an investigation cannot be undertaken. This is just as possible as investigating the nutritive value of seeds. But just as a study of the nutritive value of seeds addresses something different than the developmental laws of plant growth, so an epistemology that investigates how the cognitive power of mental pictures reproduces reality informs us about something different than the essential nature of our life of mental picturing. Just as little as it lies prefigured in the essential nature of a seed to become food, does it lie in the essential nature of mental picturing to provide cognitive reproductions of reality. Yes, we can even say that it is as completely external to the seed's own nature to use it as food as it is to the actual nature of mental pictures to use them to reproduce reality in cognition. The truth is that in its mental pictures the soul grasps its own evolving being. And only through the soul's own activity does it occur that mental pictures become the mediators of any knowledge of reality.9A more detailed case is made for these views in the last chapter of my book The Riddles of Philosophy: “Sketch of a Perspective of an Anthroposophy.”
[ 12 ] Now, as to how mental pictures become mediators of such knowledge, anthroposophical observation, which employs spiritual organs, arrives at different conclusions than those epistemologists do who reject this observation. Anthroposophical observation reveals the following.
[ 13 ] Mental pictures, as they are in their own primal nature, do in fact form a part of the life of the soul; but they cannot become conscious in the soul as long as the soul does not consciously employ its spiritual organs. As long as these mental pictures are active in a way corresponding to their own essential nature, they remain unconscious in the soul. The soul lives by virtue of them, but can know nothing of them. These mental pictures must dampen down their own life in order to become conscious soul experiences for ordinary consciousness. This dampening down occurs with every sense perception. Thus, when the soul receives a sense impression, there occurs a laming of our life in mental pictures; and the soul experiences this lamed mental picturing consciously as the mediator of our knowledge of external reality.10Please see addendum 3: The Abstractness of Our Concepts. All mental pictures that the soul relates to an outer sense-perceptible reality are inner spiritual experiences whose life has been dampened down. Everything that one thinks regarding the outer sense world consists of deadened mental pictures. Now it is not as though the life of mental pictures were lost, however; it leads its existence, separated from the realm of consciousness, in the unconscious spheres of the soul. And there it is to be found again by our spiritual organs. Now, just as the deadened mental pictures can be related by the soul to the sense world, so the living mental pictures grasped by our spiritual organs can be related to the spiritual world.
The mental pictures described above as occurring to us at the borderland of knowledge are those that, by their very nature, do not let themselves be lamed; therefore, they resist any relation to sense-perceptible reality. Precisely through this fact, they become the points of departure for spiritual perception.
[ 14 ] In my anthroposophical books, I have called the mental pictures that are grasped as living ones by the soul “Imaginative mental pictures.” One misunderstands what is meant here by “Imaginative,” if one confuses it with the pictorial form of expression that must be used to point to such mental pictures in a suitable way. What is actually meant by "Imaginative" can be clarified in the following way. When someone has a sense perception, while the outer object is making an impression on him, the perception has a certain inner strength for him. When he turns away from the object, he can then only represent it to himself in an inner picture. But this mental picture has little inner strength. It is shadowy, so to speak, when compared with the mental picture that occurs while the outer object is present. If a person wants to enliven the mental pictures that are present in his soul in the shadowy form characteristic of ordinary consciousness, he saturates them with the aftereffects of sense perception. He makes the mental picture into an image he can observe [inwardly]. Such images are certainly nothing other than the results of interaction between mental picturing and sense perception. The “Imaginative” mental pictures of anthroposophy do not arise at all in this way. In order to bring them forth, the soul must know this inner process of uniting the life of mental pictures with sense impressions so exactly that it can prevent any sense impressions—or their aftereffects, as the case may be—from flowing into its life of mental picturing. One can achieve this exclusion of perception's aftereffects only if one has learned to know how mental picturing is gripped by these aftereffects. Only then is one in a position to unite the spiritual organs in a living way with the essential being of mental picturing and thereby receive impressions from spiritual reality. Through this, the life of mental pictures is permeated from an entirely different quarter than in sense perception. One's experiences are essentially different from those to be had from sense perceptions. And yet it is possible to describe these experiences. This can be done in the following way.
When the human being perceives the color yellow he does not merely have a visual experience in his soul; a nuance of feeling accompanies what the soul experiences. This feeling may vary in strength from person to person, but it will never be totally absent. In the beautiful chapter of his Color Theory on the sensory-ethical effects of colors, Goethe describes in a quite vivid manner the participation of our feeling in red, yellow, green, etc. Now when the soul perceives something in a particular region of the spirit, it can happen that this spiritual perception is accompanied in the soul by the same nuance of feeling as occurs in the sense perception of yellow. One knows then that one is having a particular spiritual experience. In this mental picture, of course, one does not confront what one confronts in a sense perception of a yellow color. Yet, as a nuance of feeling, one has the same inner experience as when the eye is confronted by a yellow color. One says then: I perceive the spiritual experience as “yellow.” In order to express oneself even more exactly, one could perhaps say: I perceive something that is like “yellow” for my soul. But this description is unnecessary for anyone who has learned from anthroposophical literature how the process leading to spiritual perception occurs. This literature points clearly enough to the fact that the reality accessible to spiritual perception does not confront the spiritual organs like a rarefied sense-perceptible object or process, or in such a way that it could be reproduced through mental pictures that are perceptible in the ordinary way.11For further clarification of what has just been expressed, please see addendum 4: An Important Characteristic of Spiritual Perception.
[ 15 ] Just as the soul, through its spiritual organs, learns to know the spiritual world lying outside of the human being, so it also learns to know the spiritual being of man himself. Anthroposophy regards this spiritual being as a member of the spiritual world. Anthroposophy proceeds from observation of one part of the spiritual world to mental pictures about the human being of what reveals itself in the human body as a spiritual human being. Working from the opposite direction, anthropology also arrives at mental pictures about the human being. When anthroposophy develops the kinds of observations described in this essay, it arrives at views about the spiritual being of man that manifests in the sense world through its body. The flower of this manifestation is human consciousness, which allows sense impressions to live on in the form of mental pictures. By proceeding from experiences of the spiritual world outside man to man himself, anthroposophy ultimately finds the human being living in a sense-perceptible body and, in this body, elaborating his consciousness of sense-perceptible reality. The last thing anthroposophy, on its path, discovers about the human being is the soul's living activity in mental pictures, which anthroposophy is able to express in coherent imaginative pictures. Then, at the end of its path of spiritual investigation, so to speak, anthroposophy can employ its vision further and see how the real life of mental pictures is lamed by the perceiving senses. With the light it sheds from the spiritual quarter, anthroposophy shows this lamed life of mental pictures to be characteristic of man's life in the sense world, insofar as he forms mental pictures. In this way, as one of the last results of its investigations, anthroposophy arrives at a philosophy of the human being. What lies on its path down to this point is to be found purely in a spiritual realm. With the results of what it has found on its spiritual path, anthroposophy arrives at a characterization of the human being who lives in the sense world.
[ 16 ] Anthropology investigates the realms of the sense world. Proceeding on its way, it also arrives at the human being. He presents himself to anthropology as drawing together the facts of the sense world in his bodily organization in such a way that from this drawing together a consciousness arises through which outer reality is presented in mental pictures. The anthropologist sees mental pictures arising from the human organism. In observing this, he must come to a halt in a certain sense. With mere anthropology, he cannot apprehend the inner, lawful connectedness of mental pictures. Just as anthroposophy, at the end of its path through spiritual experiences, still looks at the spiritual being of man—insofar as this manifests through the perceptions of the senses—so anthropology, at the end of its path through the sense world, must look at the way the sense perceptible human being is active in mental picturing in its encounter with sense perceptions. And when it observes this, anthropology finds that this activity is not sustained by the organic laws of the body, but by the thought-laws of logic. But logic is not a region that can be entered in the same way as the other regions of anthropology. In thinking that is governed by logic, laws hold sway that can no longer be regarded as those of the bodily organization. As the human being works with these laws, the same logical activity reveals itself in him that anthroposophy encounters at the end of its path. It is just that the anthropologist sees this logical activity in the light shed from the sense-perceptible realm. He sees the lamed mental pictures and, by acknowledging the existence of logic, he also concedes that in these mental pictures laws are operative from a world that is indeed united with the sense world, but does not coincide with it. In man's life of mental pictures, which is carried by a logical activity, there manifests to the anthropologist the sense-perceptible human being who extends into the spiritual world. In this way, as the final results of its investigations, anthropology arrives at a philosophy about the human being. What lies on its path up to this point lies purely in the sense world.12Like the thoughts before footnote 7, what has been indicated here can be clarified further in a certain direction by addendum 1: The Philosophical Validation of Anthroposophy.
[ 17 ] If these two paths—the anthroposophical and the anthropological—are followed in the right way, they meet at the same point. Anthroposophy brings with it to this meeting a picture of the living spiritual human being and shows how he develops, in sense-perceptible existence, the consciousness that is present between birth and death while the life of supersensible consciousness is lamed. Anthropology, at this meeting point, shows a picture of the sense-perceptible human being who apprehends himself in consciousness, but who extends up into spiritual existence and lives in that essential beingness which reaches beyond birth and death. At this meeting point, a really fruitful understanding is possible between anthroposophy and anthropology. This understanding will occur if both progress to a philosophy of the human being. The philosophy of the human being that emerges from anthroposophy will in fact produce a picture of him painted in an entirely different medium than that provided by an anthropological philosophy of the human being; but those who look at both pictures will be able to find a harmony between their mental pictures similar to that between the negative of a photograph and the corresponding positive print.
[ 18 ] This essay, I hope, has shown how the question raised at the beginning—about the possibility of a fruitful discussion between anthropology and anthroposophy—can be answered in the affirmative, especially from the anthroposophical point of view.
I. Anthroposophie und Anthropologie
[ 1 ] Max Dessoirs Buch «Vom Jenseits der Seele» enthält einen kurzen Abschnitt, in dem die von mir vertretene anthroposophisch orientierte Geisteswissenschaft als wissenschaftlich unberechtigt gekennzeichnet werden soll. 1 Vergleiche Max Dessoir: «Vom Jenseits der Seele», die Geheimwissenschaften in kritischer Betrachtung. Der im besonderen über Anthroposophie handelnde Abschnitt umfaßt die Seiten 254-263. Nun könnte es manchem scheinen, als ob eine Diskussion mit Persönlichkeiten, welche auf dem wissenschaftlichen Gesichtspunkte Dessoirs stehen, für den Vertreter der geisteswissenschaftlichen Anthroposophie unter allen Umständen unfruchtbar sein müsse. Denn der letztere muß ein rein geistiges Erfahrungsgebiet behaupten, das der erstere grundsätzlich ablehnt und in den Bereich der Phantasiegebilde verweist. Man könne also über die in Betracht kommenden geisteswissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse nur mit jemand sprechen, der von vorneherein Gründe zu haben glaubt dafür, daß das gemeinte geisteswissenschaftliche Gebiet eine Wirklichkeit ist. - Diese Ansicht wäre richtig, wenn der Vertreter der Anthroposophie nichts anderes vorbrächte als seine inneren persönlichen Erlebnisse, und diese sich einfach neben die Ergebnisse der auf Sinnesbeobachtung und wissenschaftliche Verarbeitung dieser Beobachtung begründeten Wissenschaft hinstellten. Dann könnte man sagen: der Bekenner der so gekennzeichneten Wissenschaft lehne es eben ab, die Erlebnisse des Erforschers des Geistgebietes als Wirklichkeiten anzusehen, und dieser könne mit dem von ihm Vorgebrachten nur auf solche Persönlichkeiten Eindruck machen, die von vorneherein sich auf seinen Gesichtspunkt stellen.
[ 2 ] Nun beruht aber diese Meinung doch nur auf einer mißverständlichen Auffassung dessen, was von mir Anthroposophie genannt wird. Richtig ist, daß diese Anthroposophie auf seelischen Erfahrungen beruht, die unabhängig von den Eindrücken der Sinneswelt und auch unabhängig von den wissenschaftlichen Urteilen gewonnen werden, die nur auf die Sinneseindrücke sich stützen. Es muß also zugegeben werden, daß beide Arten von Erfahrungen zunächst wie durch eine unübersteigliche Kluft geschieden scheinen. - Doch dieses entspricht nicht der Wahrheit. Es gibt ein gemeinsames Gebiet, auf dem sich beide Forschungsrichtungen begegnen müssen, und auf dem eine Diskussion möglich ist über dasjenige, was von der einen und der anderen vorgebracht wird. Dies gemeinsame Gebiet läßt sich auf die folgende Art kennzeichnen.
[ 3 ] Der Vertreter der Anthroposophie glaubt aus Erfahrungen heraus, die nicht nur seine persönlichen Erlebnisse sind, behaupten zu dürfen, daß die menschlichen Erkenntnisvorgänge von dem Punkte an weiter entwickelt werden können, bei dem derjenige Forscher halt macht, der sich nur auf Sinnesbeobachtung und Verstandesurteil über diese Sinnesbeobachtung stützen will. Ich möchte in dem Folgenden, um fortwährenden langatmigen Umschreibungen zu entgehen, die auf Sinnesbeobachtung und verstandesgemäße Bearbeitung der Sinnesbeobachtung gestützte Wissenschaftsrichtung Anthropologie nennen und bitte den Leser, mir diesen nicht gewöhnlichen Gebrauch dieses Ausdruckes zu gestatten. Er soll in den folgenden Ausführungen nur für das hier Gekennzeichnete angewendet werden. In diesem Sinne meint Anthroposophie mit ihrer Forschung da beginnen zu können, wo Anthropologie aufhört. 2Obgleich dasjenige, was von mir als «Anthroposophie» vertreten wird, in seinen Ergebnissen auf einem ganz anderen Boden steht als die Ausführungen Robert Zimmermanns in seinem 1881 erschienenen Buche «Anthroposophie», so glaube ich doch den von Zimmermann gekennzeichneten Begriff des Unterschiedes von Anthroposophie und Anthropologie gebrauchen zu dürfen. Zimmermann faßt aber als den Inhalt seiner «Anthroposophie» nur die von der Anthropologie gelieferten Begriffe in ein abstraktes Schema. Ihm liegt das erkennende Schauen, auf dem die von mir gemeinte Anthroposophie ruht, nicht im Bereiche der wissenschaftlichen Forschungswege. Seine Anthroposophie unterscheidet sich von der Anthropologie nur dadurch, daß die erstere die von der letzteren erhaltenen Begriffe erst einem dem Herbartschen Philosophieren ähnlichen Verfahren unterwirft, bevor sie dieselben zum Inhalte ihres rein verstandesmäßigen Ideen-Schemas macht.
[ 4 ] Der Vertreter der Anthropologie bleibt dabei stehen, die in der Seele erlebbaren Verstandesbegriffe auf die Sinneserlebnisse zu beziehen. Der Vertreter der Anthroposophie macht die Erfahrung, daß diese Begriffe, abgesehen davon, daß sie auf die Sinneseindrücke bezogen werden sollen, noch ein eigenes Leben für sich in der Seele entfalten können. Und daß sie, indem sie dieses Leben innerhalb der Seele entfalten, in dieser selbst eine Entwickelung zustande bringen. Er wird sich bewußt, wie die Seele, wenn sie auf diese Entwickelung die notwendige Aufmerksamkeit wendet, innerhalb ihres Wesens die Entdeckung macht, daß sich in ihr Geistorgane offenbaren. (Ich gebrauche diesen Ausdruck «Geistorgane», indem ich erweiternd den Sprachgebrauch aufnehme, dem Goethe aus seiner Weltanschauung heraus gefolgt ist, als er die Ausdrücke «Geistes-Augen», «Geistes-Ohren» anwandte.) 3Eine ausführlichere Darstellung und Rechtfertigung dieser Vorstellung von «Geistorganen» findet man in meinem Buche «Vom Menschenrätsel» Seite 146 ff. und in meinen auf Goethes Weltanschauung bezüglichen Schriften. Solche Geistorgane stellen dann für die Seele Bildungen dar, die für sie ähnlich gedacht werden dürfen wie die Sinnesorgane für den Leib. Selbstverständlich dürfen sie nur seelisch gedacht werden. Jeder Versuch, sie mit irgendeiner leiblichen Bildung zusammenzubringen, muß von der Anthroposophie strengstens abgelehnt werden. Sie muß ihre Geistorgane so vorstellen, daß sie in keiner Weise aus dem Bereich des Seelischen heraustreten und in das Gefüge des Leiblichen übergreifen. Ihr gilt ein solches Übergreifen als krankhafte Bildung, die sie aus ihrem Bereich streng ausschließt. Die Art, wie innerhalb der Anthroposophie über die Entwickelung der Geistorgane gedacht wird, sollte für denjenigen, der sich über diese Art wirklich unterrichtet, ein genügend starker Beweis sein dafür, daß über abnorme Seelenerlebnisse, über Illusionen, Visionen, Halluzinationen usw. für den Erforscher des wirklichen Geistgebietes keine anderen Vorstellungen vorhanden sind als die auch innerhalb der Anthropologie berechtigten. 4Die inneren Erlebnisse, welche von der Seele durchzumachen sind, um zu dem Gehrauch ihrer Geistorgane zu kommen, findet man in einer Reihe meiner Schriften geschildert, besonders in meinem Buche: «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» und im zweiten Teile meiner «Geheimwissenschaft». Eine Verwechselung der anthroposophischen Ergebnisse mit abnormen sogenannten Seelenerlebnissen beruht immer auf Mißverständnis oder ungenügender Kenntnis des in der Anthroposophie Gemeinten. Auch kann derjenige, der einsichtsvoll verfolgt, wie Anthroposophie den Weg zur Entwickelung der Geistorgane darstellt, gewiß nicht auf die Meinung verfallen, dieser Weg könne zu krankhaften Bildungen oder Zuständen führen. Der Einsichtsvolle sollte vielmehr erkennen, daß alle Stufen des seelischen Erfahrens, welche der Mensch im Sinne der Anthroposophie auf dem Wege zur Geist-Anschauung erlebt, in einem Gebiete liegen, das ganz nur seelisch ist, und neben dem das Erleben der Sinne und die gewöhnliche Verstandestätigkeit unverändert so verlaufen, wie sie vor der Entstehung dieses Gebietes verlaufen sind. Daß gerade in bezug auf diese Seite der anthroposophischen Erkenntnis viele Mißverständnisse herrschen, rührt davon her, daß es manchen Menschen Schwierigkeiten bereitet, ein rein Seelisches in den Bereich ihrer Aufmerksamkeit zu ziehen. Solche Menschen werden sogleich verlassen von der Kraft ihres Vorstellen, wenn dieses nicht gestützt ist durch den Hinblick auf sinnlich Wahrnehmbares. Es dämpft sich dann deren Vorstellungskraft herunter selbst unter das Maß von Stärke, die im Träumen herrscht, bis zu jenem niedrigen Grade, der für das Vorstellen im traumlosen Schlafe vorhanden ist, und der nicht mehr bewußt wird. Man kann sagen, solche Menschen sind in ihrem Bewußtsein erfüllt von den Nachwirkungen oder der unmittelbaren Wirkung der Sinnes-Eindrücke, und es geht neben diesem Erfüllt-Sein ein Verschlafen alles dessen einher, das als Seelisches erkannt würde, wenn es erfaßt werden könnte. Man kann sogar sagen, daß das Seelische in seiner Eigenart deshalb von vielen Menschen dem schärfsten Mißverständnis ausgesetzt wird, nur weil sie gegenüber demselben nicht in der gleichen Art aufwachen können wie gegenüber dem sinnlichen Inhalt des Bewußtseins. Daß Menschen mit nur denjenigen Aufmerksamkeitsgraden, welche das gewöhnliche äußere Leben bewirkt, In solcher Lage sind, braucht niemand in Verwunderung zu versetzen, der im rechten Lichte zum Beispiel zu sehen vermag, welche Lehre aus einem Vorwürfe zu ziehen ist, den Franz Brentano dem Philosophen William James mit Bezug auf diese Sache machen muß. Brentano schreibt, daß man «zwischen der empfindenden Tätigkeit und dem, worauf sie gerichtet ist, also zwischen Empfinden und Empfundenem, zu unterscheiden» habe («und sie sind so sicher verschieden als mein gegenwärtiges Mich-Erinnern und das Ereignis, das mir dabei als vergangen vorschwebt, oder, um einen noch drastischeren Vergleich anzuwenden, mein Haß eines Feindes und der Gegenstand dieses Hasses verschieden sind») und er macht dazu die Bemerkung, daß man den Irrtum, gegen den sich diese Worte richten, «da und dort auftauchen» sehe. Er sagt weiter: «Unter anderen hat William James ihn sich eigen gemacht, und auf dem Internationalen Kongreß für Psychologie, Rom 1905, in längerer Rede zu begründen versucht. Weil mir, wenn ich in einen Saal blicke, zugleich mit dem Saal auch mein Sehen erscheint; weil ferner Phantasiebilder von sinnlichen Gegenständen sich von objektiv erregten Sinnesbildern derselben nur graduell unterscheiden; weil endlich Körper von uns schön genannt werden, der Unterschied von Schön und Häßlich aber zu dem Unterschiede von Gemütsbewegungen in Beziehung steht: so sollen psychisches und physisches Phänomen nicht mehr als zwei Klassen von Erscheinungen gelten. Es ist mir schwer verständlich, wie sich dem Redner selbst die Schwäche dieser Argumente nicht fühlbar gemacht hat. Zugleich erscheinen heißt nicht als dasselbe erscheinen, wie zugleich sein nicht so viel ist als dasselbe sein. Und darum konnte Descartes ohne Widerspruch empfehlen, zunächst wenigstens zu leugnen, daß der Saal, den ich sehe, sei, und nur daran, daß das Sehen des Saales sei, als an etwas Unzweifelhaftem festzuhalten. Ist aber das erste Argument hinfällig, dann offenbar auch das zweite; denn was verschlüge es, wenn ein Phantasieren von einem Sehen sich nur durch den Intensitätsgrad unterschiede, da, selbst wenn auch dieser ausgeglichen wäre, die volle Gleichheit des Phantasierens mit dem Sehen nach eben dem Gesagten nur die Gleichheit mit einem psychischen Phänomen bedeuten würde? Im dritten Argument wird von Schönheit gesprochen ... Es ist nun aber gewiß eine seltsame Logik, welche daraus, daß »das Wohlgefallen am Schönen« etwas Psychisches ist, schließen will, daß auch das, an dessen Erscheinung es geknüpft ist, etwas Psychisches sein müsse. Wäre dies richtig, so wäre auch jedes Mißfallen identisch mit dem, woran einer ein Mißfallen hat, und man müßte sich wohl hüten, einen begangenen Fehler zu bereuen, da in dieser mit ihm identischen Reue der Fehltritt selbst sich wiederholen würde. - Bei solcher Lage der Dinge dürfte es denn doch nicht wohl zu fürchten sein, daß die Autorität von James, der sich leider unter den deutschen Psychologen die eines Mach gesellt, viele dazu verleiten werde, die augenfälligsten Unterschiede zu verkennen.» 5Vergleiche Franz Brentano: «Untersuchungen zur Sinnespsychologie» (Leipzig, 1907), Seite 96 f. Jedenfalls ist diese «Verkennung der augenfälligsten Unterschiede» keine seltene Tatsache. Und sie beruht darauf, daß die Kraft des Vorstellens die nötige Aufmerksamkeit nur für den Sinneseindruck entfalten kann, während das eigentlich Seelische, das dabei vorgeht, dem Bewußtsein sich nicht stärker vergegenwärtigt als das im Zustand des Schlafes Erlebte. Man hat es mit zwei Strömungen von Erlebnissen zu tun, von denen die eine wachend erfaßt, die andere aber - die seelische - gleichzeitig nur mit einer der abgeschwächten Vorstellungskraft des Schlafes gleichkommenden, also fast mit gar keiner Aufmerksamkeit ergriffen wird. Es darf eben durchaus nicht außer acht gelassen werden, daß während des gewöhnlichen Wachzustandes des Menschen die seelische Verfassung des Schlafes nicht einfach aufhört, sondern neben dem Wachen fortdauert, und daß das eigentlich Seelische nur dann in den Bereich des Wahrnehmens tritt, wenn der Mensch nicht bloß für die Sinneswelt erwacht, wie dies im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein stattfindet, sondern auch für das seelische Dasein, wie das im schauenden Bewußtsein der Fall ist. Ob nun durch das im Wachen fortdauernde Schlafen für das Seelische dieses letztere - im grob materialistischen Sinne - geleugnet wird, oder ob, weil es nicht gesehen, mit dem Physischen zusammengeworfen wird, wie im Falle James’, ist fast gleichgültig; die Ergebnisse sind fast die gleichen: beides führt zu verhängnisvollen Kurzsichtigkeiten. Nicht verwunderlich aber ist, daß so oft das Seelische unwahrnehmbar bleibt, wenn selbst ein Philosoph wie W. James es nicht in richtiger Art von dem Physischen zu scheiden vermag. 6Genaueres über dieses Erwachen derjenigen seelischen Fähigkeiten, welche im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein unerwacht sind, findet man in meinem Buche «Vom Menschenrätsel» Seite 156 ff.
[ 5 ] Wer so wenig wie W. James das wesentlich Seelenhafte von den durch die Sinne erlebten Seelen-Inhalten absondern kann, mit dem läßt sich schwer sprechen von demjenigen Gebiete im Seelendasein, innerhalb dessen die Entwickelung der Geistorgane beobachtet werden soll. Denn diese Entwickelung geht eben dort vor sich, wohin sich seine Aufmerksamkeit nicht zu wenden vermag. Sie führt von dem verstandesmäßigen zum schauenden Erkennen. 7Eine noch weiter gehende Begründung dieser Ausführungen findet man in den am Schlusse stehenden «Skizzenhaften Erweiterungen des Inhaltes dieser Schrift»: «I. Die philosophische Rechtfertigung der Anthroposophie.»
[ 6 ] Nun ist aber durch die Fähigkeit, das wesenhaft Seelische wahrzunehmen, noch nichts weiter erreicht, als eine allererste Vorbedingung, die es möglich macht, den geistigen Blick dahin zu lenken, wo die Anthroposophie die Entwickelung der Seelenorgane sucht. Denn, was sich zunächst diesem Blicke darbietet, das verhält sich zu dem, wovon Anthroposophie als von dem mit Geistorganen ausgerüsteten Seelenwesen spricht, wie eine undifferenzierte lebendige Zelle zu einem mit Sinnesorganen ausgestatteten Lebewesen. Die einzelnen Geistorgane selbst aber werden nur in dem Maße der Seele als ihr Besitz bewußt, in dem sie dieselben zu gebrauchen vermag. Denn diese Organe sind nicht etwas Ruhendes; sie sind in fortwährender Beweglichkeit. Und wenn sie nicht im Gebrauche sind, kann man sich auch ihres Vorhandenseins nicht bewußt sein. Für sie fällt also Wahrnehmen und im Gebrauche Stehen zusammen. Wie die Entwickelung dieser Organe und damit auch ihre Wahrnehmbarkeit zutage tritt, das findet man in meinen anthroposophischen Schriften geschildert. Ich will hier nur auf einiges in dieser Richtung Liegendes hinweisen.
[ 7 ] Wer sich dem Nachdenken über die durch die Sinnes-Erscheinungen bewirkten Erlebnisse hingibt, der stößt überall auf Fragen, zu deren Beantwortung ihm dieses Nachdenken zunächst unzulänglich erscheint. Im Verfolg solchen Nachdenkens kommen die Vertreter der Anthropologie zur Festlegung von Erkenntnisgrenzen. Es braucht nur daran erinnert zu werden, wie Du Bois-Reymond in seiner Rede über die Grenzen des Naturerkennens davon spricht, daß man nicht wissen könne, welches das Wesen der Materie ist, und welches dasjenige der einfachsten Bewußtseinserscheinung. Man kann nun an solchen Punkten des Nachdenkens stehen bleiben und sich der Meinung hingeben: da liegen eben für den Menschen unübersteigliche Erkenntnisschranken. Und man kann demgemäß sich dabei beruhigen, daß der Mensch nur innerhalb des von diesen Schranken umschlossenen Gebietes ein Wissen erlangen könne und darüber hinaus nur ein Ahnen, Fühlen, Hoffen, Wünschen möglich sei, mit denen eine «Wissenschaft» nichts zu tun haben könne. - Oder man kann in diesem Punkte anheben, Hypothesen auszubilden über ein Gebiet, das über das Sinnlich-Wahrnehmbare hinausliegt. Man bedient sich in einem solchen Falle des Verstandes, von dem man glaubt, daß er seine Urteile über ein Gebiet ausdehnen dürfe, von dem die Sinne nichts wahrnehmen. Man wird sich mit einem solchen Verfahren der Gefahr aussetzen, daß der in dieser Beziehung Ungläubige erwidert, der Verstand habe keine Berechtigung, über eine Wirklichkeit zu urteilen, für die ihm die Grundlage der Sinneswahrnehmungen entzogen ist. Denn diese allein gäben seinen Urteilen einen Inhalt. Ohne einen solchen Inhalt blieben seine Begriffe leer.
[ 8 ] Die anthroposophisch orientierte Geisteswissenschaft verhält sich nicht in der einen und nicht in der andern dieser beiden Arten zu den «Erkenntnisgrenzen». In der zweiten nicht, weil sie mit denjenigen der gleichen Ansicht sein muß, welche empfinden, daß man gewissermaßen allen Boden für das Nachdenken verliert, wenn man die Vorstellungen so beläßt, wie man sie an den Sinneswahrnehmungen gewonnen hat, und sie doch über dieses Gebiet hinaus anwenden will. - In der ersten Art nicht, weil sie gewahr wird, daß sich an den sogenannten Grenzen des Erkennens etwas seelisch erleben läßt, das mit dem aus der Sinneswahrnehmung gewonnenen Vorstellungs-Inhalt nichts zu tun hat. Wenn die Seele nur diesen Inhalt sich vergegenwärtigt, dann muß sie bei wahrer Selbstbesinnung sich sagen: dieser Inhalt kann unmittelbar nicht etwas anderes dem Erkennen offenbaren als eine Nachbildung des sinnlich Erlebten. Anders wird die Sache, wenn die Seele dazu übergeht, sich zu fragen: was läßt sich in ihr selbst erfahren, wenn sie mit solchen Vorstellungen sich erfüllt, zu denen sie an den gewöhnlichen Erkenntnisgrenzen geführt wird? Sie kann sich dann bei entsprechender Selbstbesinnung sagen: erkennen im gewöhnlichen Sinne kann ich mit solchen Vorstellungen nichts; aber in dem Falle, in dem ich mir diese Ohnmacht des Erkennens recht innerlich anschaulich mache, werde ich gewahr, wie diese Vorstellungen in mir selbst wirken. Als gewöhnliche Erkenntnisvorstellungen bleiben sie stumm; aber in eben dem Maße, als sich ihre Stummheit dem Bewußtsein immer mehr mitteilt, gewinnen sie ein eigenes inneres Leben, das mit dem Leben der Seele eine Einheit wird. Und die Seele bemerkt dann, wie sie mit diesem Erleben in einer Lage ist, die sich etwa mit der Lage eines blinden Wesens vergleichen läßt, das auch noch keine besondere Ausbildung seines Tastsinnes erfahren hat. Ein solches Wesen würde zunächst überall hin anstoßen. Es würde den Widerstand der äußeren Wirklichkeiten empfinden. Und aus dieser allgemeinen Empfindung könnte sich ein inneres Leben entwickeln, erfüllt von einem primitiven Bewußtsein, das nicht mehr bloß die allgemeine Empfindung hat: ich stoße an Dinge, sondern das diese Empfindung in sich vermannigfaltigt und Härte von Weichheit, Glätte von Rauhigkeit usw. unterscheidet.
[ 9 ] In dieser Art kann die Seele das Erlebnis in sich erfahren und vermannigfaltigen, das sie mit den an den Erkenntnisgrenzen gebildeten Vorstellungen hat. Sie lernt erfahren, daß diese Grenzen nichts anderes darstellen als dasjenige, was entsteht, wenn sie von der geistigen Welt seelisch berührt wird. Das Gewahrwerden solcher Grenzen wird der Seele zu einem Erlebnis, das sich vergleichen läßt mit dem Tast-Erlebnis auf dem sinnlichen Gebiete. 8Erkenntnisgrenzen wie die oben besprochenen treten nicht bloß in der geringen Zahl auf, in der sie manchem zum Bewußtsein kommen; sie ergeben sich in großer Menge auf den Wegen, die das Nachdenken durch sein inneres Wesen einschlagen muß, um in ein Verhältnis zur wahren Wirklichkeit zu kommen. Man vergleiche dazu in dem letzten Abschnitt «Skizzenhafte Erweiterungen des Inhaltes dieser Schrift» das Kapitel: «Das Auftreten der Erkenntnisgrenzen.» Was sie vorher als Grenze des Erkennens bezeichnet hat, in dem sieht sie nunmehr die geistig-seelische Berührung durch eine geistige Welt. Und aus dem besonnenen Erleben, das sie mit den verschiedenen Grenzvorstellungen haben kann, besondert sich ihr die allgemeine Empfindung einer geistigen Welt zu einem mannigfaltigen Wahrnehmen derselben. Auf solche Art wird die gewissermaßen niedrigste Art der Wahrnehmbarkeit der geistigen Welt zum Erlebnis. Es ist damit nur das erste Aufschließen der Seele für die geistige Welt gekennzeichnet. Aber es ist auch gezeigt, daß in demjenigen, was die von mir gemeinte Anthroposophie als geistige Erlebnisse anstrebt, nicht auf allgemeine nebulose gefühlsmäßige Selbsterlebnisse der Seele gedeutet wird, sondern auf etwas, das in gesetzmäßiger Art in einem wirklichen inneren Erleben entwickelt wird. Es kann hier nicht der Ort sein, zu zeigen, wie die erste primitive Geist-Wahrnehmung durch weitere seelische Verrichtungen gesteigert wird, so daß, wie von einem geistig-seelischen Tasten, auch von anderen gewissermaßen höheren Wahrnehmungsarten gesprochen werden kann. Es muß bezüglich der Schilderung solcher seelischer Verrichtungen auf meine anthroposophischen Bücher und Aufsätze verwiesen werden. Hier sollte nur das Prinzipielle angedeutet werden über die geistige Wahrnehmung, von welcher die Anthroposophie spricht.
[ 10 ] Durch einen Vergleich möchte ich noch veranschaulichen, wie anders das ganze Verhalten der Seele innerhalb der anthroposophischen Geistes-Erforschung ist als in der Anthropologie. Man stelle sich eine Anzahl von Weizenkörnern vor. Man kann diese als Nahrungsmittel verwenden. Man kann sie aber auch in die Erde setzen, sodaß sich andere Weizenpflanzen aus ihnen entwickeln. Man kann Vorstellungen, die man durch die Sinnes-Erlebnisse gewonnen hat, so im Bewußtsein halten, daß man in ihnen das Nachbilden der sinnenfälligen Wirklichkeit erlebt. Und man kann sie auch so erleben, daß man die Kraft in der Seele wirksam sein läßt, die sie in derselben durch dasjenige ausüben, was sie sind, abgesehen davon, daß sie ein Sinnliches abbilden. Die erste Wirkungsweise der Vorstellungen in der Seele läßt sich vergleichen mit dem, was durch die Weizenkörner wird, wenn sie als Nahrungsmittel von einem Lebewesen aufgenommen werden. Die zweite mit der Hervorbringung einer neuen Weizenpflanze durch jedes Samenkorn. - Der Vergleich darf allerdings nur so gedacht werden, daß man berücksichtigt: aus dem Samenkorn wird eine der Vorfahren-Pflanze ähnliche; aus der in der Seele wirksamen Vorstellung wird innerhalb der Seele eine der Bildung von Geistorganen dienliche Kraft. Und berücksichtigt muß auch werden, daß das erste Bewußtsein solcher inneren Kräfte nur an so stark wirksamen Vorstellungen entzündet werden kann, wie es die gekennzeichneten Grenzvorstellungen sind, daß aber, wenn dieses Bewußtsein für solche Kräfte einmal erwacht ist, ihm in allerdings geringerem Maße auch andere Vorstellungen dienstbar sein können, um den eingeschlagenen Weg weiter zu gehen.
[ 11 ] Zugleich weist dieser Vergleich auf etwas hin, das sich der anthroposophischen Forschung über das Wesen des Vorstellungslebens ergibt. Wie das Samenkorn, wenn es zum Nahrungsmittel verarbeitet wird, aus derjenigen Entwickelungsströmung herausgehoben wird, die in seiner ureigenen Wesenheit liegt und zur Bildung einer neuen Pflanze führt, so wird die Vorstellung aus der ihr wesentlichen Entwickelungsrichtung abgelenkt, wenn sie von der vorstellenden Seele zur Nachbildung einer Sinneswahrnehmung verwendet wird. Die der Vorstellung durch ihr eigenes Wesen entsprechende Entwickelung ist die, in der Entwickelung der Seele als Kraft zu wirken. Ebenso wie man die der Pflanze eigenen Entwickelungsgesetze nicht findet, wenn man die Samen auf ihren Nahrungswert hin untersucht, ebenso wenig findet man das Wesen der Vorstellung, wenn man untersucht, inwiefern sie die nachbildende Erkenntnis der durch sie vermittelten Wirklichkeit hervorbringt. Es soll damit nicht gesagt sein, daß diese Untersuchung nicht angestellt werden könnte. Sie kann dies ebenso, wie diejenige über den Nahrungswert der Pflanzensamen. Aber wie man durch das letztere sich über etwas anderes aufklärt als über die Entwickelungsgesetze des Pflanzenwachstums, so erlangt man durch eine Erkenntnistheorie, welche die Vorstellungen auf ihren nachbildenden Erkenntniswert hin prüft, über etwas anderes Aufschluß als über das Wesen des Vorstellungslebens. So wenig das Samenkorn es in seinem Wesen vorgezeichnet hat, Nahrung zu werden, so wenig liegt es im Wesen der Vorstellung, nachbildende Erkenntnis zu liefern. Ja, man kann sagen, wie die Verwendung als Nahrungsmittel etwas für das Samenkorn ganz Äußerliches ist, so ist es das erkenntnismäßige Nachbilden für die Vorstellungen. In Wahrheit ergreift in den Vorstellungen die Seele ihr eigenes sich entwickelndes Wesen. Und erst durch die eigene Tätigkeit der Seele geschieht es, daß die Vorstellungen zu Vermittlern der Erkenntnis einer Wirklichkeit werden. 9Eine ausführlichere Begründung der in obigem gegebenen Gedanken findet man in dem letzten Abschnitt des 2. Bandes meiner «Rätsel der Philosophie»: «Skizzenhaft dargestellter Ausblick auf eine Anthroposophie» (Seiten 594-627).
[ 12 ] Die Frage nun, wie die Vorstellungen zu solchen Erkenntnisvermittlern werden, muß die anthroposophische Beobachtung, welche sich der Geistorgane bedient, anders beantworten als die Erkenntnistheorien es tun, welche diese Beobachtung ablehnen. Für diese anthroposophische Beobachtung ergibt sich das Folgende.
[ 13 ] So wie die Vorstellungen ihrem ureigenen Wesen nach sind, bilden sie zwar einen Teil des Lebens der Seele; aber sie können nicht in der Seele bewußt werden, so lange diese nicht ihre Geistorgane bewußt gebraucht. Sie bleiben, so lange sie ihrem Eigenwesen nach lebendig sind, in der Seele unbewußt. Die Seele lebt durch sie, aber sie kann nichts von ihnen wissen. Sie müssen ihr eigenes Leben herabdämpfen, um bewußte Seelenerlebnisse des gewöhnlichen Bewußtseins zu werden. Diese Herabdämpfung geschieht durch jede sinnliche Wahrnehmung. So kommt, wenn die Seele einen Sinneseindruck empfängt, eine Herablähmung des Vorstellungslebens zustande; und die herabgelähmte Vorstellung erlebt die Seele bewußt als den Vermittler einer Erkenntnis der äußeren Wirklichkeit. 10Man vergleiche damit den 3. Abschnitt der arn Schlusse dieser Schrift gegeben «Skizzenhaften Erweiterungen des Inhaltes...»: «Von der Abstrakheit der Begriffe.» Alle Vorstellungen, die von der Seele auf eine äußere Sinnes-Wirklichkeit bezogen werden, sind innere Geist-Erlebnisse, deren Leben herabgedämpft ist. In allem, das man über eine äußere Sinneswelt denkt, hat man es mit den ertöteten Vorstellungen zu tun. Nun geht aber das Vorstellungsleben nicht etwa verloren, sondern es führt sein Dasein, getrennt von dem Gebiete des Bewußtseins, in den nicht bewußten Sphären der Seele. Und da wird es von den Geistorganen wiedergefunden. So wie nun die abgetöteten Vorstellungen von der Seele auf die Sinneswelt bezogen werden können, so die mit den Geistorganen erfaßten lebendigen Vorstellungen auf die Geisteswelt. - Die oben gekennzeichneten Grenzvorstellungen sind diejenigen, die sich durch ihre eigene Wesenheit nicht ablähmen lassen, daher widerstreben sie einer Beziehung zur Sinnes-Wirklichkeit. Eben dadurch werden sie zu Ausgangspunkten der Geistwahrnehmung.
[ 14 ] Vorstellungen, die als lebendige von der Seele erfaßt werden, habe ich in meinen anthroposophischen Schriften imaginative Vorstellungen genannt. Man verkennt, was hier als «imaginativ» gemeint ist, wenn man es verwechselt mit der bildlichen Ausdrucksform, die angewendet werden muß, um solche Vorstellungen entsprechend anzudeuten. Was da wirklich mit «imaginativ» gemeint ist, kann etwa in der folgenden Art verdeutlicht werden. Wenn jemand eine Sinneswahrnehmung hat, während ihn der äußere Gegenstand beeindruckt, dann hat die Wahrnehmung für ihn eine gewisse innere Stärke. Wenn er sich von dem Gegenstande abwendet, dann kann er sich in einer bloßen Innenvorstellung denselben vergegenwärtigen. Aber die Vorstellung hat nur eine geringere innere Stärke. Sie ist im Verhältnis zu der bei Anwesenheit des äußeren Gegenstandes wirksamen Vorstellung gewissermaßen schattenhaft. Wenn der Mensch für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein schattenhaft in seiner Seele vorhandene Vorstellungen beleben will, so durchtränkt er sie mit Nachklängen an die Sinnesanschauung. Er macht die Vorstellung zum anschaulichen Bilde. Solche Bildvorstellungen sind nun gewiß nichts anderes als Ergebnisse aus dem Zusammenwirken des Vorstellens und des Sinneslebens. Die «imaginativen» Vorstellungen der Anthroposophie entstehen durchaus nicht in dieser Art. Die Seele muß, um sie zustande zu bringen, so genau den inneren Vorgang der Vereinigung von Vorstellungsleben und Sinnes-Eindruck kennen, daß sie das Einfließen der Sinneseindrücke, beziehungsweise ihrer Nacherlebnisse, in das Vorstellungsleben ganz fern halten kann. Man bringt die Fernhaltung der Sinnes-Nach-Erlebnisse nur zustande, wenn man kennen gelernt hat, wie das Vorstellen von diesen Nacherlebnissen ergriffen wird. Erst dann ist man in der Lage, die Geistorgane lebendig zu verbinden mit dem Wesen des Vorstellens und dadurch die Eindrücke der geistigen Wirklichkeit zu empfangen. Es wird dabei das Vorstellungsleben von einer ganz anderen Seite her durchdrungen als im Sinneswahrnehmen. Die Erlebnisse, die man dabei hat, sind wesentlich andere als die an den Sinneswahrnehmungen zu erfahrenden. Und doch gibt es eine Möglichkeit, über diese Erlebnisse sich auszudrücken. Das kann in folgender Art geschehen. — Wenn der Mensch die Farbe Gelb wahrnimmt, so hat er in seiner Seele nicht bloß das Augenerlebnis, sondern ein gefühlsartiges Mit-Erlebnis der Seele. Dieses kann für verschiedene Menschen eine verschiedene Stärke haben, ganz fehlen wird es niemals. Goethe hat in dem schönen Kapitel seiner Farbenlehre über «sinnlich-sittliche Wirkung der Farben» die Gefühls-Nebenwirkungen für Rot, Gelb, Grün usw. sehr eindringlich beschrieben. Nimmt nun die Seele aus einem gewissen Gebiete des Geistes etwas wahr, so kann der Fall eintreten, daß diese geistige Wahrnehmung in ihr dasselbe gefühlsmäßige Neben-Erlebnis hat, das bei der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung des Gelb auftritt. Man weiß dann, daß man dieses oder jenes geistige Erlebnis hat. Man hat dabei natürlich nicht in der Vorstellung dasselbe vor sich, was man in der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung der gelben Farbe vor sich hat. Aber man hat dasselbe Innenerlebnis als gefühlsmäßige Nebenwirkung, das man hat, wenn die gelbe Farbe vor dem Auge ist. Man sagt dann: man nehme das Geist-Erlebnis als «gelb» wahr. Vielleicht könnte man, um sich genauer auszudrücken, immer sagen: man nimmt etwas wahr, was wie «gelb» für die Seele ist. Doch sollte niemand einer so umständlichen Redeweise bedürfen, der aus der anthroposophlschen Literatur den Vorgang kennen gelernt hat, welcher zur geistigen Wahrnehmung führt. Diese Literatur macht genugsam darauf aufmerksam, daß das der Geistwahrnehmung zugängliche Wesenhafte nicht so vor dem Geistorgane steht wie ein verdünnter sinnlicher Gegenstand oder Vorgang, oder so, daß es wiedergegeben werden könnte durch Vorstellungen, die in gewöhnlicher Bedeutung sinnlich-anschauliche sind. 11Eine weitere Beleuchtung findet das zuletzt hier Ausgesprochene durch das 4. Kapitel der am Schlusse dieser Schrift gegebenen «Skizzenhaften Erweiterungen des Inhaltes»: «Ein wichtiges Merkmal der Geistwahrnehmung.»
[ 15 ] Wie die geistige Welt, die außerhalb des Menschen liegt, so lernt die Seele durch ihre Geistorgane das geistige Wesen des Menschen selbst kennen. Anthroposophie beobachtet dieses geistige Wesen als Glied der geistigen Welt. Sie schreitet von der Beobachtung eines Teiles der geistigen Welt fort zu solchen Vorstellungen über den Menschen, welche ihr vergegenwärtigen, was sich im Menschenleibe als geistiger Mensch offenbart. Die Anthropologie schreitet, von der entgegengesetzten Richtung kommend, ebenfalls zu Vorstellungen fort über das menschliche Wesen. Bildet die Anthroposophie die in obigen Ausführungen gekennzeichneten Beobachtungsarten aus, dann gelangt sie zu Anschauungen über das geistige Wesen des Menschen, welches sich in der Sinneswelt in dem Leibe offenbart. Die Blüte dieser Offenbarung ist das Bewußtsein, das die Sinneseindrücke in dem Vorstellungsdasein weiter bestehen läßt. Indem die Anthroposophie fortschreitet von den Erlebnissen der außermenschlichen geistigen Welt bis zum Menschen, findet sie denselben zuletzt als im Sinnesleibe lebend, und in demselben das Bewußtsein von der sinnlichen Wirklichkeit entwickelnd. Das letzte, was sie auf ihrem Wege von dem Menschen findet, ist das lebendige Vorstellungswesen der Seele, das sie in zusammenhängenden imaginativen Vorstellungen auszudrücken vermag. Dann kann sie noch, gewissermaßen am Ende ihres geisterforschenden Weges, den Blick weiter gebrauchend, schauen, wie sich das wesenhafte Vorstellungsleben durch die wahrnehmenden Sinne ablähmt. In diesem abgelähmten Vorstellungsleben hat sie, von der Geistseite her beleuchtet, den in der Sinneswelt lebenden Menschen, insofern er ein vorstellender ist, gekennzeichnet. Sie kommt auf diese Art zu einer Philosophie über den Menschen, als einem letzten Ergebnisse ihrer Forschungen. Was auf ihrem Wege vorher liegt, befindet sich rein im Geistgebiete. Sie kommt mit dem, was sich ihr auf ihrem Geisteswege ergeben hat, bei einer Kennzeichnung des in der Sinneswelt lebenden Menschen an.
[ 16 ] Die Anthropologie erforscht die Reiche der Sinneswelt. Sie gelangt auf ihrem Wege fortschreitend ebenfalls bis zum Menschen. Es stellt sich ihr derselbe dar, wie er die Tatsachen der Sinneswelt in seiner Leibesorganisation so zusammenfaßt, daß aus dieser Zusammenfassung das Bewußtsein entspringt, durch welches die äußere Wirklichkeit in Vorstellungen vergegenwärtigt wird. Die Vorstellungen sieht der Anthropologe aus dem menschlichen Organismus entspringen. Indem er dieses beobachtet, muß er in einem gewissen Sinne Halt machen. Einen inneren gesetzmäßigen Zusammenhang des Vorstellens kann er nicht mit der bloßen Anthropologie erfassen. Wie die Anthroposophie am Ende ihres in geistigen Erfahrungen verlaufenden Weges noch hinblickt auf das geistige Wesen des Menschen, insofern dieses durch die Wahrnehmungen der Sinne sich offenbart, so muß die Anthropologie, wenn sie am Ende ihres im Sinnesgebiete verlaufenden Weges ist, hinblicken nach der Art, wie sich der Sinnesmensch vorstellend an den Sinneswahrnehmungen betätigt. Und indem sie dieses beobachtet, findet sie diese Betätigung nicht von den Gesetzen des Leibeslebens, sondern von den Denkgesetzen der Logik getragen. Die Logik aber ist kein Gebiet, das auf dieselbe Art betreten werden kann, wie die anderen Gebiete der Anthropologie. In dem von Logik beherrschten Denken walten Gesetze, die nicht mehr als diejenigen der Leibesorganisation zu kennzeichnen sind. Indem sich der Mensch in ihnen betätigt, offenbart sich in ihm dasselbe Wesen, welches die Anthroposophie am Ende ihres Weges angetroffen hat. Nur sieht der Anthropologe dieses Wesen so, wie es von der Sinnesseite her beleuchtet ist. Er sieht die abgelähmten Vorstellungen und gibt, indem er eine Logik zugesteht, auch das zu, daß in den Vorstellungen Gesetze aus einer Welt walten, die sich mit der sinnlichen wohl zur Einheit zusammenschließt, jedoch mit ihr nicht zusammenfällt. In dem von dem logischen Wesen getragenen Vorstellungsleben offenbart sich dem Anthropologen der in die Geisteswelt hineinragende Sinnesmensch. Die Anthropologie kommt auf diesem Wege zu einer Philosophie über den Menschen, als einem letzten Ergebnisse ihrer Forschungen. Was auf ihrem Wege vorher liegt, befindet sich rein im Sinnesgebiete. 12Ebenso wie die Gedanken auf Seite 19 finden auch die oben angedeuteten nach einer gewissen Richtung hin noch eine Beleuchtung durch die im 1. Kapitel der am Ende dieser Schrift gegebenen «Skizzenhaften Erweiterungen des Inhaltes»: «Die philosophische Rechtfertigung der Anthroposophie.»
[ 17 ] Sind die beiden Wege, der anthroposophische und der anthropologische, in rechtmäßiger Art durchwandelt, so treffen sie in einem Punkte zusammen. Die Anthroposophie bringt bei diesem Zusammentreffen das Bild des lebendigen Geistmenschen mit und zeigt, wie dieser durch das Sinnensein das zwischen Geburt und Tod bestehende Bewußtsein entwickelt, indem das übersinnliche Bewußtseinsleben abgelähmt wird. Die Anthropologie zeigt bei dem Begegnen das Bild des im Bewußtsein sich selbst erfassenden Sinnesmenschen, der aber aufragend in das geistige Dasein in dem Wesen lebt, das über Geburt und Tod hinaus liegt. Bei diesem Zusammentreffen ist eine wirklich fruchtbare Verständigung zwischen Anthroposophie und Anthropologie möglich. Diese muß eintreten, wenn beide sich zur Philosophie über den Menschen fortbilden. Die aus der Anthroposophie hervorgegangene Philosophie über den Menschen wird zwar ein Bild desselben liefern, das mit ganz andern Mitteln gemalt ist als dasjenige, welches die vom Menschen handelnde, aus der Anthropologie hervorgegangene Philosophie gibt; aber die Betrachter der beiden Bilder werden sich mit ihren Vorstellungen in ähnlicher Übereinstimmung befinden können wie das negative Plattenbild des Photographen bei entsprechender Behandlung mit der positiven Photographie.
[ 18 ] Es scheint mit diesen Ausführungen gezeigt zu sein, in welchem Sinne die im Beginne dieser Schrift angedeutete Frage über die Möglichkeit einer fruchtbaren Diskussion zwischen Anthropologie und Anthroposophie ganz besonders vom anthroposophischen Gesichtspunkte aus bejahend zu beantworten ist.
I. Anthroposophy and anthropology
[ 1 ] Max Dessoir's book "Vom Jenseits der Seele" contains a short section in which the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science I advocate is characterized as scientifically unjustified. 1Compare Max Dessoir: "Vom Jenseits der Seele", die Geheimwissenschaften in kritischer Betrachtung. The section dealing in particular with anthroposophy comprises pages 254-263. Now it might seem to some that a discussion with personalities who stand on Dessoir's scientific point of view must under all circumstances be unfruitful for the representative of spiritual-scientific anthroposophy. For the latter must assert a purely spiritual field of experience, which the former rejects in principle and relegates to the realm of fantasy. One could therefore only speak about the humanistic knowledge under consideration with someone who believes from the outset that he has reasons to believe that the humanistic field in question is a reality. - This view would be correct if the proponent of anthroposophy presented nothing other than his inner personal experiences and simply placed these alongside the results of science based on sense observation and the scientific processing of this observation. Then one could say: the confessor of the science thus characterized refuses to regard the experiences of the explorer of the spiritual realm as realities, and the latter can only make an impression with what he presents on such personalities who from the outset take his point of view.
[ 2 ] However, this opinion is only based on a misunderstanding of what I call anthroposophy. It is true that this anthroposophy is based on experiences of the soul, which are gained independently of the impressions of the sense world and also independently of scientific judgments, which are based only on sense impressions. It must therefore be admitted that both types of experience initially appear to be separated by an impassable gulf. - But this is not the truth. There is a common field in which both lines of research must meet, and in which a discussion is possible about what is put forward by the one and the other. This common ground can be characterized in the following way.
[ 3 ] The proponent of anthroposophy believes, based on experiences that are not only his personal experiences, that human cognitive processes can be further developed from the point at which the researcher who wants to rely only on sense observation and intellectual judgment about this sense observation stops. In the following, in order to avoid continuous lengthy paraphrases, I would like to call the scientific direction based on sense observation and the rational processing of sense observation anthropology and ask the reader to allow me this unusual use of this term. In the following explanations it will only be used for what is described here. In this sense, anthroposophy means being able to begin its research where anthropology ends. 2Although what I represent as "anthroposophy" stands in its results on quite different ground from the statements of Robert Zimmermann in his book "Anthroposophy" published in 1881, I believe I may nevertheless use the concept of the difference between anthroposophy and anthropology as characterized by Zimmermann. Zimmermann, however, only summarizes as the content of his "Anthroposophy" the concepts provided by anthropology in an abstract scheme. For him, the recognizing vision on which the anthroposophy I am referring to rests does not lie in the realm of scientific research. His anthroposophy differs from anthropology only in that the former first subjects the concepts received from the latter to a procedure similar to Herbartian philosophizing before making them the content of its purely intellectual scheme of ideas.
[ 4 ] The representative of anthropology stops at relating the concepts of understanding that can be experienced in the soul to sense experiences. The representative of anthroposophy experiences that these concepts, apart from the fact that they are to be related to sense impressions, can still develop a life of their own in the soul. And that, by unfolding this life within the soul, they bring about a development in the soul itself. He becomes aware of how the soul, when it turns the necessary attention to this development, makes the discovery within its being that spiritual organs reveal themselves in it. (I use this expression "spirit-organs" by adopting, as an extension, the use of language which Goethe followed out of his world-view when he used the expressions "spirit-eyes", "spirit-ears"). 3A more detailed description and justification of this idea of "spiritual organs" can be found in my book "Vom Menschenrätsel" page 146 ff. and in my writings relating to Goethe's world view. Such spiritual organs then represent formations for the soul that can be thought of in a similar way to the sense organs for the body. Of course, they can only be thought of in terms of the soul. Any attempt to bring them together with any bodily formation must be strictly rejected by anthroposophy. It must conceive of its spiritual organs in such a way that they in no way step out of the realm of the soul and reach over into the structure of the body. It regards such an encroachment as a pathological formation, which it strictly excludes from its sphere. The way in which anthroposophy thinks about the development of the organs of the spirit should be sufficiently strong proof for those who are really informed about this kind of development that there are no other ideas about abnormal experiences of the soul, illusions, visions, hallucinations, etc., for the investigator of the real spiritual realm than those which are also justified within anthropology. 4The inner experiences which the soul has to go through in order to come to the knowledge of its spiritual organs are described in a number of my writings, especially in my book: "Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten? " and in the second part of my "Secret Science". A confusion of anthroposophical results with abnormal so-called soul experiences is always based on misunderstanding or insufficient knowledge of what is meant by anthroposophy. Nor can anyone who follows with insight how anthroposophy represents the path to the development of the spiritual organs fall into the trap of thinking that this path can lead to pathological formations or conditions. The discerning person should rather recognize that all the stages of spiritual experience which the human being experiences in the sense of anthroposophy on the path to spiritual perception lie in an area which is entirely spiritual, and beside which the experience of the senses and the ordinary activity of the intellect proceed unchanged in the same way as they did before the emergence of this area. The fact that there are many misunderstandings about this aspect of anthroposophical knowledge is due to the fact that some people find it difficult to draw a purely spiritual aspect into the sphere of their attention. Such people are immediately abandoned by the power of their imagination if it is not supported by a view of the sensually perceptible. Their power of imagination then dampens down even below the degree of strength that prevails in dreaming, to that low degree that is present for imagination in dreamless sleep, and which no longer becomes conscious. One can say that such people are filled in their consciousness with the after-effects or the immediate effect of sense-impressions, and that this being filled is accompanied by a sleepiness of everything that would be recognized as soul if it could be grasped. One can even say that the soul in its peculiarity is therefore exposed to the sharpest misunderstanding by many people, simply because they cannot wake up to it in the same way as to the sensory content of consciousness. That men with only those degrees of attention which ordinary external life brings about are in such a position need not astonish anyone who is able to see in the right light, for example, what lesson is to be drawn from a reproach which Franz Brentano has to make to the philosopher William James with reference to this matter. Brentano writes that one must "distinguish between sentient activity and that to which it is directed, that is, between sentiment and what is sentient" ("and they are as certainly different as my present recollection of myself and the event which I have in mind as past, or, to use an even more drastic comparison, my hatred of an enemy and the object of this hatred are different") and he makes the remark that one sees the error against which these words are directed "appearing here and there". He goes on to say: "William James, among others, made it his own, and at the International Congress of Psychology, Rome 1905, tried to justify it in a long speech. Because, when I look into a room, my vision appears to me at the same time as the room; because, moreover, imaginary images of sensible objects differ only gradually from objectively excited sensory images of them; because, finally, bodies are called beautiful by us, but the difference between beautiful and ugly is related to the difference between emotional movements: thus psychical and physical phenomena should no longer be regarded as two classes of phenomena. It is difficult for me to understand how the speaker himself did not realize the weakness of these arguments. To appear at the same time is not to appear as the same thing, just as to be at the same time is not as much as to be the same thing. And therefore Descartes could recommend without contradiction to deny at least that the room I see is, and to hold only to the fact that the seeing of the room is, as something indubitable. But if the first argument is invalid, then obviously also the second; for what would it mean if fantasizing differed from seeing only in the degree of intensity, since, even if this were also balanced, the full equality of fantasizing with seeing, according to what has just been said, would only mean equality with a psychical phenomenon? The third argument speaks of beauty ... But it is certainly a strange logic which, from the fact that "the pleasure in beauty" is something psychical, wants to conclude that that to whose appearance it is linked must also be something psychical. If this were correct, then every displeasure would be identical with that which one dislikes, and one would have to be careful not to regret a mistake made, since in this identical regret the mistake itself would be repeated. - In such a state of things it ought not to be feared that the authority of James, who is unfortunately joined among German psychologists by that of Mach, will lead many to misjudge the most obvious differences." 5Compare Franz Brentano: "Untersuchungen zur Sinnespsychologie" (Leipzig, 1907), page 96 f. In any case, this "misjudgment of the most obvious differences" is not a rare fact. And it is based on the fact that the power of imagination can only develop the necessary attention for the sensory impression, while the actual mental process that takes place does not make itself more present to the consciousness than what is experienced in the state of sleep. We are dealing with two streams of experiences, one of which is grasped while awake, but the other - the psychic - is simultaneously grasped only with an attention equal to the weakened imagination of sleep, that is, with almost no attention at all. It must not be disregarded that during the ordinary waking state of man the mental state of sleep does not simply cease, but continues alongside waking, and that the actual mental only enters the realm of perception when man awakens not only to the sense world, as takes place in ordinary consciousness, but also to mental existence, as is the case in seeing consciousness. Whether this latter is denied for the soul - in the crude materialistic sense - by the sleep that persists in waking, or whether, because it is not seen, it is thrown together with the physical, as in James' case, is almost indifferent; the results are almost the same: both lead to disastrous short-sightedness. It is not surprising, however, that so often the spiritual remains imperceptible when even a philosopher like W. James is unable to distinguish it from the physical in the right way. 6For more details on this awakening of those mental faculties which are unawakened in ordinary consciousness, see my book "Vom Menschenrätsel" page 156 ff.
[ 5 ] Whoever is as unable as W. James to separate the essentially soul-like from the soul contents experienced through the senses, it is difficult to speak of that area of the soul's existence within which the development of the mental organs is to be observed. For this development takes place precisely where his attention is not able to turn. It leads from intellectual to visual cognition. 7An even more extensive justification of these explanations can be found in the "Sketchy expansions of the content of this writing" at the end: "I. The philosophical justification of anthroposophy."
[ 6 ] Now, however, nothing more has been achieved through the ability to perceive the essential soul than a very first precondition that makes it possible to direct the spiritual gaze to where anthroposophy seeks the development of the soul organs. For what first presents itself to this gaze relates to what anthroposophy speaks of as the soul being equipped with spiritual organs, like an undifferentiated living cell to a living being equipped with sense organs. The individual spiritual organs themselves, however, only become conscious to the soul as its possession to the extent that it is able to use them. For these organs are not something dormant; they are in perpetual motion. And if they are not in use, one cannot be aware of their existence. For them, therefore, perception and being in use coincide. How the development of these organs and thus also their perceptibility comes to light is described in my anthroposophical writings. I will only point out a few things in this direction here.
[ 7 ] Whoever devotes himself to reflecting on the experiences brought about by the sense phenomena will encounter questions everywhere, for the answering of which this reflection initially seems inadequate. In the pursuit of such reflection, the representatives of anthropology arrive at the definition of the limits of knowledge. We need only recall how Du Bois-Reymond, in his speech on the limits of knowledge of nature, speaks of the fact that one cannot know which is the essence of matter and which is that of the simplest phenomenon of consciousness. One can now stop at such points of reflection and give oneself up to the opinion that there are insurmountable barriers to knowledge for man. And accordingly one can reassure oneself that man can only attain knowledge within the area enclosed by these barriers and that beyond that only a sense of foreboding, feeling, hoping and wishing is possible, with which a "science" can have nothing to do. - Or at this point one can begin to form hypotheses about an area that lies beyond the sensually perceptible. In such a case one makes use of the intellect, which is believed to be allowed to extend its judgments over an area of which the senses perceive nothing. With such a procedure one will expose oneself to the danger that the unbeliever in this respect will retort that the intellect has no right to judge a reality for which the basis of sense perception is withdrawn from it. For these alone would give content to its judgments. Without such content, its concepts would remain empty.
[ 8 ] Anthroposophically oriented spiritual science does not relate to the "limits of knowledge" in one or the other of these two ways. Not in the second, because it must be of the same opinion as those who feel that one loses, as it were, all ground for reflection if one leaves the ideas as one has gained them from sense perceptions and yet wants to apply them beyond this area. - Not in the first way, because it realizes that something can be experienced in the soul at the so-called limits of cognition that has nothing to do with the content of the conception gained from sense perception. If the soul only visualizes this content, then with true self-reflection it must say to itself: this content cannot directly reveal anything to cognition other than a reproduction of what is sensually experienced. The matter becomes different when the soul proceeds to ask itself: what can be experienced in itself when it is filled with such ideas to which it is led at the ordinary limits of cognition? With appropriate self-reflection it can then say to itself: I can recognize nothing in the ordinary sense with such ideas; but in the case in which I make this impotence of cognition quite inwardly vivid to myself, I become aware of how these ideas work in myself. As ordinary cognitive ideas they remain mute; but to the same extent that their muteness is increasingly communicated to the consciousness, they gain an inner life of their own, which becomes one with the life of the soul. And the soul then notices how it is in a position with this experience that can be compared to the position of a blind being that has not yet experienced any special development of its sense of touch. Such a being would initially bump into everything. It would feel the resistance of external realities. And from this general sensation an inner life could develop, filled with a primitive consciousness that no longer merely has the general sensation: I bump into things, but which manifolds this sensation within itself and distinguishes hardness from softness, smoothness from roughness, etc.
[ 9 ] In this way, the soul is able to experience and to multiply within itself the experience that it has with the concepts formed at the limits of knowledge. It learns that these boundaries represent nothing other than that which arises when it is touched by the spiritual world. The realization of such boundaries becomes an experience for the soul that can be compared with the tactile experience in the sensory field. 8Limits of knowledge such as those discussed above do not merely occur in the small number in which some people become aware of them; they arise in large numbers on the paths that reflection must take through its inner being in order to come into a relationship with true reality. In the last section "Sketchy expansions of the content of this writing", compare the chapter: "The appearance of the limits of cognition." What she previously described as the limit of cognition, she now sees as the spiritual-soul contact through a spiritual world. And from the reflective experience that it can have with the various boundary concepts, the general sensation of a spiritual world becomes a manifold perception of it. In this way the lowest kind of perceptibility of the spiritual world becomes an experience. This only marks the first opening of the soul to the spiritual world. But it has also been shown that what I mean by anthroposophy as spiritual experiences does not refer to general nebulous emotional self-experiences of the soul, but to something that is developed in a lawful way in a real inner experience. It cannot be the place here to show how the first primitive spirit-perception is heightened by further soul-perceptions, so that, like a spiritual-soul touch, we can also speak of other, so to speak, higher kinds of perception. With regard to the description of such spiritual processes, reference must be made to my anthroposophical books and essays. Here only the principles of the spiritual perception of which anthroposophy speaks should be indicated.
[ 10 ] I would like to use a comparison to illustrate how different the whole behavior of the soul is within anthroposophical spiritual research than in anthropology. Imagine a number of grains of wheat. You can use them as food. But you can also plant them in the earth so that other wheat plants develop from them. You can hold ideas that you have gained through sensory experiences in your consciousness in such a way that you experience in them the reproduction of sensory reality. And one can also experience them in such a way that one allows the power to be effective in the soul which they exert in it through that which they are, apart from the fact that they depict a sensory reality. The first mode of action of the ideas in the soul can be compared to what happens through the grains of wheat when they are taken in as food by a living being. The second with the production of a new wheat plant through each seed. - The comparison may, however, only be thought of in such a way that one takes into account: the seed becomes a plant similar to the ancestor plant; the conception active in the soul becomes within the soul a power serving the formation of spiritual organs. And it must also be taken into account that the first awareness of such inner forces can only be ignited by such strongly effective ideas as the marked boundary ideas are, but that once this awareness of such forces has awakened, other ideas can also be of service to it, albeit to a lesser extent, in order to continue on the path taken.
[ 11 ] At the same time, this comparison points to something that emerges from anthroposophical research into the nature of the life of imagination. Just as the seed, when it is processed into food, is lifted out of that current of development which lies in its very nature and leads to the formation of a new plant, so the imagination is diverted from its essential direction of development when it is used by the imagining soul to reproduce a sense perception. The development corresponding to the imagination through its own nature is that of acting as a force in the development of the soul. Just as one does not find the laws of development proper to the plant when one examines the seeds for their food value, so one does not find the nature of the imagination when one examines the extent to which it produces the reproductive cognition of the reality it mediates. This is not to say that this investigation cannot be undertaken. It can do this just as well as the one about the nutritional value of plant seeds. But just as through the latter one enlightens oneself about something other than the laws of development of plant growth, so through a theory of knowledge which examines the representations with regard to their reproducing cognitive value, one obtains information about something other than the nature of the life of representation. As little as the seed has it in its nature to become food, so little does it lie in the nature of the imagination to provide reproductive knowledge. Indeed, one can say that just as the use as food is something quite external to the seed, so is the cognitive reproduction for the imagination. In truth, the soul grasps its own developing being in the ideas. And it is only through the soul's own activity that the ideas become mediators of the cognition of a reality. 9A more detailed explanation of the thoughts given above can be found in the last section of the 2nd volume of my "Riddles of Philosophy": "Sketchy outlook on an anthroposophy" (pages 594-627).
[ 12 ] The question of how ideas become such mediators of knowledge must be answered differently by anthroposophical observation, which makes use of the organs of the mind, than by theories of knowledge that reject this observation. The following results for this anthroposophical observation.
[ 13 ] As the ideas are in their very nature, they form a part of the life of the soul; but they cannot become conscious in the soul as long as it does not consciously use its spiritual organs. As long as they are alive according to their own nature, they remain unconscious in the soul. The soul lives through them, but it cannot know anything about them. They must attenuate their own life in order to become conscious soul experiences of the ordinary consciousness. This attenuation occurs through every sensory perception. Thus, when the soul receives a sensory impression, a paralysis of the imaginative life comes about; and the paralyzed imagination experiences the soul consciously as the mediator of a cognition of external reality. 10Compare with this the 3rd section of the "Sketchy Extensions of the Content..." given at the end of this writing: "On the Abstractness of Concepts." All concepts that are related by the soul to an external sense reality are inner spiritual experiences whose life is paralyzed. In everything that one thinks about an external sensory world, one is dealing with the extinguished ideas. But the imaginative life is not lost, but leads its existence, separated from the realm of consciousness, in the non-conscious spheres of the soul. And there it is found again by the spiritual organs. Just as the deadened ideas of the soul can now be related to the sense world, so the living ideas grasped by the spiritual organs can be related to the spiritual world. - The borderline ideas described above are those that cannot be paralyzed by their own essence, which is why they resist a relationship to sense reality. This is precisely why they become the starting points of spiritual perception.
[ 14 ] In my anthroposophical writings, I have called ideas that are grasped as living by the soul imaginative ideas. One misunderstands what is meant here as "imaginative" if one confuses it with the pictorial form of expression that must be used to indicate such ideas accordingly. What is really meant by "imaginative" can be illustrated in the following way. If someone has a sensory perception while the external object impresses him, then the perception has a certain inner strength for him. If he turns away from the object, he can visualize it in a mere inner image. But the imagination has only a lesser inner strength. It is, so to speak, shadowy in relation to the imagination that is effective in the presence of the external object. When man wishes to animate ideas that are shadowy in his soul for ordinary consciousness, he imbues them with echoes of sensory perception. He makes the imagination into a vivid picture. Such pictorial conceptions are certainly nothing other than the results of the interaction of imagination and sensory life. The "imaginative" conceptions of anthroposophy do not arise in this way at all. In order to bring them about, the soul must know so precisely the inner process of the union of imaginative life and sense-impression that it can keep the flow of sense-impressions, or their after-experiences, completely out of the imaginative life. One can only keep the after-experiences of the senses at a distance if one has learned how the imagination is seized by these after-experiences. Only then is one in a position to connect the mental organs vividly with the essence of the imagination and thereby receive the impressions of spiritual reality. The life of imagination is thereby penetrated from a completely different side than in sensory perception. The experiences one has in this process are essentially different from those experienced through sensory perception. And yet there is a way of expressing oneself through these experiences. This can happen in the following way. - When a person perceives the color yellow, he has in his soul not only the eye experience, but an emotional co-experience of the soul. This can have different strengths for different people, but it will never be completely absent. Goethe described the emotional side-effects of red, yellow, green etc. very vividly in the beautiful chapter of his Theory of Colors on the "sensual and moral effect of colors". If the soul now perceives something from a certain area of the spirit, it can happen that this spiritual perception has the same emotional side-effect in it that occurs in the sensory perception of yellow. One then knows that one has this or that spiritual experience. Of course, one does not have in front of one's mind the same thing that one has in front of one in the sensory perception of the yellow color. But one has the same inner experience as an emotional side effect that one has when the yellow color is before the eye. One then says: one perceives the spiritual experience as "yellow". Perhaps, to be more precise, one could always say: one perceives something that is like "yellow" for the soul. But no one who has learned from anthroposophical literature about the process that leads to spiritual perception should need such a complicated way of speaking. This literature sufficiently draws attention to the fact that the beingness accessible to spiritual perception does not stand before the spiritual organ in the same way as a diluted sensuous object or process, or in such a way that it could be reproduced by conceptions which in the ordinary sense are sensuous-vivid ones. 11The fourth chapter of the "Sketchy Extensions of the Content" given at the end of this work sheds further light on what has been said here: "An Important Feature of Mental Perception."
[ 15 ] Like the spiritual world that lies outside the human being, the soul learns to know the spiritual essence of the human being itself through its spiritual organs. Anthroposophy observes this spiritual being as a member of the spiritual world. It progresses from the observation of a part of the spiritual world to such ideas about the human being that make it aware of what reveals itself in the human body as the spiritual human being. Anthropology, coming from the opposite direction, also progresses to ideas about the human being. If anthroposophy develops the types of observation described above, then it arrives at views of the spiritual being of man, which is revealed in the body in the sense world. The flowering of this revelation is consciousness, which allows the sense impressions to continue to exist in the imaginative being. As anthroposophy progresses from the experiences of the extra-human spiritual world to the human being, it ultimately finds him living in the sense body and developing in it the consciousness of sense reality. The last thing it finds on its way from the human being is the living conceptual being of the soul, which it is able to express in coherent imaginative concepts. Then, as it were at the end of its path of spirit research, it can continue to use its gaze to see how the essential imaginative life is paralyzed by the perceiving senses. In this paralyzed imaginative life, illuminated from the spiritual side, she has characterized the human being living in the sense world, insofar as he is an imaginative one. In this way she arrives at a philosophy of man as a final result of her research. What precedes it lies purely in the spiritual realm. It arrives at a characterization of the human being living in the world of the senses with that which has emerged to it on its spiritual path.
[ 16 ] Anthropology explores the realms of the sensory world. As it progresses, it also reaches the human being. He presents himself as summarizing the facts of the sensory world in his bodily organization in such a way that consciousness arises from this summary, through which external reality is visualized in ideas. The anthropologist sees the ideas springing from the human organism. In observing this, he must stop in a certain sense. He cannot grasp an inner lawful connection of the imagination with mere anthropology. Just as anthroposophy, at the end of its path in spiritual experiences, still looks at the spiritual nature of man, in so far as this is revealed through the perceptions of the senses, so anthropology, when it is at the end of its path in the realm of the senses, must look at the way in which the sense-man works imaginatively on sense-perceptions. And in observing this, it finds that this activity is not supported by the laws of bodily life, but by the laws of thought of logic. Logic, however, is not an area that can be entered in the same way as the other areas of anthropology. In thinking dominated by logic, laws prevail that can no longer be characterized as those of bodily organization. As the human being operates within them, the same being is revealed in him that anthroposophy encountered at the end of its path. Only the anthropologist sees this being as it is illuminated from the sense side. He sees the paralyzed conceptions and, by conceding a logic, also admits that in the conceptions laws from a world prevail which unites with the sensuous world but does not coincide with it. In the imaginative life borne by the logical being, the anthropologist is revealed the sensory human being who projects himself into the spiritual world. In this way anthropology arrives at a philosophy of man as the final result of its research. What precedes it lies purely in the realm of the senses. 12Just like the thoughts on page 19, those indicated above are also illuminated in a certain direction by the "Sketchy Extensions of the Content" given in the first chapter of the "Philosophical Justification of Anthroposophy" at the end of this work.
[ 17 ] Once the two paths, the anthroposophical and the anthropological, have been legitimately traversed, they meet at one point. At this meeting anthroposophy brings with it the image of the living spirit man and shows how he develops the consciousness existing between birth and death through the senses by paralyzing the supersensible life of consciousness. Anthropology shows in this encounter the image of the sensory man who grasps himself in consciousness, but who lives towering into spiritual existence in the being that lies beyond birth and death. At this meeting a truly fruitful understanding between anthroposophy and anthropology is possible. This must occur if both are to develop into a philosophy of the human being. The philosophy of man that emerges from anthroposophy will indeed provide a picture of man that is painted with quite different means than the one given by the philosophy of man that emerges from anthropology; but the viewers of the two pictures will be able to find themselves in a similar agreement with their ideas as the negative plate image of the photographer with appropriate treatment with the positive photograph.
[ 18 ] These remarks seem to have shown in what sense the question alluded to at the beginning of this essay about the possibility of a fruitful discussion between anthropology and anthroposophy can be answered in the affirmative, especially from the anthroposophical point of view.