The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Preface

[ 1 ] The essays collected in this volume were written by me in order to present some of what I believe must be said in defense of the anthroposophical path of knowledge.

[ 2 ] In the first essay, “Anthropology and Anthroposophy,” I attempt to show in a brief presentation how true scientific observation not only does not contradict what I understand by “anthroposophy,” but how the path of Spiritual Science of the latter must be demanded as something necessary by the means of knowledge of the former. There must be an anthroposophical Spiritual Science if the anthropological insights of natural science are to be what they claim to be. Either the reasons for the existence of anthroposophy are justified, or the insights of natural science cannot be accorded any truth value. I endeavor to express this in the first essay in a form that has not yet been expressed in my previously published writings, even if it is already present in them.

[ 3 ] I admit that I had no subjective desire to write the second essay, “Max Dessoir on Anthroposophy.” But it had to be written because, if it had not been, a misleading opinion might have formed in some circles that the representatives of anthroposophy shy away from entering into scientific discussion with representatives of other schools of thought. I leave many attacks on anthroposophy completely unanswered, not only because I do not consider polemics in this field to be my task, but also because the vast majority of these attacks lack the seriousness necessary for a fruitful discussion in this area. Even those attackers who believe they should fight anthroposophy on scientific grounds often do not realize how unscientific their objections are to the scientific thinking that anthroposophy requires. I deeply regret that the essay on Max Dessoir's attack on anthroposophy could not be what I would have liked it to be. I would have liked to have entered into a discussion about the way of thinking to which Dessoir professes, on the one hand, and the anthroposophical way of thinking, on the other. Instead, Dessoir's “criticism” has forced me to show how he presents a distorted picture of my views to his readers, and then to speak not about these, but about what he has put forward, which has not the slightest connection with my views. I had to show how Max Dessoir “reads” the books he undertakes to combat. As a result, my essay is filled with a discussion of things that may seem petty. But how else should one proceed when pettiness is necessary to present the truth? Whether Max Dessoir has the right to disparage the anthroposophy I represent by classifying it among spiritual currents that he says are “a mixture of false interpretations of certain soul processes and misjudged remnants of a vanished worldview”: I leave it to the readers of my writing to judge, who will gather from it how much this “critic” has been able to understand of my views from the way he has read my books. ^{1 For other opposing writings and essays, compare the concluding remarks of this writing. Basically, I feel that it is not appropriate in these serious times to publish polemics such as those that Dessoir's writing has made necessary for me. However, in this case, I could not avoid responding to the challenge posed by such an attack.}

[ 4 ] I have the opposite to say about the third essay, “Franz Brentano” (an obituary). Writing it was a profound need for me. And if I regret anything about it, it is that I did not write it long ago and attempt to present it to Brentano himself. Although I have been an avid reader of Brentano's writings for a very long time, it is only now that his life's work has become so clear to me that I can describe its relationship to anthroposophy in the way I do in this essay. The passing of this revered man prompted me to relive his life's work in my mind, and this led to the preliminary conclusions about it that form the basis of my essay.

[ 5 ] I have appended to these three essays “Sketchy extensions of the content of this paper,” which present anthroposophical research results. The circumstances of the present mean that in these presentations I give hints about results that actually require much more detailed discussion, as I have presented them so far — but only in part — in oral lectures. In these presentations, I draw some of the scientific threads that must be drawn from anthroposophy to philosophy, psychology, and physiology.

[ 6 ] It might well seem that in the present time human interests must be directed in a different direction from that in which the following considerations move. However, I believe that such considerations not only do not distract us from the serious duties of the immediate present, but that what lies within them serves precisely this present through impulses that may be less immediately striking, but which have all the stronger connections to the experience of this present.

Berlin, September 10, 1917
Rudolf Steiner