Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts
GA 26
29. From Nature to Sub-Nature
[ 1 ] The Age of Philosophy is often said to have been superseded, about the middle of the nineteenth century, by the rising Age of Natural Science. And it is said that the Age of Natural Science still continues in our day, although many people are at pains to emphasise at the same time that we have found our way once more to certain philosophic tendencies.
[ 2 ] All this is true of the paths of knowledge which the modern age has taken, but not of its paths of life. With his conceptions and ideas, man still lives in Nature, even if he carries the mechanical habit of thought into his Nature-theories. But with his life of Will he lives in the mechanical processes of technical science and industry to so far-reaching an extent, that it has long imbued this Age of Science with an entirely new quality.
[ 3 ] To understand human life we must consider it to begin with from two distinct aspects. From his former lives on Earth, man brings with him the faculty to conceive the Cosmic—the Cosmic that works inward from the Earth's encircling spheres, and that which works within the Earth domain itself. Through his senses he perceives the Cosmic that is at work upon the Earth; through his thinking Organisation he conceives and thinks the Cosmic influences that work downward to the Earth from the encircling spheres.
[ 4 ] Thus man lives, through his physical body in Perception, through his etheric body in Thought.
[ 5 ] That which takes place in his astral body and his ego holds sway in the more hidden regions of the soul. It holds sway, for example, in his destiny. We must, however, look for it, to begin with, not in the complicated relationships of destiny, but in the simple and elementary processes of life.
[ 6 ] Man connects himself with certain earthly forces, in that he gives his body its right orientation within them. He learns to stand and walk upright; he learns to place himself with arms and hands into the equilibrium of earthly forces.
[ 7 ] Now these are not forces working inward from the Cosmos. They are forces of a purely earthly nature.
[ 8 ] In reality, nothing that man experiences is an abstraction. He only fails to perceive whence it is that an experience comes to him; and thus he turns ideas about realities into abstractions. He speaks of the laws of mechanics. He thinks he has abstracted them from the connections and relationships of Nature. But this is not the case. All that man experiences in his soul by way of purely mechanical laws, has been discovered inwardly through his relationship of orientation to the earthly world (in standing, walking, etc.).
[ 9 ] The Mechanical is thus characterised as that which is of a purely earthly nature. For the laws and processes of Nature as they hold sway in colour, sound, etc., have entered into the earthly realm from the Cosmos. It is only within the earthly realm that they too become imbued with the mechanical element, just as is the case with man himself, who does not confront the mechanical in his conscious experience until he comes within the earthly realm.
[ 10 ] By far the greater part of that which works in modern civilisation through technical Science and Industry—wherein the life of man is so intensely interwoven—is not Nature at all, but Sub-Nature. It is a world which emancipates itself from Nature—emancipates itself in a downward direction.
[ 11 ] Look how the Oriental, when he strives towards the Spirit, seeks to get out of the conditions of equilibrium whose origin is merely in the earthly realm. He assumes an attitude of meditation which brings him again into the purely Cosmic balance. In this attitude the Earth no longer influences the inner orientation of his body. (I am not recommending this for imitation; it is mentioned merely to make our present subject clear. Anyone familiar with my writings will know how different is the Eastern from the Western spiritual life in this direction.)
[ 12 ] Man needed this relation to the purely earthly for the unfolding of his Spiritual Soul. Thus in the most recent times there has arisen a strong tendency to realise in all things, and even in the life of action, this element into which man must enter for his evolution. Entering the purely earthly element, he strikes upon the Ahrimanic realm. With his own being he must now acquire a right relation to the Ahrimanic.
[ 13 ] But in the age of Technical Science hitherto, the possibility of finding a true relationship to the Ahrimanic civilisation has escaped man. He must find the strength, the inner force of knowledge, in order not to be overcome by Ahriman in this technical civilisation. He must understand Sub-Nature for what it really is. This he can only do if he rises, in spiritual knowledge, at least as far into extra-earthly Super-Nature as he has descended, in technical Sciences, into Sub-Nature. The age requires a knowledge transcending Nature, because in its inner life it must come to grips with a life-content which has sunk far beneath Nature—a life-content whose influence is perilous. Needless to say, there can be no question here of advocating a return to earlier states of civilisation. The point is that man shall find the way to bring the conditions of modern civilisation into their true relationship-to himself and to the Cosmos.
[ 14 ] There are very few as yet who even feel the greatness of the spiritual tasks approaching man in this direction. Electricity, for instance, celebrated since its discovery as the very soul of Nature's existence, must be recognised in its true character—in its peculiar power of leading down from Nature to Sub Nature. Only man himself must beware lest he slide downward with it.
[ 15 ] In the age when there was not yet a technical industry independent of true Nature, man found the Spirit within his view of Nature. But the technical processes, emancipating themselves from Nature, caused him to stare more and more fixedly at the mechanical-material, which now became for him the really scientific realm. In this mechanical-material domain, all the Divine-Spiritual Being connected with the origin of human evolution, is completely absent. The purely Ahrimanic dominates this sphere.
[ 16 ] In the Science of the Spirit, we now create another sphere in which there is no Ahrimanic element. It is just by receiving in Knowledge this spirituality to which the Ahrimanic powers have no access, that man is strengthened to confront Ahriman within the world.
(March, 1925)
Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society (with reference to the foregoing study: From Nature to Sub-Nature)
[ 17 ] 183. In the age of Natural Science, since about the middle of the nineteenth century, the civilised activities of mankind are gradually sliding downward, not only into the lowest regions of Nature, but even beneath Nature. Technical Science and Industry become Sub-Nature.
[ 18 ] 184. This makes it urgent for man to find in conscious experience a knowledge of the Spirit, wherein he will rise as high above Nature as in his sub-natural technical activities he sinks beneath her. He will thus create within him the inner strength not to go under.
[ 19 ] 185. A past conception of Nature still bore within it the Spirit with which the source of all human evolution is connected. By degrees, this Spirit vanished altogether from man's theory of Nature. The purely Ahrimanic spirit has entered in its place, and passed from theory of Nature into the technical civilisation of mankind.
Von der Natur zur Unter-Natur
(Goetheanum, März 1925)
[ 1 ] Man spricht davon, daß mit der Überwindung des philosophischen Zeitalters das naturwissenschaftliche in der Mitte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts heraufgezogen ist. Und man spricht auch so, daß dieses naturwissenschaftliche Zeitalter heute noch andauert, indem zugleich viele betonen, man habe sich zu gewissen philosophischen Intentionen wieder zurückgefunden.
[ 2 ] Das alles entspricht den Erkenntniswegen, die die neuere Zeit eingeschlagen hat, nicht aber den Lebenswegen. Mit seinen Vorstellungen lebt der Mensch noch in der Natur, wenn er auch das mechanische Denken in die Naturauffassung hineinträgt. Mit seinem Willensleben aber lebt er in so weitem Umfange in einer Mechanik des technischen Geschehens, daß dies dem naturwissenschaftlichen Zeitalter seit lange eine ganz neue Nuance gegeben hat.
[ 3 ] Will man das menschliche Leben verstehen, so muß man es zunächst von zwei Seiten her betrachten. Aus den vorigen Erdenleben bringt sich der Mensch die Fähigkeit mit, das Kosmische aus dem Erden-Umkreis und das im Erdenbereich wirkende vorzustellen. Er nimmt durch die Sinne das auf der Erde wirksame Kosmische wahr, und er denkt durch seine Denkorganisation das aus dem Erden-Umkreis auf die Erde hereinwirkende Kosmische.
[ 4 ] So lebt er durch seinen physischen Leib im Wahrnehmen, durch seinen Ätherleib im Denken.
[ 5 ] Das, was in seinem astralischen Leib und in seinem Ich vor sich geht, waltet in verborgeneren Regionen der Seele. Es waltet zum Beispiel im Schicksal. Aber man muß es zunächst nicht in den komplizierten Schicksalszusammenhängen, sondern in den elementarischen, einfachen Lebensvorgängen aufsuchen.
[ 6 ] Der Mensch verbindet sich mit gewissen Erdenkräften, indem er seinen Organismus in diese Kräfte hineinorientiert. Er lernt aufrechtstehen und gehen, er lernt mit seinen Armen und Händen sich in das Gleichgewicht der irdischen Kräfte hineinstellen.
[ 7 ] Nun sind diese Kräfte keine solchen, die vom Kosmos hereinwirken, sondern die bloß irdisch sind.
[ 8 ] In Wirklichkeit ist nichts eine Abstraktion, das der Mensch erlebt. Er durchschaut nur nicht, woher das Erlebnis kommt, und so bildet er aus Ideen über Wirklichkeiten Abstraktionen. Der Mensch redet von der mechanischen Gesetzmäßigkeit. Er glaubt, sie aus den Naturzusammenhängen heraus abstrahiert zu haben. Das ist aber nicht der Fall, sondern alles, was der Mensch an rein mechanischen Gesetzen in der Seele erlebt, ist an seinem Orientierungsverhältnis zur Erdenwelt (an seinem Stehen, Gehen usw.) innerlich erfahren.
[ 9 ] Damit aber kennzeichnet sich das Mechanische als das rein Irdische. Denn das Naturgesetzmäßige, in Farbe, Ton und so weiter ist im Irdischen aus dem Kosmos zugeflossen. Erst im Erdenbereich wird auch dem Naturgesetzmäßigen das Mechanische eingepflanzt, wie ihm der Mensch mit seinem eigenen Erleben erst im Erdenbereich gegenübersteht.
[ 10 ] Das weitaus meiste dessen, was heute durch die Technik in der Kultur wirkt und in das er mit seinem Leben im höchsten Grade versponnen ist, das ist nicht Natur, sondern Unter-Natur. Es ist eine Welt, die sich nach unten hin von der Natur emanzipiert.
[ 11 ] Man sehe, wie der Orientale, wenn er nach dem Geiste strebt, herauszukommen sucht aus den Gleichgewichtszuständen, die bloß vom Irdischen kommen. Er nimmt eine Meditationsstellung an, die ihn in das bloße kosmische Gleichgewicht hineinbringt. Die Erde wirkt dann nicht mehr auf die Orientierung seines Organismus. (Dies sei nicht zur Nachahmung, sondern nur zur Verdeutlichung des hier Vorgebrachten gesagt. Wer meine Schriften kennt, weiß, wie sich in dieser Richtung östliches und westliches Geistesleben unterscheiden.)
[ 12 ] Der Mensch brauchte die Beziehung zu dem bloß Irdischen für seine Bewußtseinsseelenentwickelung. Da kam denn in der neuesten Zeit die Tendenz zustande, überall auch im Tun das zu verwirklichen, in das sich der Mensch einleben muß. Er trifft, indem er sich in das bloß Irdische einlebt, das Ahrimanische. Er muß sich mit seinem eigenen Wesen in das rechte Verhältnis zu diesem Ahrimanischen bringen.
[ 13 ] Aber es entzieht sich ihm in dem bisherigen Verlauf des technischen Zeitalters noch die Möglichkeit, auch gegenüber der ahrimanischen Kultur das rechte Verhältnis zu finden. Der Mensch muß die Stärke, die innere Erkenntniskraft finden, um von Ahriman in der technischen Kultur nicht überwältigt zu werden. Die Unter-Natur muß als solche begriffen werden. Sie kann es nur, wenn der Mensch in der geistigen Erkenntnis mindestens gerade so weit hinaufsteigt zur außerirdischen Über-Natur, wie er in der Technik in die Unter-Natur heruntergestiegen ist. Das Zeitalter braucht eine über die Natur gehende Erkenntnis, weil es innerlich mit einem gefährlich wirkenden Lebensinhalt fertig werden muß, der unter die Natur heruntergesunken ist. Es soll hier natürlich nicht etwa davon gesprochen werden, daß man zu früheren Kulturzuständen wieder zurückkehren soll, sondern davon, daß der Mensch den Weg finde, die neuen Kulturverhältnisse in ein rechtes Verhältnis zu sich und zum Kosmos zu bringen.
[ 14 ] Heute fühlen noch die wenigsten, welch bedeutsamen geistigen Aufgaben sich da für den Menschen herausbilden. Die Elektrizität, die nach ihrer Entdeckung als die Seele des natürlichen Daseins gepriesen wurde, sie muß erkannt werden in ihrer Kraft, von der Natur in die Unter-Natur hinabzuleiten. Es darf der Mensch nur nicht mitgleiten.
[ 15 ] In der Zeit, in der es eine von der eigentlichen Natur unabhängige Technik noch nicht gab, fand der Mensch den Geist in der Naturanschauung. Die sich unabhängig machende Technik ließ den Menschen auf das Mechanistisch-Materielle als das für ihn nun wissenschaftlich werdende hinstarren. In diesem ist nun alles Göttlich-Geistige, das mit dem Ursprünge der Menschheitsentwickelung zusammenhängt, abwesend. Das rein Ahrimanische beherrscht die Sphäre.
[ 16 ] In einer Geistwissenschaft wird nun die andere Sphäre geschaffen, in der ein Ahrimanisches gar nicht vorhanden ist. Und gerade durch das erkennende Aufnehmen derjenigen Geistigkeit, zu der die ahrimanischen Mächte keinen Zutritt haben, wird der Mensch gestärkt, um in der Welt Ahriman gegenüberzutreten.
Goetheanum, März 1925.
Leitsätze Nr. 183 bis 185
(12. April 1925)
(Mit Bezug auf die vorangehenden Betrachtungen über Natur und Unter-Natur)
[ 17 ]
183. Im naturwissenschaftlichen Zeitalter, das um die Mitte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts beginnt, gleitet die Kulturbetätigung der Menschen allmählich nicht nur in die untersten Gebiete der Natur, sondern unter die Natur hinunter. Die Technik wird Unter-Natur.[ 18 ] 184. Das erfordert, daß der Mensch erlebend eine Geist-Erkenntnis finde, in der er sich eben so hoch in die Über-Natur erhebt, wie er mit der unternatürlichen technischen Betätigung unter die Natur hinuntersinkt. Er schafft dadurch in seinem Innern die Kraft, nicht unterzusinken.
[ 19 ] 185. Eine frühere Naturanschauung barg noch den Geist in sich, mit dem der Ursprung der menschlichen Entwickelung verbunden ist; allmählich ist dieser Geist aus der Naturanschauung geschwunden und der rein ahrimanische ist in sie eingezogen und von ihr in die technische Kultur übergeflossen.
From nature to sub-nature
(Goetheanum, March 1925)
[ 1 ] It is said that with the overcoming of the philosophical age, the natural scientific age arose in the middle of the nineteenth century. And it is also said that this scientific age still continues today, while at the same time many emphasize that we have returned to certain philosophical intentions.
[ 2 ] This all corresponds to the paths of knowledge that modern times have taken, but not to the ways of life. With his ideas, man still lives in nature, even if he brings mechanical thinking into the conception of nature. With his life of will, however, he lives to such an extent in a mechanics of technical events that this has long since given the scientific age a completely new nuance.
[ 3 ] If we want to understand human life, we must first look at it from two sides. From previous lives on earth, man brings with him the ability to imagine the cosmic from the earthly environment and that which is active in the earthly realm. Through the senses he perceives the cosmic working on earth, and through his mental organization he thinks the cosmic working on earth from the earth's environment.
[ 4 ] So he lives through his physical body in perception, through his etheric body in thinking.
[ 5 ] What goes on in his astral body and in his ego takes place in more hidden regions of the soul. It operates in fate, for example. However, one must first seek it out not in the complicated contexts of fate, but in the elementary, simple processes of life.
[ 6 ] The human being connects with certain earth forces by orienting his organism towards these forces. He learns to stand upright and walk, he learns to place himself in the balance of earthly forces with his arms and hands.
[ 7 ] Now these forces are not those which act in from the cosmos, but which are only earthly.
[ 8 ] In reality, nothing that man experiences is an abstraction. He just does not realize where the experience comes from, and so he forms abstractions from ideas about realities. Man talks about mechanical laws. He believes that he has abstracted them from natural contexts. However, this is not the case, but everything that man experiences in the soul in terms of purely mechanical laws is experienced inwardly in his orientation relationship to the earthly world (in his standing, walking, etc.).
[ 9 ] Thus, however, the mechanical is characterized as the purely earthly. For the natural law, in color, sound and so on, has flowed into the earthly from the cosmos. Only in the earthly realm is the mechanical also implanted into the natural law, just as the human being with his own experience only confronts it in the earthly realm.
[ 10 ] The vast majority of what is at work in culture today through technology and in which he is highly entangled with his life is not nature, but sub-nature. It is a world that is emancipating itself from nature in a downward direction.
[ 11 ] You can see how the Oriental, when he strives for the spirit, tries to get out of the states of equilibrium that come merely from the earthly. He assumes a meditative position that brings him into the mere cosmic balance. The earth then no longer affects the orientation of his organism. (This is not said for the sake of imitation, but only to clarify what has been said here. Anyone familiar with my writings knows how Eastern and Western spiritual life differ in this respect.)
[ 12 ] Man needed the relationship to the merely earthly for the development of his consciousness soul. In recent times, therefore, there has been a tendency to realize everywhere in action that which man must settle into. By settling into the merely earthly, he encounters the ahrimanic. He must bring himself with his own being into the right relationship with this Ahrimanic.
[ 13 ] But in the course of the technical age to date, the possibility of finding the right relationship to the Ahrimanic culture still eludes him. Man must find the strength, the inner power of cognition, in order not to be overwhelmed by Ahriman in the technical culture. The sub-nature must be understood as such. It can only do so if man ascends in spiritual knowledge at least as far to the extraterrestrial super-nature as he has descended in technology to the sub-nature. The age needs a knowledge that goes above nature, because it must inwardly come to terms with a dangerous life content that has sunk below nature. Of course, we are not talking here about returning to earlier states of culture, but about man finding the way to bring the new cultural conditions into a right relationship with himself and the cosmos.
[ 14 ] Today, very few people realize what important spiritual tasks are emerging for man. Electricity, which after its discovery was praised as the soul of natural existence, must be recognized in its power to lead down from nature into sub-nature. Only man must not glide along with it.
[ 15 ] In the time when technology did not yet exist independently of nature itself, man found the spirit in the view of nature. Technology, which was becoming independent, made man stare at the mechanistic-material as that which was now becoming scientific for him. In this, everything divine-spiritual, which is connected with the origin of human development, is now absent. The purely Ahrimanic dominates the sphere.
[ 16 ] In a spiritual science the other sphere is now created, in which the Ahrimanic is not present at all. And it is precisely by recognizing that spirituality to which the Ahrimanic powers have no access that man is strengthened to face Ahriman in the world.
Goetheanum, March 1925.
Guiding Principles No. 183 to 185
(April 12, 1925)
(With reference to the preceding considerations on nature and sub-nature)
[ 17 ] 183. In the age of natural science, which begins around the middle of the nineteenth century, the cultural activity of man gradually slides down not only into the lowest regions of nature, but under nature. Technology becomes sub-nature.
[ 18 ] 184 This requires man to experience a spiritual knowledge in which he rises just as high into the super-nature as he sinks below nature with the sub-natural technical activity. He thereby creates within himself the power not to sink below.
[ 19 ] 185. An earlier view of nature still contained within itself the spirit with which the origin of human development is connected; gradually this spirit has disappeared from the view of nature and the purely ahrimanic has entered it and flowed over from it into technical culture.