The Story of My Life
GA 28
Chapter XVII
[ 1 ] At this time there was established in Germany a branch of the Ethical Culture Society which had originated in America. It seems obvious that in a materialistic age one ought only to approve an effort in the direction of a deepening of ethical life. But this effort arose from a fundamental conception that aroused in me the profoundest objections.
[ 2 ] The leader of this movement said to himself: “One stands to-day in the midst of the many opposing conceptions of the world and of life as regards the life of thought and the religious and social feelings. In the realm of these conceptions men cannot be brought to understand one another. It is a bad thing when the moral feelings which men ought to have for one another are drawn into the sphere of these opposing opinions. Where will it lead if those who feel differently in matters religious and social, or who differ from one another in the life of thought, shall also express their diversity in such a way as thus to determine also their moral relationships with respect to those who think and feel differently. Therefore one must seek for a foundation for purely human ethics which shall be independent of every world-concept, which each one can recognize no matter how he may think in reference to the various spheres of existence.”
[ 3 ] This ethical movement made upon me a profound impression. It had to do with views of mine which I held to be most important. For I saw before me the deep abyss which the way of thinking characteristic of the most recent times had created between that which occurs in nature and the content of the moral and spiritual world.
[ 4 ] Men have come to a conception of nature which would represent the evolution of the world as being without moral or spiritual content. They think hypothetically of a purely material primal state of the world. They seek for the laws according to which from this primal state there could gradually have been formed the living, that which is endued with soul, that which is permeated with spirit in the form characteristic of this present age. If one is logical in such a way of thinking – so I then said to myself – then the spiritual and moral cannot be conceived as anything other than a result of the work of nature. Then one faces facts of nature which are from the spiritual and moral point of view quite indifferent, which in their own process of evolution have brought forth the moral as a by-product, and which finally with moral indifference likewise bury it.
[ 5 ] I could, of course, perceive clearly that the sagacious thinkers did not draw these conclusions; that they simply accepted what the facts of nature seemed to say to them, and thought in regard to these matters that one ought simply to allow the world-significance of the spiritual and moral to rest upon its own foundation. But this view seemed to me of little force. It made no difference to me that people said: “In the field of natural occurrences one must think in a way that has no relation to morality, and what one thus thinks constitutes hypotheses; but in regard to the moral each man may form his own ideas.” I said to myself that whoever thinks in regard to nature even in the least detail in the manner then customary, such a person cannot ascribe to the spiritual-moral any self existent, self-supporting reality. If physics, chemistry, biology remain as they are – and to all they seem to be unassailable – then the entities which men in these spheres consider to be reality will absorb all reality; and the spiritual-moral could be nothing more than the foam arising from this reality.
[ 6 ] I looked into another reality – a reality which is spiritual and moral as well as natural. It seemed to me a weakness in the effort to attain knowledge not to be willing to press through to that reality. I was forced to say to myself according to my spiritual perception: “Above the natural occurrences, and also the spiritual-moral, there is a veritable reality, which reveals itself morally but which in moral activity has at the same time the power to embody itself as an occurrence which attains to equal validity with an occurrence in nature.” I thought that this seemed indifferent to the spiritual-moral only because the latter had lost its original unity of being with this reality, as the corpse of a man has lost its unity of being with that in man which is endued with soul and with life.
[ 7 ] To me this was certain; for I did not merely think it: I perceived it as truth in the spiritual facts and beings of the world. In the so-called “ethicists” there seemed to me to have been born men to whom such an insight appeared to be a matter of indifference; they revealed more or less unconsciously the opinion that one can do nothing with conflicting philosophies; let us save the principles of ethics, in regard to which there is no need to inquire how they are rooted in the world-reality. Undisguised scepticism as to all endeavour after a world-concept seemed to me to manifest itself in this phenomenon of the times. Unconsciously frivolous did any one seem to me who maintained that, if we let world-concepts rest on their own foundations, we shall thus be able to spread morality again among men. I took many a walk with Hans and Grete Olden through the Weimar parks, during which I expressed myself in radical fashion on the theme of this frivolity. “Whoever presses forward with his perception as far as is possible for man,” I said, “will find a world-event out of which there appears before him the reality of the moral just as of the natural.” In the recently founded Zukunft I wrote a trenchant article against what I called ethics uprooted from all world-reality, which could not possess any force. The article met with a distinctly unfriendly reception. How, indeed, could it be otherwise, when these “ethicists” themselves had been obliged to come forward as the saviours of civilization?
[ 8] To me this matter was of immeasurable importance. I wished to do battle at a critical point for the confirmation of a world-concept which revealed ethics as firmly rooted along with all other reality. Therefore, I was forced to battle against this ethics which had no philosophical basis.
[ 9 ] I went from Weimar to Berlin in order to seek for opportunities to present my view through the press.
[ 10 ] I called on Herman Grimm, whom I held in high honour. I was received with the greatest possible friendliness. But it seemed to Herman Grimm very strange that I, who was full of zeal for my cause, should bring this zeal into his house. He listened to me rather unresponsively, as I talked to him of my view regarding the ethicists. I thought I could interest him in this matter which to me seemed so vital. But I did not in the least succeed. When, however, he heard me say “I wish to do something,” he replied, “Well, go to these people; I am more or less acquainted with the majority of them; they are all quite amiable men.” I felt as if cold water had been thrown over me. The man whom I so highly honoured felt nothing of what I desired; he thought I would “think quite sensibly” when I had convinced myself by a call on the “ethicists” that they were all quite congenial persons.
[ 11 ] I found in others no greater interest than in Herman Grimm. So it was at that time for me. In all that pertained to my perceptions of the spiritual I had to work entirely alone. I lived in the spiritual world; no one in my circle of acquaintances followed me there. My intercourse consisted in excursions into the worlds of others. I loved these excursions. Moreover, my reverence for Herman Grimm was not in the least diminished. But I had a good schooling in the art of understanding in love that which made no move toward understanding what I carried in my own soul.
[ 12 ] This was then the nature of my loneliness in Weimar, where I had such an extensive social relationship. But I did not ascribe to these persons the fact that they condemned me to such loneliness. Indeed, I perceived that unconsciously striving in many people was the impulse toward a world-concept which would penetrate to the very roots of existence. I perceived how a manner of thinking which could move securely while it had to do only with that which lies immediately at hand yet weighed heavily upon their souls. “Nature is the whole world” – such was that manner of thinking. In regard to this way of thinking men believed that they must find it to be correct, and they suppressed in their souls everything which seemed to say one could not find this to be correct. It was in this light that much revealed itself to me in my spiritual surroundings at that time. It was the time in which my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, whose essential content I had long borne within me, was receiving its final form.
[ 13 ] As soon as it was off the press, I sent a copy to Eduard von Hartmann. He read it with close attention, for I soon received back his copy of the book with his detailed marginal comments from beginning to end. Besides, he wrote me, among other things, that the book ought to bear the title: Erkenntnistheoretischer Phänomenalismus und ethischer Individualismus.1Phenomenalism in the Theory of Knowledge and Individualism in Ethics. I He had utterly misunderstood the sources of the ideas and my objective. He thought of the sense-world after the Kantian fashion even though he modified this. He considered this world to be the effect produced by reality upon the soul through the senses. This reality, according to his view, can never enter into the field of perception which the soul embraces through consciousness. It must remain beyond consciousness. Only by means of logical inferences can man form hypothetical conceptions regarding it. The sense-world, therefore, does not constitute in itself an objective existence, but is merely a subjective phenomenon existing in the soul only so long as this embraces the phenomenon within consciousness.
[ 14 ] I had sought to prove in my book that no unknown lies behind the sense-world, but that within it lies the spiritual. And concerning the world of human ideas, I sought to show that these have their existence in that spiritual world. Therefore the reality of the sense-world is hidden from human consciousness only so long as the soul perceives by means of the senses alone. When, in addition to the sense-perceptions, the ideas are also experienced, then the sense-world in its objective reality is embraced within consciousness. Knowing does not consist in a copying of a real but the soul's living entrance into that real. Within the consciousness occurs that advance from the still unreal sense-world to the reality of this world.
[ 15 ] In truth is the sense-world also a spiritual world; and the soul lives together with this known spiritual world while it extends its consciousness over it. The goal of the process of consciousness is the conscious experience of the spiritual world, in the visible presence of which everything is resolved into spirit.
[ 16 ] I placed the world of spiritual reality over against phenomenalism. Eduard von Hartmann thought that I intended to remain within the phenomena and abandon the thought of arriving from these at any sort of objective reality. He conceived the thing as if by my way of thinking I were condemning the human mind to permanent incapacity to reach any sort of reality, to the necessity of moving always within a world of appearances having existence only in the conception of the mind (as a phenomenon).
Thus my endeavour to reach the spirit through the expansion of consciousness was set over against the view that “spirit” exists solely in the human conception and apart from this can only be “thought.” This was fundamentally the view of the age to which I had to introduce my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. The experience of the spiritual had in this view of the matter shriveled up to a mere experience of human conceptions, and from these no way could be discovered to a real (objective) spiritual world.
[ 17 ] I desired to show how in that which is subjectively experienced the objective spiritual shines and becomes the true content of consciousness; Eduard von Hartmann opposed me with the opinion that whoever maintains this view remains fixed in the sensibly apparent and is not dealing at all with an objective reality.
[ 18 ] It was inevitable, therefore, that Eduard von Hartmann must consider my “ethical individualism” dubious.
[ 19 ] For what was this based upon in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity? I saw at the centre of the soul's life its complete union with the spiritual world. I sought so to express this fact that an imaginary difficulty which disturbed many persons might resolve itself into nothing. That is, it is supposed that, in order to know, the soul – or the ego – must differentiate itself from that which is known, and therefore must not merge itself with this. But this differentiation is also possible when the soul swings, like a pendulum, as it were, between the union of itself with the spiritual real on the one hand and the sense of itself on the other. The soul becomes “unconscious” in sinking down into the objective spirit, but with the sense of itself it brings the completely spiritual into consciousness.
[ 20 ] If, now, it is possible that the personal individuality of men can sink down into the spiritual reality of the world, then in this reality it is possible to experience also the world of moral impulses. Morality becomes a content which reveals itself out of the spiritual world within the human individuality; and the consciousness expanded into the spiritual presses forward to the perception of this revelation. What impels man to moral behaviour is a revelation of the spiritual world in the experiencing of the spiritual world through the soul. And this experience takes place within the individuality of man. If man perceives himself in moral behaviour as acting in reciprocal relation with the spiritual world, he is then experiencing his freedom. For the spiritual world works within the soul, not by way of compulsion, but in such a way that man must develop freely the activity which enables him to receive the spiritual.
[ 21 ] In pointing out that the sense-world is in reality a world of spiritual being and that man, as a soul, by means of a true knowledge of the sense-world is weaving and living in a world of spirit – herein lies the first objective of my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. In characterizing the moral world as one whose being shines into the world of spirit experienced by the soul and thereby enables man to arrive at this moral world freely – herein lies the second objective. The moral being of man is thus sought in its completely individual unity with the ethical impulses of the spiritual world. I had the feeling that the first part of The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and the second part form a spiritual organism, a genuine unity. Eduard von Hartmann was forced, however, to feel that they were coupled together quite arbitrarily as phenomenalism in the theory of knowledge and individualism in ethics.
[ 22 ] The form taken by the ideas of the book was determined by my own state of soul at that time. Through my experience of the spiritual world in direct perception, nature revealed itself to me as spirit; I desired to create a spiritual natural science. In the self-knowledge of the human soul through direct perception, the moral world entered into the soul as its entirely individual experience.
[ 23 ] In the experience of spirit lay the source of the form which I gave to my book. It is, first of all, the presentation of an anthroposophy which receives its direction from nature and from the place of man in nature with his own individual moral being.
[ 24 ] In a certain sense The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity released from me and introduced into the external world that which the first period of my life had brought before me in the form of ideas through the destiny which led me to experience the natural-scientific riddles of existence. The further way could now consist in nothing else than a struggle to arrive at ideal forms for the spiritual world itself.
[ 25 ] The forms of knowledge which man receives through sense-perception I represented as inner anthroposophical experience of the spirit on the part of the human soul. The fact that I had not yet used the term anthroposophic was done to the circumstance that my mind was always striving first to attain perception and scarcely at all after a terminology. My task was to form ideas which could express the human soul's experience of the spiritual world.
[ 26 ] An inner wrestling after the formation of such ideas comprises the content of that episode of my life which I passed through between my thirtieth and fortieth years of age. At that time fate placed me usually in an outer life-activity which did not so correspond with my inner life that it could have served to bring this to expression.
Chapter XVII
[ 1 ] In dieser Zeit wurde in Deutschland ein Zweig der von Amerika ausgehenden «Gesellschaft für ethische Kultur» begründet. Es scheint selbstverständlich zu sein, daß man in der Zeit des Materialismus einem Streben nach ethischer Vertiefung nur zustimmen sollte. Aber dieses Streben ging damals von einer Grundanschauung aus, die in mir die stärksten Bedenken wachrief.
[ 2 ] Die Führer dieser Bewegung sagten sich: man steht gegenwärtig inmitten der vielen einander widerstreitenden Welt- und Lebensanschauungen in bezug auf das Erkenntnisleben, auf die religiösen, die sozialen Empfindungen. Die Menschen sind auf dem Gebiete dieser Anschauungen nicht dazu zu bringen, sich zu verstehen. Es ist vom Übel wenn die sittlichen Gefühle, die die Menschen für einander haben sollen, in das Gebiet dieser widerstreitenden Meinungen hineingezogen werden. Wohin soll es führen, wenn religiös oder sozial anders Empfindende, oder im Erkenntnisleben voneinander Abweichende ihre Verschiedenheit auch dadurch zum Ausdruck bringen, daß sie ihr moralisches Verhalten gegen Andersdenkende und Andersempfindende darnach gestalten. Man müsse deshalb die Grundsätze einer rein menschlichen Ethik aufsuchen, die unabhängig von jeder Weltanschauung sein solle, die jeder anerkennen könne, wie er auch über die verschiedenen Gebiete des Daseins denkt.
[ 3 ] Auf mich machte diese ethische Bewegung einen tiefgehenden Eindruck. Sie rührte an meine mir wichtigsten Anschauungen. Denn vor mir stand der tiefe Abgrund, den die Denkungsarten der neueren Zeit zwischen dem Naturgeschehen und dem moralisch-geistigen Weltinhalt geschaffen haben.
[ 4 ] Man ist zu einer Anschauung über die Natur gekommen, die das Weitwerden ohne moralisch-geistigen Inhalt darstellen will. Man denkt hypothetisch an einen rein materiellen Urzustand der Welt. Man sucht die Gesetze, nach denen aus diesem Urzustand sich allmählich das Lebendige, das Beseelte, das Durchgeistigte in der gegenwärtigen Form gebildet haben könnte. Ist man mit einer solchen Denkungsart konsequent - so sagte ich mir damals -, dann kann das Geistig-Moralische gar nicht anders denn als ein Ergebnis des Naturwirkens vorgestellt werden. Dann hat man die für das Geistig-Moralische gleichgültigen Naturtatsachen, die in ihrem Werden wie ein Nebenergebnis das Moralische hervorbringen und es schließlich auch wieder in ihrer moralischen Gleichgültigkeit begraben.
[ 5 ] Ich konnte mir allerdings vor Augen halten, daß die vorsichtigen Denker diese Konsequenz nicht zogen, daß sie einfach hinnahmen, was die Naturtatsachen ihnen zu sagen schienen, und dabei dachten, man müsse die Weltbedeutung des Geistig-Moralischen auf sich beruhen lassen. Aber das schien mir gar nicht wichtig. Es kam mir nicht darauf an, daß man sagte: im Sinne des Naturgeschehens müsse man eben in einer für das Moralische gleichgültigen Art denken, und was man so denke, seien eben Hypothesen; über das Moralische möge jeder sich seine Gedanken bilden. Ich sagte mir: wer über die Natur auch im Kleinsten so denkt, wie es damals üblich war, der kann dem Geistig-Moralischen keine in sich selbständige, sich tragende Wirklichkeit zuschreiben. Bleibt die Physik, die Chemie, die Biologie so wie sie ist, wie sie allen als unantastbar erscheint, so saugen die Wesenheiten, die man da als Wirklichkeit denkt, alle Wirklichkeit auf; und das Geistig-Moralische könnte nur der aus dieser Wirklichkeit aufsteigende Schaum sein.
[ 6 ] Ich sah in eine andere Wirklichkeit. In eine solche, die moralisch-geistig ebenso wie naturhaft zugleich ist. Mir erschien es als eine Schwäche des Erkenntnisstrebens, nicht bis zu dieser Wirklichkeit vordringen zu wollen. Ich mußte mir, nach meiner geistgemäßen Anschauung, sagen: über dem Naturgeschehen und dem Geistig-Moralischen gibt es eine wahre Wirklichkeit, die sich moralisch offenbart, die aber im moralischen Tun zugleich die Kraft hat, sich in ein Geschehen umzusetzen, das so zur Geltung gelangt wie das Naturgeschehen. Dieses schien mir gegenüber dem Geistig-Moralischen nur deshalb gleichgültig zu sein, weil es aus seinem ursprünglichen Verbundensein mit ihm herausgefallen ist wie der Leichnam eines Menschen von seinem Verbundensein mit dem Beseelt-Lebendigen des Menschen.
[ 7 ] Mir war das gewiß: denn ich dachte es nicht bloß, ich sah es als Wahrheit in den geistigen Tatsachen und Wesenheiten der Welt. In den gekennzeichneten «Ethikern» schienen mir die Menschen geboren zu sein, die eine solche Einsicht als ihnen gleichgültig betrachteten; sie vertraten mehr oder weniger unbewußt die Meinung: mit Weltanschauungsstreben ist nichts auszurichten; retten wir ethische Grundsätze, bei denen man gar nicht weiter nachzuforschen braucht, wie sie in der Weltwirklichkeit wurzeln. Die nackte Verzweiflung an allem Weltanschauungsstreben schien mir aus dieser Zeiterscheinung zu sprechen. Unbewußt frivol erschien mir ein Mensch, der behauptete: lassen wir alle Weltanschauung auf sich beruhen, damit wir wieder Sittlichkeit unter den Menschen verbreiten können. Ich machte mit Hans und Grete Olden manchen Spaziergang durch die Weimarer Parkanlagen, auf dem ich mich radikal über diese Frivolität aussprach. Wer mit seiner Anschauung so weit dringt, als es dem Menschen möglich ist, so sagte ich, der findet ein Weltgeschehen, aus dem ihm die Realität des Moralischen ebenso wie die des Naturhaften entgegentritt. Ich schrieb in der damals vor kurzem begründeten «Zukunft» einen scharfen Artikel gegen das, was ich eine aus aller Weltwirklichkeit entwurzelte Ethik nannte, die keine Kraft haben könne. Der Artikel fand eine recht unfreundliche Aufnahme. Wie sollte das auch anders sein, da doch die «Ethiker» sich als Retter der Kultur vorkommen mußten.
[ 8 ] Mir war die Sache unbegrenzt wichtig. Ich wollte an einem wichtigen Punkte für das Geltendmachen einer Weltanschauung kämpfen, die das Ethische festbegründet mit aller andern Realität aus sich heraus offenbart. So mußte ich gegen die weltanschauungslose Ethik kämpfen.
[ 9 ] Ich fuhr von Weimar nach Berlin, um mir Möglichkeiten aufzusuchen, in Zeitschriften meine Ansichten zu vertreten.
[ 10 ] Ich besuchte den von mir hochverehrten Herman Grimm. Ich wurde mit der allergrößten Freundlichkeit aufgenommen. Aber es kam Herman Grimm so sonderbar vor, daß ich, der ich voll von Eifer für meine Sache war, ihm diesen Eifer in sein Haus brachte. Er hörte mir etwas teilnahmslos zu, als ich ihm von meinen Ansichten in bezug auf die «Ethiker» sprach. Ich dachte, ich konnte ihn für die mir so wichtig erscheinende Sache interessieren. Doch konnte ich das nicht im geringsten. Da er hörte, «ich wolle etwas tun», so sagte er doch: «Gehen Sie doch zu diesen Leuten hin, ich kenne mehr oder weniger die meisten; sie sind alle ganz liebenswürdige Menschen.» Ich war wie von kaltem Wasser übergossen. Der Mann, den ich so sehr verehrte, er empfand gar nichts von dem, was ich wollte; er meinte, ich werde in der Sache «ganz vernünftig denken», wenn ich mich durch einen Besuch bei den «Ethikern» überzeugte, daß sie alle ganz sympathische Menschen seien.
[ 11 ] Ich fand bei andern nicht mehr Interesse als bei Herman Grimm. Und so war es damals für mich. Ich mußte, was mit meinen Anschauungen vom Geistigen zusammenhing, ganz allein mit mir abmachen. Ich lebte in der geistigen Welt; niemand aus meinem Bekanntenkreise folgte mir dahin. Mein Verkehr bestand in Exkursionen in die Welten der andern. Aber ich liebte diese Exkursionen. Meine Verehrung für Herman Grimm wurde auch nicht im geringsten beeinträchtigt. Aber ich konnte eine gute Schule in der Kunst durchmachen, das in Liebe zu verstehen, was gar keinen Anlauf nahm, zu verstehen, was ich selbst in der Seele trug.
[ 12 ] Das war meine «Einsamkeit» damals in Weimar, wo ich in einem so ausgebreiteten geselligen Verkehre stand. Aber ich schrieb es nicht den Menschen zu, daß sie mich so zur Einsamkeit verurteilten. Ich sah doch in vielen den Drang nach einer bis in die Wurzeln des Daseins dringenden Weltanschauung unbewußt walten. Ich empfand, wie eine Denkungsart, die sicher auftreten konnte, weil sie sich nur an das Allernächstliegende hielt, auf den Seelen lastete. «Die Natur ist die ganze Welt», das war diese Denkungsart. Von ihr glaubte man, man müsse sie richtig finden; und man unterdrückte in der Seele alles, was empfand, man könne sie doch nicht richtig finden. In diesem Lichte zeigte sich mir Vieles, das mich damals geistig umgab. Es war die Zeit, in der meine «Philosophie der Freiheit», deren wesentlichen Inhalt ich ja schon lange in mir trug, die letzte Form erhielt.
[ 13 ] Meine «Philosophie der Freiheit» schickte ich sogleich, nachdem sie gedruckt war, an Eduard von Hartmann. Er hat sie mit großer Aufmerksamkeit durchgelesen, denn ich bekam bald sein Exemplar des Buches mit seinen ausführlichen Randbemerkungen vom Anfang bis zum Ende. Dazu schrieb er mir, unter anderem, das Buch sollte den Titel haben: Erkenntnistheoretischer Phänomenalismus und ethischer Individualismus. Er hatte die Quellen der Ideen und meine Ziele ganz mißverstanden. Er dachte über die Sinneswelt in Kant'scher Art, wenn er diese auch modifizierte. Er hielt diese Welt für die Wirkung von Wesenhaftem auf die Seele durch die Sinne. Dieses Wesenhafte soll, nach seiner Meinung, niemals in das Anschauungsfeld eintreten können, das die Seele mit dem Bewußtsein umfaßt. Es sollte jenseits des Bewußtseins bleiben. Nur durch logische Schlußfolgerungen könne man sich hypothetische Vorstellungen darüber bilden. Die Sinneswelt stelle daher nicht ein objektiv in sich Bestehendes dar, sondern die subjektive Erscheinung, die nur in der Seele Bestand habe, solange diese sie mit dem Bewußtsein umfasse.
[ 14 ] Ich suchte in meinem Buche darzulegen, daß nicht hinter der Sinneswelt ein Unbekanntes liegt, sondern in ihr die geistige Welt. Und von der menschlichen Ideenwelt suchte ich zu zeigen, daß sie in dieser geistigen Welt ihren Bestand hat. Es ist also dem menschlichen Bewußtsein das Wesenhafte der Sinneswelt nur so lange verborgen, als die Seele nur durch die Sinne wahrnimmt. Wenn zu den Sinneswahrnehmungen die Ideen hinzuerlebt werden, dann wird die Sinneswelt in ihrer objektiven Wesenhaftigkeit von dem Bewußtsein erlebt. Erkennen ist nicht ein Abbilden eines Wesenhaften, sondern ein Sich-hinein-Leben der Seele in dieses Wesenhafte. Innerhalb des Bewußtseins vollzieht sich das Fortschreiten von der noch unwesenhaften Sinnenwelt zu dem Wesenhaften derselben. So ist die Sinnenwelt nur so lange Erscheinung (Phänomen), als das Bewußtsein mit ihr noch nicht fertig geworden ist.
[ 15 ] In Wahrheit ist die Sinneswelt also geistige Welt; und mit dieser erkannten geistigen Welt lebt die Seele zusammen, indem sie das Bewußtsein über sie ausdehnt. Das Ziel des Erkenntnisvorganges ist das bewußte Erleben der geistigen Welt, vor deren Anblick sich alles in Geist auflöst.
[ 16 ] Ich stellte dem Phänomenalismus die Welt der geistigen Wirklichkeit gegenüber. Eduard von Hartmann meinte, ich wolle innerhalb der Phänomene stehen bleiben und nur darauf verzichten, von diesen auf irgendeine objektive Wirklichkeit zu schließen. Für ihn stellte sich die Sache also so dar, daß ich mit meiner Denkweise das menschliche Erkennen dazu verurteile, überhaupt zu keiner Wirklichkeit zu kommen, sondern sich innerhalb einer Scheineswelt bewegen zu müssen, die nur im Vorstellen der Seele (als Phänomen) Bestand hat. So war meinem Suchen nach dem Geist durch Erweiterung des Bewußtseins die Ansicht gegenübergestellt, daß «Geist» doch zunächst nur in der menschlichen Vorstellung lebt, außer ihr nur gedacht werden könne. Das war, im Grunde genommen, die Auffassung des Zeitalters, in das ich meine «Philosophie der Freiheit» hineinzustellen hatte. Das Erleben des Geistigen war für diese Auffassung zusammengeschrumpft auf das Erleben der menschlichen Vorstellungen. Und von diesen aus konnte man keinen Weg zu einer wirklichen (objektiven) Geist-Welt finden.
[ 17 ] Ich wollte zeigen, wie im subjektiv Erlebten das objektiv Geistige aufleuchtet und wahrer Bewußtseinsinhalt wird; Eduard von Hartmann hielt mir entgegen, wer solches darstellt, der bleibt innerhalb des Sinnenscheins stecken und redet gar nicht von einer objektiven Wirklichkeit.
[ 18 ] Es war nun selbstverständlich, daß Eduard von Hartmann auch meinen «ethischen Individualismus» bedenklich finden mußte.
[ 19 ] Denn worin war dieser in meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit» begründet? Ich sah im Mittelpunkt des menschlichen Seelenlebens ein vollkommenes Zusammensein der Seele mit der Geistwelt. Ich versuchte die Sache so darzustellen, daß sich eine vermeintliche Schwierigkeit, die Viele stört, in Nichts auflöst. Man meint nämlich, um zu erkennen, müsse die Seele - oder das «Ich» - sich von dem Erkannten unterscheiden, dürfe also nicht mit ihm in eins zusammenfließen. Doch ist diese Unterscheidung ja auch dann möglich, wenn die Seele gewissermaßen pendelartig sich zwischen dem Eins-Sein mit dem geistig Wesenhaften und der Besinnung auf sich selbst hin- und herbewegt. Sie wird dann «unbewußt» im Untertauchen in den objektiven Geist, bringt aber das vollkommen Wesenhafte bei der Selbstbesinnung in das Bewußtsein herein.
[ 20 ] Ist es nun möglich, daß die persönliche Individualität des Menschen in die geistige Wirklichkeit der Welt untertaucht, so kann in dieser Wirklichkeit auch die Welt der sittlichen Impulse erlebt werden. Sittlichkeit bekommt einen Inhalt, der sich aus der geistigen Welt innerhalb der menschlichen Individualität offenbart; und das ins Geistige erweiterte Bewußtsein dringt bis zum Anschauen dieses Offenbarens vor. Was den Menschen anregt zum sittlichen Handeln, ist Offenbarung der Geistwelt an das Erleben dieser Geistwelt durch die Seele. Und dieses Erleben geschieht innerhalb der persönlichen Individualität des Menschen. Sieht der Mensch im sittlichen Handeln sich im Wechselverkehr mit der Geistwelt, so erlebt er seine Freiheit. Denn die Geistwelt wirkt in der Seele nicht in Notwendigkeit, sondern so, daß der Mensch in Freiheit die Aktivität entfalten muß, die ihn zum Annehmen des Geistigen veranlaßt.
[ 21 ] In dem Hindeuten darauf, daß die Sinnenwelt in Wirklichkeit geistiger Wesenheit ist, und daß der Mensch als seelisches Wesen durch die wahre Erkenntnis der Sinneswelt in einem Geistigen webt und lebt, liegt das eine Ziel meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit». In der Kennzeichnung der moralischen Welt als einer solchen, die ihr Dasein in dieser von der Seele erlebten Geistwelt aufleuchten und damit den Menschen in Freiheit an sich herankommen läßt, ist das zweite Ziel enthalten. Die sittliche Wesenheit des Menschen wird damit in dessen ganz individuellem Verwachsensein mit den ethischen Impulsen der Geistwelt gesucht. Ich hatte die Empfindung, der erste Teil dieser «Philosophie der Freiheit» und der zweite stehen wie ein Geistorganismus, als eine echte Einheit da. Eduard von Hartmann mußte finden, sie seien als erkenntnistheoretischer Phänomenalismus und ethischer Individualismus willkürlich aneinander gekoppelt
[ 22 ] Die Gestalt, welche die Ideen des Buches angenommen haben, ist durch meine damalige Seelenverfassung bedingt. Durch mein Erleben der geistigen Welt in unmittelbarer Anschauung zeigte sich mir die Natur als Geist; ich wollte eine geistgemäße Naturwissenschaft schaffen. Im anschauenden Selbsterkennen der Menschenseele trat in dieser die moralische Welt als deren ganz individuelles Erlebnis auf.
[ 23 ] Im Geist-Erleben lag die Quelle für die Gestaltung, die ich den Ideen meines Buches gab. Es ist zunächst die Darstellung einer Anthroposophie, die auf die Natur hin und auf das Stehen des Menschen in der Natur mit seiner ihm individuell eigenen sittlichen Wesenheit orientiert ist.
[ 24 ] Für mich war mit der «Philosophie der Freiheit» gewissermaßen das von mir abgesondert und in die Außenwelt hineingestellt, was der erste Lebensabschnitt durch das schicksalsgemäße Erleben der naturwissenschaftlichen Daseinsrätsel an Ideengestaltung von mir verlangt hat Der weitere Weg konnte nunmehr nur in einem Ringen nach einer Ideengestaltung für die geistige Welt selbst sein.
[ 25 ] Die Erkenntnisse, die der Mensch in der Sinnesbeobachtung von außen empfängt, waren von mir als inneres anthroposophisches Geist-Erlebnis der Menschenseele dargestellt Daß ich den Ausdruck «Anthroposophie» damals noch nicht gebraucht habe, rührt davon her, daß meine Seele zunächst immer nach Anschauungen und fast gar nicht nach Terminologien drängt. Es stand mir bevor, Ideen zu bilden, die das Erleben der Geist-Welt selbst durch die menschliche Seele darstellen konnten.
[ 26 ] Ein innerliches Ringen nach einer solchen Ideenbildung ist der Inhalt der Episode meines Lebens, die ich von meinem dreißigsten bis zum vierzigsten Jahre durchgemacht habe. Ich war damals schicksalsgemäß am meisten in eine äußere Lebensbetätigung hineingestellt, die meinem inneren Leben nicht so entsprach, daß sie dieses hätte zum Ausdruck bringen können.
Chapter XVII
[ 1 ] A branch of the American-based "Society for Ethical Culture" was founded in Germany at this time. It seems self-evident that in the age of materialism one should only agree with a striving for ethical deepening. But at the time, this pursuit was based on a fundamental view that aroused the strongest reservations in me.
[ 2 ] The leaders of this movement said to themselves: we are currently in the midst of many conflicting views of the world and of life with regard to the life of knowledge, to religious and social feelings. People cannot be made to understand each other in the area of these views. It is evil if the moral feelings that people should have for one another are drawn into the area of these conflicting opinions. Where should it lead if religiously or socially different sentiments, or those who differ from each other in their cognitive life, express their differences by shaping their moral behavior towards those who think and feel differently. One must therefore seek out the principles of a purely human ethic, which should be independent of any world view, which everyone can recognize, however they think about the different areas of existence.
[ 3 ] This ethical movement made a profound impression on me. It touched my most important views. For before me stood the deep abyss that the ways of thinking of recent times have created between natural events and the moral-spiritual content of the world.
[ 4 ] One has arrived at a view of nature that seeks to depict the process of becoming without moral-spiritual content. One thinks hypothetically of a purely material original state of the world. One searches for the laws according to which the living, the animated, the spiritual could have gradually emerged from this original state in its present form. If one is consistent with such a way of thinking - as I said to myself at the time - then the spiritual and moral cannot be imagined in any other way than as a result of the workings of nature. Then you have the facts of nature, which are indifferent to the spiritual and moral, which in their becoming bring forth the moral like a side result and finally bury it again in their moral indifference.
[ 5 ] I could, however, keep in mind that the cautious thinkers did not draw this conclusion, that they simply accepted what the facts of nature seemed to tell them and thought that the world significance of the spiritual and moral had to be left alone. But that didn't seem important to me. It was not important to me that they should say that in the sense of natural events one must think in a way that was indifferent to the moral, and that what one thought in this way were simply hypotheses; let everyone form his own thoughts about the moral. I said to myself: anyone who thinks about nature, even in the smallest detail, in the way that was customary at the time, cannot ascribe any independent, self-sustaining reality to the spiritual and moral. If physics, chemistry and biology remain as they are, as they appear to all as untouchable, then the entities that are thought of as reality absorb all reality; and the spiritual-moral could only be the foam rising from this reality.
[ 6 ] I looked into another reality. One that is both moral-spiritual and natural at the same time. It seemed to me to be a weakness of the striving for knowledge not to want to penetrate to this reality. According to my spiritual view, I had to say to myself: above the natural and the spiritual-moral, there is a true reality that reveals itself morally, but which also has the power in moral action to transform itself into an event that is as effective as the natural event. The latter seemed to me to be indifferent to the spiritual-moral only because it has fallen out of its original connection with it, like the corpse of a human being from its connection with the soul-living of the human being.
[ 7 ] I was certain of this: for I did not merely think it, I saw it as truth in the spiritual facts and entities of the world. In the marked "ethicists" people seemed to me to have been born who regarded such an insight as indifferent to them; they more or less unconsciously held the opinion: nothing can be achieved by striving for a world view; let us save ethical principles that do not require any further investigation as to how they are rooted in the reality of the world. The naked despair of all worldview striving seemed to speak to me from this contemporary phenomenon. Unconsciously frivolous seemed to me a person who claimed: let's leave all worldviews alone so that we can spread morality among people again. I took many a walk with Hans and Grete Olden through the Weimar parks, where I spoke out radically about this frivolity. Anyone who penetrates as far as is possible for man, I said, will find a world event from which the reality of the moral as well as that of the natural confronts him. I wrote a sharp article in the then recently founded "Zukunft" against what I called an ethic uprooted from all world reality, which could have no power. The article met with a rather unfriendly reception. How could it be otherwise, since the "ethicists" had to present themselves as the saviors of culture.
[ 8 ] The matter was of unlimited importance to me. I wanted to fight at an important point for the assertion of a world view that reveals the ethical firmly grounded in all other reality. So I had to fight against ethics without a worldview.
[ 9 ] I traveled from Weimar to Berlin to seek out opportunities to express my views in magazines.
[ 10 ] I visited Herman Grimm, whom I greatly admired. I was received with the greatest kindness. But it seemed so strange to Herman Grimm that I, who was full of zeal for my cause, brought this zeal into his house. He listened to me somewhat impassively when I told him of my views on the "ethicists". I thought I could interest him in the cause that seemed so important to me. But I couldn't do that in the slightest. When he heard that "I wanted to do something", he said: "Why don't you go and see these people, I know more or less most of them; they are all very nice people." I felt like I had been doused with cold water. The man I admired so much felt nothing of what I wanted; he said that I would "think quite sensibly" about the matter if I convinced myself by visiting the "ethicists" that they were all quite likeable people.
[ 11 ] I found no more interest in others than in Herman Grimm. And that's how it was for me back then. I had to deal with my views of the spiritual all by myself. I lived in the spiritual world; no one from my circle of acquaintances followed me there. My intercourse consisted of excursions into the worlds of others. But I loved these excursions. My admiration for Herman Grimm was not affected in the least. But I was able to go through a good school in the art of understanding with love that which had no attempt to understand what I myself carried in my soul.
[ 12 ] That was my "loneliness" back then in Weimar, where I was in such widespread social intercourse. But I did not attribute it to the people that they condemned me to such loneliness. I saw in many of them an unconscious urge for a world view that penetrated to the very roots of existence. I felt how a way of thinking, which could occur safely because it only adhered to the obvious, weighed on their souls. "Nature is the whole world" was this way of thinking. It was believed that one must find it right; and one suppressed everything in the soul that felt that one could not find it right. In this light, much of what surrounded me spiritually at that time was revealed to me. It was the time in which my "philosophy of freedom", the essential content of which I had already carried within me for a long time, took its final form.
[ 13 ] Immediately after it was printed, I sent my "Philosophy of Freedom" to Eduard von Hartmann. He read it with great attention, because I soon received his copy of the book with his detailed marginal notes from the beginning to the end. He wrote to me, among other things, that the book should have the title: Epistemological Phenomenalism and Ethical Individualism. He had completely misunderstood the sources of the ideas and my aims. He thought about the sensory world in the Kantian way, even if he modified it. He considered this world to be the effect of something essential on the soul through the senses. In his opinion, this essence should never be able to enter the field of perception that the soul encompasses with consciousness. It should remain beyond consciousness. Only through logical conclusions could one form hypothetical ideas about it. The sensory world therefore does not represent something that exists objectively in itself, but rather a subjective phenomenon that only exists in the soul as long as it encompasses it with consciousness.
[ 14 ] I sought to demonstrate in my book that not behind the sensory world lies an unknown, but within it lies the spiritual world. And of the human world of ideas I sought to show that it has its existence in this spiritual world. The essence of the sense world is therefore only hidden from human consciousness so long as the soul perceives only through the senses. When the ideas are experienced in addition to the sensory perceptions, then the sensory world is experienced by the consciousness in its objective essentiality. Cognition is not a depiction of an essence, but a living of the soul into this essence. Within consciousness, the progression from the still unessential sense world to its essence takes place. Thus the sense world is only an appearance (phenomenon) as long as consciousness has not yet come to terms with it.
[ 15 ] In truth, the sense world is therefore the spiritual world; and the soul lives together with this recognized spiritual world by extending consciousness over it. The goal of the process of cognition is the conscious experience of the spiritual world, before the sight of which everything dissolves into spirit.
[ 16 ] I contrasted phenomenalism with the world of spiritual reality. Eduard von Hartmann said that I wanted to remain within the phenomena and only refrain from drawing conclusions about any objective reality from them. For him, the matter thus presented itself in such a way that with my way of thinking I condemn human cognition to not arrive at any reality at all, but to have to move within an illusory world that only exists in the imagination of the soul (as a phenomenon). Thus my search for the spirit through the expansion of consciousness was confronted with the view that "spirit" initially only lives in the human imagination and can only be thought outside it. This was, basically, the view of the age into which I had to place my "Philosophy of Freedom". For this view, the experience of the spiritual was reduced to the experience of human ideas. And from these, one could not find a way to a real (objective) spiritual world.
[ 17 ] I wanted to show how the subjectively experienced illuminates the objectively spiritual and becomes the true content of consciousness; Eduard von Hartmann countered that anyone who depicts this remains stuck within sense and is not talking about an objective reality at all.
[ 18 ] It was now self-evident that Eduard von Hartmann must also find my "ethical individualism" questionable.
[ 19 ] For what was the basis of this in my "philosophy of freedom"? I saw a perfect union of the soul with the spirit world at the center of human spiritual life. I tried to present the matter in such a way that a supposed difficulty, which disturbs many, dissolves into nothing. It is thought that in order to recognize, the soul - or the "I" - must differentiate itself from the recognized, that is, it must not merge into one with it. However, this differentiation is also possible when the soul moves back and forth like a pendulum between being one with the spiritual being and reflecting on itself. It then becomes "unconscious" when immersed in the objective spirit, but brings the completely essential into consciousness during self-reflection.
[ 20 ] If it is now possible for the personal individuality of man to immerse itself in the spiritual reality of the world, then the world of moral impulses can also be experienced in this reality. Morality acquires a content that reveals itself from the spiritual world within the human individuality; and the consciousness expanded into the spiritual penetrates to the point of seeing this revelation. What stimulates man to moral action is the revelation of the spiritual world to the experience of this spiritual world through the soul. And this experience takes place within the personal individuality of the human being. If the human being sees himself in interaction with the spirit world in moral action, he experiences his freedom. For the spirit world does not work in the soul by necessity, but in such a way that the human being must freely develop the activity that causes him to accept the spiritual.
[ 21 ] In pointing out that the world of the senses is in reality of spiritual essence, and that man as a spiritual being weaves and lives in a spiritual world through true knowledge of the world of the senses, lies one aim of my "philosophy of freedom". The second goal is contained in the characterization of the moral world as one that illuminates its existence in this spiritual world experienced by the soul and thus allows man to approach it in freedom. The moral essence of the human being is thus sought in his completely individual intergrowth with the ethical impulses of the spirit world. I had the feeling that the first part of this "philosophy of freedom" and the second part are like a spiritual organism, a real unity. Eduard von Hartmann had to find that they were arbitrarily coupled together as epistemological phenomenalism and ethical individualism
[ 22 ] The form that the ideas of the book have taken is due to the state of my soul at that time. Through my experience of the spiritual world in direct contemplation, nature showed itself to me as spirit; I wanted to create a science of nature in accordance with the spirit. In the contemplative self-recognition of the human soul, the moral world appeared in it as its completely individual experience.
[ 23 ] The spiritual experience was the source of the form I gave to the ideas of my book. It is first and foremost the presentation of an anthroposophy that is oriented towards nature and towards man's standing in nature with his own individual moral essence.
[ 24 ] For me, with the "Philosophy of Freedom", that which the first phase of my life had demanded of me in terms of shaping ideas through the fateful experience of the scientific riddles of existence was, so to speak, separated from me and placed in the outside world.
[ 25 ] The insights that man receives from outside in sense observation were presented by me as an inner anthroposophical spiritual experience of the human soul The fact that I did not yet use the term "anthroposophy" at that time stems from the fact that my soul initially always urges for views and almost not at all for terminologies. It was up to me to form ideas that could represent the experience of the spirit world itself through the human soul.
[ 26 ] An inner struggle for such a formation of ideas is the content of the episode of my life that I went through from my thirtieth to my fortieth year. At that time, as fate would have it, I was most involved in an external life activity that did not correspond to my inner life in such a way that it could have expressed it.