The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Chapter IX

[ 1 ] My first trip to Germany took place at this time (1889). It was prompted by an invitation to collaborate on the Weimar Goethe edition, which was commissioned by the Goethe Archive on behalf of the Grand Duchess Sophie of Saxony. A few years earlier, Goethe's grandson, Walter von Goethe, had died; he had bequeathed Goethe's manuscript estate to the Grand Duchess. She had thus founded the Goethe Archive and, together with a number of Goethe connoisseurs, headed by Herman Grimm, Gustav von Loeper and Wilhelm Scherer, decided to organize a Goethe edition in which Goethe's known works would be combined with the as yet unpublished estate.

[ 2 ] My publications on Goethe literature were the reason why I was asked to edit part of Goethe's scientific writings for this edition. I was called to Weimar to find my bearings in the scientific estate and to take the first steps towards my work.

[ 3 ] My stay in the city of Goethe, which lasted several weeks, was a festive time in my life. I had lived in Goethe's thoughts for years; now I was allowed to be in the places where these thoughts originated. I spent these weeks under the uplifting impression of this feeling.

[ 4 ] I was now allowed to have the papers before my eyes day after day, on which additions to what I had previously edited for the Goethe edition of Kürschner's "National-Literatur" were written.

[ 5 ] The work on this edition created a picture in my mind of Goethe's world view. Now it was a matter of recognizing how this picture could exist in view of the fact that previously unpublished works on natural science were to be found in his estate. I worked my way into this part of Goethe's estate with great excitement.

[ 6 ] I soon realized that what had not yet been published made an important contribution to understanding Goethe's way of knowing more precisely.

[ 7 ] In my previously published writings, I had understood this way of knowing in such a way that Goethe lived in the view that man, with his ordinary consciousness, is initially distant from the true essence of the world around him. And from this standing at a distance sprouts the urge before recognizing the world to first develop powers of cognition in the soul that are not present in ordinary consciousness.

[ 8 ] From this point of view, it was significant for me when I encountered statements such as the following from Goethe's papers:

[ 9 ] "In order to orient ourselves to some extent in these different kinds (Goethe means the different kinds of knowledge in man and his relationship to the outside world), let us divide them into: Users, Knowers, Viewers and Comprehensives.

[ 10 ] 1. The utilizers, those who seek benefits, those who demand are the first to outline the field of science, as it were, to grasp the practical. Consciousness through experience gives them security, the need a certain breadth.

[ 11 ] 2. The inquisitive require a calm, disinterested gaze, a curious restlessness, a clear mind, and are always in relation to them; they also process only in the scientific sense that which they find.

[ 12 ] 3. The contemplative already behaves productively, and knowledge, by increasing itself, demands contemplation without realizing it, and passes over to it, and however much the knowers crucify and bless themselves before the imagination, they must, before they know it, call the productive imagination to their aid.

[ 13 ] 4. The comprehensive ones, who in a proud sense could be called the creators, behave productively in the highest sense, for by starting from ideas, they already express the unity of the whole, and it is to a certain extent subsequently the business of nature to fit itself into this idea."

[ 14 ] It is clear from such remarks: Goethe is of the opinion that man, with the ordinary form of consciousness, stands outside the essence of the external world. He must pass over to another form of consciousness if he wants to unite with this being in a recognizing way. During my stay in Weimar, the question arose more and more decisively: how should one continue to build on the foundations of knowledge laid by Goethe in order to move from his way of seeing to the way of thinking that can absorb spiritual experience, as it had presented itself to me? Goethe started from what the lower levels of cognition, those of the "utilizers" and the "inquisitive", achieve. He allowed that to shine forth in his soul which can shine forth in the "contemplators" and "comprehenders" towards the content of the lower level of knowledge through productive soul forces. When he thus stood with the lower knowledge in his soul in the light of the higher contemplation and comprehension, he felt united with the essence of things.

[ 15 ] The cognitive experience in the spirit is not yet given; but the path to it is marked out from the one side, from that which results from the relationship of man to the outside world. Before my soul stood that satisfaction could only come from grasping the other side, which results from man's relationship to himself.

[ 16 ] When consciousness becomes productive, that is, brings something of its own accord to the next images of reality: can it still remain in a reality, or does it float away from it in order to lose itself in the unreal? What is "produced" by consciousness in opposition to it must be seen through. An understanding of human consciousness with itself had to be brought about first; then one could find the justification of the purely spiritual experience. Such were the paths my thoughts took, repeating their earlier forms more clearly as I sat over Goethe's papers in Weimar.

[ 17 ] It was summer. There was little to be seen of Weimar's artistic life at the time. One could devote oneself in complete peace to the artistic, which stood there like a monument to Goethe's work. One did not live in the present; one was transported back to Goethe's time. The Liszt era was present in Weimar at that time. But the representatives of this were not there.

[ 18 ] The times after the work were spent with the personalities who worked in the archive. Then there were the employees who visited the archive from abroad for shorter or longer periods. I was received with extraordinary kindness by Bernhard Suphan, the director of the Goethe Archive, and I found a dear friend in Julius Wahle, a permanent employee of the archive. But all this only took on a more definite form when, after a year, I rejoined the archive for a longer period; and it will then have to be told when this period of my life is depicted.

[ 19 ] My main desire now was to get to know Eduard von Hartmann, with whom I had been in correspondence about philosophical matters for years, in person. This was to happen during a short stay in Berlin, which followed the Weimar one.

[ 20 ] I was allowed to have a long conversation with the philosopher. He was lying on a sofa with his upper body erect and his legs stretched out. He had spent most of his life in this position since his knee ailment had set in. A forehead that was a clear expression of a clear, sharp mind and eyes that revealed in their posture the inwardly felt certainty in what he recognized stood before my gaze. A mighty beard framed his face. He spoke with a full determination that indicated how he had thrown some fundamental thoughts over the whole world view, thereby illuminating it in its own way. In these thoughts, everything that approached him from other points of view was immediately covered with criticism. So I sat opposite him and he judged me harshly, but didn't actually listen to me inwardly. For him, the essence of things lay in the unconscious and must always remain hidden there for human consciousness; for me, the unconscious was something that could be raised more and more into consciousness through the efforts of the soul's life. In the course of the conversation I came to say that one should not see in the imagination from the outset something that, separated from the real, only represents an unreal in consciousness. Such a view could not be the starting point of a theory of knowledge. For through it one blocks one's access to all reality, in that one can then only believe that one lives in ideas, and can only approach the real in imaginary hypotheses, that is, in an unreal way. Rather, one must first examine whether the view of the imagination as something unreal is valid or whether it arises only from prejudice. Eduard von Hartmann replied: There can be no argument about that; it is already in the word explanation of "imagination" that there is nothing real in it. When I heard this reply, I got a chill down my spine. "Word-explanations" are the serious starting point of views on life! I felt how far removed I was from contemporary philosophy. When I sat in the train carriage on the onward journey, lost in my thoughts and memories of the visit that was so precious to me, the chill in my soul repeated itself. It was something that stayed with me for a long time.

[ 21 ] With the exception of the visit to Eduard von Hartmann, the short stays I was able to make in Berlin and Munich after the one in Weimar on my journey through Germany were entirely devoted to the artistic life that these places offer. At the time, I found the expansion of my circle of vision in this direction to be a particular enrichment of my spiritual life. And so this first major journey that I was able to make was also of far-reaching significance for my views on art. A wealth of impressions lived in me when, after this trip, I lived for a few weeks in the Salzkammergut with the family whose sons I had been teaching for many years. I was still dependent on finding an external occupation in private teaching. And I was also kept in it internally, because I wanted to bring the boy, whose education had been entrusted to me years ago and in whom I had succeeded in bringing the soul from a completely dormant state to wakefulness, to a certain point in his life development.

[ 22 ] In the next period, after my return to Vienna, I was able to spend a lot of time in a circle of people who were held together by a woman whose mystical-theosophical state of mind made a deep impression on all the participants in the circle. The hours I spent in the home of this woman, Marie Lang, were extremely valuable to me. Marie Lang had a serious outlook on life and a feeling for life that was expressed in a noble and beautiful way. Her deep soul experiences were expressed in a melodious and penetrating language. A life struggling inwardly with itself and the world could only find satisfaction, if not complete satisfaction, in mystical searching. Thus she was made for the soul of a circle of searching people. Theosophy, which had started from H P Blavatsky at the end of the last century, had penetrated this circle. Franz Hartmann, who became famous in wide circles through his numerous theosophical works and his relationship with H. P. Blavatsky, also brought his theosophy into this circle. Marie Lang had absorbed some of this theosophy. In some respects, the ideas she found there seemed to correspond to the course of her soul. However, what she accepted from this side was only external to her. But she carried within her a mystical good that had risen to consciousness in a very elemental way from a heart that had been tested by life.

[ 23 ] The architects, writers and other personalities I met in Marie Lang's house would hardly have been interested in the theosophy taught by Franz Hartmann if Marie Lang had not taken some interest in it. And least of all would I have been interested in it myself. For the way in which she related to the spiritual world, as expressed in Franz Hartmann's writings, was completely contrary to my way of thinking. I could not concede that it was based on real inner truth. I was less concerned with its content than with the way it affected people who were, after all, true seekers.

[ 24 ] Through Marie Lang I became acquainted with Mrs. Rosa Mayreder, who was a friend of hers. Rosa Mayreder is one of the personalities for whom I have had the greatest admiration in my life and in whose development I have taken the greatest interest. I can well imagine that what I have to say here will be of little satisfaction to her; but I feel what has entered my life through her in this way. At that time nothing had yet appeared of Rosa Mayreder's writings, which subsequently made such a justifiably great impression on many people, and which undoubtedly place her in a very prominent position in literature. But what was revealed in these writings lived in Rosa Mayreder in a spiritual form of expression to which I had to turn with the strongest inner sympathy. This woman gave me the impression that she possessed each of the individual gifts of the human soul to such an extent that in their harmonious interaction they formed the right expression of the human. She combines various artistic gifts with a free, penetrating sense of observation. Her painting is as much a product of individual life development as it is of devoted immersion in the objective world. The stories with which she began her literary career are perfect harmonies that resonate from personal struggles and completely objective observations. Her subsequent works increasingly bear this character. This is most evident in her later two-volume work "Critique of Femininity". I consider it a great gain in my life to have spent many an hour with Rosa Mayreder in the years of her search and spiritual struggle during the time I am describing here.

[ 25 ] I also have to look at one of my relationships with people who, beyond the content of my thoughts and in a certain sense quite independently of them, came into being and gained intense life. For my view of the world, and even more so my perception, were not those of Rosa Mayreder. The way in which I rise from the currently recognized scientificity to the experience of the spiritual cannot possibly be sympathetic to her. She seeks to use this scientificity to justify ideas which aim at the full development of the human personality, without allowing the knowledge of a purely spiritual world to play into this personality. What is a necessity to me in this direction can hardly mean anything to her. It is entirely devoted to the demands of immediate human individuality and does not turn its attention to the spiritual forces at work in this individuality. In this way, she has achieved the most significant portrayal of the nature of femininity and its demands on life to date. I was never able to satisfy Rosa Mayreder with the view she formed of my relationship to art. She said that I failed to recognize what was actually artistic, whereas I was struggling to grasp this specifically artistic aspect with the view that arose from experiencing the spiritual in my soul. She thought that I could not penetrate enough into the revelations of the sense world and thus could not reach the truly artistic, while I sought to penetrate precisely into the full truth of the sensory forms. - None of this has taken anything away from the intimate friendship that I developed with this personality at the time when I owed her the most precious hours of my life, and which has truly not diminished to this day.

[ 26 ] In Rosa Mayreder's house, I was often allowed to take part in the conversations where spiritual people gathered. Hugo Wolf, with whom Rosa Mayreder was close friends, sat there quietly, seemingly looking more into himself than listening to his surroundings. People listened to him in their souls, no matter how little he spoke. For what he lived communicated itself in a mysterious way to those who could be with him. - I was deeply in love with Mrs. Rosa's husband, Karl Mayreder, who was so fine as a person and artist, and also his artistically enthusiastic brother Julius Mayreder. Marie Lang and her circle, Friedrich Eckstein, who at that time was completely in tune with the theosophical current of thought and world view, were often there. This was the time when my "philosophy of freedom" took on ever more specific forms in my soul. Rosa Mayreder is the person with whom I spoke most about these forms at the time of writing my book. She took away some of the inner loneliness in which I lived. She strove for the contemplation of the immediate human personality, I for the revelation of the world, which this personality can seek at the bottom of the soul through the opening spiritual eye. There were many bridges between the two. And in later life, one or the other of these experiences has often stood before my mind in the most grateful memory, like a walk through the magnificent Alpine forests, on which Rosa Mayreder and I talked about the true meaning of human freedom.