The Nature of Spiritual Science and Its Significance for the Present
GA 60
20 October 1910, Berlin
Translated by Antje Heymanns and Norbert Mulholland
For many years I have attempted to give lectures here during the winter months on a subject I call Spiritual Science. This winter again, as part of the announced lectures, we will focus on the facts of the spiritual world from the perspective of Spiritual Science. We will look at what belongs to the fundamental questions of existence: The relationship between life and death, sleep and wakefulness, human souls and animal souls, the spirit of man and of animals and the spirit in the plant realm. Then we will look at the nature of human development throughout the various stages of life; through childhood, youth and the later life years, and the part that education plays in forming a person’s main character. The life of the spirit will be illuminated by looking at great individualities of human evolution—at Zarathustra, Moses, Galilei, Goethe. An attempt will be made to show the relationship of what we call Spiritual Science to natural science, using examples from astronomy and geology. Subsequently, from the sources of Spiritual Science itself, we will try to tell what it has to say about the riddle of life.
Each year these contemplations were preceded by a kind of general orientation. We want to follow this custom again today by speaking about the significance of Spiritual Science; its nature and relationship, or its task in regard to the various spiritual needs of the present.
In the sense we speak about Spiritual Science here, one might say that it is still quite an unpopular topic today in wide circles of humanity. Indeed, one speaks about Geisteswissenschaft,1Translator’s comment: Literal translation of Geisteswissenschaft from German is ‘Spiritual Science’, in English called ‘humanities’. or ‘humanities’ from standpoints different to those that we must take. So, for example, one understands ‘history’ to be a subject that belongs to the field of humanities—but one also finds history in other scientific fields of the present. Here we want to speak in a different sense than usual about Spiritual Science. Today, when one talks about Spiritual Science’ and applies this to history, then one has to at least acknowledge that, apart from what is accessible to human observation through sensory and intellectual experiences, there are yet other major trends of history which can be considered. These trends show themselves as forces working in the stream of world happenings, and affect, as it were, the fates of individual peoples and individual states. Of course, one speaks about general ideas in history and in human life. One who thinks about what this means will soon realise that abstract ideas are being referred to; to which one appeals when talking about the nature and the strength of what guides human destiny. In a certain respect these are general ideas with which human cognitive faculty can gain an insightful relationship.
Spiritual Science is spoken of here in a different sense, in that the spiritual world is assumed to be a world that is essential, just as the human world is essential within physical existence. It will be shown that if one surmounts with the human faculty of knowledge beyond outer sense observations and intellectual experience, and goes to the guiding forces of human and cosmic existence, then one may not only arrive at abstractions, at sapless and feeble ideas; instead at something essential; at something that is alive, meaningful, spiritually imbued by existence as is the essence of man itself. So, we speak about a spiritual world with real existence here. This is exactly what makes Spiritual Science unpopular from the standpoint of the widest circles of our present-day spiritual movement. And still, the least of what one calls those who pursue such spiritual research is blabberer, dreamer or fantasist. And even today it is quite common to say that everything which presents itself as strictly methodical, or appears or wants to appear to be truly scientific on this basis, is quite dubious.
Great, tremendous progress has always had a strong suggestive effect on humanity: on all thinking, feeling and emotion. And if we look at the great advances that have been made recently in human life—we could almost say in the last centuries—, these were not in the area of Spiritual Science about which we want to talk here, but rather in the area which humanity is so proud of today—and to emphasise, rightfully so—and where there is still great hope for the future development of humanity. The progress of the last centuries up to the present time, lies in a field that grows out of the natural sciences. When we think about how enormous all of this is that today has been won not only theoretically for human knowledge in the field of natural sciences, but which promises to still be gained on the basis of natural sciences—in addition, when one weighs up the great significance of natural science achievements for external life—then one must say the blessing, the meaningfulness of natural science progress could and must have exerted a suggestive power on the human mind in our time. Even so, this suggestive effect also expressed itself in another direction. If it had solely expressed itself so that the human mind, faced with immense progress, would foremost have felt something like a kind of worldly veneration, who could even say a word against it?
However, this suggestive power has also expressed itself in another direction; namely, not only acknowledging what natural science research, and progress derived from it, signifies for our time; but it also led in a direction where, in the widest circles, the belief arose that all knowledge, all insights of humanity, can only be won on the basis of what is acknowledged today as natural science.
Based on this belief people feel entitled to conclude that Spiritual Science methods are contradictory to natural science methods. And thus, for someone standing on natural scientific ground, it would be impossible to even talk about ‘research’ in relation to the spiritual world. Therefore, a prejudice spread in the widest circles that Spiritual Science must be rejected, as it stands in opposition to the legitimate claims of the natural sciences.
It is noticeable that by raising this objection something extraordinarily difficult to weigh-up has been dropped into the equation. The natural scientific method, it is stated, is one whose research results and findings, can be verified by anyone at any time. Also, that in the process of gaining these insights, nothing of what prevails in the subjective human being as feeling; sympathy or antipathy, longing or desires, can play a role.
The prerequisite that nothing is allowed to interfere includes ‘wanting to achieve a particular result’. The human element must be excluded from research when it comes to the results of natural scientific research and only the pure objectivity of things is allowed to speak.
Spiritual Science cannot make this demand so easily. For someone who is quick to make a judgment about the general validity of this demand, the mere fact that Spiritual Science cannot comply with it will suffice as a reason to reject it. Why is this the case? The objects of natural science which it researches can be found around everyone. It begins with something that can be placed in front of anyone and about which anyone, once confronted by an object, can think about it by applying natural scientific methods. Moreover, the qualifications with which a person approaches something presented to him in the field of vision in his surroundings, do not seem to matter. This is exactly what is expressed by the general demand: Natural scientific knowledge needs to be verifiable by any human being at any given point in time.
True Spiritual Science is not able to proceed in the same way as natural science to obtain its results. First, it is not able to say that its results could be reproduced by any human being at any moment in time. This is because Spiritual Science has to presuppose that its research results will be gained by someone who does not see his inner being as something static, as something complete, who doesn’t see his subjective nature as finished but who says to himself: My subjective nature, the whole sum of my soul existence with which I am able to face this world, is not closed-off, is not finished, it can be developed, the soul-life can be deepened. The soul-life can proceed so that whatever one finds—when focussing the senses on the external world and the intellect on what the senses say—is only, as it were, a foundation for further experiences of the soul. Further soul-experiences come about when a soul immerses itself in itself, works on itself, considers the immediate comprehension of life the starting point, and then, through forces that initially slumber within it but which can be brought out, wrestles through levels of existence. These forces cannot be looked at in such a way that they can be checked by a physical eye.
Thus, what a spiritual researcher has to go through in preparation for his studies is an inner wrestling of the soul, that is completely independent from anything one has within oneself. So, if one demands of science that a human being should not contribute anything to the results that are externally presented to him, then there can be no question of Spiritual Science. But if someone reflects a little and asks himself: which part of the demands made by Spiritual Science is the most important? Then one could say to oneself, that its results should be applicable to all human beings, they should not be subject to personal arbitrariness or to someone’s individuality; and should not only be significant for the inner life of this or that person, but should be significant for all human beings.
This is the importance of all that is scientific: that it is not only valid for someone who studies the scientific topic, but also, once a topic has been researched, this may lead to insights that could be valid for all people.
Now, if it were true that what has been characterised as human development is only subjective and only valid for one or another human being, and is thus only a personal belief, then one could not really speak of Spiritual Science. But it will become apparent to us this winter that this inner life of man—the wrestling of the soul with forces that are at first dormant but are able to awaken—unfolds and develops and then leads him from experience to experience; that this soul-life can rise up to a level where its experiences will have a very specific characteristic.
If we contemplate human life, as it takes place inside the human soul, it is at first a completely personal one—this way for one, that for another. Anyone possessing healthy self-reflection will be clear about this or that arising in his soul as sympathy or antipathy, that it is, as it were, only a personal touch, and that this is the case and how it is so. But the inner experience leads to a certain point, where especially a methodically driven self-realisation, a pure self-knowledge uninfluenced by anything personal, will have to acknowledge to oneself: the ‘personal’ has just been cast off, forms a special area. But then one will reach a certain point where for the inner experience, for the super-sensible experience arbitrariness also stops, exactly the same way it stops if one faces this or that sense perceptible phenomena and one cannot think as one likes but must think according to the object. Thus the human being also comes in his inner soul to a certain sphere, to a certain area, where he becomes clearly aware that his own personal subjectivity no longer speaks. But that now super-sensible beings and forces, who are not perceptible to the physical senses, speak and for whom his individuality has as little importance as for what the external sensory objects say.
This insight must indeed be gained if we want to talk about the right to call what must be said about the spiritual world ‘science’ at all.
Again, these winter lectures are meant to prove that the research of the spiritual world can be called science.
Therefore, one must say Spiritual Science is essentially founded on what can be researched through the human soul, when it has reached a point in its inner struggles and experiences where the personal no longer has a say in the contemplations of the spiritual world, but where the soul allows the spiritual world itself to tell of its own peculiarities.
If one then wants to compare Spiritual Science with natural science, some might say: there is still an important criterion missing from Spiritual Science, namely, the ability to make a convincing impression on all people which natural science can, because one is aware that wherever natural scientific results appear, even if you have not done this research or seen it yourself, one could, if one went to an observatory or into a laboratory and used a telescope or a microscope, recognise things in the same way as the person who has informed you about it.
Furthermore, it could be said: If, on the path of Spiritual Science, a proof is a purely inner matter, and the soul is wrestling with itself until it says, ‘now you will contribute nothing from your personality to what the objects tell you’—it still remains an individual wrestling. And to one who gains certain insights in this way, or with whom the spiritual researcher shares his results, it should be said: ‘For me these results remain an unknown territory, until I myself ascend to the same point!’
As will be shown, this also is an incorrect objection. Certainly, this lonely wrestling of the human soul, this uncovering of dormant soul forces is part of ascending to the spiritual world, where it objectively speaks to us. But the spiritual world is like this: when Spiritual Scientific results are shared, they do not remain ineffective. Communications by a human soul, which are tested through Spiritual Science research, and exchanged with other souls, can, in a certain sense, be verified by every soul—not like in a laboratory where one can see what the other has found—but in such a way that one can gain insight. For in every soul lives an impartial sense of truth, a healthy logic, a healthy rationality. And when the results of Spiritual Science are clothed in healthy logic that appeals to our healthy sense of truth, then in every soul, or at least in every unbiased human soul, a chord can resonate with the communicating soul.
It can be said that every soul is pre-disposed within itself, even if it has not yet devoted itself to the markedly, lonely wrestling, to take into itself the communication from Spiritual Science by way of an unbiased logic and a healthy sense of truth. Quite certainly it has to be admitted that in the widest circles, where this or that of Spiritual Science is carried on today, that the same healthy sense of truth and healthy logic does not prevail everywhere where communications of spiritual research are received—but then, this is an inadequacy of every spiritual movement. In principle, however, what has been said is correct. Yes, in principle one should even pay attention to the fact that it must lead to error upon error when someone accepts light-heartedly and with blind faith what nowadays is often brought to humanity as Spiritual Science. Whoever stands truly grounded in Spiritual Science feels strictly obliged to share logically and rationally what he has to say, so that it actually can be verified by a healthy sense of truth and by applying logic. We have now characterised the nature of Spiritual Science from one side, by showing how its results need to be obtained.
That spirit exists as an objective fact can only be proven by Spiritual Science itself. But it should be pointed out now that this Science will lead to what we call the real, the true content of the spiritual world, a content that is filled in a living way with something essential, just as a human being himself is filled with an inner essence.
Spiritual Science is, from this point of view, clear about the fact that all external, physical-sensory existence, all existence about which the senses and rational experiences speak to us, are ultimately born out of the spiritual world. And human beings, like all other things, are born out of this spiritual world, have developed out of it, so that behind the manifest world, behind what we ordinarily call the physical external existence, the region of the spiritual world extends. Now, when Spiritual Science gradually begins to demonstrate through its observations what it is like in this spiritual world, how the spiritual world is the foundation of our manifest world, then in many circles of our time, an aversion, an antipathy appears, which at the beginning of today’s considerations was characterised as follows: at the present time, in wide circles, Spiritual Science is a rather unpopular matter. And it is not at all difficult to understand, that Spiritual Science still faces enormous resistance today. This is in fact quite obvious and not only because something that is in a certain respect newly assimilated in cultural life—like Spiritual Science and like all small and great achievements of humanity—has always been treated with a certain amount of rejection. It is so because, indeed, there is much in the area of concepts, which man today obtains as a result of natural scientific observations, that necessarily cause someone who beliefs himself to be firmly grounded in natural science, to get entangled in contradictions when he hears what Spiritual Science says. One who is grounded in Spiritual Science has no doubt at all that, with some justification, hundreds upon hundreds of so-called rebuttals of Spiritual Science could be put forward. Only in parentheses, I would like to add that I myself will soon give two lectures at different places (and here also) so that the question raised can be clarified. One of these will be titled, ‘How do you refute Theosophy?’ and the other one ‘How do you justify Theosophy?’2‘How do you refute Theosophy? How do you justify Theosophy?’ Rudolf Steiner talked about this topic for the first time on 19 and 25 March 1911 in Prague, and later at various locations in Germany. The Berlin lectures were later published in the series of Architect-House-Lectures. This is an experiment to show how someone who is grounded in Spiritual Science is able to collate absolutely everything that can be brought up against it. Yes, I will go further and say even more than has already been stated against it. The refutations of Spiritual Science, as one usually speaks of refutations today, are not particularly difficult in regard to their conclusions. It is easy to disprove spiritual scientific research.
I do not wish to compare these refutations directly, but, in order to elucidate what I wish to say, I want to take up something that one often notices when reading works by certain philosophers about the philosophy of Hegel. I do not want to speak here about the significance of Hegel’s philosophy, what is true and what is error; we want to leave that aside. Yet among the Hegel experts there will be few who would not admit that with Hegel they have to do with an eminent spirit. Now there is a strange sentence in Hegel’s writings which makes a deep impression, so to speak, on those who light-heartedly want to refute Hegel. This sentence reads; ‘All that is real is rational!’ Now imagine, as it were, the inner laughter such a sentence will trigger in one who likes to refute! A philosopher, who is supposed to be great, talks such nonsense; ‘What is real is rational!’ One only needs to cast a glance at the world to see how irrational such a sentence is! There is a simple method to disprove the truth of this sentence, and that consists in oneself committing an utterly foolish act. Because then one can state concerning this act that it is quite certainly not rational.
Should the fact that refutation is easy also lead to one taking it lightly and easily take it as meaningful? This is a completely different question, which might be answered by considering the following: Would Hegel really have been so stupid—regardless of how one stands in regards to Hegel—that he would not have realised what could be said against this sentence? Would he really have believed that no man would be able to commit an absolutely stupid act? Should one not rather feel compelled to explore what Hegel meant to say with this sentence, and realise that with such a refutation one is unable to undermine what he meant.
This could also be the case with many things regarding Spiritual Science. To take something concrete: Spiritual Science must presuppose—this can only be mentioned today—that what is recognised in the human being as the tools of thinking, of imagination, of feeling and of willing, namely the nervous system with the brain, has been produced out of something spiritual. The brain and the nervous system are instruments of something essential that cannot be demonstrated in the sensory world, but must be investigated using the characteristic methods of Spiritual Science. Spiritual Science must therefore step back from what external science, relying on sensory phenomena, says about the brain and the nervous system, to something that works in the human being as soul-spiritual itself, and which can no longer be researched by means of the senses—it can only be explored on the inner paths of the soul. Now it really is child’s play to refute what spiritual research tells about the supersensible which underlies the human brain. One could say; everything you say is itself only a product of the brain. If you do not recognise this, then observe how abilities increase according to the development phase. In lower animals the mental abilities are quite imperfect. In higher animals, and particularly in higher mammals, they are already more significant and more perfected. In man they appear most perfect, because his brain has reached the greatest perfection. This shows that what appears as spiritual life grows out of the brain. And if you still do not believe this, then approach someone who is able to show you how during certain cases of illness certain parts of the brain become ineffective, and certain abilities, as it were, can no longer be exercised by a person—so that certain parts of the brain are eroded and the spiritual life gets switched off. This shows you, how bit by bit your spiritual life can be eroded through what is evidently an organ!
Why then, do you continue to talk about spiritual beings, that are behind the manifested things? It really is child’s play to make this objection. However, it must seem obvious today that the objection is not based on natural scientific results, but has been derived from a suggestion, which for many people has been constructed out of certain natural scientific theories. This is all related to the fact that our time is under the suggestive power of the idea that truth and knowledge can only be gained by directing the senses outward, and the rational mind lit up by what has been gained. In relation to Spiritual Science, it must be said, that even if these results of natural science must cause refutations of the results of Spiritual Science to just spring forth from everywhere, one can stress that on the other hand, there is a deep need, a deep longing in our present time, to hear something from those lands about which Spiritual Science knows how to report. Simultaneously, a deep longing to hear of these has emerged and is alive and consciously present in a group of people. In a large part of humanity it lies dormant, as it were, beneath the surface of consciousness, but it will become more and more apparent. The need for the results of Spiritual Science will steadily increase. This longing, this need for spiritual scientific results will appear, as it were, as a side-effect of the admiration, of the devotion to natural scientific achievements. Precisely because the achievements of the natural sciences must necessarily turn man's gaze outwards, the longing for the results of the Spiritual Science arises within him as a counterbalance. As it developed in this regard in the nineteenth and in our [20th] century, we have arrived within evolution at a completely different viewpoint from the one which humanity had even a century ago. If one wants to speak about the value of spiritual scientific research for the present, then it is significant to recall before our souls, that even a century ago, great spirits did not feel the need to speak about spiritual scientific results in the same way as is planned to happen in this lecture series. Great individualities only set the tone for humanity. In a certain sense they only express the needs of the entire age, including the needs of lesser individualities. Such a thing can be clearly illustrated to us, if we take a look at these eminent individualities. It can be said rightly that a century ago a person like Goethe did not at all feel the need to speak about spiritual scientific results, as it is done today on the basis of Spiritual Science. When the question arose to talk about something that is beyond the external manifestations, Goethe, like so many other people, has often pleaded that this is a matter of belief and could not be a strict science. And Goethe also often expressed that essentially the communication of generally valid results on this basis could hardly be very fruitful if they were communicated by one person to another.
In the course of one century we have progressed the overall development of humanity, not only in such a way that Goethe lived in a century which neither had telegraphs, telephones, railways, and no such prospects as those offered by aeronautics; but also in relation to spiritual development, we are facing results that are different from those of Goethe’s time. You can see this in a specific example. There is a beautiful talk Goethe had with a certain person, Falk , at the occasion of Wieland’s death. There he spoke about those regions from which a certain insight must be derived of that which transcends birth and death in the human being, which does not decay with the sensory shell, which is immortal as opposed to the mortal part of the human being. The immediate occasion of Wieland’s death, who was so highly regarded by Goethe, urged him to express himself in a popular way to a person like Falk, who showed him understanding for this. What he said there is highly significant when we address the question about the significance of Spiritual Science for the present; “...You have long known that ideas that lack a firm foundation in the sensory world, for all their other value, carry no conviction for me, because I want to know about nature, not merely assume and believe. As far as the personal continuance of our souls after death is concerned, on my path this is my position: it is in no way in contradiction with the observations I have made over many years about the condition of our, and of all beings in nature; on the contrary, it even emerges from them with new conclusiveness. How much or how little this personality deserves a continued existence is a different question and a matter that we have to surrender to God. Preliminarily, I will first remark this: I assume different classes and hierarchical orders of the primordial constituents of all beings, as it were the starting points of all phenomena in nature, that I wish to call souls, because with these an ensouling of everything starts, or, even better call them ‘monads’—let us retain this Leibnizian expression for ever! There is hardly a better term for expressing the simplicity of the simplest being. Now some of these monads or starting points are, as experience shows, so small, so insignificant, that they are at most suitable for some subordinate service and existence; in contrast others are really strong and powerful. The latter therefore tend to pull everything that approaches them into their circle and transform it into something belonging to them, that is, into a body, a plant, an animal, or even higher, into a star. They continue to do this until the small or large world, whose intention lies spiritually within them, also becomes physically visible externally. Actually, only the latter I want to call souls. It follows from this, that there are world-monads, world-souls, like ant-monads, ant-souls, and that both are related in their origin, if not completely one, in their original being. Every sun, every planet carries within itself a higher intention, a higher mission, by virtue of which its developments must come about just as regularly and according to the same law that governs the development of a rosebush through leaf, stem and crown. You might want to call this an idea or a monad, as you like, I have nothing against it: suffice that this intention exists in nature invisibly and prior to the visible development out of it...”3Goethe’s conversation with Falk on 25 January 1813: Flodard Freiherr von Biedermann: Goethe’s conversations—except those with Eckermann. Collected works, Leipzig Edition 1909, Volume 2, page 169 ff.
In a certain sense, Goethe is speaking then about what we will also speak about more often in these lectures: the reincarnation of the human soul. And he remarks, that after everything what he himself formed as conviction about the human world, the animal realm, and so on, this does not contradict what he has established as science. Now it is easy to imagine what such a statement in the mouth of Goethe says, when one remembers that Goethe, in the year 1784 made a discovery that on its own would have been sufficient to make his name famous until the furthest times, even if he would not have done anything else: The discovery of the so-called inter-maxillary bone in the human upper jaw. Man has in the upper jaw, just as animals do, an inter-maxillary bone. Just at the time when Goethe began to undertake natural scientific studies, this was generally denied. To distinguish between humans and animals one searched for differences in the external features only, and thought animals had in their upper jaw an inter-maxillary bone whilst human beings didn’t have one. This would distinguish the human structure from animal structures. Goethe didn’t want to concede, could not believe, that the difference between humans and animals would lie in this subordinate feature. And so he began to use all known means to show that the so-called inter-maxillary bone4Translator’s comment: Today called the premaxillary bone. is not missing in a human being; although it fuses already shortly after birth, it exists as part of the initial structure. He succeeded to show clearly that the distinction between humans and animals does not lie in such an external criterion. From this starting point Goethe explored all areas of natural science, and was well acquainted with the scientific thinking of his time. Indeed, he was so far ahead of his time, that Darwinians, who wanted to reinterpret Goethe in Darwinian terms, can claim today: Goethe was a precursor of Darwin. Although Goethe was rooted in the science of his time and went beyond it, he could still maintain his views about the immortal part of the human being, which were reminiscent of reincarnation and actually quite compatible with his scientific ideas. What Goethe was then able to say, could basically be said by anyone. Other researchers who sought to acquire the knowledge they needed for life in a scientific manner were also in the same position. Characteristic of this is that, based on Haeckel, people invoked a great deed of Kant, namely his founding of the mechanical world-view, by referring to the “Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens or an attempt to account for the Constitutional and Mechanical Origin of the entire Universe,” written by Kant in 1775. You only need to take the ‘Reclam’5Translator’s comment: Reclam is a German publishing house, established in 1828, well-known for its small sized, mainly classic books, and for its favourable prices. booklet, look at the ending and then ask: How do those who stand on the mere ground of Haeckelianism relate to Kant, when he speaks about the immortality of the human soul; about the great secrets of the human soul; about the prospect of habitability of other celestial bodies; and the continued life of the human soul on other planets? How do such followers of Haeckel relate to the possibility of reincarnation of the human being as it appears in this script by Kant that was published in 1775? Today one quotes things in such a way, that one would have to be astonished if the same people, who refer to Kant, would have really read those things. Things are different today from how they were a century or a century and a half ago.
It was a need of that time that one spoke about the spiritual things of life in a certain way, that did not want to have anything to do with science, because it was felt that this speaking did not contradict what can be claimed by science. Anyone who allows science from the time of the turn of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century to affect them, feels that if they only absorb science through popular descriptions, then they could speak like Goethe: “The convictions I myself have formed about a spiritual life, even if they are only a personal belief, contradict in no way what is offered as science today”.
But things have changed, and today things are getting very complicated in relation to science. It must be remembered that, after Goethe's death, the great discoveries of Schleiden6Matthias Jacob Schleiden, 1805-1881, Botanist, Professor in Jena and Dorpat. ‘The Plant and its Life’, 1848. and Schwann7Theodor Schwann, 1810-1882, Anatomist and Physiologist, Professor in Loewen and Luettich; ‘Microscopical researches into the accordance in the Structure and Growth of Animals and Plants’, 1839. concerning the human and animal cell were made and that it was only then that an elementary organism presented itself to the senses. What is the need to talk about ‘life on different celestial bodies’ and so on, when in an animal or a plant one can see how bodies are built up through the interaction of purely material visible cells!
Then came other enormous achievements. We only need to ponder the impact on human thinking that was made by the introduction of spectral analysis by Kirchhoff8Gustav Robert Kirchhoff, 1824–1887, Physicist, Professor in Breslau, Heidelberg and Berlin. In 1860 he discovered, together with Bunsen, spectral analysis. Researches on the Solar Spectrum and the Spectra of Chemical Elements.,1861-1863. and Bunsen,9Robert Bunsen, 1811–1899, Chemist, he was, inter alia, Professor in Marburg and Heidelberg, ‘Collected Treatises, 3 Volumes, 1904. which extended man’s view over distant worlds, and which allowed one to conclude that material existence as we find it here on Earth, is the same as that on the furthest celestial bodies—so that one can talk about a unity of substance within the entire cosmic existence. And each day adds to what we can encounter in this area. I could point to hundreds and hundreds of things that have had a revolutionary effect, not on the world of reality, but on people’s imagination. In this way the conviction had to arise that no one has the right to talk about what natural scientific methods offer in any way other than this: Wait for what natural scientific research can tell you about the foundations of life, about the origin of the spiritual life from the activity of the brain, and do not fantasize by talking about a spiritual world that supposedly underlies everything! All of this is only too easily understood. Thus has changed the persuasiveness of natural sciences in people’s view. In this regard Goethe really is a forerunner of Darwin. But despite of this he rose, in accordance with the spirit of his time, through his natural scientific research from the development of living beings, from imperfection, to perfection; to a purely spiritual worldview that definitely searches for the supersensory, for the spirit behind all sense perception. People who proceed in the same way in our time believe, that the results of natural science urge them to stop short of what these results should be; and that everything that belongs to the realm of the spirit seemingly bursts forth from the manifest background.
Today, a person cannot speak anymore in the same way as he could have spoken a century ago, about what he, through his personal conviction knows or believes to know, or what he has learned about the super-sensory world—that this does not contradict natural scientific research results. Instead, it seems that it must quite strongly contradict them—and not only for the isolated, serious, dignified truth-seeker, and striving human being does it seem so. If this is the case then we have to say: For our present time, the power of conviction, the reasons for conviction which could be brought forward only a century ago, or even later, without contradicting external scientific results—are no longer directly decisive. Today, more weightier impulses are needed to uphold what is said about the super-sensible world against the strictly scientific results of science. What we consider ourselves authorised to believe about the spiritual world, we have to be able to present in the same way, to obtain in the same objective manner as the natural scientific results are obtained—yet on a different foundation. Only a Spiritual Science that works with the same logic, with the same healthy sense of truth as natural science does, will be felt as capable of standing its ground next to a natural science that has progressed enormously. When considering this, one understands in what sense Spiritual Science has become a necessity for the present time. One also understands that this Spiritual Science alone can meet the longings, about which we have talked. These longings are present because what we have just characterised affects many human souls unconsciously—especially among the best truth-seekers, and in a field where one would not have expected it, considering how the human urge for knowledge strives beyond what has previously always been said in the field of science.
Certainly the mathematical field, the field of geometry seems to be one, where what is gained appears to be secure in its application to the sensory world. Who would believe with a light heart, so to speak, that anyone could claim that what the world has to say about mathematics, about geometry, could in any way be questioned. And yet it is characteristic that in the course of the nineteenth century there were minds who brought themselves to invent geometries and mathematics through strictly mathematical research, that were not valid within our sensory world, but would apply to quite different worlds. Thus we know that there were spirits thinking in strictly mathematical terms, who felt they could go beyond what so far existed as mathematics and geometry in the area of our sensory world, and that they could invent a geometry for a completely different sensory world. And there is not one but several such geometries. People who are mathematically trained know something about the names of Riemann,10Bernhard Riemann, 1826-1866, Professor in Goettingen, ‘On the Hypotheses which lie at the foundation of Geometry’, 1854. Lobatschewski,11Nikolaus Lobatschewski, 1793-1856, Russia, ‘On the Origin of Geometry’, 1829. Bolyai.12Johan Bolyai, 1802-1860, Ungarn, Engineering Officer and Mathematician. We do not want to go deeper into it here, because the only point is that something like this was able to be developed out of human knowledge. There are, for example, geometries which do not acknowledge the sentence; ‘The three angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees.’ For them the triangles have a very different property, namely, for example, the three angles of a triangle are always less than 180 degree. Or another case; for Euclidean geometry one is able to draw only one parallel line through one point to a given line. Geometries have been devised where one can draw an endless amount of parallels through one point to another existing line. This means there were spirits who felt compelled to not only be smitten by other worlds, but to make up geometries for these! This illustrates mightily that even in mathematical heads there is a longing to go beyond what is in the world immediately surrounding us. Only one thing needs to be added to the fact that our time needs something that can be derived from Spiritual Science. It will be shown to us that indeed the human being, in relation to his actual spiritual-soul nature, reappears again and again in renewed lives on our Earth. What is called reincarnation is a similar fact in the spiritual-soul realm as development theory or evolutionary theory is on a subordinate level for the animal kingdom. That the human soul evolves through incarnations that it experienced during the ancient past, and through those that it will live through in the distant future. Certainly, at the present time, the art of refutation will soon be strongly directed against such things.
But one can already state that the present time has a deep longing for such results, which are connected with that by which the human being can orientate himself as to his destiny, and his whole situation in regard to the outer world.
Only recently man began to place himself appropriately as a historical being into world evolution. This has come about through external means of education. Think of mankind’s limited horizon in the 14th or 15th century before the art of printing spread educational materials. Thus, questions like the following would not yet have touched human hearts; ‘How can our soul be satisfied in the face of what we recognise as historical progress?’ Here lies the origin of a question which for many today has become a question of the heart. Historical progress shows us, that ever new achievements are made, which also have value for the inner development of the soul itself, that new and ever new facts enter into the stream of the progressing humanity. So man must ask himself; ‘What is the state of the human being himself in his innermost nature? Have the people of the past been condemned to live their lives in a dull existence, unable to participate in the evolutionary products of later progress? What then is the share of the human being in the successive developments of the human race?’
This may be a question to which many objections could be raised—we only want to say that indeed the question, the riddle, arises out of a deep feeling in the human soul: ‘Is it possible that a human soul living today, whose life is enclosed between birth and death, cannot take part in achievements that will only be imprinted into the stream of human evolution in the future?’
For the confessors of Christianity this question takes on a fundamental importance. One whose faith is based on Reformed Christianity distinguishes between the evolution of humanity in the pre-Christian epoch and the evolution in the post-Christian epoch, and states that from the Christ-event a stream of new spiritual life has emerged which earlier was not available for mankind on Earth. Thus, particularly for such a person the question arises: ‘How is it for the souls who lived prior to the Christ-event, prior to the revelation of what radiated from the Christ-Event?’
Such a question can be asked by man. Spiritual Science answers this for him not only theoretically, but also in a way that is satisfactory for him, by showing that the same people, who took in achievements of the pre-Christian era in the time before the Christ-event will be reincarnated after the stream of Christian development has begun. Therefore whatever happens in civilisation, nobody will need to miss out on. Thus, for Spiritual Science something grows out of history that is not just general abstract ideas that are cold and abstract, that must energise like rigid forces the stream of humanity, but Spiritual Science refers to history as something in which man with his innermost being participates everywhere. And since the human horizon has been broadened by modern means of education, this question is now posed in a completely different sense than about a century ago, when peoples’ horizons were more limited.
A yearning for an answer exists, that can only be quenched through Spiritual Science. If we consider all of this—and we could continue to talk in the same vein and refer to much that confirms that Spiritual Science is important for the present time because it yearns so much for its results—then we gain an idea about the significance of Spiritual Science for the present.
All the lectures, which will be held here in the course of this winter, must serve only one purpose, namely to gather material from the most diverse sides in order to show the results and the significance of Spiritual Science for human life and for the satisfaction of the highest needs of humans in general. Only this needs to be added in conclusion; one of the most common objections against Spiritual Science today, albeit one taken from a catchphrase, is that natural science has happily advanced to be able to explain the world monistically, through a uniform principle given by natural scientific methods. It has almost become a slogan, arousing antipathy in many, that states; ‘Now Spiritual Science is coming back and setting up a dualism opposed to such epistemologically beneficial monism!’ With such slogans many sins are committed.
Has the principle of a unified explanation of the universe been broken simply by the fact that two streams work together in the cosmos, one of which works from the outside and the other from the inside and they meet within the soul? May it not be assumed that what approaches the soul from two sides—namely, from sense perception on the one hand, and from spiritual scientific research on the other—is nevertheless founded in a unified existence and only initially appears for human perception in two currents? Does Monism really have to be taken superficially? If it were the case that the monistic principle were thereby broken, then someone might immediately allege that the monistic principle would also be broken apart if one concedes that water consists of hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen and oxygen can nevertheless have a uniform origin, even if they unite in what we call water.
In the same way the sensory and the supersensible worlds can have a unified origin, even if one is forced by facts of natural science and Spiritual Science to say that two streams unite in the human soul, one entering from the side of the senses and the other from the side of the spirit. One cannot immediately show the unity, the ‘monon’, but it does not therefore contradict a monistic worldview. What shows itself in this way from two sides, gains the strength of full reality only when we recognise how it constitutes itself out of these two currents. If we turn our gaze to the external world, we see, through the arrangement of our senses and our intellect, a world view that does not show us what it grows out of: the spirit. But when we follow the paths of spiritual scientific research and experience the uplift in the soul, then we find the spirit. It is within our soul that spirit and matter meet. Only in the fusion of spirit and matter within our soul lies the true spirit- and matter-filled spiritual reality!
Thus, perhaps what has just been said might be summarised in words that express the same but in a poetic form, what all those who tried to gain an unbiased view of spirit and matter have felt at all times. Spiritual Science in its relationship to natural science teaches us to recognise that this is true:
The rich abundance of matter
Presses upon human sense
From World-depths mysteriously.The clarifying Spirit-Word
Streams into depths of soul
From content filled World-heights.They meet in the human inner being
To wisdom-filled reality.
Das Wesen der Geisteswissenschaft und Ihre Bedeutung für die Gegenwart
Schon seit mehreren Jahren wird hier von diesem Orte aus die Wintermonate hindurch von mir der Versuch gemacht, Vorträge über ein Gebiet zu halten, welches ich mir gestatte mit dem Namen der Geisteswissenschaft zu bezeichnen. Auch in diesem Winter soll von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus in der Reihe der Ihnen angekündigten Vorträge wiederum ein Bild gegeben werden von Tatsachen der geistigen Welt. Es soll betrachtet werden, was zu den großen Fragen des Daseins gehört: das Verhältnis von Leben und Tod, von Schlaf und Wachen, von Menschenseele und Tierseele, Menschengeist und Tiergeist und Geist im Pflanzenreich. Es soll dann betrachtet werden das Wesen der menschlichen Entwickelung durch die verschiedenen Lebensalter, durch Kindheit, Jugend und die späteren Lebensjahre, der Anteil der Erziehung an dem Hauptcharakter des Menschen. Es soll das Geistesleben beleuchtet werden, indem der Blick hingewendet wird zu großen Individualitäten der Menschheitsentwickelung, zu Zarathustra, Moses, Galilei, Goethe. Es soll versucht werden an einzelnen Beispielen zu zeigen, welches Verhältnis das, was hier Geisteswissenschaft genannt wird, zur Naturwissenschaft hat: an dem Beispiel der Astronomie und der Geologie. Und dann soll versucht werden zu sagen, was aus den Quellen der Geisteswissenschaft selbst über die Rätsel des Lebens zu sagen ist. Diesen Betrachtungen ging in jedem Jahre eine Art orientierender, allgemeiner Betrachtung voraus. Dieser Gepflogenheit soll auch in diesem Jahre gefolgt werden, indem heute gesprochen wird über die Bedeutung der Geisteswissenschaft, ihr Wesen und ihr Verhältnis oder — man könnte auch sagen — ihre Aufgabe innerhalb der verschiedenen geistigen Bedürfnisse der Gegenwart.
In dem Sinne, wie hier von Geisteswissenschaft gesprochen wird, darf man wohl sagen, daß Geisteswissenschaft heute noch in den weiten Kreisen unserer Menschheit eine recht unbeliebte Sache ist. Zwar spricht man wohl auch außerhalb derjenigen Gesichtspunkte, die hier eingenommen werden sollen, von «Geisteswissenschaft». Man versteht zum Beispiel unter Geschichte etwas, was man mit dem Namen Geisteswissenschaft belegt, und wohl auch unter noch anderen Wissensgebieten der Gegenwart. In anderem Sinne als gewöhnlich von Geisteswissenschaft gesprochen wird, soll das hier geschehen. Wenn man heute von «Geisteswissenschaft» spricht und den Namen etwa auf Geschichte anwendet, so wird man im äußersten Falle zugeben, daß neben dem, was der menschlichen Beobachtung, der Sinnes- und Verstandeserfahrung vorliegt, für die Geschichte noch gewisse große Tendenzen in Betracht kommen, die sich wie Kräfte im Strom des Weltgeschehens hindurch wirksam zeigen und gleichsam die Geschicke der einzelnen Völkerschaften und der einzelnen Staaten bewirken. Man spricht wohl auch von allgemeinen Ideen in der Geschichte und im menschlichen Leben. Wer sich besinnt, was in solchem Falle gemeint ist, der wird bald darauf kommen, daß abstrakte Ideen gemeint sind, an was man appelliert, wenn man von den Kräften, von dem Wesenhaften spricht, von dem, was die menschlichen Geschicke leitet. Es sind in gewisser Beziehung allgemeine Ideen, zu welchen die menschliche Verstandesfähigkeit ein Erkenntnisverhältnis gewinnen kann.
In anderem Sinne wird hier von Geisteswissenschaft gesprochen, indem als geistige Welt vorausgesetzt wird eine Welt, welche wesenhaft ist, wie die Menschenwelt innerhalb des physischen Daseins wesenhaft ist. Es wird gezeigt werden: wenn man hinausgeht mit dem menschlichen Erkenntnisvermögen über das, was der äußeren Sinnesbeobachtung, der Verstandeserfahrung sich darbietet, und zu den leitenden Kräften des Menschen- und Weltendaseins überhaupt geht, daß man nicht zu Abstraktionen, zu saft- und kraftlosen Begriffen bloß kommt, sondern zu etwas Wesenhaftem, zu etwas, was lebendig, inhaltsvoll, geistig mit Dasein durchtränkt ist wie das Wesen des Menschen selber. Also von einer geistigen Welt mit realem Dasein wird hier gesprochen. Und eben das macht es, daß die Geisteswissenschaft für die Standpunkte der weitesten Kreise unseres gegenwärtigen Geistesstrebens keine beliebte Sache ist. Es ist ja noch das Geringste, wenn man diejenigen, die sich auf solche geisteswissenschaftlichen Forschungswege begeben, als Schwätzer, als Träumer oder Phantasten bezeichnet. Und es ist heute noch etwas Gewöhnliches, zu sagen, daß alles, was als strenge Methode, was als wirkliche Wissenschaftlichkeit auf diesem Boden auftritt oder sich dafür ausgeben will, eine ziemlich zweifelhafte Sache ist.
Große, gewaltige Fortschritte haben ja auf die Menschheit immer, zu allen Zeiten, eine große suggestive Wirkung auch in bezug auf alles Denken, Fühlen und Empfinden ausgeübt. Und wenn wir auf die großen Fortschritte im allgemeinen Menschenleben in den letzten Zeiten — wir können fast sagen in den letzten Jahrhunderten — hinblicken, so liegen sie nicht auf dem geisteswissenschaftlichen Gebiet, von dem hier gesprochen werden soll, sondern vielmehr auf demjenigen Gebiet, auf das die Menschheit heute — und zwar wie gleich betont werden soll — mit vollem Recht so stolz ist und auf das sie noch große Hoffnungen für die Fortentwickelung der Menschheit in der Zukunft setzt. Es liegen diese Fortschritte der letzten Jahrhunderte bis in unsere Tage hinein auf dem Gebiet, das aus den Naturwissenschaften herauswächst. Wenn man denkt, wie gewaltig alles ist, was heute nicht nur theoretisch auf naturwissenschaftlichem Gebiet für die menschliche Erkenntnis gewonnen ist und was verspricht aus dem naturwissenschaftlichen Boden noch gewonnen zu werden, und wenn man außerdem in die Waagschale legt, welche große Bedeutung diese naturwissenschaftlichen Errungenschaften für das äußere Leben haben, so muß man sagen: der Segen, das Bedeutungsvolle dieses naturwissenschaftlichen Fortschrittes konnte und mußte eine suggestive Macht auf das menschliche Gemüt in unserer Zeit ausüben. So ist es denn gekommen, daß diese suggestive Wirkung auch nach einer andern Seite sich geäußert hat. Hätte sie sich nur dahin geäußert, daß das Menschengemüt vor allen Dingen etwas empfand wie eine Art weltlichen Kultus gegenüber diesen gewaltigen Fortschritten, wer könnte auch nur ein Sterbenswörtchen dagegen sprechen? Aber es hat sich diese suggestive Macht auch nach jener Richtung geäußert, daß nicht nur anerkannt wird, was die naturwissenschaftliche Forschung und der daraus folgende Fortschritt für unsere Zeit bedeutet, sondern es hat sich nach der Richtung ausgelebt, daß in den weitesten Kreisen der Glaube entstanden ist, daß alle Erkenntnis, alles Wissen der Menschheit nur auf demjenigen Boden gewonnen werden kann, der heute eben als der naturwissenschaftliche anerkannt wird. Und weil man von diesem Glauben aus zu dem Schlusse sich berechtigt glaubt, daß mit diesen naturwissenschaftlichen Methoden die geisteswissenschaftlichen in Widerspruch stehen, daß es unmöglich sei für den, der auf naturwissenschaftlichem Boden steht, überhaupt von der Erforschung einer geistigen Welt zu sprechen, so ist in den weitesten Kreisen das Vorurteil verbreitet, daß Geisteswissenschaft gegenüber den berechtigten Anforderungen der Naturwissenschaft abgelehnt werden müsse. Bei dieser Ablehnung kann es vor allen Dingen auffallen, daß man etwas außerordentlich schwer in die Waagschale Fallendes geltend macht.
Die naturwissenschaftliche Methode, so wird gesagt, sei eine solche, deren Forschungsresultate, deren Erkenntnisse von jedem Menschen in jedem beliebigen Zeitpunkt nachgeprüft werden können, und daß bei der Gewinnung dieser Erkenntnisse, dieser Forschungsresultate nichts mitspielen darf von dem, was im subjektiven Menschen als Empfinden, Sympathie oder Antipathie, Sehnsucht oder Begierden waltet. Daß nichts sich einmischen darf von der Voraussetzung: man möchte dieses Resultat so oder so haben; ausschließen müsse sich das menschliche Element von der Forschung und rein die Objektivität der Dinge sprechen lassen, wenn es sich um Ergebnisse naturwissenschaftlicher Forschung handele.
So ohne weiteres kann die Geisteswissenschaft diese Forderung nicht aufstellen. Für denjenigen, der sich rasch ein Urteil über das Allgemeingültige dieser Forderung bildet, wird einfach schon der Grund hinlänglich sein, die Geisteswissenschaft abzulehnen, daß sie dieser Forderung nicht genügen kann. Warum ist das so? Die Naturwissenschaft hat die Gegenstände ihrer Forschung, von denen sie spricht, um den Menschen herum. Sie geht von demjenigen aus, was vor jeden Menschen hingestellt werden kann, worüber jeder Mensch mit den naturwissenschaftlichen Methoden nachdenken kann, wenn er vor die Sache geführt wird. Und es ist scheinbar ganz gleichgültig, mit welchen Voraussetzungen der Mensch an das herantritt, was da in seiner Umgebung dem Blickfelde sich darbietet. Es ist gerade das, was sich in der allgemeinen Forderung ausspricht: Naturwissenschaftliche Erkenntnis muß für jeden Menschen in jedem beliebigen Zeitpunkte nachgeprüft werden können.
Wie die Naturwissenschaft ihre Resultate gewinnt, in der Art, in welcher sie vorgeht, kann auch die wahre Geisteswissenschaft gar nicht vorgehen. Sie kann zunächst nicht sagen: Es ist notwendig, daß ihre Ergebnisse von jedem Menschen in jeder Zeit nachgeprüft werden können. Denn sie muß voraussetzen, daß diese Ergebnisse, diese Forschungsresultate dadurch gewonnen werden, daß der Mensch gerade sein Inneres nicht als ein Festes, als ein Abgeschlossenes betrachtet, daß er seine subjektive Wesenheit nicht als etwas Fertiges ansieht, sondern sich sagt: Meine subjektive Wesenheit, diese ganze Summe meines Seelendaseins, wie ich sie der Welt entgegensetzen kann, ist nichts Abgeschlossenes, nichts Fertiges, sie kann entwickelt werden, das Seelenleben kann vertieft werden. Das Seelenleben kann so verlaufen, daß dasjenige, was man findet, wenn man die Sinne auf die äußere Welt richtet und den Verstand auf das anwendet, was die Sinne sagen, nur gleichsam eine Unterlage ist für weitere Seelenerfahrungen. Weitere Seelenerfahrungen ergeben sich dann, wenn sich die Seele in sich selber vertieft, an sich selber arbeitet, wenn sie die unmittelbare Lebenserfassung nur als einen Ausgangspunkt betrachtet und dann durch Kräfte, die zunächst in ihr schlummern, die aber herausgeholt werden können, sich durch Stufen des Daseins ringt, die nicht so angeschaut werden können, daß man sie durch ein äußeres Auge nachprüfen könnte. Was also der Geistesforscher zur Vorbereitung für seine Studien durchmachen muß, ist ein innerliches Ringen der Seele, das ganz und gar unabhängig ist von dem, was der Mensdch selber in sich hat. Wenn man also von Wissenschaft überhaupt verlangt, daß der Mensch nichts hinzubringen soll zu den Ergebnissen, die sich ihm äußerlich vorstellen, so könnte von Geisteswissenschaft gar nicht die Rede sein. Wer sich aber ein wenig besinnt und sich fragt: Welches ist denn der wichtigste Teil der Forderungen, welche da für die Geisteswissenschaft geltend gemacht werden, — könnte sich sagen, daß ihreErgebnisse für jeden Menschen Gültigkeit haben, daß sie nicht der persönlichen Willkür dieser oder jener Menschenindividualität unterliegen, und nicht bloß eine Bedeutung haben für das Innenleben dieses oder jenes Menschen, sondern eine Bedeutung für alle Menschen haben.
Das ist ja das Bedeutsame bei allem Wissenschaftlichen, daß es nicht bloß bei dem gilt, dem sich die Gegenstände der Wissenschaft vor Augen stellen, sondern daß, wenn die Gegenstände erforscht sind, dies zu Erkenntnissen führen kann, die für alle Menschen Gültigkeit haben können.
Wenn es nun wahr wäre, daß das, was so als Entwickelung des Menschen charakterisiert worden ist, nur subjektiv wäre, nur für den einen oder andern Menschen Geltung habe, und daß ihm so auch nur ein persönlicher Glaube zukäme, so könnte von Geisteswissenschaft auch wirklich nicht gesprochen werden. Es wird sich uns aber in diesem Winter auch noch zeigen, daß dieses Innenleben des Menschen, das Ringen der Seele aus Kräften heraus, die zunächst schlummern, die aber erwachen können, sich entfalten und entwickeln und dann den Menschen von Erlebnis zu ErJebnis führen kann, und daß dieses Seelenleben noch aufsteigen kann zu einer Stufe, wo seine Erlebnisse eine ganz bestimmte Eigentümlichkeit haben. Wenn wir das Menschenleben betrachten, wie es sich im Innern der Menschenseele abspielt, so ist es zunächst ein ganz persönliches, für den einen so, für den andern anders. Wer eine gesunde Selbstbesinnung hat, wird bei diesem oder jenem, was in seiner Seele an Sympathie oder Antipathie aufsteigt, was gleichsam nur eine persönliche Note hat, sich klar sein können, daß dieses und wie es der Fall ist. Aber das innere Erleben führt zu einem gewissen Punkt, wo gerade eine methodisch getriebene Selbsterkenntnis, ein reines, von Persönlichem unbeeinflußtes Selbsterkennen sich sagen muß: das Persönliche ist eben abgestreift, bildet ein besonderes Gebiet, aber man kommt dann an einen bestimmten Punkt, wo für das innere Erleben, für das übersinnliche Erleben geradeso die Willkür aufhört, wie sie aufhört, wenn man diesen oder jenen sinnenfälligen Erscheinungen gegenübertritt, und wo man auch nicht denken kann, wie man will, sondern in Gemäßheit des Gegenstandes denken muß. So kommt der Mensch auch innerlich, seelisch in eine gewisse Sphäre, auf ein gewisses Gebiet, wo er sich deutlich bewußt wird, daß nicht mehr seine persönliche Subjektivität spricht, sondern daß jetzt nicht sinnlich anschaubare, aber übersinnliche Wesenheiten und Kräfte sprechen, für die seine Individualität ebensowenig Bedeutung hat, wie sie Bedeutung hat für das, was die äußeren Sinnesgegenstände sagen. Diese Erkenntnis muß allerdings gewonnen werden, wenn von dem Rechte gesprochen werden soll, daß dasjenige, was über die geistige Welt gesagt wird, überhaupt den Namen Wissenschaft trägt. Es sollen auch in diesem Winter diese Vorträge wieder ein Beweis dafür sein, daß die Betrachtungen über die Erforschung der geistigen Welt eine Wissenschaft genannt werden darf.
So muß man sagen, Geisteswissenschaft ist ihrem Wesen nach auf dem begründet, was durch die menschliche Seele erforscht werden kann, wenn diese in ihrem innerlichen Ringen und Erleben zu einem Punkte gekommen ist, an dem das Persönliche nicht mehr bei den Betrachtungen der geistigen Welt mitspricht, sondern wo sie sich von der geistigen Welt selber ihre Eigentümlichkeiten sagen läßt. Wenn man die Geisteswissenschaft dann einmal vergleichen wird mit der Naturwissenschaft, so wird mancher vielleicht sagen: Dann fehlt aber doch der Geisteswissenschaft das wichtige Kennzeichen, daß sie auf alle Menschen einen überzeugenden Eindruck machen kann, welches bei der Naturwissenschaft aus dem Grunde vorhanden ist, daß man überall, wo naturwissenschaftliche Resultate auftreten, das Bewußtsein hat: Wenn du das auch nicht selber erforscht und gesehen hast, so könntest du doch, wenn du auf die Sternwarte oder in das Laboratorium gingest und dich des Fernrohres und des Mikroskopes bedientest, das in derselben Weise erkennen wie der, welcher dir die Mitteilung gemacht hat. Und es könnte weiter gesagt werden: Wenn auf dem Wege der Geisteswissenschaft der Beweis ein rein innerlicher ist, und die Seele mit sich ringt, bis sie sagt: jetzt gibst du nichts mit von deiner Persönlichkeit zu dem, ‚was dir die Gegenstände sagen, — es bleibt doch ein einzelnes Ringen. Und dem, der auf diesem Wege zu gewissen Ergebnissen gelangt ist, oder wem der geisteswissenschaftliche Forscher diese Ergebnisse mitteilt, dem müßte man sagen: Für mich bleiben diese Ergebnisse ein unbekanntes Land, bis ich selber aufsteige zu demselben Punkte!
Auch dieses — das soll sich uns noch zeigen — ergibt sich uns als ein unrichtiger Einwand. Gewiß, es gehört dieses einsame Ringen der Menschenseele, dieses Bloßlegen von in der Menschenseele schlummernden Kräften dazu, um in die geistige Welt, wo sie objektiv zu uns spricht, hinaufzudringen. Aber die geistige Welt ist so: Wenn die geisteswissenschaftlichen Resultate mitgeteilt werden, dann bleiben die Ergebnisse nicht etwa wirkungslos. Was aus einer durch die geisteswissenschaftliche Forschung geprüften Menschenseele als Mitteilungen zu andern Seelen tritt, kann von jeder Seele wieder, in einem gewissen Sinne allerdings, nachgeprüft werden, nicht so, daß man im Laboratorium sehen kann, was der andere gefunden hat, sondern so, daß man es einsehen kann. Denn in jeder Seele lebt ein unbefangener Wahrheitssinn, eine gesunde Logik, eine gesunde Vernünftigkeit. Und wenn die Ergebnisse der Geistesforschung in gesunde Logik gekleidet werden, in das, was zu unserem gesunden Wahrheitssinn spricht, dann klingt in jeder Seele oder kann wenigstens in jeder unbefangenen Menschenseele eine Saite mitklingen mit der mitteilenden Seele. Man kann sagen: Jede Seele ist in sich selber veranlagt, wenn sie sich auch noch nicht dem gekennzeichneten einsamen Ringen hingegeben hat, durch eine unbefangene Logik und durch einen gesunden Wahrheitssinn in sich aufzunehmen, was von der Geisteswissenschaft mitgeteilt wird. Wenn auch ganz gewiß zugegeben werden muß, daß im weitesten Umkreis, in dem heute dieses oder jenes von der Geisteswissenschaft getrieben wird, bei der Aufnahme der Mitteilungen der Geistesforschung nicht überall dieser gesunde Wahrheitssinn und diese gesunde Logik herrschen, so ist das ein Mangel einer jeden Geistesbewegung. Im Prinzip ist es aber durchaus richtig, was gesagt ist. Ja, im Prinzip sollte sogar beachtet werden, daß es zu Irrtümern über Irrtümern führen muß, wenn leichten Herzens und mit einem blinden Glauben das entgegengenommen wird, was so oft heute als Geisteswissenschaft an die Menschheit herangebracht wird. Wer wirklich auf dem Boden der Geisteswissenschaft steht, fühlt sich in strenger Art verpflichtet, logisch und vernunftgemäß das mitzuteilen, was er zu sagen hat, so daß es wirklich von einem gesunden Wahrheitssinn und von aller Logik geprüft werden kann. — So haben wir also von einer Seite das Wesen der Geisteswissenschaft dadurch bezeichnet, daß wir gezeigt haben, wie ihre Resultate gefunden werden müssen.
Daß es nun einesolche objektive Tatsache des Geistes gibt, kann ja nur diese Wissenschaft selber belegen. Darauf aber soll jetzt schon aufmerksam gemacht werden, daß diese Wissenschaft eben zu dem führt, was wir den realen, den wirklichen Inhalt der geistigen Welt nennen, einen Inhalt, der lebendig erfüllt ist von solcher Wesenhaftigkeit, wie etwa ein Menschenwesen selber von Wesenhaftigkeit erfüllt ist. Von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus ist sich die Geisteswissenschaft darüber klar, daß allem äußeren, physisch-sinnlichen Dasein, allem Dasein, von dem uns die Sinne sprechen und die verstandesmäßige Erfahrung, zuletzt eine geistige Welt zugrunde liegt, daß der Mensch so wie alle anderen Dinge aus dieser geistigen Welt herausgeboren ist, sich herausentwickelt hat, so daß also hinter der sinnenfälligen Welt, hinter dem, was man gewöhnlich das physische äußere Dasein nennt, das Gebiet der geistigen Welt sich ausdehnt. Wenn nun die Geisteswissenschaft allmählich dazu übergeht, aus ihren Beobachtungen heraus zu zeigen, wie es sich in dieser geistigen Welt ausnimmt, wie die geistige Welt unserer sinnenfälligen zugrunde liegt, dann fängt eben in vielen Kreisen unserer Gegenwart die Abneigung, die Antipathie an, was im Eingange der heutigen Betrachtung damit bezeichnet wurde: In weiten Kreisen der Gegenwart ist die Geisteswissenschaft eine ziemlich unbeliebte Sache. Und es ist keineswegs schwer zu begreifen, daß dieser Geisteswissenschaft heute noch ein gewaltiger Widerstand entgegengebracht wird. Es ist durchaus selbszverständlich und nicht nur selbstverständlich aus dem Grunde, weil dasjenige, was in einer gewissen Beziehung, wie die Geisteswissenschaft, neu dem menschlichen Kulturleben sich einverleibt, immer mit einer gewissen Zurückdrängung behandelt worden ist wie alle kleinen und großen Errungenschaften der Menschheit; sondern weil es in der Tat recht vieles gibt im Umkreis der Vorstellungen, die der Mensch heute zum Beispiel aus der naturwissenschaftlichen Beobachtung gewinnt, was gerade die Notwendigkeit hervorruft, daß sich der, der glaubt, ganz auf dem Boden der Naturwissenschaft zu stehen, in lauter Widersprüche verwickelt findet, wenn er von dem hört, was die Geisteswissenschaft sagt. Wer selbst auf dem Boden der Geisteswissenschaft steht, zweifelt gar nicht, daß mit einem gewissen Rechte Hundert und aber Hundert von sogenannten Widerlegungen dieser Geisteswissenschaft aufgebracht werden können. Nur wie in Parenthese möchte ich einfügen, daß ich selber in der nächsten Zeit an verschiedenen Orten und auch hier einmal, damit Klarheit in die angeregte Frage gebracht wird, zwei Vorträge halten werde, wovon der erste lauten wird: «Wie widerlegt man Theosophie?» und der andere: «Wie begründet man Theosophie?» Probeweise soll das geschehen, damit einmal gezeigt wird, wie der, der auf dem Boden der Geisteswissenschaft steht, wirklich alles zusammentragen kann, was an Widerlegungen gegenüber der Geisteswissenschaft aufgebracht werden kann. Ja, ich möchte sagen mehr noch als das, was schon angeführt worden ist, ist dies der Fall, daß die Widerlegungen der Geisteswissenschaft, wie man gewöhnlich heute von Widerlegungen spricht, in bezug auf ihre verschiedenen Resultate gar nicht so sonderlich schwierig sind. Es ist leicht, die geisteswissenschaftlichen Forschungen zu widerlegen.
Ich möchte diese Widerlegungen nicht direkt vergleichen, aber um zu verdeutlichen, was ich sagen will, anknüpfen an etwas, was einem oft auffällt, wenn man Werke von gewissen Philosophen über die Hegelsche Philosophie liest. — Ich will hier nicht über das sprechen, was an der Hegelschen Philosophie bedeutungsvoll ist, was wahr ist und was Irrtum ist; das wollen wir dahingestellt sein lassen. — Es wird unter den Kennern Hegels doch wenige geben, die nicht anerkennen, daß sie es in Hegel mit einem bedeutenden Geist zu tun haben. Nun findet sich in Hegels Schriften ein merkwürdiger Satz, der sozusagen einen tiefen Eindruck auf die machen kann, welche leichten Herzens Hegel widerlegen wollen. Und dieser Satz lautet: «Alles Wirkliche ist verünftig!» Nun denken wir einmal, man möchte sagen, welch innerliches Lachen ein solcher Satz hervorrufen muß bei dem, der gern widerlegt! Ein Philosoph soll groß sein, der solchen Unsinn spricht: «Alles Wirkliche ist vernünftig!» Man braucht nur einen einzigen Blick in die Welt zu lenken und wird sehen, wie unvernünftig dieser Satz ist! Es gibt eine einfache Methode, um die Richtigkeit dieses Satzes zu widerlegen, und die besteht darin, daß man selbst eine knüppeldicke Dummheit macht. Denn davon kann man behaupten, es sei ganz gewiß nicht vernünftig. Soll die Tatsache, daß eine Widerlegung leicht wird, denn auch dazu führen, daß sie einfach leicht genommen und Jleicht als bedeutungsvoll genommen werde? Das ist eine ganz andere Frage, die sich vielleicht dadurch beantwortet, daß man sich folgendes überlegt: Sollte denn wirklich Hegel — man mag sich zu Hegel stellen wie man will — so dumm gewesen sein, daß er nicht eingesehen hätte, was es gegen diesen Satz als Widerlegung gibt? Sollte er wirklich geglaubt haben, daß kein Mensch eine knüppeldicke Dummheit machen kann? Sollte man nicht selbst veranlaßt sein, einmal darauf einzugehen, in welchem Sinne Hegel diesen Satz gemeint haben kann, und daß man mit einer solchen Widerlegung gar nicht das trifft, was gemeint ist ?
So könnte es auch bei vielen Dingen der Geisteswissenschaft sein. Um an etwas Konkretes anzuknüpfen: Die Geisteswissenschaft muß voraussetzen — das kann heute nur angeführt werden —, daß das, was wir im Menschen als das Werkzeug des Denkens, des Vorstellens, des Fühlens und des Wollens anerkennen, nämlich das Nervensystem mit dem Gehirn, herausgebaut ist aus einem Geistigen, daß Gehirn und Nervensystem Werkzeug sind eines Wesenhaften, das man nicht in der Sinneswelt aufzeigen kann, sondern das durch die charakterisierten Methoden der Geisteswissenschaft erforscht werden muß. Die Geisteswissenschaft muß also zurückgehen von dem, was die äußere, auf die sinnenfälligen Erscheinungen sich stützende Wissenschaft über Gehirn und Nervensystem zu sagen weiß, auf etwas, was im Menschen als Seelisch-Geistiges selbst arbeitet, was nicht mehr mit den Sinnen erforscht werden kann, was nur auf den inneren Wegen der Seele erforscht werden kann. Es ist nun wirklich kinderleicht zu widerlegen, was die Geistesforschung über ein Übersinnliches erzählt, das dem menschlichen Gehirn zugrunde liegt. Man kann sagen: Alles, was du da redest, ist selbst nur ein Produkt des Gehirns. Wenn du das nicht einsiehst, dann betrachte einmal, wie die geistigen Fähigkeiten in der Entwickelungsreihe steigen. Bei den niederen Tieren sind die geistigen Fähigkeiten noch ganz unvollkommen, bei den höheren Tieren und besonders bei den höheren Säugetieren sind sie schon bedeutender und vollkommener, und beim Menschen sind sie deshalb am vollkommensten erscheinend, weil sein Gehirn die größte Vollkommenheit erlangt hat. Das zeigt, daß aus dem Gehirn herauswächst, was als Geistesleben erscheint. Und wenn du das noch nicht glaubst, so wende dich einmal an den, der dir zeigen kann, wie in gewissen Krankheitsfällen gewisse Gehirnpartien unwirksam werden und gewisse Fähigkeiten vom Menschen nicht mehr ausgeübt werden können, so daß gleichsam gewisse Gehirnpartien abgetragen werden und das geistige Leben ausgeschaltet wird. Da siehst du also, wie Stück für Stück dein Geistesleben abgetragen werden kann durch das, was sinnenfälliges Organ ist! Warum sprichst du also da noch von geistigen Wesenheiten, die hinter den sinnenfälligen Dingen stehen sollen?
Dieser Einwand ist wirklich kinderleicht zu machen. Daß er aber nicht aus den naturwissenschaftlichen Ergebnissen heraus, sondern aus der Suggestion getan wird, die für viele aus gewissen naturwissenschaftlichen Theorien heraus gebildet wird, das muß uns als selbstverständlich in der Gegenwart erscheinen. Das alles hängt damit zusammen, daß unsere Zeit unter der suggestiven Gewalt dessen steht, daß man Wahrheit, Erkenntnis nur gewinnen könne, wenn man die Sinne nach außen richtet und den Verstand an dem Gewonnenen entzündet. Wenn nun auch — das muß in bezug auf die Geisteswissenschaft gesagt werden — diese Ergebnisse Widerlegungen der geisteswissenschaftlichen Resultate von allen Punkten nur so hervorquellen lassen müssen, so kann man doch sagen, daß auf der andern Seite in unserer Gegenwart ein tiefes Bedürfnis, eine tiefe Sehnsucht vorhanden ist, aus jenen Landen etwas zu hören, von denen Geisteswissenschaft zu berichten weiß. Eine tiefe Sehnsucht darnach hat sich zugleich herausgebildet und ist bei einer Gruppe von Menschen lebendig und bewußt vorhanden. Bei dem großen Teil der Menschen schlummert sie sozusagen unter der Oberfläche des Bewußtseins, wird aber immer mehr und mehr zur Erscheinung kommen. Immer größer und größer wird das Bedürfnis nach geisteswissenschaftlichen Resultaten werden. Diese Sehnsucht, dieses Bedürfnis nach geisteswissenschaftlichen Resultaten tritt — können wir sagen — als eine Nebenerscheinung neben der Bewunderung, der Hingabe gegenüber den naturwissenschaftlichen Errungenschaften auf. Gerade weil die naturwissenschaftlichen Errungenschaften notwendigerweise den Blick des Menschen nach außen wenden müssen, erwacht wie ein Gegenpol die Sehnsucht nach geisteswissenschaftlichen Resultaten. In bezug darauf sind wir innerhalb der Entwickelung, wie sie sich im neunzehnten und in unserem Jahrhundert ergeben hat, auf einem ganz anderen Gesichtspunkte angelangt, als die Menschheit ihn noch vor einem Jahrhundert hatte. Wenn man von dem Wert der geisteswissenschaftlichen Forschungen für die Gegenwart sprechen will, so ist es bedeutungsvoll, sich einmal vor die Seele zu rufen, daß selbst größere Geister vor einem Jahrhundert noch nicht das Bedürfnis gefühlt haben, von geisteswissenschaftlichen Ergebnissen in der Art zu sprechen, wie das heute im Sinne dieser Vortragsreihe geschehen soll. Und da die großen Individualitäten für die Menschheit nur tonangebend sind, in gewissem Sinne nur ausdrücken, was das Bedürfnis der gesamten Zeit ist, also auch der kleinen Individualitäten, so kann sich uns eine solche Sache anschaulich darstellen, wenn wir auf die größeren Individualitäten einmal hinblicken.
Da kann mit Recht gesagt werden: ein solcher Mensch wie Goethe hat vor einem Jahrhundert keineswegs das Bedürfnis gefühlt, sich über geisteswissenschaftliche Resultate auszusprechen, wie das heute etwa auf dem Boden der Geisteswissenschaft geschieht. Wo die Frage darauf kam, über etwas zu sprechen, was über dem äußerlich Sinnenfälligen liegt, hat sich auch Goethe wie so viele Menschen oft darauf berufen, daß das eine Sache des Glaubens, aber nicht einer strengen Wissenschaft sein könne. Und daß im Grunde genommen die Mitteilung von allgemein gültigen Resultaten auf diesem Boden kaum sehr fruchtbar sein könne, wenn sie von dem einen Menschen zu dem anderen gemacht werden, hat auch Goethe öfter geäußert. Wir sind im Laufe eines Jahrhunderts in bezug auf die Gesamtentwickelung der Menschheit nicht nur so fortgeschritten, daß Goethe in einem Zeitalter gelebt hat, welches keine Telegrafen, Telefone, Eisenbahnen und keine solche Aussichten gehabt hat, wie sie sich der Luftschiffahrt bieten; wir stehen auch in bezug auf die geistige Entwickelung vor Ergebnissen, die andere sind, als sie zur Zeit Goethes waren. Das können Sie an einem konkreten Fall sehen. Es gibt ein schönes Gespräch, das Goethe mit einem gewissen Falk geführt hat bei Gelegenheit des Todes Wielands. Da hat er sich über die Gebiete ausgesprochen, aus denen heraus eine gewisse Erkenntnis über das beim Menschen geschöpft werden soll, was über Geburt und Tod hinüberlebt, was nicht hinfällig ist mit der sinnlichen Hülle, was unsterblich ist gegenüber dem sterblichen Teil des Menschen. Der unmittelbare Anlaß des Todes des von ihm so geschätzten Wieland hatte Goethe dazu gedrängt, sich gegenüber einem Menschen wie Falk, der ihm Verständnis dafür entgegenbrachte, in populärer Weise auszudrücken. Und was er da sagte, ist höchst bezeichnend, wenn wir auf die Frage der Bedeutung der Geisteswissenschaft für die Gegenwart eingehen.
«...Sie wissen längst, daß Ideen, die eines festen Fundamentes in der Sinneswelt entbehren, bei allem ihrem übrigen Wert für mich keine Überzeugung mit sich führen, weil ich der Natur gegenüber wissen, nicht aber bloß vermuten und glauben will. Was nun die persönliche Fortdauer unserer Seele nach dem Tode betrifft, so ist es damit auf meinem Wege also beschaffen: Sie steht keineswegs mit den vieljährigen Beobachtungen, die ich über die Beschaffenheit unserer und aller Wesen in der Natur angestellt, im Widerspruch; im Gegenteil, sie geht sogar aus denselben mit neuer Beweiskraft hervor. Wie viel aber, oder wie wenig von dieser Persönlichkeit übrigens verdient, daß es fortdauere, ist eine andere Frage und ein Punkt, den wir Gott überlassen müssen. Vorläufig will ich nur dies zuerst bemerken: Ich nehme verschiedene Klassen und Rangordnungen der letzten Urbestandteile aller Wesen an, gleichsam der Anfangspunkte aller Erscheinungen in der Natur, die ich Seelen nennen möchte, weil von diesen die Beseelung des Ganzen ausgeht, oder noch lieber Monaden — lassen Sie uns immer diesen Leibnizischen Ausdruck beibehalten! Die Einfachheit des einfachsten Wesens auszudrücken, möchte es kaum einen besseren geben. Nun sind einige von diesen Monaden oder Anfangspunkten, wie uns die Erfahrung zeigt, so klein, so geringfügig, daß sie sich höchstens nur zu einem untergeordneten Dienst und Dasein eignen; andere dagegen sind gar stark und gewaltig. Die letzten pflegen daher alles, was sich ihnen naht, in ihren Kreis zu reißen und in ein ihnen Angehöriges, das heißt in einen Leib, in eine Pflanze, in ein Tier, oder noch höher hinauf, in einen Stern zu verwandeln. Sie setzen dies solange fort, bis die kleine oder große Welt, deren Intention geistig in ihnen liegt, auch nach außen leiblich zum Vorschein kommt. Nur die letzten möchte ich eigentlich Seelen nennen. Es folgt hieraus, daß es Weltmonaden, Weltseelen, wie Ameisenmonaden, Ameisenseelen gibt, und daß beide in ihrem Ursprung, wo nicht völlig eins, doch im Urwesen verwandt sind. Jede Sonne, jeder Planet trägt in sich eine höhere Intention, einen höheren Auftrag, vermöge dessen seine Entwickelungen ebenso regelmäßig und nach demselben Gesetze wie die Entwickelungen eines Rosenstockes durch Blatt, Stiel und Krone, zustande kommen müssen. Mögen Sie dies eine Idee oder eine Monade nennen, wie Sie wollen, ich habe auch nichts dawider; genug, daß diese Intention unsichtbar und früher, als die sichtbare Entwickelung aus ihr in der Natur, vorhanden ist... »
In gewissem Sinne spricht also Goethe in der damaligen Zeit von dem, wovon wir in diesen Vorträgen hier öfter sprechen werden: über Wiederverkörperung der Menschenseele. Und er macht die Bemerkung: nach allem, was er sich selbst als Anschauung über die Menschenwelt, Tierwelt und so weiter gebildet habe, widerspräche eine solche Anschauung nicht dem, was er als Wissenschaft da aufgebaut habe.
Man kann sich nun leicht überlegen, was ein solcher Ausspruch im Munde Goethes besagt, wenn man sich darauf besinnt, daß Goethe 1784 eine Entdeckung gemacht hatte, die allein genügt haben würde, seinen Namen bis in die weitesten Zeiten zu erhalten, selbst wenn er sonst gar nichts geleistet hätte: die Entdeckung des sogenannten Zwischenkieferknochens in der oberen Kinnlade des Menschen. Man hat in der oberen Kinnlade des Menschen — wie bei den Tieren auch — einen Zwischenknochen. Das leugnete man gerade damals, als Goethe in die Naturwissenschaft hineinging. Man suchte, wo es sich um die Unterscheidung von Mensch und Tier handelte, nur nach äußeren unterscheidenden Merkmalen und meinte, die Tiere hätten im Oberkiefer einen Zwischenknochen, und der wäre beim Menschen nicht vorhanden. Das unterscheide die menschliche von der tierischen Organisation. Goethe wollte es nicht zugeben, konnte es nicht glauben, daß in dieser untergeordneten Beschaffenheit der Unterschied zwischen Mensch und Tier anzugeben sei, und ging mit allen Mitteln daran, zu zeigen, daß das, was man Zwischenkieferknochen nennt, beim Menschen zwar schon kurz nach der Geburt verwachse, aber doch in der Anlage vorhanden sei und nicht beim Menschen fehle. Daß nicht in so etwas Außerem der Unterschied zwischen Mensch und Tier liege, war ihm wirklich gelungen zu beweisen.
Von diesem Ausgangspunkt aus hat Goethe auf allen Gebieten der Naturwissenschaft sich umgetan und war also wohl bekannt mit der wissenschaftlichen Denkweise seiner Zeit. Ja, er war seiner Zeit so weit voraus, daß Darwinianer, welche Goethe im Sinne Darwins umdeuten wollten, heute behaupten können: Goethe wäre ein Vorläufer Darwins. Obwohl Goethe so in der Wissenschaftlichkeit seiner Zeit wurzelt und darüber hinausgeht, kann er trotzdem sagen, was er sich als Ansicht über des Menschen unsterbliches Teil gebildet habe, was anklingt an die Wiederverkörperung, das sei durchaus mit seinen wissenschaftlichen Vorstellungen vereinbar. Und was Goethe damals sagen konnte, könnte sich im Grunde genommen jeder Mensch sagen. Auch andere Forscher, die sich in wissenschaftlicher Weise die Erkenntnisbedürfnisse für das Leben zu erringen suchten, waren in derselben Lage. Charakteristisch dafür ist, daß man sich auf Haeckelschem Boden auf eine große Tat Kants beruft, auf die Begründung der mechanischen Weltanschauung durch Kant, und auf die im Jahre 1775 geschriebene «Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels oder Versuch von der Verfassung und dem mechanischen Ursprunge des ganzen Weltgebäudes» von Kant hinweist. Sie brauchen sich nur das Reclamheft zu nehmen, den Schluß sich anzuschauen und dann zu fragen: Wie stellen sich die, welche auf dem Boden des bloßen Haeckelismus stehen, zu Kant, wenn er von der Unsterblichkeit der menschlichen Seele spricht, wo er über die großen Geheimnisse der Menschenseele spricht, über die Aussicht, die sich in der Bewohnbarkeit anderer Himmelskörper bietet und in dem Weiterleben der menschlichen Seele auf andern Planeten? Wie stellen sich solche Anhänger Haeckels zu der Möglichkeit einer Wiederverkörperung des Menschen, wie sie in dieser 1775 erschienenen Schrift Kants auftaucht? Man beruft sich heute auf Dinge so, daß man erstaunt sein müßte, wenn dieselben, die sich auf Kant berufen, diese Dinge wirklich gelesen hätten!
Es liegen die Dinge in der Gegenwart schon anders, als sie vor einem oder anderthalb Jahrhunderten lagen. Es lag im Zeitbedürfnis, daß man in einer gewissen Weise, die mit Wissenschaft nichts zu tun haben wollte, über die Dinge des geistigen Lebens sprach, weil man empfand, man spricht da von etwas, was in keinem Widerspruch steht zu dem, was von der Wissenschaft behauptet werden kann. Jeder, der die Wissenschaft von der Wende des achtzehnten und neunzehnten Jahrhunderts auf sich wirken läßt, fühlt, wenn er nur durch die populären Schilderungen Wissenschaftliches aufnimmt, daß er so sprechen könnte wie Goethe: Die Überzeugungen, die ich mir von einem geistigen Leben gebildet habe, seien sie auch nur wie ein persönlicher Glaube, werden in keinem Punkte dem widersprechen, was als Wissenschaft heute geboten wird.
Die Dinge sind anders geworden und werden heute gegenüber der Wissenschaft sehr schwierig. Man muß bedenken, daß nach dem Tode Goethes die großen Entdeckungen von Schleiden und Schwann über die Menschen- und Tierzelle eingetreten sind, und daß sich da erst sinnenfällig ein Elementar-Organismusdargeboten hat. Was braucht man zu reden von einem «Leben auf andern Himmelskörpern» und so weiter, wenn man sehen kann, wie bei einem Tier oder einer Pflanze durch Zusammenwirken der rein materiellen, sinnenfälligen Zellen die Körper sich aufbauen!
Dann kamen die andern gewaltigen Errungenschaften. Wir brauchen nur nachzudenken, was für einen Eindruck es auf das menschliche Nachsinnen machen konnte, als Kirchhoff und Bunsen die Spektralanalyse brachten, die des Menschen Blick erweiterte über ferne Welten, und wo der Schluß gezogen werden durfte, daß das materielle Dasein, das wir auf der Erde finden, auch auf den fernsten Weltenkörpern dasselbe ist, so daß von einer Einheit des Stoffes in dem ganzen Weltendasein gesprochen werden durfte. Und jeder Tag vermehrt heute das, was uns auf diesem Gebiet entgegentreten kann. Ich könnte auf Hunderte und Hunderte von solchen Dingen hinweisen, die umwälzend gewirkt haben — nicht auf die Tatsachenwelt, sondern auf die Vorstellungsart der Menschen, so daß die Überzeugung entstehen mußte, daß man gegenüber dem, was die naturwissenschaftliche Methode bietet, kein Recht habe anders als so zu sprechen: Wartet ab, was die naturwissenschaftliche Forschung euch zu sagen hat über die Gründe des Lebens, über die Entstehung des Geisteslebens aus der Gehirntätigkeit, und redet nicht in phantastischer Art von einer geistigen Welt, welche dem allen zugrunde liegen soll! — Das ist alles nur zu leicht zu begreifen.
So hat sich für die menschliche Überzeugungskraft der Anblick des Naturwissenschaftlichen geändert. Goethe ist in dieser Beziehung wirklich ein Vorgänger Darwins. Aber trotzdem stieg er auf in Gemäßheit des Geistes seiner Zeit von seinen naturwissenschaftlichen Forschungen, von der Entwickelung der Lebewesen vom Unvollkommenen zum Vollkommenen, zu einer rein geistigen Weltanschauung, die durchaus das Übersinnliche, das Geistige hinter allem Sinnlichen sucht. Die Menschen, welche in derselben Weise in unserer Zeit vorgehen, glauben, daß die naturwissenschaftlichen Resultate dazu drängen, haltzumachen vor dem, was diese naturwissenschaftlichen Resultate sein sollen, und daß alles, was Geistesgebiet ist, wie hervorquillt aus dem sinnenfälligen Hintergrunde. Heute könnte eben nicht in derselben Weise wie vor einem Jahrhundert der Mensch sagen, was er durch seine persönliche Glaubensüberzeugung weiß oder zu wissen glaubt oder sich angeeignet hat über die übersinnliche Welt, stehe nicht in Widerspruch zu den naturwissenschaftlichen Ergebnissen, sondern es scheint, daß es gar sehr in Widerspruch dazu stehen müsse. Und nicht bloß diesem oder jenem ernsten, würdigen Wahrheitsforscher und strebenden Menschen scheint es so.
Wenn das der Fall ist, so müssen wir sagen: Für unsere Gegenwart ist diejenige Überzeugungskraft, sind die Überzeugungsgründe, die herangebracht werden konnten noch vor einem Jahrhundert oder auch noch später, ohne daß sie mit den äußeren wissenschaftlichen Resultaten in Widerspruch standen, nicht mehr unmittelbar maßgebend. Es bedarf heute gewichtigerer Impulse, um das, was über die übersinnliche Welt gesagt wird, gegenüber den strengen wissenschaftlichen Resultaten der Wissenschaft aufrechtzuerhalten. Was wir über die geistige Welt zu glauben uns befugt halten, das müssen wir imstande sein, in derselben Weise einzukleiden, in derselben objektiven Weise zu gewinnen, wie die naturwissenschaftlichen Resultate — nur auf anderem Boden — gewonnen werden können. Nur von einer Geisteswissenschaft, die mit derselben Logik, mit demselben gesunden Wahrheitssinn arbeitet wie die Naturwissenschaft, wird man empfinden können, daß sie sich neben die gewaltig fortgeschrittene Naturwissenschaft stellen kann. Wenn man dies bedenkt, begreift man, in welchem Sinne Geisteswissenschaft heute für unsere Gegenwart eine Notwendigkeit geworden ist. Man begreift auch, daß diese Geisteswissenschaft einzig und allein den Sehnsüchten, von denen gesprochen worden ist, entgegenkommen kann. Und diese Sehnsüchte sind deshalb vorhanden, weil unbewußt für viele Menschenseelen wirkt, was eben charakterisiert worden ist — gerade bei den besten Wahrheitssuchern und auf einem Gebiet, wo man es sich gar nicht versieht -, wenn man anführt, wie der menschliche Erkenntnisdrang hinausstrebt aus dem, was immer auf wissenschaftlichem Gebiet früher zu sagen war.
Gewiß scheint das mathematische Gebiet, das Gebiet der Geometrie ein solches zu sein, auf welchem das, was man gewinnt, in seiner Anwendung auf die sinnliche Welt gesichert erscheint. Wer möchte sozusagen leichten Herzens glauben, daß irgend jemand behaupten könne, was die Welt über die Mathematik, über die Geometrie zu sagen habe, könnte irgendwie erschüttert werden? Und dennoch ist es charakteristisch, daß es im Verlaufe des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts Geister gegeben hat, die sich rein mathematisch, durch strenge mathematische Untersuchungen dazu aufgeschwungen haben, Geometrien, Mathematiken auszudenken, die nicht Geltung haben innerhalb unserer sinnlichen Welt, sondern Geltung haben für ganz andere Welten. Also denken wir: streng mathematisch denkende Geister hat es gegeben, die empfanden, sie könnten über das hinausgehen, was es bisher als Mathematik und Geometrie über das Gebiet der Sinneswelt gegeben hat, könnten eine Geometrie erfinden, die für eine ganz andere Sinneswelt gilt! Und es gibt nicht eine, sondern mehrere solcher Geometrien. Mathematisch Geschulte wissen etwas über die Namen Riemann, Lobatschewski, Bolyai. Wir wollen hier nicht näher darauf eingehen, denn es kommt uns nur darauf an, daß aus dem menschlichen Erkennen so etwas werden konnte. — Es gibt zum Beispiel Geometrien, die nicht den Satz anerkennen: Die drei Winkel eines Dreiecks betragen zusammen 180 Grad, sondern für welche die Dreiecke eine ganz andere Eigenschaft haben, so daß zum Beispiel die drei Winkel eines Dreiecks stets kleiner sind als 180 Grad. Oder einen andern Fall: Für unsere euklidische Geometrie kann man durch einen Punkt zu einer gegebenen Linie nur eine Parallele ziehen. Geometrien sind ausgedacht worden, wo man unendlich viele Parallelen durch einen Punkt zu einer andern Linie ziehen kann. Das heißt also: Geister hat es gegeben, die sich gedrängt fanden, für andere Welten nicht bloß zu schwärmen, sondern sogar Geometrien für sie auszudenken! Das spricht gewaltig dafür, daß selbst in Mathematikerköpfen eine Sehnsucht waltete, darüber hinauszugehen, was in der unmittelbar uns umgebenden Welt ist.
Nur eines soll noch angeführt werden über die Tatsache, daß unsere Zeit etwas braucht, was aus der Geisteswissenschaft gewonnen werden kann. Es wird sich uns zeigen, daß in der Tat der Mensch in bezug auf das, was sein eigentliches geistig-seelisches Wesen ist, immer wieder und wieder in erneuerten Leben auf unserer Erde selbst erscheint. Daß das, was man Wiederverkörperung nennt, auf geistig-seelischem Gebiete eine ähnliche Tatsache ist wie die Entwickelungslehre oder Evolutionstheorie auf einer untergeordneten Stufe für das Tierreich. Daß also die menschliche Seele sich hindurchentwickelt durch Verkörperungen, die sie während ferner Vergangenheiten erlebt hat, und durch solche sich hindurchleben wird, die sie in fernen zukünftigen Verkörperungen erleben wird. Gewiß, gerade gegen solche Dinge wird sich die Widerlegungskunst gar sehr in der Gegenwart noch wenden. Aber man kann schon behaupten, daß die Gegenwart ein tiefes Bedürfnis nach solchen Ergebnissen hat, die zusammenhängen mit dem, wodurch sich der Mensch orientieren kann über seine Bestimmung, seine ganze Lage zur äußeren Welt.
Der Mensch hat seit kurzer Zeit erst angefangen, sich richtig als geschichtliches Wesen in die Weltentwickelung hineinzustellen. Das ist durch die äußeren Bildungsmittel gekommen. Denken Sie an den eingeschränkten Gesichtskreis der Menschheit des vierzehnten, fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts, bevor die Buchdruckerkunst die Bildungsmittel verbreitet hat. Dadurch traten an das menschliche Herz noch nicht Fragen heran wie die: Wie kann sich unsere Seele befriedigt gegenüberstellen dem, was wir als den geschichtlichen Fortschritt erkennen? Hier liegt der Ursprung einer Frage, die für viele Menschen heute schon eine Herzensfrage geworden ist. Der geschichtliche Fortschritt zeigt uns, daß immer neue Errungenschaften, die auch für die innere Entwickelung der Seele selber Wert haben, daß neue und immer neue Tatsachen eintreten in den Strom der fortschreitenden Menschheit. Da muß sich der Mensch fragen: Wie verhält es sich nun mit dem Menschen in seiner innersten Wesenheit selber? Waren die Menschen der Vergangenheit dazu verurteilt, in einem dumpfen Dasein ihr Leben erlebt zu haben und nicht Anteil zu nehmen an Entwickelungsprodukten eines späteren Fortschrittes? Wie ist denn der Anteil der menschlichen Wesenheit an den aufeinanderfolgenden Entwickelungen des Menschengeschlechtes?
Mag das eine Frage sein, gegenüber der mancher Einwand gemacht werden könnte —, hier soll nur davon die Rede sein, daß in der Tat aus einem tiefen Gefühl der Menschenseele die Frage, das Rätsel entsteht: Ist es denn möglich, daß heute eine menschliche Seele lebt, die dadurch, daß ihr Leben eingeschlossen ist zwischen Geburt und Tod, nicht sich Errungenschaften einverleiben kann, die erst in der Zukunft dem Strom der Menschheitsentwickelung eingeprägt werden?
Diese Frage nimmt für die Bekenner des Christentums eine grundlegende Bedeutung an. Wer auf dem Boden eines geläuterten Christentums steht, unterscheidet in der Entwickelung der Menschheit die vorchristliche Epoche von der nachchristlichen und spricht davon, daß von dem Christus-Ereignis ein Strom neuen geistigen Lebens ausgegangen ist, der früher nicht für die Erdenmenschheit da war. Da muß sich für einen solchen Menschen besonders die Frage ergeben: Wie ist es mit den Seelen, die vor dem Christus-Ereignis gelebt haben, vor der Verkündigung dessen, was vom Christus-Ereignis ausströmte?
Eine solche Frage kann der Mensch stellen. Die Geisteswissenschaft beantwortet sie ihm nicht nur theoretisch, sondern so, daß sie ihm auch befriedigend ist, indem sie zeigt, daß dieselben Menschen, die in der Zeit vor dem Christus-Ereignis Errungenschaften der vorchristlichen Zeit aufgenommen haben, wiederverkörpert werden, nachdem der Strom der christlichen Entwickelung seinen Anfang genommen hat, so daß also keiner verlustig gehen kann dessen, was in der Kultur eintritt. So wächst für die Geisteswissenschaft aus der Geschichte etwas heraus, was nicht bloß allgemeine abstrakte Ideen sind, die kalt und abstrakt wie steife Kräfte den Menschheitsstrom durchkraften sollen, sondern es spricht die Geisteswissenschaft von der Geschichte als von etwas, an dem der Mensch mit seinem innersten Wesen allüberall beteiligt ist. Und da sich der menschliche Horizont durch die modernen Bildungsmittel erweitert hat, wird diese Frage jetzt in einem ganz anderen Sinne gestellt als etwa vor einem Jahrhundert, wo der Gesichtskreis der Menschen eingeschränkter war. Ein Verlangen nach Antwort ist vorhanden, das nur durch die Geisteswissenschaft gestillt werden kann.
Wenn wir dies alles in Erwägung ziehen — und wir könnten stundenlang so fortsprechen und vieles anführen, was dafür spricht, daß die Geisteswissenschaft deshalb eine Bedeutung hat für die Gegenwart, weil die Gegenwart gar sehr nach ihren Resultaten verlangen muß —, dann bekommen wir eine Vorstellung von der Bedeutung der Geisteswissenschaft für die Gegenwart. Und alle Vorträge, die im Laufe dieses Winters hier gehalten werden, sollen nur dazu dienen, von den verschiedensten Seiten Material zusammenzutragen, um zu zeigen die geisteswissenschaftlichen Resultate und ihre Bedeutung für das menschliche Leben, wie für die Befriedigung der höchsten Bedürfnisse des Menschen überhaupt.
Nur das sei zum Schluß noch gesagt: Einer der gewöhnlichsten, allerdings nur von einem Schlagworte hergenommenen Einwürfe gegen die Geisteswissenschaft ist heute der, daß man sagt, so habe es die Naturwissenschaft glücklich dahin gebracht aus einem einheitlichen Prinzip, das gegeben ist durch die naturwissenschaftlichen Methoden, monistisch die Welt zu erklären. Und fast schon ist es zu einem Wort geworden, das bei vielen von selbst Antipathien hervorruft, daß jetzt die Geisteswissenschaft wieder komme und einen Dualismus gegenüber diesem erkenntnistheoretisch so segensreichen Monismus aufstelle! Mit solchen Schlagworten wird ja viel gesündigt. Ist denn das Prinzip, das Weltall einheitlich zu erklären, schon dadurch durchbrochen, daß im Weltall zwei Ströme zusammenwirken, von denen einer von außen, der andere von innen in der Seele sich treffen? Darf denn gar nicht vorausgesetzt werden, daß das, was so von zwei Seiten an die Seele herandringt — nämlich von der Sinneserfahrung auf der einen Seite und von der geisteswissenschaftlichen Forschung auf der anderen Seite —, dennoch in einem einheitlichen Dasein begründet ist und sich nur für die menschliche Auffassung zunächst in zwei Strömungen zeigt? Muß der Monismus durchaus oberflächlich genommen werden? Wenn das der Fall wäre, daß das monistische Prinzip dadurch durchbrochen würde, dann mag jemand nur gleich behaupten, daß das monistische Prinzip auch durchbrochen ist, wenn er zugesteht, daß Wasser aus Wasserstoff und Sauerstoff besteht. Wasserstoff und Sauerstoff können dennoch einen einheitlichen Ursprung haben, wenn sie sich auch vereinigen in dem, was wir Wasser nennen. Ebenso können sinnliche und übersinnliche Welt einen einheitlichen Ursprung haben, wenn man auch durch die Tatsachen der Naturwissenschaft und der Geisteswissenschaft gezwungen ist zu sagen: In der Seele des Menschen vereinigen sich zwei Ströme, von denen einer von der Sinnenseite, der andere von der Geistesseite hereinkommt. Dann kann man zwar das Einheitliche, das Monon, nicht sogleich aufzeigen, aber es widerspricht darum nicht der Anschauung von einer monistischen Welt. Was sich so von zwei Seiten zeigt, das erlangt erst dann die Kraft der vollen Wirklichkeit, wenn wir es sich zusammensetzend aus den zwei Strömungen erkennen. Wenden wir den Blick in die Außenwelt, erblicken wir durch die Einrichtung unserer Sinne und unseres Verstandes ein Weltbild, welches uns nicht das zeigt, woraus es herauswächst: den Geist. Wenn wir die Wege der geisteswissenschaftlichen Forschung gehen und in der Seele den Aufschwung durchleben, so finden wir den Geist. Und in der Seele ist es, wo sich begegnen Geist und Stoff. In der Zusammenfügung von Geist und Stoff innerhalb unserer Seele liegt erst die wahre, geist- und stofferfüllte geistige Wirklichkeit!
So darf vielleicht das jetzt Gesagte zusammengefaßt werden in die Worte, die etwa in dichterischer Form dasselbe geben, was dennoch alle, die sich unbefangen bemüht haben, eine Anschauung zu gewinnen von Geist und Stoff, zu allen Zeiten gefühlt haben. Geisteswissenschaft im Verhältnis zur Naturwissenschaft lehrt uns erkennen, daß es wahr ist:
Es drängt sich an den Menschensinn
Aus Weltentiefen rätselvoll
Des Stoffes reiche Fülle.
Es strömt in Seelengründe<
Aus Weltenhöhen inhaltvoll
Des Geistes klärend Wort.
Sie treffen sich im Menscheninnern
Zu weisheitvoller Wirklichkeit.
The Nature of Spiritual Science and Its Significance for the Present
For several years now, during the winter months, I have been attempting to give lectures here on a subject that I have taken the liberty of calling spiritual science. This winter, too, the series of lectures announced to you will once again present a picture of the realities of the spiritual world from this perspective. We will consider some of the great questions of existence: the relationship between life and death, sleep and waking, the human soul and the animal soul, the human spirit and the animal spirit, and spirit in the plant kingdom. We will then consider the nature of human development through the different stages of life, through childhood, youth, and later years, and the role of education in shaping a person's main character. We will shed light on spiritual life by turning our gaze to great individuals in human development: Zarathustra, Moses, Galileo, Goethe. We will attempt to show, using individual examples, the relationship between what is called spiritual science here and natural science: using the examples of astronomy and geology. And then an attempt will be made to say what the sources of spiritual science themselves have to say about the mysteries of life. These reflections were preceded each year by a kind of orienting, general consideration. This custom will also be followed this year, by speaking today about the significance of spiritual science, its nature and its relationship or — one might also say — its task within the various spiritual needs of the present.
In the sense in which spiritual science is spoken of here, it is fair to say that spiritual science is still a rather unpopular subject in the wider circles of our humanity. It is true that people also speak of “spiritual science” outside the perspectives that are to be taken here. For example, history is understood to be something that is labeled “humanities,” and probably other fields of knowledge today as well. Here, however, we will use the term in a different sense than is usually the case. When we speak of “humanities” today and apply the term to history, for example, we will admit, in the most extreme case, that in addition to what is available to human observation, the experience of the senses and the intellect, certain major tendencies must also be taken into account, which manifest themselves like forces in the stream of world events and, as it were, determine the fate of individual peoples and individual states. One also speaks of general ideas in history and in human life. If you think about what is meant in such cases, you will soon realize that what is meant are abstract ideas, which are appealed to when one speaks of forces, of the essential, of that which guides human destiny. In a certain sense, these are general ideas to which the human intellect can gain a relationship of knowledge.
In another sense, spiritual science is spoken of here in that the spiritual world is assumed to be a world that is essential, just as the human world is essential within physical existence. It will be shown that when one goes beyond the human capacity for knowledge of what is presented to the outer senses intellectual experience, and goes to the guiding forces of human and world existence in general, one does not merely arrive at abstractions, at insipid and powerless concepts, but at something essential, something that is alive, rich in content, spiritually imbued with existence, like the essence of the human being itself. So we are talking here about a spiritual world with a real existence. And this is precisely why spiritual science is not a popular subject for the broadest circles of our current intellectual endeavors. It is still the least of it when those who embark on such spiritual scientific research paths are labeled as chatterboxes, dreamers, or fantasists. And it is still common today to say that everything that appears as a rigorous method, as real science in this field, or that wants to pass itself off as such, is a rather dubious matter.
Great, tremendous advances have always, at all times, had a great suggestive effect on humanity, also in relation to all thinking, feeling, and sensing. And when we look at the great advances in general human life in recent times — we can almost say in recent centuries — we see that it has not been in the field of spiritual science, which is to be discussed here, but rather in the field of which humanity today — as will be emphasized in a moment — is rightly so proud and on which it still places great hopes for the future development of humanity. These advances of the last centuries up to the present day have been made in the field that has grown out of the natural sciences. When one considers how enormous is everything that has been gained for human knowledge in the field of natural science, not only theoretically, and what still promises to be gained from the soil of natural science, and when one also weighs in the balance the great significance of these scientific achievements for external life, one must say: the blessing, the significance of this scientific progress could and must have exerted a suggestive power on the human mind in our time. And so it has come to pass that this suggestive effect has also manifested itself in another way. If it had only manifested itself in such a way that the human mind felt above all something like a kind of secular cult toward these tremendous advances, who could say a word against it? But this suggestive power has also manifested itself in such a way that not only is the significance of scientific research and the resulting progress for our time recognized, but it has also led to the belief, which has spread in the widest circles, that all knowledge, all learning of humanity, can only be gained on the basis of what is today recognized as science. And because this belief leads to the conclusion that scientific methods are in contradiction to spiritual science, that it is impossible for those who stand on scientific ground to speak of researching a spiritual world at all, the prejudice is widespread in the broadest circles that spiritual science must be rejected in favor of the justified demands of natural science. What is particularly striking about this rejection is that it asserts something that carries extraordinary weight.
The scientific method, it is said, is one whose research results and findings can be verified by anyone at any time, and that in obtaining these findings and research results, nothing that prevails in the subjective human being as feeling, sympathy or antipathy, longing or desire must play a role. Nothing should interfere with the premise that one wants to have this result one way or another; the human element must be excluded from research and the objectivity of things must be allowed to speak for itself when it comes to the results of scientific research.
The humanities cannot simply make this demand. For those who quickly form an opinion about the universal validity of this demand, the fact that the humanities cannot meet this demand will be reason enough to reject them. Why is this so? Natural science has the objects of its research, of which it speaks, around human beings. It starts from what can be placed before every human being, what every human being can think about using scientific methods when presented with the matter. And it seems to be completely irrelevant what assumptions human beings bring to bear on what presents itself to their field of vision in their environment. This is precisely what is expressed in the general requirement: scientific knowledge must be verifiable by every human being at any given moment.True spiritual science cannot proceed in the same way that natural science obtains its results. It cannot say at the outset: it is necessary that its results can be verified by every human being at any time. For it must assume that these results, these research findings, are obtained precisely because human beings do not regard their inner being as something fixed and closed, because they do not regard their subjective essence as something finished, but say to themselves: My subjective being, this whole sum of my soul existence, as I can present it to the world, is not something closed, something finished; it can be developed, the life of the soul can be deepened. Soul life can proceed in such a way that what one finds when one directs the senses to the outer world and applies the intellect to what the senses say is only, as it were, a basis for further soul experiences. Further soul experiences arise when the soul deepens into itself, works on itself, when it regards the immediate grasp of life only as a starting point and then, through forces that are initially dormant within it but can be brought out, struggles through stages of existence that cannot be viewed in such a way that they can be verified by an external eye. What the spiritual researcher must go through in preparation for his studies is an inner struggle of the soul that is completely independent of what the human being himself has within him. If science requires that human beings contribute nothing to the results that present themselves externally, then there can be no question of spiritual science. But if one reflects a little and asks oneself: What is the most important part of the demands made on spiritual science? — one could say that its results are valid for every human being, that they are not subject to the personal arbitrariness of this or that individual human being, and that they are not only significant for the inner life of this or that human being, but are significant for all human beings.
That is what is significant about all science, that it does not only apply to those who have the objects of science before their eyes, but that, once the objects have been researched, this can lead to insights that can be valid for all human beings.
If it were true that what has been characterized as human development were only subjective, only valid for one person or another, and that it were therefore only a matter of personal belief, then we could not really speak of spiritual science. However, this winter will also show us that this inner life of the human being, the struggle of the soul out of forces that are initially dormant but can awaken, unfold, and develop, and then lead the human being from experience to experience, and that this soul life can still rise to a level where its experiences have a very specific character. When we look at human life as it unfolds within the human soul, it is initially a very personal experience, different for each individual. Those who have a healthy sense of self-awareness will be able to recognize clearly what is happening in their soul in terms of sympathy or antipathy, which is, as it were, only a personal note. But inner experience leads to a certain point where methodically driven self-knowledge, pure self-knowledge uninfluenced by the personal, must say to itself: the personal is stripped away, forming a special realm, but then one reaches a certain point where, for inner experience, for supersensible experience, arbitrariness ceases just as it ceases when one encounters this or that sensory phenomenon, and where one cannot think as one wishes, but must think in accordance with the object. Thus, the human being also enters a certain sphere, a certain realm, inwardly, spiritually, where he becomes clearly aware that it is no longer his personal subjectivity that speaks, but that now non-sensually perceptible, but supersensible beings and forces speak, for which his individuality is as insignificant as it is for what the external sense objects say. This insight must, of course, be gained if we are to speak of the right of what is said about the spiritual world to bear the name of science at all. These lectures this winter are again intended to be proof that the observations on the exploration of the spiritual world may be called a science.
Thus, it must be said that spiritual science is based in its essence on what can be explored by the human soul when it has reached a point in its inner struggles and experiences where the personal no longer has a say in the contemplation of the spiritual world, but where it allows the spiritual world itself to reveal its peculiarities. If one then compares spiritual science with natural science, some may say: But then spiritual science lacks the important characteristic that it can make a convincing impression on all people, which is present in natural science for the reason that wherever natural scientific results occur, one is aware that Even if you have not researched and seen this yourself, you could, if you went to the observatory or the laboratory and used the telescope and the microscope, recognize it in the same way as the person who told you about it. And it could be said further: if, in the course of spiritual science, the proof is purely inner, and the soul struggles with itself until it says: now you are not contributing anything of your personality to ‘what the objects are telling you’ — it remains a solitary struggle. And to those who have arrived at certain conclusions in this way, or to whom the spiritual scientist communicates these conclusions, one would have to say: For me, these conclusions remain unknown territory until I myself ascend to the same point!
This too — as we shall see — turns out to be an incorrect objection. Certainly, this solitary struggle of the human soul, this uncovering of forces slumbering in the human soul, is necessary in order to penetrate into the spiritual world, where it speaks to us objectively. But the spiritual world is such that when the results of spiritual science are communicated, they do not remain ineffective. What emerges from a human soul tested by spiritual scientific research as messages to other souls can be verified again by every soul, in a certain sense, not in the way that one can see in a laboratory what another has found, but in the way that one can understand it. For in every soul there lives an unbiased sense of truth, a healthy logic, a healthy rationality. And when the results of spiritual research are clothed in sound logic, in what appeals to our healthy sense of truth, then a chord resonates in every soul, or at least in every unbiased human soul, with the communicating soul. It can be said that every soul is predisposed, even if it has not yet devoted itself to the marked solitary struggle, to take in what is communicated by spiritual science through an unbiased logic and a healthy sense of truth. Even though it must certainly be admitted that in the wider circle in which this or that is pursued by spiritual science today, this healthy sense of truth and this healthy logic do not prevail everywhere in the reception of the communications of spiritual research, this is a shortcoming of every spiritual movement. In principle, however, what has been said is absolutely correct. Indeed, in principle it should even be noted that if what is so often presented to humanity today as spiritual science is accepted lightly and with blind faith, it must lead to error upon error. Those who truly stand on the ground of spiritual science feel strictly obliged to communicate what they have to say in a logical and reasonable manner, so that it can truly be tested by a healthy sense of truth and by all logic. — So, on the one hand, we have described the essence of spiritual science by showing how its results must be found.
That such an objective fact of the spirit exists can only be proven by this science itself. But it should already be pointed out that this science leads precisely to what we call the real, the actual content of the spiritual world, a content that is vividly filled with such essence as a human being itself is filled with essence. From this point of view, spiritual science is clear that underlying all external, physical, sensory existence, all existence of which our senses and intellectual experience tell us, is ultimately based on a spiritual world, that human beings, like all other things, were born out of this spiritual world and developed out of it, so that behind the world of the senses, behind what is commonly called physical external existence, the realm of the spiritual world extends. When spiritual science gradually begins to show, based on its observations, what this spiritual world is like, how the spiritual world underlies our sensory world, then in many circles of our present day aversion and antipathy begin to arise, as was indicated at the beginning of today's consideration: In wide circles of the present day, spiritual science is a rather unpopular subject. And it is by no means difficult to understand that spiritual science still encounters enormous resistance today. This is entirely understandable, and not only because anything that is new to human cultural life, such as spiritual science, has always been treated with a certain degree of repression, like all the small and great achievements of humanity; but also because there is indeed much in the realm of ideas that people today derive from scientific observation, for example, which makes it necessary for those who believe they are standing firmly on the ground of science to find themselves entangled in contradictions when they hear what spiritual science has to say. Those who stand on the ground of spiritual science themselves have no doubt that hundreds and hundreds of so-called refutations of this spiritual science can be brought up with a certain degree of justification. I would just like to add, as an aside, that I myself will be giving two lectures in various places in the near future, including one here, in order to bring clarity to the question that has been raised. The first will be entitled: “How to refute theosophy?” and the other: “How to justify theosophy?” This is to be done on a trial basis, in order to show how someone who stands on the ground of spiritual science can really gather together everything that can be brought up as refutations of spiritual science. Yes, I would like to say that even more than what has already been mentioned, it is the case that the refutations of spiritual science, as refutations are commonly spoken of today, are not particularly difficult in terms of their various results. It is easy to refute spiritual scientific research.
I do not want to compare these refutations directly, but in order to clarify what I mean, I would like to refer to something that often strikes one when reading works by certain philosophers on Hegel's philosophy. — I do not want to talk here about what is significant in Hegel's philosophy, what is true and what is false; let us leave that aside. — There will be few among those familiar with Hegel who do not recognize that they are dealing with a significant mind in Hegel. Now, there is a remarkable sentence in Hegel's writings that can, so to speak, make a deep impression on those who want to refute Hegel lightly. And this sentence reads: “Everything real is reasonable!” Now let us consider, one might say, what inner laughter such a sentence must provoke in those who like to refute! A philosopher who utters such nonsense as “Everything real is reasonable!” must be great! One need only glance at the world to see how unreasonable this sentence is! There is a simple method of refuting the correctness of this statement, and that is to commit a gross act of stupidity oneself. For one can claim that this is certainly not reasonable. Should the fact that a refutation is easy also lead to it being taken lightly and easily as meaningful? That is a completely different question, which can perhaps be answered by considering the following: Could Hegel—whatever one's opinion of him may be—really have been so stupid that he did not realize what could be said to refute this statement? Could he really have believed that no one could do something incredibly stupid? Shouldn't we be prompted to consider what Hegel may have meant by this statement, and that such a refutation does not actually address what is meant?
This could also be the case with many aspects of the humanities. To tie in with something concrete: the humanities must assume — this can only be suggested today — that what we recognize in human beings as the tool of thinking, imagining, feeling, and willing, namely the nervous system with the brain, is built out of something spiritual, that the brain and nervous system are tools of something essential that cannot be demonstrated in the sensory world, but must be researched through the methods characterized by spiritual science. Spiritual science must therefore go back from what external science, based on sensory phenomena, has to say about the brain and nervous system, to something that works in human beings as something soul-spiritual, something that can no longer be researched with the senses, something that can only be researched through the inner paths of the soul. It is really very easy to refute what spiritual research says about a supersensible world that underlies the human brain. One can say: Everything you are talking about is itself only a product of the brain. If you do not see this, then consider how spiritual abilities increase in the course of development. In lower animals, spiritual abilities are still quite imperfect; in higher animals, and especially in higher mammals, they are already more significant and more perfect; and in humans, they appear to be most perfect because the human brain has attained the greatest perfection. This shows that what appears as spiritual life grows out of the brain. And if you still do not believe this, turn to someone who can show you how, in certain cases of illness, certain parts of the brain become ineffective and certain abilities can no longer be exercised by humans, so that, as it were, certain parts of the brain are removed and mental life is eliminated. So you see how, piece by piece, your mental life can be removed by what is a sensory organ! Why, then, do you still speak of spiritual beings that are supposed to stand behind the things that are perceptible to the senses?
This objection is really very easy to make. But the fact that it is made not on the basis of scientific findings, but on the basis of a suggestion that has been formed for many people from certain scientific theories, must seem self-evident to us at present. All this is connected with the fact that our age is under the suggestive influence of the idea that truth and knowledge can only be gained by directing the senses outward and igniting the intellect with what has been gained. Even if — and this must be said with regard to spiritual science — these results must refute the findings of spiritual science on all points, it can nevertheless be said that, on the other hand, there is a deep need, a deep longing in our present time to hear something from those realms about which spiritual science has something to report. A deep longing for this has developed and is alive and conscious in a group of people. In the majority of people, it lies dormant, so to speak, beneath the surface of consciousness, but it will become more and more apparent. The need for spiritual scientific results will become greater and greater. This longing, this need for spiritual scientific results, arises — we might say — as a side effect of the admiration and devotion to scientific achievements. Precisely because scientific achievements necessarily turn people's gaze outward, the longing for spiritual scientific results awakens as a counterpole. In this respect, we have arrived at a completely different point of view within the development that has taken place in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries than humanity had a century ago. If we want to talk about the value of spiritual scientific research for the present, it is important to remember that even the greatest minds a century ago did not feel the need to talk about spiritual scientific results in the way that we intend to do today in this series of lectures. And since the great individuals are only setting the tone for humanity, in a certain sense only expressing what is needed by the whole of the age, including the lesser individuals, we can see this clearly when we look at the greater individuals.
It can rightly be said that a person such as Goethe did not feel the need a century ago to speak about the results of spiritual science in the way that is done today on the basis of spiritual science. When the question arose of speaking about something that lies beyond the externally perceptible, Goethe, like so many people, often argued that this could be a matter of faith, but not of rigorous science. And Goethe also often expressed the view that, fundamentally, the communication of universally valid results in this field could hardly be very fruitful if it were made from one person to another. Over the course of a century, we have not only progressed in terms of the overall development of humanity, with Goethe having lived in an age that had no telegraphs, telephones, railways, or prospects such as those offered by air travel; we also stand before results in terms of spiritual development that are different from those that existed in Goethe's time. You can see this in a specific case. There is a beautiful conversation that Goethe had with a certain Falk on the occasion of Wieland's death. In it, he spoke about the areas from which a certain insight into what survives birth and death in human beings should be drawn, what does not perish with the sensual shell, what is immortal in contrast to the mortal part of human beings. The immediate cause of death of Wieland, whom he held in such high esteem, had prompted Goethe to express himself in a popular way to someone like Falk, who showed him understanding. And what he said there is highly significant when we address the question of the importance of spiritual science for the present.
"...You have long known that ideas which lack a firm foundation in the sensory world, despite all their other value, do not convince me, because I want to know about nature, not just guess and believe. As for the personal continuation of our soul after death, this is how it is on my path: It is by no means at odds with the many years of observation I have made about the nature of our beings and all beings in nature; on the contrary, it even emerges from them with new force of evidence. How much or how little of this personality deserves to continue, however, is another question and a point we must leave to God. For now, I will only note this first: I assume different classes and hierarchies of the ultimate constituents of all beings, as it were, the starting points of all phenomena in nature, which I would like to call souls, because it is from these that the animation of the whole emanates, or better still, monads—let us always retain this Leibnizian expression! There could hardly be a better way to express the simplicity of the simplest being. Now, as experience shows us, some of these monads or starting points are so small, so insignificant, that they are at best only suitable for a subordinate service and existence; others, on the other hand, are very strong and powerful. The latter therefore tend to draw everything that approaches them into their circle and transform it into something that belongs to them, that is, into a body, a plant, an animal, or even higher, into a star. They continue this until the small or large world, whose intention lies spiritually within them, also appears physically on the outside. Only the latter would I actually call souls. It follows from this that there are world monads, world souls, such as ant monads and ant souls, and that both are related in their origin, if not completely one, then at least in their primordial nature. Every sun, every planet carries within itself a higher intention, a higher mission, by virtue of which its developments must take place just as regularly and according to the same laws as the developments of a rose bush through its leaves, stem, and crown. You may call this an idea or a monad, as you wish; I have no objection to that. Suffice it to say that this intention is invisible and exists earlier than the visible development that arises from it in nature...
In a certain sense, Goethe is talking at that time about what we will often talk about in these lectures: the reincarnation of the human soul. And he makes the remark that, according to everything he himself has formed as a view of the human world, the animal world, and so on, such a view does not contradict what he has established as science.
It is easy to understand what such a statement by Goethe means when one considers that in 1784 Goethe made a discovery that alone would have been enough to preserve his name for all time, even if he had achieved nothing else: the discovery of the so-called intermaxillary bone in the upper jaw of humans. Humans have an intermaxillary bone in the upper jaw, just like animals. This was denied at the very time Goethe entered the field of natural science. When it came to distinguishing between humans and animals, people looked only for external distinguishing features and believed that animals had an intermaxillary bone in the upper jaw, which was not present in humans. This was thought to distinguish human from animal organization. Goethe did not want to admit this; he could not believe that the difference between humans and animals could be found in this subordinate feature, and he set about proving by every means possible that what is called the intermaxillary bone, although it fuses shortly after birth in humans, is nevertheless present in the embryonic stage and is not absent in humans. He really succeeded in proving that the difference between humans and animals did not lie in something so external.
From this starting point, Goethe worked in all areas of natural science and was therefore well acquainted with the scientific thinking of his time. Indeed, he was so far ahead of his time that Darwinists, who wanted to reinterpret Goethe in the spirit of Darwin, can now claim that Goethe was a precursor of Darwin. Although Goethe is so rooted in the scientific thinking of his time and goes beyond it, he can nevertheless say that what he has formed as his view of the immortal part of man, which echoes reincarnation, is entirely compatible with his scientific ideas. And what Goethe was able to say at that time could, in principle, be said by every human being. Other researchers who sought to gain scientific knowledge about life were in the same situation. It is characteristic of this that, on Haeckel's ground, one refers to a great achievement of Kant's, to Kant's establishment of the mechanical worldview, and to Kant's “General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, or Essay on the Constitution and Mechanical Origin of the Whole World System,” written in 1775. You need only take the Reclam booklet, look at the conclusion, and then ask: How do those who stand on the ground of mere Haeckelism feel about Kant when he speaks of the immortality of the human soul, when he speaks of the great mysteries of the human soul, of the prospect of the habitability of other celestial bodies and the continuation of the human soul on other planets? How do such followers of Haeckel view the possibility of the reincarnation of human beings, as it appears in this work by Kant, published in 1775? Today, people refer to things in such a way that one would be astonished if those who refer to Kant had actually read these things!
Things are different today than they were a century or a century and a half ago. It was a necessity of the times that people spoke about matters of spiritual life in a certain way that had nothing to do with science, because they felt that they were talking about something that was not in contradiction with what science could claim. Anyone who allows the science of the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to have an effect on them, even if they only absorb scientific knowledge through popular descriptions, feels that they could speak like Goethe: The convictions I have formed about spiritual life, even if they are only personal beliefs, do not in any way contradict what is offered as science today.
Things have changed and are now very difficult for science. One must remember that after Goethe's death, the great discoveries of Schleiden and Schwann about human and animal cells were made, and that only then did an elementary organism become apparent. What need is there to talk about “life on other celestial bodies” and so on, when we can see how the bodies of animals and plants are built up through the interaction of purely material, tangible cells!
Then came the other tremendous achievements. We need only think what an impression it must have made on human contemplation when Kirchhoff and Bunsen introduced spectral analysis, which broadened the human gaze to distant worlds, and where it could be concluded that the material existence we find on Earth is the same on the most distant worlds, so that we could speak of a unity of matter in the entire universe. And every day today increases what we can encounter in this field. I could point to hundreds and hundreds of such things that have had a revolutionary effect — not on the world of facts, but on people's way of thinking, so that the conviction had to arise that, in view of what the scientific method offers, one has no right to say anything other than: Wait and see what scientific research has to say about the reasons for life, about the emergence of spiritual life from brain activity, and do not talk in a fantastical way about a spiritual world that is supposed to underlie all this! — It is all too easy to understand.
Thus, the view of natural science has changed in terms of its persuasive power on humans. In this respect, Goethe is truly a predecessor of Darwin. But nevertheless, in keeping with the spirit of his time, he rose from his scientific research, from the development of living beings from the imperfect to the perfect, to a purely spiritual worldview that seeks the supersensible, the spiritual behind everything sensual. People who proceed in the same way in our time believe that scientific results urge us to stop short of what these scientific results are supposed to be, and that everything in the spiritual realm springs forth from the sensory background. Today, unlike a century ago, people cannot say that what they know or believe they know or have acquired about the supersensible world through their personal convictions does not contradict scientific findings; rather, it seems that it must contradict them. And it is not only this or that serious, dignified seeker of truth and striving human being who thinks so.
If this is the case, then we must say: for our present time, the persuasive power and the reasons for conviction that could be brought forward a century ago or even later, without contradicting external scientific results, are no longer directly authoritative. Today, more powerful impulses are needed to uphold what is said about the supersensible world in the face of the strict scientific results of science. What we consider ourselves entitled to believe about the spiritual world must be able to be clothed in the same way, gained in the same objective way as the results of natural science can be gained — only on different ground. Only a spiritual science that works with the same logic and the same healthy sense of truth as natural science will be able to stand alongside the enormously advanced natural sciences. When we consider this, we understand in what sense spiritual science has become a necessity for our present day. One also understands that this spiritual science alone can satisfy the longings that have been spoken of. And these longings exist because what has just been characterized is at work unconsciously in many human souls — especially in the best seekers of truth and in a field where one would not expect it — when one points out how the human thirst for knowledge strives beyond what could previously be said in the scientific field.
Certainly, the field of mathematics, the field of geometry, seems to be one in which what is gained appears to be secure in its application to the sensory world. Who would believe, so to speak, with a light heart, that anyone could claim that what the world has to say about mathematics, about geometry, could somehow be shaken? And yet it is characteristic that in the course of the nineteenth century there were minds that, through purely mathematical, rigorous mathematical investigations, set out to devise geometries and mathematics that are not valid within our sensory world, but are valid for entirely different worlds. So we think: there have been minds thinking strictly mathematically who felt they could go beyond what has hitherto existed as mathematics and geometry in the realm of the sensory world, that they could invent a geometry that applies to a completely different sensory world! And there is not just one, but several such geometries. Those trained in mathematics know something about the names Riemann, Lobachevsky, Bolyai. We do not want to go into detail here, because what matters to us is that human cognition could produce something like this. — For example, there are geometries that do not recognize the theorem: The three angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees, but for which triangles have a completely different property, so that, for example, the three angles of a triangle are always less than 180 degrees. Or another case: in our Euclidean geometry, only one parallel line can be drawn through a point to a given line. Geometries have been devised in which an infinite number of parallel lines can be drawn through a point to another line. This means that there have been minds that felt compelled not only to rave about other worlds, but even to devise geometries for them! This speaks volumes for the fact that even in the minds of mathematicians there was a longing to go beyond what is in the world immediately surrounding us.
Only one more thing needs to be said about the fact that our time needs something that can be gained from spiritual science. We will see that, in fact, human beings, in terms of their actual spiritual and soul nature, appear again and again in renewed lives on our Earth itself. That what is called reincarnation is, in the spiritual and soul realm, a similar fact to the theory of development or evolution at a lower level for the animal kingdom. That the human soul develops through incarnations it has experienced in distant pasts and will live through those it will experience in distant future incarnations. Certainly, the art of refutation will still turn very much against such things in the present. But it can already be said that the present has a deep need for such results, which are connected with what enables human beings to orient themselves with regard to their destiny and their entire situation in relation to the external world.
Human beings have only recently begun to properly position themselves as historical beings in the development of the world. This has come about through external means of education. Think of the limited horizons of humanity in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, before the art of printing spread the means of education. As a result, questions such as the following did not yet arise in the human heart: How can our soul be satisfied with what we recognize as historical progress? Here lies the origin of a question that has already become a matter of the heart for many people today. Historical progress shows us that ever new achievements, which are also valuable for the inner development of the soul itself, that new and ever new facts enter into the stream of advancing humanity. Human beings must ask themselves: What about the innermost essence of the human being itself? Were the people of the past condemned to live a dull existence and not participate in the products of later progress? What is the share of the human essence in the successive developments of the human race?
This may be a question to which many objections could be made, but here we shall only say that the question, the mystery, arises from a deep feeling in the human soul: Is it possible that there is a human soul living today which, because its life is confined between birth and death, cannot incorporate achievements that will only be imprinted on the stream of human development in the future?
This question takes on fundamental significance for professing Christians. Those who stand on the ground of purified Christianity distinguish between the pre-Christian and post-Christian epochs in the development of humanity and speak of a stream of new spiritual life emanating from the Christ event, which was not previously available to humanity on earth. For such a person, the question must arise: What about the souls who lived before the Christ event, before the proclamation of what emanated from the Christ event?
A person may ask such a question. Spiritual science answers it not only theoretically, but in a way that is also satisfactory to them, by showing that the same people who absorbed the achievements of the pre-Christian era in the time before the Christ event are reincarnated after the stream of Christian development has begun, so that no one can lose what enters into culture. Thus, for spiritual science, something emerges from history that is not merely general abstract ideas, which are supposed to permeate the stream of humanity like cold and abstract forces, but spiritual science speaks of history as something in which human beings participate with their innermost being everywhere. And since the human horizon has been broadened by modern means of education, this question is now being asked in a completely different sense than, say, a century ago, when people's horizons were more limited. There is a desire for an answer that can only be satisfied by spiritual science.
When we consider all this — and we could continue for hours, citing many arguments in favor of spiritual science's significance for the present because the present has such a great need for its results — we begin to grasp the importance of spiritual science for the present. And all the lectures given here during the course of this winter are intended solely to gather material from a wide variety of sources in order to show the results of spiritual science and their significance for human life, as well as for the satisfaction of the highest needs of human beings in general.
Let me just say one last thing: One of the most common objections to spiritual science today, albeit taken from a slogan, is that natural science has successfully managed to explain the world monistically from a unified principle given by natural scientific methods. And it has almost become a phrase that automatically provokes antipathy in many people that spiritual science is now coming back and setting up a dualism in opposition to this epistemologically so beneficial monism! Much sin is committed with such slogans. Is the principle of explaining the universe in a unified way already broken by the fact that two currents interact in the universe, one coming from outside and the other from within the soul? Can we not assume that what approaches the soul from two sides — namely, sensory experience on the one hand and spiritual scientific research on the other — is nevertheless based on a unified existence and only appears to human perception as two streams? Must monism be taken superficially? If that were the case, if the monistic principle were broken by this, then one might as well claim that the monistic principle is also broken when one admits that water consists of hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen and oxygen can still have a unified origin, even if they combine in what we call water. Similarly, the sensory and supersensory worlds can have a unified origin, even if the facts of natural science and spiritual science compel us to say: Two streams unite in the human soul, one coming from the sensory side and the other from the spiritual side. Then, although one cannot immediately point to the unified, the monon, it does not contradict the view of a monistic world. What thus appears from two sides only attains the power of full reality when we recognize it as being composed of the two streams. When we turn our gaze to the outer world, we see, through the structure of our senses and our intellect, a world picture that does not show us what it grows out of: the spirit. When we follow the paths of spiritual scientific research and experience the upliftment in our soul, we find the spirit. And it is in the soul that spirit and matter meet. It is in the union of spirit and matter within our soul that the true spiritual reality, filled with spirit and matter, lies!
Perhaps what has been said can now be summarized in words that express in poetic form what all those who have made an unbiased effort to gain an understanding of spirit and matter have felt at all times. Spiritual science in relation to natural science teaches us to recognize that it is true:
It presses upon the human mind
From the depths of the world, mysterious
The rich abundance of matter.
It flows into the depths of the soul<
From the heights of the world, meaningful
The clarifying word of spirit.
They meet in the innermost part of man
To form a wise reality.