The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Mystery of Humanity in Philosophy and Spiritual Research (Anthroposophy)

[ 1 ] Dear attendees! The necessity of speaking about a human mystery in relation to the human soul seems just as superfluous to a truly sensitive soul as it is, in a certain sense, of course, but superfluous to speak of the existence of hunger in relation to the physical life of human beings.

[ 2 ] What stimulates and causes the life process as such must, according to natural conditions, be arranged in such a way that it also causes hunger, and human beings can, in a sense, physically overcome hunger through certain anesthetics, can believe that they can get through what hunger means for a while; but in the long run, this is certainly not possible without damaging the physical body. Nor is it possible, without damaging the soul, to achieve more than a kind of numbness to the existence of the mystery of man and life for the soul.

[ 3 ] Those who, compelled by circumstances or indifference, close themselves off to the existence of the mystery of human life will very easily fall into all that which must necessarily occur as a kind of spiritual hunger or as a consequence of hunger, something like a kind of atrophy of the soul, uncertainty and powerlessness of the soul, an inability to find one's way in the world, and so on and so forth.

[ 4 ] If it might seem almost superfluous to talk about the necessity of the human mystery in general for every truly sensitive person, it is perhaps less so to say that the great mystery questions of life take on a new character for humanity with each age. However, given the brevity of time, this fact can only be pointed out by way of introduction. Just as, in relation to all the external circumstances of life, humanity changes from epoch to epoch for the more attentive observer, as ever new needs and new external questions of life arise, so too do the particular nuances with which souls, [longing] for a solution to the human riddle, make the content of such a solution possible for human beings change from epoch to epoch. In the age that has dawned over the last three to four centuries — but especially in the nineteenth century and up to the present day in the twentieth century — which culminates in the domination of the world by steam, electricity, and modern commercial and social conditions — in this age there are also different questions about the great facts of the world in which human beings find themselves than in earlier ages. Out of the needs of the most modern age, so to speak, Spiritual Science or anthroposophy, as it is meant here, now seeks to approach the solution of the human riddle.

[ 5 ] It is wrong to see Spiritual Science or anthroposophy, as it is meant here, as something that is supposed to be a renewal of old mystical views and so on. Those who criticize Spiritual Science or anthroposophy from this or that point of view usually only form their own picture of Spiritual Science and then criticize what they see with little willingness to engage with the subject; it is only their own caricatured picture of Spiritual Science that is criticized.

[ 6 ] Of course, it is not possible within the limited scope of an evening lecture to touch on everything that could serve even as an external characteristic of the Spiritual Science or anthroposophy referred to here. Only a few points of view can be added today to what I have been able to say about the subject for years, including in this city. However, it is particularly important to bear in mind that the Spiritual Science referred to here has emerged less from any directly religious or mystical currents — although it should not be thought of as being in opposition to these, as will be discussed later — but that it has arisen from life in modern scientific views, from a mindset and scientific worldview that is connected with the life of modern scientific development.

[ 7 ] I do not believe, dear attendees, that anyone who despises the modern scientific worldview can truly penetrate the spiritual ascent to the secrets of the world that is meant here in the Spiritual Science, even if the attitude of intellectual conscientiousness toward the facts of the world is more important is more important than any individual scientific results. Being immersed in how modern science researches and thinks, how it disciplines the inner life of the soul with regard to knowledge and insight, is something that Spiritual Science must take into account if it wants to meet the demands of the times.

[ 8 ] Now, such an attitude raises the question: How is it possible for modern science and the worldview that follows from it to arrive at any view of the human mystery that truly satisfies the depths of the human soul? This answer cannot be given if one is a positive thinker; this answer cannot be given on the basis of preconceived opinions or this or that belief, but must be given on the basis of the facts of recent scientific developments and ways of thinking. And so, allow me to begin with the course of scientific thought and research in recent times. The point of view here is entirely that of an admirer of the great, tremendous advances in scientific thinking in the nineteenth century, and it is the point of view that makes it possible to recognize that the hopes placed in science, especially in the nineteenth century, for a solution to the great mysteries of humanity, were, in their innermost essence, the most honest hopes and intentions.

[ 9 ] Let us first take a look at the great scientific boom with its hopes and aspirations, for example in the field of physics and chemistry. How did personalities who were materialistic in their thinking but deeply immersed in scientific worldviews develop a belief around the middle of the nineteenth century, that what man is in his innermost being, what he lives out in the world, could be explained from his physical organization, just as the workings of the external forces of nature and natural formations in the world can be explained from the physical organization with the help of the wonderfully advanced laws of physics and chemistry. The great advances made in physics and chemistry certainly justified such hopes for a while. These advances led to very specific mental images of the world of the smallest: the atom, the molecule. Even if we think differently about these things today, what I have to say about the atom and the molecule still applies to scientific development; People wanted to explore them; they wanted to explain what was at work in materials and physical forces based on the nature of material molecules and atoms and the forces and mutual relationships caused by this nature. It was believed that if any process could be explained from the nature of the smallest, then in the not too distant future it would also be possible to understand the most complicated process, which was regarded as a natural process, the more complicated process of human thinking, feeling, sensing, and so on, from the workings of the smallest.

[ 10 ] Now, dear audience, let us see where this path with its great hopes has led us. Anyone who has delved deeply into all that physics and chemistry have achieved over the last few decades can only have the utmost respect for the work that has been done in this field and the results that have been achieved. I cannot go into the details, but I would like to mention as authoritative the opinion formed by a representative researcher who had been active in the field of physical chemistry and who wanted to form a view of the nature of the smallest physical part of the atom, [Augustus Rowland], the spectral-analytical researcher; He formed this opinion on the basis of everything that is known today about the smallest entity that is thought to be active in the external material world. And how remarkable this opinion is! But how justified it is must be acknowledged by anyone who has insight into these matters. How remarkable this opinion is, but how justified. [Augustus Rowland] says: “Based on everything we know today, the mental image of an iron atom must be more complex than a Steinway piano.”

[ 11 ] Well, ladies and gentlemen, a weighty statement from someone familiar with the methods of modern research! Decades ago, it was believed that by studying the smallest inanimate beings, or at least by formulating provisional hypotheses about them, we could learn something about the world that immediately surrounds us in our ordinary consciousness. And what has transpired? The researcher must conclude: If I really enter this smallest world, I find nothing that is more explainable to me than a Steinway piano. So it becomes quite certain to me that no matter how far I may go in dissecting the smallest things, the world will not become more explainable to me than it is as it immediately presents itself to ordinary, everyday consciousness. This is one of the paths with great hopes. We see, in a sense, these great hopes disappearing into the world of the smallest. And more and more, honest scientific progress will show how nothing, absolutely nothing, can be added to what we can see with our ordinary consciousness in terms of answering the great mysteries of the world by penetrating into the smallest parts of space!

[ 12 ] In another field, we have seen how equally great and, given the circumstances of the time, entirely understandable hopes have been cherished. What great hopes people believed could be realized, could be connected with the flourishing of the newer, materialistically colored Darwinian theory! It was believed that it would be possible to survey the series of living beings, the series of plants, the series of animals, right up to humans. It was believed that humans could be understood in terms of their essential nature by observing their emergence from subordinate species. And by tracing the transformation of species from the simplest living beings up to humans, they believed they could find the building blocks for solving the mystery of humanity. The species—so they believed—of organic beings would reveal themselves. They believed in such simple living beings that they could explain the entire development of an organism, including the human organism.

[ 13 ] Again, for those who are familiar with all the avenues of research that have been pursued, a highly commendable and wonderful work in this field has been accomplished during the nineteenth century and up to the present day. It was thought that the egg cell from which humans develop would be found in the simplest living beings, and that it would then be possible to explain the origin of humans from their egg cell, which is similar to what can be found in the world as the simplest animal form. Once again, the path to the smallest spatial entity, now of living beings, was sought. What has been found along this path? It is interesting to hear a very conscientious and important natural scientist of the 1880s, Nägeli, speak in the following way about what has just been touched upon. He says:

[ 14 ] A closer study of the individual species of animals and plants as they exist reveals that, down to the smallest level, down to each individual cell, each individual species is governed by the most manifold differences. And that the egg cells of a chicken differ from the egg cells of a frog just as much as the chicken itself differs from the frog.

[ 15 ] When we descend to the simplest cellular organism, from which we wanted to explain the complexity of what stands before ordinary consciousness, we come to nothing simpler than the iron atom, which we must ultimately recognize as being as complex as a Steinway grand piano. Thus, we must consider the differences between individual egg cells to be as great as the differences between the species and genera that stand before ordinary consciousness in the external world. But in doing so, Nägeli negated the entire path taken by materialistic Darwinism, precisely out of scientific conscientiousness.

[ 16 ] Another fact is interesting. One might think: Well, Nägeli, the great botanist, was simply a one-sided personality who expressed this view in the 1880s, and today research is advancing rapidly, so what Nägeli said in the 1880s can no longer be defended. But we can consider the very latest developments in this field, which have been beautifully summarized by a very remarkable man, namely one of Ernst Haeckel's most outstanding students, Oscar Hertwig; and in recent weeks, a summary of Oscar Hertwig's research has been published, entitled “Das Werden der Organismen” (The Development of Organisms), a refutation of Darwin's theory of chance.

[ 17 ] So, dear audience, consider the fact that one of Haeckel's greatest students, the most radical representative of materialistic Darwinism during his lifetime, has come to thoroughly and comprehensively refute this entire materialistic Darwinism. Above all, we find that Oscar Hertwig—Haeckel's great student, whom I myself have often heard Haeckel refer to as the one he particularly valued, as his successor—we see that Oscar Hertwig today provides the refutation of what he took from scientific Darwinism in his time from his teacher Haeckel. Oscar Hertwig provides this refutation thoroughly, because he does — if I may use the expression — a thorough job, so to speak.

[ 18 ] That is what I want to mention for the time being. I will come back to this question later. Suffice it to say that Oscar Hertwig draws on all the research available to date to prove that the statement I quoted to you, Nägelis' statement, is completely correct; so that from today's immediate standpoint of scientific biological research, it must be said that the path into the smallest living beings can never lead to more than what the view of the genera and species that stand before us in ordinary consciousness can lead us to. For the smallest living beings, the cells, are, when they are [egg cells], as different—according to Nägeli, according to Hertwig—as the species and genera themselves are different. The path to the smallest teaches us only that on this path there is nothing to be found but what can also be found in the ordinary world for the living consciousness.

[ 19 ] But something very similar, dear attendees, also becomes apparent — I can only mention this briefly — when we go not to the smallest, but to the relatively largest: to astronomical facts. For there, too, we have seen the greatest, most wonderful advances in the course of recent human development, for example in the wonderful progress of [spectral] analysis, which particularly in [1859] so surprised humanity and has since had such enormous consequences for astronomy, for astrophysics in particular. What have they brought? One of the most important statements for many who are at home in this field is that, wherever we look in the world, we may still discover one or the other substance, but that is not decisive; the same substances with the same forces that are effective and active here on Earth we find them throughout, even on a relatively large scale, so that even if we now go not into the smallest, but into the largest, we again find nothing other than what we find spread out in space and time for the consciousness we have in everyday life.

[ 20 ] Modern Spiritual Science, or anthroposophy, equips itself precisely with a deepening of what natural science can achieve, with an admiring deepening of what it has achieved. But it is also clear that, however admirable and magnificent the achievements of modern science may be, and however significant they may be for certain purposes in life, however infinitely necessary they may be for healthy human progress, they will never lead us into the mystery of the human being! They have already shown this to date.

[ 21 ] Therefore, Spiritual Science or anthroposophy seeks to take a completely different path, based precisely on what can be learned from modern science: the path of not explaining what is available to ordinary consciousness by observing something else, something smallest or largest, not by observing something else, something microscopic or telescopic or somehow armed in this sense, or with scientifically appropriate methods that take place in the sensory world, not by looking at something other than what is present in ordinary consciousness, but through a different kind of observation itself, Spiritual Science seeks to approach the solution to the mystery of the world, as far as this is possible for human beings.

[ 22 ] And if I were to sketch out how one might form a mental image of this different way of looking at the things that surround us, at the world events that surround us, I would have to say that what applies here can be made clear by means of a comparison.

[ 23 ] We know two states of consciousness from ordinary life: the state of ordinary consciousness that we have from waking up in the morning until falling asleep in the evening, the state of our ordinary daytime consciousness; but we also know the state of so-called dream consciousness, in which chaotic influences from the depths of the organism, initially inaccessible to humans, at least inaccessible to their consciousness, rise up in the deepest sense and play out in a chaotic arrangement. Through experience, we know the difference between this chaotic dream consciousness and the orderly daytime consciousness that is clothed in reality. In short, dear attendees, we know from daily life what waking up is.

[ 24 ] >Spiritual Science or anthroposophy now shows us that just as there is an awakening from chaotic dream consciousness to ordinary daytime consciousness, there is also an awakening from this daytime consciousness to what I have called in my latest book, The Mystery of Man, “seeing consciousness.” Spiritual Science does not expect a fall back into the world of dreams, visions, or hallucinations, but rather something that can enter human consciousness, ordinary daytime consciousness, just as this ordinary daytime consciousness replaces dream consciousness when we awaken from dream consciousness into daytime consciousness: So, Spiritual Science or anthroposophy expects a seeing consciousness, a real awakening from ordinary daily experience, a higher consciousness — if the expression is permitted. And it makes the results of this seeing, this higher consciousness, its content. And just as human beings integrate themselves into a sensory world when they awaken from dreams, where images rise and fall chaotically, so human beings integrate themselves as spiritual researchers into a spiritual world, into a real, actual spiritual world, when they awaken from ordinary everyday consciousness to seeing consciousness.

[ 25 ] Now I must first give at least a brief mental image of what contemplative consciousness is. This contemplative consciousness is not acquired through some fantastical arbitrary act or fantastical arbitrary decision. This contemplative consciousness is acquired by the person who wants to acquire it as a spiritual researcher through long work, work that is truly no less laborious than any laboratory or observatory work, which composes from the small and the smallest that which emerges, sometimes in small results, but which are necessary for the entirety of science. But everything that the spiritual researcher has to do is not done, as in the laboratory or observatory, with external devices and external methods, but is done with the apparatus that is solely and exclusively suitable for real Spiritual Science; it is done on the human soul, on the element of the human soul itself; it consists of inner processes of the human soul, which, as we shall see in a moment, have nothing to do with chaotic, confused mysticism, but presuppose systematic, methodical work on the human soul.

[ 26 ] How does one come to desire such spiritual work, such inner development, such higher self-education? One comes to it only when, starting from ordinary conscious life — and one can do that — one arrives at a certain conviction that becomes more and more complete the more one acclimates oneself to modern scientific life with one's attitude. For centuries now, this attitude has been emerging in individual personalities; today it is already present in more and more personalities. I cannot go into individual names and so on, but what is gradually emerging as an inner experience, as a certain necessary inner view and attitude under the influence of the scientific schools of thought of recent times, will increasingly capture the broadest circles of human souls and become a general conviction with all the consequences that such a conviction must have.

[ 27 ] There are two things at stake here. The first is that, through real, intimate, orderly, willing self-observation, one gains a certain insight into the human I, into what we call the I, what we call our self. We address this self; we even express it in words, after we have acquired the word “I” at a certain point in our childhood development. But when we search in honest self-observation based on self-education—what is this ‘I’ actually? Where is it within us?—do we find this “I” if we want to be honest? Or, if we observe ourselves honestly and conscientiously, must we not come to a kind of conviction, as the great thinker Hume did, who said, truly not out of caprice, but out of honest self-observation:

No matter how deeply I look into my inner self, I find feelings, mental images, pleasure and pain, I find what I have experienced as one thing or another in the world, but I find no self anywhere. And how could I?

— he says rightly —

Find this self! If I could find it so easily, it must be there even when I am asleep. But when I am asleep, I know nothing of this self. Can I assume that it disappears in the evening and reappears in the morning? It must therefore be present in the experience of sleep, even when it is not being imagined by a mental image, without being grasped by the mental image.

[ 28 ] This is as clear as can be. And this clarity becomes increasingly apparent to those familiar with contemporary literature in this field; they know that this will be the case for an ever-growing number of people.

[ 29 ] What is actually at stake here? What is at stake is what we are increasingly coming to realize—of course, I would have to speak for hours if I wanted to give all the details to prove that we are coming to this realization—but what is at stake, and I just want to mention it, is what we always come to realize, namely that this ego we are talking about is no more present in our ordinary daily consciousness than it is in the deepest dreamless sleep. The ego is always asleep. It sleeps when we sleep, it sleeps when we are awake, and only from the sleeping ego do we know, when we are awake, what lives in a dull sphere of soul life even for waking consciousness. Even when we are wide awake in ordinary consciousness, the ego is no more present than it is in sleep. And only because our remaining soul life is present and, like the black spot in the eye, does not see, can something like the I not be imagined in us, so we perceive this unimagined, this, as it were, blackened part of the soul. The I sleeps continuously, and there is no difference in the mental image of the I between sleep and waking life.

[ 30 ] But even when we consider our ordinary mental images, through proper self-observation developed through self-exercise, we come to recognize that what lives in us as mental images has no other existence in us during our waking day than exactly the same as the chaotic, ebbing and flowing dream images of the night. In our mental images, we dream even when we are awake. These truths, that our ego sleeps, that we dream in our mental images even when we are awake, these truths are indeed washed away by the busy life of the day. But for those who can observe the human soul, they emerge as great, shattering truths at the starting point of all research in Spiritual Science.

[ 31 ] And when one then asks, self-observation asks: Yes, how does our ordinary daily life, our waking life, actually differ from dream life, from sleep life? What happens at the moment of waking up? As I said, I cannot go into detail here, but all the details necessary to fully understand what I can only sketch out today can be found in my books, namely in “How to Know Higher Worlds” and in my “An Outline of Esoteric Science.” The question arises: What actually happens at the moment of awakening, if our ego really remains asleep, if our mental images are the same images in waking life as in dreams, how does the waking person differ from the sleeping person?

[ 32 ] As I said, trained self-observation provides the answer: it is the penetration, the influx of the will into the life of the soul that alone distinguishes waking life from sleep and dream life. The fact that the will pours into us and we do not have dream images that arise without our will, but rather connect ourselves with the outer world through the will, integrate ourselves into the outer world through the will, is what makes us awake and not dreaming. What awakens the dream images to a reality, that they are images, real images of an outer world, is what causes us to integrate ourselves into the outer world through the will after waking up. As paradoxical as this still sounds to many people today, it will have to become a fundamental conviction of a coming worldview, and it will become so, because every true, self-observing science yields this result.

[ 33 ] It is the flash of will into the life of imagination that places us truly in the outer world, which we initially have before us in ordinary consciousness. This results in real self-observation in ordinary consciousness. However, one cannot remain in this ordinary consciousness if one really wants to penetrate the essence of the things that surround us and the connection between human beings and the world. What is at stake here is that a similar transformation takes place in our soul life, in our ordinary daily soul life, as takes place in our sleep or dream life when we awaken. And a transformation is brought about by working laboriously on the metamorphic change, first of the life of imagination, and secondly of the life of will.

[ 34 ] And now, dear audience, I would like to point out that what is called Spiritual Science or anthroposophy here is not based on anything metaphysical or spiritualistic, nor on anything confusedly mystical, but that it is a true continuation of healthy human scientific thinking. And so it can be linked, as with many other things, for example, to the healthy, but healthy beginnings that are present in a particularly healthy spirit of modern times; it can be linked to what can be called Goethe's worldview of nature and the world.

[ 35 ] Allow me this personal remark, dear audience, because it has something to do with what I myself have to say, that I am linking up with this Goethean worldview of nature and the world, which is based on the fact that my destiny has led me to to deepen my understanding of Goethe's view of the world and nature and to extract from it that which, as we shall see, leads to a real insight into the spiritual world that surrounds us, just as the sensory world surrounds us.

[ 36 ] One of Goethe's great achievements, which is still not appreciated today, is, for example, his ability to bring physical phenomena, which are otherwise only considered separately from human beings, into the realm of human soul life. This is something quite wonderful when one sees how Goethe leads a physical chapter of his theory of colors, which is still despised by most people today, from the physical and physiological to what he so beautifully expresses in the section he calls “The Sensual-Moral Effect of Colors.” However, it is now highly compromising to talk about Goethe's theory of colors. Goethe's theory of colors cannot be discussed today without further ado, because physics in its current state does not allow for any discussion that could justify Goethe's theory of colors. But there will come a time, I would just like to suggest, when Goethe's theory of colors will be justified by advanced physics.

[ 37 ] I can refer to what I have said about this point in particular in my book “On Goethe's Worldview” and in my introduction to Goethe's “Scientific Writings” in relation to art. But today I do not want to go into any justification of Goethe's theory of colors, but only point out the methodical way in which the chapter “Sensual-moral effect of colors” really develops from the physical in Goethe. There he expresses very beautifully what the human soul experiences when confronted with blue, the color blue.

Blue

— says Goethe —

pours into the soul a certain experience of coldness, because it reminds us of shadows. Blue rooms cast a sad mood over all objects.

Or let's take what Goethe says about the experience of the color red:

The color red

— says Goethe —

is unique in its effect, as is its nature: the color red can evoke a sense of solemnity and dignity as well as reverence and grace, solemnity and dignity when it is in its darker tones and condensed; reverence and grace when it appears in its more diluted and lighter states.

[ 38 ] Here we see how Goethe not only focuses on the immediate physicality of color, but also how he draws the soul to color as an experience of sympathy and antipathy, an immediate experience of the soul, as we have in the experience of pleasure and pain in life. Even though Goethe looks at colors with a barely noticeable intensity, he perceives the world of colors as it can be perceived when one pours one's soul life over these colors; that is to say, Goethe does not separate the spiritual from the physical experience. And it is precisely through this that he provided the beginnings of an observation that is, of course, still in its infancy today, but which will undergo a serious and dignified development precisely through what anthroposophy or Spiritual Science is.

[ 39 ] For just as human beings relate to the world of colors, so too is the world of the other senses shaped; in their perception, they are so strongly influenced by what is physically present, by what physically affects their eyes and ears, so strongly that, in contrast to this strong physical presence, what radiates and flows through this physical presence in the soul is not perceived, not experienced, not experienced in its full strength and in its full significance for the inner life of the soul itself, just as one does not notice a weak light next to a strong light source. For ordinary visual perception, it is precisely that which is physically present that is of particular strength above all else.

[ 40 ] However, there is a possibility to further develop what is already there in Goethe, one might say instinctively, due to his healthy nature, and to take it further and further.

[ 41 ] And there is another point from which one can start. Goethe never treats colors in such a way that he only looks at them in their external existence, but always treats their counteraction, their organic nature. How wonderful, even in comparison to the latest physical experiments by [Hering], Hume, among others, is what Goethe emphasizes about the counteraction of the eye, how colors are not only perceived as long as one looks at them, but how they fade away. But in all this, there are only weak beginnings for external observation, which can be applied to the inner life of imagination and further developed; for in the careful and conscientious development of certain aspects of the life of imagination lies an aspect of research that belongs to Spiritual Science or anthroposophy. Just as Goethe himself approaches color, so does the person who wants to penetrate the spiritual world through spiritual research relate to the content of imagination, which for ordinary consciousness is basically only a world of dream images permeated by the will. And quite unlike ordinary consciousness in its relation to mental images, concepts, and ideas, the spiritual researcher does not relate to the external world; he remains a healthy-minded person like everyone else. But in order to reveal the spiritual world, he must bring about a certain kind of contemplative consciousness. And he does this by evoking certain metamorphoses in his imaginative life.

[ 42 ] You will find what needs to be done in detail in the books mentioned. I only want to present to you, dear audience, what is achieved in its fundamental significance. Through very specific behavior, methodical behavior toward the world of imagination, the spiritual researcher gradually manages to detach his mental images from their usual task. The usual function of mental images is to provide us with images of external reality. The results are the mental images themselves. For the spiritual researcher, they are the beginning, for he surrenders himself to these mental images, regardless of their external meaning or the external image they represent; he surrenders himself to the inner life, to the inner effects of the mental image. And they surrender themselves to the inner workings of the mental image in such a way that they do not look at what is contained in the mental images as content, but at what forces develop when the consciousness, brought to complete rest, makes the activity of imagination and thinking alive and active within itself.

[ 43 ] The ordinary researcher of external nature begins with external nature and ends with mental images. The spiritual researcher must begin with the inner liveliness of mental images, with a kind of meditative work, but not with the kind of meditation that is commonly described, which is nothing more than brooding over certain mental images. no, but rather that all other waves and rains of the soul are truly calmed, so that the life of the soul, like a calm sea, confronts particular mental images that are comprehensible. These should then stir in the life of the soul, should merely be internally active in the life of mental images. Through long meditative work, which, as I said, is by no means less than laboratory or observatory work, one comes to perceive certain effects in this inner life of mental images for the life of the human soul itself, remarkable effects. In ordinary consciousness, one develops memory, the power of recollection, as one of the most important, the most significant abilities of the soul.

[ 44 ] What does memory, the ability to remember, accomplish? The ability to remember, dear audience, enables us to recall certain mental images that we formed in the past at a later time. First, the experience is given; the experience is taken up in the imagination. The mental image is like a shadow of the experience. The experience disappears, the fact goes away; we carry the mental image of the experience within us. Years later, or at another time, we can bring it back again. A shadowy afterimage, an afterimage based on memory, that is what we bring back from our entire mental, spiritual, and physical organism as a memory mental image.

[ 45 ] Through energetic, intensive familiarization with the methods described in my books with regard to the life of imagination, one acquires a heightened sense of soulfulness in relation to this life of memory. As paradoxical as it sounds, I must characterize it because I do not want to talk fantastically about Spiritual Science in general, but rather want to indicate the positive concrete basis of Spiritual Science.

[ 46 ] The spiritual researcher experiences that he is making a mental image active, and by repeatedly resting his consciousness on this mental image, he brings it to the point where he knows: Now you have strained these thinking powers so much that you cannot go any further. Then something happens that one might call shocking. The moment when one knows that one can no longer arbitrarily continue thinking in the same way, that one must, as it were, let go of thinking, just as one lets go of a mental image, which then sinks into oblivion and can be retrieved from memory again. But a mental image prepared through an energetic meditative life descends, I would say, into much deeper depths of life when it is released than a mental image that merely leads to memory. And then the spiritual researcher experiences — this is only an example, other experiences must be connected with it, but I would like to give a few examples — he experiences that he has strengthened a mental image through his thinking powers to such an extent that he can now lower this mental image so that it is no longer there; but then it appears; later, depending on which mental image one has, all of this must proceed in a very orderly manner, these mental images remain. One acquires insights into the times when these mental images must remain there, down in the unconscious; one mental image remains longer, the other shorter in the subconscious below, and one acquires the power to bring them up again and again — but not in the way one strains to bring up a mental image through a memory; rather, this bringing up of mental images happens through calm devotion. This is not like ordinary memory, but one is in an expectant mood that one has brought about at the right moment. One's attention is drawn to this expectant mood by other things that cannot be described here. One is in an expectant mood; one does nothing to bring about a mental image or an experience, but precisely through quiet expectation, through pure selfless devotion, after hours, weeks, or often years, that which one has glimpsed in unfathomable depths, as if looking down into an abyss, often returns. And the opposite occurs from ordinary consciousness.

[ 47 ] Whereas in ordinary consciousness the experience comes first with all its vividness and then the shadowy mental image appears, now something completely different is the case: One starts from something that one has, as it were, made into self-education, self-discipline, a mental image that one has placed in the soul, kept present in the soul for weeks, months on end, until one reaches the moment when it can submerge; then it rises up, but how it rises up is the surprising experience; it is not something as shadowy as the mental image was, but rather an experience that is beyond the starting point [gap].

[ 48 ] The experience is brought about by a certain processing of the mental image, and if you know the things that lead to this, you know very well that it is something completely healthy, not pathological. It is not the same forces that are at work when they lead to hallucinations or visions, or cause pathological conditions in general, but rather those forces that cause and bring about the opposite, which are precisely suited to dispelling everything hallucinatory, fantastical, and visionary; it is the opposite process.

[ 49 ] And the life of the soul is not merely that it goes through what I have described, as it is in ordinary everyday consciousness with a healthy mind, but it is that it must be much healthier if the exercises that belong to it, when done properly, quite naturally, allow us to overcome many things, namely everything that can lead to any kind of fantasy. But what is brought forth is something that was not known before: it is something spiritual, something supernatural, which we now perceive within ourselves. How is it perceived? It is perceived, dear audience, by what Goethe calls the spiritual eye or spiritual ear, and which he himself only instinctively sensed.

[ 50 ] Now, from the moment one has experienced something like this, as I have described it, one knows that one carries not only this physical life within oneself, but that one has a finer inner body that does not consist of physical matter at all. As paradoxical as it may still seem to some today when Spiritual Science or anthroposophy speaks of a fine etheric body, a soul body, it is a truth — but a truth that can only be truly researched in the way that has now been described. We now know that we have something within us in which spiritual vision can arise, just as vision can arise through the physical eye in the physical organism. The spiritual eye or spiritual ear, as Goethe called it, becomes something that we know springs from the etheric, from the supersensible body — only we cannot use it like a physical body — but we know that such a supersensible body exists, and that there must be a Spiritual Science that leads to it, dear attendees. This is something that has not been born out of some arbitrary decision today, but has been born out of the philosophical thinking of the most recent times.

[ 51 ] Let me cite a few facts that are particularly important in this regard for the assessment of anthroposophy. From the most beautiful epoch of development in modern philosophy, personalities who absorbed the power of this modern philosophy at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and in the first half of the nineteenth century did not yet instinctively draw attention in such a methodical way — as is possible today, as I have told you — but instinctively drew attention to the fact that, in addition to the physical body that forms the basis of the human being, there is also what can be called an etheric body, a soul body. Only, the external expression for this finer body, which is a fact for Spiritual Science, was somewhat different.

[ 52 ] Now, it is precisely on this basis that Fichte arrives at his view of the process of death when he says:

For there is hardly any need to ask how human beings relate to themselves in the process of death.

With this concept

— Fichte believes —

we are not only bypassing experience and reaching into an unknown realm of merely illusory existences, but we find ourselves with him right in the middle of comprehensible reality accessible to thought.

[ 53 ] And then Fichte says — and this is the important point — that this consciousness points beyond itself:

[...] anthropology ends with the [conclusion], substantiated from the most diverse sides, that human beings, according to the true nature of their being, as in the actual source of their consciousness, belong to a supersensible world. Sensory consciousness, on the other hand, and the world of phenomena arising from its starting point, with the entire sensory life, including that of human beings, have no other meaning than to be the place in which that supersensible life of the spirit takes place, in that it introduces the otherworldly spiritual content of ideas into the sensory world through its own freely conscious actions. [...] This thorough understanding of the human being now elevates “anthropology” in its final result to “anthroposophy.”

[ 54 ] To an “anthroposophy”! He uses the term “anthroposophy”! We see in this the longing for the science that is to become a reality today.

[ 55 ] To cite another example — I can only mention a few due to time constraints — let us consider the highly significant German thinker Troxler, Vital Troxler, who also taught in Switzerland. He expresses the same view, but still instinctively, because Spiritual Science or anthroposophy did not yet exist at that time. Vital Troxler says:

Philosophers have long distinguished between a fine, noble soul body and the coarser physical body [...] a soul that has an image of the body itself, which they called a schema, and which was for them the inner, higher human being. [...] In more recent times, even Kant, in the Dreams of a Spirit Surgeon, seriously dreams, in jest, of an entire inner spiritual human being who carries all the limbs of the outer human being on his spirit body.

[ 56 ] And now Troxler says:

While it is most gratifying that the newest philosophy, which [...] must reveal itself in every anthroposophy [...], is gaining ground, it cannot be overlooked that this idea cannot be the fruit of speculation.

[ 57 ] I need not quote any further. He therefore believes that there must be a science which, just as anthropology leads to the physical characteristics and powers of the physical human body, there must be a characteristic which leads to the supersensible, to the characteristics of this supersensible body.

[ 58 ] In my book “The Riddle of Man,” I have pointed out characteristic thinkers in this field. They did not elaborate on these things in the way that today's Spiritual Science can, but out of their instinctive longing for a future Spiritual Science, they instinctively spoke of what should become fact through this Spiritual Science. Such was the case with the son of the great Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the eminent philosopher Immanuel Hermann Fichte.

[ 59 ] In his Anthropology, published in a second edition in 1860, he says that “in the material” there cannot be “that which truly endures”:

The truly enduring, unifying form principle of the body, which proves effective throughout our entire life, cannot be found in the material elements.

[...]

Thus, we are directed to a second, essentially different cause in the body.

[...]

Containing that which is truly persistent in metabolism, it is the true, inner, invisible body, present in all visible materiality. The other, the outer appearance of the same, formed from incessant metabolism, may henceforth be called be called the “body,” which, truly impermanent and not one, is the mere effect or afterimage of that inner physicality which throws it into the changing material world, just as, for example, the magnetic force from the particles of iron filings creates a seemingly dense body, which, however, disperses in all directions when the binding force is removed from it.

[ 60 ] Thus, Immanuel Hermann Fichte instinctively comes to the conclusion that he must assume the existence of a force body in human beings, which initially holds together the external material parts — like a magical force that can intervene — in a certain formal way, the external material body. You can see that even Fichte, when he draws attention to the supersensible in human beings, longs for an anthroposophy.

[ 61 ] Anthroposophy is not something arbitrarily inserted into the development of the times, but something that has long anticipated the truly deeper core of soul life; this [can be seen precisely from such examples]. [After that, there is a large gap in the shorthand transcript.]

[ 62 ] But I must address the other side of the development of the soul life, the development of the will. What I have mentioned here concerns the development of the life of imagination. The will, too, can be taken beyond the position it occupies in ordinary consciousness. If you imagine that someone thinks — I will only mention the most important point here; the rest can be read in the books I have cited — [if you imagine] that someone would view their inner life in the same way that we view the outer life of other people under ordinary circumstances, that is, life in human society, then we see [as we say to ourselves] when some desire, some impulse [arises].

[ 63 ] Circumstances allow us to act on this urge, this desire; [in other cases, we do not allow ourselves to do so, or circumstances do not allow us to do so]. We develop a certain responsibility toward our external life, which is rooted in our conscience. [We develop very specific feelings, experience a certain configuration of our inner life in relation to what we do or do not do externally, create or do not create]. The inner life of the soul is subject to the ordinary consciousness of developing such inner demands.

[ 64 ] Here we obey logic. And how differently, how coolly we stand towards what we think or do not think, or think clearly or think narrowly; how differently, how coolly and logically we stand towards our thoughts than towards external life! We accept one because we can grasp it, I would say in spirit, in our mental image; we reject the other; but that intense life that we have in human responsibility, we do not experience inwardly in merely logical, merely scientific thinking.

[ 65 ] The second type of exercise consists in pouring a certain inner responsibility over thinking, over the life of imagination itself, so that we come to the point where we do not merely say, this opinion is valid, this opinion is correctly formulated, I can affirm it, and so on, but that we only entertain a mental image with the same sense of duty that we apply to mental images, as we refrain from doing so in one action or another; morality, but a morality of a completely different nature than that which pours out over external life, pours out over our mental images. Inner responsibility poured out over the whole of our imaginative life gives rise to mental images, so that we face certain experiences in such a way that we allow ourselves certain mental images and reject others; in one case we accept them, in the other we reject them through justified, sober antipathy. Through sympathy, antipathy, repulsion, and rejection, inner life becomes animated from another side. This, in turn, must be practiced for a long time. It can be supported particularly effectively, for example, by getting into the habit of allowing mental images to be present in our souls in as many different ways as possible.

[ 66 ] Dear attendees, in ordinary life, one person is a monist, another a dualist, a third a materialist, a fourth a spiritualist, and so on and so forth. Those who learn to live in the world of imagination will find that these concepts become something completely different from what they otherwise are. Through the living inner experience of the world of imagination, one learns to recognize that yes, there are concepts of materialism, they can be used for a certain area, for a certain sphere of the world — they must even be present there, because one can only live fruitfully in a certain sphere of the world if one has understood materialism in all its aspects — for another sphere of the world one needs spiritualistic concepts, for a third one materialistic concepts, for a fourth idealistic concepts, and so on. Monistic, dualistic concepts — these will make our mental images rich and varied, and we know that such ideas mean nothing other than different photographic images of a tree from different sides. And one learns to live in an inner element, in an inner tolerance, which in turn is an outpouring of morality over inner life, just as someone who gets a picture of a tree that he has looked at closely can never say, when shown a picture taken from the other side that looks completely different, that it is the same tree. Just as we can have four pictures, or eight pictures for that matter, to understand reality, four or eight pictures that can show one and the same essence of the tree, so we learn to look at all kinds of mental images that are only a one-sided perception of reality, all kinds of mental images that are available to us, and to learn to lovingly immerse ourselves in different kinds of mental images, lovingly immersing ourselves in this diversity.

[ 67 ] This is essentially underestimated in terms of the exercises that one now has to do. This is something that is still very little understood today, even by the best, but which leads to the will being further developed and taken into account in a similar way [as] the type of imaginative life described earlier. And we then experience this will freeing itself from its connection with physicality. By imitating the experiment of how hydrogen is separated from water, we will be able to say: in this way, through an energetic application of the various exercises described, we purely separate the will, set it free, and make it ever freer and freer, ever more spiritual and spiritual. In this way, we awaken within ourselves a truly higher human being, not merely an ideal image, not merely a thought, but we make the discovery — which is still a paradox for most people today, but for Spiritual Science is a reality — that within us lives a second, finer human being, a human being with a consciousness quite different from our ordinary consciousness. And this consciousness, which can awaken in this way, shows us that it is a much more real human being than we who live here in our physical bodies and walk around [physically]. This human being within us can make use of the spiritual eye, as I called it earlier, in the etheric body, as I described it.

[ 68 ] The assumption of such a different consciousness, of a different, broader, more comprehensive human being — who has a much more intimate relationship with nature and its essence and with the essence of the spiritual world than our ordinary consciousness — the assumption of such a human being was, in turn, instinctively anticipated by deeper researchers of the nineteenth century. But in Spiritual Science, what is at stake here also becomes a fact. I would just like to point out how philosophy — which I do not wish to defend in its details — has strived in this direction, through the philosophy of Eduard von Hartmann.

[ 69 ] Hartmann pointed out [again and again] in his much-criticized work — later he widely disseminated the “philosophy of the unconscious,” in which he suggests that behind ordinary consciousness there really is an unknown spiritual element in human beings which, as Eduard von Hartmann puts it, expresses itself in a certain painful way [gap in the stenogram] — which is connected to the unconscious spirit of the outside world in a kind of underground “telephone connection” and which can and does work upwards, pouring out of the unconscious or subconscious into ordinary everyday consciousness as a stream in the astral realm.

[ 70 ] With this, Eduard von Hartmann has really pointed to what Spiritual Science is supposed to make a fact. However, Eduard von Hartmann believed that this other consciousness of human beings could only be reached through theoretical hypotheses, through dissecting concepts and conclusions. That was his shortcoming, because he never wanted to take the path that was fated to be appropriate to the peculiarity of his time: not merely to shape inner soul life theoretically, but to take it in hand in a lively way according to these two aspects that have been characterized. Nevertheless, this has shown how the assumption of such a spiritual element is more important for the mystery of humanity — even philosophically, if it remains purely philosophical — than what further research can achieve along the paths described earlier. And this, in turn, can be proven in the strictest sense of the word.

[ 71 ] And Eduard von Hartmann is a remarkable figure in this field. Eduard von Hartmann published his “Philosophy of the Unconscious” in [1869], in which he discussed how the spiritual, which lives in the soul, sub-soul, so to speak, in the spiritual soul, also lives outside in nature, and how materialists today have only a one-sided mental image of this, which one must imagine as not a gap at the starting point of development, but rather as something spiritual that lives in the soul and truly permeates and flows through nature.

[ 72 ] Then came the natural scientists — it was [1869] when the “Philosophy of the Unconscious” first appeared, it was a time when hopes were at their highest, thanks to what the new Darwinism had brought, thanks to everything that people believed they could recognize through the laws of “selective breeding” and the “struggle for existence,” through which a new worldview could be gained — Hartmann turned against everything that emanated from these materialistic views in the most energetic way from a spiritual standpoint. And lo and behold, understandably, the natural scientists, who at that time were completely sympathetic to a materialistic view of Darwinism, these natural scientists, who looked at what Hartmann had to offer, said: Well, that's how a philosopher might speak, someone who isn't at home in real natural science, who doesn't know how conscientiously natural science works! And many writings, opposing writings, appeared against Hartmann's “Philosophy of the Unconscious” from this or that natural scientist; everywhere the same basic tone: That's just a dilettante speaking, there's no need to listen any further. One must only dissuade the laymen who always fall for such things; it is for them that one must write such writings.

[ 73 ] Among the many writings that appeared, there was also one by an anonymous author who did not yet reveal his name at that time. Everything in it was brilliantly refuted from beginning to end; it showed how he understands nothing, according to the necessary view of a natural scientist, of what works and lives in natural science on the way to the mystery of the world! The natural scientists were downright enthusiastic and in complete agreement with what this anonymous author had written. And soon a second edition of this witty natural science work became necessary. Oscar Schmidt and Ernst Haeckel themselves praised it and said: It is a pity that this colleague, this important natural thinker, does not name himself. Let him name himself, and we will consider him one of our own. Yes, Ernst Haeckel said: I myself could not have said anything better than what this anonymous author says from the standpoint of the natural scientist against Eduard von Hartmann.

[ 74 ] And lo and behold, it soon became necessary to publish a second edition, as the college of natural scientists had suggested would be desirable. In this second edition, the author revealed his name. That was a lesson — it was Eduard von Hartmann himself who had written this work — it was a lesson that could not have been better taught to those who believe again and again that anyone who does not agree with them must have no understanding of the essence of their scholarship. It is a lesson that should still be effective today, even for many who still approach Spiritual Science or anthroposophy with a similar attitude in relation to what is often presented as opposition to anthroposophy or Spiritual Science.

[ 75 ] What can be put forward against anthroposophy, dear attendees, is known just as well by the spiritual researcher or anthroposophist, no matter how wittily it may be put forward, he knows how to put it forward just as well as Eduard von Hartmann did at the time — what natural scientists found excellent — knew how to put it forward at the time. Such lessons are, however, very soon forgotten, and the old bad habits return. But one can point this out and should learn from it. And not only in Eduard von Hartmann, but also in others, the awareness has arisen, instinctively arisen, that another consciousness is at work in the depths of the human soul.

[ 76 ] I recall, just to mention it briefly, Myers, the English researcher, the editor of the psychic investigations that have appeared in many volumes, which everywhere and always work toward the conclusion that, in addition to external experiences, there is something hidden in the human soul — what James, the American, calls the year [1886], the year of the [discovery] of one of the most important facts, namely the fact [gap]

[ 77 ] Today, a researcher generally knows very little about all this; he knows nothing of Eduard von Hartmann's debates, he knows nothing of James, who in 1886, the year in which Myers discovered the subconscious, that which is preserved in the spiritual-soul and is connected with the spiritual-soul of the world and from which rises into ordinary consciousness, that which awakens this ordinary consciousness, which awakens as if from everyday consciousness, from dreams, which transforms ordinary consciousness into seeing consciousness in the way I have described. But all this is present in a confused, immature way in Myers, as in James. One might say that it is present only as a hope or a longing; it only becomes a fact through Spiritual Science or anthroposophy.

[ 78 ] And so, dear friends, as paradoxical as it may still seem today, the development of the inner soul forces arises from two sides, and I can now only hint at what the development I described at the beginning, when it is later developed, systematically developed, will ultimately lead to the human being, as he learns more and more to use the spiritual eye in the etheric body through the other human being who lives within him, as he discovers, so to speak, this world of inner processes within himself and is able to listen to them, will then be able to overcome not only space but also time in his perceptions, and to see time differently. And as I said, as paradoxical as it may seem today, human beings will be able not only to transport themselves back in time through their memories, but they will also be able to truly grasp themselves in their reality at earlier points in time, to go back in time, and also to go back so far in time that they arrive at the point in time that we remember internally. You all know that we can only remember up to a certain point in childhood; that is as far back as we can think. We have to be reminded by others of what we experienced before that, in the early years of childhood. But beyond this point in time that I have just indicated, back to the time when we as human beings in early childhood do not yet fully recognize our powers, do not want to look at them fully, we can transport ourselves back to this point in time, to a point in time when we still allowed the powers that we then need for ordinary consciousness to flow into growth, into living growth.

[ 79 ] This means that we do not learn to see with the ego that is within us at the present moment; we learn to see with the ego of our earliest childhood, with the ego that brought the spiritual part from the spiritual world and connected itself with the physical powers and substances we inherited from our father, mother, and ancestors. We return to our spiritual human being. And just as we see through the sensory world with our awakened consciousness from our present starting point and look into the spiritual world, which lies before us, so too, when we have transported ourselves back, when we have truly gone back in time, life lies before us qualitatively — not in its individual details — but qualitatively, the life that is moved in the body, in physicality, and that death concludes. And just as external physical perception separates us from external spiritual reality in ordinary consciousness, so now — we know — for ordinary consciousness, physical experience separates us from what lies beyond the gate of death. For at the moment when we have arrived at the point in time when we stand before the moment to which we can remember, we see life limited on the other side of death, and we see what death makes of us. The beyond of death reveals itself together with the beyond of birth, separated only by physical life. The spiritual human being, the eternal within us, is experienced as physical life stands there like a river: one bank is birth, the other bank is death. But death, with its beyond, reveals itself together with what is before birth.

[ 80 ] And in the same way, we see within ourselves the maturation of that which carries us from this life to another earthly life. For when we have passed through the gate of death, we recognize what lives within us, as we might say, lives in the plant, and after passing through the dark cold, is another plant. In this way we learn to recognize the spiritual-soul element that is within us in this life and that, when it has passed through the spiritual world between death and birth, must reappear in a new earthly life. All this becomes clear when the soul forces develop as described. And we learn to see through ourselves, just as we settle into the physical world through our open eyes and ears, so we settle into the spiritual world, truly and concretely living into a spiritual world that is then around us. We are together with spiritual beings, with spiritual forces.

[ 81 ] And just as we come to know our life here as an expression through spiritual contemplation, just as we come to know our body as the expression of our spiritual being that enters us at birth, or let us say at conception, so we come to know our physical life on earth, our physical earth, as a further state of something that preceded it in planetary existence. we come to know our earth as a metamorphosis, as the transformation of an earlier planet in which we were as human beings, but not yet with a physical body as we have today, but in a spiritual way, and today's nature also in a spiritual way. Animals have descended in their development, while humans have advanced. So we find the point where humanity and animality meet, not in the physical, but in the spiritual. Human beings have undergone this development on Earth from an earlier planet that transformed into Earth, just as Earth will transform into the next stage, and human beings have undergone the development that enables them to take on an ego that still sleeps within them today, but which will also awaken more and more in the course of further development. The whole world will be spiritualized.

[ 82 ] And just as we cannot be satisfied with a vague pantheism in ordinary external reality when we speak of nature here, but speak of learning from stage to stage, as we see the earthly being physically, we do not enter a spiritual world with a vague pantheism, but as a concrete, individual, real human being, as an individual entity. To say this is the least forgivable thing today. Nevertheless, it is true that a real, concrete spiritual world opens up, that spiritual world to which we belong with our spiritual human being, just as we belong with our physical human being to external physical reality.

[ 83 ] And so Spiritual Science or anthroposophy, by methodically awakening inner life, adds spiritual knowledge to the knowledge of external nature, bringing about a different view of the world, a different view of what surrounds us in ordinary consciousness. In this respect, Spiritual Science must gradually find its way into the hearts of people who actually long for it, but who for the most part do not yet know that this longing for Spiritual Science lives in their dark feelings. But it lives, and this longing will be recognized more and more as truly existing.

[ 84 ] It is remarkable how the details of this experience that I have described could not yet be grasped in our time and in the time immediately preceding it, even by the most outstanding minds. I had to cite the great philosopher Eduard von Hartmann, who already sensed, but only wanted to achieve theoretically, a different consciousness in human beings, but who could not quite accept that this path to the spiritual should not be found through theories or hypotheses, but through experience, by sending out thoughts, which one processes in the way one learns to process thoughts, as messengers, as it were, into an unknown world, from which they return to one as experiences that lead one into the spiritual worlds, as described. But it must only be experienced by allowing oneself to be supported by a real being of the world of concepts and ideas.

[ 85 ] Forgive me for returning to a personal matter at this point, but this personal matter is connected with the whole issue. I do so reluctantly, but you will see why I mention it.

[ 86 ] In 1894, in my “Philosophy of Freedom,” I attempted to introduce just such a philosophical standpoint as a preparation for the Spiritual Science of the world, where the individual human standpoints, which are sometimes designated with such strange philosophical names, are not understood in such a way that one professes strongly to one or the other, but rather that, in a manner of speaking, like a photograph of the same object from different angles, these concepts themselves are allowed to speak, so that one becomes attuned to many different perspectives. Eduard von Hartmann [1894] studied my Philosophy of Freedom thoroughly and sent me his copy, in which he had made his own notes.

[ 87 ] I would like to read a passage from [his] letter to me on this subject, in which, admittedly, the matter is developed using strange philosophical expressions, but without my explaining the individual philosophical expressions—time is too short and I must conclude—what Eduard von Hartmann means is nevertheless understandable. First, for example, he says: "The title should be: ‘Epistemological Monism and Individualism’. Not ‘Philosophy of Freedom’, but ‘Epistemological Monism and Ethical Individualism’. So he instinctively senses that these things are meant to illuminate two sides of the same coin. But he thinks that they cannot be tied together.

[ 88 ] In the life of the soul, it is vividly intertwined, not through a straw theory. That was the opinion. And so were other points of view. That is why Eduard von Hartmann says:

In this book, neither Hume's absolute phenomenalism is reconciled with Berkeley's God-based phenomenalism, nor is this immanent or subjective phenomenalism reconciled with Hegel's transcendent panlogism, nor is Hegel's panlogism reconciled with Goethe's individualism. There is an unbridgeable gap between each of these components. Because all these points of view are so vivid that they speak to each other, that they characterize one and the same thing from different perspectives!

[ 89 ] Hartmann senses this, he feels it, he states it. But he does not see that this is not a hypothetical, theoretical synthesis of thought, but a living shared experience. That is why he goes on to say:

Above all, however, it is overlooked that phenomenalism inevitably leads to solipsism

[ 90 ] — that is, to the doctrine of the one, to the doctrine of the ego —

absolute illusionism and agnosticism, and nothing has been done to prevent this slide into the abyss of unphilosophy, because the danger is not even recognized.

[ 91 ] This danger is well recognized! And Eduard von Hartmann, in turn, instinctively and very correctly uses the expression “slide into the abyss of unphilosophy.” I have described it today. But the “slide into the abyss” is not prevented by “unphilosophy,” nor by a hypothesis that aspires to be philosophy, but by the living life being carried over into the other existence, by the subconscious being made consciously alive, so that what is experienced independently and objectively by the soul can be led back into consciousness, not merely subjectively.

[ 92 ] Here you can see how Spiritual Science or anthroposophy had to gradually grapple with what was present at the time in terms of longings and hopes for such a science, but which could not yet achieve what was actually to be realized in Spiritual Science, because this requires the recognition of intimate soul work that does not remain mystically subjective, but becomes objective, like external science and knowledge. External natural science will find its way to this Spiritual Science in the supersensible.

[ 93 ] But what has happened in this regard to date? I have mentioned Oscar Hertwig to you. Oscar Hertwig is one of those who felt the significance of Eduard von Hartmann! Ernst Haeckel is one of those who most mocked Eduard von Hartmann's publication on “The Philosophy of the Unconscious.”

[ 94 ] Today, Oscar Hertwig constantly quotes Eduard von Hartmann, quoting him in such a way that he agrees with him on everything; he quotes him in such a way that he even agrees with him where Eduard von Hartmann said: The way it happened, the way the principle of selection was treated as modern superstition, is a teething problem, a scientific teething problem of our time. Oscar Hertwig, Haeckel's student himself, quotes this as a statement by Eduard von Hartmann that applies to science! And so much else.

[ 95 ] These things speak clearly and distinctly; they speak clearly and distinctly because they show what natural science cannot recognize, what it would be necessary to recognize, but the fact is that even the students of the great teachers of natural science of the nineteenth century came to refute what were then cherished hopes. And Oscar Hertwig in particular is extremely interesting because he shows that natural science today can already have no objection to a philosophy such as that of Eduard von Hartmann. If natural scientists have found their way to Eduard von Hartmann, they will also find their way to anthroposophy or Spiritual Science. Then the general consciousness of humanity can find its way.

[ 96 ] From many other quarters, anthroposophy or Spiritual Science is met with sufficient opposition. Just briefly, in conclusion, I would like to mention what the followers of certain religious communities, namely the followers of Christian religious communities, have repeatedly and repeatedly brought up against Spiritual Science. But I will only touch on this briefly. It is strange how religious circles in particular have taken action against Spiritual Science. For example, they say: What Spiritual Science has to say contradicts this or that which is written in the Bible, which is contained in tradition. But is that really the issue? Could one ever think of not wanting to discover America because America is not yet mentioned in the Bible or in Christian tradition?

[ 97 ] Ladies and gentlemen, anyone who believes that the power and influence of the greatest thing that has ever happened on earth—Christianity—could ever be threatened by some discovery has a very low opinion of it!

[ 98 ] I am always reminded of this when I hear that Christians can raise objections to Spiritual Science. I am always reminded of another theologian, this time not a Protestant but a Catholic, who was a professor of Christian philosophy at a Catholic theological faculty and gave his rector's speech on Galileo, whose fate at the hands of the Church is well known. This truly genuine, Christian-minded Catholic priest, who never denied until his death that he had remained a faithful son of his Church, this Catholic priest, speaking about Galileo, said:

A Christianity, which truly recognizes itself, is wrong to oppose such progress in the understanding of nature as has been brought about by minds such as Galileo's. Christianity is wrong to claim that certain teachings, which themselves wrongly claim to be derived from Christianity, are in contradiction with natural science. For modern natural science

[ 99 ] — says this priest, theologian, and university professor —,

Modern science stands in contradiction only to the narrower worldviews of antiquity, but not to Christian beliefs; for these Christian beliefs, when properly understood, can only reinforce the discoveries of ever more wonders in the worlds, can only reinforce the glory of the deity and the glory of Christian beliefs; it can only confirm the wonders that divine grace has performed here on this earthly plane.

[ 100 ] In the same sense, it can be said that, precisely from the standpoint of genuinely understood Christianity — [Spiritual Science is in no way contradictory to truly well-understood Christianity], but rather to [false teachings] that wrongly claim their descent from Christianity. And Spiritual Science is only in contradiction — but in a contradiction that complements the other, the opposite — with a narrowly conceived scientific worldview, not with the broad Christian worldview. And what Spiritual Science finds will be such that the miracles discovered in the spiritual world do not take away the miracles taught to us in Christianity, but on the contrary, confirm them!

[ 101 ] And Laurenz Müllner, that truly Christian theologian and professor, says the same thing:

Christianity does not contradict, and does not have to contradict, a correctly understood theory of evolution, if it does not want to be merely a causal world evolution and place human beings themselves merely within physical causality.

[ 102 ] Spiritual Science does not contradict Christianity, because this Spiritual Science does not lead to the death of religious experience and contemplation, but on the contrary to what it really does: it encourages religious experience and contemplation. And those who still believe today that their Christianity could be endangered by Spiritual Science will gradually have to realize: While misunderstood natural science has so far worn down more and more souls, both outwardly and inwardly, anthroposophy or Spiritual Science, because it ignites religious life, will also bring educated people back to the great mysteries not only of Christian teaching, but also of Christian work and ceremonial service. [But this will in many cases be a task for the future, albeit a relatively near future.]

[ 103 ] And it is precisely from this side that one would wish that things were better understood, and above all that there was more willingness to understand the matter, that one could not form a picture without delving into the matter, and then present this picture as contrary to Christianity, and not address the matter at all.

[ 104 ] I can only briefly hint at all this. I would have to speak at length if I wanted to list everything individually — but that could well happen — to show that Christianity has not the slightest reason to oppose such teachings as repeated earthly lives!

[ 105 ] As far as scientific teaching itself is concerned, let me say a few words in conclusion. The fact is that science today is already at the point of recognizing what it cannot achieve. And in a remarkable way — we can stick with the example — in a remarkable way, Oscar Hertwig comes to a conclusion in his book “On the Development of Organisms.” In a very remarkable way, Hertwig concludes that no objective research, no dissection of scientific facts has led to the materialistic Darwinian philosophy of recent decades, but that the people of this age have carried within themselves a materialistic attitude, have carried within themselves only the belief in the non-spirituality of the external world, and have carried this into the things of nature.

[ 106 ] And here it is very interesting to let Oscar Hertwig's own words sink in, the words he used to show how things actually stand. Hertwig says:

The principle of utility, the conviction of the necessity of unrestricted commercial and social competition, and materialistic schools of philosophy are forces that have played a major role in the modern development of humankind, even without Darwin. Those who were already under their influence welcomed Darwinism as scientific confirmation of ideas they were already familiar with and had grown fond of. They could now see themselves reflected in the mirror of science, as it were.
“The interpretation of Darwin's teachings,

[ 107 ] — Oscar Hertwig continues —,

which, with its ambiguities, is so open to interpretation, also allowed for a wide range of uses in other areas of economic, social, and political life. From it, everyone could, as from a Delphic oracle, draw their own useful applications to social, political, hygienic, medical, and other questions, depending on what they wanted, and invoke the science of Darwinian biology with its immutable laws of nature to reinforce their assertions. But what if these supposed laws are not such?

[ 108 ] — and that they are not laws of nature, as Oscar Hertwig, Haeckel's student, sought to prove and did prove —,

could there not also be social dangers in their versatile application to other areas? One should not believe that human society can use phrases such as relentless struggle for existence, selection of the suitable, the useful, the expedient, perfection through selective breeding, etc., in their application to the most diverse areas, as its daily bread for half a century without being deeply and lastingly influenced in the entire direction of its idea formation!

[ 109 ] This is already being said today by a natural scientist who not only claims that these materialistic Darwinian ideas are false, but also that they are harmful, leading to spiritual distress and social and political damage. Only the one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness of certain natural scientists can suggest otherwise. And this sometimes reveals itself in a very terrible way.

[ 110 ] A contemporary natural scientist, a great contemporary natural scientist whom I truly hold in high esteem—and it is precisely because I hold him in high esteem that I mention him— makes a curious suggestion about how natural scientists today may not want to be perceived, but how they must be perceived according to what has been poured out like a [meaning] over the way in which they often still stand by what can be hoped for from a purely [scientific] worldview of nature. The natural scientist, whom I hold in high esteem, says at the end of his important book — and these are his own words, which I would like to quote:

We live today in the “best of times.”

[ 111 ] — he claims this, he says:

We live today in the “best of times”

[ 112 ] — this cannot be proven with absolute certainty, but, according to this natural scientist,

We are certainly living in the “best of times,” at least we natural scientists, and we can hope for even better times to come

[ 113 ] he says

because, based on what we have today in natural science, compared to the results of earlier researchers

[ 114 ] — says this natural scientist —

we can say with Goethe, the great connoisseur of nature and the world:

"It is a great delight
To put oneself in the spirit of the times,
To see how a wise man thought before us,
And how we have finally come so far."

[ 115 ] Such a great natural scientist at the end of an important book!

[ 116 ] I don't know if many people notice and think about who Goethe actually has say this. Is it the great world and nature expert Goethe who says it? No, he puts it into the mouth of Wagner, the one who confronts Faust as a narrow-minded pipsqueak.

[ 117 ] And Faust replies to this Wagner:

Oh, that all hope does not fade from the head
That clings constantly to stale evidence,
Digging greedily for treasures,
And is happy when he finds earthworms!

[ 118 ] That is the opinion of Goethe, the great connoisseur of the world and human nature!

[ 119 ] And if natural scientists today still do not understand what really results from the healthy foundations of such a worldview, as it also shone through Goethe — then one can sometimes catch them, [I would like to say] in [such nonsensical creations as just now] — and as Hertwig says, truthfully: “From what time has thought of in materialistic terms, from its naturalistic processes, its materialistic drives and feelings, which it has had and carried into nature, the materialistic worldview, the materialistically colored Darwinism, has arisen, and the facts refute it.”

[ 120 ] But then the spiritual researcher may reply, based on what he believes to be a deeper knowledge of the world and human nature: No, it is not from such a narrowly defined view of time, as was that of the mid-nineteenth century, that we should dream our way into nature, but rather from the highest that spirit and soul can achieve should the views be formed that we attempt to carry into nature, so that we may recognize whether nature truly confirms this view. And according to what true Spiritual Science brings forth, it can promise itself that it will fare differently from Darwinian-influenced natural science. The latter believed it could understand the world through lawful processes and, as we have seen, was refuted by nature in this belief.

[ 121 ] Spiritual research strives to explore the depths of the human soul and to bring up from the depths of the human soul that which underlies the spirit as spirit, as spiritual beings and spiritual forces in the broadest, most comprehensive sense. And it may hope — this is not a one-sidedness, but a versatility that it seeks, since it does not follow one path, but all paths to which the human soul is led from its rich inner life — it may hope that what it has posed to nature as a question, as a mystery, will not be refuted by nature, but because the spirit that also lives in human beings lives in nature, the spirit in nature will affirm it, not, as in the other case, be able to deny it in precisely that which Spiritual Science or anthroposophy has in its mental image as the real form of the human mystery.