Anthroposophy has Something to Add to Modern Sciences
GA 73
15 October 1918, Zurich
VII. The study of nature, social science and religious life seen in the light of spiritual science
Anthroposophically orientated spiritual science, which I had occasion to speak of here last week and this week, is pretty well none of the things which people who do not know it believe it to be. This may already have been apparent from the two previous lectures. Above all you will hear people who have only superficially considered this spiritual scientific approach say that the results, or let us say, for the moment, the results that have been referred to, of this approach have to be completely ignored in the light of present-day natural scientific insights.
You may also hear it said that in the light of the most significant, major and crucial issues in our present time—all of them more or less in the social sphere—something said to have been brought down from the spiritual world, said to be the result of supersensible insight, proves impractical and without significance. Finally there are a third group of people who will keep stressing that this spiritual science serves to draw people away from genuine, well-founded religious responses and feelings, that it contributes to the lack of religion in our time, and that it does in fact present considerable dangers in this respect.
Today I want to speak mainly about these three misconceptions concerning anthroposophically orientated spiritual science. The day after tomorrow I’ll then attempt to present a picture of historical development in more recent times from the point of view of this supersensible science.
To enter more deeply into the whole configuration of people’s thinking in our time, we simply must look at everything which in the course of the last three or four centuries, and especially the 19th century, has given natural scientific thinking the radical significance of which I have spoken sufficiently, I think, in the earlier lectures. We need to look at this origin of natural-scientific thinking because people think in this way not only in the natural sciences. All over the world any question is—quite justifiably—considered in some way in the light of natural science. So we may indeed say that in so far as we see that the historical development of recent times has in a wholly elementary way given people’s inner life a natural-scientific orientation, this orientation has its justification. On the other hand we may also say that spiritual science would immediately give itself bad marks if it were to enter into any kind of conflict with the natural-scientific thinking of recent times. It does not get into conflict, however; quite the contrary—natural-scientific thinking and hence the whole orientation of present-day thinking, in every aspect of life, will only gain a solid foundation if those taking the natural-scientific approach are prepared to base themselves on spiritual science, making it their foundation.
Wanting to consider this question, initially I would say in a negative way, we have to take a bit of a look at how not modern natural science, but the specific way of modern thinking in natural science has arisen. And we have to say that anyone who considers history not in an outer, superficial way but by asking himself: How did the most profound abilities humanity has, also in the soul, develop through the ages? Just as an individual person develops and we cannot say that he is inwardly the same at 30, 40 or 50—how did humanity develop its ideas, its whole way of thinking, until they finally came to the ideas that tend to be dominant at the present time? Studying the evolution of the human mind without prejudice, one will find that in earlier times, and we may say until the 17th century, this humanity had different ideas on the inner life of man, on the divine principle in the world, and on nature. Going into this development more deeply we will also find confirmation in outer ways. Go back to earlier times and you’ll never find people looking at the outer world perceived through the senses, the natural world outside, and the ‘nature of the human soul’ as they called it, as separate from each other. Even in the 16th and on into the 17th century, writings on the natural order of things would always also include what people had to say about the nature of the human soul at the time. Indeed, in those days they had not only the teachings of theology that came through revelation but also a theologia naturalist107 Theologia naturalis, also called ‘natural theology’—understanding God on the basis of the natural world, the existence and nature of this world and of the human being; an important element in Greek philosophy, with Thomas Aquinas and in Enlightenment. a theology that wanted to derive its teachings, its view of life, from the nature of the human soul.
This is an outward sign of a significant fact. In earlier times, before the scientific thinking of more recent times arose, people had the ideas which at one and the same time could give a satisfactory explanation of the natural world and also say something about the inner life of human beings. Concepts of soul and spirit were not as separate then from those of nature and world as has been the case from the 17th and 18th centuries onwards, when modern scientific thinking came fully into its own. And those different concepts—this is the important point—were not established in an arbitrary way in those days and changed at will. The fact that concepts changed has to do with human powers of evolution that are a necessity in the course of that evolution as is the change in body and soul constitution in the process of individual human development as we grow older, moving on from childhood to old age.
The situation is that today we have arrived at concepts, through natural science, that will no longer serve if we want to use them directly to explain the life of the human psyche. This we have seen last week. Someone who is able to think in terms of modern science, doing so in a straight and honest way, accepting the inevitable consequences, must ask himself: If we gain insight into nature, what significance does this have for the evolution of modern humanity?
A satisfactory answer to this question can only be found if one is able to investigate natural science and establish its essential nature. If you base yourself from the beginning on the belief that natural science is all and everything when it comes to explaining the world, you will not find a satisfactory answer to this question. You need to be able to ask yourself: How does natural science relate to the whole of human evolution? Only this will give a clear idea of what natural science is able to achieve.
We need to be able, as it were, to study natural science itself in a natural scientific way. And here we may well point out that significantly, even great minds who considered the matter have come to the conclusion that natural science has natural limits, as it were, limits of which we spoke in the first lecture. Thoughtful people of our present age do feel that when they try to gain an overview of what natural science registers in its different fields, they have to say to themselves: With all these ideas, all the concepts which natural science provides on the basis of the strict methods of investigation we have, we do not really get to the natural need for insight that we have in our souls. They feel, in a way, that natural science exists and cannot be other than it is—leaving aside errors and exceptions, of course—but that exactly when it meets its ideal it cannot satisfy the most profound need for insight that human beings have with regard to the world of nature.
Perhaps I may put their feelings in the following paradoxical way. People are agreed—developments have gone that way in more recent times—that our ancestors were at a childlike level of knowledge until the more recent natural science brought a change. The ancients developed ideas out of a soul quality that was more or less given to fantasy. They had ideas in which they assumed all kinds of spiritual elements in the natural world, and they also developed their concepts in accord with this. It has been said that they looked for the forces that lay behind natural phenomena. But the ideas of the ancients were childlike, so that they did not find forces but only spectres of nature. And people who are proud of the achievements of modern science were to some extent arrogant when they looked back to those earlier thinkers, people of an earlier time on earth who sought to discover what lay behind the visible world of nature. And instead of the actual forces of nature, which are at last being discovered today, those ancients were looking for all kinds of spectres, spirits that had personal qualities and the like and were behind the phenomena of nature, spirits of which in the age of natural science one could only think that they have absolutely nothing to do with the natural order but arose from a power in the human soul that was unable to penetrate to the reality of nature, and therefore developed all kinds of ideas about the natural world.
Until quite recently this was a dogma which everyone thinking in terms of natural science would consider quite natural. Today, however, some individuals, whose views are certainly worth noting, are coming to realize: If we take a real look at our concepts of nature, not given to the prejudiced idea that we are able to grasp the essential nature of the natural world with those concepts of nature, but taking these concepts of nature as they are and waiting to see how they relate to what we really experience with regard to nature when we bring the whole human being into play and not only the intellect and skills of experimentation, then these concepts of nature are like those ancient spectres when compared to unbiased insight. There are people without prejudice today who say: The ancients thought up spectres out of their inner state of soul; but we are not really doing anything different, especially if we are real natural scientists. For the ideas of nature we imagine we have in our heads are just as unreal in relation to nature as the old spectres which natural scientists believed to be unreal.
This insight has its justification. And you find the justification by asking: How does the human being gain insight into nature? Initially we are at most observing nature, having no insight. And as we observe nature what we see has a very different kind of life to it than the life of the image we are able to have in our scientific ideas. If we meet the world of nature with eyes and ears, as whole human beings, which also includes the thinking mind, and do not only think in natural laws or do experiments in laboratories; if we observe nature as it presents, and think through the observations we make, then we live with nature. And when we begin to investigate nature, we cannot take the life from nature with us. Being unable to take the life from nature with us because as living beings at one with nature we are only in immediate living experience in our observation, we really make nature poorer when we try to grasp it with natural science, sucking it in, as it were. And when we want to gain real natural scientific insight, we make nature into a spectre in doing so. This is simply a fact and can be observed just as anything else is observed.
It is important, however, to have the courage to admit that this is the case and that in gaining insight into nature we really come to a kind of view that takes the image gained of nature as a spectre. We come to put this truth to our souls, saying that insight into nature is therefore something that takes us into something ghostly. In the hither and thither of gaining scientific insight into nature the human being behaves in such a way that he moves away from nature, from the observation of nature, and nurtures a ghost of nature.
There has been someone in more recent human history who has said what I have just been saying in a less open and therefore also less paradoxical way, but who had a profound feeling for this. This was Goethe. He already knew how to approach nature in this way, a way that was in harmony with itself. He was misunderstood as a result and considered an amateur in the field of science. Even today, it takes a lot of effort—I am allowed to say this because I have been trying for decades to get people of our time to develop an understanding of Goethe in this direction—to understand Goethe’s way of looking at nature.
What way is this? This way, which will be developed more and more and which may indeed still have been amateurish or imperfect in Goethe’s case, needs to be developed further in a truly scientific way. It will then lead to genuine insight into nature in all spheres. What is it? It is that we can approach the gaining of insight, in so far it moves away from nature itself and is more reflective—I spoke of this last week, but from a different point of view—in such a way that we use this reflection not only to give nature opportunity to present the human mind with its ghostly nature. Goethe did not seek to establish natural laws. These are always abstractions, something dead compared to living nature. Goethe sought to find pure phenomena, or archetypal phenomena, as he called them. He wanted to use human thinking not as something that might provide explanations for nature, discovering laws such as the conservation of energy or of matter, which are entirely thought up. No, Goethe sought to use thought to bring phenomena together in such a way that nothing of the human being himself would speak any more through these natural phenomena but the phenomena would speak purely out of themselves.
If we now progress from the instinctive quality of Goethe’s thought to gaining insight in full conscious awareness, in a reflective way, where does this take us? We will then answer the question in a way which is only possible with perception that goes beyond the senses. We will ask: What is it, really, which we observe in the natural world when we use our senses? It is a spectre of the kind I mentioned, a making ghostly. It is, of course, already there in the natural world, for we suck it out of it. But what else is there in the world of nature, apart from this, when we are in lively interchange with it, using our eyes and ears, giving ourselves up directly to the impressions gained through the senses?
Someone who trains his power to form ideas on the one hand and his powers of will on the other to develop supersensible perceptiveness will reach a point where he says to himself: ‘The supersensible is actually therein anything the senses perceive in the natural world around us.’ It is merely that we leave the supersensible aside, and indeed have to leave it aside when we seek insight into the natural world. Why? Because we human beings, being organized in our physical bodies the way we are whilst here on earth between birth and death, have transformed our own spiritual and eternal aspect into a body that is perceptible to the senses. We are not human by virtue of dwelling in a house of the supersensible that lives in us but by virtue of having entered, through birth or conception, from a supersensible world into the sensual sphere. The supersensible element which before this lived in a purely spiritual sphere has changed into a sensual body that lives to the full as something sensual and on death returns to the supersensible, as I have shown in the previous lecture.
Being human and therefore organized for the senses, observation of nature has to move away from the supersensible in us when it becomes scientific insight into nature. A truly supersensible way of thinking will thus tell us the following here. We come to realize that when we have nature before us in all the rich variety of light and colours, in many shades, and all the other phenomena perceived through the senses, something supersensible is revealed that is not separated from what we perceive through the senses; it is a supersensible element within the sensual. Yet when we look at it as human beings and seek to explain, we can only take from nature what we human beings—being sensual creatures that belong to sensuality between birth and death and not to the supersensible that comes to revelation in the sensual—are able to digest. Being organized in that way, we make our science of nature into a mere image of the sensual because of our own sensual nature. This image of the sensual must be a spectre, for the world of nature that surrounds us also has the supersensible within it.
Someone who truly develops the ability to observe the supersensible—you will also find the way described in my Occult Science or Knowledge of the Higher Worlds (How to Know Higher Worlds)—will say to himself: Supersensible aspects exist for everything in the universe outside. And if we go beyond the spectre which we have to create for ourselves in the image we have of nature, we come not to dead atoms, nor to energy or matter, but to a supersensible, spiritual aspect. This can and must make it possible for us to find a way of gaining supersensible insight.
Someone who gains insight into the way human beings relate to nature around them will not look for dead atoms, nor molecules, nor for something that is super-sensibly sensual, but for the truly supersensible. Supersensible investigation does not provide material bases for the colours and sounds that surround us. Instead you find spiritual, supersensible entities that are present everywhere in the natural world. If the study of nature is taken in the right sense, which is when it purely seeks to consider phenomena inwardly, in the Goethean way, you do not have something dead with regard to the truths that lie beyond the phenomena, but something that is alive and spiritual. It is particularly if you investigate the natural world honestly and consistently, if rational thinking and experimentation skills do not lead you to think that you can discern something relating to nature, but if you know that you can do no other but let nature become phenomenon, letting it express itself, then you will know that with these phenomena, which Goethe called ‘archetypal phenomena’, you have the supersensible immediately before you. It will then not be necessary to use laws of energy and matter to explain things. Instead you will find it becomes necessary to explain things out of the spiritual aspect. Essentially this leads to a view that is genuinely objective and unbiased, I would say a natural scientific study of the process of gaining insight into nature itself.
How does the science of the spirit, which seeks supersensible insight of its own accord, relate to this? If you follow the way to supersensible perception which I characterized for you last week, you will say: When a person transforms his ability to form ideas and powers of will and truly becomes able to perceive the supersensible in the way we see colours with our eyes and hear sounds with our ears; when a person sees this supersensible element the way he normally sees the sensual sphere in life, this transition to supersensible vision is truly like an awakening in the inner experience of the soul. And the spiritual investigator does indeed go through this living experience. We may say that just as in ordinary life someone wakes from the life of sleep and dreams and realizes that during his sleep and in the life of dreams he lived merely in images, and then knows how to connect his will with outward reality, the person with spiritual perception who advances to supersensible investigation will awaken from the world in which we are in our ordinary waking state. He will have another world before him that relates to the everyday world of the senses the way this everyday world of the senses relates to the world of dream images. It is an awakening. This can come to life in the soul.
The phenomena we have all around us in the world then become images relating to the higher, supersensible world, just as someone thinking in a healthy way will take dream images to be images of what we have in the world of the senses. Let me give an example to indicate how the everyday world perceived through the senses changes into a world of images for someone with spiritual perception. These things just have to be rightly understood, not in some kind of mystic dream, nor in any kind of nebulous way. In ordinary natural science the way of looking at the human being is to attach equal value to the head, the trunk, the extremities—with the part that continues in an inward direction, I mean now, so that from the morphological point of view everything sexual also belongs to the extremities. From the usual point of view, these three parts of human nature are something absolute, I would say, something of equal value. From the spiritual point of view, the human being who is before us as a creature perceived through the senses becomes the image of his higher, supersensible nature, just as everyday experiences turn into images when we dream of them. And when we thus consider the human being in the light of his eternal supersensible nature, our understanding of the human being will also change.
Bringing image nature into our search for insight completely changes human perceptiveness. Head and—to take just these two parts of human nature—extremities nature are then no longer equal in value, for in the configuration of the head, if studied exactly, you see something which in it forms resembles the life in the spirit that preceded the individual’s entrance into the world of the senses. And in the nature of the extremities you see what is there already as potential—embryonic as yet, but it will develop—for what the individual will be in the future, above all when he goes through the gate of death to enter into the supersensible world. It may still sound strange today, but this is what will develop from Goethe’s theory of metamorphosis if it is taken up in a truly spiritual-scientific way.
Goethe considered the changing form of an individual plant, the changing form of an individual animal or human being to be like images of a basic configuration. In a comprehensive spiritual theory of metamorphosis, the head will be seen as a metamorphosis of the person’s extremities, but in such a way that the one refers to the past, the other to the future. The human being’s external configuration will then be the image of what he is in spirit. And everything then becomes image of the supersensible, just as a dream becomes image when we enter into sleep. The human being’s reality in the supersensible sphere becomes image of this supersensible whilst he is awake in the sensual sphere, just as the sensual becomes image when he falls asleep. This is an immediate finding made in the supersensible, something I may call an empirical finding.
Let us now compare what this supersensible perception gains out of itself concerning the nature of the world and indeed the human being when it seeks to penetrate the nature of the human being. The human being and the whole of nature becomes image and this needs to be related to a supersensible reality. This does not entirely agree with anything a thinking modern natural scientist finds in final conclusion. He finds that his natural phenomenon turns into a spectre, an image. Supersensible insight shows that everything we perceive in the sphere of the senses must turn into image and needs to be related to something that is supersensible. In short, nothing brings us as much to a harmonious concept of the world as the discoveries made not as a modern natural scientist adhering to dogma but as a thinking natural scientist, someone who is able to observe his natural science itself in a natural scientific way. His findings will agree with anything the spiritual scientist has to say about the natural world in so far as it is open to observation. This is something that must come for humanity.
People need to be in a position where they can truly see how the way to the supersensible and the way to the sensual which is penetrated with thought come together. This alone will give a total image of the world that makes us not merely possessors of a ghostly reflection of nature but lets us realize, lets us admit that using the ordinary way of explaining nature we had to create such a ghostly reflection, yet at the same time shows us how we can go beyond this image of nature and enter into the supersensible realm of the spirit. This is the way in which natural-scientific thinking will also have to go if it is to go beyond the sphere into which it has to take itself of necessity, especially when meeting its own ideal. Contradictions arise when we believe we have grasped nature in the study of it but have really only taken hold of something that will not allow us to look down on the old ‘spectres’, for it is but spectre itself, and the spiritual reality must be sought behind it.
Insight in the spirit, of the kind which is meant here, thus is not in opposition to natural science. Quite the contrary, it provides natural science with the element that it must find to understand itself; it provides something which unconsciously is the goal of every true natural scientist’s search; it provides the element which alone can give satisfaction, for natural scientific investigation must by its very nature inevitably lead to dissatisfaction, especially if done in the accepted way.
If people will gradually perceive the true nature of supersensible insight they will find that natural science of the more recent kind can only survive if they complement it with the science of the spirit. People working in the field must themselves desire to have supersensible insight. This alone will bring true insight into nature, that is, access to the supersensible realm.
I only wanted to mention this briefly. One could give many lectures and show that the very idea of natural science demands a science of the spirit if it is not to come to nothing, with misunderstanding arising about the findings made in natural science. I just wanted to show that natural scientists must themselves look for this science of the spirit. Great triumphs have been celebrated in natural science, and tremendous advances have been made on the human road to knowledge. But if natural science continues along the way it is going now, it will go beyond itself and take us to the spirit. Today the situation is that only people who are able to think scientifically themselves should take a critical attitude to natural science, not taking a negative stance from either ignorance or antipathy, but a positive one. If I may make a personal remark, which I am only doing because it is perhaps connected with the factual situation, it is this. Many people have accused me of publishing some works in which intense efforts were made to justify 19th-century natural science, so that they are wholly based on natural science—as far as this is possible when using the natural scientific way of thinking. However, I would not be entitled to say a single word to you today or to other audiences where I take the direction I have taken today if I could not also say that I knew how to be very positive, wholly in agreement in so far as agreement is justifiable, with natural science. I think you have to know natural science and appreciate its achievements before you are allowed to speak about it. All the talk about natural science by ‘mystics’ or theosophists who know nothing about it is wholly inappropriate.
This, I think, will suffice to refer briefly to the first misapprehension suffered by people who know nothing about anthroposophically orientated spiritual science but who talk about it.
The second misapprehension is that people consider anything that goes in the direction of supersensible insight to be impractical and of no use in everyday life. A negative view is taken of this especially in the present time because present-day people are truly, in the fullest sense of the word, compelled to throw themselves into practical life. Well, let us consider this from just one aspect, though it is an important one, and that is the view taken of human social life. Scientific and other views of this have in fact become slogans and major themes in more recent times. Essentially the things that have happened in this field are also wholly in accord with the natural-scientific way of thinking. In my view it is not helpful for the people who want to be sociologists, being such in the right sense of the word for our time and wanting to establish a science of sociology, to try more and more to adopt ideas and concepts from natural science, applying them to human social life. I would actually consider this to be a great deal less helpful because theories really have very little significance when it comes to practical life in the real sense, something which is particularly evident from the supersensible point of view.
Think of everything Lasalle was thinking of when he developed the approach which he then presented in his famous lecture on science and the workers.108 Lasalle, Ferdinand (1825–1864). Die Wissenschaft und die Arbeiter. Eine Verteidigungsrede vor dem Berliner Kriminalgericht gegen die Anklage, die besitzlosen Klassen zum Hass und zur Verachtung gegen die Besitzenden öffentlich aufgereizt zu haben. (Speech in defence made at the Berlin Criminal Law Court to counter the accusation of having publicly incited the unpropertied classes against property-owning people). Zurich 1863. His ideal was that human social life would need to be taken out of the instinctive sphere into a scientific approach, exactly through modern socialism. He believed that the proletariat needed to learn to think in scientific terms and that this would bring about a new age. We then saw how in Marxism, with its materialistic view of history, and with a thinking that was deliberately scientific, people tried to establish an approach on the basis of a theory that was to be taken up into human minds and would lead to social structures for the world. Well, people who today, when the last four years have swept across the world, are still unable to see that human minds will be little influenced by anything based on such theories, will no doubt come to see it in the decades which lie ahead. Theories really count for little when it comes to what we should really be considering here, and that is social community life, structuring it out of the human impulses in the most comprehensive sense possible. A great deal lies in these few words ‘structuring social relationships out of the human impulses.’
Again one might say a lot about the many attempts made to structure this social life in a way that would be worthy of humanity as it is now. I do, however, consider this less important. I would consider it much more important to consider that life has indeed taken on a structure, though this has led to the terrible world disaster we have seen evolve over the last four years. At least some of the causes that led to this terrible world disaster must be sought in the very real contradiction and opposition among the impulses into which human social life has driven itself in every part of the world.
People have rightly said that in earlier times—the very times when natural scientific thinking did not yet have the modern form I have been characterizing for you—life was corporate. They had trade and craft guilds, and a wide variety of ways that brought people together.
Then came the age of modern individualism with its ideal of human freedom. People felt they owed it to this ideal of freedom, to this impulse of individualism, to dissolve the old corporations. If you look at history you’ll find that they were gradually dissolved. You could see how economic life progressed, and how in recent times corporations have arisen again in life. I can’t and won’t go into detail, for otherwise one would have to show how step by step on the one hand corporate associations or unions such as consumer associations arose, and how people tried to cope with life partly by the old style of community life persisting or coming alive again. The old corporations have not returned, but new ones have arisen and are part of our social structure, including the trusts that have formed. I would attach much more value to this practical configuration of social life, as it has arisen, rather than to theories that people have developed on the subject.
However, the way it all came to be configured, even if we have to take account of a wide variety of interests coming into it, and other impulses in modern life, we nevertheless have to say that the modern corporation has evolved in many different spheres; something belonging to earlier times persists because it is still in accord with human instincts and will impulses. And the inmost impulse in the way people have configured the world—‘configured’ is the operative word here, for it is not what people thought about it but how they have configured the world, creating communities, relating person to person, though unconsciously so—has again been the natural scientific thinking of more recent times, but in a quite specific way.
Looking back with understanding on what brought people together in the past, when they lived in trade and craft guilds—I do not, of course, defend them, knowing that it was right to get rid of them—and how they lived in those communities, we see a considerable difference from the element which brings them together today. A most outstanding characteristic—everyone who knows about these things has to admit this—of the old communities was that people understood one another both within such communities and from community to community. Of course, everything always only goes to a certain point in the world; but the people understood one another. Masters and journeymen understood one another, for the master knew what lived in the journeyman’s soul. They had a positive attitude to each other. Why? Because the instincts and impulses of will from which those communities arose still had a spiritual and soul element in them, a spiritual and soul element that was connected with the bodily element.
The element which brought it about in earlier times that people were able to look not only at the natural world with the ideas which they then had but also at the soul, with ideas that lived instinctively, unconsciously in human beings and made the natural world and the inner life into one, also lived in the instincts and brought it about that people were close through the blood—son connected with father, daughter with mother, or as a member of a nation or a guild—if there was a blood connection or some other interest, this meant that people demanded community out of their instincts, yet those instincts had inborn impulses of spirit and soul in them.
Then came the thinking that goes with natural scientific culture. Our more recent times have not been configured in their actual structure where human beings are concerned by anything but exactly the thinking that goes with natural science. It is because people came to think about nature in a way where they presented the phenomena in such a way, even if they did not admit to this, that with their ghostly content they no longer had anything to do with the human being. Because of this, the human being stands on his own. Earlier peoples were connected with the natural world. Lightning would flash out there, and thunder roll, with rain coming from the clouds. People of old would see a force of nature reflected in this. They would be aware of one drive or another within themselves and instinctively see such drives reflecting also the same as such a force of nature. They would act out of nature, as it were, for their perception of nature was such that they had not yet set themselves apart from it.
In the last few centuries, the human being was set apart from nature by the very fact of progressing to the pure natural phenomena. Perception of nature will finds its proper mission in the progress of human evolution when it does not provide absolute knowledge—which is today’s superstition, the natural-scientific superstition—but makes human beings free. We will only understand the mission which natural science has in the progress of human evolution when we see that it is nature’s task to teach us freedom.
In the more recent natural science, the human being has to set the natural phenomena apart, making himself remote from nature, and he therefore stands on his own as an individual. Before coming to the supersensible world by taking the supersensible way to which I have been referring so that he would relate to the world again—super-sensibly now, as he had done in a natural way in earlier times—before the human being entered on the road which he will have to take for the future, he was, as it were, poised wholly on the point of his individual person. Natural science placed him on the needle point of his individual nature. Natural science has determined the state of the human soul. It had taken up his instincts. Because of this modern people relate to one another not like the people of earlier times, through blood or guild, but as individuals, as persons. They have to find their associations and social communities in freedom. Initially they thus found them only from instinct, but their instincts in this direction were contradictory, because the time for instincts had passed. On the one hand people can no longer think in terms of instincts but must think consciously, letting natural science educate them in this. On the other hand people did not yet have the opportunity to make themselves part of the world again through supersensible perception. They thus became part of a new world, which they thought about, and related to the old world in a way in which they no longer thought about it. They transplanted the old instincts into a world which thanks to modern natural-scientific thinking was no longer present in their minds. It was because of this that the schism and contradiction arose in modern social life which we perceive if we see what lives at a deeper level of the soul for the humanity of more recent times.
Socialism, distinctly an ideal of humanity, was established with inadequate means. Why? Insight into nature does not place human beings in the world but sets them apart, with awareness of being an individual person growing all the time. Because of this, they can only form communities out of selfish instincts. Their thinking is different from anything created by instinct in communities. Disharmony results, with the consequence that a disharmonious social order must arise if you only have natural science and apply only natural-scientific concepts to the structuring of social life. A contradiction must arise, a living inner objection, and this will continue until humanity finally decides to say: In modern life in particular people inevitably create disharmony in establishing social order unless they bring supersensible insight into social community life, supersensible sentience and purpose. For as long as we do not relate person to person in such a way that we see in the other individual the image, the phenomenon, of the immortal human being, for as long as we do not see in every individual with whom we live in a social context an individual who does reflect a supersensible reality, for as long as we are not willing to add to the knowledge natural science can provide for sociology and social impulses, the insights gained from spiritual insight, modern social thinking, and above all modern social structures, with concepts applied in practice, will result in a life that must dissolve itself and lead to strife and disharmony.
Anyone who understands this inner connection will know how much the situation I have just outlined has influenced events in the last four years. I would not say that it was the only cause, but it did play quite a considerable, and indeed a very major role. Anyone who wants and seeks socialism, honestly so, must guide humanity to concepts that are not merely natural-scientific, for the element that lives and has its being in life from person to person is different from anything that can be found with the natural-scientific approach.
This is apparent in that there is a specific ideal in natural science, an ideal that is indeed justifiable. It is to do more and more experiments, with less and less description and observation. What is an experiment? Initially it is something made up by the rational mind, which actually takes us away from nature and—as I have shown in last week’s lecture—into the nothingness of person. Anything we show experimentally essentially only appears to have to do with the life of nature. In reality it has to do with the element in nature that is dying. This is evident if we try and apply anything gained in the experimental way of thinking to the configuration of social life. Anyone who wants to bring purely natural-scientific concepts, utterly honest, straight and indeed ideal natural-scientific concepts, into social life, brings something into life that does not lead to ascent, to life, but to social death. If humanity is not prepared to bring supersensible elements as well as natural-scientific knowledge to social life it will be found that with all social purpose, with all socialism, the structures created would bring disorder and decline.
A socialism that directs people away from the supersensible will create social structures of destruction, social structures that direct us elsewhere. At most people will use old things and bring out-of-date ideas to realization. For what has happened until now, not through social theories but through practical socialism? Has socialism led to a radical configuring of the world? Then people would not have accepted the old forms, which is what they have in fact been doing until now. Socialism in those old forms is rather like someone who disapproves of the crinoline, yet does not try and get beyond it but puts padding into it instead. And so we see people keeping the old forms, padding them out, in the social thinking of more recent times. For what do most of the leaders of our more recent socialism want? To gain power where others gained power, taking over power rather than giving it a new form.
I would say that this, too, is experimental proof, only in another aspect, that we can only speak of socialism if we also have the will to take humanity to the realm of the supersensible, to the impulses that we must give to modern humanity if they are to get out of the tendency to create the disasters to which purely natural-scientific impulses have taken them. In social life in particular, those impulses must be supersensible ones.
Spiritual science truly is not impractical in this field. For the time being one can only express regret that there are many people who deem themselves really practical, terribly practical, feel really pleased about their own life practice, and look down on the impractical people who want to introduce something to the world out of ideas, out of the spirit. Well, we know this element of middle-class thinking which today considers itself to be great in practical life and brutally rejects anything that might come from the spirit. This life practice will reduce itself to absurdity, to impossibility. For to be truly practical, we have to go for the whole of reality, not half or a quarter of it. If you have a horseshoe magnet and someone comes and says: ‘You can use it to attract other iron; it’s a magnet’ and you then say: ‘Oh no, the shape shows me it’s a horseshoe for shoeing a horse’, you are like someone who wants to organize social life only according to concepts that leave aside anything not perceptible to the senses. Someone who knows that for a true life practice you need the whole of reality and that includes the supersensible, is like someone who does not misuse a horseshoe magnet to shoe a horse but uses it as a magnet. This, then, is the second misapprehension of which I wanted to speak today, again just referring to it briefly.
The third concerns something that is entirely part of the inner life, having to do with the element which in many respects must be most sacred to people—religious life.
Very many people in that field speak ill of anthroposophically orientated spiritual science, among them above all official representatives, and also non-official representatives, of one positive religious confession or another, people who, of course, do not indulge in the authority principle, as people put it politely today. They speak ill of this spiritual science as something that would take people into irreligiosity, giving them apparent insight into the spirit rather than the element that will directly show the way by which they can come into the supersensible, religious sphere on the basis of their own essential nature. It would be tempting, but time is short and there are also other things to be considered, so I won’t talk about any particular religious confession but about inner religious feeling as such.
If we consider the true nature of gaining insight in the spirit as it is meant here, we will, I believe, very soon find that just as it is not impractical nor antisocial nor unscientific, so, too, it is not irreligious and not in the least liable to deflect anyone from profoundly religious feeling. Considering what has been said so far, we have to ask what the essence is of the newer form of supersensible insight which we seek to find through anthroposophy.
The essence is that the way that leads to supersensible investigation must ultimately reach an impersonal sphere. Just consider how radical I had to be last week in saying that the things human beings see by way of spirit lie before birth or after death, and that the essence of life between birth and death is that the human being has assumed material form. We may say that spiritual science, which through supersensible insight takes us to the truly immortal aspect, the indisputably immortal aspect of the human soul, can actually be in agreement with materialism in this area. In spiritual science we know that the material human being is a metamorphosis, a transformation of the spiritual, and that the spiritual gains from going down into the material abyss where it can develop freedom by the very fact of gaining insight into nature.
It is not a precondition that in doing their investigations human beings must move from the personal, from immediate experience here in the body, to the impersonal. Supersensible insight presupposes an inner state of mind that progressively enters into the impersonal in spirit, just as in earlier times human beings who did not yet have insight into nature were physically—physically in general terms—in the supersensible sphere.
We must make spiritual investigations in an impersonal way if we want the light of the spirit to shine into matter and substance. However, the more we make this supersensible way of investigation our own and the further we go with this method of investigation which demands an impersonal approach, the more do we feel something flowing out as if from the other pole of the human being, the will pole, and this is an immediate religious response. This immediate inner response also seeks to go towards the supersensible, but in such a way that our individual nature is not lost and that everything directly connected with our individual nature between birth and death can unite with the supersensible element.
If we know the right way of going into the supersensible through science, then an inner power, which makes itself known above all as a need to venerate the spiritual, points the way for us to the religious element. The true evolution on the way into the spiritual world through supersensible perception is that we feel driven more and more to deepen our religious life and actually come to understand what the religious life means to us. The science of the spirit inevitably takes us from the personal to the impersonal so that the light of the spirit may once again shine into the sensual world.
Religious life will thus inevitably be deepened if we approach the spirit in this way, for it is a deep-down part of our human nature that we not merely behold the spiritual as it shines out, full of wisdom, but venerate it. This veneration must come from our individual, personal nature, however. Anything seen in the spirit cannot enter into this region of human experience as it is but has to go through renewal, metamorphosis; it needs to change, to be transformed into something personal. When the human being is on the one side receiving the light of the spirit, he must go and venerate this spiritual principle and search for the place where he can find religious life, religious deepening.
On the other side, the side of representatives of religious life, it will also be necessary to see things in the right light. In early times it was said by people who professed themselves religious, and it is still being said to this day, that the old pagan approach had consisted in wanting to find the way to the divine through mere wisdom. Again and again we may, however, repeat, with full justification that wisdom does not reveal the divine in the world—not the divine, but certainly the supersensible element in which human beings have their immortality. The divine cannot, however, be recognized in its divine nature, for it needs to meet with an inner response of veneration. The spiritual must first find its way to the personal, a way to where the human being is an individual person. There he either comes to serve Jehovah by taking the route of studying nature—so that he perceives the spirit which from generation to generation is active as a supersensible principle in the blood—or he looks to the spirit which relates to his soul as the redeemer, and that is Christ Jesus ... [record of the lecture incomplete at this point].
Human beings must find the way to the sensual world, where they are in their individual nature. On the other hand they need the kind of understanding that not only says that wisdom will not reveal the divine because this needs veneration, but that the supersensible cannot be perceived out of wisdom alone, nor from religion alone. Religion must be complemented with vision of the supersensible, otherwise it will only appear to be adequate in a natural-scientific age, at the same time persisting with old views and turning against new ones. Religion, taken in the right way, is not threatened by the emergence of new truths, including those that are supersensible.
Many other misapprehensions exist. If religious people believe that supersensible perception could in some way be harmful, going against their own, justifiable endeavours, anyone who believes this is not taking account of the progressive evolution of humanity. Being part of modern evolution, where on the one hand we do not have any opportunity for finding the right kind of social life unless the way to the supersensible is taken, have we not also seen how this very natural-scientific thinking has made people abandon religion, so that taking up the natural-scientific approach made the individual go towards irreligiosity? [Part of lecture not taken down.] Present-day spiritual science addresses human nature more powerfully so that religious veneration may develop, unless people want to turn away from this, like some who are superficial in their natural science. Supersensible life must address the soul more strongly today, for the soul has gained greater conscious awareness and individuality. The power of religious life needs to be stronger if it wants to develop in its old form.
Another misapprehension in this particular field is that people think the science of the spirit, as it is meant here, would serve to create a sect or establish a religion. In the science of the spirit, one sees human evolution far too clearly for this. One knows that effective principles come into play consecutively in human evolution just as they do in the life of the individual. People cannot have the same inner attitudes when they are 40 as they had when they were 20. In the same way, humanity cannot have the same inner attitude in the 20th century as in earlier centuries and millennia.
In spiritual science one always considers reality and does not judge it by thought-up concepts. Because of this, one does not talk the way some people do today who want to establish a religion of the future in a scientific way; instead one knows that the time for creating religions has passed; it came to an end exactly when Christianity arose. The inner attitude in which humanity could be taken hold of by a religious inner experience which then had to be propagated was closely bound up with the state of the world as it was in earlier times. Today we, as humanity, have entered into an inner attitude that truly had to be developed by means of natural science, and in which one also seeks to penetrate into the supersensible sphere, using the approach of natural science, and in gaining this supersensible knowledge seeks to gain ever greater clarity concerning the principle which in religious ages came to revelation in a religious way, but can now no longer found religions itself. A true science of the spirit will help us to gain increasing insight into what was given to humanity by way of religion; it will also free this religious element from the bonds created by people who in their desire for power and other things took it in the wrong direction. I can only refer to this briefly, for it would take us too far to go into detail here.
With these brief references I merely wanted to indicate that spiritual science by its very nature can neither make people irreligious, nor can it found any kind of new religion or the like. All these things come up because people are not fully considering what the science of the spirit which is meant here is really intended for, yet people will insist on their views. We may thus also say that the attacks that are currently raining down on this anthroposophically orientated spiritual science, coming also from representatives of religious confessions, are due to misapprehensions and misinterpretations, which sometimes are quite deliberate. People who are serious about the religious life of humanity would have least reason to cast aspersions on the science of the spirit. For this will take humanity back to true religiosity, whereas the age of natural science on its own and merely positive religion that seeks to preserve traditions must inevitably take humanity away from true religion. Positive religion comes from a time when human beings related differently to the world. But people will not let themselves be pushed back, just as a 40-year-old cannot be 20 again.
A religious confession that resists supersensible insight of the recent kind will thus dig its own grave, however great the desire to consolidate by means of external power. Again and again I have to remind you, as I also did here in Zurich last year, that the Roman Catholic priest who gave his inaugural lecture as rector of a university on the subject of Galileo,109 Laurenz Müllner, Die Bedeutung Galileis für die Philosophie, Inaugurationsrede gehalten am 8. November 1894 an der k. k. Universität Wien, Wien 1894. Reprinted in Anthroposophie, Zeitschrift für freies Geistesleben, vereinigt mit der Monatsschrift Die Drei, 16. Jg., 1. Buch, Okt.-Dez. 1933, S. 29-57; dort auch eine kleine Zusammenstellung ‘Rudolf Steiner über Laurenz Muellner’ (S. 25-28) und eine Photographic Muellners. drawing attention to the fact that the Roman Catholic Church, his own Church, went against Galileo in the past, continuing to do so until 1822,110See note 38. was a much better representative of theology and religion. This was Professor Muellner, Roman Catholic theologian and philosopher. Beginning his rectorate at Vienna University, he had to stress that true religiosity, and indeed also true Roman Catholicism, should not go against advances in human knowledge, since every further advance in human knowledge only showed the marvels of the divine in the world in an even more magnificent and glorious light. That is a truly religious and also truly Christian way of thinking.
Just as some who have a true feeling for the religious element do not need to feel that external natural-scientific knowledge goes against this, so there is no need for them to feel this about insight into spheres beyond that of the senses, which actually and inevitably must take human beings straight back to religiosity, though this would be an independent religiosity that is anchored in the individual nature of a person. It would be reasonable to say, therefore, that one should take a very good look exactly at the attacks made on anthroposophical spiritual science from this direction; for they really and truly do not come from where people pretend they come from. They arise from the fear and from lack of interest which I have characterized as a general human attitude to the science of the spirit in the first of these lectures. One only has to read aright what is said in this respect. However, it will not be possible to get the people who write these things to change their minds, and we should not be so naive as to think that one can make them change their minds. Refutation would not help at all. What is more, it will be equally impossible to get the people for whom these things are usually written to see how wrong they are. Yet the progress of human evolution will not be held up for people who have an honest feeling for the things that the powers behind developments in more recent times have brought to human souls.
In today’s lecture—the day after tomorrow I will round it off with another, again very positive look at recent history considered in the light of spiritual science, which will take us directly into human life today and to the most burning questions we have today—I believe I have shown that the search for supersensible insight, which is the endeavour in the science of the spirit, is neither inimical to natural science nor impractical in social terms, let alone a danger to religious life. On the contrary, I believe I have shown that for those who are able to see clearly the powers which our present time must bring to the human soul, and especially the powers which the future will bring, will understand that spiritual-scientific knowledge is important for three burning questions of our time and the immediate future.
For centuries, and especially also today and even more so in future, science has been and will be at the heart of human endeavour. The question will arise as to what science can do for the extreme human need to find the supersensible world. The answer can only be given by a science that does not leave spiritual science aside.
Another burning question of today and the immediate future will be: How do we find the impulses that can configure our social life? The answer will have to be: Only insights gained through the science of the spirit go through the metamorphosis when they enter into human life that will enable them to lead to an immediately conscious social life from person to person and hence also to the social configuration of the human race around the globe.
And the third burning question will be: How can the inmost need, the need in the human soul to revere the divine in an age that through science has taken us to individual and personal awareness, be met by means of greater powers than those which people have been able to have in earlier times? Again the answer must be: This needs the supersensible vision which when it comes to the human individual in a living way, metamorphoses into the individual human nature, becoming personal within it. Such powers can only come from the supersensible through the science of the spirit, through supersensible perception that gives the knowledge and vision which modern religiosity needs. This should truly meet the deepest needs of the soul, indeed the very depths of soul for human beings in our present time and in the future.
Naturerkenntnis, Sozialwissenschaft und Religiöses Leben im Lichte Geisteswissenschaftlicher Anschauung
Die anthroposophisch orientierte Geisteswissenschaft, von der ich hier in der vorigen und in dieser Woche zu sprechen hatte, sie ist, wie ja vielleicht schon aus den beiden Vorträgen hervorgeht, so ziemlich alles dasjenige nicht, wovon diejenigen, die sie nicht kennen, glauben, daß sie es sei. Insbesondere wird man bei Persönlichkeiten, die nur oberflächlich dieser geisteswissenschaftlichen Bestrebung nahegetreten sind, hören können, wie die Ergebnisse, oder sagen wir vorläufig: die gemeinten Ergebnisse, dieser Richtung durch die naturwissenschaftlichen Einsichten der Gegenwart völlig ausgeschlossen seien.
Weiter wird man hören können, wie dasjenige, was aus der geistigen Welt heruntergeholt sein soll, was Ergebnis übersinnlicher Erkenntnis sein soll, wie das gerade gegenüber den bedeutsamsten, größten, einschneidendsten Fragen der Gegenwart, die ja alle mehr oder weniger auf sozialem Gebiete liegen, unpraktisch, bedeutungslos sich erweise. Und endlich von einer dritten Seite wird immer wieder und wiederum betont, wie diese Geisteswissenschaft geeignet sei, die Menschen hinwegzubringen von wirklichem, gut gegründetem religiösen Empfinden und Fühlen, wie sie beitrage zur Religionslosigkeit unserer Zeit, und sogar von dieser Seite bedeutsame Gefahren in sich schließe.
Über diese drei Mißverständnisse gegenüber anthroposophisch orientierter Geisteswissenschaft möchte ich heute vor allen Dingen reden, um dann übermorgen den Versuch zu machen, noch ein Bild der geschichtlichen Entwickelung der neueren Menschheit vom Gesichtspunkte dieser übersinnlichen Erkenntnis zu geben.
Man muß, wenn man tiefer in das ganze Geistesgefüge unserer Zeit eindringen will, unbedingt den Blick auf alles dasjenige wenden, was gemacht hat im Laufe der letzten drei bis vier Jahrhunderte, insbesondere des 19. Jahrhunderts, daß das naturwissenschaftlihe Denken jene einschneidende Bedeutung erhalten hat, von der ich ja auch in den vorigen Vorträgen hinlänglich gesprochen habe. Man muß den Blick auf diese Entstehung des naturwissenschaftlichen Denkens lenken aus dem Grunde, weil heute nicht etwa bloß in der Naturwissenschaft naturwissenschaftlich gedacht wird, sondern weil in aller Welt jede Frage - zwar in ganz berechtigter Weise — in eine gewisse naturwissenschaftliche Beleuchtung gestellt wird. Daher darf man schon sagen: Insofern man erkennt, daß die historische EntwickeJung der neueren Menschheit in ganz elementarer Weise aus dem Inneren des Menschen eine naturwissenschaftliche Orientierung hervorgebracht hat, ist diese naturwissenschaftliche Orientierung berechtigt. Man darf demgegenüber sagen, Geisteswissenschaft würde sich von vornherein dadurch ein schlechtes Zeugnis ausstellen, daß sie mit dem naturwissenschaftlichen Denken der neueren Zeit in irgendeinen Widerspruch kommen würde. Sie kommt aber nicht in einen Widerspruch, sondern im Gegenteil: naturwissenschaftliches Denken und damit die ganze geistige Orientierung der Gegenwart bis in alle Zweige des Lebens hinein wird erst ein festes Fundament dadurch erhalten, daß diese naturwissenschaftliche Richtung sich bequemt, auf Geisteswissenschaft als auf ihre Grundlage zu bauen.
Will man zunächst, ich möchte sagen in negativer Art, sich der damit gestellten Frage nähern, so muß man ein wenig hinschauen darauf, wie nicht die moderne Naturwissenschaft, sondern die besondere Artung des modernen Denkens nach der Naturwissenschaft hin entstanden ist. Und da muß man sagen, wer die Geschichte nicht äußerlich, oberflächlich betrachtet, sondern wer sie so betrachtet, daß er sich frägt: Wie entwickelte sich die Menschheit so von Zeitalter zu Zeitalter in ihren tiefsten, auch seelischen Fähigkeiten? — So wie sich ein einzelner Mensch entwickelt, und man nicht sagen kann, daß er als Dreißigjähriger, als Vierzigjähriger, als Fünfzigjähriger dieselbe Seelenverfassung hat, wie entwickelte sich die Menschheit in ihren Vorstellungen, in ihrer ganzen Denkweise, um zuletzt zu jenen Begriffen, zu jenen Ideen zu kommen, von denen sie vorzugsweise in der Gegenwart beherrscht ist? —, der wird bei einer vorurteilslosen Verfolgung der geistigen Entwickelung der Menschheit finden, daß diese Menschheit überhaupt in älteren Zeiten, und man kann sagen bis ins 17. Jahrhundert hinein, andere Vorstellungen hatte, sowohl über das menschliche Seelenleben als auch über das Göttliche in der Welt und über die Natur. Man kann das, was man aus der tieferen Verfolgung dieser Entwickelung ersehen kann, auch äußerlich bestätigt finden: Man gehe zurück in frühere Zeiten und man wird da, wo von Naturanschauung die Rede ist, nirgends getrennt finden die Betrachtung der äußeren Sinneswelt, der äußeren Natur und dessen, was man die Natur der menschlichen Seele nannte. Noch im 16. Jahrhundert und bis ins 17. Jahrhundert herein enthalten diejenigen Schriften, die über die natürliche Ordnung der Dinge handeln, auch immer dasjenige, was man in der betreffenden Zeit über die Natur der menschlichen Seele zu sagen hatte. Ja, es gab in dieser Zeit neben den geoffenbarten Lehren der Theologie eine Theologia naturalis, eine Theologie, welche ihre Lehre, ihre Anschauung aus der Natur der menschlichen Seele ableiten wollte.
Das ist ein äußeres Zeichen für eine bedeutungsvolle Tatsache. Man hatte eben in früheren Zeiten, bevor das naturwissenschaftliche Denken der neueren Zeit heraufkam, solche Vorstellungen, welche zu gleicher Zeit geeignet waren, den Menschen eine befriedigende Naturerklärung zu geben und auch etwas zu sagen über das menschliche Seelenleben. Es waren die Begriffe über die Seele und den Geist nicht so getrennt von den Begriffen über Natur und Welt, wie das der Fall ist seit dem i7., 18. Jahrhundert, seitdem das naturwissenschaftliche Denken voll eingesetzt hat. Und diese andersgearteten Begriffe - und das ist das Wichtige-, die sind nicht etwa willkürlich damals aufgestellt und später verändert worden. Daß die Begriffe anders geartet wurden, hängt zusammen mit solchen Enwickelungskräften der Menschheit, die ebenso notwendig im Fortgang dieser Entwickelung liegen, wie die Veränderung der Körper- und Seelenkonstitution im Fortgang der individuellen menschlichen Entwickelung liegt, indem man älter wird vom Kind bis zum Greis.
Wir haben heute einmal durch die Naturwissenschaft solche Begriffe erlangt, welche nicht mehr, wie wir in der vorigen Woche gesehen haben, unmittelbar anwendbar sind, wenn man sich das menschliche Seelenleben erklären will. Und derjenige, welcher nun redlich, ehrlich und mit Ziehung der notwendigen Konsequenzen heute naturwissenschaftlich denken kann, der muß sich fragen: Was bedeutet eigentlich das Eintreten der Naturerkenntnis in die moderne Menschheitsentwickelung?
Er kann eine befriedigende Auskunft über diese Frage nur erlangen, wenn er imstande ist, die Naturerkenntnis selber ihrem Wesen nach zu erforschen. Wer von vorneherein einfach auf dem Glauben fußt, daß die Naturwissenschaft das Um und Auf, das Eins und Alles in der Welterklärung ist, der kann nicht zu einer befriedigenden Antwort über diese Frage kommen. Nur wer imstande ist, sich zu fragen: Wie steht Naturwissenschaft zu der gesamten menschlichen Entwickelung? Wie steht sie zu den tiefsten Bedürfnissen und Fragestellungen, die aus der Seele des Menschen hervorquellen können? — nur der kann sich Aufklärung darüber geben, was Naturwissenschaft vermag.
Man muß gewissermaßen die Naturwissenschaft selber naturwissenschaftlich betrachten können. Und da darf man wohl darauf aufmerksam machen, daß ein Bedeutsames darin liegt, daß gerade auch schon bedeutende Denker, die sich mit dieser Frage befaßt haben, doch darauf gekommen sind, daß die Naturwissenschaft gewissermaßen naturgemäße Grenzen hat, Grenzen, von denen wir ja im ersten Vortrage gesprochen haben, die aber von dem denkenden Menschen der Gegenwart schon so gefühlt werden, daß, wenn die Leute einen Überblick sich verschaffen über dasjenige, was die Naturwissenschaft in ihren verschiedenen Gebieten verzeichnet, sie sich dann sagen müssen: Mit all diesen Vorstellungen, mit all diesen Begriffen, die uns die Naturwissenschaft verschafft auf Grundlage einer so strengen methodischen Forschung, wie wir sie haben, mit all diesen Begriffen, gerade wenn wir sie recht streng anschauen, kommen wir doch eigentlich in das nicht hinein, in das hineinzukommen wir ein natürliches Erkenntnisbedürfnis in unserer Seele tragen. Man fühlt gewissermaßen, daß die Naturwissenschaft zwar da ist, nicht anders sein kann, als sie ist — selbstverständlich von Irrtümern und Ausnahmen abgesehen -, aber daß sie gerade, wenn sie ihr Ideal erfüllt, nicht das tiefste Erkenntnisbedürfnis des Menschen auch gegenüber der Natur selber befriedigen kann.
Ich möchte dasjenige, was empfunden wird, in der folgenden paradoxen Weise aussprechen. Die Leute sind ja darüber sich einig geworden - so ist die Entwickelung gegangen in der neueren Zeit —, daß die Vorfahren auf einer kindlichen Stufe des Erkennens standen, bis eben die neuere Naturwissenschaft eine Änderung gebracht hat. Die Alten haben aus einer mehr oder weniger phantasteähnlichen Seelenbeschaffenheit heraus sich Vorstellungen auch über die Natur gebildet, Vorstellungen, die allerlei Geistiges in der Natur vermuteten, die allerlei Geistiges in der Natur sich auch begrifflich veranschaulichten. Man hat davon gesprochen, daß die Leute die Kräfte suchten, die hinter den Erscheinungen der Natur seien. Allein in ihren kindlichen Vorstellungen fanden diese Alten nicht Naturkräfte, sondern nur Naturgespenster. Und man sah wirklich, indem man stolz ist auf die Errungenschaften der neueren Naturwissenschaft, mit einem gewissen Hochmut zurück auf diese alten Denker, diese alten Erdenmenschen, die suchten, was hinter der sichtbaren Natur stecke. Und statt der wirklichen Naturkräfte, welche nun heute endlich gefunden werden, suchten diese Alten allerlei Gespenster, persönlich geartete Wesenheiten und dergleichen hinter den Naturerscheinungen, Wesenheiten, von denen man eben innerhalb des naturwissenschaftlichen Zeitalters sich nur die Vorstellungen bilden konnte, daß sie gar nichts zu tun haben mit der Naturordnung, daß sie hervorgehen aus einer menschlichen Seelenkraft, die eben nicht eindringen kann in die Wirklichkeit der Natur, und die sich daher von sich aus über diese Natur allerlei Vorstellungen macht.
Nun aber, nachdem dies, was ich jetzt gesagt habe, noch vor ganz kurzer Zeit eigentlich ein selbstverständliches Dogma für jeden naturwissenschaftlich Denkenden war, kommen heute doch schon einzelne Persönlichkeiten, und deren Anschauungen sind immerhin bemerkenswert, darauf: Ja, wenn wir nun wirklich unsere Naturbegriffe anschauen, wenn wir nicht in dem Vorurteil leben, wir begreifen mit den Naturbegriffen auch das Wesen der Natur, sondern wenn wir diese Naturbegriffe so nehmen, wie sie sind, und abwarten, wie sie sich zu dem stellen, was wir eigentlich erleben an der Natur, wenn wir den vollen Menschen, nicht bloß unseren Verstand und unsere Experimentierkunst wirken lassen, dann verhalten sich diese naturwissenschaftlichen Vorstellungen einer unbefangenen Einsicht gegenüber doch so wie die alten Gespenster. Die naturwissenschaftlichen Vorstellungen haben etwas sehr Gespenstisches. — Es gibt heute doch schon so vorurteilslose Leute, die sagen: Die Alten haben aus ihrer Seelenverfassung heraus sich Gespenster vorgestellt; aber wir tun schließlich, gerade wenn wir rechte Naturforscher sind, auch nichts anderes. Denn das, was wir glauben in unseren Köpfen zu tragen als Vorstellungen über die Natur, ist in demselben Grade unwirklich gegenüber der Natur, wie die alten Gespenster unwirklich geglaubt wurden von der Naturwissenschaft.
Diese Einsicht hat etwas sehr Berechtigtes. Und man findet die Berechtigung, wenn man sich frägt: Ja, wie kommt der Mensch eigentlich zur Naturerkenntnis? Zuerst steht der Mensch ja nicht erkennend, sondern höchstens beobachtend der Natur gegenüber. Und indem er die Natur beobachtet, tritt sie ihm allerdings in einer ganz anderen Lebendigkeit entgegen, als dann das Bild lebendig ist, das er sich machen kann in seinen naturwissenschaftlichen Vorstellungen. Wenn wir mit Augen und Ohren, wenn wir als ganzer Mensch, aber auch mit unserem Verstande der Natur gegenüberstehen und nicht bloß denken in Naturgesetzen und experimentieren im Laboratorium, wenn wir eben der Natur, so wie sie sich uns darstellt, beobachtend und die Beobachtungen denkend durcharbeitend gegenüberstehen, dann leben wir mit der Natur. Aber indem wir beginnen über die Natur zu forschen, können wir nicht das Leben aus der Natur mitnehmen. Und weil wir das Leben nicht mitnehmen können, weil wir lebendig als eins mit der Natur nur im unmittelbar erlebenden Beobachten stehen, so machen wir eigentlich die Natur, indem wir sie durch die Naturwissenschaft zu erfassen, gleichsam in uns einzusaugen versuchen, wir machen die Natur ärmer. Und wenn wir richtig naturwissenschaftlich erkennen wollen, machen wir sie eben in unserem Naturerkennen zum Gespenst. Das ist einfach eine Tatsache, die sich ebenso der Beobachtung ergibt, wie irgend etwas anderes sich der Beobachtung ergibt.
Es kommt nun allerdings gegenüber einer solchen Tatsache darauf an, daß man den Mut hat, sie sich zu gestehen. Was wird man tun, wenn man sich diese Tatsache gesteht: Wir kommen, indem wir die Natur erkennen, eigentlich zu einer Art von Auffassung, die unser erkennendes Bild von der Natur als Gespenst nimmt. — Man kommt dazu, sich diese Wahrheit wirklich vor die Seele zu legen und sich zu sagen: Also ist Naturerkenntnis etwas, was ins Gespenstische hinführt. — Und im erkennenden Wechselverkehr des Menschen mit der Natur auf naturwissenschaftliche Art verhält sich der Mensch so, daß er, wenn er sich von der Natur, von der Naturbeobachtung entfernt, ein Gespenst der Natur nährt.
Es gibt eine Persönlichkeit der neueren Menschheitsentwickelung, die nicht so offen, dafür aber nicht so paradox dasjenige ausgesprochen hat, was ich eben jetzt ausgesprochen habe, die es aber tief empfunden hat — und das ist Goethe. Weil Goethe in seinem Zeitalter schon zu stehen wußte in dieser mit sich selbst im Einklange sich befindlichen Weise zur Natur, deshalb wurde er auch nicht verstanden, für einen Dilettanten gehalten auf dem Naturforschergebiete. Man hat heute noch alle Mühe - ich darf es sagen, weil ich mich seit Jahrzehnten bemühe, einiges Verständnis für Goethe in unserer Zeitgenossenschaft nach dieser Richtung hin zu erwecken -, Goethes Art der Naturanschauung zum Verständnisse zu bringen.
Was ist diese Art? Diese Art, die immer mehr und mehr wird ausgebildet werden, die — mag sein, bei Goethe noch dilettantisch, unvollkommen -, die aber weiter ausgebildet, echt wissenschaftlich ausgebildet werden muß, die dann zur wahren Naturerkenntnis auf allen Gebieten führen kann, was ist diese Art? Diese Art besteht darin, daß man dem menschlichen Erkennen, insoferne es sich von der Natur entfernt, dem bloßen Nachdenken, von dem ich auch schon die vorige Woche sprach von einem anderen Gesichtspunkte aus, so sich nähern kann, daß man dieses Nachdenken nicht nur dazu verwendet, um der Natur Gelegenheit zu geben, ihre gespenstische Wesenheit vor die menschliche Seele zu stellen. Goethe strebte nicht nach Naturgesetzen, die immer Abstraktionen sind, die immer etwas Totes sind gegenüber der lebendigen Natur. Goethe strebte nach reinen Erscheinungen, wie er es nannte: Urphänomenen. Er strebte dahin, das menschliche Denken nicht so zu verwenden, als ob es von sich aus Aufklärungen geben sollte über die Natur, als ob es solche Gesetze finden sollte wie die Gesetze von der Erhaltung der Kraft oder des Stoffes, die rein ausgedacht sind; sondern Goethe strebte danach, den Gedanken dazu zu verwenden, die Erscheinungen so zusammenzustellen, daß nichts mehr vom Menschen selbst durch diese Naturerscheinungen spricht, sondern daß die Erscheinungen rein durch sich selbst sprechen.
Wenn wir jetzt aus dem Instinktiven, das der Gedanke bei Goethe hatte, herausgehen zu einem vollbewußten, besonnenen Erfassen, wohin kommen wir hier? Da kommen wir dahin, die Frage so zu beantworten, wie sie nur die übersinnliche Erkenntnis beantworten kann. Wir kommen dahin, zu fragen: Ja, was liegt eigentlich vor in dem, was wir in der Natur beobachten, wenn wir mit unseren Sinnen beobachten? — Es liegt dasjenige vor, was in der angedeuteten Art ein Gespenst ist, ein Gespenstischbilden. Das ist natürlich schon in der Natur enthalten, denn wir saugen es aus ihr heraus. Aber was ist noch in der Natur enthalten, außer dem, wenn wir mit ihr durch unsere Augen und Ohren in lebendigem Verkehr stehen, wenn wir uns unmittelbar den sinnenfälligen Eindrücken hingeben?
Wer in dieser Weise, wie wir in der vorigen Woche hier angedeutet haben, auf der einen Seite das Vorstellungsvermögen, auf der anderen Seite das Willensvermögen bis zur übersinnlichen Erkenntnis schult, der kommt dahin, sich zu sagen: In dem Sinnenfälligen, wie es uns umgibt, ist schon, soweit es die Natur betrifft, das Übersinnliche drinnen. —Nur, auf dem Wege der Naturerkenntnis lassen wir das Übersinnliche weg und müssen es weglassen. Warum? Weil wir Menschen, insofern wir zwischen Geburt und Tod hier im physischen Leibe so organisiert sind, wie wir eben sind, dasjenige, was unser Geistig-Ewiges ist, selbst in einen sinnenfälligen Leib verwandelt haben. Wir sind nicht dadurch Mensch, daß wir in einem Hause des Übersinnlichen, das in uns als Ewiges lebt, wohnen, sondern wir sind dadurch Menschen, daß, indem wir eingetreten sind aus einer übersinnlichen Welt durch die Geburt oder die Empfängnis in das Sinnliche, das Übersinnliche, das vorher im rein Geistigen gelebt hat, sich umgewandelt hat in einen sinnlichen Leib, der zwischen Geburt und Tod als Sinnliches sich auslebt und der durch den Tod wiederum in das Übersinnliche eingeht, wie ich das im vorigen Vortrage auseinandergesetzt habe.
Dadurch, daß wir selbst als Menschen sinnlich organisiert sind, muß dasjenige, was seinen Weg durch uns macht, die Naturbeobachtung, wenn sie Naturerkenntnis wird, sich vom Übersinnlichen entfernen. Und so kommt man durch eine wirklich übersinnliche Betrachtung auf folgendes. Man kommt darauf, einzusehen: wenn wir der Natur in ihrer bunten Mannigfaltigkeit des Lichtes und der Farben, in ihren Tönen, in allen ihren anderen sinnenfälligen Erscheinungen gegenüberstehen, dann offenbart sich ungetrennt ein Übersinnliches mit einem Sinnlichen, Übersinnliches im Sinnlichen. Insofern wir aber als Menschen betrachtend, erklärend an die Natur herantreten, können wir nur dasjenige aus der Natur entnehmen, was wir Menschen — die wir sinnliche Wesen sind und die der Sinnlichkeit angehören zwischen Geburt und Tod, nicht dem Übersinnlichen, das sich im Sinnlichen offenbart - in uns verarbeiten können. Weil wir so organisierte Menschen sind, machen wir durch unsere eigene sinnliche Natur dasjenige, was wir als Naturwissenschaft ausbilden, zu einem bloßen Bilde des Sinnlichen, was ein Gespenst sein muß, weil in dem, was uns als Natur umgibt, zugleich das Übersinnliche drinnen enthalten ist.
Daher gelangt derjenige, der wirklich auf die Art, wie Sie sie auch angegeben finden können in der «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» oder in «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?», sich in die Fähigkeit versetzt, Übersinnliches zu beobachten, dazu, sich zu sagen: Im Weltenall, dem man gegenübersteht, ist überall Übersinnliches enthalten. Und gehen wir über das Gespenst hinaus, das wir uns selbst in dem Bilde über die Natur machen müssen, so kommen wir nicht zu toten Atomen, kommen wir nicht zu Kraft und Stoff, sondern wir kommen zu übersinnlich Geistigem. Dieses Übersinnlich-Geistige kann und muß einen übersinnlichen Erkenntnisweg zu erkennen uns möglich machen.
Wer Einsicht erhält in das Verhältnis des Menschen zu der ihn umgebenden Natur, sucht nicht nach toten Atomen, nicht nach Molekülen, nicht nach einem Übersinnlich-Sinnlichen, sondern nach dem wirklichen Übersinnlichen. Und dann findet man, wenn man übersinnlich forscht, nicht materielle Unterlagen desjenigen, was uns in Farben und Tönen umgibt, sondern man findet geistige Wesenheiten, übersinnliche Wesenheiten, die überall in der Natur enthalten sind. So daß die Naturwissenschaft, richtig aufgefaßt, gerade wenn sie rein die Erscheinungen im Goetheschen Sinne vor die Seele hinstellen will, dann in bezug auf das, was jenseits der Erscheinungen liegt, nicht Totes, sondern Lebendig-Geistiges wird. Gerade wenn man ehrlich und konsequent mit der Naturforschung zu Werke geht, wenn man nicht durch den Verstand oder durch die Experimentierkunst glaubt, über die Natur etwas ausmachen zu können, sondern wenn man weiß, daß man nichts anderes kann, als die Natur bis zur Erscheinung zu treiben, wo sie sich selbst ausspricht, dann weiß man, daß man mit diesen Erscheinungen, mit dem, was Goethe Urphänomene nennt, unmittelbar vor dem Übersinnlichen steht, daß man dann nicht nötig hat, aus Gesetzen der Kraft und des Stoffes heraus zu erklären, sondern daß man dann in die Notwendigkeit versetzt ist, aus Geistigem heraus zu erklären. Dies gibt im Grunde eine wirklich kritische, unbefangene Betrachtung, ich möchte sagen eine naturwissenschaftliche Betrachtung des Naturerkennens selbst.
Wie verhält sich dazu nun die Geisteswissenschaft, die übersinnliche Erkenntnisse von sich aus will? Wenn Sie den Weg ins übersinnliche Erkennen nehmen, wie ich es Ihnen in der vorigen Woche charakterisiert habe, so werden Sie sich sagen: Wenn der Mensch durch jene Umwandlungen des Vorstellungsvermögens, des Willensvermögens wirklich dahin gelangt, das Übersinnliche so zu schauen, wie man durch Augen die Farben schaut, durch Ohren die Töne hört, wenn der Mensch dieses Übersinnliche so schaut, wie er sonst im gewöhnlichen Leben das Sinnliche schaut, dann ist dieser Übergang zum übersinnlichen Schauen wahrhaftig im Seelenerleben wie ein Aufwachen. Und dieses Erleben macht auch wirklich derjenige durch, der ein Geistesforscher ist. Man kann sagen: Wie im gewöhnlichen Erleben der Mensch aufwacht vom Schlafe oder Traumesleben und weiß, daß er während des Schlafes und Traumeslebens bloß in Bildern gelebt hat, und dann übergeht dadurch, daß er seinen Willen mit der äußeren Wirklichkeit in Verbindung zu stellen weiß, zu einer Welt, die er wirklich nennt gegenüber der Bilderwelt des Traumes, so wacht aus der Welt, in der wir sonst im gewöhnlichen wachenden Zustande sind, der Geist-Erkenner, derjenige, der bis zur übersinnlichen Forschung dringt, auf, indem er eine andere Welt vor sich hat, die sich zu der gewöhnlichen Sinneswelt verhält, wie sich die gewöhnliche Sinneswelt zu der Bilderwelt des Traumes verhält. Es ist ein Aufwachen. Dieses Aufwachen kann in der Seele erlebt werden.
Dann wiederum werden diejenigen Erscheinungen, die wir in der Welt ringsherum um uns haben, eben zu Bildern in bezug auf die höhere, übersinnliche Welt, wie die Traumbilder bei gesundem Denken als Bilder genommen werden von dem, was man in der Sinnenwelt hat. Ich möchte an einem Beispiel andeuten, wie sich für den Geist-Erkenner die gewöhnliche Welt des Sinnlichen in eine Bilderwelt verwandelt. Man muß diese Dinge nur richtig verstehen, nicht irgendwie mystisch träumen, und nicht ins Nebulose kommen.
Die gewöhnliche Naturwissenschaft betrachtet selbstverständlich den Menschen, indem sie gewissermaßen gleichwertig nebeneinandersetzt das Haupt, den Rumpf, die Gliedmaßen, die Extremitäten — mit dem, meine ich jetzt, was sich nach innen fortsetzt, wo zu den Gliedmaßen dann in morphologischer Denkungsweise auch alles Sexuelle gehört. Für das gewöhnliche Anschauen sind diese drei Glieder der menschlichen Natur etwas, ich möchte sagen, Absolutes, etwas Gleichwertiges. Vor der Geistesanschauung wird der Mensch, indem er als Sinneswesen vor uns steht, Bild seiner höheren, übersinnlichen Wesenheit, wie das gewöhnliche Tageserlebnis zum Bilde wird, wenn wir davon träumen. Dann aber wird auch die Menschenerkenntnis dadurch, daß der Mensch bezogen wird auf seine ewige übersinnliche Wesenheit, eine andere werden.
Indem man das Erkennen mit der Bildnatur durchdringt, vorstellend, wird das ganze Erkennen des Menschen anders. Dann bleiben nicht mehr das Haupt — wenn ich nur auf diese zwei Glieder der Menschennatur Rücksicht nehmen will - und die Extremitätennatur gleichwertig, sondern dann sieht man in der Hauptesgestalt, wenn man sie genau studiert, dasjenige, was in seiner Formung dem vergangenen geistigen Leben nachgebildet ist, bevor der Mensch in die Sinneswelt eingetreten ist. Und in demjenigen, was Extremitätennatur ist, sieht man dasjenige, was vorgebildet ist — jetzt noch embryonal, was aber sich ausbilden wird in dem, was aus dem Menschen wird in der Zukunft, vor allen Dingen dann wird, wenn er in die übersinnliche Welt durch die Pforte des Todes eintritt. Es mag heute noch paradox klingen, allein das ist dasjenige, was in einer wirklich geisteswissenschaftlichen Auffassung aus der Goetheschen Metamorphosenlehre hervorgehen wird.
Goethe betrachtete die einzelne Form der Pflanze, die einzelne Form am Tier und Menschen in ihrer Verwandlung, wie sie Bilder sind einer Grundgestalt. Eine umfassende geistige Metamorphosenlehre wird betrachten das Haupt als eine Metamorphose der Extremitäten des Menschen, aber so, daß sie das eine auf die Vergangenheit, das andere auf die Zukunft bezieht. Dann wird der Mensch selbst in seiner äußeren Konfiguration Bild desjenigen, was er im Geistigen ist. Und so wird alles Bild des Übersinnlichen, wie der Traum Bild wird, wenn wir uns in den Schlaf begeben. Was der Mensch im Übersinnlichen ist, wird während seiner Anwesenheit im Sinnlichen, während er darinnen wacht, Bild des Übersinnlichen, wie das Sinnliche Bild wird, wenn er in den Schlaf sinkt. Diese Erkenntnis ist ein unmittelbares, ich darf sagen empirisches Ergebnis der übersinnlichen Erfahrung.
Und nun vergleichen wir, was diese übersinnliche Erkenntnis aus sich selbst heraus, also als Anschauung über die Welt gewinnt, selbst über die Natur des Menschen, wenn sie Naturerkenntnis des Menschen anstrebt: Der Mensch und alle Natur wird zum Bilde, das erst bezogen werden muß auf eine übersinnliche Wirklichkeit. Nun stimmt das nicht vollständig mit dem überein, was der Naturforscher heute, wenn er denkt, selber findet als eine letzte Konsequenz. Er findet, daß seine Naturerscheinung gespenstisch wird, zum Bilde wird. Die übersinnliche Erkenntnis zeigt, daß alles dasjenige, was wir im Sinnenfälligen wahrnehmen, Bild werden muß, daß es bezogen werden muß auf ein Übersinnliches. Kurz, es gibt nichts, was so sehr zusammenläuft in ein harmonisches Auffassen der Welt als dasjenige, was man findet, wenn man nicht ein dogmatisch gläubiger Naturwissenschafter der Gegenwart ist, sondern ein denkender Naturwissenschafter, der seine Naturwissenschaft selber naturwissenschaftlich beobachten kann, der dann mit dem übereinstimmt, was der Geistesforscher über die Natur sagen muß, insoferne sie sich uns in der Beobachtung darbietet.
Das ist dasjenige, was kommen muß in die Menschheit hinein: daß die Menschen sich in die Lage versetzen, wirklich zu sehen, wie der Weg ins Übersinnliche und der denkerisch durchdrungene Weg ins Sinnliche zusammenlaufen; denn daraus erst wird sich ein totales Bild der Welt ergeben, welches uns nicht zum bloßen Besitzer eines gespenstischen Abbildes der Natur macht, sondern erkennen läßt, uns gestehen läßt, daß wir mit der gewöhnlichen Naturerklärung ein solches Gespenstisches haben schaffen müssen, uns aber zu gleicher Zeit zeigt, wie wir über dieses Naturbild hinaus ins Geistig-Übersinnliche hineindringen können. Dies ist die Stromrichtung, welche auch das naturwissenschaftliche Denken nehmen muß, um hinauszukommen über dasjenige, in das es sich selber notwendig, gerade wenn es sein Ideal erfüllt, hineinbringen muß. Es finden sich gewisse Widersprüche, indem man glaubt, man habe im Naturerkennen die Natur erfaßt, aber man hat eigentlich nur etwas erfaßt, mit dem man nicht hochmütig über die alten «Gespenster» hinwegblicken kann und was selbst nur ein Gespenst ist, hinter dem man die geistige Wirklichkeit suchen muß.
So steht Geist-Erkenntnis, wie sie hier gemeint ist, nicht in einem Widerspruch zu der Naturerkenntnis, sondern im Gegenteil: sie liefert der Naturerkenntnis dasjenige, was die Naturerkenntnis suchen muß, wenn sie sich selbst versteht; sie liefert, was unbewußt im Grunde genommen in jedem wahren Naturforscher als das Ziel seines Suchens enthalten ist; sie liefert das, was allein Befriedigung geben kann, während das bloße Naturforschen, gerade wenn es richtig betrieben wird, notwendig durch seine eigene Wesenheit ins Unbefriedigende hineinführen muß.
Wird man immer mehr und mehr den wahren Charakter der übersinnlichen Erkenntnis, die gerade aus der Naturwissenschaft hervorgegangen ist, erkennen, dann wird man finden, daß Naturwissenschaft in neuerem Sinne nur dann bestehen kann, wenn sie sich durch Geisteswissenschaft ergänzt. Die Naturwissenschaft selber muß verlangen nach dieser übersinnlichen Erkenntnis. Dann wird sie erst wahre Naturerkenntnis, das heißt, selbst ein Weg ins Übersinnliche hinein.
Ich wollte darüber nur diese Andeutungen geben. Man könnte viele Vorträge halten, die dann zeigen würden, daß der Gedanke der Naturwissenschaft selber Geisteswissenschaft fordert, wenn sie nicht ins Nichtige auslaufen will, wenn sie nicht in Mißverständnisse über ihr eigenes Forschen kommen will. Ich wollte nur zeigen, wie Naturwissenschaft selbst diese Geisteswissenschaft suchen muß. Naturwissenschaft hat große Triumphe gefeiert, hat Ungeheures im Erkenntnisweg der Menschheit geleistet; aber gerade wenn sie auf ihrem Wege fortschreiten wird, wird sie über sich hinausgelangen, wird sie in den Geist hineinführen.
Heute liegen die Dinge so, daß eigentlich nur der sich kritisch verhalten sollte zur Naturwissenschaft, der selber naturwissenschaftlich denken kann, der nicht, sei es durch Unkenntnis, sei es durch Antipathie, negativ zur Naturwissenschaft steht, sondern positiv zu ihr steht. Und wenn ich eine persönliche Bemerkung machen darf, die ich eben nur mache, da sie vielleicht mit Sachlichem zusammenhängt, so ist es diese: Man hat mir vielfach vorgeworfen, daß ich in der langen Reihe meiner Schriften auch solche habe, welche sich intensiv damit befassen, die Naturwissenschaft des 19. Jahrhunderts zu rechtfertigen, welche sich ganz, soweit man das mit naturwissenschaftlicher Denkungsweise kann, auf den Boden der Naturwissenschaft stellen. - Allein ich würde kein Wort über die Naturwissenschaft zu Ihnen zu sprechen haben und zu einem anderen Publikum in einer solchen Richtung, wie ich es heute gesprochen habe, wenn ich nicht darauf hinweisen könnte, daß ich es auch verstanden habe da, wo es darauf ankam, mich ganz positiv, zustimmend, insoweit die Zustimmung berechtigt ist, zur Naturwissenschaft zu verhalten. Ich glaube, daß nur derjenige über die Naturwissenschaft sprechen darf, der diese Naturwissenschaft kennt, und der ihre Errungenschaften zu würdigen weiß; während alles Gerede von sogenannten Mystikern oder Theosophen über die Naturwissenschaft, wenn sie die Naturwissenschaft nicht kennen, eben ein müßiges Gerede ist.
Damit glaube ich wenigstens in einigen Andeutungen über das erste Mißverständnis gesprochen zu haben, das sich gegenüber der hier gemeinten anthroposophisch orientierten Geisteswissenschaft von denjenigen ergibt, die über sie sprechen, ohne sie zu kennen.
Das zweite Mißverständnis ist dieses, daß man sehr häufig so etwas, was auf übersinnliche Erkenntnis geht, in dem angedeuteten Sinne für unpraktisch, für untauglich für das gewöhnliche Leben hält, und daß man das insbesondere in der Gegenwart als einen Tadel auffaßt, weil ja die Gegenwart genötigt ist, sich wirklich in vollstem Sinne des Wortes in das praktische Leben hineinzustürzen. Nun, nur von einer Seite wollen wir das, aber von einer sehr wichtigen Seite, ins Auge fassen, von seiten der Auffassung des sozialen Zusammenlebens der Menschheit. Wissenschaftliche und sonstige Betrachtungen des sozialen Zusammenlebens der Menschheit sind ja geradezu zur Devise, zum Losungswort der neueren Zeit geworden. Und auch dasjenige, was auf diesem Gebiete geschehen ist, steht im Grunde ganz in dem Lichte naturwissenschaftlicher Denkungsweise. Ich lege sogar wenig Wert darauf, daß sich diejenigen, die heute Soziologen sein wollen im rechten Sinne des Wortes zeitgemäß, die eine soziologische Wissenschaft begründen wollen, sich immer mehr und mehr bestreben, naturwissenschaftliche Vorstellungen und Begriffe herüberzunehmen aus der Naturwissenschaft und auf das menschliche soziale Zusammenleben anzuwenden. Darauf möchte ich sogar viel weniger Wert legen, weil Theorien für das wirklich praktische Leben - das zeigt insbesondere die übersinnliche Betrachtungsweise — eigentlich doch nur eine sehr geringe Bedeutung haben.
Was hat sich nicht Lassalle alles vorgestellt, als er jene Denkungsart in sich ausbildete, die er dann zusammenfaßte in seinem berühmten Vortrage «Die Wissenschaft und die Arbeiter». Er hatte das Ideal vor Augen, daß das menschliche Zusammenleben gerade durch den modernen Sozialismus aus dem Instinktiven ins Wissenschaftliche herübergetragen werden müsse, daß das Proletariat der neueren Zeit die Aufgabe habe, sich zu durchdringen mit der Wissenschaft, um dadurch gerade diese neuere Zeit herbeizuführen. Man hat dann gesehen, daß in einer anderen Art, bewußt so denkend, wie man in der Naturwissenschaft denkt, der Marxismus mit seiner materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung versuchte, aus einer Theorie heraus dasjenige zu begründen, was in die Gemüter übergehen sollte und was zu einer sozialen Gestaltung der Welt führen sollte.
Nun, diejenigen, die heute noch nicht sehen, nachdem die letzten vier Jahre über die Welt hingezogen sind, daß aus solchen Theorien heraus die menschlichen Gemüter sich sozial sehr wenig beinflussen lassen, die werden es in den nächsten Jahrzehnten eben zu sehen bekommen! Theorien kommen eigentlich wenig in Betracht, wenn das gemeint ist, was hier eigentlich gemeint sein soll: Soziales Zusammenleben und Gestaltung dieses sozialen Zusammenlebens aus den menschlichen Impulsen heraus im umfänglichsten Sinne. Es ist ja sehr viel drinnen in dem, was man zusammenfassen kann in das Wort: aus den menschlichen Impulsen heraus Gestaltung des sozialen Zusammenhanges.
Man könnte jetzt wiederum viel sprechen von all den Versuchen, die gemacht worden sind, mehr oder weniger utopisch, dieses soziale Zusammenleben eben in einer der neueren Menschheit würdigen Weise zu gestalten. Aber darauf lege ich weniger Wert. Viel mehr Wert möchte ich darauf legen, daß sich ja das Leben gestaltet hat, allerdings gestaltet hat bis zu dem, was wir nun als eine furchtbare Weltkatastrophe sich entwickeln sehen in den letzten vier Jahren. Und mindestens einen Teil der Ursachen, die zu dieser furchtbaren Weltkatastrophe geführt haben, haben wir zu suchen in dem realen Widerspruch und Widerstreit der Impulse, in die sich das soziale Leben der Menschheit über die Erde hin hineingetrieben hat.
Mit Recht hat man darauf aufmerksam gemacht, daß die Menschheit in früheren Zeiten — es ist das dieselbe Zeit, in der man noch nicht im modernen Sinne so naturwissenschaftlich gedacht hat, wie ich es in diesem Vortrage charakterisiert habe — korporativ gelebt hat; Gilden, Zünfte, Zusammengehörigkeiten in der mannigfaltigsten Art waren da.
Dann kam das Zeitalter des modernen Individualismus mit seinem Ideale der menschlichen Freiheit. Man glaubte, diesem Ideale der menschlichen Freiheit, diesem Impuls des Individualismus schuldig zu sein, nach und nach die alten Korporationen aufzulösen. Und wer die Geschichte verfolgt, findet ja, wie diese Korporationen dann allmählich aufgelöst wurden. Man sah dann den weiteren Verlauf des volkswirtschaftlichen Lebens, und man sah, wie im Laufe der letzten Zeiten die Korporationen wieder ins Leben getreten sind. Ich will und kann mich nicht auf Einzelheiten einlassen, sonst müßte man Schritt für Schritt zeigen, wie auf der einen Seite korporative Gesellschaften oder Genossenschaften wie die Konsumentengenossenschaften entstanden, müßte zeigen, wie zum Teil durch Fortschleppen, durch Wiederaufleben der alten Gemeinschaftlichkeit die Menschen versuchten, mit dem Leben zurechtzukommen. Die alten Korporationen sind nicht wieder entstanden; aber bis zu den Trustbildungen hin sind neue Korporationen entstanden und durchziehen unsere soziale Struktur. Auf diese praktische Gestaltung des sozialen Lebens, wie es sich herausgebildet hat, nicht auf die Theorien, die die Menschen darüber ausgedacht haben, möchte ich viel mehr Wert legen.
Aber wie sich das alles gestaltet hat, auch wenn man Rücksicht nehmen muß auf die verschiedensten Interessenkräfte, auf andere Impulse des modernen Lebens, so muß man doch sagen: herausentwickelt hat sich die moderne Korporation auf verschiedensten Gebieten; erhalten hat sich dasjenige, was fortgeschleppt wird aus älteren Zeiten dadurch, daß es doch menschlichen Instinkten und menschlichen Willensimpulsen entspricht. Und in dem, wie man die Welt gestaltet hat — darauf lege ich Wert, nicht wie man darüber gedacht hat, sondern wie man die Welt gestaltet hat, wie man die Gemeinschaften gebildet hat, wie man Mensch zu Mensch, wenn auch unbewußt, gegliedert hat -—, in dem liegt als innerster Impuls wiederum das naturwissenschaftliche Denken der neueren Zeit, aber in einer ganz besonderen Weise.
Sieht man verständnisvoll zurück auf dasjenige, was früher die Menschen, als sie in Zünften, in Gilden gelebt haben - ich verteidige dieses selbstverständlich nicht und weiß, daß sie mit Recht abgeschafft worden sind -, sieht man auf das zurück, was die Menschen damals zusammengeführt hat und wie sie in diesen Gemeinschaften gelebt haben, dann merkt man einen beträchtlichen Unterschied von dem, was sie heute zusammenführt. Ein ganz hervorragendes Kennzeichen — jeder Kenner muß das zugestehen — der alten Gemeinschaften ist das, daß sich die Menschen sowohl innerhalb derselben als auch von Gemeinschaft zu Gemeinschaft verstanden haben. Selbstverständlich geschieht alles in der Welt nur bis zu einem gewissen Grade; aber verstanden haben sich die Menschen. Lehrmeister und Gesellen haben sich verstanden, indem der Lehrmeister wußte, wie es in der Seele des Gesellen aussah. Positiv verhielten sie sich zueinander. Warum? Weil in diesen Instinkten, aus den Willensimpulsen, aus denen diese Gemeinschaften entstanden sind, noch Geistig-Seelisches war, Geistig-Seelisches, das mit dem Körperlichen verbunden war.
Dasselbe, was in älteren Zeiten machte, daß man mit den Vorstellungen, die man hatte, nicht nur die Natur anschauen konnte, sondern auch die Seele anschauen konnte, dieselben Vorstellungen, die instinktiv, unbewußt in den Menschen lebten und die aus Natur und Seelenleben eine Einheit machten, die lebten auch in den Instinkten, und die machten, daß man durch das Blut zusammenhing als Sohn zum Vater, als Tochter zur Mutter, oder als Angehöriger einer Nation oder als Angehöriger einer Zunft - wenn man durch das Blut zusammenhing oder durch irgendein anderes Interesse —, das machte, daß man aus den Instinkten heraus, denen aber geistig-seelische Impulse eingeboren waren, die Gemeinschaft forderte.
Nun kam das naturwissenschaftliche Kulturdenken. Die neuere Zeit ist nicht durch irgend etwas anderes in ihrer eigentlichen Struktur in bezug auf den Menschen gestaltet worden als gerade durch das naturwissenschaftliche Denken. Dadurch, daß der Mensch zu einem Naturdenken kam, welches die Erscheinungen, selbst wenn er es sich nicht gestand, so hinstellt, daß sie als gespenstischer Inhalt nichts mehr mit ihm zu tun haben, dadurch steht der Mensch auf sich selbst gestellt. Der alte Mensch war mit der Natur zusammen. Draußen erschien der Blitz, donnerte es, aus der Wolke fiel Regen: der alte Mensch sah darinnen die Äußerung einer Naturkraft. Innen verspürte er diesen oder jenen Trieb. Er sah diese Triebe instinktiv als ein Gleichnis einer solchen Naturkraft an. Er handelte gewissermaßen aus der Natur heraus, weil er sich durch die besondere Artung der genannten Naturerkenntnis noch nicht aus der Natur herausgestellt hatte.
In den letzten Jahrhunderten wurde der Mensch gerade dadurch, daß er zur reinen Naturerscheinung vordrang, aus der Natur herausgestellt. Die Naturerkenntnis bekommt dadurch erst ihre rechte Aufgabe, ihre rechte Mission im Entwickelungsgange der Menschheit, daß sie nicht absolute Erkenntnisse liefert, wie man heute noch abergläubisch meint — naturwissenschaftlich abergläubisch -, sondern daß sie die Menschen frei macht. Dann erst versteht man die Mission der Naturwissenschaft im Entwickelungsgange der Menschheit, wenn man die Natur als eine Erzieherin zur Freiheit auffaßt.
Dadurch, daß der Mensch die Naturerscheinungen in der neueren Naturwissenschaft aussondern muß, daß er sich entfernt von der Natur, dadurch wird er als Persönlichkeit auf sich gestellt. Dadurch aber war er zunächst, bevor er nun wiederum auf jenem übersinnlichen Weg, den ich angedeutet habe, zur übersinnlichen Welt kam, um sich wieder in die Welt hineinzustellen — wie er früher natürlich drinnengestanden war, so jetzt übersinnlich —, bevor er zu diesem Weg kam, den er nunmehr gegen die Zukunft hin zu beschreiten haben wird, war der Mensch gewissermaßen rein auf die Spitze seiner Persönlichkeit gestellt. Die Naturwissenschaft hat ihn auf die Spitze der Persönlichkeit gestellt. Die Naturwissenschaft hat die ganze Seelenverfassung bestimmt. Sie hatte seine Instinkte eingenommen. Dadurch stehen sich die modernen Menschen nicht so wie die alten Menschen als Bluts- oder Zunftverwandte, sondern sie stehen sich als Individualitäten, als Persönlichkeiten gegenüber. Sie müssen aus der Freiheit heraus ihre Vereinigungen, ihre sozialen Gemeinschaften suchen. Und sie haben sie daher zunächst nur aus Instinkten gefunden, aber aus Instinkten, die etwas Widerspruchsvolles haben, weil die Zeit der Instinkte vorüber ist, weil der Mensch auf der einen Seite nicht mehr instinktiv denken kann, sondern bewußt denken muß unter der Erziehung der Naturwissenschaft. Und auf der anderen Seite hatte der Mensch noch nicht die Möglichkeit, sich wieder durch übersinnliche Erkenntnis in die Welt hineinzustellen. Daher stellte er sich hinein in eine neue Welt, über die er dachte, und in die alte Welt so, wie er nicht mehr über sie dachte. Die alten Instinkte pflanzte er fort in die Welt, die ihm durch das moderne naturwissenschaftliche Denken gar nicht mehr vor der Seele lag. Dadurch kam, wenn man tiefer seelisch erfaßt, was durch die neuere Menschheit weht, jener klaffende Widerspruch in das moderne soziale Leben hinein.
Mit unzulänglichen Mitteln ist der Sozialismus, der gewiß ein Ideal der Menschheit ist, begründet worden. Warum? Die Naturerkenntnis stellt den Menschen nicht in die Welt hinein; sie sondert ihn als Persönlichkeit ab, sie macht das Bewußtsein der Persönlichkeit immer größer und größer. Daher kann er nur aus seinen selbstischen Instinkten heraus Gemeinschaften bilden. Sein Denken unterscheidet sich von dem, was er als Gemeinschaften aus Instinkten heraus bildet. Eine Disharmonie tritt auf und die Folge davon ist, daß eine disharmonische soziale Ordnung entstehen muß, wenn man bloß die Naturwissenschaft hat und bloß naturwissenschaftliche Begriffe anwendet auf die Gestaltung des sozialen Lebens, daß ein Widerspruch entstehen muß, ein innerlicher, lebendiger Widerspruch, der so lange bestehen wird, bis die Menschheit sich dazu entschließt, sich zu sagen: Gerade das moderne Leben muß, wenn es soziale Ordnung begründen will, Disharmonien schaffen, wenn es nicht einführt übersinnliche Erkenntnis in das soziale Zusammenleben, übersinnliches Empfinden und Wollen. — Solange man nicht von Mensch zu Mensch einander so gegenübersteht, daß man in dem anderen Menschen das Bild, die Erscheinung des unsterblichen Menschen sieht, solange man nicht in jedem Menschen, wenn man mit ihm in sozialem Zusammenhange lebt, zwar ein individuelles Wesen sieht, aber ein solches Wesen, das der Ausdruck ist einer übersinnlichen Wesenheit, solange man das, was der Soziologie und dem sozialen Impulse aus der Naturwissenschaft zuwachsen kann, nicht ergänzen will durch dasjenige, was man aus geistigem Erkennen gewinnt, so lange wird man mit dem modernen sozialen Denken, aber hauptsächlich mit der modernen sozialen Gestaltung, mit dem praktischen Auslegen der Begriffe in ein solches Leben hineinkommen, das sich selber auflösen muß, das zu Streit und Disharmonie führen muß.
Wer diesen inneren Zusammenhang versteht, der weiß, welchen Anteil an den vier letzten Jahren dasjenige hat, was ich eben jetzt angedeutet habe. Nicht, als ob ich behaupte, daß es allein schuld wäre, aber es hat einen ganz. wesentlichen Anteil, einen ungeheuer wesentlichen Anteil daran. Derjenige, welcher Sozialismus wünscht und will, ehrlich will, der muß die Menschheit zu Begriffen führen, die nicht bloß naturwissenschaftlich sind, weil im Leben von Mensch zu Mensch anderes lebt, anderes west, als was im Naturwissenschaftlichen zu erfassen ist.
Naturwissenschaft zeigt das dadurch, daß sie ein bestimmtes Ideal hat, und dieses bestimmte Ideal ist wiederum berechtigt. Die Naturwissenschaft strebt immer mehr und mehr zu dem Experiment hin, sie geht mehr und mehr von der bloßen Beschreibung und von der Beobachtung ab. Was ist dasExperiment? Das Experiment ist zunächst etwas, was zusammengestellt ist von unserem Verstande, der gerade wegführt von der Natur, der — wie ich in dem Vortrag der vorigen Woche gezeigt habe - in das Nichts eines Menschen hineinführt. Was wir im Experiment darstellen, hat im Grunde genommen nur scheinbar mit dem Leben der Natur zu tun. In Wahrheit hat es mit dem zu tun, was in der Natur erstirbt. Das zeigt sich, wenn man dasjenige, was durch experimentelle Denkweise gewonnen ist, anwenden will auf die Konfiguration des sozialen Lebens. Wer rein naturwissenschaftliche Begriffe, die ganz redliche, ehrliche, gerade ideal naturwissenschaftliche Begriffe sind, in das soziale Leben einführen will, der führt solches ins Leben ein, das nicht zum Aufstieg, zum Leben führt, sondern zum sozialen Tode führt. Und erfahren müßte die Menschheit, wenn sie nicht Übersinnliches zu dem Naturwissenschaftlichen einführen will in das soziale Leben, daß mit allem sozialen Wollen, mit allem Sozialismus nur Ordnungen geschaffen würden, die Unordnungen sind, die Verfall sind.
Derjenige Sozialismus, der die Menschen vom Übersinnlichen wegführt, wird soziale Strukturen der Zerstörung schaffen, soziale Strukturen des Hinwegführens, und er kann höchstens nur so weit kommen, daß er Altes benützt, um seine verfallenen Gedanken zu realisieren. Denn was ist im Grunde genommen bisher, nicht durch soziale Theorien, sondern durch den praktischen Sozialismus geschehen? Hat er sich wirklich als Weltgestalter radikal gefühlt? Dann würde er sich nicht in die alten Formen hinein bequemt haben, was er bis heute tut! So in den alten Formen kommt er einem vor wie jemand, der die Krinoline verpönt, aber sie nicht zu überwinden sucht, sondern sie auswattiert. So auch sehen wir, daß in dem sozialen Denken der neueren Zeit die alten Formen beibehalten werden, auswattiert werden. Denn was wollen die meisten Führer des neueren Sozialismus? Dort die Macht erlangen, wo andere die Macht erlangt haben, nicht gestalten, sondern umtauschen die Macht.
Das ist, ich möchte sagen, nur von einer anderen Seite auch ein experimenteller Beweis dafür, daß man von Sozialismus nur sprechen kann, wenn man gleichzeitig den Willen hat, die Menschen zum Übersinnlichen hinzuführen, zu denjenigen Impulsen, die man der modernen Menschheit geben muß, wenn sie aus der Neigung zu Katastrophen, in die rein naturwissenschaftliche Impulse sie geführt haben, herauskommen will. Diese Impulse müssen gerade im sozialen Leben übersinnliche sein.
Wahrhaftig, Geisteswissenschaft ist auf diesem Gebiete nicht unpraktisch. Sie kann vorläufig in vielen Beziehungen nur ihr Bedauern darüber aussprechen, daß es viele Menschen gibt, die sich so recht praktisch, so furchtbar praktisch vorkommen, daß sie sich die Finger ablecken möchten über ihre eigene Lebenspraxis, und die verachtungsvoll hinschauen auf die unpraktischen Leute, die aus Ideen heraus, aus dem Geiste heraus irgend etwas in die Welt einführen möchten! Nun, man kennt ja diese Seite der Philistrosität, die sich heute aufspielt gerade als die große Lebenspraxis, und die in brutaler Weise alles das abweist, was aus dem Geiste heraus kommen soll. Ins Absurde, ins Unmögliche wird sich diese Lebenspraxis hineinführen. Denn allein dasjenige ist praktisch, was auf die ganze, nicht auf die halbe oder Viertelswirklichkeit geht. Wer einen Hufeisenmagneten vor sich hat und, wenn ihm der andere sagt: Du, das kannst du benützen, das zieht anderes Eisen an, das ist ein Magnet -, ihm antwortet: Ach was, ich erkenne doch aus dieser Form nur ein Hufeisen, um ein Pferd damit zu beschlagen -, der gleicht dem, der das soziale Leben nur nach den Begriffen, die das Übersinnliche meiden, ordnen will. Derjenige aber, der da weiß, daß zur wahren Lebenspraxis die ganze Wirklichkeit gehört und damit das Übersinnliche, der gleicht dem, der den Hufeisenmagneten nicht mißbraucht, um das Pferd damit zu beschlagen, sondern ihn als Magneten verwendet.
Damit habe ich das zweite Mißverständnis besprochen, von dem ich heute reden möchte, wiederum nur andeutungsweise. Das dritte betrifft das, was nun ganz ins Innere des Menschenlebens hineingeht, was zu tun hat mit dem, was dem Menschen in vieler Beziehung am allerheiligsten sein muß; es betrifft das religiöse Leben.
Nun, da sind allerdings sehr viele, namentlich solche, welche offizielle Vertreter oder auch nichtoffizielle Vertreter dieses oder jenes positiven Religionsbekenntnisses sind, solche, die wiederum, selbstverständlich ohne dem Autoritätsprinzip — sagt man heute höflich - nachzuhängen, diese anthroposophisch orientierte Geisteswissenschaft verlästern als etwas, was die Menschen in Irreligiosität führen werde, die ihnen ein scheinbares Geist-Erkennen geben will anstatt dasjenige, was unmittelbar dem Menschen jenen Weg zeigt, durch den er aus dem Wesen seiner Natur heraus in das Übersinnliche, Religiöse hineinkommen kann. Ich werde heute nicht — obwohl das sehr verlockend wäre, aber die Zeit drängt, und auch sonstiges ist dabei zu bedenken — über dieses oder jenes Religionsbekenntnis sprechen, sondern über das religiöse Empfinden als solches.
Wer die Geist-Erkenntnis, wie sie hier gemeint ist, ihrem wahren Wesen nach betrachtet, der wird, wie ich glaube, sehr bald daraufkommen können, daß sie ebensowenig, wie sie unpraktisch oder antisozial oder unnaturwissenschaftlich ist, ebensowenig irreligiös ist, ebensowenig geeignet, jemand von der Tiefe seiner religiösen Empfindung abzubringen. Denn, was ist denn nach dem Geiste der Ausführungen, die ich hier nun in diesen drei Vorträgen gemacht habe, gerade das Wesentliche der neueren, übersinnlichen Erkenntnis, wie sie durch die Anthroposophie angestrebt werden will?
Das Wesentliche ist, daß der Weg, der zur übersinnlichen Forschung führt, ins Unpersönliche münden muß. Bedenken Sie nur, wie radikal in der vorigen Woche darauf aufmerksam gemacht werden mußte, daß dasjenige, was der Mensch als Geistiges schaut, vor der Geburt oder nach dem Tode liegt, daß das Wesentliche des Lebens zwischen Geburt und Tod darin besteht, daß sich der Mensch in Materielles verwandelt hat. Und man kann sagen, gerade Geisteswissenschaft, die so hinführt durch die übersinnliche Erkenntnis zu dem wahren Unsterblichen, zu dem unwiderleglich Unsterblichen der menschlichen Seele, die kann in dieser Beziehung mit dem Materialismus sogar einverstanden sein. Sie weiß, daß das, was der Mensch materiell darlebt, eine Metamorphose, eine Umwandlung des Geistigen ist, und daß das Geistige seine Früchte daraus schöpft, daß es in den Abgrund des Materiellen geht und da gerade durch die Naturerkenntnis sich zur Freiheit entwickelt.
Aber das setzt nicht voraus, daß der Mensch aus dem Persönlichen, aus dem unmittelbaren Erleben hier im Leibe mit seiner Forschung ins Unpersönliche hineinmündet. Wenn man etwas übersinnlich erkennen will, setzt es eine Seelenverfassung voraus, die immer mehr und mehr geistig ins Unpersönliche hineinkommt, wie der Mensch früher physisch, als er noch nicht Naturerkenntnis hatte, im allgemeinen physisch im Übersinnlichen drinnenstand.
Der Mensch muß unpersönlich forschen im Geistigen, wenn er will, daß das Licht des Geistigen ihm hereinstrahle in das Materielle, in das Stoffliche. Allein, je weiter man kommt in diesem übersinnlichen Forschen, je mehr man sich durchdringt mit diesem übersinnlichen Forschen, mit diesem das Unpersönliche fordernden übersinnlichen Forschen, desto mehr fühlt man, wie vom anderen Pol des Menschen aus, vom Willenspol, dasjenige ausströmt, was unmittelbare religiöse Empfindung ist. Denn dieses unmittelbare religiöse Empfinden, es will auch nach dem Übersinnlichen, aber es will nach dem Übersinnlichen so, daß dabei die Persönlichkeit nicht verloren ist, daß alles das, was unmittelbar mit dem Persönlichen zwischen Geburt und Tod zusammenhängt, sich vereinigen kann mit demjenigen, was übersinnlich ist.
Gerade wenn man im rechten Sinne den Gang ins Übersinnliche durch die Wissenschaft versteht, wird man hingewiesen durch eine innere Kraft, die sich insbesondere als Bedürfnis der Verehrung des Geistigen kundgibt, zum Religiösen. Die wahre Entwickelung innerhalb des Weges in die geistige Welt hinein durch übersinnliches Erkennen ist diese, daß man immer mehr und mehr zu einer Vertiefung seines religiösen Lebens getrieben wird, daß man gerade verstehen lernt dasjenige, was man an religiösem Leben hat. Die Geisteswissenschaft führt notwendigerweise, weil das in der Entwickelung der Menschheit liegt, aus dem Persönlichen in das Unpersönliche, damit das Licht des Geistes wieder hereinleuchten kann in die sinnliche Welt.
So muß auf der anderen Seite gerade als Folge dieser Geist-Erkenntnis ein vertieftes religiöses Leben auftreten, denn tief in der Menschennatur ist es begründet, daß das Geistige nicht nur in seinem Leuchten, in seinem Weisheitsvollen angeschaut werde, sondern auch verehrt werde. Diese Verehrung aber muß aus der Persönlichkeit kommen. In diese Region des Menschenerlebens kann nicht in unmittelbarer Gestalt dasjenige hinein, was geistig geschaut wird, sondern es muß sich erneuern, eine Metamorphose durchmachen, es muß sich verwandeln, es muß sich umsetzen in das Persönliche. Der Mensch wird, wenn er auf der einen Seite das Licht des Geistigen empfängt, hingehen und verehren dieses Geistige, suchen, wo er religiöses Leben, religiöse Vertiefung finden kann.
Man muß nur auch von der anderen Seite, von der Seite der Vertreter des religiösen Lebens, die Dinge im richtigen Lichte sehen können. Man hat in alten Zeiten auf gewissen Seiten der menschlichen Bekennerschaft gesagt und hat es immer wieder wiederholt bis heute, das alte Heidnische hätte darin bestanden, daß man durch die bloße Weisheit sich nähern wollte dem Göttlichen. Aber mit Recht kann man das Wort immer wieder und wiederum wiederholen: Durch Weisheit werde das Göttliche in der Welt nicht erkannt -, das Göttliche nicht, das Übersinnliche, in dem der Mensch seine Unsterblichkeit hat, gewiß. Aber es kann als Göttliches nicht erkannt werden, denn das Göttliche muß verehrungsvoll empfunden werden. Es muß das Geistige erst den Weg in das Persönliche finden, den Weg, wo der Mensch als Persönlichkeit drinnensteht, indem er entweder durch den Gang der Naturbetrachtung zum Jehovadiener wird — indem er schaut dasjenige Wesen, das von Generation zu Generation als Übersinnliches im Blute wirkt und webt -, oder indem er auf dasjenige Wesen hinschaut, das mit seiner Seele in erlösendem Zusammenhange steht, auf den Christus Jesus [Nachschrift unvollständig].
Der Mensch muß den Weg finden in die sinnliche Welt, wo er mit seiner Persönlichkeit steht. Aber auf der anderen Seite muß jenes Verständnis kommen, welches nicht nur sagt: Durch Weisheit wird das Göttliche nicht erkannt, weil es verehrungsvoll empfunden werden muß -, sondern: aus der bloßen Weisheit, aus der bloßen Religion kann nicht das Übersinnliche geschaut werden. Die Religion muß sich ergänzen durch die Anschauung des Übersinnlichen, sonst wird sie nur scheinbar einem naturwissenschaftlichen Zeitalter genügen können, indem sie alte Anschauungen fortpflanzt und sich gegen die neuen wendet. Religion, richtig erfaßt, braucht sich nicht zu fürchten vor dem Auftreten neuer, auch übersinnlicher Wahrheiten.
Und weiter entsteht noch so manches andere Mißverständnis: Wenn Religion glaubt, daß übersinnliches Erkennen ihr irgendwie schade, sie irgendwie beeinträchtigen könne in denjenigen Bestrebungen, in denen sie berechtigt ist, dann rechnet derjenige, der das glaubt, nicht mit der Fortentwickelung der Menschheit. Haben wir nicht, in der modernen Entwickelung stehend, indem wir auf der einen Seite gar nicht die Möglichkeit haben, zu rechtem sozialem Leben zu kommen, wenn nicht der Weg ins Übersinnliche genommen wird, haben wir nicht auch gesehen, wie dieses selbe naturwissenschaftliche Denken zu der Irreligiosität trieb, wie der Gang ins Naturwissenschaftliche zum Gang der Persönlichkeit hinein zur Irreligiosität trieb? [Lücke in der Nachschrift.] Heutige Geisteswissenschaft spricht stärker zu der menschlichen Natur, so daß sie getrieben werden kann zur religiösen Verehrung, wenn man sich nicht etwa, wie mancher oberflächliche Naturerkenner, von der religiösen Verehrung abwenden will. Stärker muß heute zur Seele gesprochen werden von dem übersinnlichen Leben, denn bewußter ist die Seele geworden, individueller. Die Kraft des religiösen Lebens muß stärker sein, wenn sie sich in der alten Gestalt entwickeln will.
Und noch ein anderes Mißverständnis gerade auf diesem Gebiete ist dieses, daß man glaubt, Geisteswissenschaft, wie sie hier gemeint ist, wolle selber sektenbildend oder religionsbildend auftreten. Geisteswissenschaft hat dazu eine viel zu klare Einsicht in das Werden des Menschengeschlechts. Sie weiß, daß im Werden des Menschengeschlechts eben aufeinanderfolgende wirksame Kräfte walten, wie im Leben des einzelnen. Wie der Mensch im vierzigsten Lebensjahr nicht dieselbe Seelenverfassung haben kann, die er im zwanzigsten Jahre hatte, ebensowenig kann die Menschheit im 20. Jahrhundert dieselbe Seelenverfassung haben wie in früheren Jahrhunderten und Jahrtausenden.
Geisteswissenschaft sieht überall auf das Wirkliche und beurteilt dieses Wirkliche nicht nach ausgedachten Begriffen. Daher redet sie nicht, wie so mancher Mensch der Gegenwart, der wissenschaftlich eine Religion der Zukunft begründen will; sondern sie weiß, daß die Zeit der Religionsbildungen vorbei ist, abgeschlossen ist gerade mit der Bildung des Christentums. Denn diejenige Seelenverfassung, in der die Menschheit erfaßt werden konnte von jenem religiösen inneren Erleben, das dann fortgepflanzt werden muß, diese Zeit hängt innig zusammen mit der Weltverfassung, die in früheren Zeiten war. Nunmehr sind wir als Menschheit in eine Seelenverfassung eingetreten, die gerade durch die Naturwissenschaft heranerzogen werden mußte, die aber auch nach naturwissenschaftlichem Vorbilde ins Übersinnliche hineindringen will, die übersinnliches Wissen schaffen will, durch dieses übersinnliche Wissen immer größere Klarheit schaffen will über das, was in religiösen Zeitaltern auf religiöse Art sich geoffenbart hat, die aber nicht mehr selbst religionsbildend auftreten kann. Immer mehr und mehr verstehen dasjenige, was der Menschheit an Religion gegeben ist, dazu wird wahre Geisteswissenschaft führen, dieses Religiöse auch erlösen aus den Banden derer, die es unter allerlei Macht- und sonstigen Gelüsten auf falsche Bahnen geführt haben. Doch das kann ich nur andeuten. Es würde, weiter ausgeführt, eben zu weit führen.
Mit diesen Andeutungen wollte ich eben nur kurz darauf hinweisen, wie Geisteswissenschaft schon ihrer Natur nach weder irreligiös machen kann, noch wie sie wollen könnte irgendeine neue Religion oder dergleichen stiften. Das alles sind Dinge, die nicht aus einer wirklichen Durchdringung desjenigen hervorgehen, was die hier gemeinte Geisteswissenschaft wirklich anstrebt, auch wenn sie behauptet werden. Und so kann man auch sagen: Gerade diejenigen Angriffe, die jetzt nur so hageln auf diese anthroposophisch orientierte Geisteswissenschaft auch von seiten der Vertreter der Religionsbekenntnisse, sie beruhen allerdings auf manchmal recht gewollten Mißverständnissen und falschen Auslegungen. Am wenigsten hätten diejenigen, die es mit dem religiösen Leben der Menschheit ernst meinen, irgendeine Veranlassung, sich gegen die Geisteswissenschaft zu wenden. Denn die Geisteswissenschaft wird wieder zur wahren Religiosität zurückführen, während das bloß naturwissenschaftliche Zeitalter und die bloße positive Religion, welche nur Althergebrachtes bewahren will, von der wirklichen Religion hinwegführen muß. Denn diese positive Religion stammt aus den Zeiten, wo der Mensch anders in der Welt drinnenstand. Aber der Mensch wird sich nicht zurückschrauben lassen, so wie ein Vierzigjähriger nicht mehr zwanzig werden kann.
Daher wird dasjenige religiöse Bekenntnis, das sich gegen die übersinnliche Erkenntnis der neueren Zeit stemmt, sich selber das Grab graben, auch wenn es noch so sehr darnach gelüstete, durch äußere Macht sich zu befestigen. Und immer wieder muß ich, was ich schon im vorigen Jahre hier in Zürich getan habe, daran erinnern, wie ein viel besserer Theologie- und Religionsbekenner der war, der einmal, obwohl er katholischer Priester war, als Rektor an der Universität über Galilei seine Antrittsvorlesung gehalten und darauf aufmerksam gemacht hat, wie die katholische Kirche — seine Kirche — seinerzeit sich gegen den Kopernikanismus gewandt hat, ja, es bis zum Jahre 1822 getan hat; wie er aber betonen mußte — Professor Müllner, katholischer Theologe und Philosoph -, als er sein Rektorat an der Wiener Universität antrat, daß wahre Religiosität, auch wahrer Katholizismus sich nicht wenden sollten gegen die Fortschritte der menschlichen Erkenntnis, weil jeder weitere Fortschritt in der menschlichen Erkenntnis nur die Wunder des Göttlichen in der Welt großartiger und herrlicher vor den Menschen hin ins Licht stellt.
Das ist wirkliche religiöse und auch wirkliche christliche Denkweise! Und wie nicht eine äußerlich naturwissenschaftliche Erkenntnis von manchem, der das Religiöse wirklich, wahrhaft empfindet, als gegnerisch empfunden zu werden braucht, so auch nicht eine übersinnliche Erkenntnis, die sogar auf direktem Wege den Menschen wiederum zur Religiosität, aber allerdings zur freien Religiosität, zu derjenigen Religiosität, die in der Individualität, in der Persönlichkeit verankert ist, hinführen muß. Daher darf wohl gesagt werden, man sollte sich recht sehr anschauen gerade diejenigen Angriffe, die von diesen Seiten auf die anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft kommen; denn sie gehen wahrhaftig nicht in Wirklichkeit von dem aus, wovon auszugehen sie vorgeben. Auch sie entspringen aus der Furcht und aus der Interesselosigkeit, wie ich das für die allgemeine Stellung der Menschheit zur Geisteswissenschaft im ersten dieser Vorträge charakterisiert habe. Man muß nur im richtigen Sinne lesen, was von dieser Seite gesagt wird! Allerdings werden diejenigen, die diese Dinge schreiben, nicht zu bekehren sein, und man sollte sich nicht der Naivität hingeben, daß man sie bekehren kann. Eine Widerlegung wäre ganz fruchtlos. Aber allerdings werden auch diejenigen, für die sie meistens schreiben, nicht zur Einsicht zu bringen sein. Der Gang der menschlichen Entwickelung kann aber bei denen doch nicht aufgehalten werden, die in ehrlicher Weise fühlen, was die Entwickelungskräfte der neueren Zeit in die menschliche Seele hineingelegt haben.
Durch den heutigen Vortrag — den ich übermorgen ergänzen will durch wiederum eine ganz positive Betrachtung über den neueren Geschichtsverlauf vom geisteswissenschaftlichen Standpunkte, was unmittelbar in das allernächste Leben des Menschen hineinführen wird und in die brennendsten Fragen der Gegenwart — glaube ich gezeigt zu haben, wie jenes Suchen nach der übersinnlichen Erkenntnis, das.durch anthroposophisch orientierte Geisteswissenschaft angestrebt wird, weder naturwissenschaftfeindlich noch sozial unpraktisch, noch irgendwie für das religiöse Leben von Gefahr ist. Dagegen glaube ich gerade gezeigt zu haben: für denjenigen, welcher durchschaut, was die Gegenwart in der menschlichen Seelenverfassung für Kräfte erregen muß, und insbesondere, was für Kräfte die Zukunft erregen wird, für den wird es klar, daß für drei brennende Fragen dieser Gegenwart und der nächsten Zukunft das geisteswissenschaftliche Wissen bedeutungsvoll ist.
Wissenschaft steht seit Jahrhunderten und insbesondere in der Gegenwart und noch mehr in der Zukunft im Mittelpunkt des menschlichen Strebens. Die Frage wird entstehen: Was vermag Wissenschaft für die höchsten Bedürfnisse des Menschen nach der übersinnlichen Welt? Antwort darauf wird nur diejenige Wissenschaft geben können, die an der Geisteswissenschaft nicht vorbeigehen wird.
Eine weitere brennende Frage der Gegenwart und der nächsten Zukunft wird sein: Wie finden wir diejenigen Impulse, welche das soziale Leben gestalten können? Die Antwort wird sein müssen: Allein dasjenige, was geisteswissenschaftlich gewonnen ist, macht die Metamorphose durch, wenn es sich in das Menschenleben einfindet, daß es zum unmittelbar bewußten sozialen Leben von Mensch zu Mensch und damit auch zur sozialen Konfiguration des Menschengeschlechtes über die Erde hin führen kann.
Und die dritte brennende Frage wird die sein: Wie kann das innerste Bedürfnis, das Verehrungsbedürfnis des Göttlichen in der menschlichen Seele in dem Zeitalter, das durch die Wissenschaft zur Individualität und zu der Persönlichkeit gekommen ist, befriedigt werden durch stärkere Kräfte, als sie von alters her aufgebracht worden sind? — Die Antwort muß wiederum sein: Solche stärkere Kräfte kann nur erregen dasjenige übersinnliche Schauen, was, wenn es in die menschliche Persönlichkeit sich hineinlebt, in die menschliche Persönlichkeit hineinmetamorphosiert, in ihr selber persönlich wird. Solche Kräfte kann nur dieses Übersinnliche durch Geisteswissenschaft, durch übersinnliche Erkenntnis angestrebte Wissen und Schauen werden, wie es die moderne Religiosität braucht, die Religiosität braucht, welche die Menschheit wirklich in bezug auf Gegenwart und Zukunft in den tiefsten Bedürfnissen der Seele, ja in den Untergründen der Seele wird befriedigen sollen.
Knowledge of Nature, Social Science, and Religious Life in the Light of Spiritual Science
The anthroposophically oriented spiritual science that I have been discussing here in the previous week and this week is, as may already be apparent from the two lectures, pretty much everything that those who are unfamiliar with it believe it to be. In particular, one will hear from people who have only superficially approached this spiritual scientific endeavor how the results, or let us say for the time being: the intended results, of this direction are completely ruled out by contemporary scientific insights.
Furthermore, one will hear how that which is supposed to have been brought down from the spiritual world, which is supposed to be the result of supersensible knowledge, proves to be impractical and meaningless, especially in relation to the most significant, greatest, and most pressing questions of the present, which all lie more or less in the social sphere. And finally, a third side repeatedly emphasizes how this spiritual science is capable of leading people away from genuine, well-founded religious feeling and sentiment, how it contributes to the irreligiousness of our time, and even poses significant dangers from this perspective.
Today, I would like to talk primarily about these three misunderstandings regarding anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, and then, the day after tomorrow, I will attempt to give a picture of the historical development of modern humanity from the point of view of this supersensible knowledge.
If we want to penetrate more deeply into the whole spiritual structure of our time, we must necessarily turn our gaze to everything that has happened in the course of the last three to four centuries, especially in the 19th century, which has given scientific thinking the decisive significance that I have already discussed at length in previous lectures. We must turn our attention to the emergence of scientific thinking because today it is not only in the natural sciences that scientific thinking is applied, but because all over the world every question is viewed in a certain scientific light, albeit in a completely justified manner. Therefore, we can already say: Insofar as one recognizes that the historical development of modern humanity has, in a very elementary way, produced a scientific orientation from within the human being, this scientific orientation is justified. In contrast, one may say that spiritual science would give itself a bad reputation from the outset if it were to contradict modern scientific thinking in any way. However, it does not come into conflict; on the contrary, scientific thinking and thus the entire intellectual orientation of the present day in all branches of life will only gain a firm foundation if this scientific direction deigns to build on spiritual science as its basis.
If one wants to approach the question posed here in a negative way, so to speak, one must take a closer look at how not modern science, but the particular nature of modern thinking about science came into being. And here we must say that if we look at history not externally and superficially, but in such a way that we ask ourselves: How did humanity develop from age to age in its deepest, including spiritual, abilities? — Just as an individual human being develops, and one cannot say that at the age of thirty, forty, or fifty, he has the same state of mind, how did humanity develop in its ideas, in its entire way of thinking, to finally arrive at those concepts, those ideas, which predominantly dominate it in the present? — If you pursue the spiritual development of humanity without prejudice, you will find that in earlier times, and one can say up until the 17th century, humanity had different ideas, both about the human soul and about the divine in the world and about nature. What can be gleaned from a deeper study of this development can also be confirmed externally: if one goes back to earlier times, one will find that, wherever the view of nature is discussed, there is nowhere a separation between the consideration of the external sensory world, external nature, and what was called the nature of the human soul. Even in the 16th century and into the 17th century, writings dealing with the natural order of things always included what was said at the time about the nature of the human soul. Indeed, in addition to the revealed teachings of theology, there was at that time a Theologia naturalis, a theology that sought to derive its teachings and views from the nature of the human soul.
This is an outward sign of a significant fact. In earlier times, before the emergence of modern scientific thinking, people had ideas that were suitable for providing them with a satisfactory explanation of nature and also for saying something about the human soul. The concepts of the soul and the spirit were not as separate from the concepts of nature and the world as they have been since the 17th and 18th centuries, when scientific thinking took full hold. And these different concepts—and this is the important thing—were not arbitrarily established at that time and later changed. The fact that the concepts became different is connected with the developmental forces of humanity, which are just as necessary for the progress of this development as the change in the constitution of the body and soul is for the progress of individual human development as we grow older from childhood to old age.
Today, through natural science, we have acquired concepts that, as we saw last week, are no longer directly applicable when we want to explain the human soul life. And anyone who can think scientifically today in a sincere and honest manner, drawing the necessary conclusions, must ask themselves: What does the advent of scientific knowledge actually mean for modern human development?
They can only obtain a satisfactory answer to this question if they are able to investigate the nature of scientific knowledge itself. Those who simply believe from the outset that natural science is the be-all and end-all, the one and only explanation of the world, cannot arrive at a satisfactory answer to this question. Only those who are able to ask themselves: How does natural science relate to human development as a whole? How does it relate to the deepest needs and questions that can spring from the human soul? — only they can gain insight into what natural science is capable of.
In a sense, one must be able to view natural science itself from a scientific perspective. And here it is worth pointing out that it is significant that even important thinkers who have dealt with this question have nevertheless come to the conclusion that natural science has, so to speak, natural limits, limits which we discussed in the first lecture, but which are already felt by thinking people of the present day in such a way that when people gain an overview of what natural science has achieved in its various fields, they must then say to themselves: With all these ideas, with all these concepts that natural science provides us with on the basis of such rigorous methodological research as we have, with all these concepts, especially when we look at them very closely, we still cannot actually penetrate that which we have a natural need to know in our souls. One feels, in a sense, that natural science is there, that it cannot be other than it is — apart from errors and exceptions, of course — but that, even when it fulfills its ideal, it cannot satisfy man's deepest need for knowledge, even in relation to nature itself.
I would like to express what is felt in the following paradoxical way. People have agreed – this is how things have developed in recent times – that our ancestors were at a childlike stage of knowledge until modern science brought about a change. The ancients, out of a more or less fantastical disposition of soul, formed ideas about nature, ideas that assumed all kinds of spiritual forces in nature, ideas that also conceptually illustrated all kinds of spiritual forces in nature. It has been said that people sought the forces behind the phenomena of nature. But in their childlike imaginations, these ancients did not find natural forces, but only natural ghosts. And, proud of the achievements of modern science, we look back with a certain arrogance on these ancient thinkers, these ancient earthlings who sought what lay behind visible nature. And instead of the real forces of nature, which are now finally being discovered, these ancients sought all kinds of ghosts, personalised beings and the like behind the phenomena of nature, beings of which, in the age of natural science, one could only imagine that they had nothing to do with the natural order, that they arose from a human soul force that could not penetrate the reality of nature and therefore formed all kinds of ideas about nature on its own.
Now, however, although what I have just said was, until very recently, a self-evident dogma for anyone thinking in scientific terms, there are already individuals, whose views are nevertheless remarkable, who are coming to the conclusion that if we really look at our concepts of nature, if we do not live with the prejudice that that we understand the essence of nature with our concepts of nature, but if we take these concepts of nature as they are and wait to see how they relate to what we actually experience in nature, if we let the whole human being, not just our intellect and our experimental skills, come into play, then these scientific ideas behave like the ghosts of old in the face of unbiased insight. Scientific ideas have something very ghostly about them. — Today, there are already some unprejudiced people who say: The ancients imagined ghosts out of their state of mind; but ultimately, especially if we are true natural scientists, we do nothing else. For what we believe we carry in our minds as ideas about nature is just as unreal in relation to nature as the old ghosts were believed to be unreal by natural science.
There is something very justified in this insight. And one finds justification for it when one asks oneself: Yes, how does man actually come to know nature? At first, man does not stand in a position of knowledge, but at most in a position of observation of nature. And as he observes nature, it indeed appears to him in a completely different liveliness than the image he can form in his scientific ideas. When we face nature with our eyes and ears, when we face it as whole human beings, but also with our intellect, and do not merely think in terms of natural laws and experiment in the laboratory, when we face nature as it presents itself to us, observing it and working through our observations, then we live with nature. But when we begin to research nature, we cannot take life from nature with us. And because we cannot take life with us, because we are only alive as one with nature when we observe it directly, we actually impoverish nature by trying to absorb it into ourselves, as it were, by attempting to grasp it through science. And if we want to understand nature correctly through science, we turn it into a ghost in our understanding of nature. That is simply a fact that can be observed, just as anything else can be observed.
However, in the face of such a fact, it is important to have the courage to admit it to oneself. What will one do when one admits this fact to oneself: by understanding nature, we actually arrive at a kind of conception that takes our cognitive image of nature as a ghost. — We come to truly lay this truth before our soul and say to ourselves: So knowledge of nature is something that leads to the ghostly. — And in the cognitive interaction of man with nature in a scientific way, man behaves in such a way that when he distances himself from nature, from the observation of nature, he nourishes a ghost of nature.
There is a personality in recent human development who did not express what I have just said so openly, but who did so no less paradoxically, and who felt it deeply — and that is Goethe. Because Goethe already knew how to stand in this way in harmony with himself and with nature in his own age, he was not understood and was considered a dilettante in the field of natural science. Even today, people still struggle — I can say this because I have been trying for decades to awaken some understanding for Goethe in our contemporary society in this regard — to understand Goethe's way of viewing nature.
What is this way? This way, which will be developed more and more, which—perhaps still amateurish and imperfect in Goethe—must be further developed, genuinely scientifically developed, which can then lead to true knowledge of nature in all areas, what is this way? This approach consists in approaching human cognition, insofar as it distances itself from nature, in mere reflection, which I also spoke about last week from a different point of view, in such a way that this reflection is not only used to give nature the opportunity to present its ghostly essence to the human soul. Goethe did not strive for laws of nature, which are always abstractions, which are always something dead in contrast to living nature. Goethe strove for pure phenomena, as he called them: primordial phenomena. He strove not to use human thinking as if it should provide explanations about nature on its own, as if it should find laws such as the laws of conservation of energy or matter, which are purely invented; Instead, Goethe strove to use thought to compile phenomena in such a way that nothing of man himself speaks through these natural phenomena, but that the phenomena speak purely through themselves.
If we now move away from the instinctive approach that Goethe's thinking took and move toward a fully conscious, thoughtful understanding, where does that take us? It takes us to answering the question in a way that only supersensible knowledge can answer. It takes us to asking: Yes, what is actually present in what we observe in nature when we observe with our senses? — What is present is what is, in the manner indicated, a ghost, a ghostly image. This is, of course, already contained in nature, for we draw it out of it. But what else is contained in nature, apart from this, when we are in living communication with it through our eyes and ears, when we give ourselves over directly to the impressions that are apparent to the senses?
Those who, as we indicated here last week, train their powers of imagination on the one hand and their powers of will on the other to attain supersensible knowledge, will come to say to themselves: in the sensory world that surrounds us, as far as nature is concerned, the supersensible is already present. —Only, on the path of natural knowledge, we leave out the supersensible and must leave it out. Why? Because we humans, insofar as we are organized as we are between birth and death here in the physical body, have transformed that which is our spiritual-eternal into a body that is perceptible to the senses. We are not human beings because we dwell in a house of the supersensible that lives within us as something eternal, but we are human beings because, having entered from a supersensible world through birth or conception into the sensory world, the supersensible, which previously lived in the purely spiritual, has been transformed into a sensory body, which lives out its sensory existence between birth and death and which, through death, enters back into the supersensible, as I explained in the previous lecture.
Because we ourselves as human beings are organized sensually, that which makes its way through us, the observation of nature, must, when it becomes knowledge of nature, move away from the supersensible. And so, through truly supersensible observation, one comes to the following conclusion. One comes to realize that when we encounter nature in its colorful diversity of light and colors, in its sounds, in all its other sensory phenomena, then the supersensible reveals itself inseparably with the sensory, the supersensible in the sensory. However, insofar as we approach nature as human beings who observe and explain, we can only extract from nature what we humans — who are sensory beings and who belong to the sensory world between birth and death, not to the supersensible, which reveals itself in the sensory — can process within ourselves. Because we are organized in this way, our own sensual nature causes us to turn what we develop as natural science into a mere image of the sensual, which must be a ghost, because what surrounds us as nature also contains the supersensible.
Therefore, those who truly put themselves in a position to observe the supersensible, as you can also find described in “An Outline of Esoteric Science” or in “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds,” come to say to themselves: The universe we face contains the supersensible everywhere. And if we go beyond the ghost that we ourselves must create in our image of nature, we do not arrive at dead atoms, we do not arrive at force and matter, but we arrive at the supersensible spiritual. This supersensible spiritual can and must enable us to recognize a supersensible path of knowledge.
Those who gain insight into the relationship between human beings and the nature that surrounds them do not search for dead atoms, molecules, or the supersensible-sensible, but for the truly supersensible. And then, when one investigates supersensibly, one finds not material foundations for what surrounds us in colors and sounds, but spiritual beings, supersensible beings, which are contained everywhere in nature. So that natural science, correctly understood, especially when it seeks to present phenomena in the Goethean sense to the soul, then becomes not dead but living spirit in relation to what lies beyond phenomena. Precisely when one approaches natural science honestly and consistently, when one does not believe that one can understand nature through the intellect or through the art of experimentation, but when one knows that one can do nothing else but drive nature to the point of manifestation, where it expresses itself, then one knows that with these phenomena, with what Goethe calls primordial phenomena, one stands directly before the supersensible, that one then does not need to explain things out of the laws of force and matter, but that one is then compelled to explain things out of the spiritual. This basically gives a truly critical, unbiased view, I would say a scientific view of the recognition of nature itself.
How does spiritual science, which seeks supersensible knowledge on its own initiative, relate to this? If you take the path to supersensible knowledge, as I described it to you last week, you will say to yourself: if human beings, through those transformations of the power of imagination and the power of will, really succeed in seeing to see the supersensible as one sees colors with the eyes or hears sounds with the ears, if human beings see the supersensible in the same way as they see the sensory in ordinary life, then this transition to supersensible seeing is truly like an awakening in the soul's experience. And this experience is also truly undergone by those who are spiritual researchers. One can say: just as in ordinary experience, a person wakes up from sleep or dream life and knows that during sleep and dream life he has lived only in images, and then, by knowing how to connect his will with external reality, he passes over to a world that he truly calls his own, as opposed to the world of images in the dream, so the spirit-knower, the one who penetrates into supersensible research, awakens from the world in which we are otherwise in the ordinary waking state, by having before him another world that relates to the ordinary sensory world as the ordinary sensory world relates to the world of images in dreams. It is an awakening. This awakening can be experienced in the soul.
Then again, the phenomena that we have in the world around us become images in relation to the higher, supersensible world, just as dream images are taken in healthy thinking as images of what one has in the sensory world. I would like to use an example to illustrate how, for the spirit-knower, the ordinary world of the senses is transformed into a world of images. One must only understand these things correctly, not dream mystically in some way, and not become nebulous.
Ordinary natural science naturally considers the human being by juxtaposing, as it were, the head, the torso, the limbs, and the extremities — with what I now mean is what continues inwardly, where, in morphological thinking, everything sexual also belongs to the limbs. For ordinary observation, these three parts of human nature are, I would say, something absolute, something equivalent. Before spiritual observation, human beings, standing before us as sensory beings, become images of their higher, supersensible essence, just as ordinary daily experiences become images when we dream about them. But then, too, our understanding of human beings becomes different as a result of relating them to their eternal, supersensible essence.
By permeating our understanding with the nature of images, imaginatively, our entire understanding of human beings becomes different. Then the head — if I am to consider only these two members of human nature — and the extremities are no longer equal, but then, when one studies the head closely, one sees in its form that which is modeled on the past spiritual life before the human being entered the sensory world. And in what is the nature of the extremities, one sees that which is preformed — still embryonic, but which will develop into what the human being will become in the future, especially when he enters the supersensible world through the gate of death. It may still sound paradoxical today, but this is what will emerge from Goethe's theory of metamorphosis in a truly spiritual scientific conception.
Goethe regarded the individual form of the plant, the individual form of the animal and human being in their transformation as images of a basic form. A comprehensive spiritual theory of metamorphosis will regard the head as a metamorphosis of the extremities of the human being, but in such a way that it relates the one to the past and the other to the future. Then the human being himself, in his outer configuration, becomes an image of what he is in the spiritual realm. And so everything becomes an image of the supersensible, just as dreams become images when we fall asleep. What man is in the supersensible becomes an image of the supersensible during his presence in the sensible, while he is awake in it, just as the sensible becomes an image when he sinks into sleep. This insight is an immediate, I might say empirical, result of supersensible experience.
And now let us compare what this supersensible knowledge gains from itself, that is, as a view of the world, even about the nature of man, when it strives for knowledge of man's nature: Man and all nature become an image that must first be related to a supersensible reality. Now, this does not completely correspond to what the natural scientist today, when he thinks, finds himself as a final consequence. He finds that his natural phenomenon becomes ghostly, becomes an image. Super-sensible knowledge shows that everything we perceive in the sensory world must become an image, that it must be related to something super-sensible. In short, there is nothing that converges so much into a harmonious understanding of the world as what one finds when one is not a dogmatically believing natural scientist of the present, but a thinking natural scientist who can observe his natural science scientifically himself, who then agrees with what the spiritual researcher must say about nature insofar as it presents itself to us in observation.
This is what must come into humanity: that people put themselves in a position to really see how the path to the supersensible and the path to the sensible, permeated by thinking, converge; for only then will a total picture of the world emerge, one that does not make us mere possessors of a ghostly image of nature, but allows us to recognize, to admit to ourselves, that with the ordinary explanation of nature we have had to create such a ghostly image, but at the same time shows us how we can penetrate beyond this image of nature into the spiritual-supernatural. This is the direction that scientific thinking must also take in order to go beyond that into which it must necessarily bring itself, precisely when it fulfills its ideal. Certain contradictions arise when we believe that we have grasped nature in our knowledge of it, but in fact we have only grasped something with which we cannot arrogantly look beyond the old “ghosts” and which is itself only a ghost behind which we must seek spiritual reality.
Thus, spiritual knowledge, as it is meant here, is not in contradiction to knowledge of nature, but on the contrary: it provides knowledge of nature with what knowledge of nature must seek if it is to understand itself; it provides what is unconsciously contained in every true natural scientist as the goal of his search; it provides what alone can give satisfaction, while mere natural science, even when properly conducted, must necessarily lead to dissatisfaction by its very nature.
As we come to recognize more and more the true character of supersensible knowledge, which has emerged precisely from natural science, we will find that natural science in the modern sense can only exist if it is complemented by spiritual science. Natural science itself must demand this supersensible knowledge. Only then will it become true knowledge of nature, that is, itself a path into the supersensible.
I only wanted to give these hints about this. One could give many lectures that would show that the idea of natural science itself demands spiritual science if it does not want to come to nothing, if it does not want to fall into misunderstandings about its own research. I only wanted to show how natural science itself must seek this spiritual science. Natural science has celebrated great triumphs and achieved tremendous things in the path of human knowledge; but precisely as it progresses along its path, it will transcend itself and lead into the spirit.
Today, the situation is such that only those who are capable of scientific thinking themselves, who do not have a negative attitude toward science, whether through ignorance or antipathy, but rather a positive attitude, should actually be critical of science. And if I may make a personal remark, which I am only making because it is perhaps relevant to the subject at hand, it is this: I have often been reproached for the fact that among my many writings there are some that deal intensively with justifying 19th-century natural science, which, as far as this is possible with a scientific way of thinking, are based entirely on natural science. However, I would have nothing to say to you about natural science, or to any other audience in the manner in which I have spoken today, if I could not point out that I have also understood, where it mattered, to take a wholly positive, approving attitude toward natural science, insofar as such approval is justified. I believe that only those who know science and appreciate its achievements should be allowed to speak about it, while all talk about science by so-called mystics or theosophists who do not know science is just idle talk.
I believe I have thus addressed, at least in part, the first misunderstanding that arises in relation to the anthroposophically oriented spiritual science referred to here on the part of those who speak about it without knowing it.
The second misunderstanding is that very often something that has to do with supersensible knowledge is considered impractical, unsuitable for ordinary life, and that this is taken as a criticism, especially in the present day, because the present day is compelled to throw itself into practical life in the fullest sense of the word. Well, let us consider this from only one side, but from a very important side, from the perspective of the social coexistence of humanity. Scientific and other considerations of the social coexistence of humanity have become the motto, the watchword of modern times. And what has happened in this field is also fundamentally in line with the scientific way of thinking. I even attach little importance to the fact that those who want to be sociologists in the true sense of the word today, who want to establish a sociological science, are increasingly striving to take scientific ideas and concepts from the natural sciences and apply them to human social coexistence. I would even place much less value on this, because theories are actually of very little significance for real practical life—as the supernatural approach in particular shows.
What did Lassalle not imagine when he developed that way of thinking, which he then summarized in his famous lecture “Science and the Workers”? He had the ideal in mind that human coexistence must be transferred from the instinctive to the scientific, precisely through modern socialism, that the proletariat of the modern era had the task of permeating itself with science in order to bring about this modern era. It was then seen that, in a different way, consciously thinking as one thinks in natural science, Marxism, with its materialistic view of history, attempted to use a theory to justify what should pass into people's minds and what should lead to a social transformation of the world.
Well, those who still do not see today, after the last four years have passed over the world, that such theories have very little influence on the social minds of human beings, will see it in the coming decades! Theories are actually of little consideration when it comes to what is actually meant here: social coexistence and the shaping of this social coexistence out of human impulses in the broadest sense. There is a great deal contained in what can be summarized in the phrase: shaping social cohesion out of human impulses.
One could now talk at length about all the attempts that have been made, more or less utopian, to shape this social coexistence in a way that is worthy of the newer humanity. But I attach less importance to that. I would like to place much more emphasis on the fact that life has indeed taken shape, but has taken shape to the point where we now see a terrible global catastrophe developing over the last four years. And at least some of the causes that have led to this terrible global catastrophe can be found in the real contradiction and conflict of impulses into which the social life of humanity has driven itself across the earth.
It has rightly been pointed out that in earlier times—the same time when people did not yet think in a modern scientific way, as I have characterized in this lecture—humanity lived corporately; there were guilds, craft associations, and all kinds of communities.
Then came the age of modern individualism with its ideal of human freedom. It was believed that this ideal of human freedom, this impulse of individualism, required the gradual dissolution of the old corporations. And anyone who follows history will see how these corporations were gradually dissolved. Then we saw the further course of economic life, and we saw how, in recent times, the corporations have come back to life. I do not want to and cannot go into details, otherwise one would have to show step by step how, on the one hand, corporate societies or cooperatives such as consumer cooperatives arose, and how, in part through the lingering effects and resurgence of the old communality, people tried to cope with life. The old corporations have not been revived, but new corporations have emerged, even trusts, and they permeate our social structure. I would like to place much more emphasis on this practical form of social life as it has developed, rather than on the theories that people have devised about it.
But however all this has developed, even if one has to take into account the most diverse forces of interest and other impulses of modern life, one must still say that the modern corporation has developed in a wide variety of areas; what has been carried over from earlier times has been preserved because it corresponds to human instincts and impulses of the will. And in the way the world has been shaped — I emphasize not how it has been thought about, but how it has been shaped, how communities have been formed, how people have been structured in relation to one another, even if unconsciously — the innermost impulse is once again the scientific thinking of modern times, but in a very special way.
If we look back with understanding at what people used to do when they lived in guilds and associations — I am not defending this, of course, and I know that they were rightly abolished — if we look back at what brought people together at that time and how they lived in these communities, we notice a considerable difference from what brings people together today. One outstanding characteristic of the old communities — as every expert must admit — is that people understood each other both within the same community and from community to community. Of course, everything in the world happens only to a certain extent, but people did understand each other. Masters and apprentices understood each other because the master knew what was in the apprentice's soul. They behaved positively toward one another. Why? Because in these instincts, in the impulses of will from which these communities arose, there was still something spiritual and soulful, something spiritual and soulful that was connected with the physical.
The same thing that in earlier times meant that with the ideas one had, one could not only look at nature, but also look at the soul, the same ideas that lived instinctively, unconsciously in human beings and that made nature and soul life into a unity, also lived in the instincts, and they meant that people were connected through blood as son to father, as daughter to mother, or as members of a nation or a guild — if they were connected through blood or through some other interest — which meant that, out of instincts that were innate but spiritually and mentally impulsive, they demanded community.
Then came scientific thinking about culture. The modern era has been shaped in its very structure in relation to human beings by nothing other than scientific thinking. By coming to a way of thinking about nature which, even if he did not admit it to himself, presents phenomena as ghostly contents that no longer have anything to do with him, man has been left to his own devices. Ancient man was at one with nature. When lightning flashed outside, thunder rumbled, and rain fell from the clouds, ancient man saw in this the expression of a force of nature. Inside, he felt this or that urge. He instinctively regarded these urges as a parable of such a force of nature. He acted, as it were, out of nature, because he had not yet separated himself from nature through the special nature of the aforementioned knowledge of nature.
In recent centuries, man has been separated from nature precisely because he has advanced to the level of pure natural phenomena. Knowledge of nature only acquires its true task, its true mission in the course of human development, in that it does not provide absolute knowledge, as is still superstitiously believed today — scientifically superstitious — but in that it sets people free. Only then can one understand the mission of natural science in the course of human development, when one regards nature as an educator for freedom.
By having to isolate natural phenomena in modern natural science, by distancing himself from nature, man is left to his own devices as a personality. But before he came to the supersensible world again, as I have indicated, in order to re-enter the world — as he had naturally been in it before, but now supersensibly — before he came to this path, which he will now have to follow toward the future, man was, in a sense, placed purely on the tip of his personality. Natural science has placed him at the peak of his personality. Natural science has determined his entire state of mind. It has taken over his instincts. As a result, modern people do not stand opposite each other as blood relatives or guild members, as the ancients did, but as individuals, as personalities. They must seek their associations, their social communities, out of freedom. And so they initially found them only out of instinct, but out of instincts that are somewhat contradictory, because the time of instincts is over, because on the one hand, humans can no longer think instinctively, but must think consciously under the influence of science. And on the other hand, humans did not yet have the opportunity to re-enter the world through supersensible knowledge. Therefore, they placed themselves in a new world, which they thought about, and in the old world, which they no longer thought about. They continued to plant the old instincts in the world, which was no longer in their minds due to modern scientific thinking. As a result, if one understands more deeply what is blowing through modern humanity, this glaring contradiction entered into modern social life.
Socialism, which is certainly an ideal of humanity, has been founded on inadequate means. Why? Knowledge of nature does not place humans in the world; it separates them as personalities, making their consciousness of personality ever greater. Therefore, he can only form communities out of his selfish instincts. His thinking differs from what he forms as communities out of instinct. Disharmony arises, and the consequence of this is that a disharmonious social order must arise if one has only natural science and applies only scientific concepts to the organization of social life, that a contradiction must arise, an inner, living contradiction that will continue to exist until humanity decides to say to itself: Modern life, if it wants to establish social order, must create disharmony if it does not introduce supersensible knowledge, supersensible feeling, and supersensible will into social coexistence. — As long as people do not face each other in such a way that they see in the other person the image, the appearance of the immortal human being, as long as they do not see in every person, when they live with them in a social context, an individual being, but a being that is the expression of a supersensible entity, as long as they do not supplement what sociology and social impulses can gain from natural science with what can be gained from spiritual knowledge, then modern social thinking, but mainly modern social organization, with the practical interpretation of concepts, will lead to a life that must dissolve itself, that must lead to strife and disharmony.
Anyone who understands this inner connection knows what part what I have just indicated has played in the last four years. Not that I am claiming that it alone is to blame, but it has played a very significant part, an enormously significant part. Those who desire and want socialism, who honestly want it, must lead humanity to concepts that are not merely scientific, because in the life of human beings, there is something else at work, something else than what can be grasped by science.
Science demonstrates this by having a certain ideal, and this particular ideal is in turn justified. Natural science strives more and more toward experimentation, moving away from mere description and observation. What is experimentation? Experimentation is, first of all, something that is put together by our intellect, which leads us away from nature and, as I showed in last week's lecture, into the nothingness of a human being. What we represent in the experiment basically only appears to have anything to do with the life of nature. In truth, it has to do with what is dying in nature. This becomes apparent when one wants to apply what has been gained through experimental thinking to the configuration of social life. Anyone who wants to introduce purely scientific concepts, which are completely honest, sincere, and ideal scientific concepts, into social life, introduces something into life that does not lead to advancement or life, but to social death. And if humanity does not want to introduce the supersensible into social life alongside the natural sciences, it must learn that all social striving, all socialism, will only create orders that are disorder, that are decay.
Socialism that leads people away from the supersensible will create social structures of destruction, social structures of departure, and it can only go so far as to use the old to realize its decayed ideas. For what has actually happened so far, not through social theories, but through practical socialism? Has it really felt itself to be a radical world shaper? Then it would not have condescended to the old forms, as it continues to do today! In the old forms, it appears like someone who frowns upon the crinoline, but does not seek to overcome it, instead padding it. We also see that in the social thinking of recent times, the old forms are being retained and padded out. For what do most of the leaders of modern socialism want? To gain power where others have gained power, not to shape it, but to exchange it.
This is, I would say, only experimental proof from another angle that one can only speak of socialism if one simultaneously has the will to lead people toward the supersensible, toward those impulses that must be given to modern humanity if it wants to emerge from the tendency toward catastrophe into which purely scientific impulses have led it. These impulses must be supersensible, especially in social life.
Truly, spiritual science is not impractical in this area. For the time being, it can only express its regret in many respects that there are many people who consider themselves so practical, so terribly practical, that they would like to lick their fingers over their own life practices, and who look with contempt on the impractical people who, out of ideas, out of the spirit, would like to introduce something into the world! Well, we are familiar with this side of philistinism, which today presents itself as the great practice of life and brutally rejects everything that comes from the spirit. This practice of life will lead to the absurd, to the impossible. For only that which applies to the whole, not to half or a quarter of reality, is practical. Anyone who has a horseshoe magnet in front of them and, when someone else says to them, “Hey, you can use that, it attracts other iron, it's a magnet,” replies, “Oh, come on, I can only recognize a horseshoe in this shape, to shoe a horse with,” is like someone who wants to organize social life only according to concepts that avoid the supersensible. But those who know that true life practice includes all of reality, and thus the supersensible, are like those who do not misuse the horseshoe magnet to shoe a horse, but use it as a magnet.
With that, I have discussed the second misunderstanding I would like to talk about today, again only in a suggestive way. The third concerns what now goes deep into the innermost core of human life, what has to do with what must be most sacred to human beings in many respects; it concerns religious life.
Now, there are indeed very many, namely those who are official representatives or even unofficial representatives of this or that positive religious denomination, those who, in turn, naturally without the principle of authority — as one would politely say today — disparage this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science as something that will lead people into irreligiousness, that wants to give them an apparent spiritual knowledge instead of showing them the path through which they can enter into the supersensible, religious realm out of the essence of their nature. Today, I will not speak about this or that religious creed, although it would be very tempting to do so, but time is pressing and there are other things to consider. Instead, I will speak about religious feeling as such.
Anyone who considers spiritual knowledge, as it is meant here, in its true essence will, I believe, very soon realize that it is just as little impractical, antisocial, or unscientific as it is irreligious or unsuitable for dissuading anyone from the depth of their religious feeling. For what, according to the spirit of the explanations I have now given in these three lectures, is the essence of the newer, supersensible knowledge that anthroposophy strives to attain?
The essential thing is that the path leading to supersensible research must lead to the impersonal. Just consider how radically it had to be pointed out last week that what human beings see as spiritual lies before birth or after death, that the essence of life between birth and death consists in human beings having transformed themselves into material beings. And one can say that it is precisely spiritual science, which leads through supersensible knowledge to the true immortal, to the irrefutably immortal human soul, that can even agree with materialism in this respect. It knows that what human beings experience materially is a metamorphosis, a transformation of the spiritual, and that the spiritual draws its fruits from going into the abyss of the material and developing into freedom precisely through the knowledge of nature.
But this does not presuppose that man, through his research, flows from the personal, from his immediate experience here in the body, into the impersonal. If one wants to recognize something supersensible, it presupposes a state of mind that enters more and more spiritually into the impersonal, just as man used to stand physically in the supersensible when he did not yet have knowledge of nature.
Human beings must research the spiritual impersonally if they want the light of the spiritual to shine into the material, into the physical. However, the further one progresses in this supersensible research, the more one becomes imbued with this supersensible research, with this supersensible research that demands the impersonal, the more one feels how, from the other pole of the human being, from the pole of the will, flows forth that which is immediate religious feeling. For this immediate religious feeling also seeks the supersensible, but it seeks the supersensible in such a way that the personality is not lost, that everything directly connected with the personal between birth and death can unite with that which is supersensible.
Precisely when one understands the path to the supersensible through science in the right sense, one is guided to the religious by an inner force that manifests itself in particular as a need to worship the spiritual. The true development within the path into the spiritual world through supersensible knowledge is that one is driven more and more to a deepening of one's religious life, that one learns to understand precisely what one has in religious life. Spiritual science necessarily leads from the personal to the impersonal, because this is inherent in the development of humanity, so that the light of the spirit can shine into the sensory world again.
On the other hand, precisely as a result of this spiritual knowledge, a deepened religious life must arise, for it is deeply rooted in human nature that the spiritual should not only be viewed in its radiance and wisdom, but also be revered. This reverence, however, must come from the personality. What is seen spiritually cannot enter this region of human experience in its immediate form, but must be renewed, undergo a metamorphosis, be transformed, and be translated into the personal. When human beings receive the light of the spiritual on the one hand, they will go and worship this spiritual, seeking where they can find religious life and religious deepening.
One must also be able to see things in the right light from the other side, from the side of the representatives of religious life. In ancient times, certain sides of human confession said, and have repeated it again and again until today, that the old paganism consisted in wanting to approach the divine through mere wisdom. But one can rightly repeat the words again and again: through wisdom alone, the divine in the world cannot be recognized — certainly not the divine, the supersensible, in which man has his immortality. But it cannot be recognized as divine, for the divine must be felt with reverence. The spiritual must first find its way into the personal, the way where man stands as a personality, either by becoming a servant of Jehovah through the course of observing nature — by looking at the being that works and weaves from generation to generation as the supersensible in the blood — or by looking at the being who is connected to his soul in a redemptive way, at Christ Jesus [postscript incomplete].
Human beings must find their way into the sensory world, where they stand with their personality. But on the other hand, there must come an understanding that says not only: Wisdom does not recognize the divine, because it must be felt with reverence — but also: The supersensible cannot be seen from mere wisdom, from mere religion. Religion must be complemented by the perception of the supersensible, otherwise it will only appear to be able to satisfy a scientific age by propagating old views and turning against the new ones. Religion, correctly understood, need not fear the emergence of new, even supersensible truths.
And there are many other misunderstandings: if religion believes that supersensible knowledge could somehow harm it, somehow impair it in those endeavors in which it is justified, then those who believe this are not taking into account the further development of humanity. Standing in the midst of modern development, where on the one hand we have no possibility of achieving a proper social life unless we take the path to the supersensible, have we not also seen how this same scientific thinking has led to irreligiousness, how the path to science has led to the path of personality and to irreligiousness? [Gap in the transcript.] Today's spiritual science speaks more strongly to human nature, so that it can be driven to religious worship, unless one wants to turn away from religious worship, as some superficial naturalists do. Today, the soul must be spoken to more strongly about the supersensible life, for the soul has become more conscious, more individual. The power of religious life must be stronger if it is to develop in its old form.
And yet another misunderstanding in this area is the belief that spiritual science, as it is meant here, wants to form a sect or a religion. Spiritual science has far too clear an insight into the development of the human race for that. It knows that in the development of the human race, successive effective forces are at work, just as in the life of the individual. Just as a person in their forties cannot have the same state of mind as they had in their twenties, so humanity in the 20th century cannot have the same state of mind as in earlier centuries and millennia.
Spiritual science looks at reality everywhere and does not judge this reality according to imagined concepts. Therefore, it does not speak like so many people of the present who want to scientifically establish a religion of the future; rather, it knows that the time of religious formations is over, concluded precisely with the formation of Christianity. For the state of mind in which humanity could be grasped by that inner religious experience, which then had to be propagated, is intimately connected with the world order that existed in earlier times. Now we as humanity have entered a state of mind that had to be brought about by natural science, but which also wants to penetrate into the supersensible according to the model of natural science, which wants to create supersensible knowledge, which wants to create ever greater clarity through this supersensible knowledge about what was revealed in a religious way in religious ages, but which can no longer itself act as a religion-forming force. True spiritual science will lead to an ever-greater understanding of what has been given to humanity in religion, and will also redeem this religious element from the bonds of those who have led it astray through all kinds of power and other desires. But I can only hint at this. To elaborate further would lead too far afield.
With these hints, I just wanted to briefly point out how spiritual science, by its very nature, can neither make people irreligious nor could it want to found any new religion or the like. These are all things that do not arise from a real understanding of what spiritual science, as meant here, really strives for, even if they are claimed. And so one can also say: precisely those attacks that are now raining down on this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, including from representatives of religious denominations, are based on misunderstandings and misinterpretations that are sometimes quite deliberate. Those who are serious about the religious life of humanity have the least reason to turn against spiritual science. For spiritual science will lead back to true religiosity, while the purely scientific age and mere positive religion, which seeks only to preserve the traditional, must lead away from true religion. For this positive religion stems from a time when human beings stood differently in the world. But human beings cannot be turned back, just as a forty-year-old cannot become twenty again.
Therefore, the religious creed that opposes the supersensible knowledge of modern times will dig its own grave, even if it desires so much to establish itself through external power. And again and again I must remind you, as I did last year here in Zurich, how much better a theologian and religious believer was the man who, although a Catholic priest, gave his inaugural lecture as rector of the university on Galileo and drew attention to how the Catholic Church — his church — had opposed Copernicanism at the time, and indeed continued to do so until 1822; how he had to emphasize—Professor Müllner, Catholic theologian and philosopher—when he took up his rectorship at the University of Vienna, that true religiosity, even true Catholicism, should not oppose the progress of human knowledge, because every further advance in human knowledge only reveals the wonders of the divine in the world in a more magnificent and glorious light before mankind.
That is true religious and also true Christian thinking! And just as external scientific knowledge need not be perceived as antagonistic by those who truly and genuinely feel the religious, so too should supersensible knowledge, which must lead people directly back to religiosity, but indeed to free religiosity, to that religiosity which is anchored in the individuality, in the personality. Therefore, it is fair to say that one should take a very close look at the attacks on anthroposophical spiritual science from these quarters, for they do not really proceed from what they claim to proceed from. They too spring from fear and lack of interest, as I characterized the general attitude of humanity toward spiritual science in the first of these lectures. One must only read what is said from this side in the right sense! Of course, those who write these things will not be converted, and one should not be so naive as to think that they can be converted. A refutation would be completely fruitless. But, of course, those for whom they mostly write will not be persuaded either. However, the course of human development cannot be stopped in those who honestly feel what the forces of development in recent times have placed in the human soul.
Through today's lecture — which I intend to supplement the day after tomorrow with another very positive view of recent historical developments from the perspective of spiritual science, which will lead directly into the immediate future of human life and the most pressing questions of the present — I believe I have shown how the search for supersensible knowledge, which is pursued by anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, is neither hostile to natural science nor socially impractical, nor in any way dangerous to religious life. is pursued by anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is neither hostile to natural science nor socially impractical, nor in any way dangerous to religious life. On the contrary, I believe I have just shown that for those who understand what forces the present must arouse in the human soul, and especially what forces the future will arouse, it becomes clear that spiritual scientific knowledge is significant for three burning questions of the present and the near future.
For centuries, and especially in the present and even more so in the future, science has been at the center of human endeavor. The question will arise: What can science do for humanity's highest needs in relation to the supersensible world? The answer to this question can only be provided by science that does not ignore spiritual science.
Another burning question of the present and the near future will be: How can we find the impulses that can shape social life? The answer will have to be: Only that which has been gained through spiritual science undergoes the metamorphosis, when it finds its way into human life, that it can lead to the directly conscious social life of human beings and thus also to the social configuration of the human race across the earth.
And the third burning question will be: How can the innermost need, the need for worship of the divine in the human soul, be satisfied in an age that has been brought to individuality and personality by science, through forces stronger than those that have been brought to bear since time immemorial? — The answer must again be: Such stronger forces can only be aroused by supersensible vision, which, when it lives into the human personality, metamorphoses into the human personality, becomes personal in it. Such forces can only become this supersensible through spiritual science, through knowledge and vision sought through supersensible cognition, as required by modern religiosity, the religiosity that is to truly satisfy humanity in relation to the present and the future in the deepest needs of the soul, indeed in the foundations of the soul.