The Rudolf Steiner Archive

First Lecture

[ 1 ] Here in Berlin and in other places where our Theosophical Society is active, we have heard so much in recent years from the broader field of theosophy—information drawn, so to speak, from the higher realms of clairvoyant research—that the need has inevitably arisen, or rather, must have arisen, to do something to lay a serious and dignified foundation for our spiritual movement. And it is likely that this very General Assembly, which brings our dear members together after seven years of our German Section’s existence, will be a fitting occasion to contribute to a more solid foundation, to the creation of a more stable order for our cause. I shall attempt to do this in the four lectures under the title “Anthroposophy” over the coming days.

[ 2 ] The Kassel lectures on the Gospel of John, the Düsseldorf lectures on the hierarchies, the Basel lectures on the Gospel of Luke, and the Munich lectures on the teachings of Eastern theosophy—all of them have inspired us to ascend to the lofty realms of spiritual research and bring down spiritual truths that are difficult to access. That was what always occupied us there; theosophy was, at least in part, an ascent to the lofty peaks of spiritual human knowledge.

[ 3 ] And now, as we stand at the beginning of a new cycle in our movement, we must bear in mind that, in what is called the cyclical course of world events—once one gradually develops a sense for it—one can indeed, with good reason, perceive something deeper. It was precisely during the days of our very first General Assembly, when we were to establish the German Section, that I gave lectures before an audience consisting only of a very small number of Theosophists; at that time, these lectures were also described as a chapter of Anthroposophy, as a historical chapter of Anthroposophy. Now, seven years later, the time seems to have come again when, so to speak, a cycle has been fulfilled in this regard as well, and when we may once more speak in a broader sense of what is meant by Anthroposophy.

[ 4 ] Let us first clarify what anthroposophy is by means of a comparison. If you want to get to know a region, you can look at everything that spreads out there in villages, forests, meadows, streets, and so on, by walking around from village to village, through street after street, through meadows and forests, from place to place. Depending on where you are, you will always see only a small, very small part of the whole area. But you can also climb to the top of a mountain and look out over the whole country from that high mountain peak. Then the details will appear very indistinct to the ordinary eye, but you will have an overview of the whole. This is how one could describe the relationship that exists between what we call human knowledge and human science in ordinary life and what Theosophy is. Ordinary human knowledge moves around in the world of facts from detail to detail.

[ 5 ] Theosophy climbs up to the top of a high mountain, and the higher it climbs, the larger the area it overlooks. But then it must use special means in order to see anything at all of what is below. The means that must be used have been described many times, including in my book How Does One Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds? There it is shown how it is possible for human beings to ascend to this ideal summit without losing the ability to see anything at all below.

[ 6 ] Now, however, there is a third possibility, which can be seen immediately from this comparison: one does not climb all the way to the summit of the mountain, but remains, so to speak, in the middle. When one is below, one sees only details before oneself; one has no overview, and one sees the upper part from below. When you are at the top, you have nothing above you except the divine sky, and you see everything below you only indistinctly, blurred, shrouded in mist. When you are in the middle, you have a special vantage point: you have something below you and something above you, and you can compare the two views.

[ 7 ] Every comparison is of course inadequate, but it was only intended to show you how theosophy differs from anthroposophy at first glance. Theosophy is standing on the mountain peak, anthroposophy is standing in the middle, so that you look up and down. The location and the point of view are simply different. But now the comparison is no longer sufficient to describe what follows. If one surrenders to theosophy, it is necessary to rise above the human view, to rise from the lower self to the higher self, and to be able to see with the organs of the higher self. For the summit from which theosophy is able to see lies above man, whereas ordinary human cognition actually lies below man, and man himself stands in the middle between the natural and spiritual worlds. The higher reaches into him, for he is permeated, filled with spirit. He can see the spirit above him; but he does not take his starting point from the spirit, from the summit, but rather in such a way that he has the summit above him. At the same time, however, he sees what is merely nature below him, for it protrudes into him from below. Theosophy runs the risk that, unless the means described, for example, in my book How to Know Higher Worlds are used, the human element will be overlooked and human beings will lose the ability to recognize anything adequate at all. In theosophy, there is a danger of no longer seeing reality at one's feet. Of course, this possibility need not be lost if the right means are used to develop the organs with which one sees through the higher self.

[ 8 ] Then, however, we can say: Theosophy is that which is explored when God speaks in man. That is basically the real definition of theosophy: Let God speak in you, and what He then tells you about the world is theosophy. Anthroposophy can be characterized by saying: Place yourself in the middle between God and nature, let the human being within you speak about what is above you and shines into you, and about what protrudes into you from below, then you have anthroposophy, the wisdom that the human being speaks. This wisdom spoken by human beings can be an important foundation and key to the entire field of theosophy. And after you have studied theosophy for some time, you can hardly do anything better than to gain this firm foundation by truly seeking it. Therefore, I will ensure that a brief outline of what anthroposophy is will be available as soon as possible after these lectures.

[ 9 ] What I have said here can also be historically verified in many different ways. We need not go far. We have, for example, a science—you can find information about it in various popular handbooks—which is usually called anthropology. As it is practiced today, it encompasses not only the human being, but, if the term is correctly understood, everything that belongs to the human being, everything that can be experienced in nature, everything that is needed to understand the human being. But how does anthropology proceed? This science takes its starting point from wandering among things; it is itself at the very bottom. It proceeds from detail to detail. It is research that observes the human with the senses, with the aid of the microscope. This science, anthropology, which is today accepted in the widest circles as the only science of man, really takes its standpoint below the abilities of man. It does not apply all of the abilities that humans have for research. Consider this anthropology, which is, so to speak, stuck on the ground, unable to penetrate any of the burning mysteries of existence, and consider it together with what is presented to us as theosophy. There, one ascends to the highest heights; there, the aim is to find an answer to the most burning questions of existence. But you will have found that people who have not slowly and gradually found their way into it, who have not had the patience to go along with everything we have been able to say in recent years, who have not been able to follow step by step, that people who have remained at the level of anthropology, perceive Theosophy as an airy edifice, as something lacking any foundation. They cannot understand how the soul ascends from stage to stage, from imagination to inspiration and intuition. They cannot rise to the summit, cannot see what the goal of all human and world evolution is.

[ 10 ] Thus, anthropology stands, as it were, on the lowest rung of the ladder, theosophy, where many lose the ability to recognize, on the highest, and anthroposophy in the middle.

[ 11 ] To help us understand this, let us take a historical example from which we can see what theosophy becomes when it wants to ascend to the summit but is unable to do so with the means we find in the book How to Know Higher Worlds. We have such an example in the German theosophist Solger, who lived from 1780 to 1819. In his views we find everything that the concept of theosophy implies. But with what means did Solger seek to ascend to the highest heights? With the concepts of philosophy, with the exhausted and worn-out concepts of human thinking! It is really like someone climbing a mountain to look around, but forgetting his telescope and then being unable to see anything below. In this case, the telescope is a spiritual one; it is imagination, inspiration, and intuition. Solger sought to climb to the summit with inadequate means.

[ 12 ] For a long time, people felt that over the centuries, human abilities had become increasingly incapable of climbing this peak. Throughout the Middle Ages, people felt this and admitted it. In more recent times, people still feel this, but they no longer admit it to themselves. For a long time, it was felt that human abilities were once able to ascend to the summit from which it was possible to speak as an ancient theosophy actually did. Such an ancient theosophy existed. But then what was revealed at the summit had to be completed. It had to be protected from being received by the ordinary means of knowledge. This ancient theosophy became theology, which regarded revelation as complete. And so, alongside anthropology, which proceeds from detail to detail using the ordinary means of knowledge, there stands theology, which wants to ascend and know something of what can be seen in the heights, but again relies on something that can be attained by ordinary human means, namely, historical tradition, that which has once been revealed and which is not always to be revealed anew and again and again to the aspiring human soul. Anthropology and theology stood opposite each other throughout the Middle Ages without rejecting each other. They still stand opposite each other in modern times, only in a different form. From the standpoint of anthropology, modern times generally reject theology as something scientific. If you do not dwell on the details but go up, ascend to that middle ground you have characterized, then you can place anthroposophy alongside theosophy, similar to how anthropology stood alongside theology in the Middle Ages.

[ 13 ] Attempts have also been made to establish anthroposophy within modern intellectual life, but again with completely inadequate means, namely with the means of abstract, exhausted concepts of philosophy. If one wants to understand what this is all about, one must first understand what philosophy is in the first place. Today, only theosophists can understand what philosophy actually is, but philosophers themselves cannot. What is philosophy? It can only be understood if one first considers its historical development. An example will illustrate this. In ancient times, there were so-called mysteries as centers for the cultivation of higher spiritual life. There, students could be guided to spiritual perception through the development of their abilities. One such mystery was in Ephesus, where the secrets of Diana of Ephesus were explored. There, the students looked into the spiritual worlds. As much as could be publicly communicated from what was received there was indeed communicated. Then the others received it as something seen in the mysteries, as something communicated to them, as a gift. There were people who were aware that they had received the higher secrets from the mysteries. One such man was, for example, the great sage Heraclitus. He had a particularly deep understanding of the mysteries of Ephesus, the facts that clairvoyant people were able to fathom there. He proclaimed what he had received there as a message and what he owed to his partial initiation in such a way that it could be understood by everyone. Therefore, anyone who reads the teachings of Heraclitus, the so-called “dark one,” sees that there is something deeper underlying them, so that one can still see shining through these original teachings the immediate experience of the higher worlds. Then came the followers of Heraclitus. They no longer had any idea that what had been communicated to them originated from the direct experiences of the higher worlds. They began to speculate with their intellect, believing that with their mere philosophical intellect they could find something incorrect here and there, and they corrected it. This was spun out into concepts and passed down from generation to generation. And when we have anything to do with philosophy today, we have nothing before us but a legacy of old teachings from which life has been blown out, squeezed out, and of which only the dead skeleton of concepts remains. Philosophers are not aware of where the concepts come from. Philosophies are abstractions, heirlooms of ancient wisdom that have been squeezed into concepts. There is no philosopher who can think anything up for himself. This requires ascending into the higher worlds.

[ 14 ] And only such a skeleton of philosophy, such squeezed-out concepts, were basically available to the philosophers of the 19th century when they tackled what can be called anthroposophy. The word has already been used. Robert Zimmermann wrote an “Anthroposophy,” but he undertook it with highly inadequate means, as Solger did with theosophy. He spun it out with the most exhausted, abstract concepts, and this web was then his anthroposophy. What we have here is truly the most abstract, dry conceptual web that no longer touches on the subject at all. It is characteristic that what in the 19th century wanted to go beyond the external, individual experience, beyond anthropology, and be anthroposophy, has become a dry conceptual web.

[ 15 ] Theosophy, on the other hand, by providing the means to recognize reality within spiritual life, also deepens the knowledge of humanity that can be called anthroposophy. Anthroposophy is a spiritual knowledge of the world that stands purely on the middle, human standpoint, and not on the subhuman, as anthropology does. Solgers' theosophy stands on a superhuman standpoint, but has no content. The concepts there only want to skim over humanity. Because such people cannot see anything above their world, they spin finely on the loom of concepts. We do not want to spin on the loom of concepts. We want to go to reality. And you will see that the reality of the whole of human life will confront us. You will recognize the old friends, the old objects of our observations, but illuminated from a different point of view, namely from the point of view that looks both up and down.

[ 16 ] Man is truly the most important object of our observation. Even when we consider the first link in the human being, the physical body, when we think about what we have gained through theosophy and examine it more closely, we become aware of what a complicated structure this physical body actually is. In order to gain at least an intuitive understanding of what anthroposophy actually aims at, consider the following: What we now call the physical human body is, so to speak, an old product. We know that its first embryonic form arose on ancient Saturn and changed on the ancient Sun, the ancient Moon, and the Earth. The etheric body was added on the Sun, the astral body on the Moon. These members of the human being have always changed in the course of evolution. What we see today as the complex human body with heart and kidneys, eyes and ears, and so on, is the product of a long development. Everything arose from a form that existed in a highly simplified state on ancient Saturn. This changed and transformed over millions of years until it finally rose to its present perfection and complexity. If you look at any part of this physical body today, the heart or the lungs, you cannot understand it unless you have a deeper insight into how these parts came into being and were formed. Of course, nothing that is now the form of the heart or the lungs existed on ancient Saturn. Little by little, these organs took on their present form. One formed earlier, the other later, and was incorporated into the physical body. We can refer to one organ as a sun organ because it first became attached and appeared during the ancient sun state. We can refer to another as a lunar organ, and so on. In this way, we can derive concepts from the universe, from observing the whole world, if we want to understand how this complex structure, the physical human body, actually came into being and what it means today.

[ 17 ] This is a theosophical view of the human being. What, on the other hand, is the anthropological view of the human being? When you look at it anthropologically, you take the heart and look at it on its own, you take the stomach and look at it on its own. You examine them side by side, as if it didn't matter which organ is younger and which is older. You don't take that into account; everything is mechanically juxtaposed as individual details. Theosophy goes up to the highest heights and explains everything individual from the spiritual. Anthropology remains at the very bottom, starting from the individual and has now reached the extreme: it looks at individual cells in their coexistence as if it were irrelevant that one cell complex originated in the old moon period and another in the old sun period. The individual cell complexes really did originate at different times. One can cite the details externally, but one will not understand them unless one views them from a spiritual point of view. Thus, anthropology wanders around at the very bottom, and theosophy occupies the highest peak.

[ 18 ] Now think that the matter is even more complicated. The human heart is one of the oldest organs, at least in its embryonic form. As it appears today, it certainly developed only in later times. And now let us consider the ancient Sun period. There, for example, the germ of the human heart was dependent on the forces that prevailed on the ancient Sun. Then development continued. In the first period of the Moon, the ancient Moon was united with the Sun, and the heart underwent another stage of development. But then the great event occurred: the Sun separated. It now worked from outside, so that from then on the heart underwent a completely different development. From that time on, development proceeded in such a way that there was a solar and a lunar component, and one can only understand the heart if one can distinguish between the solar and the lunar components. Then the Sun reunited with the Moon. During the Earth's development, the sun first emerged again and had a more intense effect on development from outside. Then the moon separated and the moon acted from outside, so that we have a new phase in the development of this ancient organ.

[ 19 ] Thus we see the most diverse forces shining into the human physical body from the most diverse points of view. Because the heart is one of the oldest organs, we really have a sun part, a moon part, a second sun part, and a second moon part, and then an extra earth part after the separation of the earth. When all these parts of an organ or of the human physical body are in harmony with each other, as they are in harmony with the cosmos, then the human being is healthy. As soon as one of the parts becomes dominant, let's say, for example, the sun part becomes too big compared to the moon part in relation to the heart, then the heart becomes ill. And you understand this illness if you know how, through some circumstances, the moon part has fallen behind, so to speak. All human illness is based on these different parts becoming disordered, irregular. All healing would consist in restoring harmony. But it is not enough to just talk about it; one must truly know this harmony, one must truly enter into the wisdom of the world in order to be able to find the different parts in each organ.

[ 20 ] The physical body is an enormously complicated structure. You can already guess this from what we have considered so far. You can guess what a truly occult physiology and anatomy is, which has to take all these factors into account and which understands the human being from the whole cosmos. It speaks of the sun and moon aspects in the heart, larynx, brain, and so on. But since all these parts work within the human being as he stands before us today, he is, so to speak, the solidified, crystallized product of all the processes that have taken place from Saturn to the Sun, Moon, and Earth. Thus, something stands before us in the human being in which all these parts are solidified. |

[ 21 ] If we look not out into the world but into human beings themselves and understand the individual organs, the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the sentient soul, the intellectual soul, and the conscious soul, as human beings are today, then that is anthroposophy. In anthroposophy, we must also start from the lowest in order to gradually ascend to the highest. The lowest for human beings is the sensory-physical world, that which is given through the senses and the sensory-physical intellect. We consider this in theosophy, starting from the whole world, in its cosmic connections with the sensory-physical, the outer phenomena. That is the theosophical view. The anthroposophical view must start from the human being in relation to the physical world, must consider what is physical in the human being. It must start from the human being and consider him insofar as he is a sensory being. That will be the first thing. Then we will have to consider the human etheric body, then the astral body and the I, that which is to be found in it.

[ 22 ] What should interest us in particular when we consider the physical-sensory world? That which is in the human being himself. These are, first of all, the senses, for it is actually through them that he gains knowledge of the physical-sensory world. In anthroposophy, we must first speak of the human senses when starting from the physical plane, for they are what enable human beings to know anything at all about the physical-sensory world. And we will see how important it is to start from the observation of the senses in order to truly understand the human being. So let this be our first chapter. Then we will ascend to the consideration of the individual spiritual realms in human nature.

[ 23 ] When we consider the human senses, as anthroposophists we immediately come into conflict with anthropology, for anthroposophy must always start from what is sensually real, but it must be clear that the spirit works in from above. Anthropology only deals with what it can investigate below and throws everything into confusion. In the chapter on the human senses in particular, everything in external anthropology is thrown into confusion, and important things are left out of consideration because people have no guide to finding the relevant facts in a real and correct way. If the thread that is supposed to lead through the labyrinth of facts is missing, it is impossible to find a way out of this labyrinth. The ball of thread that guides Theseus out of the Minotaur's labyrinth in the legend must be spun by spiritual research. Ordinary anthropology remains inside the labyrinth and falls victim to the Minotaur. Thus we will see that anthroposophy has something different to say about the senses than ordinary external observation.

[ 24 ] But it is also interesting to see how today's science is already being forced by external facts to look at things a little more thoroughly and seriously than has been done in the past. The most trivial thing is always to speak of the five human senses: touch, smell, taste, hearing, and sight. We will see that this entire list of the five senses is really already completely confused. To these senses, modern science has added three other senses, which it does not really know what to do with. Today we will lay the very first foundations for an anthroposophical theory of the senses. We will list the senses insofar as they really have meaning based on the thread discussed above.

[ 25 ] The first human sense that comes into consideration is what can be called the sense of life in spiritual science. This is a real sense, and just as one speaks of the sense of sight, one must speak of the sense of life. What is the sense of life? It is something in the human being that, when everything is in order, is not actually felt, but is only felt when something is not right within the human being. The human being feels weariness, which is perceived as an inner experience, just as one perceives a color. And what is expressed in the feeling of hunger or thirst, or what can be called a special feeling of strength, must also be perceived inwardly like a color or a sound. You usually only perceive this when something is wrong. The first human self-perception is given by the meaning of life, through which humans become aware of their physicality as a whole. This is the first real sense, and it must be taken into account just as much as the senses of sight, hearing, or smell. No one can understand the senses who does not know that it is possible to feel oneself as a whole, to become aware of oneself as an internally closed, physical entity.

[ 26 ] The second thing that is completely different from this meaning of life is what you can discover when you move any of your limbs. You move your arm or your leg. You would not be a human being if you could not perceive your own movements. A machine does not perceive its own movement; only a living being can do that, by means of a real sense. The sense of what we move within ourselves, from the blink of an eye to the movement of our legs, is a real second sense, the sense of self-movement.

[ 27 ] We become aware of a third sense when we think about how humans distinguish between up and down. If we can no longer perceive this, it is very dangerous for us, as we can no longer hold ourselves up and fall over. We can point to an organ that has a lot to do with this sense, namely the three semicircular canals in the ear. If this organ is damaged, humans lose their sense of orientation. This sense can also be traced in the animal kingdom. There it manifests itself as certain organs of balance. When certain small, stone-like structures, known as otoliths, are located in a specific place in a specific way, we have a sense of balance; otherwise, we simply stagger. This is the sense of balance or the static sense.

[ 28 ] With these senses, which we have listed so far, humans perceive something within themselves, feel something within themselves. Now let us step outside of humans, where they begin to interact with the outside world. The first interaction with the world is when humans unite matter with themselves and perceive this matter. This is only possible if this substance can actually be united with the human body. This only applies to gaseous substances. These are absorbed through the organs of smell. This is where interaction with the outside world begins. A body cannot be smelled unless it emits gaseous substances. A rose must emit gaseous substances in order to be smelled. The fourth sense is therefore the sense of smell.

[ 29 ] The fifth sense arises when human beings no longer merely perceive materiality, but take the first step into materiality, that is, enter into a deeper relationship with matter. Matter must already exert some effect on them. This is the case when a solid or liquid body reaches our taste organs. In this case, we do not perceive the material directly, but the body must first be dissolved by the fluid in the mouth. Here, only an interaction between the tongue and the body can be perceived. Things tell us not only what they are as matter, but also what they can do. The interaction between human beings and nature has become more intimate. This is the fifth sense, the sense of taste.

[ 30 ] The sixth sense is where what humans perceive in things reveals the essence of things even more intimately. Here, things tell humans more than they tell them through the sense of taste alone. This happens because special precautions are taken so that things can announce themselves to humans in a very specific way. With smell, the human body perceives things as they are. The sense of taste is more complicated, but here things reveal a little more of their inner nature. With the sixth sense, however, we can penetrate even deeper into the world. This is the case when we distinguish whether something external and material allows light to pass through it or not. The fact that it allows light to pass through in a certain way is revealed by whether and how it is colored. A thing that allows green light to pass through it shows that it is precisely such inside that it can allow this light to pass through. While the outermost surface reveals itself to the sense of smell, something of the inner nature of a thing becomes known to us through the sense of taste; in the sense of sight, on the other hand, something of the innermost nature of things becomes apparent. This is the essence of the sixth sense, the sense of sight. The eye is such a wonderful organ because it allows us to penetrate much deeper into the nature of things than the sense organs just discussed. The sense of sight has something very peculiar about it. When we see a rose as red with our eyes, for example, its inner nature is revealed through its surface. We see only the surface, and because it is conditioned by the interior, we learn about this interior to a certain degree through it.

[ 31 ] With the seventh sense, humans must become even more intimately acquainted with things. If we touch a piece of ice or a piece of hot steel with our hand, we penetrate even deeper into the interior of a thing. With color, we have only what is happening on the surface. Ice, on the other hand, is cold through and through, and even with hot steel, the heat passes through the entire body. With heat and cold, we therefore have an even more intimate acquaintance with the nature of things than with the sense of sight, which only informs us about the surface properties. The sense of heat reaches more intimately into the underlying nature of things. Such would be the sense of heat or the seventh sense.

[ 32 ] Now let us try to see how things will develop further. Can human beings use their senses to penetrate even deeper into the underlying nature of things? Can they get to know the intimate inner nature of things even more precisely than through the sense of warmth? Yes, they can, because things show them what they are like in their inner nature when they begin to sound. Warmth is distributed very evenly in things. What sound is in things is not evenly distributed. Sound causes the inner nature of things to vibrate. This reveals a certain inner quality. You perceive how a thing moves internally through your more intimate sense of hearing. It provides us with a more intimate knowledge of the external world than the sense of heat. This is the eighth sense, the sense of hearing. When we strike an object, its sound reveals its inner nature to us. We distinguish objects according to their inner nature, according to the way they can vibrate and tremble internally when we make them sound. In a certain sense, the soul of objects speaks to us.

[ 33 ] Are there senses higher than hearing? Here we must proceed much more cautiously in order to explore the higher senses, for we must not confuse the senses with something else. In ordinary life, where one remains at a low level and confuses everything, one still speaks of other senses, for example, the sense of imitation, the sense of concealment, and so on. But here the word sense is used incorrectly. Sense is that through which we gain knowledge without the participation of the intellect. Where we gain knowledge through judgment, we do not speak of sense, but only where our power of judgment has not yet come into play. When you perceive a color, you use a sense. If you want to judge between two colors, you do not use a sense.

[ 34 ] In this sense – where the word sense is already being used incorrectly – are there any other senses besides the eight mentioned so far? Yes, there is a ninth sense. We find it when we consider that there is indeed a certain faculty of perception in human beings. This is particularly important for the foundation of anthroposophy. There is a faculty of perception that is not based on judgment, but is nevertheless present in it. It is what we perceive when we communicate with our fellow human beings through language. In perceiving what is given to us through language, there is not only an expression of judgment, but also a real sense of language underlying it. This sense of language is the ninth sense. We must speak of it as we speak of the sense of sight or smell. The child learns to speak before it learns to judge. The whole people has a language; judging is the responsibility of the individual. What appeals to the senses is not subject to the soul activity of the individual. Hearing announces the inner trembling. The perception that a sound means this or that is not mere hearing. The meaning that expresses itself in this as the meaning of language reveals itself to another sense, the sense of language. This is why children can speak or understand what is spoken long before they learn to judge. It is only through language that they learn to judge. The sense of language is the educator, just as the senses of sight and hearing are educators during the first years of life! One cannot change what the sense perceives; one cannot spoil it. This is as true of color as it is of the perception of the inner nature of speech sounds. The sense of language must necessarily be designated as a special sense. It is the ninth sense.

[ 35 ] Then we come to the tenth of the senses. This is the highest sense in ordinary human life. Through it, humans are able to understand concepts that are not clothed in speech sounds. The sense of concepts is just as much a sense as any other. In order to be able to judge, we must have concepts. If the soul is to be moved by concepts, it must be able to perceive them. It is able to do this through the sense of concepts. Thus we have enumerated a tenth sense.

[ 36 ] But you may say that one sense has been completely forgotten: the sense of touch. Indeed! The sense of touch is usually lumped together with the sense of heat. That this can be said comes from the confusion caused by those who do not have the intellectual thread. At first, the sense of touch is only important as the sense of heat. As such, the whole skin can be roughly described as this sense. In a way, the skin is also there for the sense of touch. But if you think about it, touching isn't just what we do when we touch something and feel its surface; it's also when we look for something with our eyes. The senses of smell and taste can also touch. When we sniff, we touch with our sense of smell. Up to the sense of warmth, touching is a common property of senses four to seven. We can therefore speak of these senses as senses of touch. Only our crude view of physiology can attribute to one sense something that belongs to a whole series of senses, namely the senses of smell, taste, sight, and heat. In the case of hearing, we can hardly speak of touching anymore; it is present only to a very small extent. Even less so in the case of speech and even less in the case of the sense of concepts. These senses are therefore referred to as the senses of comprehension. While the sense of touch has something that remains on the surface, that cannot penetrate things, the sense of warmth first penetrates things and then deeper and deeper. These higher senses provide us with an understanding and comprehension of things in their innermost being, and are therefore referred to as the senses of comprehension.

[ 37 ] You can now see that before we come to the sense of smell, we have to list three other senses that teach us about our own inner being. They draw their knowledge from this inner being. Then we come to the boundary between the inner and outer worlds, first through the sense of smell, and then we penetrate deeper and deeper into the outer world through the higher senses.

[ 38 ] Is there anything below and above? What has been listed is only an excerpt. Above and below lie other senses. From the sense of concepts, we could ascend to the first astral sense and then come to the senses that can penetrate into the spiritual. There we would first find an eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth sense. These three unknown senses shall only be mentioned here for the time being. We will speak about them in more detail tomorrow or the day after tomorrow when we ascend from the physical to the spiritual. They will lead us deeper into the foundations of spiritual life, into the realm where concepts cannot penetrate. Concepts come to a halt at a certain point. Beyond concepts lies that which can only be perceived through the higher senses. Smell stops at the threshold of our own inner being. Just as you have three senses below smell, so above the concept there are three higher senses through which we penetrate the outer shell of spiritual things, just as we penetrate the outer shell of physical things with the lower senses.

[ 39 ] But today we will remain on the physical plane. That is why we have listed what belongs to the perception of the physical. It was not unnecessary to engage in such a foundation of things. Because it has been forgotten, everything in the sciences has been thrown into the most appalling confusion, even into philosophy and epistemology. People generally ask: What can man know through the individual senses? — One cannot indicate the difference between the sense of hearing and the sense of sight. People speak of sound waves in the same way as light waves, without taking into account that the sense of sight penetrates less deeply into the essence of things than the sense of hearing, which reveals something of the soul nature of the external world. Through the three even higher senses, the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth senses, we will also penetrate into the spirit of things. Each sense has a different nature and essence. This must be taken into account first. Therefore, you can regard a large number of explanations that physics today offers about the nature of the sense of sight and its relationship to the environment as something that has never taken into account the nature of the senses at all. Countless errors have been built upon this misunderstanding of the nature of the senses. This must be emphasized because popular accounts do not do justice to what has been said here. Indeed, popular books may say just the opposite. You read things there that have been written by people who cannot even have the slightest idea of the inner nature of the sense being. We must realize that science, from its standpoint, must speak differently, that it must fall into error because the course of development has been such that what is true has been forgotten in many cases. This is the first chapter of anthroposophy: the real nature and essence of our senses.