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Spiritual Scientific Notes on Goethe's Faust, Vol. II
GA 273

29 September 1918, Dornach

9. Goethe's Life of the Soul from the Standpoint of Spiritual Science

From our considerations of yesterday and the day before, we have been able to see how Goethe's creative work is steeped through by a certain outlook suggestive of that of spiritual science—although this outlook may be but dimly foreshadowed. And it is indeed very important that we should make ourselves thoroughly acquainted with the character of Goethe's spiritual life. It is only by shedding before the soul the light of a deepened observation upon all that such a life of spirit contains that this life appears in the right connection with the whole evolution of mankind. But I wish to add something here to all that has been said. I should like, that is, to point out how really it is only possible rightly to comprehend the whole structure, the whole manner, of Goethe's spiritual life if this is done from the standpoint of spiritual science. It is not merely that from an unspiritual standpoint we can naturally never find in Goethe's work all that yesterday and the previous day we were able to discover by considering it anthroposiphically, but also it only becomes clear how such a life of soul is possible within the course of human development, when we look at it from the point of view of spiritual Science.

In various connections I have called your attention to other manifestations of Goethe's soul-life, manifestations that, for ordinary human life, may perhaps seem—but only seem—to be more remote than what is represented in the all-embracing Faust poem,that should indeed be of the greatest interest to every man. I have spoken to you of the special mind of natural science which Goethe cultivated. And it is particularly important and significant that he should have done so. It may be said that Goethe's individual way of thinking where natural science is concerned is precisely what in most spheres at present still meets with complete lack of understanding. Nevertheless, it appears to me of quite special importance for the various branches of present day spiritual life—and not least for the religious life—that an insight should be gained into this particular form, this individual way, in which Goethe looked upon nature. You know how he sought to establish for the inanimate world a natural science founded on his own interpretation of the primal phenomena, and how he built up a botany on the basis of metamorphoses.

So far as all this is a matter of general knowledge I should like today to give you a brief description of the primal phenomena and metamorphoses.

What was Goethe's intention when he turned not to hypotheses and theories but to the so-called primal phenomena for his explanation of nature? Since the eighties of the last century I have been doing my best to give mankind, from various aspects, an idea of the true basic character of the primal phenomenon. But it cannot be claimed that so far there has really been a very wide understanding of the matter. Perhaps we can get the best view of what Goethe understood by the primal phenomenon in inanimate nature when we consider how he came to build up his special Theory of Colors. He tells of this himself. I know that what I now have to say is an abomination and a heresy for the present day scientific conception of physics. That, however, is of no consequence. What physics does not recognize today, my dear firends, the physics of tomorrow will find itself obliged to accept. In reality, present day physics is not yet ripe for Goethe's theory of colors.

As I said, Goethe himself tells us that up to the beginning of the nineties of the eighteenth century he believed, as did other men, in the so-called Newtonian theory of colors—in that theory built up by Newton on a certain hypothesis. This theory declared that something imperceptible lay at the basis of light—we need not go into that now. In essentials it is immaterial whether it is represented, as it was by Newton himself; as currents of matter, or as oscillations, or as some kind of electrical impulse. The arising of colors was conceived as follows—that the light in some way contains the various colors unseparated as if naturalized in a kind of supersensible entity, and that by means of the prism or other devices, the colors were made to issue forth from the unified white light.

One day Goethe found himself obliged to abandon this conception that he shared with others, and he did so in a way that, naturally, must appear to modern physics both primitive and foolish. He studied this Newtonian physics, this Newtonian optics, and accepted it as one does as a matter of course when knowing of nothing better. But he found that when wishing to apply this optics, this theory of colors, in order to think out anything that had to do with art, with painting, he could do nothing with it. This Newtonian physics serves for a materialistic physical representation, but is useless when it comes to art. This increasingly disturbed Goethe and incited him at least to look into what happens in the appearance of colors from the point of view of physics. So, from Councillor Buttner who was a professor at Jena, he managed to procure the apparatus to see, through his own investigations and experiements, what views he could form concerning the appearance of colors. It goes without saying that Professer Buttner promptly placed all the apparatus at the disposal of His Excellency von Goethe. But, once in his house, it served, to begin with, only to collect the dust. It was long before he made his investigations—not indeed until Councillor Buttner expressed his need of the apparatus, and the desire for its return. Goethe put the things together for dispatch. However, he thought he would first have a quick glance through a prism, believing that if he looked through it at the white of the wall, so this white would then be broken up into seven colors, he would assuredly see them. (This would, as has been said, appear to the modern physicist both foolish and primitive). But—nothing! The wall remained white! This puzzled him. According to customary notions this was foolish but, my dear firends, it was sound thinking. He took a peep through the prism; the wall was still white. That made him appeal to Councillor Buttner to let him keep the instruments, the apparatus, and he then set up his further investigations. And from these investigations there now grew first his science of colors, and, secondly, his whole outlook on physics, that is to say, on inanimate, natural phenomena. It was an outlook that rejected all hypotheses and theories, that never thought out anything about natural phenomena, but traced back one set of natural phenomena to another, traced them merely to primal appearances, primal phenomena.1In Man or Matter by Dr. Ernst Lehrs the words “light” and “dark” have been reserved for referring to the primary polarity, “lightness” and “darkness” being used to express their visible effects. The same principle has been followed here.

Thus he became clear that, when color is perceived, at the basis of this lies some kind of working together of super imposed lightness and darkness. If darkness laps over lightness, the bright colors appear; if lightness laps over darkenss, then there appear the deep colors, blue, violet and so forth. If over brightness, lightness any form of darkness is projeatd, such as dark material and so forth,or the actual prism, the bright colors appear, red, yellow and so on. Here it is not a matter of any theory. Darkness and lightness are working through immediate perception. It is simply perceived that if darkness and lightness work together, colors arise. No hypothesis is expressed here nor any theory—merely something that is simple fact, something that can be perceived.

Now it did not concern him merely to invent hypotheses like the wave theory perhaps, or the Emission theory, and so on, hypotheses that would say that colors arise in such and such a way; it was simply a putting together, as lightness and darkness had to be put together for yellow or red, blue or violet, to appear. Goethe's way was not to add to phenomena hypotheses and theories in thought, but to keep strictly to letting the phenomena speak for themselves. In this way Goethe brought a theory of colors into existence that led in a wonderfully beautiful way to the grasping of what has to do with color in the realm of art. For the chapter on the effect of color with reference to moral associations, in which are found so many significant indications for the artist, belongs to the most beautiful part of Goethe's theory of colors.

This then was the basis of Goethe's whole understanding of inanimate nature—never to seek for theories or hypotheses. According to him these can be set up as scaffolding. But, as when the building is finished, the scaffolding is not left but removed, so one uses hypotheses merely to show the way in which things may be put together. They are discarded as soon as the primal phenomenon, the simplest phenomenon, is reached.

It was this that Goethe also tried at any rate to outline for the whole of physics. And in the large Weimar edition, in the volume where I have published Goethe's general scientific essays, you will find a chart in which Goethe has detched out a complete scheme for physics from this point of view. In this chart the acoustics of particular interest, that, like his theory of colors, is indeed merely given in outline. Some day it would be interesting, however, to set up an acoustics that would fit in with music in the same way as Goethe's theory of colors does with painting. Naturally this could not be done yet, for modern natural science has taken a different path from that founded on Goethe's world conception and on his conception of nature.

It was this that he was trying to do where inanimate nature is concerned. And he was looking for something of the same kind in the life of the living plant in the theory of metamorphoses, where, without setting up any hypotheses, he followed up how the stem leaf was transformed, metamorphosed, and took on various forms, growing afterwards into the petal, so that the blossom is simply transformed stem leaf. Again this is an outlook that will have nothing to do with hypotheses but keeps to what is offered to the perception. What we need here is not fixed concepts but concepts that are as much on the move as is nature herself while creating; that is, she does not hold fast to forms but in ever transforming them. We must have such concepts, therefore, that the majority of mankind is too lazy to develop, concepts in a state of inward transformation, so that we are able livingly to follow them in their forms that change as they do in nature. But then, free from hypotheses and theories, one confines oneself to pure percept.

This is what is characteristic of Goethe, my dear friends, that he rejects all theory where natural phenomena are concerned, and really is willing to apply thinking only for assembling phenomena in the right way, so that they express themselves according to their essential nature. One can indeed put this in a paradox. I beg you to keep this well in mind. It was precisely through this that, as we have seen in the last two days, Goethe was driven along the right path into the sphere of the spiritual, that, for the phenomena of external nature, he did not destroy their integrity by all kinds of theories and hypotheses but grasped them just as they were offered to the life of the senses.

This, my dear friends, has a further consequence. If we form theories, such as those of Newton or spencer, that is to say, if we cloud by theories and hypotheses what nature herself offers, we may think about nature in the way that is possible during human physical life, but the matter is not then taken up into the etheric body. And they become overdone, all these theories that do not arise from pure nature and from the simple observation of nature; all these theories and hypotheses make indeed a caricature of the human etheric body and also of the astral body, thereby having a disturbing effect on man's life in spiritual worlds.

Goethe's sound nature turned against the destruction of the forms demanded for itself by the etheric body. This is exactly what is so significant about Goethe, and why I tell you he can only be understood anthroposophically—that he had an instinct for what did not originate in immediate reality, and perceived that, when he formed concepts like those of Newton, the etheric body was nipped and tweaked. This did not happen to others because they were less finely organized. Goethe's organization was such that while looking into things thus his etheric body was nipped and tweaked. And neither theory nor the most beautiful hypothesis prevented this, when only the white appears and he has to realize: The wall is still white in spite of the fact that all the seven graded colors are supposed to appear. This has not happened. And Goethe's way of experiencing this is indeed a proof of his thoroughly sound nature and of how he, as microcosm, was in harmony with the macrocosm.

Yet another side of the matter may be brought to your notice. We know, my dear friends, that man is not only the being who lives between birth and death; he is also the being who lives between death and a new birth. Into this life between death and a new birth he takes the sun of inner forces developed by him when in his physical body. Now when, after a few days, he is parted from his etheric body, he looks back upon it; and it is important that this etheric body should have been so used by him that in looking at it thus he is not deluded by a caricature. Now this is what we have particularly to note. If we look at nature in its purely natural aspect, as did Goethe, rejecting theories and hypotheses, and allowing only primal phenomena to have weight, then this understanding and regarding the primal phenomena thus, is of such a nature that it sets free within us sound, healthy experiencec and feelings of the kind that Goethe described in his chapter on the effect of color with reference to moral associations. It goes without saying that the perception of sense phenomena ceases with life. And what remains in our soul and spirit from pure perception, the only thing Goethe allowed to hold good as natural science is thoroughly sound and in harmony to do with the world of soul and spirit. Thus, we may say that Goethe's natural science is in accordance with the spiritual, in spite of his keeping to the phenomenal and physically perceptible. This is because it does not sully through theories the purity of its outlook on nature by influencing the spirit either ahrimanically or luciferically. Theories of this kind darken for the soul and spirit the purity of outlook upon what is earthly.

Now I told you yesterday that man has not lived only on the earth, but before he trod the earth he went through successive developments on Saturn, Sun and Moon. After he will have left the earth, or rather when the earth has left him, he will continue his development on Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan. But I told you that scientific concepts are possible only in relation to the earth evolution. In actual fact, if we cultivate a sound natural science, we then have the impulse not to represent the earth evolution so that everything is mixed up in it that is in keeping with Saturn, Sun and Moon—though naturally this is in reality connected with the earth evolution—but a sound natural science will take the earth as earth and represent it in its conformity with law. This is what Goethe did. And, why man is so little able to rise to a sound understanding of the Moon, Sun and Saturn evolution, is because his earth evolution is not sound. Even though Goethe himself never arrived at this conception of the evolutions on Moon, Sun and Saturn, anyone going deeply into his natural science—a science free from anything else and concerned merely with the earth—just through this prepares his spirit to separate what is earthly by means of a sound knowledge of the earth, and prepares himself as well to form a sound conception of what can be seen only in the supersensible, that is to say, the evolution of Saturn, Sun and moon, and all that is spiritual. It is possible, therefore, to say that it was just by his outlook being directed so exclusively towards the supersensible, that Goethe had the necessary qualifications to work in his Faust upon all we have been witnessing these last two days. Goethe lived thus in the spirit where spiritual comprehension is concerned, because he did not apply to natural phenomena any confused theories or hypotheses out of the spirit. The one thing determines the other.

What finally I called your attention to yesterday is that Goethe was not idealist on the one side, realist on the other but took the outer phenomena realistically, and in an idealistic way what was to be understood idealistically. He did not, however believe it possible to found a world-conception either through the one or the other, but allowed both to be mirrored in his soul as they are reflected also in external reality. Though Goethe himself did not entirely follow this out, yet it led in a wholesome way—if his ideas are really absorbed—to the possibility of a right representation of the two kinds of life that man has to experience. And it may be asked why then is it that mankind's usual outlook today is so little inclined towards the spiritual, and, although concepts of the spiritual world are formed, they are so abstract that with them external nature cannot be understood? How is it that for present day man idealism and realism so fall apart that, either they found a half-hearted monism of little significance, or they do not arrive at any world outlook at all—how is this? This comes about because man wishes today to found his world outlook in a quite definite way. He either becomes a scientist, learning to know nature and trying to instill into her all manner of theories and hpotheses—for in the realm of thinking today the heritage of the natural scientist is not primal phenomena but theories and hypotheses—and seeking to permeate natural phenomena with these; or, he becomes a theologian or philosopher, trying to acquire from tradition certain concepts, ideas, about the spiritual. These are so thin, so shadowy, that with their inadequate power it is impossible to comprehend nature.

Just look around at what is given out by the theologians and phiolsophers today; where do you find any firm ground from which rightly to throw light on nature? And among the real adherents of modern natural science, when they are not monistic garbage, where do you find any serious possibility of rising from natural science to the reality of divine spiritual forms and realms of existence? Even if sound thinking is developed, it is not possible today to unite the two spheres in their present guise. The two spheres are only united when we have the faculty of devoting ourselves in Goethe's way to science and the observation of nature. That means directing the gaze to the phenomenon to what appears, without intermixing useless theories unless these build up the phenomena; it means making merely a useful servant of thinking, but not letting it interfere in results. Where nature is concerned we have to allow her the power of interpreting herself. Not to weave fantastic ideas about nature, but to be completely materialistic, letting the material phenomena speak for themselves—that is our task when it comes to sound natural science. Should we really come to a natural science of this kind, we shall then understand human life between birth—or shall we say conception—and death. And by looking on one side into nature thus, we must also be able to look into the spirit without the light of impossible theories and hypotheses. We shall not then be confined to abstract theologies or philophies but give ourselves up to spiritual perceptions. And it is precisely through the power that sets free in us a direct observation of nature—Goethe's observation—that spiritual perception, perception of the pure spirit, can be induced. Upon the man who confusedly mixes his concepts and ideas about natural phenomena, these concepts take their revenge, preventing his perceiving the spirit. He who looks simply at nature sees her in his own soul in such a way that he can look upon the spirit too with reality. In this respect, Goethe's world outlook can be a good educator for modern humanity.

But in this case, outlook on nature and outlook on spirit must be independent of one another. We must, however, be conscious that we can do nothing with either by itself. If you wish to remain pure theologian or pure phiksopher, my dear friends, then it is exactly as if you had something with two different sides and chose to photograph the one side only; and it is the same if you want to be purely a scientist. You should be able to make the two into one whole, letting the one be reflected in the other; that is to say, instead of seeking to unite them through abstract concepts, having first developed pure perception in each separate sphere, you let the things unite themselves. They are then mirrored in one another. And then too, my dear friends, by means of what this reflection is able to do, you get a sound outlook upon human life as a whole. Then you see natural phenomena external to man according to the way of Goethe's natural science. But when you observe man you see that what exists for external nature does not go far enough to explain him. For that way you only come to a ‘Homunculus’ not to a ‘Homo’.

You see how, for the understanding of man, it is necessary to approach him from two opposite directions; with natural science and with spiritual science, letting the two reflect one another. Thus, they may be suitably applied to man. Then in the human being the life between birth, or conception, and death, is reflected in what appears to one as life between death and a new birth; and vice versa, the life between death and a new birth is reflected in the life between birth and death. We are not here inventing any theory supposed to explain the one or the other, but we let not theories but two perceptions, two things perceived and not united by concepts be mutually reflected in the perception.

It proves that Goethe was definitely on the way to the new spiritual science that, through the sound development of his soul, he should have come to such perception of the mutual reflection of what was essential in external reality. And if Goethe was still to some extent uncertain, even for his own time, because, as I am always having to emphasize, his knowledge of Spiritual Science was but a premonition, nevertheless his judgment was sound in much concerning the spiritual life—and this can be followed in our time up to the regions where Goethe never actually arrived but for which he had prepared.

It is regrettable that everything in connection with Goethe is so little understood. I am not finding fault, my dear friends, for everyone able to look right into things neither blames nor criticises, realizing he must speak only positiviely; I do not find fault with what has happened, I only set forth what is demanded for the future. And the demand for the future is that mankind should go more deeply into the ideas that were already being prepared in Goethe's way of thinking—whatever name you give all this. And Goethe's way of thinking works with tremendous reality and in accordance with reality. It is of great importance to take heed of this.

I have to draw your attention to this so as to point you to a right understanding of man's usual procedure when he wants to explain some phenomena of nature or of life. Let us look at a perfectly average man who is clever—nowadays the clever man is average—thus, we are going to observe an average man. The average man lives, does he not, from birth to death.

BIRTH--------------------- DEATH
EARTH LIFE

In his 35th year, let us say, or 45th or 42nd—in some year of his life perhaps even earlier—he wants to discover something, possibly to form a world-outlook, enlighten himself about some matter; what does he do? He ferrets among the stock of ideas that we may take it he has when 42 years old. Let us assume he wishes to be really clear about, let us say, the Copernican world-outlook; he gathers together, then, all the concepts and ideas he can find. If he looks about in his soul life and can find something that suits him, when he has assembled a whole series of the kind of concepts in which he finds nothing contradictory, then he has finished, and understands the whole matter. This is the way with the average man. Not so with Goethe, my dear friends. Goethe's soul worked in a completely different fashion. Those who are ready to write his biography never take this into consideration, and some kind of person makes his appearance who was born in Frankfurt in 1749 and died in 1832 in Weimar—but it is not Goethe. For his soul worked differently. If in his 42nd year any phenomenon confronted him, there did not work in him merely the abstract image arising from the gathering up of all kinds of concepts into a suitable outlook. When Goethe in his 42nd year contemplated a plant, or anything else about which he sought enlightenment, there worked in him with reality the whole of his soul-life, not merely abstract concepts but all his real life of soul. Thus, at the age of 42, when Goethe wished to reflect upon the life of a plant, there worked in him in part unconsciously those impulses that he had not merely gathered together but which had been working in him since his childhood. It was always his entire life of soul that was active. That is what never happens in modern man; he wants to arrive at an unprejudcied conception, but this does not go tyond snatching up a few concepts that can be perceived easily and with little effort. This is exactly the reason why we can make such great discoveries about Goethe when we reconsider the various phases of his life all together.

For example, I have tried to understand what comes latest in Goethe's point of view by always returning to Nature, the hymn in prose that he wrote during the eighties of the 18th century, in which is contained in embryo what belongs to a later period. What at that time existed in an unripe state was nevertheless active. And I have often referred before to how Goethe as a seven year old, collected minerals, piled them up on a reading desk he took of his father's, placed a candle on top, and then went through a kind of divine service in which, however, he sought to make a sacrifice to the ‘Great God’ who worked through natural phenomena. In the morning—fancy! a lad of seven he caught a ray of the sun with a burning glass, making it light his candle. He kindled nature's fire above his minerals. Here in childish fashion is already pictured forth all that afterwards worked in his most mature conceptions. We understand Goethe only when we are in a position to grasp him rightly in this way, out of his being as a whole. Also, when he is thus understood, we first arrive at a notion of the spiritual world that we are able to discover in the light of Goethe's world outlook, which then, however, with the ideas of his time he himself could but slightly develop. For consider, if we think, really think, about nature in Goethe's way, in the sense of the theory of phenomena, primal phenomena, and in the sense of the theory of metamorphoses through thinking of this kind we cannot help releasing in our souls forces that lead to perception of the spiritual world. And at length they lead us also to the perception of man's life after he has passed the gate of death. It is just with such a concentrated perception of nature, of pure nature, as Goethe's that a true and comprehensible idea of immortality is established.

It is precisely through this that power is gathered for these opposite representations needed for perceiving the supersensible that man experiences between death and a new birth. Man gains the power for this perception by first developing a keener insight into pure nature, nature unspoilt by theories and hypotheses. Where the external world is concerned man makes the greatest mistake in believing that everything must go in one line, in one stream. If any man speaks thus of Monism to one who sees right into the matter—as, having founded an abstract Monism, many speak today—when an abstract Monism of this kind is put before one who can see into things, it seems just as though a man were standing there with left and right side properly developed and another were to tell him that it was an illusion, a false dualism, and that man has to be built monistically. It is not the proper thing he would say, to have a right and a left side, something here is wrong.

Our world outlook must be just like that. And as there is nothing wrong about our having two hands, and the right one be aided by the left, there is nothing wrong either in having two world outlooks that reciprocally reflect and enlighten each other. And those who declare it a mistake when two world outlooks are demanded, should also declare that some sort of artificial arrangement ought to be devised so that the right and left hands and the right and left legs would not move and be active in the world in such a shockingly separate fashion and that right and left should be forcibly dovetailed into one another and man should be a monism and, thus handicapped, continue his way through life.

For those who have penetration and see the reality instead of distorted abstract theories, the striving for an abstract idealism on the one side and a material realism on the other, as Monism, is as onesided as the grotesque comparison I have just made. And it is really in the spirit of Goethe's world outlook that I have pointed again and again, in a way that today arouses much antagonism, on the one hand to a pure and direct perception of nature, free from hypotheses, a perception that is alive and not thought out, thinking being applied simply to introduce the perception; and on the other hand to a phenomenon of the spirit where again thinking is applied merely as introduction to the perception, the spiritual perception, that leads us into the realm where we have to seek man on the other side of his life, that is between death and a new birth.

Now, if among people today you put forward the outlook of Spiritual Science, you are met with theories to refute it that sound really logical, clever theories. I have often said that it is very easy to think out arguments against Spiritual Science. In two successive public lectures in Prague2Given 19.3.11 and 25.3.11 made the attempt to oppose Spiritual Science in one, in the other to show its foundations—lectures not too well received in some quarters. But at least I made the attempt to hold them. It goes without saying that one can quite easily find counter arguments to Spiritual Science; this is possible. How should it be otherwise? Whoever believes that it is not possible takes approximately the same view as anyone who says he cannot prick his left hand with the needle he holds in his right. Of course it is possible, but it does not get us anywhere. It may be said that at the basis of this opposition, that works with such apparently perfectly logical theories, right within it, there lies something entirely different. One speaks indeed, my dear friends, of the unconscious and the sub-conscious. What really is significant for man in the sub-conscious soul life, the sub-conscious spiritual life, is misunderstood, particularly by the psycho-analysts, but also in other quarters. I have often spoken of this here. In reality the analytical psychologist of today speaks of the unconscious life of the spirit in the same way as the blind speak of color. They are forced to do so by the requirements of modern science, but their science has not sufficient to go upon—it works with inadequate means. (I referred to this last year in Zurich and also here).3Given 5.11.17 For the capacity must really be there always to discover rightly what is in the subconscious beneath what is going on in the conscious.

You see, we may say the matter stands thus. The conscious is here, the subconscious lies beneath it (see diagram). Now how stands the matter today? since about the 16th century very strong ahrimanic influences have made themselves felt in man and in man's whole thinking. This has its good and bad sides. Above all it has the effect that natural science has developed in a particularly ahrimanic way. To this ahrimanic science Goethe opposed his science that I have described to you. And from the lectures I gave you a week ago you can gather that nothing takes place in the human soul nor in be human spirit without something happening in the subconscious also. By evolving the present form of thinking about nature, two quite distinct feelings have been developed in the subconscious—fear of and lack of interest in the spiritual. If Goethe's natural science is not developed, natural science cannot be cultivated at all in the sense of modern thinking without there developing at the same time subconscious fear and indifference towards the spiritual world. People are afraid of the spiritual; that is the necessary consequence of the impression made by modern natural science. But it is a subconscious fear of which men know nothing and this subconscious fear dresses itself up, and in all kinds of bespangled theatrical garments appears in man's consciousness. It clothes itself, for instance, in logical reasons. Fear transforms itself into logical reasons, with which logical reasons men are now going around.


consciousness logical reason belief in limits of knowledge
subconscious fear lack of interest in the spiritual


Those with penetration note what clever logical reasons man brings forward; however, they know also how beneath, in the subconscious, there sits fear of the spiritual—as the unknown always brings fear in its train, the hydrophobia of dogs can be traced to it. And lack of interest in the spiritual is also there, and this is particularly evident, because when man develops a right knowledge to nature, the spiritual can be quite palpable to him. For I should like to challenge any man wanting exhaustive knowledge to say out of what earthly natural phenomena, without recourse to the spiritual, he can explain the shape of the human head. The obvious correct scientific explanation of the human head leads back to what is known only scientifically as I have made clear. If we take interest in what is actually there in the nature of man, this leads naturally and of necessity to the spirit. It is mere lack of interest that induces us to say: nothing here points to the spirit! This is only when it has been excluded. We pay no attention to it but begin by building for ourselves empty theories, well prepared hypotheses and theories which soon fail us when put to the test, however carefully they have been prepared. In the main, the modern natural scientist behaves like someone who carefully cleans the scales from a fish, afterwards declaring it has none. So the modern scientist cleans phenomena of all that points to the spirit, because it does not interest him. But he is as ignorant of his lack of interest as he is of his fear. Therefore the lack of interest, too, dons disguising garments, and these are beliefs in limits to knowledge, quite consciously these limits are spoken of—ignorabimus. But what is referred to here is really immaterial; we could at will invent a quite different collection of words for what du Bois-Reymond, for instance, spoke of in his lecture about the limits to knowledge of nature, and they would be worth just as much. For what we wish is completely immaterial. It would be caused by our lack of interest, like the fish bereftaf its scales with which we have just compared it.

In an article called “Der Internationale Kitt” (International Cement) are found the-following: “It is one of the greatest disillusionments of world history that even this spiritual power—the spiritual power of Christianity—has failed where war is concerned, and has set up no dam against the onsweeping tide of hatred and destruction. Indeed, during this division between the peoples, in Christianity itself particularly ugly phenomena have come to light as, for example, the way theology with its attempt to drag down the highest absolute values into the relativity of world events. By trying to rationalize this and bring it into some kind of formula man has even gone so far as to try to justify through the ethical God of Love, what is dreadful and profoundly evil. This is instead of humbly remaining, in face of the frightful submergence of love and life, by Luther's ‘Deus absconditus’, the hidden God, that also comes to appearance in the world dynamics that is indifferent to ethics. Through this ethical and religious glorification of war, political aims were thrust upon the God of Love—aims that appear depressingly like those of rulers and cabinet ministers.”

Those who follow contemporary literature will know that this is perfectly correct—that on all sides the intentions of those in power are foisted as divine intentions upon God. So that this man is justified in thus describing many of the regrettable things happening today.

He goes on to say: “This is not all. Even the mutual tension among the Christian Churches has become accentuated. The historical opposition has been re-revived between the followers of Luther and those of Calvin. The extreme Anglicans have become alienated from continental Protestantism to such a degree that they will hardly allow it the name of Christianity; not to mention the breach among the international Christians in the mission field. Thus, a popular ideal limited by national feeling again to have gained the day over the international, communal ideal of Christianity.

“But where that has happened Christianity has shown itself a traitor to the Gospels—a Judas who betrayed Christ. For the true being of Christianity points to an all-embracing human society, and only in this form can it develop.”

And so on.

My dear friends, this man says a great deal that is clever, but he does not go so far as to ask: If Christianity has been followed for nearly two thousand years, how is it that although by its nature it should make the conditions we have at present an impossibility, it has not done so? It means nothing, my dear friends, just to say that men are bad Christians and should be better ones, if what is meant by this is that they should live up to the Christian example. I could give you hundreds of quotations from what has been said recently by seriously minded men, from which you could see that already in various places there is arising a definite but subconscious impulse that something like a new world outlook is needed. But the moment men should really come to what is necessary, that is, to a world outlook that is anthroposophical, they obscure their own concepts and these concepts immediately degenerate into fear and lack of interest. Men are afraid of Spiritual Science. This may be seen very clearly in individual personalities and in what they say and how they live. Or they show indifference to Spiritual Science; they are not capable of it in any way; it does not appeal to them. One then comes to astonishing contradictions, naturally not seen by the modern reader, for modern reading is done in the way I pictured yesterday and on other occasions. This writer of the article, a man who as we said is to be taken seriously, is justified in writing as he did. But, listen to this; he says something else must happen for Christianity to be able to develop its international significance and activity. He then makes all kinds of suggestions, for instance: Why should it not be possible for Christianity to encourage the international impulse to prevent hate and destruction? And he then goes on: in August, 1914, the Free Chuches in Britain could still write to Professor Harnack—“With the exception of the English—speaking peoples, no people stand so high in our affections and esteem as the Germans. We are all immeasurably indebted to German theology, philosophy and literature.”

There we have something—he continues—that is quite delightful. We have British theologians paying compliments to German theologians in the most wonderful way; could it not be like this in future?—

That is all very well, my dear friends, but when your thinking accords with reality you notice that this is written in August 1914, at the very moment of the outbreak of hostilities. In the light of facts the conclusion would be that inspite of British theologians writing this, it could do nothing to prevent the holocaust. You see, therefore, instead of from left to right man thinks from right to left, or the other way round, according to how the matter stands. Whereas the result of thinking according to reality is that we must investigate what, in spite of people making each other polite speeches, is really wrong and what is lacking. The writer says that if we but do what was done in August, 1914, we shall go forward. But we can begin all over again for, as the reality proved, that did nothing to help. Correct thinking would run like this—something is not right, Christianity must have been out of its calculations. What it failed to take into consideration was that Christianity has no part in what the times of necessity demand. It is this that such men lack - willingness to enter into what is demanded by the impulse of the age. Thus,it can be seen that people are recognizing that the old way of looking at the world has come to grief. But they do not want anything new, they want the old again, once more to be able to suffer disaster. That however, naturally remains in their subconscious. They wish for the best as a matter of course, but they are too fond of comfort seriously to look for what is necessary.

This, my dear friends, is what is ever and again in the background when we have to speak of the significance for the present time of all that is connected with the name of Goethe, or also of what is naturally greater than this, of the whole spiritual world and the knowledge of it. There too one need not be critical. We do not need to say how thoroughly bad those men are who neglect to do what should now be done, but confine ourselves to finding out what ought to happen. We should look to what is positive. Perhaps then we may say: “If only there were not so dreadfully little that I can do—I can do so terribly little, what indeed can be done by one person alone.” my dear friends, such questions are often asked under the impression that it would be possible in my lectures to give a definite concrete programme for individual people; but by being given in a general way this would naturally become abstract and empty. Today it is our common concern that many people should realize how, among those to whom control is given in some particular sphere, there will be many failures. This is because the leaders of our time are striving against something they ought not to resist. And it is important that we should not be eaten up by a false feeling towards authority, nor stand in great awe of anything because we have no real knowledge of it. For as today it is not a matter of accepting historical authority without question. But there is need for observation and attention, and the ability to form a judgment concerning how, in the various spheres of life today, this life is often given a wrong lead by those in authority. This is done with insufficient insight, above all, often with insufficient thought. For it should be the result of reflection, not of the lack of reflection. It is tremendously important to examine in our subconscious how much perverted belief in authority we still carry in us—to realize also that it is Spiritual Science itself that actually leads us away from belief in authority, and if its judgments are allowed livingly to permeate us has the power to make us free men with independent judgment. It is always thought that the world must run its course as if it had but one meaning and ran on one track. Then we accustom ourselves to look upon nature in the way of science, then we shall look upon everything in the same manner; when we accustom ourselves to look upon the world in accordance with abstract theories—or, as we often say, idealistically—we shall see everything in that light. But life does not take its course with only one meaning and on only one track; it demands of us in our thinking flexibility, change of form, multiplicity. This is something that fundamentally we can make our own only by cultivating Spiritual Science aright, something that is at present of great importance for finding our right path. For that reason I should like in this lecture to enlarge upon something in connection with Goethe. It is nothing very special I want to say about him—that as you have seen has appeared as though of itself—but I just want to touch on important truths of Spiritual Science that may fitly be connected with what we find treated artistically by Goethe in the actual scene to be represented. Many turn away from Goethe in scorn because they find him unscientific, just as they find Spiritual Science. But many would profit if only they would go deeply into such a spirit, such a soul, as Goethe's. For it frees us from the false belief—really a superstition—that we can make progress with concepts having only one meaning, with life that has only one meaning. There is no development, my dear friends, without its reverse, an opposite development and where there is reversed development there will also be development. When you direct your mind whole heartedly to the primal phenomena and metamorphoses in nature, without obscuring your vision by theories, this leads not to a mere onesided conception of nature, but to a development in the soul of that other conception which turns towards the spirit. And when you develop this conception correctly, you can no longer approach nature with false theories but are induced to let nature, through her material phenomena, be her own and only interpreter.

Thus it is, too, when in the sphere of Spiritual Science, one has to express in words anything as serious as what was put before you yesterday concerning the evil connected with the appearance of the Phorkyades; or what it was necessary to say about man having in his subsconscious much that does not enter his consciousness. Through misunderstanding such things are often taken ill. Just think! when with real knowledge it is said that certain things are in the subconscious how the hearer jumps to the conclusion: this man is no friend of mine, even though he allows that these things are unconscious; he imagines that in my subconscious I am doing all kinds of things sub rosa. So also may our contemporaries think: This anthroposophist insults us by saying we have subconscious fear and apathy—he is running us down. But, my dear friends, the world has not only one meaning. I do not confine myself to saying people have fear and apathy in their subconscious. I say also that in your subconsicies you have the whole spiritual world—but you have to realize it. That, too, is in the subconscious; it is the reverse side. In Spiritual Science one does not make any assertion that does not involve a second. And those to who I say: You have subconscious fear, subconscious lack of interest, should remember that I also say: It is true that you are not conscious of your fear and apathy; you disguise them by all kinds of untruth and by your belief in limits to knowledge. You have, however, the whole world of your subconscious about which to make discoveries if you will only take the plunge. I am not only accusing these people as they think, but telling them besides something good about their subconscious. This is what can make you see that life is not one-sided, nor can it be so represented in Spiritual Science.

Thus indeed, on the one side, we speak in the way we often have to speak. When we have to show aversion, fear and apathy as having been instilled into man, we have also to warn him of the dangers he has to overcome if he wants to make his way to the spiritual world—how he must overcome certain disagreeable things—that is certainly one side we have to make clear. But, my dear friends, just consider what a fund of experiences that give happiness to the soul lie in the conceptions of Spiritual Science being able to open our eyes to the life among our fellows which we lead here between birth and death; what experiences that bring joy to the world are opened out to,us when we know we can live more intimately ith those who have passed through the gate of death. And imagine, when once this idea of two-sidedness is really grasped, when once the world is looked upon rightly in the sense of Spiritual Science, what Spiritual Science has to say will not demand of us only a hard struggle to enter the worlds of the spirit, but over the hearts of men it will be able to pour a whole host of experiences that give comfort. It will have a whole host of other experiences that bring joy to the soul of man so that it grasps that it will become increasingly capable of living not only with those who surround man in the perceptible world, but also to lie with all those with whom he has entered into some kind of connection in this life, after they have passed through the gate of death. My dear friends, could we with reason even desire that the knowledge carrying our souls in full consciousness beyond the gate of death should be easily acquired? No, indeed; if we are intelligent and reasonable, that is something for which we could not even ask. men of the future will be obliged to undergo hardship to find their world happiness. To this end they will have to make up their minds to seek knowledge of the spiritual worlds.

This is what I wished to say to you today.

Das Seelenleben Goethes Vom Geisteswissenschaftlichen Standpunkte

Wir haben durch die vorgestrigen und gestrigen Betrachtungen sehen können, wie Goethesches Schaffen durchdrungen ist von einer gewissen, wenn auch vielleicht als geahnt zu bezeichnenden geisteswissenschaftlichen Anschauung. Und es ist außerordentlich wichtig und bedeutsam, sich darauf einzulassen, einmal solch ein interessantes Faktum zu durchschauen, wie es das Goethesche Geistesleben ist. Erst dann erscheint ein solches Geistesleben richtig im Zusammenhange mit der ganzen Entwickelung der Menschheit, wenn man es in vertiefter Betrachtung mit alle dem, was es enthält, sich vor die Seele führt. Nun möchte ich aber zu all dem Gesagten noch etwas anderes hinzufügen. Ich möchte Sie nämlich darauf hinweisen, daß man Goethes ganze Geistesstruktur, die ganze Art des Goetheschen Geisteslebens eigentlich doch nur richtig erfassen kann, wenn man dies wiederum von geisteswissenschaftlichem Standpunkte aus tut. Nicht nur, daß ein ungeistiger Standpunkt natürlich dasjenige nicht finden kann in Goethes Schaffen, was wir durch eine geisteswissenschaftliche Betrachtung vorgestern und gestern haben finden können, sondern es wird auch nur erklärlich, wie ein solches Seelenleben innerhalb der Menschheitsentwickelung möglich ist, wenn man dieses Seelenleben vom geisteswissenschaftlichen Standpunkt aus betrachtet. Ich habe in verschiedenen Zusammenhängen Sie auch auf andere Offenbarungen des Goetheschen Seelenlebens aufmerksam gemacht, auf Offenbarungen, die vielleicht dem allgemeinen Menschenleben ferner zu liegen scheinen, aber nur scheinen, als dasjenige, was sich in der umfassenden Faust-Dichtung, die eigentlich jeden Menschen im höchsten Grade interessieren sollte, dargestellt findet. Ich habe Ihnen gesprochen davon, daß Goethe eine besondere Art von Naturwissenschaft gepflogen hat. Und dies, daß Goethe eine besondere Art von Naturwissenschaft gepflogen hat, ist etwas außerordentlich Wichtiges und Bedeutsames. Man kann sagen, daß gerade die besondere Denkweise Goethescher Naturwissenschaft etwas in den weitesten Kreisen gegenwärtig noch recht Unverstandenes ist. Dennoch erscheint mir gerade für die verschiedensten Zweige des Geisteslebens der Gegenwart, nicht zum wenigsten auch für das religiöse Leben der Gegenwart von ganz besonderer Bedeutung, daß man einen Einblick gewinne in diese besondere Konfiguration, in diese besondere Art, wie Goethe die Natur angesehen hat. Sie wissen, er versuchte zu begründen für die Welt des Unlebendigen eine Naturwissenschaft, die er aufbaute nach seinem eigenen Ausdrucke auf die Urphänomene, und er begründete eine Pflanzenlehre, die er aufbaute auf die Metamorphose.

So gut es ganz populär geht, möchte ich über diese beiden Seiten, über die Urphänomenenlehre und über die Metamorphosenlehre Goethes, ein paar Worte auch heute charakterisierend zu Ihnen sprechen.

Was beabsichtigt Goethe, indem er für eine Naturerklärung nur zu den sogenannten Urphänomenen, zu keinen Hypothesen und Theorien übergehen will? Ich bemühe mich jetzt seit den achtziger Jahren des vorigen Jahrhunderts, von den verschiedensten Seiten her, die Menschheit darauf hinzuweisen, was das eigentliche Grundwesen des Urphänomens ist. Man kann aber nicht sagen, daß von der Sache eigentlich bis jetzt in weiteren Kreisen viel verstanden worden ist. Man kommt vielleicht am besten hinein in eine Anschauung darüber, was Goethe unter dem Urphänomen in der unlebendigen Natur verstand, wenn man sich vor Augen führt, wie er dazugekommen ist, gerade eine besondere Farbenlehre auszubilden. Er erzählt das selbst. Ich weiß, daß dasjenige, was ich nun zu sagen habe, für die gegenwärtige naturwissenschaftliche, physikalische Anschauung ein Greuel und eine Ketzerei ist. Das macht aber nichts. Was die gegenwärtige Physik nicht anerkennt, wird sich die zukünftige Physik genötigt finden, schon anzuerkennen. Die gegenwärtige Physik ist für die Goethesche Farbenlehre wirklich noch nicht reif.

Goethe glaubte so wie andere Menschen — wie gesagt, er erzählt das selber — bis zum Beginn der neunziger Jahre des 18. Jahrhunderts an die sogenannte Newtonsche Farbenlehre, welche auf einer gewissen Hypothese, auf einer Theorie aufgebaut ist. Es besagt diese Theorie, daß dem Lichte zugrunde liegt irgend etwas — nun, darauf braucht man nicht einzugehen -, irgend etwas, was nicht wahrgenommen wird. Ob es, wie von Newton selbst, in Stoffströmungen vorgestellt wird, oder ob es als Schwingungen oder irgendwelche elektrischen Impulse vorgestellt wird, das ist schon schließlich gleichgültig. Es wird so vorgestellt die Farbenentstehung, daß das Licht gewissermaßen ungetrennt die verschiedenen Farben wie neutralisiert enthalte in einer Art übersinnlicher Wesenheit, und daß sich durch das Prisma oder durch andere Vorgänge die Farben herausdrängen lassen aus dem einheitlichen weißen Licht.

Goethe hat sich genötigt gefunden, in einer Weise, wie es selbstverständlich für den heutigen Physiker primitiv und töricht erscheinen muß, diese Vorstellung, die er mit den andern auch geteilt hat, eines Tages zu verlassen. Er hat diese Newtonsche Optik studiert, war Gläubiger derselben geworden, wie es selbstverständlich ist, wenn man nichts Besseres kennt, hat aber gefunden, wenn er nun diese Newtonsche Optik, diese Farbenlehre anwenden will, um etwas künstlerisch, malerisch zu durchdenken, da kann man nichts damit anfangen. Für eine materialistische physikalische Vorstellung taugt diese Newtonsche Physik zur Not, aber man kann künstlerisch nichts mit ihr anfangen. Das störte Goethe immer mehr, und das veranlaßte ihn, wenigstens nachzusehen, wie es sich mit den Farbenerscheinungen physikalisch verhält. Da ließ er sich von dem Hofrat Büttner, der Professor in Jena war, Apparate kommen, um zu sehen, was er durch eigene Untersuchungen, eigene Experimente in bezug auf die Farbenentstehung sich für Anschauungen bilden könnte. Der Hofrat Büttner hat Exzellenz von Goethe selbstverständlich bereitwilligst alles zur Verfügung gestellt. Aber die Sachen verstaubten zunächst bei Goethe zu Hause. Er kam lange nicht dazu, die Untersuchungen zu machen, bis der Hofrat Büttner vorstellig wurde, daß er jetzt seine Apparate brauche und daß er sie gern zurückhaben möchte. Goethe stellte sie zusammen, um sie dem Mann zurückzusenden. Vorher wollte er aber doch noch rasch durch ein Prisma schauen, und da glaubte er wie gesagt, für den heutigen Physiker höchst primitiv und töricht -, wenn er durch ein Prisma schaut, dann müßte er die weiße Wand, weil sie sich doch in sieben Farben spaltet, in allen sieben Farben hintereinander sehen. Aber nichts! Sie blieb weiß! Das störte ihn. Es war töricht nach den üblichen Voraussetzungen; nur war es- ein gesundes Denken. Er guckte da durch das Prisma — die Wand blieb weiß. Das bewirkte, daß er noch einmal den Hofrat Büttner ersuchte, die Instrumente, die Apparate behalten zu dürfen. Und da hat er denn doch seine weiteren Untersuchungen angestellt. Und aus diesen Untersuchungen heraus ist ihm erwachsen: erstens seine Farbenlehre und zweitens seine Anschauung über die physikalischen, das heißt die unlebendigen Erscheinungen der Natur überhaupt, eine solche Anschauung, die alle Hypothesen und alle Theorien ablehnt, die gar nichts ausdenkt über die Naturerscheinungen, sondern diese zurückführt wiederum auf Erscheinungen, nur auf Urerscheinungen, auf Urphänomene.

Und so wurde er sich klar darüber: Wenn man irgendeine Farbe schaut, so liegt auf irgendeine Art zugrunde ein Zusammenwirken von Licht und Finsternis, die übereinandergeschoben werden. Wird das Licht über die Finsternis geschoben, erscheinen die dunklen Farben: blau, violett und so weiter. Wird über das Helle, über das Licht, die Finsternis geschoben in irgendeiner Weise, also verfinsterte Materie und dergleichen oder das Prisma selber, so erscheinen die hellen Farben: rot, gelb und so weiter. — Da ist gar keine Theorie dabei. Dunkles und Helles wirkt in der unmittelbaren Wahrnehmung. Nur sind es einfach Wahrnehmungen. Wenn Dunkles und Helles zusammenwirkt, entstehen Farben. Darin ist nichts ausgesprochen von einer Hypothese, von einer Theorie, sondern es ist nur ein Einfaches, Wahrnehmbares ausgesprochen.

Und nun handelt es sich für ihn nicht darum, Hypothesen zu erfinden, wie etwa die Undulationshypothese oder die Emissionshypothese und dergleichen, um zu sagen, so und so entstehen Farben, sondern lediglich um die Frage, wie Licht und Finsternis zusammengestellt werden müssen, damit Gelb oder Rot oder Blau oder Violett erscheine. Also worauf es Goethe ankam, das ist, nichts hinzuzudenken an Hypothesen und Theorien zu den Erscheinungen, sondern ganz streng die Erscheinungen für sich selber sprechen zu lassen. Goethe brachte auf diesem Wege eine Farbenlehre zustande, die in einer wunderschönen Art in die künstlerische Auffassung des Farbigen führt. Denn das Kapitel über die sinnlich-sittliche Wirkung der Farben, worin sich so viele auch für den Künstler bedeutungsvolle Andeutungen finden, gehört zu dem Schönsten der Goetheschen Farbenlehre.

Das war nun Goethes Grundlage für die Gesamtauffassung der unlebendigen Natur, nirgends Theorien oder Hypothesen zu suchen. Die können, meint er, aufgestellt werden, um Gerüste zu haben. Aber wie man die Gerüste nicht stehen läßt, wenn der Bau fertig ist, sondern sie abnimmt, so verwendet man auch Hypothesen nur, um einen Weg zu finden, wie man sie zusammenstellt; nachher aber werden sie abgerissen, wenn man bis zu dem Urphänomen, zu dem einfachsten Phänomen gekommen ist.

Das versuchte Goethe auch für die gesamte Physik wenigstens zu skizzieren. Und Sie finden in der großen weimarischen Ausgabe in dem Bande, wo von mir veröffentlicht sind die Goetheschen allgemeinen naturwissenschaftlichen Aufsätze, auch ein Schema, in dem Goethe eine ganze Physik schematisiert gegeben hat von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus. Besonders interessant ist in diesem Schema die Tonlehre zum Beispiel, die im Einklange mit seiner Farbenlehre, allerdings nur schematisiert ist. Aber es wäre interessant, einmal eine Tonlehre, die ebensogut in das Musikalische einmünden würde, wie die Goethesche Farbenlehre in das Malerische einmündet, zu schaffen. Sie konnte natürlich noch nicht geschaffen werden, weil die moderne Naturwissenschaft ganz andere Wege geht, als sie in der Goetheschen Weltanschauung, respektive in der Goetheschen Naturanschauung begründet sind. Das versuchte Goethe mit Bezug auf die unlebendige Natur.

Ein Ähnliches versuchte er mit Bezug auf das lebendige Pflanzenleben durch die Metamorphosenlehre, wo er auch nicht Theorien und Hypothesen aufstellte, sondern verfolgte, wie das Laubblatt sich umwandelt, metamorphosiert die verschiedensten Gestalten annimmt und nachher zum Blumenblatt wird, so daß die Blüte nichts anderes ist als das umgewandelte Laubblatt. Wiederum eine Anschauung, die keine Hypothesen will, die keine Theorie aufstellen will, sondern die rein bleiben will bei dem, was die Anschauung darbietet. Nur braucht man dann bewegliche Begriffe, Begriffe, die ebenso beweglich sind wie die Natur selber. Wie die Natur im Schaffen lebt, das ist, daß sie an den Gestalten nicht festhält, sondern die Gestalten verwandelt. Man muß also solche Begriffe haben, wie sie die Mehrzahl der Menschen zu bequem ist auszubilden, Begriffe, die sich selbst innerlich wandeln, um von Gestalt zu Gestalt, wie sie sich in der Natur wandeln, wirklich mit den Begriffen mitfolgen zu können. Aber dann bleibt man ohne Hypothesen und ohne Theorien nur im rein Sinnenfälligen stehen.

Es ist dieses Eigentümliche, daß Goethe gerade dadurch charakterisiert ist, daß er für die Naturerscheinungen jegliche Theorie ablehnt und eigentlich das Denken nur dazu verwenden will, um die Phänomene in der richtigen Weise zusammenzustellen, daß sie sich selbst aussprechen in ihrem Wesen. Ja, man kann das Paradoxe sagen, ich bitte Sie, das wohl ins Auge zu fassen: Gerade dadurch wird Goethe in der richtigen Weise so in das Geistgebiet hineingetrieben, wie wir das vorgestern und gestern charakterisieren konnten, daß er für die Erscheinungen der äußeren Natur sich nicht durch allerlei Theorien und Hypothesen die Naturerscheinungen verunreinigt, sondern daß er die Naturerscheinungen so auffaßt, wie sie sich dem sinnenfälligen Dasein darbieten.

Das hat aber eine weitere Folge. Wenn man Newtonsche oder Spencersche oder ähnliche Theorien bildet, also das, was die Natur selbst bietet, verunreinigt durch Theorien und Hypothesen, so denkt man über die Natur so, daß man im physischen Menschenleben so denken kann, aber der Ätherleib des Menschen nimmt die Sache nicht auf. Und sie übertragen sich, alle diese Theorien, die nicht durch die reine Naturbetrachtung gewonnen werden. Alle diese Theorien und Hypothesen machen erst den menschlichen Ätherleib zur Karikatur, ja, dadurch auch den astralischen Leib zur Karikatur und stören dadurch im übersinnlichen Gebiet das Menschenleben.

Gegen diese Zerstörung der Formen, die der Ätherleib für sich fordert, wandte sich die gesunde Natur Goethes. Das ist gerade — und deshalb sage ich: man kann Goethe nur geisteswissenschaftlich verstehen — das Bedeutsame für Goethe. Er hatte einen Instinkt für das, was nicht aus der unmittelbaren Wirklichkeit stammt, weil er verspürte, wenn er solche Begriffe bildete, wie die Newtonschen waren, da zwickt es und zwackt es im Ätherleib. Bei den andern zwickt es und zwackt es nicht, weil sie gröber organisiert sind. Goethe war so organisiert, daß es ihn zwickte und zwackte im Ätherleib, während er so hindurchschaute. Und weder eine Theorie noch die kostbarste Hypothese verhindern, daß es in ihm zwickt und zwackt, als nur das Weiß erscheint, und er denken muß, die Wand ist trotzdem weiß, obwohl stufig die sieben Farben erscheinen sollten. Es ist nicht geschehen. Und es ist ein Beweis für die durch und durch gesunde, das heißt, als Mikrokosmos dem Makrokosmos eingepaßte Natur Goethes, daß er in dieser Weise empfand.

Und noch eine andere Seite dieser Sache ist hervorzuheben. Wir wissen, der Mensch ist nicht nur dieses Wesen, das da lebt zwischen der Geburt und dem Tod, sondern der Mensch ist auch das Wesen, das lebt zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. In diesem Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt hat man diejenigen inneren Kräftezusammenhänge, die man sich ausgebildet hat im physischen Leib. Und wenn man sich nach ein paar Tagen vom Ätherleib getrennt hat, sieht man auf diesen Ätherleib hin. Es handelt sich darum, daß man diesen Ätherleib so behandelt hat als Mensch, daß man auf ihn hinschauen kann, ohne daß er einen als Karikatur beirrt. Nun ist das Eigentümliche, wenn man die Natur rein naturgemäß anschaut, so wie sie Goethe angeschaut hat, wenn man Theorien und Hypothesen ablehnt und nur Urphänomene gelten läßt, dann ist dieses Auffassen, dieses Anschauen der Urphänomene so, daß sie in uns gesunde Empfindungen und Gefühle auslösen, diejenigen Empfindungen, die Goethe in dem Kapitel «Sinnlich-sittliche Wirkungen der Farben» beschreibt. Selbstverständlich, die Anschauung der sinnlichen Phänomene fällt ab mit unserem Leben. Was aber durch die reine Anschauung, die Goethe als Naturwissenschaft allein gelten läßt, in unserem Geistig-Seelischen verbleibt, das ist gesund und paßt auch zur geistig-seelischen Welt. So daß man sagen kann: Die- Goethesche Naturwissenschaft ist, trotzdem sie sich beschränkt auf die Phänomene, auf das Sinnliche, gerade eine geistgemäße, weil sie nicht durch eine ahrimanische oder luziferische Beeinflussung des Geistes hier die reine Naturanschauung durch Theorien verunreinigt. — Solche Theorien verdunkeln für das Geistig-Seelische die reinen Anschauungen des Irdischen.

Nun habe ich Ihnen gestern gesagt, der Mensch lebt nicht nur auf der Erde, sondern er hat, bevor er die Erde betrat, eine Saturn-, Sonnen- und Mondenentwickelung durchgemacht. Er wird, nachdem er die Erde verlassen wird, oder besser gesagt, die Erde ihn verlassen wird, eine Jupiter-, Venus- und Vulkanentwickelung durchmachen. Aber ich habe Ihnen gesagt: Unsere naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffe können nur auf die Erdenentwickelung Bezug haben. — Und in der Tat, wenn wir eine gesunde Naturwissenschaft ausbilden, haben wir gerade den Trieb, nicht die Erdenentwickelung so darzustellen, daß wir alles Mögliche hineinkonfundieren, was auf den Saturn, die Sonne und den Mond nur paßt, die natürlich in Wirklichkeit mit der Erdenentwickelung verquickt sind, sondern eine gesunde Naturwissenschaft will die Erde herausheben und die Erde als Erde darstellen in ihrer Gesetzmäßigkeit. Das tut Goethe. Und deshalb können die Menschen so wenig aufrücken zu einer gesunden Auffassung der Monden-, Sonnen- und Saturnentwickelung, weil sie auch keine gesunde der Erdenentwickelung haben. Wenn auch Goethe selbst noch nicht zu dieser Anschauung gekommen ist von der Monden-, Sonnen- und Saturnentwickelung — wer sich vertieft in seine Naturwissenschaft, die eine von allem andern gereinigte ist, die sich nur auf die Erde bezieht, der bereitet gerade dadurch seinen Geist vor, das Irdische herauszusondern durch eine gesunde Erdenwissenschaft, und dadurch sich bereit zu machen zu einer gesunden Anschauung desjenigen, was nur im Übersinnlichen gesehen werden kann: Saturn-, Sonnen- und Mondenentwickelung und überhaupt das Geistige. So daß man sagen kann: Gerade durch seine rein auf das Sinnliche gerichtete Anschauung ist Goethe veranlagt worden, daß er dieses, wie wir gestern und vorgestern gesehen haben, in seinem «Faust» verarbeitet hat. — Deshalb stand Goethe für dasjenige, was geistige Auffassung ist, so im Geiste darinnen, weil er nicht irgendwelche konfuse Theorien oder Hypothesen aus dem Geiste heraus auf die Naturerscheinung anwandte. Das eine bedingt das andere.

Worauf ich Sie gestern am Schlusse aufmerksam machte, ist, daß Goethe nicht auf der einen Seite Idealist und auf der andern Seite Realist war, sondern die äußeren Erscheinungen realistisch, dasjenige, was idealistisch aufzufassen ist, idealistisch auffaßte, aber nicht glaubte, durch das eine oder das andere eine Weltanschauung begründen zu können, sondern die beiden Anschauungen sich gegenseitig spiegeln ließ in seinem Seelenleben, wie sie sich auch in der äußeren Wirklichkeit spiegeln. Wenn auch Goethe das wiederum nicht selbst so verfolgt hat, so führt es dazu, daß, wenn man sich so recht tief hineinversetzt in die Goethesche Art des Vorstellens, man in ganz gesunder Weise dazu kommt, nun auch die beiden Lebensarten, die der Mensch durchzumachen hat, richtig vorstellen zu können.

Wodurch kommt es denn, daß die gewöhnliche heutige menschliche Anschauung so wenig geneigt ist, das Geistige zuzugeben? Und wenn sie sich über die geistige Welt Begriffe macht, so sind sie so abstrakt, daß mit ihnen wiederum die äußere Natur nicht zu fassen ist. Woher kommt es denn, daß den gegenwärtigen Menschen Idealismus und Realismus so auseinanderfallen, daß sie entweder nur einen lahmen Monismus daraus begründen, der doch nichts besagt, oder überhaupt nicht zu Rande kommen mit einer Weltanschauung? Woher kommt das? Das kommt davon her, daß die Menschen in einer ganz bestimmten Weise heute ihre Weltanschauung begründen wollen. Man wird heute entweder Naturwissenschafter, lernt die Natur kennen und versucht sie zu durchsetzen mit allerlei Theorien und Hypothesen. Denn dasjenige, was die Naturwissenschaft heute als Vererbung denkt und so weiter, sind nicht Urphänomene, sondern Theorien und Hypothesen. Man sucht die Naturerscheinungen mit solchen Hypothesen zu durchtränken, oder auch man wird Theologe oder Philosoph, versucht aus den Traditionen gewisse Begriffe, Ideen über das Geistige zu gewinnen. Die sind dann so dünn und schattenhaft, daß man wiederum nicht die Natur begreifen kann, dadurch, daß sie nicht hinreichend Kraft haben, um die Natur richtig damit anzufassen.

Sehen Sie sich heute einmal um in den theologischen und philosophischen Erörterungen der Gegenwart, wo finden Sie einen gesunden Anhaltspunkt darinnen, um aus ihnen heraus auch richtig die Natur zu beleuchten! Und wo finden Sie im Ernst innerhalb der Vertreter der heutigen Naturwissenschaft, wenn sie nicht monistische Schwadroneure sind, wo finden Sie eine Möglichkeit, aus der Naturwissenschaft heraus aufzusteigen zu den göttlich-geistigen Daseinsformen und Daseinsgebieten in Wirklichkeit? Das ist heute nicht möglich, wenn man gesundes Denken entwickelt, die beiden Gebiete, so wie sie heute sind, miteinander zu vereinigen. Die beiden Gebiete vereinigen sich nur, wenn man die Fähigkeit hat, sich der Naturbetrachtung und einer Wissenschaft so hinzugeben, wie sich Goethe der Natur hingegeben hat: rein den Blick auf das Phänomen, auf die Erscheinungen gerichtet, nicht Theorien anders hineinmischen, als um aufzubauen die Phänomene, das Denken nur den Diener sein lassen, der mittut, aber nicht in die Resultate, in die Ergebnisse das Denken hineinmischen. Das ist es, was wir der Natur gegenüber müssen, der Natur die Macht zuerkennen, daß sie sich selbst interpretiere. Nicht spintisieren über die Natur, sondern gerade voll materialistisch sein, indem man die materiellen Erscheinungen für sich selber sprechen läßt, das ist dasjenige, was wir einer gesunden Naturwissenschaft gegenüber als Aufgabe haben. Kommen wir mit einer solchen gesunden Naturwissenschaft zu Rande, so begreifen wir das menschliche Leben wirklich zwischen Geburt oder sagen wir Empfängnis und Tod. Aber wir müssen nun, indem wir auf der einen Seite so in die Natur hineinschauen, unbehelligt durch unmögliche Theorien und Hypothesen, auch in den Geist hineinschauen können. Dann bleiben wir nicht bei abstrakten Theologien oder Philosophien stehen, sondern dann ergeben sich uns geistige Anschauungen. Und gerade durch die Kraft, welche in uns die reine Naturbetrachtung auslöst, die Goethesche Naturbetrachtung, können sich geistige Anschauungen, Anschauungen des reinen Geistes ergeben. Wer seine Begriffe und Ideen in konfuser Weise hineinmischt in die Naturerscheinungen, an dem rächen sich diese Begriffe, lassen ihn nicht zur Geistesanschauung kommen. Wer die Natur rein anschaut, erschaut sie in seiner eigenen Seele so, daß er auf den Geist auch in einer wirklichen Weise hinschauen kann. In dieser Beziehung kann die Goethesche Weltanschauung eine großartige Erzieherin sein für die moderne Menschheit.

Dann aber muß man getrennt für sich entwickeln Naturanschauung, Geistesanschauung. Aber man muß sich auch bewußt sein, man kann mit der einen für sich und mit der andern für sich nichts anfangen. Wenn Sie bloß Theologe oder Philosoph bleiben wollen, dann ist es, wie wenn Sie irgendeine Sache, die nach zwei Seiten hin ganz verschieden ist, nur von der einen Seite photographieren wollten; ebenso wenn Sie bloßer Naturwissenschafter bleiben wollen. Sie sollen beides ganz sein können, und das eine in dem andern sich spiegeln lassen, das heißt, nicht durch abstrakte Begriffe die Vereinigung suchen, sondern die Dinge sich selbst vereinigen lassen, indem Sie zuerst für jedes Gebiet gesondert reinliche Anschauungen entwickeln. Dann spiegeln sich die beiden Gebiete ineinander. Dann aber bekommen Sie durch die Fähigkeit eines solchen Spiegelns auch eine gesunde Anschauung ‚über das Gesamtmenschenleben. Dann sehen Sie die Naturerscheinungen draußen außer dem Menschen im Sinne einer Goetheschen Naturwissenschaft. Sie sehen aber, wenn Sie den Menschen betrachten, daß dasjenige, was für die äußere Natur vorhanden ist, nicht ausreicht für seine Erklärung. Da kommen Sie nur zu einem Homunkulus, zu keinem Homo.

Sie sehen, wie gerade für die Menschenerfassung notwendig ist, daß man von Gegenseiten herankommt, mit Naturwissenschaft und mit Geisteswissenschaft, und sich die beiden spiegeln läßt. Dann passen sie auf den Menschen. Dann spiegelt sich in dem Menschen das Leben zwischen der Geburt oder Empfängnis und dem Tod in demjenigen, was einem erscheint als Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, und umgekehrt: das Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt spiegelt sich in dem Leben zwischen der Geburt und dem Tode. Nicht eine einzige Theorie ersinnen, welche das eine oder das andere erklären soll, sondern zwei Anschauungen, nicht Theorien, zwei reine Anschauungen, und diese nicht in Begriffen vereinigen, sondern in der Anschauung sich selbst gegenseitig spiegeln lassen.

Daß Goethe durch seine gesunde Seelenentwickelung zu solchen Anschauungen von der gegenseitigen Spiegelung desjenigen, was wesenhaft in der Wirklichkeit draußen ist, kam, bezeugt, wie er wirklich auf dem Wege in die neuere Geisteswissenschaft hinein war. Und wenn Goethe auch für seine Zeit in einer gewissen Beziehung noch unsicher war, weil — wie ich immer wieder betonen muß - sein geisteswissenschaftliches Erkennen ein ahnendes war, so hat er doch so viel gesundes Urteil abgegeben auch über das geistige Leben, das verfolgt werden kann in unserer Zeit bis zu Gebieten, wo Goethe noch nicht hingekommen ist, was Goethe aber veranlagt hatte.

Ich tadle nicht, daß der Goetheanismus so wenig verstanden worden ist, denn derjenige, welcher die Dinge durchschaut, tadelt nicht und kritisiert nicht, sondern er weiß, daß man nur positiv zu sprechen hat. Ich tadle nicht das, was geschehen ist, ich stelle nur dasjenige hin, was “ die Forderung für die Zukunft hin ist. Und Forderung für die Zukunft ist es, daß die Menschheit sich vertieft, ob sie es nun Goetheanismus nennt oder nicht, in solche Vorstellungen, die im Goetheschen Denken schon veranlagt waren. Und das Goethesche Denken wirkt überhaupt ungeheuer wirklich und wirklichkeitsgemäß. Das ist auch sehr bedeutsam zu beachten.

Ich muß Sie darauf hinweisen, um in diesem Punkt Sie zum richtigen Verständnis zu weisen, wie der Mensch sich gewöhnlich verhält, wenn er sich enträtseln will die eine oder die andere Erscheinung der Natur oder des Lebens. Betrachten wir jetzt so einen richtigen Durchschnittsmenschen, aber einen Durchschnittsmenschen, der gescheit ist — heute sind ja die Gescheiten gerade die Durchschnittsmenschen -, also, betrachten wir einen Durchschnittsmenschen, der gescheit ist. Nicht wahr, der Durchschnittsmensch lebt von der Geburt bis zum Tode. Sagen wir in seinem fünfunddreißigsten oder auch fünfundvierzigsten oder zweiundvierzigsten Jahre, in irgendeinem Lebensjahr, vielleicht auch früher, da will er sich irgend etwas enträtseln, vielleicht sogar eine Weltanschauung begründen, will sich über irgend etwas aufklären. Was tut er? Ja, da murkst solch ein Mensch in das Vorstellungsmaterial hinein, das er, nehmen wir an, als Zweiundvierzigjähriger in sich hat. Nehmen wir an, er will sich meinetwillen die Kopernikanische Weltanschauung richtig erklären, dann nimmt er alle diejenigen Begriffe und Vorstellungen zusammen, die er so finden kann. Wenn er nun in sein Seelenleben hineinmurkst und dann etwas finden kann, was mit sich selbst zusammenstimmend ist, wenn er sich eine Reihe von solchen Begriffen zusammengestellt hat, in denen er, wie er sagt, keinen Widerspruch findet, dann ist er fertig, dann versteht er die Geschichte. Das ist so der Durchschnittsmensch. Das ist aber nicht Goethe!

Goethes Seele wirkt in ganz anderer Weise. Wenn man das nicht berücksichtigt, dann mag man Goethe-Biographien schreiben, es wird etwas herauskommen, was in Frankfurt im Jahre 1749 geboren ist und in Weimar 1832 gestorben ist, was aber nicht Goethe ist. Goethes Seele wirkte ganz anders. Wenn Goethe in seinem zweiundvierzigsten Jahre irgendeiner Erscheinung sich gegenüberstellte, dann wirkte nicht bloß jenes abstrakte Gebilde, das man herausbekommt, wenn man alle Begriffe, die man in sich hat, zusammentut zu einer widerspruchslosen Anschauung, wie man sagt, sondern wenn Goethe in seinem zweiundvierzigsten Jahre eine Pflanze anschaute oder irgend etwas anderes, worüber er Aufklärung gewinnen wollte, da wirkte real sein ganzes Seelenleben in ihm, nicht bloß die abstrakten Begriffe, sondern real das ganze Seelenleben wirkte. Also, wenn Goethe zweiundvierzig Jahre alt war und sich überlegen wollte, sagen wir, ein Pflanzenleben, so wirkten in ihm auch diejenigen Impulse, die er nicht bloß zusammenholte, sondern die auch in seiner Kindheit gewirkt haben, zum Teil auch unbewußt; es wirkte das gesamte Seelenleben, die Totalität, immer zusammen. Das will der moderne Mensch immer ausschalten, er will zu einer vorurteilslosen Anschauung kommen. Das geht aber nicht weiter als zu ein paar zusammengerafften Begriffen, die man leicht und bequem anschauen kann. Deshalb kann man gerade über Goethe diese großen Aufschlüsse gewinnen, wenn man auch wieder zusammenschaut, wie die verschiedenen Phasen seines Lebens sind.

Ich habe zum Beispiel versucht, Spätestes in Goethes Auffassung dadurch zu verstehen, daß ich immer wiederum hinweise auf jenen Prosahymnus «Die Natur», den er Anfang der achtziger Jahre gedichtet hat, und in dem in unreifem Zustande das Spätere enthalten ist. Aber das wirkte, was dazumal in unreifem Zustande enthalten war. Und ich habe auch früher öfter darauf hingewiesen, wie Goethe als siebenjähriger Knabe Mineralien sammelt, sich ein Notenpult nimmt von seinem Vater, die Mineralien darauf aufbaut, oben ein Räucherkerzchen daraufstellt und nun eine Art Gottesdienst unternimmt, dem «Großen Gotte», der durch die Naturerscheinungen selbst wirkt, ein Opfer darbringen will. Er fängt morgens — denken Sie, als siebenjähriger Knabe! — den Sonnenstrahl auf, läßt ihn durch ein Brennglas gehen, daß er ihm das Räucherkerzchen entzünde. Ein Naturfeuer zündet er über den Mineralien an. Darinnen liegt in einer kindlichen Weise all das schon vorgebildet, was da nachwirkt in reifsten Anschauungen. Man versteht Goethe nur, wenn man ihn so aus der Totalität seines Wesens heraus richtig aufzufassen in der Lage ist. Und dann, wenn man ihn so auffaßt, kommt man auch dazu, das, was Goethe noch wenig pflegen konnte aus den Voraussetzungen seiner Zeit heraus, die Anschauungen der geistigen Welt, erst in einer Weise zu treiben, die man auch gemäß der Goetheschen Weltanschauung finden kann. Denn bedenken Sie, man kann gar nicht anders, wenn man Goetheisch über die Natur denkt, wenn man im Sinne der Urphänomenlehre und im Sinne der Metamorphosenlehre wirklich denkt, als durch dieses Denken solche Kräfte in seiner Seele auszulösen, die einen zur Anschauung der geistigen Welt führen, und die einen zuletzt auch zur Anschauung desjenigen Lebens führen, das der Mensch führt, wenn er durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist. Gerade mit der Goetheschen, auf die reine Natur hingewendeten, reinen Naturanschauung ist eine wahre Unsterblichkeitslehre im selbstverständlichen Sinne veranlagt. Man bekommt gerade dadurch die Kraft für jene entgegengesetzten Vorstellungen, die man braucht, damit das Übersinnliche, das der Mensch durchlebt zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, in die Anschauung hereinkommt; man bekommt die Kraft für solche Anschauung dadurch, daß man sich den Blick zuerst schärft für dasjenige, was reine Natur ist, was nicht durch Theorie und Hypothese in der Natur verdorben ist.

Dadurch machen die Menschen die größten Fehler, daß sie für die äußere Welt immer glauben, die Dinge müssen einlinig gehen und einströmig. Wenn jemand in dem Sinne einem Menschen, der die Sache durchschaut, von Monismus redet, wie es sehr viele gegenwärtige Menschen tun, indem sie einen abstrakten Monismus begründen, wenn solch ein abstrakter Monismus also einem Menschen, der die Dinge durchschaut, vorgetragen wird, so kommt dem das gerade so vor, als wenn ein Mensch dasteht, linke und rechte Seite wohl ausgebildet, und ein anderer sagt ihm: Das ist aber falsch, das ist ein falscher Dualismus, der Mensch muß monistisch gebaut sein, das ist unrecht, daß der eine rechte Hälfte hat, da muß irgend etwas nicht richtig sein daran.

Geradeso muß unsere Anschauung gegenüber der Welt sein. Wie wir nicht deshalb falsch sind, weil wir zwei Hände haben und die rechte durch die linke unterstützen können, so ist es auch nicht falsch, zwei Weltanschauungen zu haben, die sich gegenseitig ineinander spiegeln und sich gegenseitig beleuchten. Und wer das für falsch hält, daß zwei Weltanschauungen gefordert werden, der sollte auch sagen: Man muß irgendwelche künstlichen Verrichtungen einmal ersinnen, damit nicht so schrecklich getrennt die linke und rechte Hand und das linke und rechte Bein durch die Welt marschieren und handeln, sondern daß endlich einmal durch eine Errungenschaft die rechte Hand in die linke, das rechte Bein in das linke hineingesteckt werden kann, damit man monistisch ist, ein Monon ist, und dann der Mensch auf diese Weise sein Leben fortfristen kann!

Für den, der die Dinge durchschaut, der die Wirklichkeit im Auge hat und nicht vertrackte abstrakte Theorien, für den ist, wie gesagt, das Anstreben des abstrakten Idealismus auf der einen Seite, des groben Realismus auf der andern Seite als Monismus, gerade so einseitig, wie etwas einseitig wäre, was mit der grotesken Sache verglichen werden kann, mit der ich eben die Sache verglichen habe. Und es liegt wirklich im Sinne der Goetheschen Weltanschauung, wenn in der heute noch sehr, sehr angefochtenen Weise von mir immer wieder und wiederum hingewiesen wird auf der einen Seite auf eine reine Naturanschauung, nicht auf eine von Hypothesen durchsetzte, sondern auf eine Anschauung, die als Anschauung lebt, nicht gedacht ist, wo das Denken nur verwendet wird, um die Anschauung herbeizuführen, auf der andern Seite auf eine Geistanschauung, wo wiederum das Denken nur verwendet wird, um die geistige Anschauung herbeizuführen, die uns dann wirklich hineinführt in das Gebiet, in dem wir zu suchen haben den Menschen, wenn er auf der andern Seite seines Lebens ist zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt.

Wenn man solch eine geisteswissenschaftliche Weltanschauung den Menschen vorträgt, so finden sie heute noch wahrhaftig logisch klingende Theorien, gescheite Theorien, um die Sache zu widerlegen. Ich habe oft gesagt: Widerlegungen der Geisteswissenschaft, oh, sie sind sehr leicht auszudenken. — Ich habe in Prag einmal den Versuch gemacht, bei zwei hintereinander folgenden öffentlichen Vorträgen, einen zu halten, in dem ich die Geisteswissenschaft widerlegt habe, und einen andern zu halten, in dem ich sie begründet habe, was mir einzelne Leute übelgenommen haben. Aber ich habe einmal den Versuch gemacht, eben einen Vortrag zu halten zur Widerlegung der Geisteswissenschaft und einen zur Begründung der Geisteswissenschaft. Man kann ganz gut die Geisteswissenschaft selbstverständlich widerlegen, man kann sie widerlegen. Wie soll man sie nicht widerlegen können? Derjenige, der glaubt, daß man Geisteswissenschaft nicht widerlegen kann, der ist ungefähr auf demselben Standpunkt, wie einer, der sagt, er kann sich mit einer Nadel, die er in der rechten Hand hält, nicht in die linke stechen. Ganz selbstverständlich kann man das, aber es besagt das alles nichts. Und man muß sagen: Dieser Gegnerschaft, die so scheinbar mit recht logischen Theorien arbeitet, liegt im Grunde eigentlich etwas ganz, ganz anders in ihrem Inneren. Man spricht auch von Unbewußtem und Unterbewußtem. Man mißversteht, namentlich bei den Psychoanalytikern, aber auch sonst, dasjenige, was eigentlich das unterbewußte Seelenleben, Geistesleben für eine Bedeutung für den Menschen hat. Ich habe darüber öfter schon hier gesprochen. Nun, wirklich wie der Blinde von der Farbe, so reden die heutigen analytischen Psychologen von dem unbewußten Geistesleben. Sie werden nur darauf gestoßen durch die wissenschaftlichen Forderungen der Gegenwart, aber sie haben eine Wissenschaft, wie ich sie genannt habe im vorigen Jahre in Zürich und auch hier, die mit unzulänglichen Mitteln arbeitet. Denn man muß wirklich die Fähigkeit haben, für dasjenige, was im Bewußtsein vorgeht, immer das darunter liegende Unterbewußte richtig zu finden.

Bewußtsein
logische Gründe
Glaube an Erkenntnisgrenzen

Unterbewußtsein
Furcht vor dem Geistigen
Interesselosigkeit für das Geistige

Sehen Sie, die Sache liegt so, daß wir sagen können: Hier ist das Bewußtsein - siehe das Schema — und darunter liegt das Unterbewußtsein. Nun, wie ist die Sache heute? Heute ist die Sache so, daß ungefähr seit dem 16. Jahrhundert sehr starke ahrimanische Einflüsse auf den Menschen und sein ganzes Denken sich geltend machen. Das hat sein Gutes, das hat sein Schlimmes. Das hat für die Naturwissenschaft vor allen Dingen die Folge, daß sie in einer ganz bestimmten ahrimanischen Weise sich ausbildet. Dieser ahrimanischen Naturwissenschaft hat Goethe die seinige entgegengesetzt, die ich Ihnen eben charakterisiert habe. Aber nichts geht vor in der menschlichen Seele — das können Sie gerade aus den Vorträgen entnehmen, die ich vor acht Tagen hier gehalten habe -, nichts geht vor in dem Geiste des Menschen, ohne daß im Unterbewußten auch etwas vorgeht. Indem man die heutige Form des Naturdenkens ausbildet, entwickelt man im Unterbewußten zwei ganz besondere Gefühle: Furcht vor dem Geistigen und Interesselosigkeit für das Geistige. Man kann gar nicht im Sinne des heutigen Denkens Naturwissenschaft ausbilden, wenn man nicht gerade Goethesche Naturwissenschaft ausbildet, ohne daß man ausbildet zu gleicher Zeit unterbewußte Furcht gegenüber der spirituellen Welt und unterbewußte Interesselosigkeit gegenüber der spirituellen Welt. Man fürchtet sich vor dem Geistigen. Das ist die notwendige Folge der heutigen naturwissenschaftlichen Eindrücke. Aber eine unterbewußte Furcht, von der man nichts weiß. Und diese unterbewußte Furcht zieht sich an, und erst angezogen mit allerlei Flitter und Gaukelgewand erscheint sie dem Menschen im Bewußtsein. Sie zieht nämlich logische Gründe an. Die Furcht verwandelt sich in logische Gründe. Und mit diesen logischen Gründen geht nun der Mensch herum.

Wer die Sache durchschaut, hört, wie die Menschen sehr gescheite logische Gründe vorbringen, aber er weiß auch, unten, im Unterbewußtsein sitzt die Furcht vor dem Spirituellen, wie das Unbekannte immer Furcht einjagt — die Wasserscheu der Hunde ist auch zurückzuführen darauf -, und die Interesselosigkeit, die sich insbesondere darinnen zeigt, daß man, wenn man eine richtige Naturerkenntnis entwickelt, den Geist mit Fingern greifen kann. Denn ich möchte einmal einen Menschen, der nun wirklich restlos erkennen will, auffordern, zu sagen, aus welchen irdischen Naturerscheinungen heraus, ohne zum Geiste seine Zuflucht zu nehmen, er die Form des menschlichen Kopfes erklären kann. Die reine, richtige naturwissenschaftliche Erklärung des menschlichen Kopfes führt zurück zu dem, was man nur geisteswissenschaftlich erkennt, wie ich auseinandergesetzt habe. Hat man Interesse für das, was wirklich da ist in der menschlichen Natur, dann drängt es natürlich zum Geiste hin. Nur Interesselosigkeit verführt einen dazu, zu sagen, darinnen weise nichts auf den Geist hin! Nun, wenn Sie zuerst alles, was zum Geiste hinführt, ausschließen - man achtet es nicht, man macht sich zuerst leere Hypothesen und Theorien zurecht -, flugs zeigen sie auch nichts, wenn man sie anführt, wenn man sie zuerst so recht präpariert hat! Der Naturforscher heute verfährt größtenteils so wie einer, der zuerst sorgfältig den Fisch putzt, so daß keine Schuppen mehr daran sind, und nachher behauptet, der Fisch habe keine Schuppen. So putzt der heutige Naturforscher von den Erscheinungen erst alles dasjenige, was zum Geiste hinweist, weg, weil er kein Interesse daran hat. Aber er weiß ebensowenig von der Interesselosigkeit als von der Furcht. Daher kann auch die Interesselosigkeit sich Flitter- und Gaukelkleider anziehen, und diese Flitter- und Gaukelkleider sind Glaube an Erkenntnisgrenzen. Und im Bewußtsein redet man von Erkenntnisgrenzen — Ignorabimus. Dasjenige, was man da redet, ist eigentlich im Grunde genommen ganz gleichgültig. Man könnte, wenn man wollte, ganz andere Wortzusammenstellungen erfinden für dasjenige, was zum Beispiel Da Bois-Reymond geredet hat in seinem Vortrag über die Grenzen der Naturerkenntnis — sie wären geradeso wertvoll, denn das, was er will, ist im Grunde genommen ganz gleichgültig. Bewirkt wurde es von seiner unterbewußten Interesselosigkeit gegenüber den abgeschuppten Fischen, die keine Schuppen haben — nun als Vergleich gebraucht.

Sie sehen, es würde schon sehr dienlich sein, wenn sich die gegenwärtige Menschheit orientieren wollte an geisteswissenschaftlichen Begriffen, denn sie würde dadurch eine richtige Natur- und eine richtige GeistErkenntnis, wenigstens in die Vorstellungen herein, vor das Seelenauge bekommen können. Die braucht die Menschheit. Beide Anschauungen braucht die Menschheit. Man findet heute eigentlich recht häufig schon Hinweise darauf, daß die Menschheit in der Gegenwart etwas Neues an Weltanschauungen, an Welterkenntnis brauche. Aber unterbewußte Furcht, unterbewußte Interesselosigkeit, die wirken sehr stark. Und daraus ergeben sich heute die auf diesem Gebiete merkwürdig zutage tretenden Erscheinungen. Ein ernst zu nehmender Mann hat in einem der letzten Hefte der Zeitschrift «Wissen und Leben» merkwürdige Worte gesprochen, die man doch ein wenig ins Auge fassen muß, wenn man Unterlagen gewinnen will für die Art, wie man sich eigentlich zu dem Denken auch der ernst zu nehmenden Menschen, die aber betroffen sind durch die geschilderte Furcht und Interesselosigkeit in sich selber, zu stellen hat.

Im Verlaufe eines Aufsatzes, der heißt «Der internationale Kitt», wird da in der folgenden Weise gesprochen:

«Es gehört zu den größten weltgeschichtlichen Enttäuschungen, daß auch diese geistige Macht» - die geistige Macht des Christentums — «versagt hat dem Kriege gegenüber und keinen Damm aufwarf gegen die sich heranwälzende Flut von Haß und Zerstörung. Ja, gerade im Christentum sind während der Völkerentzweiung noch ganz besonders häßliche Erscheinungen zutage getreten, wie zum Beispiel die Kriegstheologie mit ihrem Versuch, auch die höchsten absoluten Werte herabzuziehen in die Relativität unseres Weltgeschehens. In dem Bestreben, dieses zu rationalisieren und auf irgendeine Formel zu bringen, kam man dazu, auch das Schreckliche, das radikale Böse durch den ethischen Gott der Liebe irgendwie rechtfertigen zu wollen, anstatt im Angesicht des furchtbaren Unterganges von Liebe und Leben demütigst stehen zu bleiben bei Luthers Deus absconditus, dem verborgenen Gott, der in der ethisch indifferenten Dynamik der Welt auch in die Erscheinung tritt. Durch die religiös-ethische Verklärung des Krieges wurden dem «lieben Gott politische Ziele untergeschoben, die denen der Machthaber und Kabinette verzweifelt ähnlich sehen.»

Nun, wer ein wenig die zeitgenössische Literatur verfolgt, der wird wissen, daß dies sehr richtig ist, daß von allen Seiten her dem Gotte die Absichten der Machthaber als göttliche Absichten untergeschoben werden, so daß der Mann hier wirklich manche unerfreulichste Erscheinung der Gegenwart in nicht unrechter Weise charakterisiert. Dann sagt er weiter:

«Nicht nur das. Auch die gegenseitigen Spannungen unter den christlichen Kirchen wurden verschärft. Der historische Gegensatz zwischen Luthertum und Calvinismus wurde neu ausgegraben. Die extremen Anglikaner rückten soweit von dem festländischen Protestantismus ab, daß sie ihm kaum noch den Namen des Christentums zugestehen wollten. Gar nicht zu reden von, dem Zerreißen der internationalen christlichen Bande in der Missionsarbeit. So scheint das national beschränkte Völkerideal den Sieg über das internationale Gemeinschaftsideal des Christentums errungen zu haben.

Aber wo das geschah, hat das Christentum einen Verrat am Evangelium begangen. Judas, der Christus verrät. Denn das Wesen des Christentums weist auf eine umfassende menschliche Gemeinschaft hin und kann sich nur in einer solchen auswirken.»

Nun, und so weiter. Ja, der Mann redet manches Gescheite, aber er kommt nicht dazu, zu fragen: Ja, wir haben nun dieses Christentum gepflegt durch nahezu zwei Jahrtausende. Woran liegt es denn, daß es, obwohl es seinem Wesen nach einen solchen Zustand wie den gegenwärtigen ausschließen würde, daß es ihn nicht ausgeschlossen hat? Damit sagt man nichts, daß man sagt: Die Menschen sind schlechte Christen, sie sollen bessere Christen werden, wenn man damit meint, sie sollen solche Christen werden, wie es sie schon gegeben hat! Ich könnte Ihnen Hunderte von gegenwärtig erscheinenden Äußerungen sonst ganz ernst zunehmender Menschen vorführen, und Sie würden aus diesen sehen, daß schon da und dort auftaucht ein gewisser, wenn auch ganz unterbewußter Impuls, daß etwas notwendig ist wie eine neue Weltanschauung. Aber in dem Augenblick, wo nun diese Menschen wirklich herankommen sollen an das, was nötig ist, an eine geisteswissenschaftliche Weltanschauung, da umnebeln sie sich selber ihre Begriffe, und da schlagen diese Begriffe sofort in die Furcht und Interesselosigkeit um. Sie fürchten sich vor der Geisteswissenschaft. Das kann man bei den einzelnen Persönlichkeiten ganz genau nachweisen aus ihren Äußerungen und aus ihrem Leben. Oder sie zeigen die Interesselosigkeit. Ihr Geist faßt es nicht, sie können es überhaupt nicht, auf das einzugehen. Dann kommt man zu so merkwürdigen Widersprüchen, die natürlich der heutige Leser nicht sieht, weil heute so gelesen wird, wie ich das schon gestern und auch sonst andeutete. Dieser Mann, der den Artikel schrieb, der, wie gesagt, durchaus ernst zu nehmen ist, schreibt in einer richtigen Weise so, wie er da geschrieben hat. Aber, sehen Sie einmal, er sagt, es muß wieder etwas geschehen, damit das Christentum seine internationale Bedeutung und Wirksamkeit entfalten kann. Da macht er allerlei Vorschläge. Er sagt: Warum sollte denn das nicht möglich sein, daß das Christentum die internationalen Impulse, die Haß und Zerstörung verhindern, pflegt? - Da kommt er darauf, auch folgenden Satz zu schreiben:

«Noch im August 1914 haben die freien britischen Kirchen an Professor Harnack geschrieben: ‹Außer den englisch sprechenden Völkern steht kein Volk uns so hoch in unserer Liebe und Bewunderung wie das deutsche. Wir haben alle eine unermeßliche Schuld gegenüber deutscher Theologie, Philosophie und Literatur.› »

Da haben wir doch, sagt er, eine ganz erfreuliche Erscheinung, da haben wir es, wie die britischen Theologen den deutschen Theologen ein Kompliment machen von wunderbarster Art. Könnte es nicht so in der Zukunft sein?

Ja, aber wirklichkeitsgemäß gedacht: die Sache ist im August 1914 geschrieben, wo gerade diese Zerstörung ausgebrochen ist! Der wirklichkeitsgemäße Schluß wäre also: trotzdem die britischen Theologen dieses geschrieben haben, konnte es nichts irgendwie zur Verhinderung des Zerstörungswerkes beitragen. Also, Sie sehen, statt von links nach rechts, denkt der Mann von rechts nach links oder umgekehrt, je nachdem die Sache liegt; während der wirklichkeitsgemäße Gedanke sagt: man muß untersuchen, was nicht richtig ist, was fehlt, trotzdem sich die Leute so schöne Komplimente gemacht haben. Da sagt er: Wenn wir es nur so machen, wie wir es im August 1914 gemacht haben, da werden wir schon weiterkommen.

Ja, da können wir wieder anfangen! Denn das kann nicht helfen, das hat die Wirklichkeit gezeigt! Also, der richtige Gedanke wäre dieser, daß man sagt: Es muß irgend etwas nicht stimmen! Das Christentum muß irgend etwas unberücksichtigt lassen. — Was es unberücksichtigt läßt, ist gerade, daß es sich nicht hineinfindet in das, was die Zeit durch ihre eigene Notwendigkeit fordert. Und das ist, was solchen Menschen fehlt: das willige Eingehen auf dasjenige, was gerade durch die Impulse unserer Zeit gefordert wird. — So kann man sehen, daß die Leute erkennen, die alte Weltanschauung hat Schiffbruch gelitten. Aber sie wollen keine neue, sie wollen die alte wieder, damit man noch einmal Schiffbruch leiden kann. Das aber bleibt natürlich in ihrem Unterbewußten stecken. Sie wollen selbstverständlich das Beste, sie sind nur zu bequem, um dasjenige, was das Notwendige ist, wirklich aufzusuchen.

Das ist es, was einem immer wieder und wiederum im Hintergrunde liegt, wenn man von so etwas sprechen muß wie von der Bedeutung des Goetheanismus für die Gegenwart, oder auch von der Bedeutung dessen, was natürlich größer ist als der Goetheanismus, der ganzen geistigen Welt und ihrer Erkenntnis. Auch da braucht man nicht kritisch zu sein. Man braucht nicht zu sagen, wie grundschlecht die Menschen sind, die das nun nicht tun, was da getan werden sollte, sondern man sollte sich darauf beschränken, einzusehen, was geschehen muß. Man sollte auf das Positive sehen. Vielleicht kann man sich dann sagen: Ja, wenn ich nur nicht so furchtbar wenig tun könnte, ich kann so furchtbar wenig tun. — Man kann vielleicht auch die Frage stellen: Ja, was soll denn der einzelne eigentlich tun? — Solche Fragen werden oftmals gestellt unter der Voraussetzung, als ob es sich zum Beispiel in meinen Auseinandersetzungen darum handeln könnte, ein bestimmtes konkretes Rezept für den einzelnen zu geben, das wiederum, wenn es allgemein gegeben würde, natürlich dadurch abstrakt und inhaltslos würde. Heute handelt es sich überhaupt für sehr viele Menschen zunächst darum, einzusehen, wie gerade bei denjenigen, in deren führender Hand viel gelegen ist, sei es auf diesem, sei es auf jenem Gebiete, Unendliches verfehlt wird, weil sich gerade die führenden Menschen der Gegenwart sträuben gegen dasjenige, wogegen sie sich nicht sträuben dürften. Und das ist wichtig, daß wir nicht von falschem Autoritätsgefühl angefressen werden, daß wir nicht einen riesigen Respekt haben, weil wir nicht prüfen. Darum handelt es sich, daß wir nicht ohne weiteres heute den historischen Autoritäten einfach verfallen, sondern gerade um Aufmerksamkeit und um Aufpassen handelt es sich, sich ein Urteil darüber zu bilden, wie auf den verschiedensten Gebieten das Leben durch die heutigen führenden Persönlichkeiten oftmals mißgeleitet wird. Das geschieht doch nicht in genügender Schärfe und vor allen Dingen oftmals nicht in genügender Besonnenheit. Denn gerade in Besonnenheit und nicht in Unbesonnenheit sollte es geschehen. Das ist von einer ungeheuren Wichtigkeit, selbst zu prüfen in dem Unterbewußten, wieviel man verkehrten Autoritätsglauben noch in sich trägt, zu erkennen auch, daß gerade Geisteswissenschaft wirklich einen vom Autoritätsglauben wegführt, einen zu einem freien, urteilenden Menschen machen kann, wenn man sich lebendig von ihren Urteilen durchdringen läßt. Man denkt immer, die Welt müsse eindeutig gradlinig verlaufen. Wenn man sich gewöhnt, die Natur in einer gewissen naturwissenschaftlichen Weise anzuschauen, will man alles naturwissenschaftlich anschauen. Wenn man sich gewöhnt, die Welt nach abstrakten Theorien anzuschauen, wie man oft sagt, idealistisch, so will man wieder alles in dieser Weise anschauen. Aber das Leben verläuft nicht in dieser gradlinigen, eindeutigen Weise, sondern das Leben fordert von uns Beweglichkeit, Vielgestaltigkeit, Mannigfaltigkeit des Denkens. Das ist es, was wir uns im Grunde nur aus dem richtigen Betreiben der Geisteswissenschaft aneignen können, und was so ungeheuer notwendig ist, um sich in der Gegenwart in der richtigen Weise zu orientieren.

Aus diesem Grunde wollte ich diesmal etwas ausführlicher an Goethe anknüpfen. Ich wollte nicht eigentlich etwas Besonderes über Goethe sagen — das hat sich, wie Sie gesehen haben, wie von selbst gegeben -, sondern ich wollte auf wichtige geisteswissenschaftliche Wahrheiten hinweisen, die sich anknüpfen lassen an dasjenige, was sich gerade in der Szene, die nun vorgeführt werden soll, von Goethe künstlerisch verarbeitet findet. Gar manche gehen über Goethe hochmütig hinweg, weil sie ihn nicht wissenschaftlich finden, wie sie die Geisteswissenschaft selbst nicht wissenschaftlich finden. Aber es würde vielen schon nützen, wenn sie sich ein wenig versenken wollten gerade in solch einen Geist, in solch eine Seele, wie die Goethesche ist, denn sie bringt ab von dem falschen Glauben, der eigentlich ein Aberglaube ist, daß man immer mit eindeutigen Begriffen, mit eindeutigem Leben wirklich vorwärts kommt. Wo eine Entwickelung ist, ist auch eine Rückentwickelung, ist auch die entgegengesetzte Entwickelung. Und wo eine Rückentwickelung ist, ist auch eine Entwickelung. Wenn Sie die Seele auf der einen Seite rein auf die Urphänomene und Metamorphosen der Natur richten und sich nicht verderben Ihre Naturanschauung durch verdunkelnde Theorien, dann entwickelt sich nicht bloß einseitig diese reine Naturanschauung, sondern dann entwickelt sich in der Seele die andere Anschauung, die nach dem Geiste hingeht. Und wenn Sie entwickeln die Anschauung, die nach dem Geiste hingeht in wahrer Weise, dann können Sie nicht mehr falsche Theorien in die Natur hineintragen, sondern dann drängt es Sie, die Natur in ihren materiellen Erscheinungen rein durch sie selbst sich interpretieren zu lassen.

So auch ist es, wenn man auf dem Gebiete der Geisteswissenschaft genötigt ist, Bedenkliches, wie das gestern Ihnen über das Böse in Anknüpfung an die Phorkyaden-Erscheinung zu Sagende zum Ausdruck zu bringen, oder wenn man genötigt ist, davon zu sprechen, daß im Unterbewußten des Menschen vieles sitzt, wovon er in seinem Bewußtsein nichts weiß, So etwas nehmen einem oftmals die Menschen übel, weil sie einen verkennen. Denken Sie doch nur, wenn jemand sachgemäß davon spricht: Du hast in deinem Unterbewußtsein so manches -, da denkt der andere, der ist mein Feind, wenn er auch so etwas unbewußt sein läßt, der denkt, in meinem Unterbewußten führe ich allerlei im Schilde. So können nun auch unsere Zeitgenossen denken: Dieser Anthroposoph schimpft uns, daß wir unterbewußte Furcht und unterbewußte Interesselosigkeit haben, er setzt uns eigentlich herunter. — Aber die Welt ist nicht eindeutig. Ich sage ja nicht bloß, daß die Leute in ihrem Unterbewußten Furcht und Interesselosigkeit haben, sondern ich sage auch: Ihr habt in eurem Unterbewußtsein die ganze geistige Welt, erfaßt ihr sie nur. Die ist auch da unten. — Das ist die andere Seite. Man stellt geisteswissenschaftlich keine Behauptung auf, ohne daß diese Behauptung involviert eine andere Behauptung. Und wem ich sage: Du hast unterbewußte Furcht und unterbewußte Interesselosigkeit, der sollte sich bewußt sein, daß ich ihm auch sage: Zwar bist du dir “deiner Furcht und Interesselosigkeit nicht bewußt, du verbrämst sie durch allerlei Lügen und durch deinen Glauben an Erkenntnisgrenzen, aber du hast deine ganze unterbewußte Welt zu umfassen, wenn du nur in deine unterbewußte Welt untertauchen willst. — Ich sage ihm nicht nur einen Tadel, wie er es auffaßt, sondern ich sage ihm auch über seine unterbewußte Welt etwas Gutes. Das ist das, woraus Sie sehen, daß das Leben nicht einseitig ist, daß aber Geisteswissenschaft es auch nicht einseitig darstellen kann.

Und so wird auf der einen Seite so gesprochen, wie oftmals gesprochen werden muß. Wenn man dann den Menschen Abneigung, Aversionen, Furcht und Interesselosigkeit für eingeflößt erklären muß, hat man auch den Menschen zu sagen: Ihr müßt gewisse Gefahren überwinden, wenn ihr zur geistigen Welt kommen wollt, ihr müßt gewisse Unbequemlichkeiten überwinden. — Gewiß, das ist die eine Seite, die man geltend machen muß. Aber bedenken Sie, welche Summe von seelenbeglückenden Empfindungen darinnen liegt, daß eine geisteswissenschaftliche Anschauung uns den Blick eröffnet von dem Leben, das wir hier vollbringen mit andern Menschen zwischen Geburt und Tod, welche weltbeglückenden Empfindungen eröffnet werden dadurch, daß man weiß, man lebt noch inniger mit denjenigen, die durch des Todes Pforte gegangen sind. Und denken Sie sich, wenn einmal dieser Gedanke der Zweiseitigkeit richtig erfaßt wird, wenn richtig diese Welt einmal angesehen wird im Sinne der Geisteswissenschaft, so wird nicht nur dasjenige, was Geisteswissenschaft zu sagen hat, ausgießen die Forderung von unbequemem Eindringen in die geistigen Welten, sondern es wird auszugießen haben diese Geisteswissenschaft über die Herzen der Menschen ungeheure Summen von Trostesempfindungen, ungeheure Summen von andern seelenbeglückenden Empfindungen, die dadurch die menschliche Seele ergreifen, daß diese menschliche Seele immer mehr und mehr fähig sein wird, nicht nur mit denen zu leben, die in der sinnenfälligen Welt sie umgeben, sondern mit all den Menschen zu leben, mit denen irgendein Lebensband eingegangen worden ist in dem physischen Leben, zu leben mit ihnen über des Todes Pforte hinaus. Können wir denn nur verlangen, wenn wir vernünftig sind, daß eine Wissenschaft, welche unsere Seelen erlebend hinausträgt über des Todes Pforte, eine bequeme Wissenschaft sein soll? Nein, das können wir, wenn wir verständig und vernünftig sind, ohnedies nicht verlangen. Durch die Unbequemlichkeit auch zu einer gewissen Weltbeglückung wird die Menschheit der Zukunft entgegengehen müssen. Dazu wird sie sich entschließen müssen, Wissenschaft zu suchen von geistigen Welten.

Goethe's Spiritual Life from a Spiritual Scientific Point of View

Through our observations yesterday and the day before, we have been able to see how Goethe's work is permeated by a certain spiritual scientific view, even if it can perhaps be described as intuitive. And it is extremely important and significant to engage with and understand such an interesting fact as Goethe's spiritual life. Only then does such a spiritual life appear correctly in the context of the whole development of humanity, when one brings it before one's soul in deep contemplation with all that it contains. Now I would like to add something else to all that has been said. I would like to point out that one can only truly grasp Goethe's entire spiritual structure, the whole nature of Goethe's spiritual life, if one does so from a spiritual scientific point of view. Not only can a non-spiritual standpoint naturally not find in Goethe's work what we were able to find through spiritual scientific observation the day before yesterday and yesterday, but it also only becomes explainable how such a soul life is possible within human development when one views this soul life from a spiritual scientific standpoint. In various contexts, I have also drawn your attention to other revelations of Goethe's soul life, revelations that may seem more distant from general human life, but only seem so, as what is presented in the comprehensive Faust poem, which should actually be of the highest interest to every human being. I have told you that Goethe practiced a special kind of natural science. And the fact that Goethe practiced a special kind of natural science is something extraordinarily important and significant. It can be said that Goethe's particular way of thinking about natural science is still largely misunderstood in the widest circles. Nevertheless, it seems to me that it is of particular importance for the most diverse branches of contemporary intellectual life, not least for contemporary religious life, to gain an insight into this particular configuration, into this particular way in which Goethe viewed nature. As you know, he attempted to establish a natural science for the world of the inanimate, which he built up, in his own words, on the basis of the primordial phenomena, and he established a theory of plants, which he built up on the basis of metamorphosis.

As far as is possible in popular terms, I would like to say a few words to you today about these two aspects, Goethe's theory of primordial phenomena and his theory of metamorphosis.

What does Goethe intend by wanting to explain nature only in terms of so-called primordial phenomena, without resorting to hypotheses and theories? Since the 1880s, I have been endeavoring to point out to humanity, from various angles, what the actual essence of the primordial phenomenon is. However, it cannot be said that much has been understood about this matter in wider circles to date. Perhaps the best way to gain an insight into what Goethe understood by the primordial phenomenon in inanimate nature is to consider how he came to develop a special theory of colors. He recounts this himself. I know that what I am about to say is an abomination and heresy to the current scientific and physical view. But that does not matter. What current physics does not recognize, future physics will be compelled to recognize. Current physics is really not yet ready for Goethe's theory of colors.

Like other people — as I said, he says so himself — Goethe believed until the early 1890s in the so-called Newtonian theory of colors, which is based on a certain hypothesis, on a theory. This theory states that light is based on something — well, there is no need to go into that — something that cannot be perceived. Whether it is imagined, as Newton himself did, in terms of material flows, or whether it is imagined as vibrations or some kind of electrical impulses, is ultimately irrelevant. The origin of colors is imagined in such a way that light contains the different colors, as it were, inseparably and neutralized in a kind of supersensible entity, and that through the prism or other processes the colors can be forced out of the uniform white light.

Goethe found himself compelled, in a way that must seem primitive and foolish to today's physicists, to abandon this idea, which he shared with others, one day. He studied Newtonian optics and became a believer in it, as is natural when one knows nothing better, but he found that when he wanted to apply Newtonian optics, this theory of colors, to think through something artistic, something painterly, it was of no use. Newtonian physics is adequate for a materialistic physical conception, but it is of no use artistically. This bothered Goethe more and more, and it prompted him to at least investigate the physical nature of color phenomena. He had Court Councilor Büttner, who was a professor in Jena, send him apparatus so that he could see what insights he could gain into the formation of colors through his own investigations and experiments. Court councillor Büttner naturally provided Goethe with everything he needed. But the equipment initially gathered dust at Goethe's home. He did not get around to conducting his investigations for a long time, until court councillor Büttner informed him that he now needed his apparatus and would like it back. Goethe assembled it to send it back to the man. But first he wanted to quickly look through a prism, and as I said, he believed – in a way that would seem highly primitive and foolish to today's physicists – that when he looked through a prism, he would see the white wall in all seven colors in succession, because it splits into seven colors. But nothing! It remained white! That bothered him. It was foolish according to the usual assumptions; but it was healthy thinking. He looked through the prism—the wall remained white. This prompted him to ask Court Councilor Büttner once again to allow him to keep the instruments and apparatus. And so he was able to continue his investigations. And from these investigations, he developed: first, his theory of colors, and second, his view of the physical, that is, the inanimate phenomena of nature in general, a view that rejects all hypotheses and all theories, that does not invent anything about natural phenomena, but rather traces them back to phenomena, only to primordial phenomena, to primordial phenomena.

And so he realized that when you see any color, it is based in some way on the interaction of light and darkness, which are superimposed on each other. When light is superimposed on darkness, dark colors appear: blue, violet, and so on. If darkness is superimposed on light in some way, for example, darkened matter and the like, or the prism itself, then light colors appear: red, yellow, and so on. There is no theory involved. Dark and light have an effect on immediate perception. But these are simply perceptions. When dark and light interact, colors are created. There is nothing explicit about a hypothesis or a theory here, but only something simple and perceptible.

And now, for him, it is not a matter of inventing hypotheses, such as the undulation hypothesis or the emission hypothesis and the like, in order to say how colors are created, but merely a question of how light and darkness must be combined so that yellow or red or blue or violet appear. So what mattered to Goethe was not to add anything to the phenomena in the form of hypotheses and theories, but to let the phenomena speak for themselves in a very strict sense. In this way, Goethe developed a theory of colors that leads in a wonderful way to the artistic conception of color. For the chapter on the sensual and moral effect of colors, in which so many hints that are also significant for the artist can be found, is one of the most beautiful parts of Goethe's theory of colors.

This was Goethe's basis for his overall conception of inanimate nature: never to seek theories or hypotheses. These, he believes, can be established in order to have scaffolding. But just as scaffolding is not left standing once the building is complete, but is taken down, so too are hypotheses used only to find a way to put things together; afterwards, however, they are torn down once the original phenomenon, the simplest phenomenon, has been reached.

Goethe also attempted to outline this for the whole of physics, at least. And in the large Weimar edition, in the volume where I have published Goethe's general scientific essays, you will also find a diagram in which Goethe has schematized the whole of physics from this point of view. Particularly interesting in this diagram is the theory of sound, for example, which is in harmony with his theory of color, but is only schematized. But it would be interesting to create a theory of sound that would flow into music just as Goethe's theory of color flows into painting. Of course, this could not yet be created because modern science takes a completely different path than that which is based on Goethe's worldview or, respectively, Goethe's view of nature. Goethe attempted this with regard to inanimate nature.

He attempted something similar with regard to living plant life through his theory of metamorphosis, in which he did not put forward theories and hypotheses, but rather observed how the leaf transforms, metamorphoses into various forms, and subsequently becomes a petal, so that the flower is nothing other than the transformed leaf. Again, this is a view that does not want hypotheses, that does not want to put forward theories, but wants to remain pure in what the view presents. Only then are flexible concepts needed, concepts that are as flexible as nature itself. How nature lives in creation is that it does not hold on to forms, but transforms them. So one must have concepts that most people are too comfortable to develop, concepts that transform themselves internally in order to be able to truly follow the concepts from form to form, as they transform in nature. But then, without hypotheses and without theories, one remains only in the realm of the purely obvious.

It is this peculiarity that characterizes Goethe, namely that he rejects any theory of natural phenomena and actually wants to use thinking only to compile the phenomena in the right way, so that they express themselves in their essence. Yes, one can say the paradox, I ask you to consider this carefully: It is precisely this that drives Goethe into the realm of the spirit in the right way, as we were able to characterize the day before yesterday and yesterday, in that he does not contaminate the phenomena of external nature with all kinds of theories and hypotheses, but rather perceives the phenomena of nature as they present themselves to sensory existence.

But this has a further consequence. When one forms Newtonian or Spencerian or similar theories, that is, when one contaminates what nature itself offers with theories and hypotheses, one thinks about nature in such a way that one can think this way in physical human life, but the etheric body of the human being does not take this in. And all these theories, which are not gained through pure observation of nature, are transferred. All these theories and hypotheses first turn the human etheric body into a caricature, and thereby also the astral body, and thus disturb human life in the supersensible realm.

Goethe's healthy nature rebelled against this destruction of the forms that the etheric body requires for itself. That is precisely — and that is why I say that Goethe can only be understood through spiritual science — what is important for Goethe. He had an instinct for what does not come from immediate reality, because he felt that when he formed concepts such as Newton's, it pinched and tweaked in the etheric body. It does not pinch and tweak in others because they are more coarsely organized. Goethe was organized in such a way that it pinched and tweaked him in his etheric body as he looked through it. And neither a theory nor the most precious hypothesis can prevent it from pinching and tweaking him when only white appears, and he has to think that the wall is still white, even though the seven colors should appear in stages. It did not happen. And it is proof of Goethe's thoroughly healthy nature, that is, his nature as a microcosm fitted to the macrocosm, that he felt this way.

And there is another side to this matter that should be emphasized. We know that human beings are not only the beings that live between birth and death, but also the beings that live between death and a new birth. In this life between death and a new birth, one has the inner connections of forces that one has developed in the physical body. And when, after a few days, one has separated from the etheric body, one looks back on this etheric body. The point is that one has treated this etheric body as a human being in such a way that one can look at it without being misled by a caricature. Now, the peculiar thing is that when one looks at nature purely in a natural way, as Goethe did, when one rejects theories and hypotheses and only accepts primordial phenomena, then this perception, this viewing of the primordial phenomena, is such that they trigger healthy sensations and feelings in us, those sensations that Goethe describes in the chapter “Sensual-moral effects of colors.” Of course, the perception of sensual phenomena declines with our lives. But what remains in our spiritual-soul through pure perception, which Goethe considers to be the only natural science, is healthy and also fits into the spiritual-soul world. So that one can say: Goethe's natural science, even though it is limited to phenomena, to the sensual, is precisely spiritual because it does not contaminate pure observation of nature with theories through Ahrimanic or Luciferic influences on the spirit. Such theories obscure the pure perceptions of the earthly for the spiritual-soul.

Now, yesterday I told you that human beings do not only live on Earth, but that before they entered the Earth, they underwent a Saturn, Sun, and Moon development. After leaving the earth, or rather, after the earth leaves them, they will undergo a Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan development. But I have told you: our scientific concepts can only refer to the earth's development. — And indeed, if we develop a sound natural science, we have the impulse not to present the development of the earth in such a way that we confuse everything possible that fits only with Saturn, the sun, and the moon, which are of course intertwined with the development of the earth in reality, but rather, a sound natural science wants to highlight the earth and present the earth as earth in its lawfulness. This is what Goethe does. And that is why people are so unable to advance to a sound understanding of the development of the moon, sun, and Saturn, because they do not have a sound understanding of the development of the earth either. Even if Goethe himself has not yet arrived at this view of the development of the moon, sun, and Saturn — anyone who delves into his natural science, which is purified of everything else and refers only to the Earth, prepares their mind precisely by separating out the earthly through a healthy science of the Earth, and thereby to prepare oneself for a healthy view of that which can only be seen in the supersensible: Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolution and the spiritual in general. So that one can say: it is precisely through his purely sensory view that Goethe was predisposed to process this, as we saw yesterday and the day before, in his “Faust.” — That is why Goethe stood for what is spiritual understanding, because he did not apply any confused theories or hypotheses from the spirit to natural phenomena. One thing determines the other.

What I pointed out to you yesterday at the end is that Goethe was not an idealist on the one hand and a realist on the other, but rather viewed external phenomena realistically and viewed what was to be understood idealistically idealistically, but did not believe that either one could be used to establish a worldview. Instead, he allowed the two views to mirror each other in his inner life, just as they mirror each other in external reality. Even if Goethe himself did not pursue this, it leads to the fact that, if one really immerses oneself deeply in Goethe's way of thinking, one comes to be able to correctly imagine the two ways of life that human beings have to go through in a very healthy way.

Why is it that the ordinary human view today is so little inclined to admit the spiritual? And when it does form concepts of the spiritual world, they are so abstract that they cannot be applied to external nature. Why is it that idealism and realism are so far apart for people today that they either base their worldview on a lame monism that says nothing, or cannot come to terms with a worldview at all? Where does this come from? It comes from the fact that people today want to establish their worldview in a very specific way. Today, one either becomes a natural scientist, learns about nature, and tries to understand it with all kinds of theories and hypotheses. For what natural science today thinks of as heredity and so on are not primordial phenomena, but theories and hypotheses. People try to saturate natural phenomena with such hypotheses, or they become theologians or philosophers and try to gain certain concepts and ideas about the spiritual from traditions. These are then so thin and shadowy that one cannot understand nature, because they do not have sufficient power to grasp nature correctly.

Take a look around today at the theological and philosophical discussions of the present day. Where do you find a sound basis in them for correctly illuminating nature? And where, seriously, among the representatives of today's natural science, if they are not monistic braggarts, where do you find a possibility to ascend from natural science to the divine-spiritual forms of existence and realms of existence in reality? Today, it is not possible, if one develops healthy thinking, to unite the two fields as they are today. The two fields can only be united if one has the ability to devote oneself to the observation of nature and to science in the same way that Goethe devoted himself to nature: focusing purely on the phenomenon, on the appearances, not mixing in theories other than to construct the phenomena, letting thinking be only the servant that participates, but not mixing thinking into the results, into the findings. That is what we must do with regard to nature, recognize nature's power to interpret itself. Not to speculate about nature, but to be fully materialistic, letting material phenomena speak for themselves, that is what we must do in the face of a healthy natural science. If we can manage such a healthy natural science, we will truly understand human life between birth, or let's say conception, and death. But now, as we look into nature on the one hand, unencumbered by impossible theories and hypotheses, we must also be able to look into the spirit. Then we will not remain stuck with abstract theologies or philosophies, but spiritual insights will arise. And it is precisely through the power that pure observation of nature, Goethe's observation of nature, triggers in us that spiritual insights, insights of the pure spirit, can arise. Those who confuse their concepts and ideas with natural phenomena will be punished by these concepts, which will prevent them from reaching spiritual insight. Those who observe nature purely see it in their own soul in such a way that they can also look at the spirit in a real way. In this respect, Goethe's worldview can be a great educator for modern humanity.

But then one must develop a view of nature and a view of the spirit separately. But one must also be aware that one cannot do anything with one on its own and the other on its own. If you want to remain merely a theologian or philosopher, it is as if you wanted to photograph something that is completely different on two sides from only one side; the same applies if you want to remain merely a natural scientist. You should be able to be both, and let one be reflected in the other, that is, not seek union through abstract concepts, but let things unite themselves by first developing clear views for each area separately. Then the two areas are reflected in each other. But then, through the ability to reflect in this way, you will also gain a healthy view of human life as a whole. You will then see the natural phenomena outside of human beings in the sense of Goethe's natural science. But when you look at human beings, you will see that what is present in the external world is not sufficient to explain them. You will only arrive at a homunculus, not a homo.

You see how, in order to understand human beings, it is necessary to approach them from opposite sides, with natural science and spiritual science, and to let the two reflect each other. Then they fit the human being. Then life between birth or conception and death is reflected in human beings in what appears to us as life between death and a new birth, and vice versa: life between death and a new birth is reflected in life between birth and death. Do not devise a single theory to explain one or the other, but two views, not theories, two pure views, and do not unite them in concepts, but let them mirror each other in the view itself.

The fact that Goethe, through his healthy spiritual development, arrived at such views of the mutual reflection of what is essentially real outside, testifies to how he was truly on the path to the newer spiritual science. And even if Goethe was still uncertain in a certain respect for his time, because — as I must emphasize again and again — his spiritual scientific knowledge was intuitive, he nevertheless made so many sound judgments about spiritual life that can be pursued in our time to areas where Goethe had not yet arrived, but which Goethe had predisposed.

I do not reproach the fact that Goetheanism has been so little understood, for those who see through things do not reproach or criticize, but know that one must speak only positively. I do not reproach what has happened, I only present what is required for the future. And the demand for the future is that humanity should delve deeper, whether it calls it Goetheanism or not, into such ideas that were already inherent in Goethe's thinking. And Goethe's thinking has an enormously real and realistic effect. This is also very important to note.

I must point out to you, in order to give you the correct understanding of this point, how people usually behave when they want to unravel one or another phenomenon of nature or life. Let us now consider a truly average person, but an average person who is intelligent — today, intelligent people are precisely the average people — so let us consider an average person who is intelligent. It is true that the average person lives from birth to death. Let us say that in his thirty-fifth or forty-fifth or forty-second year, in any year of his life, perhaps even earlier, he wants to unravel something, perhaps even establish a worldview, wants to enlighten himself about something. What does he do? Well, such a person delves into the imaginative material that he has within him, let's say, as a forty-two-year-old. Let's assume that, for my sake, he wants to explain the Copernican worldview correctly to himself, then he gathers together all the concepts and ideas that he can find. If he now delves into his inner life and finds something that agrees with himself, if he has compiled a series of such concepts in which, as he says, he finds no contradiction, then he is finished, then he understands the story. That is the average person. But that is not Goethe!

Goethe's soul works in a completely different way. If you don't take that into account, you can write biographies of Goethe, and you will end up with someone who was born in Frankfurt in 1749 and died in Weimar in 1832, but that is not Goethe. Goethe's soul worked in a completely different way. When Goethe, at the age of forty-two, confronted any phenomenon, it was not merely that abstract construct that one obtains when one combines all the concepts one has within oneself into a consistent view, as they say, but when Goethe, at the age of forty-two, looked at a plant or anything else about which he wanted to gain insight, his entire soul life was at work in him, not just the abstract concepts, but his entire soul life was at work. So when Goethe was forty-two years old and wanted to think about, say, the life of a plant, the impulses that he had not only gathered together, but which had also been at work in his childhood, partly unconsciously, were also at work in him; his entire soul life, the totality, always worked together. Modern man always wants to eliminate this; he wants to arrive at an unprejudiced view. But that goes no further than a few gathered concepts that can be easily and conveniently viewed. That is why one can gain such great insights about Goethe when one looks again at the different phases of his life.

For example, I have tried to understand Goethe's later views by repeatedly referring to the prose hymn “Nature,” which he wrote in the early 1880s and which, in its immature state, already contains what was to come later. But what was contained in its immature state at that time had an effect. And I have also often pointed out in the past how Goethe, as a seven-year-old boy, collected minerals, took a music stand from his father, placed the minerals on it, put a small incense burner on top, and then performed a kind of religious service, wanting to offer a sacrifice to the “Great God” who works through the phenomena of nature itself. In the morning — just imagine, as a seven-year-old boy! — he catches the sunbeam and passes it through a magnifying glass to light the incense cone. He lights a natural fire above the minerals. In a childlike way, everything that later manifests itself in the most mature insights is already present here. One can only understand Goethe if one is able to comprehend him correctly from the totality of his being. And then, when one understands him in this way, one also comes to pursue what Goethe was unable to cultivate due to the conditions of his time, namely the views of the spiritual world, in a way that is also in accordance with Goethe's worldview. For consider this: when one thinks about nature in the Goethean way, when one truly thinks in terms of the doctrine of primordial phenomena and the doctrine of metamorphosis, one cannot help but trigger forces in one's soul that lead one to a perception of the spiritual world and ultimately also to a perception of the life that human beings lead after they have passed through the gate of death. It is precisely Goethe's pure view of nature, turned toward pure nature, that is predisposed to a true doctrine of immortality in the natural sense. It is precisely through this that one gains the strength for those opposing ideas that one needs in order to perceive the supersensible, which man experiences between death and a new birth; one gains the strength for such a view by first sharpening one's gaze for that which is pure nature, which is not corrupted by theory and hypothesis in nature.

People make the biggest mistake in always believing that things in the outer world must be linear and unidirectional. When someone talks about monism to a person who sees through things, as many people do today, by establishing an abstract monism, when such an abstract monism is presented to a person who sees through things, it seems to them as if one person stands there, well developed on both the left and right sides, and another says to them: But that is wrong, that is a false dualism, human beings must be monistically constructed, it is wrong that one has a right half, there must be something wrong with that.

This is exactly how our view of the world should be. Just as we are not wrong because we have two hands and can support the right with the left, so it is not wrong to have two worldviews that mirror and illuminate each other. And anyone who thinks it is wrong to require two worldviews should also say: We must devise some kind of artificial action so that the left and right hands and the left and right legs do not march and act so terribly separately through the world, but so that, through some achievement, the right hand can finally be inserted into the left, the right leg into the left, so that we are monistic, a monon, and then man can continue his life in this way!

For those who see through things, who have their eye on reality and not on convoluted abstract theories, for them, as I said, the pursuit of abstract idealism on the one hand and crude realism on the other is monism, just as one-sided as something that can be compared to the grotesque thing I just compared it to. And it is truly in keeping with Goethe's worldview when, in a manner that is still very, very controversial today, I repeatedly point out, on the one hand, a pure view of nature, not one riddled with hypotheses, but a view that lives as a view, not as a thought, where thinking is only used to bring about the view, on the other hand, to a spiritual view, where thinking is again used only to bring about the spiritual view, which then really leads us into the realm where we must seek the human being when he is on the other side of his life, between death and a new birth.

When you present such a spiritual scientific worldview to people, they still find truly logical-sounding theories, clever theories, to refute it. I have often said: Refutations of spiritual science, oh, they are very easy to come up with. — I once attempted in Prague to give two consecutive public lectures, one in which I refuted spiritual science and another in which I justified it, which some people took offense at. But I once attempted to give one lecture refuting spiritual science and another justifying it. Of course, it is quite possible to refute spiritual science; it can be refuted. How could it not be refuted? Anyone who believes that spiritual science cannot be refuted is in roughly the same position as someone who says that they cannot prick their left hand with a needle held in their right hand. Of course you can, but it doesn't mean anything. And one must say: this opposition, which apparently works with quite logical theories, is actually based on something completely different. People also talk about the unconscious and the subconscious. Psychoanalysts in particular, but others too, misunderstand the significance of the subconscious life of the soul and spirit for human beings. I have spoken about this here on several occasions. Well, just like the blind man talking about color, today's analytical psychologists talk about the unconscious life of the spirit. They are only confronted with it by the scientific demands of the present, but they have a science, as I called it last year in Zurich and also here, that works with inadequate means. For one must really have the ability to always find the underlying subconscious for what is going on in the conscious mind.

Consciousness
Logical reasons
Belief in the limits of knowledge

Subconscious
Fear of the spiritual
Disinterest in the spiritual

You see, the situation is such that we can say: Here is consciousness — see the diagram — and beneath it lies the subconscious. Now, what is the situation today? Today, the situation is such that, since about the 16th century, very strong Ahrimanic influences have been exerted on human beings and their entire thinking. This has its good and its bad sides. For natural science, above all, it has the consequence that it develops in a very specific Ahrimanic way. Goethe opposed this Ahrimanic natural science with his own, which I have just characterized for you. But nothing happens in the human soul — as you can see from the lectures I gave here eight days ago — nothing happens in the human spirit without something also happening in the subconscious. By developing today's form of thinking about nature, two very special feelings develop in the subconscious: fear of the spiritual and disinterest in the spiritual. It is impossible to develop natural science in the sense of today's thinking, unless one develops Goethean natural science, without at the same time developing a subconscious fear of the spiritual world and a subconscious lack of interest in the spiritual world. One fears the spiritual. That is the necessary consequence of today's scientific impressions. But it is a subconscious fear of which one is unaware. And this subconscious fear attracts itself, and only when it has attracted all kinds of tinsel and finery does it appear in human consciousness. It attracts logical reasons, in fact. Fear is transformed into logical reasons. And with these logical reasons, the human being now goes about his business.

Those who see through this hear how people put forward very clever logical reasons, but they also know that deep down, in the subconscious, there is a fear of the spiritual, just as the unknown always instills fear — dogs' fear of water can also be traced back to this — and the lack of interest that is particularly evident in the fact that, when one develops a true knowledge of nature, one can grasp the spirit with one's fingers. For I would like to ask a person who really wants to know everything to explain the form of the human head on the basis of earthly natural phenomena, without resorting to the spirit. The pure, correct scientific explanation of the human head leads back to what can only be recognized through spiritual science, as I have explained. If one is interested in what is really there in human nature, then one is naturally drawn to the spirit. Only indifference tempts one to say that nothing in it points to the spirit! Well, if you first exclude everything that leads to the spirit—you don't pay attention to it, you first come up with empty hypotheses and theories—then they quickly reveal nothing when you present them, once you have prepared them in this way! Today's natural scientist proceeds largely like someone who first carefully cleans the fish so that there are no scales left on it, and then claims that the fish has no scales. Today's natural scientist first cleans away everything from the phenomena that points to the spirit, because he has no interest in it. But he knows as little about indifference as he does about fear. Therefore, indifference can also dress itself up in tinsel and finery, and this tinsel and finery is belief in the limits of knowledge. And in consciousness, one speaks of the limits of knowledge — Ignorabimus. What one speaks of there is actually, in essence, completely irrelevant. If one wanted to, one could invent completely different combinations of words for what Da Bois-Reymond, for example, said in his lecture on the limits of knowledge of nature — they would be just as valuable, because what he wants is basically completely irrelevant. It was caused by his subconscious lack of interest in fish that have no scales — now used as a comparison.

You see, it would be very helpful if the current human race wanted to orient itself toward spiritual scientific concepts, because this would enable it to gain a correct understanding of nature and a correct understanding of the spirit, at least in its imagination, before the eye of the soul. Humanity needs this. Humanity needs both perspectives. Today, there are actually quite frequent indications that humanity currently needs something new in terms of worldviews and world knowledge. But subconscious fear and subconscious indifference have a very strong effect. And this results in the strange phenomena that are becoming apparent in this area today. In one of the latest issues of the magazine Wissen und Leben (Knowledge and Life), a serious man spoke some remarkable words that need to be considered if we want to gain insight into how we should actually approach the thinking of serious people who are affected by the fear and indifference described above.

In the course of an essay entitled “Der internationale Kitt” (The International Bond), the following words are spoken:

“It is one of the greatest disappointments in world history that even this spiritual power” — the spiritual power of Christianity — "has failed in the face of war and has not raised a dam against the rolling tide of hatred and destruction. Yes, it was precisely in Christianity that particularly ugly phenomena came to light during the division of nations, such as the theology of war with its attempt to drag even the highest absolute values down into the relativity of our world events. In an effort to rationalize this and reduce it to some kind of formula, one came to want to justify even the terrible, the radical evil, through the ethical God of love, instead of humbly remaining with Luther's Deus absconditus, the hidden God who also appears in the ethically indifferent dynamics of the world, in the face of the terrible demise of love and life. Through the religious-ethical glorification of war, “political goals were attributed to the dear God that desperately resemble those of the rulers and cabinets.”

Well, anyone who follows contemporary literature a little will know that this is very true, that from all sides the intentions of those in power are attributed to God as divine intentions, so that the man here really characterizes some of the most unpleasant phenomena of the present in a not unjust manner. Then he goes on to say:

"Not only that. The mutual tensions among the Christian churches were also exacerbated. The historical opposition between Lutheranism and Calvinism was re-excavated. The extreme Anglicans moved so far away from continental Protestantism that they hardly wanted to grant it the name of Christianity. Not to mention the tearing apart of international Christian bonds in missionary work. Thus, the nationally limited ideal of the nation seems to have triumphed over the international ideal of Christian community.“

But where this happened, Christianity committed a betrayal of the Gospel. Judas betraying Christ. For the essence of Christianity points to a comprehensive human community and can only have an effect in such a community.”

Well, and so on. Yes, the man says some clever things, but he fails to ask: Yes, we have now cultivated this Christianity for almost two millennia. Why is it that, although its essence would preclude a situation such as the present one, it has not precluded it? It is meaningless to say: People are bad Christians, they should become better Christians, if by that one means they should become Christians as they have been in the past! I could show you hundreds of statements currently being made by otherwise quite serious people, and you would see from them that here and there a certain, albeit completely subconscious, impulse is emerging that something like a new worldview is necessary. But the moment these people are really supposed to approach what is necessary, a spiritual-scientific worldview, they cloud their own concepts, and these concepts immediately turn into fear and indifference. They are afraid of spiritual science. This can be proven quite clearly in the case of individual personalities from their statements and their lives. Or they show a lack of interest. Their minds cannot grasp it; they are completely unable to respond to it. This leads to such strange contradictions, which of course today's reader does not see, because today people read in the way I indicated yesterday and elsewhere. This man who wrote the article, who, as I said, is to be taken very seriously, writes correctly in the way he has written there. But, you see, he says that something must happen again so that Christianity can develop its international significance and effectiveness. He makes all kinds of suggestions. He says: Why should it not be possible for Christianity to cultivate the international impulses that prevent hatred and destruction? Then he comes up with the following sentence:

“As recently as August 1914, the free British churches wrote to Professor Harnack: ‘Apart from the English-speaking peoples, no other people is held in such high esteem and admiration by us as the German people. We all owe an immeasurable debt to German theology, philosophy, and literature.’”

There we have, he says, a very gratifying phenomenon, there we have the British theologians paying the German theologians a compliment of the most wonderful kind. Couldn't it be like that in the future?

Yes, but realistically speaking: this was written in August 1914, when this very destruction had just broken out! The realistic conclusion would therefore be: even though the British theologians wrote this, it could not contribute in any way to preventing the destruction. So, you see, instead of thinking from left to right, the man thinks from right to left or vice versa, depending on the situation; while the realistic thought says: we must examine what is not right, what is missing, even though people have paid each other such beautiful compliments. He says: If we just do it the way we did in August 1914, we will make progress.

Yes, we can start again! Because that can't help, reality has shown that! So, the correct thought would be to say: Something must be wrong! Christianity must be overlooking something. — What it overlooks is precisely that it does not fit in with what the times demand of their own necessity. And that is what such people are missing: a willing acceptance of what is demanded by the impulses of our time. — So you can see that people recognize that the old worldview has foundered. But they don't want a new one, they want the old one back so that they can findered again. But of course that remains stuck in their subconscious. They naturally want the best, they are just too comfortable to really seek out what is necessary.

This is what lies in the background again and again when one has to speak of such things as the significance of Goetheanism for the present, or even of the significance of what is of course greater than Goetheanism, the whole spiritual world and its knowledge. Here, too, there is no need to be critical. There is no need to say how fundamentally bad people are who do not do what should be done, but one should limit oneself to recognizing what must be done. One should look at the positive. Perhaps then one can say to oneself: Yes, if only I could do more than so very little, I can do so very little. — One might also ask the question: Yes, what should the individual actually do? — Such questions are often asked on the assumption that, for example, my arguments might be about giving a specific concrete recipe for the individual, which, if given in general terms, would of course become abstract and meaningless. Today, for many people, the first thing is to realize how much is being missed, especially by those in positions of leadership, whether in this or that field, because the leading people of the present are resisting what they should not be resisting. And it is important that we do not allow ourselves to be consumed by a false sense of authority, that we do not have enormous respect because we do not examine things. The point is that we should not simply fall prey to historical authorities today, but rather that we should be attentive and careful to form our own judgment about how life in various fields is often misguided by today's leading personalities. This is not done with sufficient sharpness and, above all, often not with sufficient prudence. For it should be done with prudence and not with rashness. It is of tremendous importance to examine for oneself in the subconscious how much of a misguided belief in authority one still carries within oneself, and also to recognize that spiritual science in particular can really lead one away from a belief in authority and make one a free, discerning human being, if one allows oneself to be actively permeated by its judgments. We always think that the world must run in a clear, straightforward manner. When we become accustomed to viewing nature in a certain scientific way, we want to view everything scientifically. When we become accustomed to viewing the world according to abstract theories, as we often say, idealistically, we want to view everything in this way again. But life does not proceed in this straightforward, unambiguous way; rather, life demands of us flexibility, diversity, and variety of thought. This is what we can basically only acquire through the proper practice of spiritual science, and what is so tremendously necessary in order to orient ourselves in the right way in the present.

For this reason, I wanted to refer to Goethe in more detail this time. I did not actually want to say anything special about Goethe — as you have seen, that happened naturally — but I wanted to point out important spiritual-scientific truths that can be linked to what Goethe has artistically processed in the scene that is about to be performed. Many people arrogantly dismiss Goethe because they do not consider him scientific, just as they do not consider spiritual science itself to be scientific. But it would be beneficial for many if they would immerse themselves a little in such a spirit, in such a soul as Goethe's, because it leads away from the false belief, which is actually a superstition, that one always really progresses with clear concepts and a clear life. Where there is development, there is also regression, there is also the opposite development. And where there is regression, there is also development. If you focus your soul purely on the primordial phenomena and metamorphoses of nature and do not corrupt your view of nature with obscuring theories, then this pure view of nature does not develop in a one-sided way, but rather the other view, which goes toward the spirit, develops in the soul. And if you develop the view that tends toward the spirit in a true way, then you can no longer carry false theories into nature, but then you are compelled to let nature interpret itself purely through its own material phenomena.

The same is true when, in the field of spiritual science, one is compelled to express something questionable, such as what was said yesterday about evil in connection with the Phorkyades phenomenon, or when one is compelled to speak of the fact that there is much in the subconscious of human beings of which they are unaware in their consciousness. People often take offense at such things because they misunderstand them. Just think, when someone says appropriately, “You have so many things in your subconscious,” the other person thinks, “He is my enemy,” even if he keeps such things unconscious, thinking, “I am up to all sorts of things in my subconscious.” Our contemporaries may think the same thing: this anthroposophist is scolding us for having subconscious fears and subconscious indifference; he is actually putting us down. But the world is not clear-cut. I am not only saying that people have fear and indifference in their subconscious, but I am also saying: you have the whole spiritual world in your subconscious, if only you could grasp it. It is also down there. — That is the other side. In spiritual science, one does not make a statement without that statement implying another statement. And when I say to someone: You have subconscious fear and subconscious indifference, they should be aware that I am also saying to them: Although you are not aware of your fear and indifference, you embellish them with all kinds of lies and with your belief in the limits of knowledge, but you have your entire subconscious world to embrace if you only want to immerse yourself in your subconscious world. — I am not only reprimanding you, as you perceive it, but I am also telling you something good about your subconscious world. This is what shows you that life is not one-sided, but that spiritual science cannot portray it as one-sided either.

And so, on the one hand, we speak as we often must. If one then has to explain to people that they have been instilled with aversion, fear, and indifference, one also has to tell them: You must overcome certain dangers if you want to reach the spiritual world; you must overcome certain inconveniences. — Certainly, that is one side of the coin that must be emphasized. But consider the sum of soul-gladdening feelings that lie in the fact that a spiritual scientific view opens our eyes to the life we live here with other people between birth and death, what world-gladdening feelings are opened up by knowing that we live even more intimately with those who have passed through the gate of death. And imagine, once this idea of duality is properly grasped, once this world is properly viewed in the sense of spiritual science, not only will what spiritual science has to say pour forth the demand for uncomfortable penetration into the spiritual worlds, but this spiritual science will also have to pour forth immense sums of comforting feelings into the hearts of human beings, enormous sums of other soul-gladdening feelings that will seize the human soul, so that this human soul will become more and more capable of living not only with those who surround it in the sensory world, but with all the people with whom some bond of life has been formed in physical life, living with them beyond the gates of death. Can we, if we are reasonable, demand that a science which carries our souls beyond the gates of death should be a comfortable science? No, if we are sensible and reasonable, we cannot demand that anyway. Through discomfort, humanity will also have to move toward a certain world happiness in the future. To do this, it will have to decide to seek science from spiritual worlds.