The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Today we shall be considering Hegel not from an anthroposophical but from a purely philosophical point of view. This is possible in an anthroposophical circle because, although the object of spiritual science is to be drawn from experiences in the supersensible world, the process of combining these experiences into a comprehensive, systematic world view requires clear and conscientious thinking that is well-trained in every single point. And if even untrained thinking causes quite a lot of harm in external science, in the anthroposophical movement, more harm is caused by this than by incorrect observations, because in many people the interest in supersensible things does not go hand in hand with an equally strong interest in logical thinking. And this purely logical thinking can be particularly trained by a study of the thinking of George William Frederick Hegel. From such a study, a certain light can also be shed on our present time, in which one speaks occasionally of a return to Hegel, but of which one cannot say that the intellectual prerequisites that it has would meet with an understanding of Hegel. Hegel, with his whole system of thought, has outgrown the time when it was the chief concern of philosophy to deduce the foundations of all knowledge and being from certain supreme points of view. It is no mere accident, but a profound necessity, that Hegel should have lived in an age when these supreme foundations were being sought in the most diverse fields.

Hegel was born on August 27, 1770, in Stuttgart. He entered the Tübingen seminary (1788-1793), which was so important for the development of German intellectual life at that time, as a pupil, where he was a fellow student of Schelling, who towered over him for a long, long time, and Hölderlin, who was deeply predisposed and soon sank into mental derangement, albeit not precisely because of his deep predisposition. They formed a kind of cloverleaf: the deeply intuitive Hölderlin, who sought in mystical chiaroscuro; Schelling, who was endowed with a sharp intellectual energy and an effervescent imagination; and Hegel, who was somewhat ponderous, with thoughts that came hard from the soul. Schelling and Hegel later worked together again at the University of Jena, which was a center of intellectual life at the time. Schelling carried his audience away with the powerful intellectual momentum with which he dealt with the problems of thought; he also carried away those who did not seek to penetrate the questions of existence out of feeling and mind. Schelling pointed out that in human knowledge there is something that goes beyond all thinking, an intellectual intuition, as he called it, which is supposed to be an original faculty for looking into the depths of existence. Hegel was his colleague as a lecturer (1801-1806). Even then, his thinking was still cumbersome because he wanted to shape every thought so that it never included more than it was supposed to mean. And because of this slowly drilling cumbersomeness of thinking, Hegel is not easily understood at first.

Then came the sad time of 1806. It was during this period that Hegel undertook, as he himself expressed it, the actual great voyages of discovery of his mind. It was under the thunder of the guns at Jena that he completed his first work, the “Phenomenology of Spirit”, which arose out of an intensive and tremendously deep concentration of the mind. It is a work that the whole of world literature has no equal. Above all, Hegel wanted to make clear to himself what experiences the soul can have when it ascends from the subordinate points of view, so to speak, to the highest, to what Hegel calls the self-comprehension of the spirit within itself. At first, one lives in a very close connection with the outside world, where every this or that, every tree and every house is something one lives with, every opinion is something one lives in. Only when one reflects on this and that, does perception arise. From perception, we then come through thinking to a sense of self at first, to a dark inkling of the self. Only then do we arrive at the first glimmer of true consciousness. But here the I is still, so to speak, enchanted with its surroundings. It works itself out of this enchantment through the content, which it is supposed to have only from itself, by increasingly leaving out what has to do with the outside world, what is connected with it. This is how self-awareness comes about and with it the interweaving of self-awareness with the spirit. It becomes spirit itself, which comprehends itself, becomes spirit that becomes aware of itself. And when a person now looks back, he recognizes what is comprehending itself as spirit, he recognizes the idea that he has, as it were, taken out of the enchantment of the outside world. He recognizes that he used to be stuck in the contradiction between subject and object, but that now, in the overcoming of subject and object, he grasps what Hegel calls the absolute idea in the idea that grasps itself, which is not only subject and not only object. Thus, through an immense effort of thought, Hegel had arrived at the foundation of so-called absolute idealism.

Hegel's life took many twists and turns after his time as a lecturer in Jena. He worked for a time as a political editor in Bamberg (1807-1808), then as a grammar school teacher and headmaster in Nuremberg (1808-1816), and through manifold external experiences he became the realistically thinking mind with whom we are later confronted. From Nuremberg, Hegel was briefly appointed to the University of Heidelberg, where he published his “Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften” (Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences) in 1817. Regarding the reception of the work, Hegel could well have said what legend attributes to him as a saying shortly before his death: “Of all my students, only one understood me, and he misunderstood me.

It is indeed a most remarkable feeling to have sunk something so tremendously deep into the stream of the world and at the same time to see how completely all the preconditions for absorbing the depth were absent. Only from Hegel's standpoint can something like a skeleton be drawn of what this “encyclopedia” should be. But when I now speak in Hegel's sense, I beg not to be looked upon as a Hegelian. For Hegel, it was about implementing the standpoint he had attained in the Phenomenology of Spirit by placing himself beyond subject and object on the standpoint of the idea – and now, if I may say so, to use this standpoint to gain an overview of the full scope of human thought and action.

According to Hegel, the absolute idea must not contain the concepts of subject and object, of knowing and believing, and the like. The idea is beyond all these contradictions. Hegel wants to grasp this idea as if it were being presented in its purity, this idea that does indeed operate in subject and object but goes beyond both. This idea can certainly be found in man, in the external world, in spirit and nature, but it is precisely beyond both, it lies beyond spirit and nature. So in Hegel's sense, one must not grasp the idea in the first instance in the abstract, like an abstract point. Rather, it is a complete entity in itself, which allows a rich content to sprout out of itself as an idea, just as the whole plant with all its individual parts is implicit in the plant germ. Thus, according to Hegel, the idea should allow a content to sprout out of itself that is independent of spirit and nature, and which, when applied, must therefore be applied to both. So before you get involved with the meaning of spirit and nature, you gain a point of view above both and then see a manifestation of the idea in nature and also see the idea being realized in the spiritual. So we have to gain a point of view from which the idea is developed as if the human being were not even there. The human being then abandons himself to the very own process of the world of ideas developing in and out of himself. This point of view results in what can be called the science of logic in Hegel's sense. Here one is not dealing with a subject and object, as in Aristotelian logic, but with the self-movement of the idea that stands above subject and object.

For any thinking that wants to devote itself only to the things of the external world, it is difficult to get used to the strictly closed columns of Hegelian concepts. One feels as if one is being subjected to violence, as if one is being thrust into a system of ideas that has absolutely nothing in common with the usual everyday rational argument. It is the idea that should think, not I: that is the feeling one has. That is why most people do not even try to get into the world of Hegelian ideas. But if you do, well, you might want to correct Hegel here and there – that is especially easy with Hegel – but that is not the point. The point is that by studying Hegel, a person undergoes a tremendous self-discipline of thought, because there is nothing like Hegel's logic to teach you where a system of human concepts, in general, a concept, may occur. A concept can only be recognized in its full scope if it can only be thought at a certain point in a whole fabric of concepts. In order to make this clear, Hegel begins with the most empty concept, the concept of being, which is usually presented without one actually being aware of where it is actually placed. Now, according to Hegel, this concept should be completely empty. So we have to disregard all later content that this concept has acquired, right from the very beginning of Hegel's logic. Thus the concept of being is not actually established by man, but rather it presents itself to man after man has thrown all other concepts out of it.

Now Hegel wants to find the method of developing the concept, that is, one concept must develop from another. Thus, if we look at it correctly, the concept of being must immediately rise above itself. When we apply the abstract concept of being to a thing, it is no longer pure. It then already refers to a this or that. Thus we come to recognize that being is a nothing, mind you, only within the concept. Through the dialectic living in itself, one has thus drawn out of being the concept of nothingness.

If you have disciplined yourself in thinking, you are already educating yourself at this point in Hegelian logic to think in a way that is only ever applied in Hegel's further discussions of being and nothingness as it has just emerged. Being and nothingness now give rise to a third: that is becoming. But in order for us to grasp becoming, it must be brought to a standstill. Thus, in the fourth place, the concept of existence emerges from the concept of becoming. The concept of existence may only be used in this way in Hegel's further logic, as a being that has turned into a nothing, that together with this has produced becoming, which, brought to a standstill, has produced existence. And in this method Hegel goes further. He arrives at the concept of the one and the many, he arrives at the concept of quantity and quality, of measure and so on.

Thus in the first part of Hegel's “Encyklopädie” we have an organism of the idea. Only when we have grasped everything else before that, can we then arrive at the concept of the end, which stands at the end of Hegel's logic. Through such absolute logic, an immense self-discipline of the spirit is indeed achieved, which at least as an ideal must be presented to our time. Through this, one learns to express a concept only when one has its content fully in consciousness. One must then have in one's concepts only what one has at some time in life made clear to oneself as a development of the concept. Within Hegel's logic, the following then emerge as later concepts: subject and object, knowledge, essence, causality, which one now has clearly in consciousness.

Once Hegel had established the complete system of concepts, he was able to show how the concepts reveal themselves, so to speak, in enchantment. The concept cannot only be in the subject, because then all talk about nature would make no sense. Rather, our concepts underlie natural phenomena; they have made them. Thus, it is immaterial to the concept whether it appears outside or inside. To us, it hides itself outside. Nature is the concept or the idea in its otherness, as Hegel says. Anyone who says something different about nature goes beyond what he knows for sure. So a natural philosophy arises, a natural science, that seeks the development of the idea outside, after it has first been sought in itself, in its purer existence, in logic.

The idea first realizes itself in subordinate phenomena, where the concept is most hidden, so that we might be tempted to speak of natural phenomena that are entirely without ideas. This happens in mechanics. But even within mechanical phenomena, Hegel's discipline of thought makes a distinction on two levels. He distinguishes between ordinary mechanics, as it underlies the phenomena of impact, force, and matter, which, as he says, is relative mechanics, and absolute mechanics; that is, he considers it inadmissible to apply the ordinary concepts of relative mechanics to the heavenly bodies. Only when one develops the concept of absolute mechanics does one find the idea that lies in celestial mechanics. But in today's science, nothing is to be found of this distinction. Hence Hegel's polemic against Newton, who has most readily transferred the concepts of relative mechanics to the concepts of absolute mechanics.

From the concept of absolute mechanics, Hegel moves on to the concept of the real organism. He recognizes three members of the organism:

Firstly, the geological organism. In his view, this does not mean that the whole structure of the earth can be understood by extending the laws of a small area to the whole world, as is the case with today's geology. Hegel sees in every mountain range, in every geological form, an organism that has become rigid.

Secondly, the plant organism, in which the concept manifests itself as it were in indifference to the idea, in uniformity for the idea.

Thirdly, the animal organism, which in a certain sense already represents the existence of the idea in the external world.

Thus the appearance of the idea, as it were the enchanted idea, is exhausted in earthly existence. Man now outgrows these enchanted ideas. He must first be understood in terms of his natural characteristics. This is the subject of anthropology. In his perception, man finds himself, as it were, dulled in external existence. But when he comes to consciousness, and from there to self-consciousness, he breaks away from external existence in a certain respect. This is where “phenomenology of the spirit” now enters the picture, following on from anthropology. Within this phenomenology, man finally grasps himself as spirit. In so doing, he recognizes himself as subjective spirit by first breaking free from the enchantment of nature. Gradually, the idea itself appears to him again. What it was in the first, very first concept of being now springs forth. Having recognized the idea in its being-in-itself in logic, in this being-out-of-itself in nature, man now comprehends it where it is in and for itself.

Now this initially subjective spirit becomes objective spirit. The idea reveals what it is in itself in what the spiritual institutions are: marriage, family, law, custom. All this comes together in the state. What emerges in the state as objective spirit, as the realization of the idea, what is found in the interplay from state to state, that is world history. Thus world history is the existence of the idea after its passage through the subjective spirit.

And the question arises: can we ultimately close the circle like a snake biting its own tail, that is, can we come back to the absolute idea, to a realization of the idea where it overcomes subjectively and objectively again? The absolute idea can appear in its absolute reality, initially in a preparatory way, so that it is not enchanted, hidden as in nature, but so that it shines through the appearance. That is the case in art. Beyond world history, Hegel thus creates the first realization of the absolute idea in art. But here it still has something of an objective, external nuance about it. But it can also work in such a way that it no longer has a nuance of the external, but a nuance of the internal. That is the case in religion. It is thus the realization of the absolute idea on the second level.

But the idea can also overcome the nuance of externality, which it still has in art, and the nuance of inwardness, which it still has in religion. It does this in the comprehension of itself, where it captures itself in itself, in philosophy in the Hegelian sense.

And so the circle is complete. In the whole field of history, there is nothing as complete as the Hegelian system.

He later developed some of its individual parts in more detail, such as the philosophy of law (1821), an area in which a strictly disciplined way of thinking has an especially beneficial effect. And in the preface to the “Outlines of the Philosophy of Right” Hegel makes a remarkable statement: When reason grasps the idea, everything must be grasped by seeing the idea, that is, the working of reason in things. Everything real is therefore reasonable in the Hegelian sense. This proposition can, of course, be immediately refuted by the arbitrariness of the usual reasoning, if one does not take into account Hegel's context of thought.

If we sketchily present Hegel's philosophy to ourselves, we have recognized the basic nerve of his philosophy in the most tremendously disciplined thinking.

Hegel then taught this philosophy in Berlin from 1818 to 1831, where he died on November 14, 1831, the anniversary of the death of Leibniz, who had once put forward the completely opposite philosophy. In Hegel's philosophy, the idea, which remains entirely with itself, is at the center. In Leibniz, the idea disperses into the immense sum of monads. But only a single monad, which contains the pre-established harmony, would have to take the path of the Hegelian absolute idea if it develops. Thus, Hegel's system lies in the development of a single monad. Hegel has set up the strictest monistic system, Leibniz the strictest monadological system. As long as we remain within Hegel's trains of thought, we are in a strictly closed cycle of the mind. We go beyond him when we measure Hegel's system against monadology. Indeed, one thinker found that Leibniz's monadology exploded Hegel's monism. This is how Schelling felt.

After remaining silent since 1814, he was appointed to Berlin in 1841, ten years after Hegel's death, and now tried to go beyond Hegel, with whom he had previously worked and co-edited the “Critical Journal of Philosophy” in 1802-03. These were peculiar lectures that he now gave in Berlin.

There is only one way to get beyond Hegel, and that is by drilling a hole from the outside where, in Hegel, the self grasps itself in the “Phenomenology of Spirit”. But one also gets stuck in Leibnitz's monad if one does not drill the hole at the same place. If one starts here, one goes beyond the ego, which only grasps itself, and arrives at supersensible experiences that really go beyond what Hegel comprehends in his system. And that is what Schelling did in fact. He began to teach 'theosophy', real 'theosophy', though in an abstract form, and he had the same success that a person would have today who wanted to teach 'theosophy' at a university.

A triplicity of the world ground, a threefold potency, Schelling taught: first, the being-can; secondly, pure being; thirdly, the summary. In this way he foreshadowed what is being sought today in the threefold Logos. And now Schelling sought to recognize the secrets of the ancient mysteries in his 'Philosophy of Mythology'. He sought to teach what we are exploring today, enriched by the possibility of supersensible experiences since then. Schelling then strove to do justice to the Christian mysteries in his Philosophy of Revelation, which attempts to elucidate Christianity in a theosophical sense. Schelling was only able to give these lectures because he had once before stood at a professorship with different views. All the more was the rage against Schelling now. Today, in all the textbooks and other histories of philosophy, this last 'theosophical period' of Schelling is presented with great horror, where he, having already asserted the madness of his 'intellectual view', now went completely mad — so they think.

With this transition from Hegel to Schelling, however, an era had now come of age that lived entirely under the spell of natural science. And since then we have been witnessing a remarkable spectacle, through the observation of which we shall recognize why Theosophy, spiritual science, must be received today as it is received.

No one can marvel more at the results than I do, and yet the following must be said. The discovery of the plant and animal cell by Schwann and Schleiden in the 1830s was a great achievement, but it was followed by little in the way of opinions. There was the doctrine of force and matter, which regarded everything of a spiritual nature as no more than a bubble on the surface of physical processes. The worst result of this school of thought was the rigid system in which Baechner, in his book “Kraft und Stoff” (Force and Matter), conceived theoretical materialism. Of course, Baechner's bold courage remains to be admired. The other researchers simply did not have the courage to think their thoughts through to the end.

But even more refined minds went other ways than Hegel and Schelling under the constraint of natural science, for example, Hermann Helmholtz, who made truly great contributions in the fields of psychophysics, sensory physiology, physiological optics, and phonetics. His discoveries led him, through the nature of the experiments and their suggestive power, not through thinking, to reject Hegel, so that he said: “When I open Hegel and read a few sentences from his ‘Natural Philosophy’, it is pure nonsense.

And again, a fine mind that was also trained in thinking was not understood in his thoughts, Julius Robert Mayer, who discovered the law of conservation of energy. His law did indeed have an enormous physical significance, and this was also appreciated. But Mayer's train of thought on the mechanical equivalent of heat in his paper on “The Organic Movement in its Connection with Metabolism” (1845) was never understood. People preferred to read Helmholtz, who was much easier to understand. So people preferred to read his work “On the Interaction of Natural Forces” (1854), in which he proved the validity of Mayer's Law, starting from the impossibility of perpetual motion.

Then came the achievements of Darwinism, and a bold mind like Haeckel's, who was averse to all intellectual culture and therefore could see nothing in Hegelian philosophy but a tangle of concepts, was thus called upon to expand the scientific facts in the sense of an external, material history of development. Thus he became the founder of the materialistic Darwinism of the sixties and seventies. No school of philosophical thought rose up against it. At that time, the world could no longer be grasped by philosophy; for it there was nothing but an interrelationship between philosophy and natural science.

Thus a thinker as important as Eduard von Hartmann, who in his “Philosophy of the Unconscious” (1869) dragged materialistic Darwinism, so to speak, before the forum of an intellectual philosophy, was decried as a dilettante who had no idea of natural science. Many refutations appeared, including a highly ingenious anonymous one: “The Unconscious from the Point of View of Philosophy and Descent Theory” (1872). Haeckel said of this writing that it was so excellent and so thoroughly demonstrated the errors of Eduard von Hartmann's philosophy that he himself (Haeckel) could have written it, and Oscar Schmidt, the biographer of Darwin, vividly regretted that his esteemed colleague did not emerge from his anonymity. Then a new edition of this writing appeared, and Eduard von Hartmann himself named himself as the author.

Thus philosophy had once provided the most brutal proof of the fact that it can very well understand natural science, even if trained thinking leads it to completely different results than those of materialism. This struggle is not just about sentence against sentence, but about cultural forces that confront each other.

More subtle minds always retained an understanding of both, of philosophy and of natural science. But due to the dominant power of suggestion of natural science, they could only be heard in the narrowest of circles. Thus Vincenz Knauer's extraordinarily fine and comprehensive history of philosophy, 'Die Hauptprobleme der Philosophie', could only be understood by a very limited circle. Not even what the narrow Herbartian philosophy put forward against external materialism was able to have an effect. And so it came about that a strictly logical mind, even though schooled in scholasticism, which wanted to build within itself the bridge to the scientific method, could not even do this within itself. This was the case with Franz Brentano, who wanted to combine the scientific method with strictly logical thinking in his Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte (Psychology from an Empirical Point of View), the first volume of which appeared in 1874. But his mental self-discipline did not prevail; inwardly he was still too much under the sway of natural-scientific materialism. He could not come to terms with himself, and so the second volume, announced for the fall, was not published for some time. And today Brentano lives as an old man in Florence, and the second volume has still not been published.

I myself was a witness to the terrible conflict that this conflict could have on the individual soul. I saw how the methodical in the training of thought almost lost its power through the suggestion of natural science. It was at a solemn session of the Vienna Academy in the 1880s, at which I was present, when Ernst Mach gave a lecture on the economy of natural phenomena. He could not find a way to grasp natural phenomena in his method. In each sentence, it was painfully felt how all method of thinking disappeared, how everything shrank to the principle of the least expenditure of energy in the recognition of nature. Thus, thinking was pushed from the central position it had with Hegel to the lowest conceivable economic significance.

Thus Hegel himself remained, as it were, an enchanted spirit, and even a Kuno Fischer could not release him. The truth of what Rosenkranz had said in the introduction to his Hegel biography proved to be true: we philosophers of the second half of the 19th century are, at best, only the gravediggers of the philosophers of the first half of the 19th century. And by that he meant – biographers.

The works of Otto Liebmann, Zeller and others, which went back to Kant, seemed to bring a new impetus to the method of thinking. Liebmann wrote one of the most ingenious treatises ever written in the field of epistemology. He tried by all means to found a transcendental epistemology, but in the end he arrived at a kind of epistemology that can be roughly described as something akin to a dog running around in circles. He did not get beyond the starting point of his epistemology.

And so the present situation developed. There was the important formulation of the theory of heat by Clausius, which had an effect on the physiology of sense and this finally again on the theory of knowledge. Here also, therefore, a subjection of philosophy under natural science.

Thus, those who spoke in terms of the old way of thinking were not heard. In the 1880s, one researcher did attempt to advance epistemology on the basis of Kant, but he was not listened to. Under the pressure of the circumstances, he left the field entirely and turned to aesthetics. It was only in 1906 that he published another small epistemological work, by Johannes Volkelt, on “The Sources of the Certainty of our Knowledge”. The conditions for a true epistemology were as little present as they were for a true understanding of Hegel.

Our time finds itself far more satisfied with a Spencerian encyclopedia, which goes beyond natural science by very little and very superficially. And when the view of the smallest economic measure, as proposed by Mach, was brought back from the New World in the pragmatism of William James, it was enthusiastically received as something new. However, the strict columns of Hegel's absolute logic and the completely unphilosophical raisonnement of pragmatism make a rather strange combination.

But the good cannot be completely suppressed, it can only be suppressed temporarily. Where a misunderstood Kantianism could not lie like a mildew on the thinking, so to speak, out of the strength of the people, a healthy thinking stirred. Thus the Russian philosopher Solowjow brought in fact new significant methodological approaches by the fact that he based on a young national strength, which, if you want, has not even brought it to a right culture, but not on an old one like Franz Brentano. The Frenchman Boutroux also introduced a new useful concept into the history of development. But such efforts are ignored. Under the ashes, the truth continues to glow, as it were. It can be overgrown by prejudice and impotence, but as a self-discipline of thought it continues to work secretly. And precisely those who believe they have to represent spiritual science must hope that this self-discipline of thought will pave the way for spiritual science. They must find the way to Hegel's strictest logic, for only in this way can they firmly establish on the foundation of thought that which they must often bring down from higher spiritual worlds in loose structures. Thus, in the supersensible realm, if we may be permitted the expression, there is nothing that strictly trained thinking must reject. ke more acute and self-trained mind will find the transition, the bridge that leads from the highest product of the physical plane, thinking, to the supersensible.

Dear Attendees!

For many years, I have had the privilege of speaking in other German cities, as well as here in Hamburg, about subjects related to the humanities, the science that is aware of being a true continuation of the scientific way of thinking for the knowledge of the spiritual life of man, which has developed within humanity for three to four centuries. Now it is not out of short-sighted feelings, but, as I believe, precisely out of the knowledge of this spiritual science itself, that the power to recognize the human being in a spiritual way, to recognize that in man which extends beyond birth and death, that the power for this must be sought for humanity from that which one is justified in calling the spiritual idealism of the German people, that idealism which has developed in the most profound and also in the sharpest way in the greatest period of German intellectual life from the end of the eighteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century, but which continues to have an effect into our own days. And I believe – just as this belief already underlay the reflection that I was allowed to make last year here in this city – I believe that it is well suited to the great facts and developmental impulses that we face in our time when the members of the German people immerse themselves in can bring in the deepest sense of the word knowledge of their own nature, which can then lead to an evaluation of this own nature in relation to the insults and slander that are without precedent - like these world events in the entire history of the development of mankind. I believe that it is more appropriate in the face of these insults and slander to pursue an objective course of thought that is more in keeping with the nature of the German people, to objectively clarify the significance that the German people could assume through their achievements in the overall development of humanity. Above all, attention must be drawn to a prejudice, one might say, if the word were not strongly taken out against the feelings in the present, above all attention must be drawn to a prejudice that repeatedly and repeatedly arises within the circles of our people, the prejudice that the newer intellectual life must, for the very reason that it wants to appear on scientific ground, have an international character from the outset. How often have we heard it said, and how matter-of-factly we accept it: science must be international. Certainly, to a certain limited degree that is absolutely true. But the question is whether it is really one of the fruitful perceptions and feelings that we should keep building on this saying over and over again when we want to express our thoughts about the relationship between individual nations. The sun is certainly international, and so is the moon. But how different are the ideas, the perceptions, the feelings that the various peoples are able to express about the moon and the sun. International is certainly the science; but is the way in which the individual peoples approach science international, and why do some approach it perhaps more superficially, while others delve into it? And is it not especially important for Germans to reflect on a word spoken by one of the greatest Germans, Goethe, when he had completed a great part of his journey to the south and had occupied himself not only with the contemplation of various art treasures, but had also occupied himself with the contemplation of the most diverse natural objects and natural facts, when he said: He would most like to make a journey to India, not to discover anything new, but to contemplate what has been discovered in his own way, that is, to see it again. viewing the most diverse natural objects and natural facts, he said: He would most like to make a journey to India, not to discover something new, but to view what has been discovered in his own way, that is, to see again in the external phenomena that which is alive in his soul.

It is not that which is internationally abstract that acts as a motivating and sustaining element in the forces of nations, but rather that which the individual souls of the individual nations are able to see in the [gap in the transcript]

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to approach the consideration from the point of view of spiritual scientific knowledge. And I firmly believe that the German may approach this observation of his relationship to other nations in this objective way. Spiritual science, as it is meant here, dear honored attendees, is still very young, even if, as we shall see, this spiritual science can develop in a very organic way out of German idealism. But regardless of this, it is all too easy to understand that this spiritual science still finds opponents everywhere today, and that what it has to say – has to say from a consideration that is just as thorough and profound as that [for science] – is still sometimes ridiculed and mocked as something paradoxical, perhaps even insane. But it is precisely such a question, as that about the souls of different peoples, that spiritual science attempts to grasp objectively in a certain sense.

If you look at the human soul in a spiritual scientific sense, it does not appear to you from this point of view as today's conventional soul science or psychology often believes. I would say that everything in the soul is mixed up.

Spiritual science must observe the soul as natural science observes any phenomenon. Just as the natural scientist must seek to recognize the essence of sunlight by observing its manifestation in the world of colors, so the soul researcher must seek the soul essence in its manifestations if he is to strive for an understanding of this essence. Sunlight reveals itself in reddish, greenish and blue-violet color shades. Just as the natural scientist distinguishes the reddish-yellow shade on the one side of the color spectrum of light, so the spiritual scientist distinguishes on the one side of the soul that which can be called the sentient soul. And just as the natural scientist distinguishes the greenish center as a phenomenon in sunlight, so it appears to the spiritual scientist, as it were, in the center of the soul being, that which can be called the intellectual soul; viewed from another side, this intellectual soul can appear as the soul of feeling. And as the other end of the soul rainbow, so to speak, appears that which can be addressed as the consciousness soul.

When one looks at the human soul in this way, from a spiritual science perspective, one comes to the conclusion that in the sentient soul, everything lives that emerges more from the subconscious depths of the soul, that lives out more in sensations, in will impulses, in a semi-unconscious, instinctive way. But at the same time it contains that which is first lived out in an indeterminate way within the soul, that which is the soul's share in the spiritual, in eternal life. The mind soul is that through which man comprehends the surrounding world in such a way that he brings concepts and ideas into everything, that he, so to speak, builds the world for himself like an external structure of natural laws. The consciousness soul contains that which is most closely related to what man recognizes as his position in the physical world, whereby he places himself most in the finite, in the interwoven nature of death.

This is how it is initially with the three – I would say rainbow – shades of the soul. And just as the light, the common light, lives in all colors, lives in the three color shades, so the I, the actual self, the eternal being of the human being that passes through births and deaths, lives in these three soul shades. And just as these three soul nuances are found in the individual human soul, so they show themselves in the different nations. So that in the soul life of nations - I now say explicitly: of nations, not of individuals within nations, not of individuals, but of nations as a whole - the soul of the different nations is expressed in the one national soul, especially the sentient soul, while the other aspects of the soul are more in the background: in the case of the other people, the intellectual soul is more in the background, in the case of a third people, the consciousness soul is more in the background, and in the case of a fourth people, what permeates and imbues the individual soul aspects: the I, the self. And, however paradoxical it may still appear to many today, one understands a part of European humanity only when one knows how these individual shades of soul are distributed among the souls of the individual nations.

Thus, when we consider the Italian national soul, we find that the soul of feeling predominates in this Italian national soul. In the French national soul, what must be called the soul of reason predominates in the most eminent sense. In the British national soul, what must be called the consciousness soul predominates. In the German national soul – and this is not spoken out of some particular feeling, but out of knowledge – what must be called the ego, the self, that which seeks to harmonize and unify the various soul nuances, that which radiates through the various soul nuances, predominates. And all the individual phenomena of life within the individual nations, even the way in which the different nations do not understand each other, all this follows from this knowledge of the national souls. If the German people in particular seems to me to be called upon to gain an understanding of what actually prevails between nations, based on an awareness of the nature of the soul, while the one-sidedness of other nations prevents them from truly gaining an understanding of the nature of each different nation. Can it not be grasped with one's hands – if I may use the image, ladies and gentlemen – that in the Italian national soul, unconscious, instinctive impulses live everywhere? Even when we go to the greatest, whose greatness should certainly not be belittled, we find the life of feeling prevailing everywhere. If you immerse yourself in the works of thinkers such as Giordano Bruno or Dante, you will find that it is the life of feeling that wells up from the unconscious and is given visual form, that which is not first sought after in a thought that justifies it, but which one simply wants to bring up from the soul and, I would say, let it speak.

And if you take the French national soul – not the individual Frenchman – if you take the national soul, then you have to say to yourself – and this is something that, for example, in an external relationship, not out of the knowledge with which we are dealing here, is recognized by many who think objectively, for example in neutral countries, for example, if you look at the French national soul, you will find wit everywhere; you will find what the intellect can crystallize; but you will especially find a certain constructive spirit, that understanding spirit that seeks to build the world in the way that the intellect can build the world.

And there is nothing clearer, dear attendees, than the way in which – I would say – one of the greatest minds, especially in the French world view, shows how reason works in the soul in particular.

The French are now calling one of their greatest philosophers – yes, I don't know, should we say 'fils de montagne'? He was called 'Bergson' until the war, and that's what I call him after the war, but they don't want us to call him that across the border. He is the one who, in the most incredible way, I would say, imagines his French world view into the German people, because, yes, he seems to have believed that when the French advance with cannons and rifles, the Germans will confront them with recitations of Novalis or Goethe or Schiller. And since they didn't do that, since they also have cannons, and bigger cannons than the French have, and have set them against the French, he talks about how all of German culture is mechanized, how everything is just like one big machine. And at a certain hour – you can read about it in foreign newspapers – he entertained his audience at a French academy by showing them how the Germans have degenerated in modern times from the heights they occupied under Goethe, Schiller, under Fichte, under Schelling, under Hegel and Kant and Schopenhauer, how they cling to everything, everything hang on to superficialities, how they are, in a hypocritical way, something like [gap in the transcript], how, in a hypocritical way, especially in the present, they refer again to Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, but how they understand them today in a very mechanical way and unite them with their soul in a very mechanical way. Admittedly, these Germans are unpleasant – but the French will perhaps only realize this when the borders are open again – [the Germans] are unpleasant, because they could prove that they have indeed recently been dealing more intensively with the aforementioned spirits, who drew their world view deeply from their essence, and thus sought to deepen the German essence. But something else could be proven. They could, for example, prove that Henri Bergson copied entire long pages almost word for word from Schelling, Schopenhauer and so on, and that basically his entire philosophy, which is certainly a sign of our time, is largely German plagiarism. That is non-mechanical appropriation!

And, esteemed attendees, if we now look, say, for example, across to the British national soul: just as the Italian national soul bears the main nuance of the sentient soul, and the French national soul bears the intellectual soul, so the British national soul bears the consciousness soul for our present time. The Italian feels, the Frenchman thinks, the Briton asserts himself in the physical world, that is, he seeks to develop his relationship to the physical world in some way. I am not speaking out of some national sentiment, but out of what can be proven down to the details. One might say: How Kant had to strive to deepen this view, which was only directed towards the physical world, in a conceptual sense. Kant's entire striving is, from a certain point of view, a working out of what he has become, for example through Hume, through Locke and other British minds. And it is fitting to take a good look at this aspect of the development of more recent spiritual life. Hume – let us single him out. What did he achieve?

He managed to say: Yes, when we look at the world, we actually find everywhere not the truth, not even cause and effect, no connections, but only that one phenomenon follows on from another. The most superficial of world views!

With regard to everything else, he arrives at what is called skepticism, a doubting of everything. Kant had to work his way out of this. But now, if we look at where this world view – insofar as it is now the expression of the soul of the people – has led, what has it led to? We see a remarkable world view developing in modern times, in the present, which has emerged precisely from the British national spirit, which is supported in this by the American national spirit. We have seen that out of this consciousness soul, which above all wants to assert the I in the world, in the physical world, what is called pragmatism has developed. We cannot speak about this objectively, because a number of Germans have also fallen for it – if I may use the trivial word – because they are philosophers, have fallen for this pragmatism. What is this pragmatism? Well, this pragmatism actually does no more or no less than say: Oh, truth, as it is supposed to develop out of the soul as truth, does not actually exist. What we summarize in individual judgments, in ideas that we then regard as truth, is only thought up by the human mind in order to prove useful out in the world. When you speak of the soul, soul is only a pragmatic concept. We see how there are individual phenomena in human life that fall apart and we cannot hold them together properly if we do not presuppose a unity. We only have it to grasp what is an external phenomenon. The truth must be something, an advantage that can be used in the external physical world. That is pragmatism. One must not believe that this is just a philosophical hair-splitting. It is deeply connected with the national spirit and with what creates out of this national spirit. In the 1880s and 1890s, [Robert Seeley], a professor of history, looked at English history – the relevant work was published in 1883 – and pointed out that it is actually a kind of prejudice – because that is the meaning of the history book – that in the nineteenth century, in Englishness, one has always regarded the struggle of Englishness for freedom and democracy as running through English history. He goes back a little further and tries to look at this English history and finds that what has happened can be summarized under the name “British expansion”; first Great Britain, then Greater Britain. The Italians were just parroting them, talking about “greater Italy.” And then the professor says, “But history is not just there to be learned from, to gain some truth that you now carry with you, so that you know something from history. Rather, history must be shaped, must be introduced into life.” And how is it shaped? It is characterized by the fact that one sees: Britain has expanded more and more over the last few centuries. So one must learn from it how to expand further. – The truth, as one can use it, as one can put it at the service of outer physical life!

I do not believe, esteemed readers, that I am presenting a one-sided view of these things, but rather that people have always been one-sided in their consideration of these matters because they have not been willing to consider the things in their real essence. In this context, it should always be emphasized how we Germans actually fared in the course of the nineteenth century in the spiritual realm with regard to the formation of a world view.

Goethe – I am in a position to speak about this because I have spent the whole of my life, thirty-five years, studying Goethe – Goethe tried to build a world view from the observation of external facts, which considers the relationship of external nature in detail. He tried to find the spirit in the development of beings. But basically, he made very little impression on the time. Then Darwin came along. He approached the task in an English way, truly in an English way, that is, he approached it in such a way that it is not particularly difficult to delve into his train of thought. And he gave everything that can be followed externally in the physical world, that can be seen with the eyes and grasped with the hands. That made an impression. And when it comes to Goethe, the world is still indebted to recognize – even if it is of course more difficult to find one's way into Goethe's theory of evolution – to recognize how much higher Goethe's theory of evolution is than that which arose in the nineteenth century on the basis of Darwinian research.

However, a Frenchman, a French philosopher, yes, I would almost say, of course, one who not so long ago before the war traveled around in Germany, even spoke at a German university about the deep friendship between the French and German mind, a Frenchman, he has tried to highlight the differences in recent weeks between the scientific world view that the German is seeking and that which the Frenchman and the Englishman are seeking. He told the French audience in Paris that if they want to get to know animals, want to have knowledge of animals, want to integrate their concepts of things into their world view, then they go to a menagerie and look at the animals. That's one way, certainly. The Englishman, said this French philosopher to his Parisian audience, the Englishman goes on a journey around the world, sees the animals in the various parts of the world and then describes what he has seen. And the German – he would go neither to the menagerie nor to the different parts of the world, but he would go into his room and delve into his own inner being to bring the essence of the lion, the essence of the hyena, and so on, to the surface from his own inner being. If you want to characterize the three peoples with a certain wit, which is certainly not to be denied the French, and perhaps also want to characterize them according to the proportion of thought and ideas present in their world view, then you can do that. Yes, but there is a catch to this story. The wit that the French professor has made out of his thoroughness is not his own, but Heinrich Heine's.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, it is clear to a certain extent that German intellectual life has always tried to avoid one-sidedness and to find something that can shine through the whole of the individual shades of the soul. To do this, however, German intellectual life had to penetrate again and again into the innermost part of the human soul. And in order to show – I would like to say – by the facts how the German tried to get to the essence of the world, to the essence of what the world springs from and wells up from, I would like to present three German figures today. Not because, dear attendees, I believe that one could somehow dogmatically accept what these three figures have created as a world view within German idealism, but because I believe that there are indeed three figures that have emerged from the innermost essence of German nationality, the German national soul. I would like to say: Today we can go far beyond regarding a figure that appears in the world history of the spirit in such a way that we accept what he has expressed as individual sentences, as individual ideas, as individual opinions, as if it were a dogma. We can look at people as they have striven, as they stand in their search for a world view. Here we encounter a German figure whom I tried to point out from a different point of view here in this city last winter, and who is much talked about now. First of all, we encounter the figure who was aware that what he had to say about a world view had been created entirely, as it were, through a dialogue with the German national soul itself: Johann Gottlieb Fichte. I would like to give just a few traits of this Johann Gottlieb Fichte, to show that he is indeed a figure that could only have emerged from the wholeness of German intellectual life; for such a figure as Fichte really did arise out of German intellectual life. When we see Fichte in the blue peasant's coat, we can meet him as a seven-year-old boy standing on the bank of a stream, the stream that flows past his father's house, throwing a book into the stream, the Siegfried saga. His father comes along. The father is angry about it because he gave Fichte the Siegfried saga as a present last Christmas. But it turned out that Fichte, who had been a good student until then, became completely absorbed in the Siegfried saga and was now less inclined to study. He only needed to be made aware of his duty, and he would immediately say: “Duty must give way to everything.” And we can find the seven-year-old boy throwing the Siegfried saga, which has kept him from his duty, into the stream. The soul felt and sensed everything in the deepest, most intimate connection with this soul.

On a Sunday, a neighboring landowner came to the simple farming village where Fichte grew up. At that time, Fichte was a nine-year-old boy. The neighboring landowner had come to hear the sermon, but he was too late. The sermon was no longer being heard by the landowner. So they called for nine-year-old Fichte, because they knew how Fichte, even as a nine-year-old boy, knew how to connect what he heard with his soul. He came in his blue farmer's coat and repeated word for word the sermon he had just heard, with such inner fire that it was clear that every word he said had grown together with the innermost part of his soul. It was not just the soul of feeling or the soul of mind or consciousness that was at work, but the soul as a whole. In this sense, Fichte is – I would say – one of the most quintessentially German minds, but one that was also intimately connected with the whole mission, or rather, with the whole essence of German nationality.

I would say that one has to let one's gaze wander far and wide if one wants to characterize this essence of German nationality in just a few words.

Let us look across to Asia, where the Germans' relatives, their Aryan relatives, are to be found. There we find in these Aryan relatives the urge to find the divine and spiritual in the world. But everywhere we find this urge coupled with another: to tone down the self, to dampen it so that it feels extinguished in order to merge into the universe. The other pole has found expression in the German nature, in the German being's search for a world view. Do the Aryan relatives in Asia seek to pour themselves out into the universe and thus find a world picture by muting the ego, as they do in India, for example? The German, on the other hand, seeks to find within this ego that which pours the divine into this ego by elevating and strengthening, ensoulings and spiritualizing this ego within himself. So that it is not by being subdued, but by being elevated, by the elevated striving of the ego, that this ego is led up into that which, as the divine-spiritual, pulsates through, permeates and interweaves the world.

And so Fichte again confronted the human ego, the human self, with his whole being, in order to discover in the self the forces that give a world view. I would say that he does this not only by attempting to express through abstract theories and through all kinds of mere abstract ideas what a world view can constitute, but rather that it is his entire being, the totality of this being, through which he presents himself, whether to his students or to his people in general.

Someone who listened to him once said: When Fichte speaks publicly or even to his students, his speech rolls like a thunderstorm that breaks into individual fires. His imagination is not lush, but energetic; his images are not magnificent, but strong and powerful. And he reigns in the realm of ideas, so that it becomes apparent that he not only dwells in this invisible world of ideas, but can rule in it. But in this way of speaking, there was something in Fichte by which he tried to let his whole soul overwhelm his listeners. Therefore, a friend who knew him well could say: He sought not only to educate good people, but to educate great people. And he did not just seek to tell his listeners something, but he sought to make a living whole out of what he and his listeners together were.

Those people who prefer to just listen passively and accept what does not demand any thought of their own while listening would not have been particularly fond of Fichte, the quintessentially German mind. For example, he repeatedly did the following with his audience. He said: “Think about the wall!” And so the audience thought about the wall, tried to think about the wall. Of course they managed it quite well. — “So,” he said, “now try to think of the one who thinks the wall!” — Then you could see how many were stunned, how many were quite strangely affected. But by such an imposition, Fichte tried to reject the human being to that which wells up and overflows within himself. For he could not say like Cartesius: “I think, therefore I am,” but he regarded this I in its perpetual liveliness, in its perpetual arising. And only such an I did he allow, which continually generates itself, which has the power to arise anew in each moment, in each following moment. The will, the will prevailing in the I, became for him the fundamental power of the I. And in that the I grasps itself in the highest sense in its fundamental powers, it grasps the highest divine power, which weaves and undulates into the I.

For Descartes, the world view was such that he did not even admit souls in animals, but rather, to him, they were mechanisms, machines - the whole world a mechanism. Of course, Fichte also saw how the mechanical is present in the external physical world; but for him, this mechanical was not dismissed when it was observed. Rather, one could only find one's way into this mechanical if one found the divine-spiritual source of things, which, however, could only be found in the will nature of man.

And so for Fichte, the spiritual that permeates and flows through the world became, for Fichte, the moral order of the world - above a mechanical order of the world. The divine-spiritual appeared to him in the effect of duty, which pulsates into the human soul. And the mechanisms, the external products of nature, appeared to him in this way in relation to the whole of creation in his world view, as if the human being, who first and foremost wants to be morally active, makes individual machines for himself, in which he cannot ask to what extent they are moral, but which nevertheless serve the moral, the moral order of the human being. Thus, for Fichte, mechanical nature was only, as he says, the expression of the realization of duty, of the moral order of the world, that it was the sensitized material of duty. For Fichte, the mechanical nature is everywhere the world-moral world order, and everything that is not moral is there so that duty has tools to realize itself in the world. That is the power of the mind that prevailed in Johann Gottlieb Fichte.

Today, you don't have to take Fichte's point of view. You don't have to accept what he expressed as his opinion. But that is not the point at issue. The point is what can be gained by allowing oneself to be inspired, as it were, by the way that a thinker like Fichte approached the spiritual world and formed one of the worldviews of German idealism on that basis. Strengthening of the soul, but also development of the soul, can be gained by not engaging dogmatically, but humanly, with the kind of striving that appears in Johann Gottlieb Fichte.

Now we turn to his successor, the much-misunderstood Schelling. For him, external nature was not something soulless either. He could not stop at considering external nature only a sensualized material of the moral world order, but for him, external nature was a strengthened spirit. And the spirit was a nature endowed with soul. And in his world view, the two combined to form a whole. And the divine-spiritual that rules the world was for him the great artist who creates by bringing forth the world out of the divine-benevolent, because it is meant to stand as beauty in the face of the invisible spiritual. In this much-misunderstood Schelling, contemplation of spirit and contemplation of nature grow together in an intimate way. But in fact this man was a reflection of his whole personality, who in his old age still stood before his audience with sparkling eyes, from which, as if through the gaze of man, a deep contemplation of nature spoke naturally, a contemplation of nature that glowed with beauty. This man was such that we can say: he only represented the other side of German intellectual life, of the German national soul, so to speak. Fichte, too, could be said to represent something like the consciousness soul of the human being, but this consciousness soul is illuminated by the I. Schelling, too, represents something like the intellectual soul of the human being; but this intellectual soul is illuminated by the I, so that it has an effect on the human mind. Again, it is the exaltation, the strengthening of that which is always in the human soul that Schelling seeks. He goes so far as to make the following statement, which certainly cannot be substantiated: To know nature is to create nature. But this saying is still so fruitful that it should not be accepted as a dogma, but rather be recognized as coming from the soul of a man who wants to plunge with his whole soul into nature and seek the spirit in nature.

The third aspect of German national character is portrayed by the much-misunderstood Hegel. Only he presents this German folk-spirit with the greatest power. For him, that which reigns through the world as the Divine-Spiritual is thought everywhere. Man seeks thought. But man not only imagines thought, he draws thought out of all phenomena, because thought lives in everything. One may, of course, unreservedly acknowledge the one-sidedness. The spiritual-divine appears as a mere logician. The world recognizes Hegel as if it were only thought. Of course, one will never come to a different understanding of the world than to an understanding of the world as thought. But that is not the point; rather, the point is that one should be able to reflect, I would say, to reflect, in order to develop thought in such a fine way as Hegel developed it. And that is how he came to see, in terms of his world view, that we only know the world to the extent that we can recognize it as reasonable in all its aspects. Everything real is reasonable, and everything reasonable is real. You can scoff, but the sneer is cheap. You can even scoff at such passion and write it off, as Bergson does! But the sneer is cheap. That is not the point. The point is that this one-sidedness was bound to emerge from the very depths of German national character, because, by immersing himself in this pure, crystal-clear thought, which emerged through Hegel in the development of the spiritual being of humanity, because man thereby grows together in this pure thought with what, in turn, pulses and weaves through the world as pure thought. What matters is not the thoughts that Hegel produced, but the feeling that he associated with his thought life, this feeling: to know oneself as one with the divine thinking that permeates the world and that is reflected in the individual human soul. Everywhere it is the exaltation, the strengthening, the energizing of the self that is sought, in order to find, through this exaltation, energizing, strengthening of the self, that which can open up in the innermost part of the soul, can reveal itself as the most divine, which in the life of human beings, in the life of all beings, in the life of all nature, reveals itself.

These thoughts were too great, these aspirations were too comprehensive, which emerged from the three – I would say – most powerful world view personalities of the German people, to immediately gain a complete foothold. But they are there. And they should be considered not in so far as they said this or that, but in so far as the German essence can be recognized by the fact that such thoughts and feelings and possibilities of knowledge lay within it. Our intention cannot be to get to know Hegel, Schelling, Fichte, but to get to know the German essence in its revelations, in so far as they express this German essence. That is what matters.

Certainly, this world view of German Idealism, this tripartite world view, as I would call it, has passed its peak, the justified peak of the scientific world view. And so far, no one has been able to combine both, this scientific world view and this world view of German Idealism, in a living way. But they will become one. And it is my conviction that it is precisely through spiritual science that this becoming one can be made possible.

What does the Italian ask today — I mean, insofar as he grows out of his nationality, not as an individual — what does he ask, how does what he creates as a world view relate to religious feelings? What does the Frenchman ask about when he wants to develop a scientific world view? The Englishman asks more about it. But he asks about it in a peculiar way. We can study this with Darwin, but also with many others. This Darwin seeks a world view purely from the facts of the physical world. But he draws no conclusions from it. He allows to exist alongside the world view that is based only on convention, on external origin. And so we find that Darwin does not feel the need to somehow modify his convictions about spiritual matters by creating an external world view about the physical world - although, by immersing himself in German development, this does become a big, all-encompassing question. The German cannot see a mere mental image based on tradition alongside a natural image, because that would seem like a lie to him. And he would rather accept Haeckel's materialism than a British world view, which can place the most pious sentiments next to naturalism without motivation and without seeking a connection.

Therefore, we are witnessing such a tragic phenomenon, one that I would go so far as to call heartbreaking. Ernst Haeckel, who today, out of his German sensibilities, is vigorously turning against Britain, has become completely Germanized, and with stronger words than some others, because basically his entire world view is based on Huxley and Darwin. Anyone who can sense what can live in the human soul from the heights of a world view will see the tragedy in Haeckel's soul, the tragedy that is based purely on the fact that the German - Haeckel - could not, like Darwin, let a spiritual world view exist alongside a purely natural world because he strove for wholeness and did not have the strength, like Fichte, like Schelling, like Hegel, to get into the spirit, and therefore constructed a world view that was directed towards Darwinism, towards the contemplation of external nature.

But one should not think that what is now beginning to assert itself, where spiritual science begins, that what this spiritual science itself has to say, could basically be based on anything other than - I would say - the world view of German idealism. That is, so to speak, the root. And spiritual science will have to be its blossoms and fruits. In spiritual science, we speak of the fact that the human soul can be shaped in a certain way – and those of you who have listened to me here in the past year will know what these various methods there are for slowly freeing the soul, as it were, from the physical, from the bodily, so that it may, as it were, enter the spiritual world outside the body and truly see the spiritual world. We know that we really see the spiritual world when we undergo certain spiritual exercises in the soul. The spiritual researcher cannot conduct external experiments, but he conducts research in a higher, spiritual realm just as the natural scientist does. He brings his soul to the point where this soul can truly free itself from the tools of the body, and also from the thinking apparatus, and can face the spiritual phenomena of the world as a soul. Once these things are considered in a deeper sense, it will be found that what we call meditation and concentration of thought today, through which the soul attains liberation from physical existence, through which it recognizes within itself the eternal powers that pass through birth and death and remain present when man lays aside his physical body. It will be recognized that these exercises had their strongest beginning in the days when Fichte wanted to strengthen the will, Schelling the mind, and Hegel the thought; for it is essentially the strengthening of thinking, feeling, and willing that brings the soul to contemplate the eternal, whereby we also bring the soul to that objectivism by which it recognizes that it carries within itself an eternal essence, which has united with the physical body through birth, and which re-enters the spiritual world for other experiences of existence when the outer, physical body is discarded.

The world view of German idealism has not yet been able to lead to actual spiritual science, just as the root is not yet the flower and the fruit. But if one does not want to use materialism in its most real form to contemplate the spirit, where, for example, one uses external events, which can only exist in the sensual-physical world, to recognize the spirit, when one physical nature to recognize the spirit, but when one wants to recognize the spirit through the spirit, then one will find that one has the best guidance in what Fichte, Schelling, Hegel tried to do.

And when we speak today of the fact that man, completely absorbed in himself, is searching for the foundations of his soul, by having to live what we call meditation, and when we now turn our gaze again to the whole German national spirit, we cannot do so in that dreamy way, like the Asian-minded spirit, but in a lively way. Through the elevation and invigoration of the self, what Fichte, Schelling and Hegel sought has come about: a meditation of the whole German people, a striving for knowledge of the real spirit. And in this striving for knowledge of the real spirit, there really was a release of the soul from the body. And to prove this to you, I would like to read a few words from Schelling, where Schelling says:

“The soul in man is therefore not merely the principle of individuality, but that by which he rises above all selfhood, by which he becomes capable of the sacrifice of self, disinterested love, and, what is the highest, of the contemplation and knowledge of the essence of things.”

This liberation of the soul from the body is the goal of German idealism's world view. This world view is not a one-sided scientific one, it is not something that can be gained through an international science, but it is something by which the soul of man in all its powers, in its totality, makes itself inclined and suited to face the divine-spiritual of the world directly.

The depth of feeling cannot be conceived from this world view. And basically, something always weaves and lives in the deepest striving of the German for a world view of what Jakob Böhme expresses so beautifully:

"When you see the depth

he means the blue depth of the sky

“heaven and the stars and look at the earth,”

says Jakob Böhme

“See your God, and in the same you live and are also. And the same God reigns through you and also reigns you.” “You are created from this God and live in the same. Also, all your knowledge stands in this God, and when you die, you will be buried in this God.”

This is the depth that is inseparable from German thought, and that can be sought within the West on the paths that are indispensable for the further development of humanity, that which the Aryan Indian seeks on paths that can no longer be the paths of the present, that must be abandoned must be abandoned for the sake of the present, what is sought as an experience of the Divine-Spiritual permeating the world in a world picture that does not exclude sensuality, but which also encompasses the spirit and includes sensuality, indeed, which recognizes sensuality itself as a spiritual one.

Such is the world view, dear attendees, such is the world view of German Idealism, sought on new paths of life in the Divine-Spiritual, but not by a damping down of the I, of the self, but by an upward forcing, so that the I and that which, as Divine-Spiritual, pulsates through the world, can become one, that is, can experience each other in each other. And so this striving for a world view in German Idealism actually places itself in the context of the entire more recent historical development, insofar as it is spiritual, and knows: because it is about a world view that has been experienced, that is why the German is so difficult to understand. For one would have to be able to identify with his experience, one would have to seek in his totality that which he seeks as a totality, and which the others can only see as one-sidedness.

And if we now turn our gaze away from Western and Central Europe and look towards Eastern Europe, we find a people living there in large areas who, above all, are characterized by the fact that the soul has not yet emerged at all , neither to the sentient soul nor to the consciousness soul nor to the mind soul, that it also does not grasp what can be experienced in the I, but that it still longs and wants to see, quite like an external being, what pulses through the world as its essence. The Russian people are a very peculiar people. They are a very peculiar people because, unlike the peoples of the West, they do not have within themselves the source from which a world view can arise. The longing to receive a world view from outside lives in this Russian people, but at the same time there is an unwillingness to receive this world view from the West. That is why in modern Russian literature we repeatedly encounter the view that all Western and Central European culture is rotten and dead, and that only from the young Russian spiritual life can arise that world view which can redeem humanity. Again and again it comes to us. I would like to say: It comes to us in such a way that one sees the enormous arrogance that lies in regarding everything Western as something decrepit and wanting to start the world over, but with the awareness that one is starting with something better.

And so we see in Russian minds, for example in Herzen, as in his - one only has to read his writing “From the Other Bank” - as in his, to be sure, a precise knowledge - let us say, for example, of Hegel, also of the other German achievements in relation to an idealistic world view - as he explicitly says: With that, nothing is done. All of this is in the world. What he finds particularly unappealing about Hegel is that he claims that reality is reasonable. He claims that reality is fundamentally unreasonable and foolish; and that the Russian must first come to bring something reasonable to the world. For the other thing that is considered reasonable in Europe, he says, is decrepit and ripe for extinction. “From the other bank” is the title of his book, because, he says, all these minds: Hegel and the rest, have all stood on the other side of the river in a hustle and bustle that must disappear, that only deserves to be viewed from the other bank.

But on the other hand, one must say that at least this Russian national soul understood something at the end of the nineteenth century, understood it while at the same time connecting it with a tremendous arrogance. As it were, the Russian national soul looked out over the vast expanse of Asia and saw that something there was also ripe for destruction and needed to be fertilized by the West. But what was to fertilize was seen as the Russian element. And this is expressed very particularly in a book by Yushakov published in 1885. It is an interesting book, a very interesting book. Let us first consider the positive part, for it is interesting to let the world picture of German idealism take full effect on us. If you take it all in, you can say that through the way in which the German, in this idealism, seeks a world view, he creates in modern times that which Pan-Asianism created in primeval times, which found expression in Asia, but at an earlier stage of human development.

How does the Russian Yushakov see the matter? Well, of course, he first finds a Russian mission, Russianizing all over Asia. Then he says: Well, in Asia one has seen how, over the course of long periods of time, two spiritual forces have confronted each other, so to speak. And the ancient Iranians – he says, Yushakov – saw quite correctly these two opposing spiritual forces as Ahriman and Ormuzd, in the Iranians, Persians, Indians and so on – Ahriman and Ormuzd. In the Iranians, Ormuzd was the predominant influence. Ormuzd worked in such a way that man sought to bring forth from nature everything that could be turned to his benefit. Work with nature could have made man rich, if the earlier Asiatic spirit had not been condemned from the start, by its suppression of the ego, to a kind of dream existence, and not to a certain degree of elevation. But in a way these Iranians, under the leadership of Ormuzd, were happy. Then came the Turanian spirit under the leadership of Ahriman, which devastated everything. Yushakov says that the Russians are destined to restore the balance between Ormuzd and Ahriman in Asia, in the whole of Asia, because the whole of Asia must be flooded and churned up by the way in which order and harmony can be created between Ormuzd and Ahriman from Russian spiritual life. After all, what have the Europeans done in Asia so far? What have they done that must arouse the disgust of the Russians in particular, that must show the Russians how they must be different in everything they accomplish? What have these Europeans done? They have discovered over the centuries that under the stimulus of the Ormuzd force, the Asians produce many, many material goods. They set out to snatch from the Asians what they had acquired under the beneficent influence of Ormuzd – so the Russian says; the Russians must come and join forces with the Asians in Asia, not out of selfishness but out of love, and they must help the Asians to defeat Ahriman. And now he goes on to explain how Russia has the task of liberating the Asians from Ahriman through selfless devotion to and coexistence with the Asian peoples; while the Europeans have so far only taken from them what they had acquired under the beneficent Ormuzd.

And it is quite characteristic of the Russian Yushakov to find in which European nation he can identify the one that has primarily stolen the Ormuzd goods from the Asians, and in which European nation he believes that it must be thoroughly and energetically opposed by the Russians. Yushakov calls the thieves of the Ormuzd culture of Asia the English, namely! I think that this is particularly interesting today, in our time, because we will find a remarkable connection in this alliance between Russianness and Englishness. In 1885, as I said, Yushakov wrote in his book “The Anglo-Russian Conflict”: “Ah, these poor Asian peoples, what they have become through the English!” These English have treated these poor Asian peoples as if these Asian peoples were there for no

“to clothe themselves in English cloth, fight with English weapons, work with English tools, eat out of English vessels, and play with English baubles.”

And further he says:

"England exploits millions of Hindus, but its very existence depends on the obedience of the various peoples inhabiting the rich peninsula; I do not wish anything similar for my fatherland - I can only rejoice that it is sufficiently far removed from this state of affairs, which is as glorious as it is sad.

Now, esteemed attendees, I would like to say that the Russian world view is still in the future, and that this has a truly irrepressible nature alongside, I would say, absolute passivity. This is where all the grotesque contradictions that confront us when we engage with this Russian world view come from. And yet, again and again in the course of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, we are confronted with the fact that what we have been able to characterize, and what we needed to characterize, of the outstanding Russian minds, really by stating the facts - and I have actually only tried to present facts in order to characterize the idealistic world view of the Germans - that this idealistic world view is presented as something decrepit, as something that must be overgrown by that which emanates from Russia. And especially at the end of the nineteenth century, it is not only the legacy of Peter the Great in the political sphere - anyone who takes my writing in hand, “Thoughts During the Time of War,” will see how this conviction lived in the most outstanding Russian minds, that Russianism must expand towards the West.

They soon abandoned the Pan-Asian dream and the European dream arose from the belief that the aging Western and Central European culture would have to experience salvation after the Russians conquered Constantinople, destroyed Austria, destroyed Germany and so on. Only deeply insightful Russians themselves were able to see through what this was actually about. And I cannot refrain from quoting what a reasonable Russian, Solowjow, said about this arrogance of the Russians from his Russian point of view. Solowjow wants to refute such a spirit, the Danilewski, who has so rightly pointed out how Europeanism must be eradicated root and branch and replaced by the Russian. And Solowjow replies. Danilewski has in fact brought to light the saying

“Why does Europe not love us?”

And Solowjow answers.

“Europe,”

says Danilewski,

“is afraid of us as the new and higher type of civilization, which is called upon to replace the decrepitude of the Romance-Germanic civilization.”

“Nevertheless,”

writes Solowjow,

“both the content of Danilevsky's book and his later admissions, as well as those of his like-minded friend,”

Soloviev means Strakhov,

“point to a different answer.”

And now Solowjow gives his answer from what he calls the Russian soul:

“Europe looks at us with hostility,”

says Solowjow,

"and with apprehension, because dark and unclear elemental forces live in the Russian people, because its spiritual and cultural forces are poor and insufficient, but its demands are clearly and sharply defined. The calls for what the Russian people want as a nation resound powerfully out into Europe: that it wants to destroy Turkey and Austria, conquer Germany, conquer Constantinople and, if possible, also India. And when we are asked how we intend to make humanity happy after all the destruction and ruin we have wrought, what spiritual and cultural rejuvenation we will bring to world development, then we either have to remain silent or spout meaningless phrases. And if Danilevsky's bitter confession is true, that Russia is beginning to fall ill, then instead of dealing with the question “Why doesn't Europe love us?” we would have to deal with a different, more important question that is closer to us: “Why and how did we get sick?”

And now Solowjow answers the question of why Russia is sick. And from the answer he gives, I think you can see, dear attendees, that he thinks differently about how to cure this disease than those who are now leading Russia against Europe, who believe that sick Russia should be cured by stamping the corroded culture of Central Europe into the ground. But Solowjow says:

"Physically, Russia is still quite strong, as it showed in the last Russian war.

That was the war in the 1870s.

"So our suffering is a moral one. According to the words of an old writer, we are burdened by the sins hidden in the national character and not conscious of them - and so it is above all necessary to bring these into the light of clear consciousness. As long as we are spiritually bound and paralyzed, all our elementary instincts can only harm us. The essential, indeed the only essential question for true patriotism is not the question of power and vocation, but of Russia's sins.

And Solowjow himself tried to absorb as much as possible of Western European and especially Central European culture into his thinking. And to combine it with what the Russian people have as a result of their Orthodox faith. That is precisely what makes Solowjow great.

But he also became important for another reason. We have seen the revival – I would like to say, already in Central Europe, of the great period of German Idealism, which initially fell into a kind of dream but did not live on any less because of it. We have also seen a revival of intellectual Slavophilism there, which has now become a kind of intellectual Pan-Slavism. They tried to justify, almost with scientific ideological arguments, that the Russian spirit must come over Europe. Solowjow took a look at that, really immersed himself in the works of those who wanted to be completely original by showing the essence of the Russian world view, how it must come over Europe. And what did Solowjow find? Very strangely, he found only Western European ideas everywhere, and not exactly the best ones, those Western European ideas that are derived from the great ideas of the world view of German idealism as minor ideas. These have become interwoven, and from them they have justified their spiritual Slavophilism.

It is a very characteristic phenomenon, very characteristic in that what must happen in reality does happen, that the forces that come from the world-historical mission of the German people must work, that they are needed within the world views of the other nations.

That is what I have tried to put before you today, ladies and gentlemen, that this world view of German idealism, which lives within the German nation and which is destined to bring forth greater and greater things for the whole of humanity from the German nation in the development of the world Germanic people. One need only look at this world view of German idealism objectively, and not, as our enemies are doing, try to justify their actions and hatred of what the Germans have achieved in the intellectual field. Of course, the German could never help but look objectively at how the intellectual achievements of other nations compare with those of the Germans. The German always has that which he calls his Germanness more in mind as a duty, while the other nations really do not understand what the German actually means by his national principle.

Carneri, an important or perhaps even the most important Austrian philosopher of the nineteenth century, Carneri – the wonderful man who, from an ailing body, also tried to grasp world-view ideas on the basis of Darwinism but built pure, noble, ethical thoughts on the basis of this Darwinism, the German deepened this Darwinism – Carneri now also delves into a consideration of the different national souls of the European peoples. And with such a mind, which speaks not out of passion but out of knowledge, one can already see that what spiritual science creates out of its knowledge about the different national souls has already been instinctively recognized.

What has emerged in English pragmatism as a concept of truth is that one should actually only use the truth in order to find one's way in the world. Carneri says, not yet using the word “pragmatism”, which was only coined very recently: the English are certainly very often ahead: they are practical, practical. They can apply their practicality to anything they can think of, create and invent. But they are so practical that their practicality has even led them – Carneri says this, as I said, from a deep insight – to the fact that the insight that they produced the greatest playwright of all time, Shakespeare, had to be taught to them by the Germans. That is absolutely the case. For whoever has to write the history of the recognition of Shakespeare will have to write a chapter of the history of German intellectual life, not English intellectual life. Shakespeare was only recognized from the depths of the idealistic German world view. And Shakespeare is actually homeless in today's England.

We do not need to talk in the way that French philosophers or Englishmen talk about German nature today. We can simply point to that which is. But in pointing to it, we are aware that it is the force that must work, must work when the great world conflict has been decided, which now presents humanity with the greatest task that has ever been set. Ladies and gentlemen, the weapons, the circumstances, will decide what happens next, not the word. But there is also something to be decided that will only be decided slowly and gradually: that is the full penetration of the German spirit into the overall development of humanity. And certainly, it is not for me in this reflection to point out the more detailed cause of the war or the like. But the consciousness that must live in us in this time is certainly connected with what we can call: a sinking into the own essence of the German people and that which must continue to live and work in the German people, and in which we must trust.

What is the external situation like? Yes, actually in a most peculiar way. It is remarkable that this thought is so rarely expressed – not by us, but by our enemies. Do these enemies really need to hate the German character so much? If one may put the question in this way, does the German character take up so much of the earth's surface? The figures also answer this question: the Entente Powers possess 68 million square kilometers of the earth; the Central European Powers, on the other hand, possess 6 million square kilometers! 68 million square kilometers against 6 million square kilometers. The Central European powers have 150 million inhabitants; the Entente powers 777 million! One should also reflect on this outside the borders of Central Europe, and consider what it means in the face of this fact that 777 million people are standing against 150 million people and do not want to defeat them in open battle, but want to starve them out by surrounding them. That is the better part of valor! But to draw attention to such things so readily - it is understandable that one does not love that, and that one can love in contrast the suspicions and slanders of what the Germans have not only achieved intellectually, but are, because what has been achieved can show it to anyone who wants to see it.

Admittedly, it is easier to become discouraged when considering the German character as a Frenchman, for example, who finds – and has also told his Parisians – that a Frenchman, the same Frenchman, incidentally, who first spoke of the deep friendship between the German character and the Frenchman, who was the first to speak of the deep friendship between the German and the French character here in Germany when he traveled around: “He says that you can see from some phenomena of the German language, for example, how the Germans cannot have the nobler side of the human ideal in their world view because they do not have words for it. For example, the Germans have no word for 'generosity'; so they don't have this beautiful quality at all. The French, on the other hand, have no word for 'gloating', which the Germans often use: 'Schadenfreude haben'. So the Germans have gloating in their world view, the French have generosity!

One day, esteemed attendees, it will be recognized that there is much to whitewash and dream away, because one cannot place oneself in relation to this Central European intellectual culture today, that if one places oneself as one should place oneself, one could still appear to some extent as a person justified before himself. If you want to characterize the Germans from abroad today, you need something other than objectivity and truth. Another Frenchman, Ernest Renan, did indeed once manage –- even during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 –- to say: when he became acquainted with German literature and German intellectual life in the time of Herder and Goethe, it was as if he had entered a temple. And what he had known before seemed to him to be no more than worn scraps of paper compared to the inner gold value, compared to what German intellectual life has produced as a world view at the time of its highest idealism. But the same Frenchman, he now decides, his Frenchmen at the same time to establish such a relationship in Europe that it corresponds to the value of the German essence that he himself has acknowledged? No, says Ernest Renan, who says that what the rest of European humanity has achieved in comparison to German intellectual life is like elementary mathematics in comparison to the differential calculus. He says:

"This is a solemn hour. In France, there are two schools of thought. The first judges thus: “Let us put an end to this hateful trade as quickly as possible; let us give up everything, Alsace, Lorraine; let us sign the peace; but then, hatred to the death, preparations without rest, alliance with whomever it suits, unlimited concessions to all Russian pretensions; a single goal, a single driving force for life: extermination against the Germanic race.

This trend has triumphed in France. Nothing else can be said, except that this trend has triumphed in France. But if one has an idea of what one actually wants to destroy, if one swears destruction on the Germanic race - one actually means only the German people - then one must not admit it to oneself. And these individual nations must not admit it to themselves at all. They dare not even think about what might live in the German national character as the soul of this national character, out of which, for example, the high point of the German world view of idealism arose. They dare not admit it to themselves. Therefore, they have to whitewash it with something else. And with what? For example, Russia has to whitewash it with a mission - of course with the mission of rejuvenating Europe. One of their newer poets once characterized the French, his own French, by pointing out how the cockerel that crows in the morning when the sun rises becomes aware that there is a connection between his crowing and the rising of the sun. He imagines: if I don't crow, the sun cannot rise.

Of course, dear attendees, the tragedy of the present French people should not be in the slightest diminished by this; because it is not about the misled people at all. For those who have in fact led this “led people astray”, who can already be compared to the crowing cock, who believe that if they do not crow the sun will not rise - for there are leading French minds who hold this view: that nothing can happen in the world unless they crow to it – for this, Frenchness needs a new fantasy image from time to time. And it is from such a fantasy image that those who, in such a desolate way, especially in Paris, such as Bergson or Boutroux, want to so disparage the German essence in what is its soul.

The English – yes, these English, one does not want to do them wrong. Do the Russians need a new mission, the French a new fantasy image of their own greatness in the world – they have always needed that, and they have only ever forgotten that they had to be pushed back so that the others would also have some space – yes, what do the English need? One would not want to be harsh; one would want to be fair to the enemy. But when you hear the enlightened minds over there saying that the English only went to war because they, with their fine sense of morality, could not reconcile the fact that the unfortunate Belgian people had been invaded – because they are enthusiastic about the fact that small nations can live out freedom and independence – when you look at how strangely these Englishmen have taken on the freedom of these small nations, yes, and then hear how the enlightened minds over there keep declaiming: “For freedom” and against “unfreedom” England had to go to war, because the Germans, they are completely imbued with the saying - an outstanding English politician said that recently — the Germans are completely imbued with the saying: “might is right”; he forgot, the poor — clever man, I mean to say — that this saying was first made by Thomas Hobbes, the Englishman, yes, even advocated as an entire philosophy, that this saying is deeply anchored in the whole world view of English naturalism. Yes, if one wants to be objective, dear attendees, one cannot say otherwise: the English need a new lie to conceal the truth and justify themselves to the world. There is simply no other way than to say that this must be the verdict of history, at least with regard to the behavior of the speaking people during the war.

The Italians – they need something to whitewash what is really there. They are the people of the sentient soul. Before the war, before the world war, an outstanding Italian politician confessed to me – because one did not need to be naive before the world war, believing that when the world war came, Italy would be on the side of the medium-sized powers, right? – an outstanding Italian politician confessed to me at the time: When the world war comes, Italy will have to take part. Yes, but why? “It simply has to take part,” he said, “because the Italian people are lazy, they are depraved. If they are allowed to continue living like this for much longer,” he said, “they will become completely depraved. They need to feel something properly again” - that's where we have the sentient soul - “they need to have a feeling, a sensation.” I am not saying that this is the only cause of war. The Russian needs a new mission, since the Pan-Asian one has been extinguished; the Englishman needs a new lie; the Frenchman needs a new fantasy; the Italian needs a new sensation in – yes, in the form of a new saint, because it must first be possible to grasp it with the sentient soul: holy egoism was invented in Italy, holy egoism. In the name of holy egoism, we have been told over and over again, Italy went to war. A new saint, a new saint who is fully worthy of his great representative d'Annunzio. D'Annunzio, the priest of holy egoism – a sensation, as if made for the inner pages of the sentimental soul character!

I do not think we need to fall back on the mistakes of our enemies when we think about what is at the heart of the German people and their tendency towards a particular world view. We only need to look at what we have found to be great, significant and effective in this German people, in the folklore of Central Europe. In this respect, the Germans of Austria and the Germans of Germany are one and the same. Today they feel completely at one. The concept of Mitteleuropa must not only become a reality in an economic sense, but also in a spiritual sense. This can be said in particular by someone who, like me, lived in Austria for thirty years.

And when we look, esteemed attendees, at what appears to us as the innermost – I may say – spiritual essence, as the spiritual essence of German nationality, we must say: this essence is not directly something that can only be grasped in terms of concepts and ideas. It is something that is experienced at the center, at the core of the German soul. The German soul must remain, which can only flourish if the German soul can carry it alive from the present into the future. History will be able to show this, the actual course of the history of the Germans and Germanness, of all humanity on earth, that there is something in this German nation that has only just taken root and put forth leaves, and that carries within itself the strength to become blossoms and fruit.

But we Germans can doubt the arrogance of other peoples without being unjust to other peoples. Especially in the present difficult times, but also in the great and promising times to come, we can realize how we can feel German precisely when we also permeate ourselves with its highest development, with its spiritual life, how we can then believe: Yes, this spiritual life shows itself to us in its roots and in its leaves in such a way that we can have the deepest faith and trust in the blossoms and fruits to be borne. And so, precisely from this point of view, by keeping in mind the numbers 777 million people against 150 million people, 68 million square kilometers against 6 million square kilometers, we should never allow ourselves to be distracted from the fact that our German past presents itself to us in such a way that it guarantees our German future by its own strength, precisely by its spiritual strength, and we should never never allow ourselves to be dissuaded from the fact that our German past presents itself to us as being guaranteed by its own strength, and especially by its intellectual strength, for our German future, to which we want to fully embrace not only out of mere instinct and feeling, but also out of bright insight.

Yesterday at the end of the considerations about High Scholasticism, I attempted to point out that the most essential of a current of thought are problems that made themselves known in a particular way in the human being. They culminated in a certain yearning to understand: how does the human being attain that knowledge which is necessary for life, and how does this knowledge fit into that which controlled the minds in those days in social respect, how the knowledge does fit into the religious contents of the western church?

The scholastics were concerned with the human individuality at first who was no longer able to carry up the intellectual life to concrete spiritual contents, as it still shone from that which had remained from Neo-Platonism, from the Areopagite and Scotus Eriugena. I have also already pointed to the fact that the impulses of High Scholasticism lived on in a way. However, they lived on in such a way that one may say, the problems themselves are big and immense, and the way in which one put them had a lasting effect. These should be just the contents of the today's consideration—the biggest problem, the relationship of the human being to the sensory and the spiritual realities, still continues to have an effect even if in quite changed methodical form and even if one does not note it, even if it has apparently taken on a quite different form. All that is still in the intellectual activities of the present, but substantially transformed by that which significant personalities have contributed to the European development in the philosophical area in the meantime.

We also realise if we consider the Franciscan Monk Duns Scotus (~1266-1308) who taught in the beginning of the fourteenth century in Paris, later in Cologne, that as it were the problem becomes too big even for the excellent intellectual technique of scholasticism.

Duns Scotus feels confronted with the question: how does the human soul live in the human-body? Thomas Aquinas still imagined that the soul worked on the totality of the bodily. So that the human being is only equipped indeed, if he enters into the physical-sensory existence, by the physical-bodily heredity with the vegetative forces, with the mineral forces and with the forces of sensory perceptivity that, however, without pre-existence the real intellect integrates into the human being which Aristotle called nous poietikos. This nous poietikos now soaks up as it were the whole mental—the vegetative mental, the animal mental—and intersperses the corporeality only to transform it in its sense in order to live on then immortal with that which it has obtained—after it had entered into the human body from eternal heights but without pre-existence—from this human body.

Duns Scotus cannot imagine that the active intellect soaks up the entire human system of forces. He can only imagine that the human corporeality is something finished that in a certain independent way the vegetative and animal principles remain the entire life through, then it is taken off at death and that only the actually spiritual principle, the intellectus agens, goes over to immortality. Scotus cannot imagine like Thomas Aquinas that the whole body is interspersed with soul and spirit because to him the human mind had become something abstract, something that did no longer represent the spiritual world to him but that seemed to him to be gained only from consideration, from sense perception. He could no longer imagine that only in the universals, in the ideas that would be given which would prove reality. He became addicted to nominalism—as later his follower Ockham (William of O., ~1288-1347) did—to the view that ideas, as general concepts in the human being are only conceived from the sensory environment that it is, actually, only something that lives as names, as words in the human mind, I would like to say, for the sake of comfortable subsumption of existence. Briefly, he returned to nominalism.

This is a significant fact, because one realises that nominalism, as it appeared, for example, with Roscelin of Compiègne—to whom even the Trinity disintegrated because of his nominalism-, is only interrupted by the intensive work of thought of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas and some others. Then the European humanity falls again back into nominalism which is incapable to grasp that which it has as ideas as spiritual reality, as something that lives in the human being and in a way in the things. The ideas become from realities straight away again names, mere empty abstractions.

One realises which difficulties the European thinking had more and more if it put the question of knowledge. Since we human beings have to get knowledge from ideas—at least in the beginning of cognition. The big question has to arise repeatedly: how do the ideas provide reality? However, there is no possibility of an answer if the ideas appear only as names without reality. The ideas that were the last manifestations of a real spiritual world coming down from above to the ancient initiated Greeks became more and more abstract. We realise this process of abstracting, of equating the ideas with words increasing more and more if we pursue the development of western thinking.

Single personalities outstand later, as for example Leibniz (Gottfried Wilhelm L., 1646-1716) who does not get involved in the question, how does one recognise by ideas, because he is quite traditionally still in the possession of a certain spiritual view and leads everything back to individual monads which are actually spiritual. Leibniz towers above the others, while he still has the courage to imagine the world as spiritual. Yes, the world is spiritual to him; it consists of nothing but spiritual beings. However, I would like to say what was to former times differentiated spiritual individualities are to Leibniz more or less gradually differentiated spiritual points, monads. The spiritual individuality is confirmed, but it is confirmed only in the form of the monad, in the form of a spiritual punctiform being.

If we disregard Leibniz, we see, indeed, a strong struggle for certainty of the primal grounds of existence, but the incapacity everywhere at the same time to solve the nominalism problem. This becomes obvious with the thinker who is put rightly at the starting point of modern philosophy, Descartes (1596-1650) who lived in the beginning or in the first half of the seventeenth century. Everywhere in the history of philosophy one gets to know the real cornerstone of his philosophy with the proposition: cogito ergo sum, I think, therefore, I am.—One can note something of Augustine's pursuit in this proposition. Since Augustine struggles from that doubt of which I have spoken in the first talk, while he says to himself, I can doubt everything, but, the fact of doubting exists, and, nevertheless, I live, while I doubt. I can doubt that sensory things are round me, I can doubt that God exists that clouds are there that stars are there, but if I doubt, the doubt is there. I cannot doubt that which goes forward in my own soul. One can grasp a sure starting point there.—Descartes resumes this thought, I think, therefore, I am.

Of course, with such things you expose yourself to serious misunderstandings if you are compelled to put something simple against something historically respected. It is still necessary. Descartes and many of his successors have in mind: if I have mental contents in my consciousness if I think, then one cannot deny the fact that I think; therefore, I am, therefore, my being is confirmed with my thinking. I am rooted as it were in the world being, while I have confirmed my being with my thinking.

The modern philosophy begins with it as intellectualism, as rationalism that completely wants to work from the thinking and is in this respect only the echo of scholasticism. One realises two things with Descartes. First, one has to make a simple objection to him: do I understand my being because I think? Every night sleep proves the opposite.—This is just that simple objection which one has to make: we know every morning when we wake, we have existed from the evening up to the morning, but we have not thought. Thus, the proposition, I think, therefore, I am, is simply disproved. One has to make this simple objection, which is like the egg of Columbus, to a respected proposition that has found many supporters.

However, the second question is, at which does Descartes aim philosophically? He aims no longer at vision, he aims no longer at receiving a world secret for the consciousness, and he is oriented in intellectualistic way. He asks, how do I attain certainty? How do I come out of doubt? How do I find out that things exist and that I myself exist?—It is no longer a material question, a question of the content-related result of world observation; it is a question of confirming knowledge.

This question arises from the nominalism of the scholastics, which only Albert and Thomas had overcome for some time, which reappears after them straight away. Thus, that presents itself to the people which they have in their souls and to which they can attribute a name only to find a point somewhere in the soul from which they can get no worldview but the certainty that not everything is illusion, that they look at the world and look at something real, that they look into the soul and look at reality.

In all that one can clearly perceive that to which I have pointed yesterday at the end, namely that the human individuality got to intellectualism, but did not yet feel the Christ problem in intellectualism. The Christ problem possibly appears to Augustine, while he still looks at the whole humanity. Christ dawns, I would like to say, in the Christian mystics of the Middle Ages; but He does not dawn with those who wanted to find Him with thinking only which is so necessary to the developing individuality, or with that which would arise to this thinking. This thinking appears in its original state in such a way that it emerges from the human soul that it rejects that which should just be the Christian or the core of the human being. It rejects the inner metamorphosis; it refuses to position itself to the cognitive life so that one would say to himself, yes, I think, I think about the world and myself at first. However, this thinking is not yet developed. This is the thinking after the Fall of Man. It has to tower above itself. It has to change; it has to raise itself into a higher sphere.

Actually, this necessity appeared only once clearly in a thinker, in Spinoza (Benedictus Baruch S., 1632-1677), the successor of Descartes. With good reason, Spinoza made a deep impression on persons like Herder and Goethe. Since Spinoza understands this intellectualism in such a way that the human being gets finally to truth—which exists for Spinoza in a kind of intuition, while he changes the intellectual, does not stop at that which is there in the everyday life and in the usual scientific life. Spinoza just says to himself, by the development of thinking this thinking fills up again with spiritual contents.—We got to know in Plotinism, the spiritual world arises again to the thinking as it were if this thinking strives for the spirit. The spirit fulfils as intuition our thinking again.

It is very interesting that just Spinoza says, we survey the world existence as it advances in spirit in its highest substance while we take up this spirit in the soul, while we rise with our thinking to intuition, while we are so intellectualistic on one side that we prove as one proves mathematically, but develop in proving at the same time and rise, so that the spirit can meet us.—

If we rise in such a way, we also understand from this viewpoint the historical development of that what is contained in the development of humanity. It is strange to find the following sentence with a Jew, Spinoza, the highest revelation of the divine substance is given in Christ.—In Christ the intuition has become theophany, the incarnation of God, hence, Christ's voice is God's voice and the way of salvation.—The Jew Spinoza thinks that the human being can develop from his intellectualism in such a way that the spirit is coming up to meet him. If he can then turn to the Mystery of Golgotha, the fulfilment with spirit becomes not only intuition, that is appearance of the spirit by thinking, but it changes intuition into theophany, into the appearance of God himself. The human being faces God spiritually. One would like to say, Spinoza did not withhold that what he had suddenly realised, because this quotation proves that. It fulfils like a mood what he found out from the development of humanity this way; it fulfils his Ethics.

Again, it devolves upon a receptive person. Therefore, one can realise that for somebody like Goethe who could read most certainly between the lines of the Ethics this book became principal. Nevertheless, these things do not want to be considered only in the abstract as one does normally in the history of philosophy; they want to be considered from the human viewpoint, and one must already look at that which shines from Spinozism into Goethe's soul. However, that which shines there only between the lines of Spinoza is something that did not become time dominating in the end but the incapacity to get beyond nominalism.

Nominalism develops at first in such a way that one would like to say, the human being becomes more and more entangled in the thought: I live in something that cannot grasp the outside world, in something that is not able to go out from me to delve into the outside world and to take up something of the nature of the outside world.—That is why this mood that one is so alone in himself that one cannot get beyond himself and does not receive anything from the outside world appears already with Locke (John L., 1612-1704) in the seventeenth century. He says, what we perceive as colours, as tones in the outside world is no longer anything that leads us to the reality of the outside world; it is only the effect of the outside world on our senses, it is something with which we are entangled also in our own subjectivity.—This is one side of the matter.

The other side of the matter is that with such spirits like Francis Bacon (1561-1626) nominalism becomes a quite pervasive worldview in the sixteenth, seventeenth centuries. For he says, one has to do away with the superstition that one considers that as reality which is only a name. There is reality only if we look out at the sensory world. The senses only deliver realities in the empiric knowledge.—Beside these realities, those realities do no longer play a scientific role for whose sake Albert and Thomas had designed their epistemology. The spiritual world had vanished to Bacon and changed into something that cannot emerge with scientific certainty from the inside of the human being. Only religious contents become that what is a spiritual world, which one should not touch with knowledge. Against it, one should attain knowledge only from outer observation and experiments.

That continues this way up to Hume (David H., 1711-1776) in the eighteenth century to whom even the coherence of cause and effect is something that exists only in the human subjectivity that the human being adds only to the things habitually. One realises that nominalism, the heritage of scholasticism, presses like a nightmare on the human beings.

The most important sign of this development is that scholasticism with its astuteness stands there that it originates in a time when that which is accessible to the intellect should be separated from the truths of a spiritual world. The scholastic had the task on one side to look at the truths of a spiritual world, which the religious contents deliver of course, the revelation contents of the church. On the other side, he had to look at that which can arise by own strength from human knowledge. The viewpoint of the scholastics missed changing that border which the time evolution would simply have necessitated. When Thomas and Albert had to develop their philosophy, there was still no scientific worldview. Galilei, Giordano Bruno, Copernicus, and Kepler had not yet worked; the intellectual view of the human being at the outer nature did not yet exist. There one did not have to deal with that which the human intellect can find from the depths of his soul, and which one gains from the outer sensory world. There one had to deal with that only which one has to find with the intellect from the depths of the soul in relation to the spiritual truths that the church had delivered, as they faced the human beings who could no longer rise by inner spiritual development to the real wisdoms who, however, realised them in the figure that the church had delivered, just simply as tradition, as contents of the scriptures and so on.

Does there not arise the question: how do the intellectual contents relate—that which Albert and Thomas had developed as epistemology—to the contents of the scientific worldview? One would like to say, this is an unconscious struggle up to the nineteenth century. There we realise something very strange. We look back at the thirteenth century and see Albert and Thomas teaching humanity about the borders of intellectual knowledge compared with faith, with the contents of revelation. They show one by one: the contents of revelation are there, but they arise only up to a certain part of the human intellectual knowledge, they remain beyond this intellectual knowledge, there remains a world riddle to this knowledge.—We can enumerate these world riddles: the incarnation, the existence of the spirit in the sacrament of the altar and so on—they are beyond the border of human cognition. For Albert and Thomas it is in such a way that the human being is on the one side, the border of knowledge surrounds him as it were and he cannot behold into the spiritual world. This arises to the thirteenth century.

Now we look at the nineteenth century. There we see a strange fact, too: during the seventies, at a famous meeting of naturalists in Leipzig, Emil Du Bois-Reymond (1818-1896) holds his impressive speech On the Borders of the Knowledge of Nature and shortly after about the Seven World Riddles. What has become there the question? (Steiner draws.) There is the human being, there is the border of knowledge; however, the material world is beyond this border, there are the atoms, there is that about which Du Bois-Reymond says, one does not know that which haunts as matter in space.—On this side of the border is that which develops in the human soul.

Even if—compared to the imposing work of scholasticism—it is a trifle which faces us there, nevertheless, it is the true counterpart: there the question of the riddles of the spiritual world, here the question of the riddles of the material world; here the border between the human being and the atoms, there the border between the human being and the angels and God. We have to look into this period if we want to recognise what scholasticism entailed. There Kant's philosophy emerges, influenced by Hume, which influences the philosophers even today. After Kant's philosophy had taken a backseat, the German philosophers took the slogan in the sixties, back to Kant! Since that time an incalculable Kant literature was published, also numerous independent Kantian thinkers like Johannes Volkelt (1848-1930) and Hermann Cohen (1842-1918) appeared.

Of course, we can characterise Kant only sketchily today. We want only to point to the essentials. I believe that someone who studies Kant really can understand him in such a way, as I tried to understand him in my booklet Truth and Science. Kant faces no question of the contents of the worldview with might and main in the end of the sixties and in the beginning of the seventies years of the eighteenth century, not anything that would have appeared in certain figures, pictures, concepts, ideas of the things with him, but he faces the formal question of knowledge: how do we get certainty of something in the outside world, of any existence in the outside world?—The question of certainty of knowledge torments Kant more than any contents of knowledge. I mean, one should even feel this if one deals with Kant's Critique that these are not the contents of knowledge, but that Kant strives for a principle of the certainty of knowledge. Nevertheless, read the Critique of Pure Reason, the Critique of Practical Reason, and realise—after the classical chapter about space and time—how he deals with the categories, one would like to say how he enumerates them purely pedantically in order to get a certain completeness. Really, the Critique of Pure Reason does not proceed in such a way, as with somebody who writes from sentence to sentence with lifeblood.

To Kant the question is more important how the concepts relate to an outer reality than the contents of knowledge themselves. He pieces the contents together, so to speak, from everything that is delivered to him philosophically. He schematises, he systematises. However, everywhere the question appears, how does one get to such certainty, as it exists in mathematics? He gets to such certainty in a way which is strictly speaking nothing but a transformed and on top of that exceptionally concealed and disguised nominalism, which he expands also to the sensory forms, to space and time except the ideas, the universals. He says, that which we develop in our soul as contents of knowledge does not deal at all with something that we get out of the things. We put it on the things. We get out the whole form of our knowledge from ourselves. If we say, A is connected with B after the principle of causation, this principle of causation is only in us. We put it on A and B, on both contents of experience. We bring the causality into the things.

With other words, as paradox this sounds, nevertheless, one has to say of these paradoxes, Kant searches a principle of certainty while he generally denies that we take the contents of our knowledge from the things, and states that we take them from ourselves and put them into the things. That is in other words, and this is just the paradox: we have truth because we ourselves make it; we have truth in the subject because we ourselves produce it. We bring truth only into the things.

There you have the last consequence of nominalism. Scholasticism struggled with the universals, with the question: how does that live outdoors in the world what we take up in the ideas? It could not really solve the problem that would have become provisionally completely satisfactory. Kant says, well, the ideas are mere names, nomina. We form them only in ourselves, but we put them as names on the things; thereby they become reality. They may not be reality for long, but while I confront the things, I put the nomina into experience and make them realities, because experience must be in such a way as I dictate it with the nomina.

Kantianism is in a way the extreme point of nominalism, in a way the extreme decline of western philosophy, the complete bankruptcy of the human being concerning his pursuit of truth, the desperation of getting truth anyhow from the things. Hence, the dictates: truth can only exist if we bring it into the things. Kant destroyed any objectivity, any possibility of the human being to submerge in the reality of the things. Kant destroyed any possible knowledge, any possible pursuit of truth, because truth cannot exist if it is created only in the subject.

This is a consequence of scholasticism because it could not come into the other side where the other border arose which it had to overcome. Because the scientific age emerged and scholasticism did not carry out the volte-face to natural sciences, Kantianism appeared which took subjectivity as starting point and gave rise to the so-called postulates freedom, immortality, and the idea of God. We shall do the good, fulfil the categorical imperative, and then we must be able to do it. That is we must be free, but we are not able to do it, while we live here in the physical body. We reach perfection only, so that we can completely carry out the categorical imperative if we are beyond the body. That is why immortality must exist. However, we cannot yet realise that as human beings. A deity has to integrate that which is the contents of our action in the world—if we take pains of that what we have to do. That is why a deity must exist.

Three religious postulates about which one cannot know how they are rooted in reality are that which Kant saved after his own remark: I had to remove knowledge to get place for faith.—Kant does not get place for religious contents in the sense of Thomas Aquinas, for traditional religious contents, but for abstract religious contents that just originate in the individual human being who dictates truth, that is appearance.

With it, Kant becomes the executor of nominalism. He becomes the philosopher who denies the human being everything that this human being could have to submerge in any reality. Hence, Fichte, Schelling, and then Hegel immediately reacted against Kant. Thus, Fichte wanted to get everything that Kant had determined as an illusory world or as a world of appearances from the real creative ego that he imagined, however, to be rooted in the being of the world. Fichte was urged to strive for a more intensive, to a more and more mystic experience of the soul to get beyond Kantianism. He could not believe at all that Kant meant that which is included in his Critiques. In the beginning, with a certain philosophical naivety he believed that he drew the last consequence of Kant's philosophy. If one did not draw these last consequences, Fichte thought, one would have to believe that the strangest chance would have pieced this philosophy together but not a humanely thinking head.

All that is beyond that which approaches with the emerging natural sciences that appear like a reaction just in the middle of the nineteenth century that strictly speaking understand nothing of philosophy, which degenerated, hence, with many thinkers into crass materialism. Thus, we realise how philosophy develops in the last third of the nineteenth century. We see this philosophical pursuit completely arriving at nullity, and then we realise how—from everything possible that one attaches to Kantianism and the like—one attempts to understand the essentials of the world. The Goethean worldview which would have been so significant if one had grasped it, got completely lost, actually, as a worldview of the nineteenth century, with the exception of those spirits who followed Schelling, Hegel and Fichte. Since in this Goethean worldview the beginning of that is contained which must originate from Thomism, only with the volte-face to natural sciences.

Thomas could state only in the abstract that the mental-spiritual really works into the last activities of the human organs. In abstract form, Thomas Aquinas expressed that everything that lives in the human body is directed by the mental and must be recognised by the mental. Goethe started with the volte-face and made the first ground with his Theory of Colours, which people do not at all understand, and with his “morphology.” However, the complete fulfilment of Goetheanism is given only if one has spiritual science that clarifies the scientific facts by its own efforts.

Some weeks ago, I tried here to explain how our spiritual science could be a corrective of natural sciences, we say, concerning the function of the heart. The mechanical-materialist view considers the heart as a pump that pushes the blood through the human body. However, it is quite the contrary. The blood circulation is something living—embryology can prove that precisely -, and it is set in motion by the internally moved blood. The heart takes the blood activity into the entire human individuality. The activity of the heart is a result of the blood activity, not vice versa. Thus, one can show concerning the single organs of the body how the comprehension of the human being as a spiritual being only explains his material existence. One can do something real in a way that Thomism had in mind in abstract form that said there, the spiritual-mental penetrates everything bodily. This becomes concrete knowledge. The Thomistic philosophy lives on as spiritual science in our present.

I would like to insert a personal experience here. When I spoke in the Viennese Goethe Association about the topic Goethe as Father of a New Aesthetics, there was a very sophisticated Cistercian among the listeners. I explained how one has to imagine Goethe's idea of art, and this Cistercian, Father Wilhelm Neumann (1837-1919), professor at the theological faculty of the Vienna University, said something strange, you can find the origins of your talk already with Thomas Aquinas.—Nevertheless, it was interesting to me to hear from him who was well versed in Thomism that he felt that in Thomism is a kind of origin of that which I had said about the consequence of the Goethean worldview concerning aesthetics.

One has already to say, the things, considered according to truth, appear absolutely different than they present themselves to the history of philosophy under the influence of an unconscious nominalistic worldview which goes back largely to Kant and the modern physiology. Thus, you would find many a thing if you referred to spiritual science. Read in my book The Riddles of the Soul which appeared some years ago how I tried there to divide the human being on the basis of thirty-year studies into three systems; how one system of the human physical body is associated with sense-perception and thinking, how the rhythmical system, breathing and heart activity, is associated with feeling, how metabolism is associated with the will. Everywhere I attempted to find the spiritual-mental in its creating in the physical. That is, I took the volte-face to natural sciences seriously. One tries to penetrate into the area of natural existence after the age of natural sciences, as before the age of scholasticism—we have realised it with the Areopagite and with Plotinus—one penetrated from the human knowledge into the spiritual area. One takes the Christ principle seriously as one would have taken the Christ principle seriously if one had said, the human thinking can change, so that it can penetrate if it casts off the original sin of the limits of knowledge and if it rises up by thinking free of sensuousness to the spiritual world—after the volte-face. What manifests as nature can be penetrated as the veil of physical existence. One penetrates beyond the limits of knowledge which a dualism assumed, as well as the scholastics drew the line at the other side. One penetrates into this material world and discovers that it is, actually, the spiritual one that behind the veil of nature no material atoms are in truth but spiritual beings.

This shows how one thinks progressively about a further development of Thomism. Look for the most important psychological thoughts of Albert and Thomas in their abstractness. However, they did not penetrate into the human-bodily, so that they said how the mind or the soul work on the organs, but they already pointed to the fact that one has to imagine the whole human body as the result of the spiritual-mental.

The continuation of this thought is the work to pursue the spiritual-mental down to the details of the bodily. Neither philosophy nor natural sciences do this, only spiritual science will do it, which does not shy away from applying the great thoughts like those of High Scholasticism to the views of nature of our time. However, for that an engagement with Kantianism was inevitable if the thing should scientifically persist.

I tried this engagement with Kantianism first in my writings Truth and Science and Epistemology of Goethe's Worldview and, in the end, in my Philosophy of Freedom. Only quite briefly, I would like to defer to the basic idea of these books.

These writings take their starting point from the fact that one cannot directly find truth in the world of sense perception. One realises in a way in which nominalism takes hold in the human soul how it can accept the wrong consequence of Kantianism, but how Kant did not realise that which was taken seriously in these books. This is that a consideration of the world of perception leads—if one does it quite objectively and thoroughly—to the conclusion: the world of perception is not a whole, it is something that we make a reality.

In what way did the difficulty of nominalism originate? Where did the whole Kantianism originate? Because one takes the world of perception, and then the soul life puts the world of ideas upon it. Now one has the view, as if this world of ideas should depict the outer perception. However, the world of ideas is inside. What does this inner world of ideas deal with that which is there outdoors? Kant could answer this question only, while he said, so we just put the world of perception on the world of ideas, so we get truth.

The thing is not in such a way. The thing is that—if we look at perception impartially—it is not complete, everywhere it is not concluded. I tried to prove this strictly at first in my book Truth and Science, then in my book Philosophy of Freedom. The perception is everywhere in such a way that it appears as something incomplete. While we are born in the world, we split the world. The thing is that we have the world contents here (Steiner draws). While we place ourselves as human beings in the world, we separate the world contents into a world of perception that appears to us from the outside and into the world of ideas that appears to us inside of our soul. Someone who regards this separation as an absolute one who simply says, there is the world, there I am cannot get over with his world of ideas to the world of perception. However, the case is this: I look at the world of perception; everywhere it is not complete in itself, something is absent everywhere. However, I myself have come with my whole being from the world to which also the world of perception belongs. There I look into myself: what I see by myself is just that which the world of perception does not have. I have to unite that which separated in two parts by my own existence. I create reality.

Because I am born, appearance comes into being while that which is one separates into perception and the world of ideas. Because I live, I bring together two currents of reality. In my cognitive experience, I work the way up into reality. I would never have got to a consciousness if I had not split off the world of ideas from the world of perception while entering into the world. However, I would never find the bridge to the world if I did not combine the world of ideas that I have split off again with that which is not reality without the world of ideas.

Kant searches reality only in the outer perception and does not guess that the other half of reality is just in that which we carry in ourselves. We have taken that which we carry as world of ideas in ourselves only from the outer reality. Now we have solved the problem of nominalism, because we do not put space, time, and ideas, which would be mere names, upon the outer perception, but now we give back the perception what we had taken from it when we entered into the sensory existence.

Thus, we have the relationship of the human being to the spiritual world at first in a purely philosophical form. Someone is just overcoming Kantianism who takes up this basic idea of my Philosophy of Freedom, which the title of the writing Truth and Science already expresses: the fact that real science combines perception and the world of ideas and regards this combining as a real process. However, he is just coping with the problem which nominalism had produced which faced the separation into perception and the world of ideas powerlessly.

One approaches this problem of individuality in the ethical area. Therefore, my Philosophy of Freedom became a philosophy of reality. While cognition is not only a formal act but also a process of reality, the moral action presents itself as an outflow of that which the individual experiences as intuition by moral imagination. The ethical individualism originates this way as I have shown in the second part of my Philosophy of Freedom. This individualism is based on the Christ impulse, even if I have not explicitly said that in my Philosophy of Freedom. It is based on that which the human being gains to himself as freedom while he changes the usual thinking into that which I have called pure thinking in my Philosophy of Freedom which rises to the spiritual world and gets out the impulses of moral actions while something that is bound, otherwise, to the human physical body, the impulse of love, is spiritualised. While the moral ideals are borrowed from the spiritual world by moral imagination, they become the force of spiritual love.

Hence, the Philosophy of Freedom had to counter Kant's philistine principle—“Duty! You elated name, you do not have anything of flattery with yourself but strict submission” -, with the transformed ego which develops up into the sphere of spirituality and starts there loving virtue, and, therefore, practises virtue because it loves it out of individuality.

Thus, that which remained mere religious contents to Kant made itself out to be real world contents. Since to Kant knowledge is something formal, something real to the Philosophy of Freedom. A real process goes forward. Hence, the higher morality is also tied together with it to a reality, which philosophers of values like Windelband (Wilhelm, 1845-1915) and Rickert (Heinrich R., 1863-1936) do not at all reach. Since they do not find out for themselves how that which is morally valuable is rooted in the world. Of course, those people who do not regard the process of cognition as a real process do not get to rooting morality in the world of reality; they generally get to no philosophy of reality.

From the philosophical development of western philosophy, spiritual science was got out, actually. Today I attempted to show that that Cistercian father heard not quite inaccurately that really the attempt is taken to put the realistic elements of High Scholasticism with spiritual science in our scientific age, how one was serious about the change of the human soul, about the fulfilment of the human soul with the Christ impulse also in the intellectual life. Knowledge is made a real factor in world evolution that takes place only on the scene of the human consciousness as I have explained in my book Goethe's Worldview. However, these events in the world further the world and us within the world at the same time.

There the problem of knowledge takes on another form. That which we experience changes spiritual-mentally in ourselves into a real development factor. There we are that which arises from knowledge. As magnetism works on the arrangement of filings of iron, that works in us what is reflected in us as knowledge. At the same time, it works as our design principle, then we recognise the immortal, the everlasting in ourselves, and we do no longer raise the issue of knowledge in only formal way.

The issue of knowledge was always raised referring to Kant in such a way that one said to himself, how does the human being get around to regarding the inner world as an image of the outer world?—However, cognition is not at all there at first to create images of the outer world but to develop us, and it is an ancillary process that we depict the outside world. We let that flow together in the outside world in an ancillary process, which we have split off at our birth. It is exactly the same way with the modern issue of knowledge, as if anybody has wheat and investigates its nutritional effect if he wants to investigate the growth principle of wheat. Indeed, one may become a food chemist, but food chemistry does not recognise that which is working from the ear through the root, the stalk, and the leaves to the blossom and fruit. It explains something only that is added to the normal development of the wheat plant.

Thus, there is a developmental current of spiritual life in us, which is concerned with our being to some extent as the plant develops from the root through the stalk and leaves to the blossom and the fruit, and from there again to the seed and the root. As that which we eat should not play any role with the explanation of the plant growth, the question of the epistemological value of that which lives in us as a developmental impulse must also not be the basis of a theory of knowledge, but it has to be clear that knowledge is a side effect of the work of the ideal in our human nature. There we get to the real of that which is ideal. It works in us. The wrong nominalism, Kantianism, originated only because one put the question of knowledge in such a way as food chemistry would put the question of the nature of wheat.

Hence, one may say, not before we find out for ourselves what Thomism can be for the present, we see it originating in spiritual science in its figure for the twentieth century, and then it is back again as spiritual science. Then light is thrown on the question: how does this appear if now one comes and says, compared with the present philosophy one has to go back to Thomas Aquinas, and to study him, at most with some critical explanations and something else that he wrote in the thirteenth century?—There we realise, what it means, to project our thoughts in honest and frank way in the development current that takes High Scholasticism as starting point, and what it means to carry back our mind to this thirteenth century surveying the entire European development since the thirteenth century. This resulted from the encyclical Aeterni patris of 1879 that asks the Catholic clerics to regard the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas as the official philosophy of the Catholic Church. I do not want to discuss the question here: where is Thomism? Since one would have to discuss the question: do I look best at the rose that I face there if I disregard the blossom and dig into the earth to look at the roots and check as to whether something has already originated from the root.

Now, you yourselves can imagine all that. We experience what asserts itself among us as a renewal of that Thomism, as it existed in the thirteenth century, beside that which wants to take part honestly in the development of the European West. We may ask on the other hand, where does Thomism live in the present? You need only to put the question: how did Thomas Aquinas himself behave to the revelation contents? He tried to get a relationship to them. We have the necessity to get a relationship to the contents of physical manifestation. We cannot stop at dogmatics. One has to overcome the “dogma of experience” as on the other side one has to overcome the dogma of revelation. There we have really to make recourse to the world of ideas that receives the transforming Christ principle to find again our world of ideas, the spiritual world with Christ in us. Should the world of ideas remain separated? Should the world of ideas not participate in redemption?

In the thirteenth century, one could not yet find the Christian principle of redemption in the world of ideas; therefore, one set it against the world of revelation. This must become the progress of humanity for the future that not only for the outer world the redemption principle is found, but also for the human intellect. The unreleased human reason only could not rise in the spiritual world. The released human intellect that has the real relationship to Christ penetrates into the spiritual world.

From this viewpoint, Christianity of the twentieth century is penetrating into the spiritual world, so that it deeply penetrates into the thinking, into the soul life. This is no pantheism, this is Christianity taken seriously. Perhaps one may learn just from this consideration of the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas—even if it got lost in abstract areas—that spiritual science takes the problems of the West seriously that it always wants to stand on the ground of the present.

I know how many false things arise now. I could also imagine that now again one says, yes, he has often changed his skin; he turns to Thomism now because the things become risky.—Indeed, one called the priests of certain confessions snakes in ancient times. Snakes slough their skins. As well as the opponents understand skinning today, it is indeed a lie. Since I have shown today how you can find the philosophically conscientious groundwork of spiritual science in my first writings.

Now I may point to two facts. In 1908, I held a talk about the philosophical development of the West in Stuttgart. In this talk, I did not feel compelled to point to the fact that possibly my discussion of Thomism displeased the Catholic clerics, because I did justice to Thomism, I emphasised its merits even with much clearer words than the Neo-Thomists, Kleutgen or others did. Hence, I did not find out for myself in those days that my praise of Thomism could be taken amiss by the Catholic clergy, and I said, if one speaks of scholasticism disparagingly, one is not branded heretical by the so-called free spirits. However, if one speaks, objectively about that, one is easily misunderstood because one often rests philosophically upon a misunderstood Thomism within the positive and just the most intolerant church movement. I did not fear at all to be attacked because of my praise of Thomism by the Catholic clergy, but by the so-called free spirits. It happened different, and people will say, we are the first whom he did a mischief.

During these days, I have also pointed to my books that I wrote around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, among them also to a book that I dedicated to Ernst Haeckel, Worldviews and Approaches to Life in the Nineteenth Century. There I pointed to the fact that the modern thinking is not astute and logical; and that Neo-Scholasticism tried to rest upon the strictly logical of Thomism. I wrote: “These thinkers could really move in the world of ideas without imagining this world in unsubtle sensory-bodily form.” I spoke about the scholastics this way, and then I still spoke about the Catholic thinkers who had taken the study of scholasticism again: “The Catholic thinkers who try today to renew this art of thinking are absolutely worth to be considered in this respect. It will always have validity what one of them, the Jesuit father Joseph Kleutgen (1811-1889), says in his book An Apology of the Philosophy of the Past: “Two sentences form the basis of the different epistemologies which we have just repeated: the first one, that our reason ...” and so on. You realise, if the Jesuit Joseph Kleutgen did something meritorious, I acknowledged it in my book. However, this had the result that one said in those days that I myself was a disguised Jesuit. At that time, I was a disguised Jesuit; now you read in numerous writings, I am a Jew.

I only wanted to mention this at the end. In any case, I do not believe that anybody can draw the conclusion from this consideration, that I have belittled Thomism.

These considerations should show that the High Scholasticism of the thirteenth century was a climax of European intellectual development, and that the present time has reason to go into it. We can learn very much for deepening our thought life to overcome any nominalism, so that we find Christianity again by Christianising the ideas that penetrate into the spiritual being from which the human being must have originated, because only the consciousness of his spiritual origin can give him satisfaction.

As previously announced, I do not intend to give you a Theosophical lecture this evening, but rather a more or less purely philosophical lecture. And if any of our esteemed Theosophical listeners find that the matter is too philosophical and, shall we say, too difficult, I would ask you to bear in mind that I did not promise anything easy, but rather something philosophical for this afternoon.

The reason why I like to insert such an extraordinary lecture as this one is the following: It is not unfair to realize that in fact within our Theosophical consciousness, within our entire Theosophical worldview and the current zeitgeist, as it is practiced in the world – not as it is in its essence – there is far too little thoroughness, far too little conscientiousness, with regard to what can be called the thinking, the philosophical principle in the human soul.

Now anyone who wants to look more deeply into what Theosophy really is can see – and they will see it with every step they take into Theosophy, where it presents itself in its true form – that in the field of Theosophy nothing, absolutely nothing, is said that does not comply with philosophy, with scientific conscientiousness and intellectual thoroughness. Theosophy can be justified philosophically, scientifically, and logically in every respect. But Theosophy is not always cultivated and advocated with the necessary seriousness. Therefore, this lecture is intended as an admonition to have a sense of responsibility when speaking of the highest things that Theosophy has to say, as an admonition to have a sense of responsibility towards the intellectual, towards that which is called the scientific mind, the scientific spirit.

This is not to say that this scientific sense should be demanded of every follower of Theosophy; that would be going too far. Theosophy wants to be something that can penetrate into the hearts of the broadest masses of humanity, and with an unbiased sense of truth, it can always be received. But he who represents Theosophy under full responsibility must always be aware of the sense of scientific and intellectual conscientiousness envisaged here, in addition to all the other factors that come into play in the field of Theosophy.

From the wide range of material available to a theosophist, I would now like to give you a summarized overview of the inner principle of the development of modern philosophy, from Fichte to Schelling to Hegel. In doing so, we put ourselves in a position similar to that explained yesterday from a theosophical point of view, namely that with the philosophers Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, something significant for human spiritual development has been given, but which is not yet understood in our present time.

Those who are able to consider what was at stake in the grandiose intellectual struggle of this triumvirate of thinkers, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, are not in the least surprised. For the intellectual weapons that our present age produces and that are sufficient for the great, admirable achievements of natural science, these intellectual weapons are not sufficient to achieve what was at work in the minds of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel at the turn of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. And why should we be surprised at this? It can be fully justified and understood in terms of the history of philosophy.

If we want to understand Fichte, Schelling and Hegel in their position within the spiritual development of humanity, we must consider this development from its starting point with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. For anyone who sees into things, everything in between is of little importance for the spiritual development of humanity. If we look at the matter historically, we see how, in the Middle Ages, Catholicism assimilated philosophy in the spirit of the medieval world view. Aristotle, that great thinker of the pre-Christian era, had to be forgotten first, then remembered again and applied according to the method of medieval philosophy, the medieval world view. The compromise had to be reached: justification of spiritual revelation with the help of Aristotelianism. These two things were brought together in the Middle Ages by trying to do justice to both, by combining them in scholasticism; most decisively in Thomas Aquinas, who was called the Doctor Angelicus because he undertook the task of justifying the revelation of Christianity with the help of Aristotelianism.

The extent to which today's thinking is inadequate to the tasks of that time is best illustrated by the fact that one of the newer thinkers has completely misunderstood the matter. An understanding of Aristotelian thought is the prerequisite for understanding the philosophy of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. The theosophist need not be surprised. He can say to himself: It was necessary that in Christianity the decisive philosophy should speak differently than it did in the eighteenth century.

In particular, it is difficult to understand that Aristotle, in his psychology, gives a shadowy, because merely philosophical, reflection of what we encounter again in Theosophy. We are speaking, first of all, of the physical body. Aristotle begins only with the etheric body. He speaks of these things as one had to speak three to four centuries before the Christian era. What he calls “treptikon” is nothing other than what we call the etheric body, and what he calls “aestheticon” is nothing other than what we call the sentient body or astral body. Basically, it is quite the same. It is just that for Theosophy it is something grasped from the living intuition, while for Aristotle, it is something held in the realm of the shadowy, out of the logical philosophical tradition. Then he also has the “Erektikon”, what we call the sentient soul. Then the “Kinetikon”, the mind or soul of mind.

But there is one thing that is not found in Aristotelianism: there is no adequate expression for the consciousness soul. But how can you be surprised that you do not find it? In those days, thinking had not yet progressed and developed to such an extent that one could also speak of a consciousness soul. But it is only in the consciousness soul that the I comes to an inner, thinking perception of itself. At that time, one could not yet speak of the I as in more recent philosophy. Therefore, one had to speak of something else, of that which pours into the sentient soul and the mind soul from the outside, from the spiritual outside. What rules in it, what we today call the consciousness soul, can be found in the way that Aristotle looks up to the divine, which works into the human being from the outside and spiritualizes the two soul members, the sentient soul and the mind or feeling soul. Aristotle calls this the “nous”. What Aristotle calls the Nous is what was felt at that time as an external spirit. The Nous is experienced in two ways: in the sentient soul and in the mind or feeling soul, as a stimulator of the sentient soul (Nous poietikos), and as a stimulator of the mind or feeling soul (Nous pathetikos). Here we have something from the ancient traditions of the Greek mysteries that is coming to us again today from spiritual research.

Aristotle's psychology was then used in the Middle Ages to delve into Catholic truths of revelation. However, an actual teaching of the I, as it arises from the perception of the I in the consciousness soul, is not included in Aristotle's psychology. But it would be good for our present time if it were to take up a slightly different concept of Aristotle and incorporate it into its conceptual world. Our entire conceptual world lacks a concept that Aristotle had and which, if it were understood, would be enough to simply sweep away what modern Darwinism asserts with its natural philosophy.

Philosophy has lost this concept. Aristotle is aware that, in the case of humans, we are initially dealing with what we call the animal nature of man, and Aristotle certainly speaks of this animal nature of man and its similarity to the animal nature in the animal kingdom. However, Aristotle speaks differently of the animal nature of man than of the animal nature of animals. Aristotle certainly speaks of the soul in animals, but he is clear about the fact that although this soul of animals is still present in the entire human organization, it undergoes something there that it must undergo through the penetration of the animal soul with the Nous. And this penetration of the animal soul with the Nous is what Aristotle refers to with a term that has been little understood. This is evident from the way in which it has been translated in the usual philosophical histories and translations of Aristotle. . This is a concept that is extremely difficult to convey today because it has not been further developed. If we want to describe it, we can say something like the following would convey the concept: something of the soul is horrified by something higher, so that what happens to the animal soul through the nous of Aristotle is what one could call a horror, a conquest of the violence of the animal soul by the nous. But only through this is the human soul brought forth from the animal soul in a metamorphosis. And once this concept is grasped again, then one will indeed understand the relationship between the human and the animal in a corresponding way in terms of natural philosophy.

I have presented some of the ideas that were passed down philosophically throughout the Middle Ages and preserved into modern times and used to justify the Catholic Church's revelation. I have tried to characterize this with a few terms. These are only a few selected things. I wanted to pick this out because I wanted to give you an idea of the fact that it is not so easy to grasp the meaning of the Aristotelian concepts precisely and succinctly, since today's concepts no longer coincide with Aristotle's concepts. Even in the Middle Ages, the philosophers who understood him had the greatest difficulty in saving him from misunderstandings. While the Greek word nous was correctly translated as intellectus agens, the pantheistic philosophers of Arabism made the wildest leaps with concepts that can only be correctly interpreted if one sees their full significance for human nature and which are terribly distorted if one reads into them a nebulous pantheism.

If we now turn to the second epoch of philosophical development, as indicated, it can of course only be adequately characterized if we show the whole course of philosophical development from the first wrestling of Aristotle, then show how in German philosophy, in Leibniz and Wolff, a remarkable elaboration of this struggle came about, and how, in Kantianism, a skepticism arose out of opposition to Wolffianism. It would be necessary to show this if one wants to characterize the struggle of thought of Western humanity, if one wants to understand the triumvirate of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel from the perspective of German philosophy, if one wants to have an idea of what Fichte, Schelling and Hegel attempted philosophically at the turn of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. Fichte attempted to provide his philosophy of the ego out of Kantianism. However, anyone who studies the emergence of Fichteanism out of Kantianism sees that Kantianism was not the actual cause, but that the actual cause lay in Fichte's nature. Thus, I would like to characterize Fichteanism as a separate entity. In line with the now self-aware humanity, Fichte sets out to grasp the self. It is not easy to descend into this abyss. Therefore, do not think that it would ever occur to me to be harsh to those who do not understand Fichte and distort him. I understand every misunderstanding, I understand every objection, however many there may be, I understand Schopenhauer, who called Fichte a windbag and a charlatan. This can be somewhat understandable, because what one needs to understand Fichte is so infinitely deep and abysmal that one can always find it forgivable when misunderstandings arise.

Human thinking does not always behave logically towards the self, and in this regard one can sometimes encounter grandiose illogic in literature, especially in scientific literature. Even today we can see the most fantastic leaps being made where it is a matter of finding the transition from an assertion that the ego makes to the application of this assertion to the ego itself. That is the logical foundation that matters. The transition from an assertion that the ego makes to the application to the ego must be grasped. Take the old school example: a Cretan says: all Cretans are liars. — If all Cretans are liars, then it cannot be true. Therefore, what the speaker asserts can only be taken into consideration if he himself is excepted, if he is left out. The moment you apply an assertion that an ego makes to the ego itself, you can no longer even get by with formal logic. Only, all these things that are repeatedly mentioned are not understood. Where the transition is from an assertion of the ego to the ego itself, people do not realize that this is a leap.

There is a philosopher and psychologist who traces everything a person does out of desire and passion back to ordinary sensual urges, more or less. He has also written about suicides among students. He tries to show that it was not the reasons imagined by the student that drove him to suicide, but that the real reasons lie in sensual and sexual life. This philosopher and psychologist now differentiates between the motive for an action and the pretext for it in countless areas, and he says that the pretext can be something quite different from the motive, that the motive lies in the sensual life. If only this world view could realize how it appears when applied to itself, if one were to say to this psychologist: Your reasons, everything you use to prove your point, are mere pretexts. But if we look at your sensual life, at your sinful desires, we see the real motives for what you write. You have grossly characterized the transition that is not brought to consciousness.

I wanted to give you a rough example to show how people today actually have so little logic in their bodies that they do not understand the Cretan. That was an example of the lack of understanding of this sentence. I wanted to show that one enters into very special areas when one penetrates from the entire remaining sum of our world view to what is the content of our I.

But now Fichte said to himself: Within the consciousness that man has at first, nothing can actually live, there can be nothing of which man is aware without his ego being involved. Whatever objects enter this consciousness must first take hold of this ego, they must touch the ego in some way. Without the things, beings or whatever entering into a relationship with this ego, the ego cannot know anything at all of what appears in the field of vision of our consciousness. Fichte therefore said to himself: the ego must be everywhere present, therefore there is nothing that we can find within our consciousness, within our thinking organism, that can lie outside the ego. Thus, for Fichte, a thing like Kant's “thing in itself” is an un-concept. And it is easy to see that this thing in itself is an un-concept. One would have to try to imagine this thing in itself. So one should imagine that which lies outside of imagination. Can you imagine that which lies outside of your imagination? It is impossible to imagine that.

What I have said in a few words was what Fichte felt as a powerful impulse in his soul. Everything must be grasped by the tentacles of the ego, the ego is the great agent—and there can be nothing else within our experience—that must grasp everything. But then the question arises, and Fichte is aware of it: How is it that the ego constantly has things around it that it is clear it did not create itself? Nothing should enter the field of consciousness in which the ego is not involved. And yet the ego finds that there are a lot of things that it has not made. These are the fundamental points where Fichte has drawn attention to something that only modern theosophy can fully understand. He draws attention to this by saying: There is an activity of the ego that we usually overlook. In somnambulism, we have an activity that originates from the I but is not encompassed by conscious thinking. In somnambulism, we see an activity of the I that is more comprehensive, more all-encompassing than what one can initially grasp with the ordinary waking consciousness of the I. Fichte descends to an activity that is an activity of the ego but does not fall into the realm of thinking, and which can be imagined, while an 'ego in itself' cannot be imagined as it is an absurdity. But that which corresponds to the ego and is of the same nature as the ego activity is that which can also be grasped inwardly by the ego because it is of a nature more akin to the ego. Thus Fichte points to an external world of which the ego is aware that it did not make it, but in which it can still recognize itself as a comprehensive ego, as an absolute ego - in contrast to the relative ego - that it is part of this external world. In this way, Fichte points beyond the ego to the I. This is the great advance in the field of philosophy, and with this advance something has happened that goes beyond Cartesius, beyond the “cogito ergo sum”. The “cogito ergo sum” is something that proves the existence of the ego in thinking, whereas in Fichte's characterization, the existence of the ego arises from the will, and that is the essential thing. Everything that Fichte could muster of cognitive powers is compressed into the point of the ego. And that is why he was the one who could understand that everything in the world can be grasped starting from the ego.

What I have outlined here is what Fichte presented in Jena in 1793/94. If you want to understand his philosophical struggle in statu nascendi, the best way to do so is to take a look at the first version of his “Wissenschaftslehre” (Science of Knowledge), the 1794 edition, which still shows his entire philosophical struggle. Thus the philosophical horizon was established, so to speak, and the mind was raised to a certain height. The starting-point was there, the vanishing-point of the perspective was established.

The next person to stand at this point and attempt to sketch out a picture of the world was Schelling. Schelling did something that is quite understandable for anyone who can see into the essence of this matter, but which cannot be understood for our present time with the usual concepts. Schelling said to himself: Well, our great teacher Fichte — Schelling was his most brilliant student — has led us up to this point, but now the soul must be given content. Schelling had to go beyond the one-sided psychological understanding of the “I am”; he had to expand the “I am” into a world, as it were. He could only do this by showing that in the way one perceives the “I am”, one can perceive even more. He referred to the so-called “intellectual intuition”. What is this intellectual intuition? This so much misunderstood intellectual intuition is nothing more than the awareness that one can stand at the location of the “I am”, but does not have to remain there, but that one can see something that is perceived in the same way as the “I am”, and the content of this perception is present in intellectual intuition. This intellectual intuition has been very much denied.

Thus, in Schelling we have a knowledge of nature and spirit worked out in the manner of the knowledge of the ego. One must indeed have an organ for it if one wants to go into such things as those expounded by Schelling. This applies in particular to his thoughts about light. It is easy to refute everything that can be found in Schelling; it is much easier to refute him than to understand and justify him. It is the same with Hegel. It is easy to refute Hegel, but for those who want to understand Schelling and Hegel, the point is not to refute them, but to understand what they wanted. Hegel was a student of Fichte and a contemporary of Schelling. He tried, in his turn, to continue what emerged on the horizon to which Fichte had raised people, only in a different way than Schelling. Hegel did not allow for an intellectual view. He wanted to present what every person can find without an intellectual view, just by honestly and sincerely taking this point of view. It became clear to Hegel that everything that underlies a thing, a being, is given to us in the way of “I am”. Let us understand correctly what was going through Hegel's mind. He wondered why concepts and ideas should have any significance for the nature of things, correspond to any truth, if what we experience in our minds, what our minds go through in developing concepts, is not what things are originally based on, if that is not the objective way of things? So Hegel's point of view becomes one that must be characterized in such a way that one says: Man can initially approach things in such a way that he forms all kinds of opinions and thoughts about them, and then go from the opinions that he forms about external sensuality to the pure subject.

Hegel set down these thoughts in his monumental work “Phenomenology of Spirit”, published in 1807. This work was completed in 1806, at the moment when the cannon thunder of the Battle of Jena was heard around Jena. There Hegel was in Jena and wrote the last sentence. There Hegel knew how to find the way to such a point of view where everything subjective is no longer considered, where subject and object are no longer considered, but the spirit manifests itself everywhere in the objective course of things. In the ideas and concepts, the spirit has made itself identical with the inner course of things.

Those who cannot bring themselves to understand that these things must be understood in this way will not be able to understand Hegel's philosophy, Hegel's logic. For Hegel, it is a matter of excluding all “subjective reasoning”. You should not add anything to how one concept is linked to another, but rather let the concepts fit together, as they naturally grow out of one another and are linked to one another. It is a surrender to the structure of the conceptual world that Hegel's logic wants to be. How one concept develops from another is the essence of Hegelian dialectics.

To enter into Hegel's logic is to take on one of the most difficult endeavors of human thought. And that is why the usual result occurs when people tackle Hegel's logic: it is too difficult for them. And I can assure you: in the days before the critical edition of Hegel's works was published, when only the old Hegel edition was available, you could tell from the library that this edition had been read very little. The fruit of it could then be found in the lectures; the lecturers knew nothing. It is difficult to study Hegel's logic, but I would like to say a few words about what you get out of it if you study it. I can't give an overview of Hegel's philosophy today, but I can hint at what you get if you engage with it. If you have engaged with it, you have been educated to be rigorous in the application of concepts.

When you follow the steps from the abstract concept of being through the nothing, the becoming, the existence, through unity, number and measure in Hegel's logic, when you let all these concepts, which are strictly and organically structured in Hegel's logic, take effect on you, then you get into your soul that you say to yourself: Oh, how powerless much of what is said within humanity about spiritual things is. One learns to use the concept in the sense in which it really belongs in logic. That is what one gets used to through becoming acquainted with this logic. Consider how all kinds of concepts are used, picked up from our literary and scientific work. In the field of theology, something should be felt of this rigor in thinking. Here, the arbitrariness of “subjective reasoning” prevails the most, the arbitrariness of concepts that have been picked up here or there.

Hegel then moves on from the “Science of Logic” to what he calls natural philosophy. This has been much ridiculed, but little understood. If you look at things spiritually, you come from logic to natural philosophy. You should let the phenomena speak for themselves, no longer speculate, but let the phenomena express themselves as they are mirrored in the concept. Therefore, one cannot help but let nature itself speak. One must unfold the inner activity, just as one has unfolded it for logical dialectics. But this is a book with seven seals, and I can fully understand that Helmholtz – whom I admire as a natural scientist – when he read Hegel's natural philosophy, said: This is pure nonsense.

It is part of the process that one first acquires the conscientious logical-intellectual responsibility towards the spiritual facts, as one can develop it through Hegel's logic. Hegel has achieved many things that modern philosophy has no understanding for. The mechanical concepts into which one brings ordinary earthly events are to be used only for earthly processes in the sense of Hegel's natural philosophy; the finite mechanical concepts lose their meaning when we ascend to the regions of heaven. There Hegel moves from finite to absolute mechanics and shows in a thorough, astute manner how this is something completely different from what must be called Newtonian mechanics.

A great deal could be gained by wanting to understand Hegel. Of course, from the point of view of the time, his views are sometimes highly contestable, but even then one can be clear about how each individual point is meant. However, it must be clear that most of it was published from notes taken by students. I would therefore like to emphasize that from the outset one should bear in mind the principle that much of what is in it has been said differently by Hegel. Regarding what goes out into the world from notes, I can say that I myself have experienced what can come out of transcribed lectures! Nevertheless, anyone who is able to do so will recognize a great achievement in Hegel's natural philosophy.

From this outpouring of the spirit into the individual things of nature, Hegel then moves on to the spirit's return to itself. He distinguishes three areas: the “spirit in itself,” the beginning; the “spirit for itself,” the spirit that is spread out in nature and must be perceived for itself; and the “spirit in and for itself.” This is the actual philosophy of mind, the “philosophy of mind”.

From the field of political philosophy, Hegel particularly developed the philosophy of law. If you consider what has been achieved later, you can say that there is still much to be gained from this Hegelian philosophy of law. Hegel was a personality who had an intense Aristotelian sense and therefore wanted to understand everything in Aristotelian reasonability first. That is why he placed at the forefront of his philosophy of law the proposition that there is a rational starting point for all problems. It is easy to refute Hegel, even by action; someone need only do something stupid, and he has the refutation. But then you can see that Hegel is not interested in clever refutations. Hegel developed philosophy in the strictest, most disciplined thinking, and this discipline of thought can be acquired through Hegelism. It is also understandable that the height of this point of view cannot be grasped so easily. Therefore, it is understandable that the great, in many respects extraordinary poet Grillparzer, when he received Hegel's philosophy, was terribly horrified. He said:

“You may teach us the divine thinking prophetically,
but, my friend, you are surely destroying the human thinking.”

You can see that the spiritual things here are so elevated that great minds who do not understand Hegel can be excused. They need not be thought of as idiots. But it must be retorted that the greatest discipline can be found in Hegel's philosophy. The lack of this intellectual discipline can be found in all subsequent philosophers. It is painful for anyone who has a concept of this difficult thought activity to see the arbitrariness of scientific and especially philosophical literature. It is terrible what impossibilities are experienced by those who have been educated in Hegel. It is terrible what those who have studied the highest thought structures that Hegel has created must go through.

We can be sure that humanity will one day grasp what was presented yesterday in the theosophical lecture. Hegel will be forgotten, as Aristotle was. Hegel is forgotten today. What is presented today as a renewal of Hegelianism is a chapter we prefer not to talk about. Even if the intellectual struggles of the triumvirate of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel are forgotten today, the mind will have to be worked through with this intellectual struggle, just as in the Middle Ages Catholic Revelation was worked through with Aristotle. Hegel's philosophy is something that must be grasped from the starting point of our present into the near future. Those who have realized this can withstand all the devastating things that can come from the present, they can see that these devastating things are only the reverse side of what is emerging today as the future and how the seed of what must come is revealed in this reverse side.

It is truly distressing to see how quickly the level of thinking has fallen. It behoves the theosophist to cast his gaze on the fields of pure thinking. I would love to give lectures of this kind everywhere to establish a firm, secure basis for Theosophy, if only there were time and I could justify it to the necessity of Theosophy progressing more quickly.

When we approach the great theosophical truths that speak to the most fundamental human feelings, as given in spiritual science, we should be aware that we must not shirk rigorous thinking. We should be aware that there must be nothing theosophical that cannot stand up to the strictest scrutiny of a philosophical consciousness. We should make it our ideal not to say anything that cannot withstand the strictest necessity of reason.

1. Goethe and Modern Natural Science

[ 1 ] If it were not a person's duty to state the truth without reserve once he believes he has come to know it, the following exposition would certainly have remained unwritten. I have no doubts about the judgment that the specialists will pass on it, given the dominant trend in natural science today. One will regard it as someone's dilettantish attempt to speak for something upon which judgment has long since been passed by all “discerning” people. When I picture to myself the scorn of all those who consider themselves the only ones qualified today to speak on natural-scientific questions, I must admit to myself that there is nothing tempting, in any ordinary sense, about this undertaking. But I could not let myself be deterred by these anticipated objections. For I can raise all these objections myself and know therefore how poorly they stand up. It is not difficult, indeed, to think “scientifically” in the sense of modern natural science. Not too long ago, in fact, we experienced an interesting case in point. Eduard von Hartmann appeared with his Philosophy of the Unconscious. The gifted author of this book himself would be the last one today to deny its imperfections. But the direction of thought we encounter there is a penetrating one, which gets to the bottom of things. It therefore made a powerful impression on all those minds that had a need for deeper knowledge. But it ran counter to the paths of the natural scientists who were feeling their way along on the surface of things. They were all against the book. After various attacks from their side had proven rather ineffective, a book appeared by an anonymous author, The Unconscious from the Standpoint of Darwinism and the Theory of Evolution,⁷¹ which brought forward with the greatest possible critical acuity everything against the newly founded philosophy that could be said against it from the standpoint of modern natural science. This book caused a stir. The adherents of the current trend were satisfied by it to the highest degree. They publicly acknowledged that the author was one of them and proclaimed his views as their own. What a disillusionment they had to suffer! When the author actually revealed himself, it was Eduard v. Hartmann. This proved one thing convincingly, however: Ignorance about the findings of natural science, dilettantism, is not the reason why it is impossible for certain minds, who are striving for a deeper insight, to join that school of thought which wants to establish itself today as the dominant one. The reason, however, is their knowledge that this school is not on the right path. It is not difficult for philosophy hypothetically to take the standpoint of the present-day view of nature. In what he did, Eduard v. Hartmann showed this irrefutably to anyone who wants to see. I bring this as confirmation of my above assertion that it is also not difficult for me to raise the objections myself that someone else can make against what I bring.

[ 2 ] Indeed, anyone is considered a dilettante today who takes philosophical reflection about the essential being of things at all seriously. Having a world view is regarded as an idealistic quirk by our contemporaries of a “mechanical,” or even by those of a “positivistic,” persuasion. This view becomes understandable, to be sure, when one sees the helpless ignorance in which these positivistic thinkers find themselves when they make themselves heard on the subject of the “being of matter,” of “the limits of our knowing,” of “the nature of the atom,” or of other such things. In connection with these examples, one can make real studies of dilettantish treatment of decisive questions of science.

[ 3 ] One must have the courage to admit all this to oneself with respect to the natural science of the present day, in spite of the tremendous and remarkable achievements that this same natural science has to show in the realm of technology. For, these achievements have nothing to do with our real need for knowledge of nature. We have indeed experienced—precisely in those contemporaries to whom we owe inventions whose significance for the future we cannot for a long time even begin to imagine—that they lack a deeper scientific need. It is something entirely different to observe the processes of nature in order to place its forces in the service of technology, than to seek, with the help of these processes, to look more deeply into the being of natural science. True science is present only where the human spirit seeks to satisfy its needs, without any external purpose.

[ 4 ] True science, in the higher sense of the word, has to do only with ideal objects; it can only be idealism. For, it has its ultimate foundation in needs that stem from the human spirit. Nature awakens questions in us, problems that strive for solution. But nature cannot itself provide this solution. Through our capacity for knowledge a higher world confronts nature; and this fact creates higher demands. For a being who did not possess this higher nature, these problems would simply not arise. These questions can therefore also not receive an answer from any authority other than precisely this higher nature. Scientific questions are therefore essentially a matter that the human spirit has to settle with itself. They do not lead the human spirit out of its element. The realm, however, in which the human spirit lives and weaves as though within its primally own, is the idea, is the world of thoughts. To solve thought-questions with thought-answers is the scientific activity in the highest sense of the word. And all other scientific procedures are there, ultimately, only in order to serve this highest purpose. Take scientific observation, for example. It is supposed to lead us to knowledge of a law of nature. The law itself is purely ideal. The need to find a lawfulness holding sway behind the phenomena already stems from the human spirit. An unspiritual being would not have this need. Now let us proceed to the observation! What do we actually want to achieve by it? In response to the question created in our spirit, is something supposed to be provided from outside, by sense observation, that could be the answer to that question? Never. For why should we feel ourselves more satisfied by a second observation than by the first? If the human spirit were satisfied at all by an observed object, then it would have to be satisfied right away by the first. But the actual question is not at all one about any second observation, but rather about the ideal foundation of the observations. What does this observation admit as an ideal explanation; how must I think it so that it appears possible to me? Those are the questions that come to us with respect to the sense world. I must seek, out of the depths of my spirit itself, what I lack when confronted by the sense world. If I cannot create for myself the higher nature for which my spirit strives when confronted by sense-perceptible nature, then no power in the external world will create it for me. The results of science therefore can come only from the human spirit; thus they can only be ideas. No objections can be raised against this necessary reflection. The ideal character of all science, however, is established thereby.

[ 5 ] Modern natural science, in accordance with its whole being, cannot believe in the ideal character of knowledge. For, it does not regard the idea as that which is primary, most original, and creative, but rather as the final product of material processes. But in doing so, it is not at all aware of the fact that these material processes belong only to the sense-perceptible, observable world that, however, grasped more deeply, dissolves completely into idea. The process under consideration presents itself to observation, namely, in the following way: We perceive facts with our senses, facts that run their course according to the laws of mechanics, then phenomena of warmth, of light, of magnetism, of electricity, and finally of life processes, etc. At the highest level of life, we find that life raises itself up to the forming of concepts and ideas, whose bearer, in fact, is the human brain. We find our own “I” springing from just such a sphere of thoughts. The “I” seems to be the highest product of a complicated process that is mediated by a long series of physical, chemical, and organic occurrences. But if we investigate the ideal world of which the content of that “I” consists, we find in that world essentially more than merely the end product of that process. We find that the individual parts of that world are connected to each other in a completely different way than the parts of that merely observed process are. As one thought arises in us, which then demands a second, we find that there is an ideal connection between these two objects in an entirely different way than if I observe the colour of a substance, for example, as the result of a chemical agent. It is of course entirely obvious that the successive stages of the brain process have their source in organic metabolism, even though the brain process itself is the bearer of those thought-configurations. But the reason as to why the second thought follows from the first: this I do not find within this metabolism, but do indeed find within the logical thought-connection. Thus, in the world of thoughts, there holds sway, besides organic necessity, a higher ideal necessity. But this necessity, which the human spirit finds within its world of ideas, this it also seeks in the rest of the universe. For this necessity arises for us, indeed, only through the fact that we not only observe, but also think. Or in other words, the things no longer appear in a merely factual connection, but rather as joined by an inner, ideal necessity, if we grasp them not merely through observation but rather through thoughts.

[ 6 ] With respect to this, one cannot say: What good is it to grasp the phenomenal world in thoughts, when the things of this world perhaps do not, according to their nature, allow of any such grasp? Only someone who has not grasped the core of this whole matter can ask such a question. The world of thoughts rises up within our inner being; it confronts the objects observable to the senses; and then asks: What relationship does the world confronting me there have to myself? What is it with respect to me? I am here with all my ideal necessity, which hovers above everything transitory; I have the power within me to explain myself. But how do I explain what confronts me?

[ 7 ] It is here that a significant question is answered for us that Friedrich Theodore Vischer, for example, has raised repeatedly and declared to be the pivotal point of all philosophical reflection: the question as to the connection between the human spirit and nature. What kind of a relationship exists between these two things, which to us always appear separated from each other? If one asks this question correctly, then its answer is not as difficult as it appears to be. What meaning can this question actually have then? The question is not in fact asked by some being that stands above nature and human spirit as a third entity and which investigates that connection from this standpoint, but rather it is asked by one of the two beings themselves, by the human spirit. The latter asks: What connection exists between me and nature? But that again means nothing other than: How can I bring myself into a relationship with the nature confronting me? How can I express this relationship in accordance with the needs living in me? I live in ideas; what kind of an idea corresponds to nature; how can I express, as idea, that which I behold as nature? It is as though we have often obstructed our own path to a satisfactory answer by putting the question wrongly. A correct question, however, is already half an answer.

[ 8 ] The human spirit seeks everywhere to go beyond the succession of facts, as mere observation provides him with them, and to penetrate to the ideas of the things. Science, indeed, begins at the place where thinking begins. In the findings of science there lies, in the form of ideal necessity, that which appears to the senses only as a succession of facts. These findings only seem to be the final product of the process described above; the truth is that they are that which we must regard, in the whole universe, as the foundation of everything. Where these findings then appear for observation is a matter of indifference; for, as we have seen, their significance does not in fact depend upon that. They spread the net of their ideal necessity out over the whole universe.

[ 9 ] No matter where we take our start, if we have enough spiritual power, we will finally meet up with the idea.

[ 10 ] Through the fact that modern physics completely fails to recognize this, it is led into a whole series of errors. I want to point to only one such error here, as an example.

[ 11 ] Let us take the definition of inertia, which in physics is usually included among the “general characteristics of bodies.” This is usually defined in the following way: Without an external cause, no body can change the state of motion in which it finds itself. This definition gives rise to the picture that the concept of a body, inert in itself, is abstracted from the world of phenomena. And John Stuart Mill, who nowhere goes into the matter itself, but who, for the sake of an arbitrary theory, stands everything on its head, would not hesitate for a moment also to explain the matter in this way. But this is after all completely incorrect. The concept of an inert body arises purely through a conceptual construction. In designating as “body” what has extension in space, I can picture to myself a kind of body whose changes stem from external influences, and a kind whose changes occur out of its own impulse. If I now find something in the outer world that corresponds to the concept I have formed of a “body which cannot change itself without an outer influence,” I then call this body inert or subject to the law of inertia. My concepts are not abstracted from the sense world, but rather are constructed freely out of the idea, and with their help I only first find my way rightly in the sense world. The above definition could only take this form: A body that out of itself cannot alter its state of motion is called an inert body. And when I have recognized a body to be of this kind, I can then apply to it everything that is connected with an inert body.

2. The “Archetypal Phenomenon”

[ 12 ] If we could follow the whole series of processes that occur with respect to some sense perception or other from the peripheral nerve endings of the sense organs all the way into the brain, we would in fact nowhere arrive at a point where the mechanical, chemical, and organic—in short, the temporal-spatial processes—end and that appears which we actually call sense perception; for example, the sensation of warmth, of light, of sound, etc. One cannot find a place where the causal motion supposedly goes over into its effect, the perception. But can we then speak at all of the two things as standing in a relationship of cause and effect?

[ 13 ] Let us just examine the facts, quite objectively. Let us assume that a particular sensation appears within our consciousness. It appears at the same time in such a way that it directs us to some object or other from which it stems. When I have the sensation “red,” I generally associate with it, by virtue of the content of this mental picture, a particular place, i.e., a location in space, or the surface of a thing, to which I ascribe what this sensation expresses. This is not the case only where, through an external influence, the sense organ itself responds in its own characteristic way, as when I have a sensation of light from a blow to the eye. Let us disregard such cases in which, what is more, the sensations never arise with their usual definiteness. As exceptions, they cannot in fact teach us about the nature of things. If I have the sensation “red” along with a particular location, then I am at first directed to something or other in the outer world as the bearer of this sensation. I can very well ask myself now what spatial-temporal processes are taking place in this thing while it is appearing to me as though possessed of the colour red. I shall then discover that mechanical, chemical, or other processes offer themselves as an answer to my question. I can go further now and investigate the processes that have occurred on the way from that thing to my sense organ to mediate the sensation of the colour “red” for me. There again, in fact, nothing other than processes of motion or electrical currents or chemical changes can present themselves to me as such mediators. The result would be the same for me if I could investigate the further mediation from the sense organ to the center of the brain. What is mediated on this whole path is the perception “red” that we are discussing. How this perception manifests in a particular thing lying on the path from the stimulus to the perception depends solely upon the nature of this thing. The sensation is present at every point, from the stimulator to the brain, but not as such, not explicitly, but rather in a way corresponding to the nature of the object existing at each point.

[ 14 ] A truth results from this, however, that is qualified to shed light upon the entire theoretical foundation of physics and physiology. What do I experience from the investigation of a thing caught up in a process that appears in my consciousness as sensation? I experience no more than the way that thing responds to the action which issues from the sensation, or, in other words the way a sensation expresses itself in some object or other of the spatial-temporal world. It is far from the truth to regard such a spatial-temporal process as the cause, as that which causes the sensation in me; something quite different is the correct view: The spatial-temporal process is the effect of the sensation within a thing that has extension in space and time. I could insert as many things as I wanted into the path from the stimulator to the organ of perception: only that will occur in each one of them that can occur in it by virtue of its nature. But it is still the sensation, therefore, that expresses itself in all these processes.

[ 15 ] One should therefore regard the longitudinal vibrations of the air in the mediating of sound or the hypothetical oscillation of the ether in the mediating of light to be nothing other than the way the sensations in question can appear in a medium that, in accordance with its nature, is capable only of rarification and densification or of oscillating motion, as the case may be. I cannot find the sensation as such in this world, because it simply cannot be there. But in those processes I am absolutely not given what is objective about the processes of sensation, but rather a form of their manifestation.

[ 16 ] And now let us ask ourselves: What is the nature of those mediating processes themselves? Do we then investigate them by any means other than with the help of our senses? Can I in fact investigate my senses? Is the peripheral nerve ending, are the convolutions of the brain given to me by anything other than by sense perception? All this is both subjective and objective at the same time, if this distinction can be considered to be justified at all. Now we can grasp the matter still more exactly. By following the perception from its stimulus to the organ of perception, we are investigating nothing other than the continuous transition from one perception to the other. The “red” is present before us as that for whose sake we are undertaking the whole investigation at all. It directs us to its stimulator. In the latter we observe other sensations as connected with this “red.” These are processes of motion. The latter then appear as further processes of motion between the stimulator and the sense organ, and so on. But all of these are likewise perceived sensations. And they represent nothing more than a metamorphosis of processes that, insofar as they come into consideration at all for sense observation, break down entirely into perceptions.

[ 17 ] The perceived world is therefore nothing other than a sum total of metamorphosed perceptions.

[ 18 ] For the sake of convenience, we had to use an expression that cannot be brought into complete harmony with our present conclusions. We said that each thing which is inserted into the space between the stimulator and the organ of perception brings a sensation to expression in a way which is in accordance with the nature of that thing. But strictly speaking the thing is nothing more than the sum total of those processes as which it appears.

[ 19 ] The objection might now be raised that this kind of conclusion eliminates any enduring element in the ongoing world process, that we, like Heraclitus, are making the flux of things, in which nothing is abiding, the one and only world principle. Behind the phenomena, there must be a “thing-in-itself”; behind the changing world there must be an “enduring matter.” But let us in fact investigate more exactly what the case really is with this “enduring matter,” with what “endures amidst change.”

[ 20 ] When I confront my eye with a red surface, the sensation “red” arises in my consciousness. In connection with this sensation, we must now distinguish beginning, duration, and end. Over against the transitory sensation there supposedly now stands an enduring objective process that as such is itself objectively limited in time i.e.. has beginning, duration, and end. This process, however is supposedly occurring in connection with a matter that is without beginning or end, that is therefore indestructible, eternal. This matter is supposedly what actually endures within the changing processes. This conclusion would perhaps have some justification if the concept of time had been correctly applied to the sensation in the above manner. But must we not then distinguish strictly between the content of the sensation and the appearing of the sensation? In my perception, to be sure, they are one and the same. For, the content of the sensation must after all be present in the perception or the sensation would otherwise not come into consideration for me at all. But is it not a matter of complete indifference for this content, taken purely as such, that it enters my consciousness now at this particular moment and then, after so and so many seconds, leaves it again? That which constitutes the content of the sensation, i.e., that which alone comes objectively into consideration, does not depend at all upon that. But now that which is a matter of complete indifference to the content of something cannot, after all, be regarded as an essential determining factor for the existence of that something.

[ 21 ] But our application of the time-concept is also not correct for an objective process that has a beginning and an end. When a new characteristic arises in a particular thing, maintains itself for a time in different states of development, and then disappears again, there also we must regard the content of this characteristic as what is essential. And what is essential has absolutely nothing as such to do with the concepts of beginning, duration, and end. By “essential” we mean that by which a thing actually is precisely what it presents itself to be. What matters is not the fact that something arises at a certain moment in time, but rather what arises. The sum total of all the traits expressed by this “what” makes up the content of the world. But this “what” exists in the most manifold traits, in the most diverse forms. All these forms are in a relationship to each other; they determine each other reciprocally. Through this, they enter into a relationship of separation according to space and time. But it is only to a completely mistaken understanding of the concept of time that the concept of matter owes its existence. One believes that one would rarefy the world into a semblance without being, if one did not picture, as underlying the changeable sum total of occurrences, something that endures in time, something unchangeable, that abides while its traits are varying. But time is not after all a container within which the changes occur; it is not there before the things are, nor outside of them. Time is the sense-perceptible expression of the situation that the facts, in their content, are mutually dependent upon each other sequentially. Let us imagine we have to do with the perceivable complex of facts \(a_1\), \(b_1\), \(c_1\), \(d_1\), and \(e_1\). Another complex, \(a_2\), \(b_2\), \(c_2\), \(d_2\), and \(e_2\), depends with inner necessity upon the first complex; I understand the content of the second complex when I derive it ideally from the first one. Now let us imagine that both complexes make their appearance. For, what we discussed earlier is the entirely non-temporal and non-spatial essential being (Wesen) of these complexes. If \(a_2\), \(b_2\), \(c_2\), \(d_2\), and \(e_2\) is to come to outer manifestation, then \(a_l\), \(b_1\), \(c_1\), \(d_1\), and \(e_1\) must likewise be outer phenomena, in such a way, in fact, that \(a_2\), \(b_2\), \(c_2\), \(d_2\), and \(e_2\) also appear in their dependency upon the first complex. This means that the phenomenon \(a_l\), \(b_1\), \(c_1\), \(d_1\), and \(e_1\) must be there and make room for the phenomenon \(a_2\), \(b_2\), \(c_2\), \(d_2\), and \(e_2\) to appear. We see here that time first arises where the essential being of something comes to outer manifestation (Erscheinung). Time belongs to the phenomenal world. It does not yet have anything to do with the essential being itself. This essential being can only be grasped ideally. Only someone who cannot manage, in his train of thought, to go back from the phenomenon to the essential being will hypothesize time as something preceding the facts. Then, however, he needs a form of existence that endures beyond the changes. He conceives indestructible matter to be just such an existence. He has thereby created for himself a thing to which time supposedly can do nothing, something that abides amidst all change. Actually, however, he has only shown his inability to press forward, from the temporal phenomenon of the facts, to their essential being, which has nothing to do with time. Can I therefore say of the essential being of a fact that it arises or passes away? I can only say that one fact's content determines another and that this determining influence then appears as a sequence in time. The essential being of a thing cannot be destroyed; for, it is outside of all time and itself determines time. With this, we have shed light upon two concepts at the same time for which but little understanding is still to be found: upon essential being (Wesen) and outer manifestation (Erscheinung). Whoever grasps the matter correctly in our way cannot look for proof of the indestructibility of the essential being of something, because destruction includes within itself the time-concept, which has nothing to do with essential being.

[ 22 ] In the light of these discussions, we can say: The sense-perceptible world picture is the sum total of metamorphosing perceptual contents without an underlying matter.

[ 23 ] But our considerations have also shown us something else. We have seen that we cannot speak of a subjective character of perceptions. When we have a perception, we can follow the processes from the stimulator to our central organ: nowhere is there a point to be found where the jump can be demonstrated from the objectivity of the non-perceived to the subjectivity of the perception. This refutes the subjective character of the world of perception. The world of perception stands there as a content founded upon itself, which, for the moment, still has absolutely nothing to do with subject and object.

[ 24 ] Our discussion, of course, applies only to that concept of matter upon which physics bases its observations and which it identifies with the old, equally incorrect substance-concept of metaphysics. Matter, as the actually real element underlying phenomena, is one thing; matter, as phenomenon, as outer manifestation, is something else. Our exposition applies solely to the first concept. The second one remains untouched by it. For if I call what fills space “matter,” that is merely a word for a phenomenon to which no higher reality is ascribed than to other phenomena. I must only keep this character of matter always in mind.

[ 25 ] The world of what presents itself to us as perceptions—i.e., extension, motion, state of rest, force, light, warmth, colour, sound, electricity, etc.—this is the object of all science.

[ 26 ] If now the perceived world picture were of such a kind that, in the way it arises before us for our senses, it could express itself in accordance with its nature, unobscured; or in other words, if everything that arises in outer manifestation were a complete, undisturbed image of the inner being of things, then science would be the most unnecessary thing in the world. For, the task of knowledge would already be fully and totally fulfilled in the perception. Indeed, we would not then be able to differentiate at all between essential being and outer manifestation. The two would completely coincide as identical.

[ 27 ] This, however, is not the case. Let us imagine that element \(A\), contained in the factual world, stands in a certain relationship to element \(B\). Both elements, of course, according to our expositions, are nothing more than phenomena. Their relationship also comes to manifestation as a phenomenon. Let us call this phenomenon \(C\). What we can now determine within the factual world is the relationship of \(A\), \(B\), and \(C\). But now, besides \(A\), \(B\), and \(C\), there also exist infinitely many other such elements in the perceptible world. Let us take some fourth element or other \(D\); it enters in, and at once everything presents itself in a modified form. Instead of \(A\), in conjunction with \(B\), resulting in \(C\), an essentially different phenomenon, \(E\), will arise from the entering of \(D\).

[ 28 ] That is the important point. When we confront a phenomenon, we see it determined by many factors. We must seek out all the interrelationships if we are to understand the phenomenon. But these relationships differ from each other; some are more intimate, some more distant. The fact that a phenomenon \(E\) confronts me is due to other phenomena that are more intimately or more distantly related. Some are absolutely necessary if such a phenomenon is to arise at all; other phenomena, by their absence, would not at all keep such a phenomenon from arising, but do cause it to arise in precisely this or that way. We see from this that we must differentiate between necessary and coincidental determining factors of a phenomenon. Phenomena that arise in such a way that only the necessary determining factors bring them about can be called primary, and the others derivative. When, from their determining factors, we understand the primary phenomena, we can then also understand the derivative ones by adding new determining factors.

[ 29 ] Here the task of science becomes clear to us. It has to penetrate far enough through the phenomenal world to seek out the phenomena that are dependent only upon necessary determining factors. And the verbal-conceptual expression for such necessary relationships is laws of nature.

[ 30 ] When a person is confronting a sphere of phenomena, then, as soon as he has gone beyond mere description and registering of these, he must therefore first of all ascertain those elements which determine each other necessarily, and present them as archetypal phenomena. One must then add those determining factors which stand in a more distant relationship to those elements, in order to see how they modify those primary phenomena.

[ 31 ] This is the relationship of science to the phenomenal world: within the latter, the phenomena absolutely do arise as derivative ones and are therefore incomprehensible from the very beginning; in science, the archetypal phenomena arise in the forefront with the derivative ones following, whereby the whole connection becomes comprehensible. The system of science differentiates itself from the system of nature through the fact that in the system of science the interrelationships of the phenomena are ascertained by the intellect and are rendered comprehensible thereby. Science never has to bring something in addition to the phenomenal world, but rather has only to disclose the hidden interrelationships of this world. All use of the intellect must be limited only to this latter work. By taking recourse to something that does not manifest in order to explain the phenomena, the intellect and any scientific activity are exceeding their powers.

[ 32 ] Only someone who sees the absolute correctness of our findings can understand Goethe's colour theory. Any reflection about what a perception like light or colour might be in addition to the entity as which it manifests was completely foreign to Goethe's nature. For he knew what the powers of intellectual thinking were. Light was given to him as sensation. When he then wanted to explain the connection between light and colour, that could not occur through speculation, but only through an archetypal phenomenon, by his seeking out the necessary determining factor that must join light in order for colour to arise. Newton also saw colour arise in connection with light, but he then only thought speculatively about how colour arises out of light. It lay in his speculative way of thinking to do so; but not in Goethe's way of thinking, which was objective and rightly understood itself. Therefore, Newton's assumption that “light is composed of colored lights” had to appear to Goethe as the result of unrightful speculation. He considered himself justified only in expressing something about the connection between light and colour when some determining factor joins in, and not in expressing something about the light itself by bringing in a speculative concept. Therefore his statement: “Light is the simplest, most undivided, most homogeneous being that we know. It is not a composite.” Any statements about the composition of light are, indeed, only statements of the intellect about one phenomenon. The powers of the intellect, however, extend only to statements about the connection of phenomena.

[ 33 ] This reveals the deeper reason why Goethe, as he looked through the prism, could not accept Newton's theory. The prism would have had to be the first determining factor for the coming about of colour. But another determining factor, the presence of something dark, proved to be more primary to its coming about; the prism proved to be only the second determining factor.

[ 34 ] With this exposition, I believe I have removed any hindrances that might lie in the way of readers of Goethe's colour theory.

[ 35 ] If this difference between the two colour theories had not always been sought in two mutually contradictory forms of explanation that one then wanted simply to examine as to their validity, then the value of the Goethean colour theory, in all its great scientific significance, would have been recognized long ago. Only someone who is filled with such fundamentally wrong mental pictures—such as that, through intellectual thinking, one must go from the perceptions back to the cause of the perceptions—can still raise the question in the way present-day physics does. But someone who has really become clear about the fact that explaining the phenomena means nothing other than observing them in a connection established by the intellect must accept the Goethean colour theory in principle. For, it is the result of a correct way of looking at the relationship of our thinking to nature. Newton did not have this way of looking at things. Of course, it would not occur to me to want to defend every detail of the Goethean colour theory. It is only the principle that I want to uphold. But it can also not be my task here to derive from his principle the phenomena of colour theory that were still unknown in his day. If I should ever have the good fortune to possess the time and means for writing a colour theory in Goethe's sense that is entirely on the high level of modern achievements in natural science, that would be the only way to accomplish such a task. I would consider that as belonging to my finest life tasks. This introduction could extend only to the scientifically strict validation of Goethe's way of thinking in his colour theory. In what follows, light is also still to be shed upon the inner structure of this theory.

3. The System of Natural Science

[ 36 ] It could easily seem as though, in our investigations that attribute to thinking only a power whose goal is to connect perceptions, we ourselves were now calling into question the independent significance of concepts and ideas for which we stood so energetically at first.

[ 37 ] Only an inadequate interpretation of this investigation can lead to this view.

[ 38 ] What does thinking accomplish when it carries out the connecting of perceptions?

[ 39 ] Let us look at two perceptions \(A\) and \(B\). These are given to us at first as entities without concepts. I cannot, through any conceptual reflection, transform into something else the qualities given to my sense perception. I can also find no thought-quality by which I could construct what is given in sense-perceptible reality if I lacked the perception. I can never create a mental picture of the quality “red” for someone blind to red, even though I paraphrase it conceptually for him by every conceivable means. The sense-perception therefore has a something that never enters into the concept, that must be perceived if it is to become an object of our knowledge at all. What kind of a role does the concept play, therefore, that we connect with some sense perception or other? The concept must obviously bring to the perception a completely independent element, something new, which does belong to the sense perception, to be sure, but which does not come into view in the sense perception.

[ 40 ] But it is now certain, indeed, that this new “something” which the concept brings to the sense perception is that which first expresses what can meet our need for explanation. We are first able to understand some element or other in the sense world when we have a concept of it. We can always simply point to what sense-perceptible reality offers us, and anyone who has the possibility of perceiving precisely this element to which we are referring knows what it is all about. Through the concept, we are able to say something about the sense world that cannot be perceived.

[ 41 ] From this, however, the following immediately becomes clear. If the essential being of the sense perception consisted only in its sense-perceptible qualities, then something completely new, in the form of the concept, could not join it. The sense perception is therefore not a totality at all, but rather only one side of a totality. And it is that side, in fact, which can be merely looked upon. Through the concept it first becomes clear to us what we are looking at.

[ 42 ] What we developed methodologically in the previous chapter can now be expressed in terms of the significance of its content. Through our conceptual grasp of something given in the sense world, the “what” of that which is given to our view first comes to manifestation. We cannot express the content of what we look at, because this content consists only in the “how” of what we look at, i.e., in the form of its manifestation. Thus, in the concept, we find the “what,” the other content of that which is given in the sense world in an observed form.

[ 43 ] The world first gains its full content, therefore, in the concept. But now we have discovered that the concept points us beyond the individual phenomenon to the interrelationship of things. Thus that which appears in the sense world as separated, isolated, presents itself to the concept as a unified whole. And so our natural-scientific methodology gives rise to a monistic natural science as its final goal; but it is not an abstract monism that already presupposes the unity and then forcibly includes in it the individual facts of concrete existence, but rather it is a concrete monism that, piece by piece, shows that the seeming manifoldness of sense existence proves ultimately to be only an ideal unity. The multiplicity is only a form in which the unified world content expresses itself. The senses, which are not in a position to grasp this unified content, hold fast to the multiplicity; they are born pluralists. Thinking, however, overcomes the multiplicity and thus, through a long labour, returns to the unified world principle.

[ 44 ] The manner, now, in which the concept (the idea) expresses itself within the sense world constitutes the differences among the realms of nature. If a sense-perceptibly real entity attains only a kind of existence in which it stands totally outside the concept and is only governed in its transformations by the concept as by a law, then we call this entity inorganic. Everything that occurs with such an entity is to be traced back to the influences of another entity; and how the two act upon each other can be explained by a law standing outside them. In this sphere we have to do with phenomena and laws which, if they are primary, can be called archetypal phenomena. In this case, therefore, the conceptual element that is to be perceived stands outside of a perceived manifoldness.

[ 45 ] But a sense-perceptible unity itself, in fact, can point beyond itself; it can compel us, if we want to grasp it, to go on to further determining factors than to those perceptible to us. Then, what is conceptually graspable appears as a sense-perceptible unity. The two, concept and perception, are, indeed, not identical, but the concept does not appear outside the sense-perceptible manifoldness as a law, but rather within the manifoldness as a principle. The concept underlies the manifoldness as something that permeates it, as something that is no longer sense-perceptible, as something that we call typus. Organic natural science has to do with this.

[ 46 ] But here also the concept does not yet appear in the form particular to it as concept, but still only as typus. Where, now, the concept appears, not merely as typus, as permeating principle, but rather in its own conceptual form, there it appears as consciousness, there, there finally comes to manifestation that which is present at the lower stages only in essence. There the concept becomes a perception. We have to do with the self-conscious human being.

[ 47 ] Natural law, typus, and concept are the three forms in which the ideal element expresses itself. The natural law is abstract, standing over the sense-perceptible manifoldness; it governs inorganic natural science. Here idea and reality separate from each other completely. The typus already unites the two within one entity. The spiritual becomes an active entity, but does not yet act as such; it is not there as such, but rather, if it wants to be viewed in accordance with its existence, it must be looked at as something sense-perceptible. This is the situation in the realm of organic nature. The concept is present in a perceptible way. In human consciousness, it is the concept itself that is perceptible. The observed and the idea coincide. It is precisely the ideal element that is observed. Therefore, at this level, the ideal cores of existence of nature's lower levels can also come to manifestation. With human consciousness the possibility is given that what, at the lower levels of existence, merely is, but does not manifest, now becomes also manifesting reality.

4. The System of the Colour Theory

[ 48 ] Goethe worked at a time when human spirits were filled by a powerful striving for an absolute knowledge that would find its satisfaction within itself. Man's activity of knowing once again dared, with holy fervor, to investigate every means of knowledge in order to draw nearer to a solution of the highest questions. The period of oriental theosophy, the period of Plato and Aristotle, and then the period of Descartes and Spinoza are the representatives, in previous epochs of world history, of a similar inner deepening. Goethe is not thinkable without Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. If these thinkers possessed above all a vision into the depths and an eye for the highest, his gaze rested upon the things of immediate reality. But in his gaze there lies something of that depth itself. Goethe exercised this vision in looking at nature. The spirit of that time is poured out like a fluid over his contemplations of nature. Hence their power, which, in contemplating the details, always maintains the broad outlines. Goethe's science always goes after what is central.

[ 49 ] We can see this in Goethe's colour theory more than anywhere else. It alone, besides his attempts relative to the metamorphosis of the plant, was brought to a completed whole. And what a strictly complete system it does represent, such as is demanded by the nature of the thing itself!

[ 50 ] Let us now consider this edifice according to its inner structure.

[ 51 ] In order that something founded in the being of nature may come to manifestation, the necessary prerequisite is that a causal opportunity, an organ, be present in which this something can present itself. The eternal, iron laws of nature would, in fact, hold sway even if they never presented themselves within a human spirit, but their manifestation as such would not then be possible. They would then be present merely in essence and not in manifestation. This would also be the case with the world of light and colour if no perceiving eye confronted them. Colour, in its essential being, cannot be traced back in Schopenhauer's manner to the eye; but the possibility for colour to manifest must very definitely be shown to lie within the eye. The colour is not conditional upon the eye, but the eye is the cause of its manifestation.

[ 52 ] Here is where colour theory must therefore take its start. It must investigate the eye, must disclose its nature. This is why Goethe places physiological colour theory at the beginning. But even there his conception is essentially different from what one usually understands this part of optics to be. He does not want to explain the functions of the eye by its structure, but wants rather to observe the eye under various conditions in order to arrive at a knowledge of its capacities and abilities. Here also his procedure is essentially an observational one. What happens when light and darkness act upon the eye; what happens when defined images enter into relationship with it, etc.? He does not ask, to begin with, what processes occur within the eye when one or another perception comes about, but rather he seeks to fathom what can come about through the eye in the living act of seeing. For his purpose, that is to begin with the only important question. That other question does not belong, strictly speaking, to the realm of physiological colour theory, but rather to the science of the human organism, i.e., to general physiology. Goethe has to do with the eye only insofar as it sees, and not with the explanation of seeing that comes from the perceptions we can have of the dead eye.

[ 53 ] From there, he then goes over to the objective processes that bring about the phenomena of colors. And here it is important to bear in mind that Goethe, with these objective processes, is by no means thinking of hypothetical processes of matter or of motion that are no longer perceptible, but rather that he absolutely remains within the perceivable world. His physical colour theory, which constitutes the second part, seeks the conditions that are independent of the eye and are connected to the arising of the colors. But these conditions are still always perceptions. Here, with the help of the prism, of lenses, etc., he investigates how colors arise in connection with light. But for the time being, he does not go beyond tracing colour as such in its development and observing how, in itself, separated from objects, it arises.

[ 54 ] Only in a separate chapter on chemical colour theory does he go on to colors that are fixed, that are connected with objects. If, in the physiological colour theory, the question is answered as to how colors can come to manifestation at all, and, in the physical colour theory, the question as to how the colors come about under external conditions, so Goethe responds here to the problem of how the corporeal world manifests as colored.

[ 55 ] In this way, Goethe advances from contemplation of colour as an attribute of the phenomenal world to this world itself as manifesting with that attribute. He does not stop there, but goes on finally to contemplate the higher relationship of the colored corporeal world to the human soul in that chapter on “The sense-perceptible and moral Effect of Colour.” (“Sinnlichsittliche Wirkung der Farbe”)

[ 56 ] This is the strict, complete path of a science: from the subject as determining factor, back again to the subject as the being who satisfies himself in and with his world.

[ 57] Who will not recognize here again the impulse of the time—from subject to object and back into the subject again—that led Hegel to the architectonics of his whole system.

[ 58 ] In this sense then, the Sketch of a Colour Theory,⁷² appears as the actual optical main work of Goethe. The two essays, Contributions to Optics⁷³ and The Elements of Colour Theory⁷⁴ must be considered as preliminary studies. The Exposure of Newton's Theory⁷⁵ is only a polemical addition to his work.

5. The Goethean Concept of Space

[ 59 ] Since a complete understanding of Goethe's work in physics is possible only for someone with a view of space that is entirely consonant with his, let us describe this view here. Whoever wants to arrive at this view must have gained the following convictions from our considerations until now: 1. The things that confront us in experience as separate have an inner relationship to each other. They are, in truth, held together by a unified world bond. There lives in them all one common principle. 2. When our spirit approaches the things and strives to encompass what is separate with a spiritual bond, then the conceptual unity that our spirit establishes is not outside of the objects but rather is drawn from the inner being of nature itself. Human knowledge is not a process taking place outside of the things, not a process springing from mere subjective arbitrariness, but rather: what arises there in our spirit as a law of nature, what expresses itself within our soul, that is the heartbeat of the universe itself.

[ 60 ] For our present purposes, let us take under consideration the most external of all relationships that our spirit can establish between the objects of experience. Let us consider the simplest case in which experience summons us to a spiritual activity. Let us assume that two simple elements of the phenomenal world are given. In order not to complicate our investigation, let us take something as simple as possible—two luminous points, for example. Let us completely disregard the fact that in each of these luminous points themselves we perhaps have before us something that is already immensely complicated, that sets our spirit a task. Let us also disregard the quality of the concrete elements of the sense world we have before us, and take into consideration purely and simply the fact that we have before us two separate elements, i.e., two elements that appear to the senses as separated. Two factors, each of which is able to make an impression upon our senses—that is all we presuppose. Let us assume further that the existence of one of these factors does not exclude that of the other. One organ of perception can perceive both.

[ 61 ] If we assume, namely, that the existence of the one element is in any way dependent upon that of the other, we are then facing a different problem than our present one. If the existence of \(B\) is of such a kind that it excludes the existence of \(A\) and yet, in its being, is dependent upon it, then \(A\) and \(B\) must stand in a temporal relationship. For the dependency of \(B\) upon \(A\) requires—if one pictures to oneself at the same time that the existence of \(B\) excludes that of \(A\)—that \(A\) precedes \(B\). But that is a separate matter.

[ 62 ] For our present purposes, let us not assume any such relationship. Our presupposition is that the things with which we are dealing are not mutually exclusive in their existence, but rather are co-existing entities. When we disregard every relationship that their inner natures demand, then there remains only the fact that a relationship exists between the two separate qualities, that I can go from the one over to the other. I can move from the one element of experience over to the second one. No one can have any doubts about what kind of a relationship it is that I establish between things when I disregard their character and nature themselves. Whoever asks himself what transition can be found from one thing to another, if the thing itself remains a matter of indifference thereby, must absolutely give the answer: space. Every other connection must be based upon the qualitative character of that which appears as separate in world existence. Only space takes absolutely nothing else into consideration except the fact that the things are indeed separated. When I reflect that \(A\) is above and \(B\) is below, it is a matter of complete indifference to me what \(A\) and \(B\) are. I join no other mental picture to them at all other than that they are, indeed, separate factors of the world I grasp with my senses.

[ 63 ] What our spirit wants to do when it confronts experience is this: it wants to overcome the separateness; it wants to show that, within the particular thing, the power of the whole is to be seen. In its spatial view, the human spirit does not want to overcome anything else except the separateness as such. It wants to establish the most general relationship of all. What the spatial way of looking at things states is that A and B are not each a world in itself, but rather belong to something in common. That is what being beside one another (Nebeneinander) means. If each thing were an entity in itself, then there would be no being beside one another. I could not establish any relationship at all between one entity and another.

[ 64 ] Let us now investigate what else follows from this establishing of an outer relationship between two separate entities. I can think of two elements in only one way in this kind of relationship. I think of \(A\) as beside \(B\). I can now do the same thing with two other elements of the sense world, \(C\) and \(D\). I have thereby determined a concrete relationship between \(A\) and \(B\), and the same one between \(C\) and \(D\). Let us now entirely disregard the elements \(A\), \(B\), \(C\), and \(D\) and only relate the two concrete relationships to each other again. It is clear that I can relate these, as two particular entities, to each other in exactly the same way as I did with \(A\) and \(B\) themselves. What I am here relating to each other are concrete relationships. I can call them \(a\) and \(b\). If I now go a step further, I can again relate \(a\) and \(b\). But now I have already lost all particularity. When I look at \(a\), I no longer find any particular \(A\) and \(B\) that are being related to each other; and just as little when I look at \(b\). In both, I find nothing else at all except that a relationship was made. But this conclusion is exactly the same for \(a\) and for \(b\). What made it possible for me still to keep \(a\) and \(b\) apart was the fact that they pointed to \(A\), \(B\), \(C\), and \(D\). If I leave out its remaining elements of particularity and then relate only \(a\) and \(b\) to each other—i.e., relate together only the facts that relationships were being made at all (not the fact that something specific was being related)—then I have again arrived quite generally at the spatial relationship from which I took my start. I can go no further. I have achieved what I was striving for previously: space itself stands before my soul.

[ 65 ] Herein lies the secret of the three dimensions. In the first dimension I relate two concrete phenomenal elements of the sense world to each other; in the second dimension I relate these spatial relationships themselves to each other. I have established a relationship between relationships. I have stripped away the concrete phenomena; the concrete relationships remain for me. I now relate these themselves spatially to each other. This means: I entirely disregard the fact that these are concrete relationships; then, however, I must find exactly the same thing again in the second relationship that I found in the first. I establish relationships between similar entities. Now the possibility of relating ceases because the difference ceases.

[ 66 ] What I earlier took as the point of view for my considerations—the completely external relationship—I have now achieved again myself as a sense picture; from my spatial consideration, after I have carried out the operation three times, I have arrived at space, i.e., at my starting point.

[ 67 ] Therefore space can have only three dimensions. What we have undertaken here with respect to the mental picture of space is actually only a specific case of the method always employed by us when we confront things in observation. We regard concrete objects from one general point of view. Through this, we gain concepts about the particulars; we then regard these concepts themselves again from the same point of view, so that we then have before us any longer only the concepts of the concepts; if we still join these also, then they fuse into that ideal unity which cannot any longer be brought under one point of view with anything other than itself. Let us take a specific example. I become acquainted with two people, \(A\) and \(B\). I look at them from the point of view of friendship. In this case I will arrive at a quite specific concept, \(a\), of the friendship between the two people. I now look at two other people, \(C\) and \(D\), from the same point of view. I arrive at another concept, \(b\), of this friendship. Now I can go further and relate these two concepts of friendship to each other. What remains for me, when I disregard the concrete element I have gained, is the concept of friendship in general. But I can arrive at this in an even more real way, when I look at two other people, \(E\) and \(F\), from the same point of view, and likewise two people \(G\) and \(H\). In this, as in innumerable other cases, I can obtain the concept of friendship in general. But all these concepts, in their essential nature, are identical to each other; and when I look at them from the same point of view, it then turns out that I have found a unity. I have returned again to where I took my start.

[ 68 ] Space, therefore, is a view about things, a way in which our spirit draws them together into a unity. The three dimensions relate to each other thereby in the following way. The first dimension establishes a relationship between two sense perceptions. It is therefore a concrete mental picture. The second dimension relates two concrete mental pictures to each other and thus passes over into the region of abstraction. The third dimension, finally, establishes in addition only the ideal unity between the abstractions. It is therefore completely incorrect to take the three dimensions of space as though they were altogether of equal significance. The nature of the first dimension depends, of course, upon the perceived elements. But then the other two have a quite definite and different significance than this first one. Kant was quite wrong in his assumption when he conceived of space as the whole (totum), instead of as an entity conceptually determinable in itself.

[ 69 ] Now we have hitherto spoken of space as a relationship, a connection. But the question now arises: Is there then only this relationship of “being beside one another”? Or is there an absolute place-determination for every thing? This last question is of course not touched upon at all by our above explanations. But let us consider whether there is, indeed, any such place-relationship, any quite specific “there.” What am I actually indicating when I speak of such a “there”? Nothing else, in fact, than that I am referring to an object that is in immediate proximity to the actual object under consideration. “There” means in proximity to some object indicated by me. With this, however, the absolute place-indication is brought back to a space relationship. Our investigation is thus cancelled.

[ 70 ] Let us now raise the question quite definitely: According to the preceding investigations, what is space? Nothing more than a necessity, lying within the things, of overcoming their separateness in an entirely outer way and without entering into their nature, and of joining them into a unity, even though of just such an outer kind. Space is therefore a way of grasping the world as a unity. Space is an idea. Not, as Kant believed, an observation (Anschauung).

6. Goethe, Newton, and the Physicists

[ 71 ] As Goethe began his consideration of the being of colors, it was essentially an interest in art that brought him to it. His intuitive spirit soon recognized that the use of colour in painting is subject to a deep lawfulness. Wherein this lawfulness consisted he could not discover as long as he only moved about theoretically in the realm of painting, nor could trained painters give him any satisfactory information about this. These painters knew very well, in a practical sense, how to mix and apply the colors, but could not express themselves in concepts about the matter. When Goethe, then, was confronted in Italy not only by the most sublime works of art of this kind, but also by the most magnificent colors of nature, the urge awoke in him with special force to know the natural laws of the being of colour.

[ 72 ] Goethe himself, in the History of Colour Theory⁷⁶, gives a detailed account of the historical aspect. Let us deal here only with the psychological and factual aspects.

[ 73 ] Goethe's study of colour began right after his return from Italy. This study became particularly intensive in the years 1790 and 1791, and then occupied the poet continuously until the end of his life.

[ 74 ] We must picture to ourselves where the Goethean world view stood at this time, at the beginning of his study of colour. By this time he had already grasped his magnificent thoughts about the metamorphosis of organic entities. Through his discovery of the intermaxillary bone, a view had already arisen in him of the unity of all natural existence. Each individual thing appeared to him as a particular modification of the ideal principle that holds sway in the whole of nature. In his letters from Italy he had already stated that a plant is only a plant through the fact that it bears within itself the “idea of the plant.” This idea was something concrete for him; it was the unity, filled with spiritual content, in all particular plants. It could not be grasped by the bodily eyes, to be sure, but could very well be grasped by the eye of the spirit. Whoever can see it, sees it in every plant.

[ 75 ] Thus the whole realm of the plants and, with the further elaboration of this view, the whole realm of nature, in fact, appears as a unity that the human spirit can grasp.

[ 76 ] But no one is able to construct, from the idea alone, the manifoldness that arises before the outer senses. The intuitive spirit is able to know the idea. The particular configurations are accessible to him only when he directs his senses outward, when he observes, looks. The reason why a modification of the idea arises in sense-perceptible reality in precisely this and not in another way cannot be thought up, but rather must be sought in the realm of reality.

[ 77 ] This is Goethe's individual way of looking at things and can best be designated as empirical idealism. It can be summarized with the words: Underlying the things of a sense-perceptible manifoldness, insofar as they are of a similar kind, there is a spiritual unity that brings about their similar nature and relatedness.

[ 78 ] Taking his start from this point, Goethe was confronted by the question: What spiritual unity underlies the manifoldness of colour perceptions? What do I perceive in every modification of colour? And there it soon became clear to him that light is the necessary basis for every colour. No colour without light. But the colors are the modifications of light. And now he had to seek that element within reality that modifies, specializes the light. He found that this element is lightless matter, active darkness—in short, that which is the opposite of light. Thus each colour became for him light that is modified by darkness. It is completely incorrect to believe that with light Goethe meant the concrete sunlight that is usually called “white light.” Understanding of the Goethean colour theory is hindered only by the fact that one cannot free oneself from this picture of light and regards this sunlight, which is composed (zusammengesetzt) in such a complicated way, as the representative of light in itself. Light, as Goethe apprehends it, and as he contrasts it to darkness as its opposite, is a purely spiritual entity, is simply what all colour sensations have in common. Even though Goethe has nowhere clearly expressed this, still his whole colour theory is applied in such a way that it can only be interpreted thus. If he did experiment with sunlight in order to develop his theory, his only reason for doing so was that sunlight, in spite of its being the result of such complicated processes as those that occur in the body of the sun, does after all present itself to us as a unity that holds its parts within itself only in a state of abeyance. What we achieve for colour theory with the help of sunlight is after all only an approximation of reality, however. One cannot apprehend Goethe's theory to mean that, according to it, light and darkness are contained in an outwardly real way in every colour. No, it is rather that the outwardly real that confronts our eye is only a particular nuance of colour. Only the human spirit is able to take this sense-perceptible fact apart into two spiritual entities: light and non-light.

[ 79 ] The outer arrangements by which this occurs, the material processes in matter, are not affected in the least by this. That is a completely different matter. I am not disputing that a process of oscillation occurs in the ether while “red” arises before me. But what brings about a perception in an outwardly real way, has, as we have already shown, nothing at all to do with the essential nature of its content.

[ 80 ] Someone may object: But it can be proven that everything about the sensation is subjective and only the process of motion that underlies it really exists outside of our brain. Then one could not speak at all about a physical theory of perceptions, but only about a physical theory of the underlying processes of motion. The state of affairs with respect to this proof is about as follows: If someone in location A sends a telegram to me in location \(B\), then everything given into my hands as this telegram, without exception, has come into existence in \(B\). The telegraph operator is in B; he writes on paper that has never been in \(A\), with ink that has never been in \(A\); he himself does not know location \(A\) at all, and so on; in short, it can be proven that absolutely nothing from \(A\) has entered into what I now have before me. Accordingly, everything that comes from \(B\) is a matter of no significance for the content, for the essential nature, of the telegram; what matters to me is only communicated by \(B\). If I want to explain the essential nature of the content of the telegram, I must entirely disregard what comes from \(B\).

[ 81 ] The state of affairs is the same with respect to the world of the eye. Thinking consideration must encompass what is perceptible to the eye and must seek the interrelationships within this area. The material, spatial-temporal processes might be very important for the coming about of the perceptions; but they have nothing to do with the essential nature of perceptions.

[ 82 ] The state of affairs is the same with respect to the question often discussed today as to whether or not one and the same form of motion in the ether underlies the various phenomena of nature such as light, heat, electricity, etc. Hertz, for example, has shown recently that the transmission of electrical effects in space is subject to the same laws as the transmission of light effects. One can infer from this that waves, such as those that are the bearers of light, also underlie electricity. One has also already assumed before now, indeed, that within the solar spectrum only one kind of wave motion is active which, according to whether it falls upon reagents sensitive to heat, light, or chemicals, produces heat, light or chemical effects.

[ 83 ] But this is, in fact, clear from the very beginning. If one investigates what is occurring in that which has extension in space, while the entities we are discussing are being communicated, then one must arrive at a homogeneous motion. For, a medium in which only motion is possible, must react to everything with motion. And all the communicating that it must take over, it will also accomplish with motion. If I then investigate the forms of this motion, I do not then experience what the communicated element is, but rather how it was brought to me. It is simply nonsense to say that heat or light are motion. Motion is only the reaction to light of a matter that is capable of motion.

[ 84 ] Goethe himself had already heard of the wave theory and had seen nothing in it that could not be brought into harmony with his convictions about the essential nature of colour.

[ 85 ] One must only free oneself of the picture that, for Goethe, light and darkness are real entities, and regard them, rather, as mere principles, as spiritual entities; then one will gain a completely different view of his colour theory than one usually forms of it. If, as Newton does, one understands light to be only a mixture of all the colors, then any concept of the concrete entity “light” disappears. “Light” then evaporates completely into an empty general mental picture, to which nothing in reality corresponds. Such abstractions were foreign to the Goethean world view. For him every mental picture had to have a concrete content. But for him, the “concrete” did not cease with the “physical.”

[ 86 ] Modern physics actually has no concept at all for “light.” It knows only specific lights, colors, that in particular mixtures evoke the impression “white.” But even this “white” cannot be identified with light in itself. “White” is actually also nothing other than a mixed colour. Modern physics does not know “light” in the Goethean sense, any more than it knows “darkness.” Thus Goethe's colour theory moves in a realm that makes no contact at all with what the physicists determine conceptually. Physics simply does not know any of the basic concepts of the Goethean colour theory. Therefore, from its standpoint, it cannot judge this theory at all. Goethe, in fact, begins where physics ends.

[ 87 ] It demonstrates a completely superficial grasp of the matter when one speaks continuously of the relationship of Goethe to Newton and to modern physics, and in doing so is completely unaware of the fact that two entirely different ways of looking at the world are being indicated.

[ 88 ] We are convinced that someone who has grasped our expositions on the nature of sense impressions in the right sense can gain no other impression of the Goethean colour theory than the one described. To be sure, someone who does not accept these considerations of ours that prepare the ground will remain at the standpoint of physical optics and will therefore also reject Goethe's colour theory.

• 71. Das Unbewusste vom Standpunkte des Darwinismus und der Deszendenztheorie (1872)
• 72. Entwurf einer Farbenlehre
• 73. Beiträge zur Optik
• 74. Elemente der Farbenlehre
• 75. Enthüllungen der Theorie Newtons
• 76. Geschichte der Farbenlehre

[ 1 ] My father had been promised by the management of the Southern Railway that he would be assigned to a small station near Vienna as soon as I should have finished at the Realschule and should need to attend the Technische Hochschule. In this way it would be possible for me to go to Vienna and return every day. So it happened that my family came to Inzersdorf am Wiener Berge. The station was at a distance from the town, very lonely, and in unlovely natural surroundings. [ 2 ] My first visit to Vienna after we had moved to Inzersdorf was for the purpose of buying a greater number of philosophical books. What my heart was now especially devoted to was the first sketch of Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre.¹ I had got so far with my reading of Kant that I could form a notion, even though immature, of the advance which Fichte wished to make beyond Kant. But this did not greatly interest me. What interested me then was to express the living weaving of the human mind in a sharply outlined mental picture. My strivings after conceptions in natural science had finally brought me to see in the activity of the human ego the sole starting-point for true knowledge. When the ego is active and itself perceives this activity, man has something spiritual in immediate presence in his consciousness – thus I said to myself. It seemed to me that what was thus perceived ought now to be expressed in clear, vivid concepts. In order to find a way to do this, I devoted myself to Fichte's Theory of Science. And yet I had my own opinions. So I took the volume and rewrote it, page by page. This made a lengthy manuscript. I had previously striven to find conceptions for the phenomena of nature from which one might derive a conception of the ego. Now I wished to do the opposite: from the ego to penetrate into the nature's process of becoming. Spirit and nature were present before my soul in their absolute contrast. There was for me a world of spiritual beings. That the ego, which itself is spirit, lives in a world of spirits was for me a matter of direct perception. But nature would not pass over into this spirit-world of my experience.

[ 3 ] From my study of the Theory of Science I conceived a special interest in Fichte's treatises Über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten² and über das Wesen des Gelehrten.³ In these writings I found a sort of ideal toward which I myself would strive. Along with these I read also the Reden an die Deutsche Nation.⁴ This took hold of me much less at that time than Fichte's other works.

[ 4 ] But I wished now to come also to a better understanding of Kant than I had yet been able to attain. In the Critique of Pure Reason this understanding refused to be revealed to me. So I attacked the problem with the Prolegomena zu einer jeden Künftigen Metaphysik.⁵ Through this book I thought I recognized that a thorough penetration into all the questions which Kant had raised among thinkers was necessary for me. I now worked more consciously to the end that I might mould into the forms of thought the immediate vision of the spiritual world which I possessed. And while I was occupied with this inner work I sought to get my bearings with reference to the roads which had been taken by the thinkers of Kant's time and the succeeding epoch. I studied the dry, bald Transcendentalen Synthetismus⁶ of Traugott Krug just as eagerly as I entered into the tragedy of knowledge by which Fichte was possessed when he wrote his Bestimmung des Menschen.⁷ The history of philosophy by Thilo of the school of Herbart broadened my view of the evolution of philosophical thought from the period of Kant onward. I fought my way through to Schelling, to Hegel. The opposition between the thought of Herbart and of Fichte passed before my mind in all its intensity.

[ 5 ] The summer months of 1879, from the end of my Realschule period until my entrance into the Technische Hochschule, I spent entirely in such philosophical studies. In the autumn I was to decide my choice of studies with reference to my future career. I decided to prepare to teach in a Realschule. The study of mathematics and descriptive geometry would have suited my inclination. But I should have to give up the latter; for the study of this subject required a great many practice hours during the day in geometrical drawings, but in order to earn some money I had to have leisure to devote to tutoring. This was possible while attending lectures whose subject-matter, when it was necessary to be absent from lectures, could afterwards be taken up in readings, but not possible when one had to spend hours assigned for drawing regularly in the school.

[ 6 ] So I had myself enrolled for mathematics, natural history, and chemistry.

[ 7 ] Of special import for me, however, were the lectures which Karl Julius Schröer gave at that time in the Hochschule on German literature. He lectured during my first year on “Literature since Goethe” and “Schiller's Life and Work.” From the very first lecture he impressed me. He developed a survey of the life of the spirit in Germany in the second half of the eighteenth century and placed in dramatic contrast with this Goethe's first appearance and its effect upon this spiritual life. The warmth of his manner of treating the subject, the inspiring way in which he entered into the selections read from the poets, introduced us through an inner process into the nature of poetry.

[ 8 ] In connection with these lectures he had the habit of requiring “practice in oral and written lectures.” The students had then to deliver orally or read what they themselves had prepared. Schröer would give informal suggestions during these student performances as to style, manner of delivery, and the like. My first discussion dealt with Lessing's Laokoon. Then I undertook a longer paper. I worked up the theme: “To what extent is man in his actions a free being?” In connection with this paper I drew much upon Herbart's philosophy. Schröer did not like this at all. He had not shared in the enthusiasm for Herbart which then prevailed in Austria both in philosophical circles and also in pedagogy. He was devoted completely to Goethe's type of mind. So everything which was derived from Herbart seemed to him pedantic and prosaic, although he recognized the discipline of thought to be had from this philosopher.

[ 9 ] I was now able to attend also certain lectures at the university. I took great satisfaction in the Herbartian, Robert Zimmermann. He lectured on “Practical Philosophy.” I attended that part of his lectures in which he developed the ground principles of ethics. I alternated, generally attending his lecture one day and the next that of Franz Brentano, who at the same period lectured on the same field. I could not keep this up very long, for I missed too much of the courses in the Hochschule.

[ 10 ] I was deeply impressed by learning philosophy in this way, not merely out of books, but from the lips of the philosophers themselves.

[ 11 ] Robert Zimmermann was a notable personality. He had an extraordinarily high forehead and a long philosopher's beard. With him everything was measured, reduced to style. When he entered through the door and mounted to his seat, his steps seemed to be studied, and all the more so because one felt: “With this man it is obviously natural to be like that.” In posture and movement he was as if he had formed himself thus through long discipline according to the aesthetic principles of Herbart. And yet one could entirely sympathize with all this. He then slowly sat down on the chair, cast a long glance through his spectacles over the auditorium, then slowly and precisely took off his glasses, looked once more for a long time without spectacles over the circle of auditors, and finally began to lecture, without manuscript but in carefully formed, artistically spoken sentences. There was something classic in his speech. Yet, owing to the long periods, one easily lost the thread of his discourse. He expounded Herbart's philosophy in a somewhat modified form. The close logic of his teaching impressed me. But it did not impress the other hearers. During the first three or four periods the great hall in which he lectured was full. “Practical Philosophy” was required for the law students in the first year. They needed the signature of the professor on their cards. From the fifth or sixth lecture on, most of them stayed away; while one listened to the classical philosopher, one was in a very small group of auditors on the farthest benches.

[ 12 ] To me these lectures afforded a powerful stimulus, and the difference between the views of Schröer and Zimmermann interested me deeply. The little time I did not spend in attendance at lectures or in tutoring I utilized either in the Hofbibliothek⁸ or the library of the Hochschule. Then for the first time I read Goethe's Faust. In truth, until my nineteenth year, when I was inspired by Schröer, I had never been drawn to this work. Then, however, it won a strong claim upon my interest. Schröer had already begun his lectures on the first part. It happened that after only a few of the lectures I became better acquainted with Schröer. He then often took me to his home, told me this or that in amplification of his lectures, gladly answered my questions, and sent me away with a book from his library, which he lent me to read. In addition he said many things about the second part of Faust, an annotated edition of which he was already preparing. This part also I read at that time.

[ 13 ] In the library I spent my time on Herbart's metaphysics through Zimmermann's Aesthetic als Formwissenschaft⁹ which was written from Herbart's point of view. Together with this I made a thorough study of Haeckel's Generelle Morphologie.¹⁰ I may say that everything which I felt to be entering into me through the lectures of Schröer and Zimmermann, as well as the reading I have mentioned, became a matter of the deepest mental experience. Riddles of knowledge and of world conception shaped themselves within me from these things.

[ 14 ] Schröer was a spirit who cared nothing for system. He thought and spoke out of a certain intuition. Besides, he gave the greatest possible care to the manner in which he clothed his views in language. For this reason he almost never lectured without manuscript. He needed to write things down undisturbed in order himself to give the requisite attention to the bodying forth of this thought in appropriate words. Then he read a lecture in such a way as to bring into prominence its true inner meaning. Yet once he spoke extemporaneously about Anastasius Grün and Lenau. He had forgotten his manuscript. In the next period, however, he treated the whole topic again, reading from his manuscript. He was not satisfied with the form he had been able to give to the matter extemporé.

[ 15 ] From Schröer I learned to understand many concrete examples of beauty. Through Zimmermann there came to me a developed theory of beauty. The two did not agree well. Schröer, the intuitive personality with a certain scorn for the systematic, stood before my mind side by side with Zimmermann, the rigidly systematic theorist of beauty.

[ 16 ] Franz Brentano, whose lectures also on “Practical Philosophy” I attended, particularly interested me through his personality. He was a keen thinker and at the same time given to reverie. In his manner of lecturing there was something ceremonious. I listened to what he said, but I had also to observe every glance, every movement of his head, every gesture of his expressive hands. He was the perfect logician. Each thought must be absolutely complete and linked up with many other thoughts. The forms of these thought-series were determined by the most scrupulous attention to the requirements of logic. But I had the feeling that these thoughts did not come forth from the loom of his own mind; never did they penetrate into reality. And such also was the whole attitude of Brentano. He held the manuscript loosely in his hand as if at any moment it might slip from his fingers; with his glance he merely skimmed along the lines. And this was the action suited to a merely superficial touch upon reality, not for a firm grasp of it. I could understand his philosophy better from his “philosopher's hands” than from his words.

[ 17 ] The stimulus which came from Brentano worked strongly upon me. I soon began to study his writings, and in the course of the following years read most of what he had published.

[ 18 ] I felt in duty bound at that time to seek through philosophy for the truth. I had to study mathematics and natural science. I was convinced that I should find no relationship between these and myself unless I could place under them a solid foundation of philosophy. But I perceived a spiritual world, none the less, as a reality. In clear vision the spiritual individuality of every one revealed itself to me. This found in the physical body and in action in the physical world merely its manifestation. It united itself with that which came down as a physical germ from the parents. Dead men I followed farther on their way in the spiritual world. After the death of a schoolmate I wrote about this phase of my spiritual life to one of my former teachers, who had been a close friend of mine during my Realschule days. He wrote back to me with unusual affection; but he did not deign to say one word about what I had written regarding the dead schoolmate.

[ 19 ] And this is what happened to me always at that time in this manner of my perception of the spiritual world. No one would pay any attention to it. From all directions persons would come with all sorts of spiritistic stuff. With this I in turn would have nothing to do. It was distasteful to me to approach the spiritual in such a way.

[ 20 ] It then chanced that I became acquainted with a simple man of the plain people. Every week he went to Vienna by the same train that I took. He gathered medicinal plants in the country and sold them to apothecaries in Vienna. We became friends. With him it was possible to talk about the spiritual world as with one who had his own experience therein. He was a personality of inner piety. He was quite without schooling. He had read very many mystical books, but what he said was not at all influenced by this reading. It was the outflowing of a spiritual life which was marked by its own quite elementary creative wisdom. It was easy to perceive that he read these books only because he wished to find in others what he knew for himself. He revealed himself as if he, as a personality, were only the mouthpiece for a spiritual content which desired to utter itself out of hidden fountains. When one was with him one could get a glimpse deep into the secrets of nature. He carried on his back his bundle of medicinal plants; but in his heart he bore results which he had won from the spirituality of nature in the gathering of these herbs. I have seen many a man smile who now and then chanced to make a third party while I walked through the streets of Vienna with this “initiate.” No wonder; for his manner of expression was not to be understood at once. One had first in a certain sense to learn his spiritual dialect. To me also it was at first unintelligible. But from our first acquaintance I was in the deepest sympathy with him. And so I gradually came to feel as if I were in company with a soul of the most ancient times who – quite unaffected by the civilization, science, and general conceptions of the present age – brought to me an instinctive knowledge of earlier eras.

[ 21 ] According to the usual conception of “learning,” one might say that it would be impossible to “learn” anything from this man. But, if one possessed in oneself a perception of the spiritual world, one might obtain glimpses very deep into this world through another who had a firm footing there. [ 22 ] Moreover, anything of the nature of mere dreams was utterly foreign to this personality. When one entered his home, one was in the midst of the most sober and simplest family of country folk. Above the entrance to his home were the words: “With the blessing of God, all things are good.” One was entertained just as by other village people. I always had to drink coffee there, not from a cup, but from a porridge bowl¹¹ which held nearly a litre; with this I had to eat a piece of bread of enormous dimensions. Nor did the villagers by any means look upon the man as a dreamer. There was no occasion for jesting at his behaviour in his village. Besides, he possessed a sound, wholesome humour, and knew how to chat, whenever he met with young or old of the village folk, in such fashion that the people liked to hear him talk. There was no one who smiled like those persons that watched him and me going together through the streets of Vienna, and these persons simply perceived in him some thing quite foreign to themselves.

This man always continued to be, even after life had taken me again far away from him, very close to me in soul. He appears in my mystery plays in the person of Felix Balde.

[ 23 ] It was no light matter for my mental life at that time that the philosophy which I learned from others could not in its thought be carried all the way to the perception of the spiritual world. Because of the difficulty that I experienced in this respect, I began to fashion a form of “theory of knowledge” within myself. The life of thought in men came gradually to seem to me the reflection radiated into physical man from that which I experienced in the spiritual world. Thought experience was to me the thing itself with a reality into which – as something actually experienced through and through – doubt could find no entrance. The world of the senses did not seem to me so completely a matter of experience. It is there; but one does not lay hold upon it as upon thought. In it or behind it there might be an unknown reality concealed. Yet man himself is set in the midst of this world. Therefore, the question arises: Is this world, then, a reality complete in itself? When man from within weaves into this world of the senses the thoughts which bring light into this world, does he then bring into this world something foreign to it? This does not accord at all with the experience that man has when the world of the senses stands before him and he breaks into it by means of his thought. Thought then appears to be that by means of which the world of the senses expresses its own nature. The further development of this reflection was at that time a weighty part of my inner life.

[ 24 ] But I wished to be prudent. To follow a course of thought too hastily to the extent of building up a philosophical view of one's own appeared to me a risky thing. This drove me to a thorough-going study of Hegel. The manner in which this philosopher set forth the reality of thought was distressing to me. That he made his way through only to a thought world, even though a living thought-world, and not to the perception of a world of concrete spirit – this repelled me. The assurance with which one philosophizes when one advances from thought to thought drew me on. I saw that many persons felt there was a difference between experience and thought. To me thought itself was experience, but of such a nature that one lived in it, not such that it entered from without into men. And so for a long time Hegel was very helpful to me.

[ 25 ] As to my required studies, which in the midst of these philosophical interests had naturally to be cramped for time, it was fortunate for me that I had already occupied myself a great deal with differential and integral calculus and with analytical geometry. Because of this I could remain away from many lectures in mathematics without losing my connection. Mathematics was very important for me as the foundation under all my strivings after knowledge. In mathematics there is afforded a system of percepts and concepts which have been reached independently of any external sense impressions. And yet, said I to myself constantly at that time, one carries over these perceptions and concepts into sense-reality and discovers its laws. Through mathematics one learns to understand the world, and yet in order to do this one must first evoke mathematics out of the human mind.

[ 26 ] A decisive experience came to me just at that time from the side of mathematics. The conception of space gave me the greatest inner difficulty. As the illimitable, all-encompassing vacuity – the form in which it lay at the basis of the dominant theories of natural science – it could not be conceived in any definite manner. Through the more recent (synthetic) geometry, which I learned by means of lectures and in private study, there came into my mind the perception that a line which should be prolonged endlessly toward the right hand would return again from the left to its starting-point. The infinitely distant point on the right is the same as the point infinitely distant on the left.

[ 27 ] It came over me that by means of such conceptions of the newer geometry one might form a conception of space, which otherwise remained fixed in vacuity. The straight line returning upon itself like a circle seemed to be a revelation. I left the lecture at which this had first passed before my mind as if a great load had fallen from me. A feeling of liberation came over me. Again, as in my early boyhood, something satisfying had come to me out of geometry.

[ 28 ] Behind the riddle of space stood at that period of my life the riddle of time. Might a conception be possible here also which would contain within itself in idea a return out of the past by way of an advance into the infinitely distant future? My happiness over the space conception caused a profound unrest over that of time. But there was then visible no way out. All efforts of thought led only to the realization that I must beware especially of applying the clear conception of space to the problem of time. All clarification which the striving for understanding could bring was frustrated by the riddle of time. [ 29 ] The stimulus which I had received from Zimmermann toward the study of aesthetics led me to read the writings of the famous specialist in aesthetics of that time, Friedrich Theodor Vischer. I found in a passage of his work a reference to the fact that more recent scientific thought rendered necessary a change in the conception of time. There was always a sense of joy aroused in me when I found in others the recognition of any cognitional need which I had conceived. In this case it was like a confirmation in my struggle toward a satisfying concept of time.

[ 30 ] The lectures for which I was enrolled in the Technische Hochschule I always had to finish with a corresponding examination. For a scholarship had been granted me, and I could draw my allowance only when I showed each year the results of my studies. [ 31 ] But my need for understanding, especially in the sphere of natural science, was but little aided by these required studies. It was possible then, however, in the technical institutes of Vienna both to attend lectures as a visitor and also to carry on practical courses. I found everywhere those who met me half-way when I sought thus to foster my scientific life, even so far as to the study of medicine.

[ 32 ] I may state positively that I never allowed my insight into the spiritual world to become a disturbing factor when I was engaged in the endeavour to understand science as it was then developed. I applied myself to what was taught, and only in the background of my thought did I have the hope that some day the blending of natural science with the knowledge of the spirit would be granted me.

Only from two sides was I disturbed in this hope.

[ 33 ] The sciences of organic nature were then – wherever I could lay hold of them – steeped in Darwinian ideas. To me Darwinism appeared in its leading ideas as scientifically impossible. I had little by little reached the stage of forming for myself a conception of the inner man. This was of a spiritual sort. And this inner man I thought of as a member of the spiritual world. He was conceived as dipping down out of the spiritual world into nature, uniting with the organism of nature in order thereby to perceive and to act in the world of the senses.

[ 34 ] The fact that I felt a certain respect for the course of thought characterizing the evolutionary theory of organisms did not render it possible for me to sacrifice anything from the conception. The derivation of higher out of lower organisms seemed to me a fruitful idea, but the identification of this idea with that which I knew as the spiritual world appeared to me immeasurably difficult.

[ 35 ] The studies in physics were penetrated throughout by the mechanical theory of heat and the wave theory of the phenomena of light and colour.

[ 36] The study of the mechanical theory of heat had taken on for me the charm of a personal colouring because in this field of physics I attended lectures by a personality for whom I felt quite extraordinary respect. This was Edmund Reitlinger, the author of that beautiful book, Freie Blicke.¹²

[ 37 ] This man was of the most captivating lovableness. When I became his student, he was already very seriously ill with tuberculosis. For two years I attended his lectures on the theory of heat, physics for chemists, and the history of physics. I worked under him in the physics laboratory in many fields, especially in that of spectrum-analysis.

[ 38 ] Of special importance for me were Reitlinger's lectures on the history of physics. He spoke in such a way that one felt that, on account of his illness, every word was a burden to him. And yet his lectures were in the best possible sense inspiring. He was a man of a strongly inductive method of research. For all methods in physics he liked to cite the book of Whewel on inductive science. Newton marked for him the climax of research in physics. The history of physics he set forth in two parts: the first from the earliest times to Newton; the second from Newton to recent times. He was an universal thinker. From the historical consideration of problems in physics he always passed over to the perspective of the general history of culture. Indeed, quite general philosophic ideas would appear in his discussions of physics. In this way he treated the problems of optimism and pessimism, and spoke most impressively about the legitimacy of setting up scientific hypotheses. His exposition of Kepler, his characterization of Julius Robert Mayers, were masterpieces of scientific discussion.

[ 39 ] I was then stimulated to read almost all the writings of Julius Robert Mayers, and I was able to experience the truly great pleasure of talking face to face with Reitlinger about the content of these.

[ 40 ] I was filled with a deep sorrow when, only a few weeks after I had passed my final examination on the mechanical theory of heat under Reitlinger, my beloved teacher succumbed to his grievous illness. Just a short while before his death he had given me as his legacy a testimonial of personal qualifications which would enable me to secure pupils for private tutoring. This had most fortunate results. No small part of what came to me in the following years as means of livelihood I owed to Reitlinger after his death.

[ 41 ] Through the mechanical theory of heat and the wave theory of light and of electric phenomena, I was impelled to a study of theories of cognition. At that time the external physical world was conceived as motion-events in matter. The sensations appeared to be only subjective experiences, as the effects of pure motion-events upon the senses of men. Out there in space occurred the motion-events in matter; if these events affected the human heat-sense, man experienced the sensation of heat. There are outside of man wave-events in the ether; if these affect the optic nerve, light and colour sensations are generated within man.

[ 42 ] These conceptions met me everywhere. They caused me unspeakable difficulties in my thinking. They banished all spirit from the objective external world. Before my mind there stood the idea that even if the observations of natural phenomena led to such opinions, one who possessed a perception of the spiritual world could not arrive at these opinions. I saw how seductive these assumptions were for the manner of thought of that time, educated in the natural sciences, and yet I could not then resolve to oppose a manner of thought of my own against that which then prevailed. But just this caused me bitter mental struggles. Again and again must the criticism I could easily frame against this manner of thinking be suppressed within me to await the time in which more comprehensive sources and ways of knowledge should give me a greater assurance.

[ 43 ] I was deeply stirred by the reading of Schiller's letters concerning the aesthetic education of man. His statement that human consciousness oscillates, as it were, back and forth between different states, afforded me a connection with the notion that I had formed of the inner working and weaving of the human soul. Schiller distinguished two states of consciousness in which man evolves his relationship to the world. When he surrenders himself to that which affects him through the senses, he lives under the compulsion of nature. The sensations and impulses determine his life. If he subjects himself to the logical laws and principles of reason then he is living under a rational compulsion. But he can evolve an intermediate state of consciousness. He can develop the “aesthetic mood,” which is not given over either on the one side to the compulsion of nature, or on the other to the necessities of the reason. In this aesthetic mood the soul lives through the senses; but into the sense-perception and into the action set on foot by sense-stimuli the soul brings over something spiritual. One perceives through the senses, but as if the spiritual had streamed over into the senses. In action one surrenders oneself to the gratification of the present desire; but one has so ennobled this desire that to him the good is pleasing and the evil displeasing. Reason has then entered into union with the sensible. The good becomes an instinct; instinct can safely direct itself, for it has taken on the character of the spiritual. Schiller sees in this state of consciousness that condition of the soul in which man can experience and produce works of beauty. In the evolution of this state he sees the coming to life in men of the true human being.

[ 44 ] These thoughts of Schiller's were to me very attractive. They implied that man must first have his consciousness in a certain condition before he can attain to a relationship to the phenomena of the world corresponding to man's own being. Something was here given to me which brought to greater clarity the questions which presented themselves before me out of my observation of nature and my spiritual experience. Schiller spoke of the state of consciousness which must be present in order that one may experience the beauty of the world. Might one not also think of a state of consciousness which would mediate to us the truth in the beings of things? If this is granted, then one must not, after the fashion of Kant, observe the present state of human consciousness and investigate whether this can enter into the true beings of things. But one must first seek to discover the state of consciousness through which man places himself in such a relationship to the world that things and facts reveal their being to him.

[ 45 ] And I believed that I knew that such a state of consciousness is reached up to a certain degree when man not only has thoughts which conceive external things and events, but such thoughts that he himself experiences them as thoughts. This living in thoughts revealed itself to me as quite different from that in which man ordinarily exists and also carries on ordinary scientific research. If one penetrates deeper and deeper into thought-life, one finds that spiritual reality comes to meet this thought life. One then takes the path of the soul into the spirit. But on this inner way of the soul one arrives at a spiritual reality which one also finds again within nature. One gains a deeper knowledge of nature when one then faces nature after having in living thoughts beheld the reality of the spirit.

[ 46 ] It became clearer and clearer to me how, through going forward beyond the customary abstract thoughts to these spiritual perceptions – which, however, the calmness and luminousness of the thought serve to confirm – man lives himself into a reality from which customary consciousness bars him out. This customary state has on one side the living quality of the sense-perception; on the other the abstractness of thought-conceiving. The spiritual vision perceives spirit as the senses perceive nature; but it does not stand apart in thought from the spiritual perception as the customary state of consciousness stands in its thoughts apart from the sense-perceptions. Spiritual vision thinks while it experiences spirit, and experiences while it sets to thinking the awakened spirituality of man.

[ 47 ] A spiritual perception formed itself before my mind which did not rest upon dark mystical feeling. It proceeded much more in a spiritual activity which in its thoroughness might be compared with mathematical thinking. I was approaching the state of soul in which I felt that I might consider that the perception of the spiritual world which I bore within me was confirmed before the forum of natural scientific thought.

[ 48 ] When these experiences passed through my mind I was in my twenty-second year.

• 1. Theory of Science.
• 2. The Vocation of the Scholar.
• 3. The Nature of the Scholar.
• 4. Addresses to the German Nation.
• 5. Prolegomena to all Future Metaphysics
• 6. Transcendental Synthesism.
• 7. Destiny of Man.
• 8. The Public Library.
• 9. Ii>Aesthetics as the Science of Form.
• 10. General Morphology.
• 11. THöferl.
• 12. .Open Vistas

In the lectures given here during the course on history¹ several things were mentioned which, particularly at the present time, it is especially important to consider. With regard to the historical course of humanity's development, the much-debated question mentioned to begin with was whether the outstanding and leading individual personalities are the principal driving forces in this development or whether the most important things are brought about by the masses. In many circles this has always been a point of contention and the conclusions have been drawn, more from sympathy and antipathy than from real knowledge. This is one fact which, in a certain sense, I should like to mention as being very important.

Another fact which, from a look at history, I should like to mention for its importance is the following. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Wilhelm von Humboldt² appeared with a definite declaration, stipulating that history should be treated in such a way that one would not only consider the individual facts which can be outwardly observed in the physical world but, out of an encompassing, synthesizing force, would see what is at work in the unfolding of history—which can only be found by someone who knows how to get a total view of the facts in what in a sense is a poetic way, but in fact produces a true picture. Attention was also drawn to how in the course of the nineteenth century it was precisely the opposite historical mode of thought and approach which was then particularly developed, and that it was not the ideas in history that were pursued but only a sense that was developed for the external world of facts. Attention was also drawn to the fact that, with regard to this last question, one can only come to clarity through spiritual science, because spiritual science alone can uncover the real driving forces of the historical evolution of humanity.

A spiritual science of this kind was not yet accessible to Humboldt. He spoke of ideas, but ideas indeed have no driving force [of their own]. Ideas as such are abstractions, as I mentioned here yesterday³ And anyone who might wish to find ideas as the driving forces of history would never be able to prove that ideas really do anything because they are nothing of real substantiality, and only something of substantiality can do something. Spiritual science points to real spiritual forces that are behind the sensible-physical facts, and it is in real spiritual forces such as these that the propelling forces of history lie, even though these spiritual forces will have to be expressed for human beings through ideas.

But we come to clarity concerning these things only when, from a spiritual-scientific standpoint, we look more deeply into the historical development of humanity and we will do so today in such a way that, through our considerations, certain facts come to us which, precisely for a discerning judgement of the situation of modern humanity, will prove to be of importance.

I have often mentioned⁴ that spiritual science, if it looks at history, would actually have to pursue a symptomatology; a symptomatology constituted from the fact that one is aware that behind what takes it course as the stream of physical-sensible facts lie the driving spiritual forces. But everywhere in historical development there are times when what has real being and essence (das eigentlich Wesenhafte) comes as a symptom to the surface and can be judged discerningly from the phenomena only if one has the possibility to penetrate more deeply from one's awareness of these phenomena into the depths of historical development.

I would like to clarify this by a simple diagram. Let us suppose that this is a flow of historical facts (see diagram). The driving forces lie, for ordinary observation, below the flow of these facts. And if the eye of the soul observes the flow in this way, then the real activity of the driving forces would lie beneath it (red). But there are significant points in this flow of facts. And these significant points are distinguished by the fact that what is otherwise hidden comes here to the surface. Thus we can say: Here, in a particular phenomenon, which must only be properly evaluated, it was possible to become aware of something which otherwise is at work everywhere, but which does not show itself in such a significant manifestation.

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Let us assume that this (see diagram) took place in some year of world history, let us say around 800 A.D. What was significant for Europe, let us say for Western Europe, was of course at work before this and worked on afterwards, but it did not manifest itself in such a significant way in the time before and after as it did here. If one points to a way of looking at history like this, a way which looks to significant moments, such a method would be in complete accord with Goetheanism. For Goethe wished in general that all perception of the world should be directed to significant points and then, from what could be seen from such points, the remaining content of world events be recognized. Goethe says of this⁵ that, within the abundance of facts, the important thing is to find a significant point from which the neighbouring areas can be viewed and from which much can be deciphered.

So let us take this year 800 A.D. We can point here to a fact in the history of Western European humanity which, from the point of view of the usual approach to history, might seem insignificant—which one would perhaps not find worthy of attention for what is usually called history—but which, nevertheless, for a deeper view of humanity's development, is indeed significant. Around this year there was a kind of learned theological argument between the man who was a sort of court philosopher of the Frankish realm, Alcuin,⁶ and a Greek also living at that time in the kingdom of the Franks. The Greek, who was naturally at home in the particular soul-constitution of the Greek peoples which he had inherited, had wanted to reach a discerning judgement of the principles of Christianity and had come to the concept of redemption. He put the question: To whom, in the redemption through Christ Jesus, was the ransom actually paid? He, the Greek thinker, came to the solution that the ransom had been paid to Death. Thus, in a certain sense, it was a sort of redemption theory that this Greek developed from his thoroughly Greek mode of thinking, which was now just becoming acquainted with Christianity. The ransom was paid to Death by the cosmic powers.

Alcuin, who stood at that time in that theological stream which then became the determining one for the development of the Roman Catholic Church of the West, debated in the following way about what the Greek had argued. He said: Ransom can only be paid to a being who really exists. But death has no reality, death is only the outer limit of reality, death itself is not real and, therefore, the ransom money could not have been paid to Death.

Now criticism of Alcuin's way of thinking is not what matters here. For to someone who, to a certain extent, can see through the interrelations of the facts, the view that death is not something real resembles the view which says: Cold is not something real, it is just a decrease in warmth, it is only a lesser warmth. Because the cold isn't real I won't wear a winter coat in winter because I'm not going to protect myself against something that isn't real. But we will leave that aside. We want rather to take the argument between Alcuin and the Greek purely positively and will ask what was really happening there. For it is indeed quite noticeable that it is not the concept of redemption itself that is discussed. It is not discussed in such a way that in a certain sense both personalities, the Greek and the Roman Catholic theologian, accept the same point of view, but in such a way that the Roman Catholic theologian shifts the standpoint entirely before he takes it up at all. He does not go on speaking in the way he had just done, but moves the whole problem into a completely different direction. He asks: Is death something real or not?—and objects that, indeed, death is not real.

This directs us at the outset to the fact that two views are clashing here which arise out of completely different constitutions of soul. And, indeed, this is the case. The Greek continued, as it were, the direction which, in the Greek culture, had basically faded away between Plato and Aristotle. In Plato there was still something alive of the ancient wisdom of humanity; that wisdom which takes us across to the ancient Orient where, indeed, in ancient times a primal wisdom had lived but which had then fallen more and more into decadence. In Plato, if we are able to understand him properly, we find the last offshoots, if I can so call them, of this primal oriental wisdom. And then, like a rapidly developing metamorphosis, Aristotelianism sets in which, fundamentally, presents a completely different constitution of soul from the Platonic one. Aristotelianism represents a completely different element in the development of humanity from Platonism. And, if we follow Aristotelianism further, it, too, takes on different forms, different metamorphoses, but all of which have a recognizable similarity. Thus we see how Platonism lives on like an ancient heritage in this Greek who has to contend against Alcuin, and how in Alcuin, on the other hand, Aristotelianism is already present. And we are directed, by looking at these two individuals, to that fluctuation which took place on European soil between two—one cannot really say world-views—but two human constitutions of soul, one of which has its origin in ancient times in the Orient, and another, which we do not find in the Orient but which, entering in later, arose in the central regions of civilization and was first grasped by Aristotle. In Aristotle, however, this only sounds a first quiet note, for much of Greek culture was still alive in him. It develops then with particular vehemence in the Roman culture within which it had been prepared long before Aristotle, and, indeed, before Plato. So that we see how, since the eighth century BC on the Italian peninsula a particular culture, or the first hints of it, was being prepared alongside that which lived on the Greek peninsula as a sort of last offshoot of the oriental constitution of soul. And when we go into the differences between these two modes of human thought we find important historical impulses. For what is expressed in these ways of thinking went over later into the feeling life of human beings; into the configuration of human actions and so on.

Now we can ask ourselves: So what was living in that which developed in ancient times as a world-view in the Orient, and which then, like a latecomer, found its [last] offshoots in Platonism—and, indeed, still in Neoplatonism? It was a highly spiritual culture which arose from an inner perception living pre-eminently in pictures, in imaginations; but pictures not permeated by full consciousness, not yet permeated by the full I-consciousness of human beings. In the spiritual life of the ancient Orient, of which the Veda and Vedanta are the last echoes, stupendous pictures opened up of what lives in the human being as the spiritual. But it existed in a—I beg you not to misunderstand the word and not to confuse it with usual dreaming—it existed in a dreamlike, dim way, so that this soul-life was not permeated (durchwellt) and irradiated (durchstrahlt) by what lives in the human being when he becomes clearly conscious of his 'I' and his own being. The oriental was well aware that his being existed before birth, that it returns through death to the spiritual world in which it existed before birth or conception. The oriental gazed on that which passed through births and deaths. But he did not see as such that inner feeling which lives in the `I am'. It was as if it were dull and hazy, as though poured out in a broad perception of the soul (Gesamtseelenanschauung) which did not concentrate to such a point as that of the I-experience. Into what, then, did the oriental actually gaze when he possessed his instinctive perception?

One can still feel how this oriental soul-constitution was completely different from that of later humanity when, for an understanding of this and perhaps prepared through spiritual science, one sinks meditatively into those remarkable writings which are ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite.⁷ I will not go into the question of the authorship now, I have already spoken about it on a number of occasions. 'Nothingness' (das Nichts) is still spoken of there as a reality, and the existence of the external world, in the way one views it in ordinary consciousness, is simply contrasted against this [nothingness] as a different reality. This talk of nothingness then continues. In Scotus Erigena,⁸ who lived at the court of Charles the Bald, one still finds echoes of it, and we find the last echo then in the fifteenth century in Nicolas of Cusa⁹ But what was meant by the nothingness one finds in Dionysius the Areopagite and of that which the oriental spoke of as something self-evident to him? This fades then completely. What was this nothingness for the oriental? It was something real for him. He turned his gaze to the world of the senses around him, and said: This sense-world is spread out in space, flows in time, and in ordinary life world, is spread out in space, one says that what is extended in space and flows in time is something.

But what the oriental saw—that which was a reality for him, which passes through births and deaths—was not contained in the space in which the minerals are to be found, in which the plants unfold, the animals move and the human being as a physical being moves and acts. And it was also not contained in that time in which our thoughts, feelings and will-impulses occur. The oriental was fully aware that one must go beyond this space in which physical things are extended and move, and beyond this time in which our soul-forces of ordinary life are active. One must enter a completely different world; that world which, for the external existence of time and space, is a nothing but which, nevertheless, is something real. The oriental sensed something in contrast to the phenomena of the world which the European still senses at most in the realm of real numbers.

When a European has fifty francs he has something. If he spends twenty-five francs of this he still has twenty-five francs; if he then spends fifteen francs he still has ten; if he spends this he has nothing. If now he continues to spend he has five, ten, fifteen, twenty-five francs in debts. He still has nothing; but, indeed, he has something very real when, instead of simply an empty wallet, he has twenty-five or fifty francs in debts. In the real world it also signifies something very real if one has debts. There is a great difference in one's whole situation in life between having nothing and having fifty francs' worth of debts. These debts of fifty francs are forces just as influential on one's situation in life as, on the other side and in an opposite sense, are fifty francs of credit. In this area the European will probably admit to the reality of debts for, in the real world, there always has to be something there when one has debts. The debts that one has oneself may still seem a very negative amount, but for the person to whom they are owed they are a very positive amount!

So, when it is not just a matter of the individual but of the world, the opposite side of zero from the credit side is truly something very real. The oriental felt—not because he somehow speculated about it but because his perception necessitated it he felt: Here, on the one side, I experience that which cannot be observed in space or in time; something which, for the things and events of space and time, is nothing but which, nevertheless, is a reality—but a different reality.

It was only through misunderstanding that there then arose what occidental civilization gave itself up to under the leadership of Rome—the creation of the world out of nothing with `nothing' seen as absolute `zero'. In the Orient, where these things were originally conceived, the world does not arise out of nothing but out of the reality I have just indicated. And an echo of what vibrates through all the oriental way of thinking right down to Plato—the impulse of eternity of an ancient world-view—lived in the Greek who, at the court of Charlemagne, had to debate with Alcuin. And in this theologian Alcuin there lived a rejection of the spiritual life for which, in the Orient, this `nothing' was the outer form. And thus, when the Greek spoke of death, whose causes lie in the spiritual world, as something real, Alcuin could only answer: But death is nothing and therefore cannot receive ransom.

You see, the whole polarity between the ancient oriental way of thinking, reaching to Plato, and what followed later is expressed in this [one] significant moment when Alcuin debated at the court of Charlemagne with the Greek. For, what was it that had meanwhile entered in to European civilization since Plato, particularly through the spread of Romanism? There had entered that way of thinking which one has to comprehend through the fact that it is directed primarily to what the human being experiences between birth and death. And the constitution of soul which occupies itself primarily with the human being's experiences between birth and death is the logical, legal one—the logical-dialectical-legal one. The Orient had nothing of a logical, dialectical nature and, least of all, a legal one. The Occident brought logical, legal thinking so strongly into the oriental way of thinking that we ourselves find religious feeling permeated with a legalistic element. In the Sistine Chapel in Rome, painted by the master-hand of Michelangelo, we see looming towards us, Christ as judge giving judgment on the good and the evil.

A legal, dialectical element has entered into the thoughts concerning the course of the world. This was completely alien to the oriental way of thinking. There was nothing there like guilt and atonement or redemptinn. For [in this oriental way of thinking] was precisely that view of the metamorphosis through which the eternal element [in the human being] transforms itself through births and deaths. There was that which lives in the concept of karma. Later, however, everything was fixed into a way of looking at things which is actually only valid for, and can only encompass, life between birth and death. But this life between birth and death was just what had evaded the oriental. He looked far more to the core of man's being. He had little understanding for what took place between birth and death. And now, within this occidental culture, the way of thinking which comprehends primarily what takes place within the span between birth and death increased [and did so] through those forces possessed by the human being by virtue of having clothed his soul-and-spirit nature with a physical and etheric body. In this constitution, in the inner experience of the soul-and-spirit element and in the nature of this experience, which arises through the fact that one is submerged with one's soul-and-spirit nature in a physical body, comes the inner comprehension of the 'I'. This is why it happens in the Occident that the human being feels an inner urge to lay hold of his 'I' as something divine. We see this urge, to comprehend the 'I' as something divine, arise in the medieval mystics; in Eckhart, in Tauler and in others. The comprehension of the 'I' crystallizes out with full force in the Middle (or Central) culture. Thus we can distinguish between the Eastern culture—the time in which the 'I' is first experienced, but dimly—and the Middle (or Central) culture—primarily that in which the 'I' is experienced. And we see how this 'I' is experienced in the most manifold metamorphoses. First of all in that dim, dawning way in which it arises in Eckhart, Tauler and other mystics, and then more and more distinctly during the development of all that can originate out of this I-culture.

We then see how, within the I-culture of the Centre, another aspect arises. At the end of the eighteenth century something comes to the fore in Kant¹⁰ which, fundamentally, cannot be explained out of the onward flow of this I-culture. For what is it that arises through Kant? Kant looks at our perception, our apprehension (Erkennen), of nature and cannot come to terms with it. Knowledge of nature, for him, breaks down into subjective views ( Subjektivitäten); he does not penetrate as far as the 'I' despite the fact that he continually speaks of it and even, in some categories, in his perceptions of time and space, would like to encompass all nature through the 'I'. Yet he does not push through to a true experience of the 'I'. He also constructs a practical philosophy with the categorical imperative which is supposed to manifest itself out of unfathomable regions of the human soul. Here again the 'I' does not appear.

In Kant's philosophy it is strange. The full weight of dialectics, of logical-dialectical-legal thinking is there, in which everything is tending towards the 'I', but he cannot reach the point of really understanding the 'I' philosophically. There must be something preventing him here. Then comes Fichte, a pupil of Kant's, who with full force wishes his whole philosophy to well up out of the 'I' and who, through its simplicity, presents as the highest tenet of his philosophy the sentence: `I am'. And everything that is truly scientific must follow from this `I am'. One should be able, as it were, to deduce, to read from this 'I am' an entire picture of the world. Kant cannot reach the 'I am'. Fichte immediately afterwards, while still a pupil of Kant's, hurls the `I am' at him. And everyone is amazed—this is a pupil of Kant's speaking like this! And Fichte says:¹¹ As far as he can understand it, Kant, if he could really think to the end, would have to think the same as me. It is so inexplicable to Fichte that Kant thinks differently from him, that he says: If Kant would only take things to their full conclusion, he would have to think [as I do]; he too, would have to come to the 'I am'. And Fichte expresses this even more clearly by saying: I would rather take the whole of Kant's critique for a random game of ideas haphazardly thrown together than to consider it the work of a human mind, if my philosophy did not logically follow from Kant's. Kant, of course, rejects this. He wants nothing to do with the conclusions drawn by Fichte.

We now see how there follows on from Fichte what then flowered as German idealistic philosophy in Schelling and Hegel, and which provoked all the battles of which I spoke, in part, in my lectures on the limits to a knowledge of nature.¹² But we find something curious. We see how Hegel lives in a crystal-clear [mental] framework of the logical-dialectical-legal element and draws from it a world-view—but a world-view that is interested only in what occurs between birth and death. You can go through the whole of Hegel's philosophy and you will find nothing that goes beyond birth and death. It confines everything in world history, religion, art and science solely to experiences occurring between birth and death.

What then is the strange thing that happened here? Now, what came out in Fichte, Schelling and Hegel—this strongest development of the Central culture in which the 'I' came to full consciousness, to an inner experience—was still only a reaction, a last reaction to something else. For one can understand Kant only when one bears the following properly in mind. (I am coming now to yet another significant point to which a great deal can be traced). You see, Kant was still—this is clearly evident from his earlier writings—a pupil of the rationalism of the eighteenth century, which lived with genius in Leibnitz and pedantically in Wolff. One can see that for this rationalism the important thing was not to come truly to a spiritual reality. Kant therefore rejected it—this `thing in itself' as he called it—but the important thing for him was to prove. Sure proof! Kant's writings are remarkable also in this respect. He wrote his Critique of Pure Reason in which he is actually asking: `How must the world be so that things can be proved in it?' Not 'What are the realities in it?' But he actually asks: 'How must I imagine the world so that logically, dialectically, I can give proofs in it?' This is the only point he is concerned with and thus he tries in his Prologomena to give every future metaphysics which has a claim to being truly scientific, a metaphysics for what in his way of thinking can be proven: `Away with everything else! The devil take the reality of the world—just let me have the art of proving! What's it to me what reality is; if I can't prove it I shan't trouble myself over it!'

Those individuals did not, of course, think in this way who wrote books like, for example, Christian Wolff's¹³ Vernünftige Gedanken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt (Reasoned Thoughts an God, the World, and the Soul of Man, and All Things Generally). What mattered for them was to have a clean, self-contained system of proof, in the way that they see proof. Kant lived in this sphere, but there was still something there which, although an excrescence squeezed out of the world-view of the Centre, nevertheless fitted into it. But Kant had something else which makes it inexplicable how he could become Fichte's teacher. And yet he gives Fichte a stimulus, and Fichte comes back at him with the strong emphasis of the 'I am'; comes back, indeed, not with proofs—one would not look for these in Fichte—but with a fully developed inner life of soul. In Fichte there emerges, with all the force of the inner life of soul, that which, in the Wolffians and Leibnitzites, can seem insipid. Fichte constructs his philosophy, in a wealth of pure concepts, out of the 'I am'; but in him they are filled with life. So, too, are they in Schelling and in Hegel. So what then had happened with Kant who was the bridge? Now, one comes to the significant point when one traces how Kant developed. Something else became of this pupil of Wolff by virtue of the fact that the English philosopher, David Hume,¹⁴ awoke him, as Kant himself says, out of his dull dogmatic slumber. What is it that entered Kant here, which Fichte could no longer understand? There entered into Kant here—it fitted badly in his case because he was too involved with the culture of Central Europe—that which is now the culture of the West. This came to meet him in the person of David Hume and it was here that the culture of the West entered Kant. And in what does the peculiarity [of this culture] lie? In the oriental culture we find that the 'I' still lives below, dimly, in a dream-like state in the soul-experiences which express themselves, spread out, in imaginative pictures. In the Western culture we find that, in a certain sense, the 'I' is smothered (erdrückt) by the purely external phenomena (Tatsachen). The 'I' is indeed present, and is present not dimly, but bores itself into the phenomena. And here, for example, people develop a strange psychology. They do not talk here about the soul-life in the way Fichte did, who wanted to work out everything from the one point of the 'I', but they talk about thoughts which come together by association. People talk about feelings, mental pictures and sensations, and say these associate—and also will-impulses associate. One talks about the inner soul-life in terms of thoughts which associate.

Fichte speaks of the 'I'; this radiates out thoughts. In the West the 'I' is completely omitted because it is absorbed—soaked up by the thoughts and feelings which one treats as though they were independent of it, associating and separating again. And one follows the life of the soul as though mental pictures linked up and separated. Read Spencer,¹⁵ read John Stuart Mill¹⁶ read the American philosophers. When they come to talk of psychology there is this curious view that does not exclude the 'I' as in the Orient, because it is developed dimly there, but which makes full demand of the 'I'; letting it, however, sink down into the thinking, feeling and willing life of the soul. One could say: In the oriental the 'I' is still above thinking, feeling and willing; it has not yet descended to the level of thinking, feeling and willing. In the human being of the Western culture the 'I' is already below this sphere. It is below the surface of thinking, feeling and willing so that it is no longer noticed, and thinking, feeling and willing are then spoken of as independent forces.

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This is what came to Kant in the form of the philosophy of David Hume. Then the Central region of the earth's culture still set itself against this with all force in Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. After them the culture of the West overwhelms everything that is there, with Darwinism and Spencerism.

One will only be able to come to an understanding of what is living in humanity's development if one investigates these deeper forces. One then finds that something developed in a natural way in the Orient which actually was purely a spiritual life. In the Central areas something developed which was dialectical-legal, which actually brought forth the idea of the State, because it is to this that it can be applied. It is such thinkers as Fichte, Schelling and Hegel who, with enormous sympathy, construct a unified image (Gebilde) of the State. But then a culture emerges in the West which proceeds from a constitution of soul in which the 'I' is absorbed, takes its course below the level of thinking, feeling and willing; and where, in the mental and feeling life, people speak of associations. If only one would apply this thinking to the economic life! That is its proper place. People went completely amiss when they started applying [this thinking] to something other than the economic life. There it is great, is of genius. And had Spencer, John Stuart Mill and David Hume applied to the institutions of the economic life what they wasted on philosophy it would have been magnificent. If the human beings living in Central Europe had limited to the State what is given them as their natural endowment, and if they had not, at the same time, also wanted thereby to include the spiritual life and the economic life, something magnificent could have come out of it. For, with what Hegel was able to think, with what Fichte was able to think, one would have been able—had one remained within the legal-political configuration which, in the threefold organism, we wish to separate out as the structure of the State¹⁷—to attain something truly great. But, because there hovered before these minds the idea that they had to create a structure for the State which included the economic life and the spiritual life, there arose only caricatures in the place of a true form for the State. And the spiritual life was anyway only a heritage of the ancient Orient. It was just that people did not know that they were still living from this heritage of the ancient East. The useful statements, for example, of Christian theology—indeed, the useful statements still within our materialistic sciences—are either the heritage of the ancient East, or a changeling of dialectical-legal thinking, or are already adopted, as was done by Spencer and Mill, from the Western culture which is particularly suited for the economic life.

Thus the spiritual thinking of the ancient Orient had been distributed over the earth, but in an instinctive way that is no longer of any use today. Because today it is decadent, it is dialectical-political thinking which was rendered obsolete by the world catastrophe [World War I]. For there was no one less suited to thinking economically than the pupils of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. When they began to create a State which, above all, was to become great through its economy, they had of necessity (selbstverständlich) to fail, for this was not what, by nature, was, endowed to them. In accordance with the historical development of humanity, spiritual thinking, political thinking and economic thinking were apportioned to the East, the Centre, and the West respectively. But we have arrived at a point of humanity's development when understanding, a common understanding, must spread equally over all humanity. How can this come about?

This can only happen out of the initiation-culture, out of the new spiritual science, which does not develop one-sidedly, but considers everything that appears in all areas as a three-foldness that has evolved of its own accord. This science must really consider the threefold aspect also in social life; in this case (as a three-foldness) encompassing the whole earth. Spiritual science, however, cannot be extended through natural abilities; it can only be spread by people accepting those who see into these things, who can really experience the spiritual sphere, the political sphere and the economic sphere as three separate areas. The unity of human beings all over the earth is due to the fact that they combine in themselves what was divided between three spheres. They themselves organize it in the social organism in such a way that it can exist in harmony before their eyes. This, however, can only follow from spiritual-scientific training. And we stand here at a point where we must say: In ancient times we see individual personalities, we see them expressing in their words what was the spirit of the time. But when we examine it closely—in the oriental culture, for example—we find that, fundamentally, there lives instinctively in the masses a constitution of soul which in a remarkable; quite natural way was in accord with what these individuals spoke.

This correspondence, however, became less and less. In our times we see the development of the opposite extreme. We see instincts arising in the masses which are the opposite of what is beneficial for humanity. We see things arising that absolutely call for the qualities that may arise in individuals who are able to penetrate the depths of spiritual science. No good will come from instincts, but only from the understanding (that Dr. Unger also spoke of here)¹⁸ which, as is often stressed, every human being can bring towards the spiritual investigator if he really opens himself to healthy human reason. Thus there will come a culture in which the single individual, with his ever-deeper penetration into the depths of the spiritual world, will be of particular importance, and in which die one who penetrates in this way will be valued, just as someone who works in some craft is valued. One does not go to the tailor to have boots made or to the shoemaker to be shaved, so why should people go to someone else for what one needs as a world-view other than to the person who is initiated into it? And it is, indeed, just this that, particularly today and in the most intense sense, is necessary for the good of human beings even though there is a reaction against it, which shows how humanity still resists what is beneficial for it. This is the terrible battle—the grave situation—in which we find ourselves.

At no other time has there been a greater need to listen carefully to what individuals know concerning one thing or another. Nor has there been a greater need for people with knowledge of specific subject areas to be active in social life—not from a belief in authority but out of common sense and out of agreement based on common sense. But, to begin with, the instincts oppose this and people believe that some sort of good can be achieved from levelling everything. This is the serious battle in which we stand. Sympathy and antipathy are of no help here, nor is living in slogans. Only a clear observation of the facts can help. For today great questions are being decided—the questions as to whether the individual or the masses have significance. In other times this was not important because the masses and the individual were in accord with one another; individuals were, in a certain sense, simply speaking for the masses. We are approaching more and more that time when the individual must find completely within himself the source of what he has to find and which he has then to put into the social life; and [what we are now seeing] is only the last resistance against this validity of the individual and an ever larger and larger number of individuals. One can see plainly how that which spiritual science shows is also proved everywhere in these significant points. We talk of associations which are necessary in the economic life, and use a particular thinking for this. This has developed in the culture of the West from letting thoughts associate. If one could take what John Stuart Mill does with logic, if one could remove those thoughts from that sphere and apply them to the economic life, they would fit there. The associations which would then come in there would be exactly those which do not fit into psychology. Even in what appears in the area of human development, spiritual science follows reality.

Thus spiritual science, if fully aware of the seriousness of the present world situation, knows what a great battle is taking place between the threefold social impulse that can come from spiritual science and that which throws itself against this threefoldness as the wave of Bolshevism, which would lead to great harm (Unheil) amongst humanity. And there is no third element other than these two. The battle has to take place between these two. People must see this! Everything else is already decadent. Whoever looks with an open mind at the conditions in which we are placed, must conclude that it is essential today to gather all our forces together so that this whole terrible Ahrimanic affair can be repulsed.

This building stands here,¹⁹ incomplete though it is for the time being. Today we cannot get from the Central countries that which for the most part, and in addition to what has come to us from the neutral states, has brought this building to this stage. We must have contributions from the countries of the former Entente. Understanding must be developed here for what is to become a unified culture containing spirit, politics and economics. For people must get away from a one:sided tendency and must follow those who also understand something of politics and economics, who do not work only in dialectics, but, also being engaged with economic impulses, have insight into the spiritual, and do not want to create states in which the State itself can run the economy. The Western peoples will have to realize that something else must evolve in addition to the special gift they will have in the future with regard to forming economic associations. The skill in forming associations has so far been applied at the wrong end, i.e. in the field of Psychology. What must evolve is understanding of the political-state element, which has other sources than the economic life, and also of the spiritual element. But at present the Central countries lie powerless, so people in the Western regions—one could not expect this of the Orient—will have to see what the Purpose of this building is! It is necessary for us to consider What must be done so that real provision is made for a new culture that should be presented everywhere in the university education of the future—here we have to show the way. In the foundation of the Waldorf Schools the culture has proved to be capable of bringing light into primary education. But for this we need the understanding support of the widest circles.

Above all we need the means. For everything which, in a higher or lower sense, is called a school, we need the frame of mind I have already tried to awaken at the opening of the Waldorf School in Stuttgart.²⁰ I said in my opening speech there: `This is one Waldorf school. It is well and good that we have it, but for itself it is nothing; it is only something if, in the next quarter of a year, we build ten such Waldorf schools and then others'. The world did not understand this, it had no money for such a thing. For it rests on the standpoint: Oh, the ideals are too lofty, too pure for us to bring dirty money to them; better to keep it in our pockets; that's the proper place for dirty money. The ideals, oh, they're too pure, one can't contaminate them with money! Of course, with purity of this kind the embodiment of ideals cannot be attained, if dirty money is not brought to them. And thus we have to consider that, up to now, we have stopped at one Waldorf school which cannot progress properly because in the autumn we found ourselves in great money difficulties. These have been obviated for the time being, but at Easter we shall be faced with them again. And then, after a comparatively short time, we will ask: Should we give up? And we shall have to give up if, before then, an understanding is not forthcoming which dips vigorously into its pockets.

It is thus a matter of awakening understanding in this respect. I don't believe that much understanding would arise if we were to say that we wanted something for the building in Dornach, or some such thing—as has been shown already. But—and one still finds understanding for this today—if one wants to create sanatoria or the like, one gets money, and as much as one wants! This is not exactly what we want—we don't want to build a host of sanatoria—we agree fully with creating them as far as they are necessary; but here it is a matter, above all, of nurturing that spiritual culture whose necessity will indeed prove itself through what this course²¹ I has attempted to accomplish. This is what I tried to suggest, to give a stimulus to what I expressed here a few days ago, in the words 'World Fellowship of Schools' (Weltschulverein).²²

Our German friends have departed but it is not a question of depending on them for this 'World Fellowship'. It depends on those who, as friends, have come here, for the most part from all possible regions of the non-German world—and who are still sitting here now—that they understand these words 'World Fellowship of Schools' because it is vital that we found school upon school in all areas of the world out of the pedagogical spirit which rules in the Waldorf School. We have to be able to extend this school until we are able to move into higher education of the kind we are hoping for here. For this, however, we have to be in a position to complete this building and everything that belongs to it, and be constantly able to support that which is necessary in order to work here; to be productive, to work on the further extension of all the separate sciences in the spirit of spiritual science.

People ask one how much money one needs for all this. One cannot say how much, because there never is an uppermost limit. And, of course, we will not be able to found a World Fellowship of Schools simply by creating a committee of twelve or fifteen or thirty people who work out nice statutes as to how a World Fellowship of Schools of this kind should work. That is all pointless. I attach no value to programmes or to statutes but only to the work of active people who work with understanding. It will be possible to establish this World Fellowship—well, we shall not be able to go to London for some time—in the Hague or some such place, if a basis can be created, and by other means if the friends who are about to go to Norway or Sweden or Holland, or any other country—England, France, America and so on—awaken in every human being whom they can reach the well-founded conviction that there has to be a World Fellowship of Schools. It ought to go through the world like wildfire that a World Fellowship must arise to provide the material means for the spiritual culture that is intended here.

If one is able in other matters, as a single individual, to convince possibly hundreds and hundreds of people, why should one not be able in a short time—for the decline is happening so quickly that we only have a short time—to have an effect on many people as a single individual, so that if one came to the Hague a few weeks later one would see how widespread was the thought that: 'The creation of a World Fellowship of Schools is necessary, it is just that there are no means for it.' What we are trying to do from Dornach is an historical necessity. One will only be able to talk of the inauguration of this World Fellowship of Schools when the idea of it already exists. It is simply utopian to set up committees and found a World Fellowship—this is pointless! But to work from person to person, and to spread quickly the realization, the well-founded realization, that it is so necessary—this is what must precede the founding. Spiritual science lives in realities. This is why it does not get involved with proposals of schemes for a founding but points to what has to happen in reality—and human beings are indeed realities—so that such a thing has some prospects.

So what is important here is that we finally learn from spiritual science how to stand in real life. I would never get involved with a simply utopian founding of the World Fellowship of Schools, but would always be of the opinion that this World Fellowship can only come about when a sufficiently large number of people are convinced of its necessity. It must be created so that what is necessary for humanity—it has already proved to be so from our course here—can happen. This World Fellowship of Schools must be created.

Please see what is meant by this Fellowship in all international life, in the right sense! I would like, in this request, to round off today what, in a very different way in our course, has spoken to humanity through those who were here and of whom we have the hope and the wish that they carry it out into the world. The World Fellowship of Schools can be the answer of the world to what was put before it like a question; a question taken from the real forces of human evolution, that is, human history. So let what can happen for the World Fellowship of Schools, in accordance with the conviction you have been able to gain here, happen! In this there rings out what I wanted to say today.

• 1 . These were the lectures given by Dr Karl Heyer on 14, 15 and 16 October 1920, during the first course of the School of Anthroposophy at the Goetheanum with the theme: 'The Science of History and History from the Viewpoint of Anthroposophy' ('Anthroposophische Betrachtungen Ober die Geschichtswissenschaft und aus der Geschichte'). These are printed in Kultur und Erziehung (the third volume of the Courses of the School of Anthroposophy), Stuttgart, 1921.
• 2 . See Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835): Über die Aufgabe des Geschiclztsschreibens (The Task of the Historian) in Volume IV of Humboldt's Works published by Leitzman, Berlin 1905 (see pages 35-56). Some relevant passages taken from these are as follows:
  
  "The business of the historian, in the last but simplest analysis, is to portray the striving of an idea to attain existence in reality. For it is not always that it succeeds in this at the first attempt; and it is not so rare that the idea degenerates because it is unable to master in a pure way the matter counteracting it."
  
  "The truth of everything that happens lies in the addition of the above-mentioned invisible part of every fact, and thus the history writer must add this to the events. Seen from this angle he is self-acting and even creative—not, indeed, by producing what does not already exist, but by forming out of his own inner strength that which, as it is in reality, he could not perceive through mere receptivity. In different ways, but just like the poet, he must in himself transform the scattered fragments into a whole."
  
  "It may seem dubious to allow the realm of the history writer and that of the poet to meet, even at only one point. But the activity of both is undeniably related. For if the historian, like the poet, can achieve truth in his presentation of past events only by completing and linking the incomplete and disjointed elements of direct observation, then he does so, like the poet, only through imagination. Because, however, he places imagination subordinate to experience and the fathoming of reality, there is a difference here which cancels out all danger. Imagination does not work, at this lower position, as pure imagination, and is therefore more properly called an intuitive faculty and a talent for finding links."
  
  "Of necessity, therefore, the historian too, must strive; not, like the poet, to give his material over to the dominion of the form of necessity but to hold steadily in consciousness the ideas which are its laws, because, permeated only by, these, he can then find their trace in the pure research of the real in its reality."
  
  "The historian encompasses all the threads of earthly activity and all varieties of supersensible ideas; the sum-total of existence, more or less, is the object of his work and he must therefore also follow all avenues of the mind and spirit. Speculation, experience and poetry, however, are not separate, opposed and mutually-limiting activities of the mind, but different planes of its radiance."
  
  "Apart from the fact that history, like every scientific activity, serves many subsidiary purposes, work on history is no less a free art, complete in itself, than philosophy and poetry."
  
  "Just as philosophy strives for the first foundation of things, and art for the ideal of beauty, so history strives for a picture of human destiny in faithful truth, living abundance and pure clarity that are perceived by the warm inner-being [of the historian] in such a way that his personal views, feelings and demands are lost and dissolved away. It is the final purpose of the history-writer to awaken and nourish this mood, which, however, he only attains when he pursues for his fellow human beings the simple presentation of past events with conscientious faithfulness."
• 3 . See the final words of Rudolf Steiner, on 16 October 1920, after the close of the first course of the Anthroposophical School, in Die Kunst der Rezitation and Deklamation (First Edition) Dornach, 1928, page 118.
• 4 . See i>Geschictliche Symptomatologie (GA 185), nine lectures given in Dornach in 1918, only two of which are translated in From Symptom to Reality in Modern History.
• 5 . See Bedeutende Fordnis durch ein einziges geistreiches Wort in Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften, edited and with a commentary by Rudolf Steiner in Kürschner's Deutsche National-Literatur, Volume II, page 34 (GA lb). Goethe says here:
  
  "I do not rest until I find a significant point from which a great deal can be deduced or, rather, which of its own will brings forth a great deal and presents this to me, and which I then, with attention and receptivity, work on further faithfully and carefully. If, in my experience, I find some phenomenon which I cannot deduce, I simply let it lie as a problem; and I have found, in my long life, this way of doing things to be very beneficial. For when I was not able for a long time to unravel the origin or connection of some phenomenon but had to put it to one side, I found that, years later, it all suddenly became clear in the most beautiful way."
• 6 . Alcuin (also Alhuin or Alchwin, i.e. 'Friend of the Temple') was rector of the monastery school at York around 735 to 804. In 782 he followed the summons of Charlemagne and took on the headship of the court school. He encouraged the sciences in the monasteries and raised to the central seat of the sciences the monastery school of St Martin at Tours, which he founded and whose Abbot he became in 796.
  
  The debate with the Greek is described in Karl Werner's book Alcuin and sein Jahrhundert (Alcuin and His Century) Vienna 1881, Chapter 11. page 166, as follows:
  
  Thus Charlemagne once wanted to know from Alcuin what should be made of the view of a Greek scholar, who presumably was a member of a Byzantine legation at Charlemagne's court, who had expressed the opinion to the emperor that Christ had paid the expiation for our sins to death. Alcuin found this manner of expression and the idea behind it to be inadmissible, for Christ was not—death's debtor and could not become so—the price of our redemption was paid by Christ to our divine Father, to whom, in dying, He commended His soul. Death [so Alcuin argued] is in no way a reality of being and substance but, to his way of thinking, was something purely negative, the mere absence or 'Carence' (Church Latin: the interval before benefits become available) of life; it is nothing existing in itself, and thus cannot receive anything, no payment can be paid to it. On the contrary, in the person of Christ, death itself, which God did not create, became the ransom for our debt and won life for us thereby, which He Himself gives us in His saviour power.'
• 7 . Rudolf Steiner drew attention at different times to the fact that the content of the writings of 533 A.D., attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, do indeed stem from the person of this name mentioned in The Acts of the Apostles 17, 34. See the lectures on 17 and 25 March 1907 in Christianity Began as a Religion and Festivals of the Seasons respectively.
• 8 . Johannes Scotus Erigena (c. 810–877) translator of the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite into Latin (see note 7).
• 9 . Nicolaus of Cusa (or Kures) (1401–1464), cardinal.
• 10. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804): Critique of Pure Reason, 1781; Prolegemena, 1783.
• 11. Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) Erste und zweite Einleitung in die Wissenschaftslehre und Verstwh einer neuen Darstellung der Wiyenschaftslehre (First and Second Introduction into the Doctrine of Knowledge and an Attempt at a New Presentation of the doctrine of Knowledge).
• 12. Grenzen der Naturerkenntnis (Limits to a Knowledge of Nature (GA 322)—eight lectures given during the first course (Hochschulkurs) of the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach, 27 September to 3 October 1920 (GA 322).
• 13. Baron Christian von Wolff, philosopher and mathematician, Vernünftige Gedanken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt, 1719.
• 14. David Hume (1711–1776), philosopher.
• 15. Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), philosopher.
• 16. John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), philosopher.
• 17. Towards Social Renewal, 1919, (GA 23).
• 18. In the third week of the first course (of the School of Spiritual Science), Dr Carl Unger (1822–1929) gave lectures under the title of 'Rudolf Steiner's Works'. These six lectures, edited by Unger, can be found in Volume I of Carl Unger's Writings, Stuttgart, 1964.
• 19. The first Goetheanum building, begun in 1913, was already put into use in 1920, although still under construction supervised by Rudolf Steiner and with the interior not yet finished. On New Year's Eve 1922–3 it was destroyed by fire.
• 20. The Free Waldorf School was founded in Stuttgart in the spring of 1919 by Dr Emil Molt for the children, to begin with, of the employees of the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory. The school was under the supervision of Rudolf Steiner who appointed the teachers and gave the preparatory seminar courses.
• 21. The first anthroposophical course of the Free School for Spiritual Science took place at the Goetheanum from 26 September to 16 October 1920. See also notes 1,3,12, and 18.
• 22. i.e., a form of international support body for Waldorf Schools. Rudolf Steiner suggested the founding of a World Fellowship of Schools during an assembly of teachers on 16 October 1920. There is no available transcript of this talk.

PREFATORY NOTE

The following pages, entitled “Philosophy and Anthroposophy,” mainly reproduce a lecture which I gave in Stuttgart in 1908.

Under Anthroposophy I denote a scientific investigation of the spiritual world which, while cognizant of the limitations of mere physical science and ordinary mysticism, and before attempting to penetrate into the spiritual world, first develops in the soul faculties not yet evident in ordinary consciousness and science. The development of these faculties renders this advance possible.

A spiritual science of this nature is usually held by accepted philosophy to be an amateurish procedure. In a short description of the evolution of philosophy I attempt to show that this reproach is entirely unjustified. The reproach is only made because contemporary philosophy, having itself erred into false tracks, fails to perceive that the nature of its own origin demands the pursuance of the path which eventually leads to Anthroposophy.

—Rudolf Steiner

PHILOSOPHY AND ANTHROPOSOPHY

The human soul, under normal conditions of life and development, is liable to encounter two obstacles which must be overcome if the soul would avoid being swept like a rudderless ship on the waves of life. A drifting of this nature produces, in time and by degrees, an inner insecurity eventually culminating in some form of distress, or it may rob a man of the power of rightly disposing himself in the order of the world according to the true laws governing life, thus causing him to disturb and not promote this order.

Knowledge in respect of the human self—that is, self-knowledge—is one of the means of ensuring inner security and our true alignment in the order of life's development. The impulse to self-knowledge is found in every soul; it may be more or less unconscious, but it is always present. It may vent itself in quite indefinite feelings which, welling up from the depths of the soul, create an impression of dissatisfaction with life. Such feelings are often wrongly explained, and their alleviation sought in the outer circumstances of life. Though we are often unconscious of its nature, fear of these feelings obsesses us. If we could overcome this anxiety we should realize that no external measures, but only a thorough knowledge of the human being, can prove helpful. But this thorough knowledge requires that we should really feel the resistance of the two obstacles which human knowledge is liable to encounter when it would enter more deeply into the knowledge of the human being. They consist of two illusions, towering as two cliffs, between which we cannot advance in our pursuit of knowledge until we have experienced their true nature.

These two obstacles are: Natural Science and Mysticism. Both these forms of knowledge appear in a natural way upon the path of human life. But they must be inwardly experienced if they are to prove helpful. Whether or not we can acquire a knowledge of humanity depends upon our developing the strength to reach, indeed, both obstacles, but not to remain stationary before them. When confronted by them, we must still retain sufficient detachment to be able to say to ourselves: neither method can lead our soul whither we would go. But this insight can only result from a true inner experience of their cognitive value. We must not shrink from really experiencing their nature; in order to realize thereby that we endow them with their true value by first advancing beyond them. We must seek access to both methods of knowledge; once we have found them, the way of escape from them becomes apparent. The belief that true reality is grasped by Natural Science is revealed, to an unprejudiced insight, to be an illusion. A normal feeling of our own human reality produces quite a definite experience. The latter is intensified the more we tend to apply Natural Science to the comprehension of our own human self. Man as a natural product consists of a sum of natural operations. It may become an ideal of knowledge to comprehend man in the light of the operative forces observed in the realm of Nature. With genuine Natural Science this ideal is justifiable. It may also be admitted that an incalculably distant future will reveal the method of development according to natural law of the miraculous human organization. Efforts in this direction must be accepted as the rightful ideal of Natural Science. Yet it is essential that we should, in the face of this rightful ideal, press forward to an insight promoted by a sound feeling of reality. We must inwardly experience how the results offered us by Natural Science become increasingly foreign to all our inner experience of reality. The more perfect the results, the more foreign are they felt to be to our inner life, with its thirst for knowledge. True to its ideal, Natural Science is bound to offer us material substances; yet, if inwardly unbiased, we cannot avoid finally encountering the difficulty experienced by Du Bois-Reymond, when he asserted, in his famous lecture on the “Boundaries of Natural Science,” that human knowledge would never grapple with the phenomenon haunting space in the guise of matter. To devote all suitable faculties to the pursuit of Natural Science is a sound experience, but we should at the same time feel that the distance between ourselves and reality is not thereby lessened, but increased. The results of Natural Science should give us occasion to make this experience. We must observe that they do not result from comprehension or feeling, and we shall reach the point of admitting that we do not, in truth, devote ourselves to Natural Science in order to draw nearer to reality; we believe this to be the case in our conscious self, but the unconscious origin of our efforts must have an altogether different significance—a significance for human life, into which we must inquire. Knowledge of true reality does not coincide with knowledge of Nature. This insight can prove a turning point in the life of our soul. The knowledge is brought home to us through inner experience that we were bound to follow the course of Natural Science, but that we were disappointed in the expectations raised by our diligent pursuit. This recognition is the final result of genuine experience and insight into the natural processes. We then abandon the belief that Natural Science, however perfect its future development, can supply us with the knowledge of the human being. Not to have reached this standpoint and still to cherish the hope that ideal natural scientific knowledge can enlighten us concerning our own being, is a sign that we have not sufficiently advanced in the experiences that are possible within the scope of Natural Science itself.

This is the first obstacle against which we strike in our effort to attain knowledge of the human being. Many a thinker has felt the thrust on this side, and has faced about towards Mysticism and mystical immersion in the inner self. A certain progress can also be made in this direction, in the belief that actual reality, or something in the nature of unity with the primordial fount of all Being, can be inwardly experienced. If, however, we press on far enough to destroy the force of illusion, we become aware that however deep the immersion in the inner self, this experience leaves us helpless in the face of reality. With however powerful a grip we may be induced to feel that we have seized primal being, this inner experience finally proves to be some effect of an unknown being; we remain incapable of laying hold on true reality and retaining it. The mystic pursuing this path discovers that he has inwardly abandoned the true reality which he seeks and cannot draw near it again.

The natural scientist reaches an outer world which illudes his inner life. The mystic, while seeking to grasp an outer world reaches an inner life which sinks into the void.

Our experiences, on the one hand with Natural Science and on the other with Mysticism, proved to be no fulfillment of our efforts to find reality, but merely the starting-point of our path, for we are shown the chasm that yawns between material occurrence and the inner life of the soul; we are led to see this chasm and to gain the insight that, in respect of true and genuine knowledge, neither Natural Science nor mere Mysticism is capable of bridging it. The perception of this chasm leads us to seek an insight into reality by filling the gap with cognitional experiences which are not yet forthcoming in ordinary consciousness, but must be developed. With true experience of Natural Science and Mysticism, we must admit that another form of knowledge must be sought in addition to these—a knowledge that brings the material outer world nearer to our inner life, and at the same time immerses our inner life more deeply into the real world than this can be the case with Mysticism.

A cognitional method of this nature can be called anthroposophical, and the knowledge of reality thereby attained, Anthroposophy; for at the outset, true and genuine Man (anthropos) is held to be concealed behind the “man” revealed by Natural Science and the inner life of everyday consciousness. This true and genuine Man makes his presence felt in dim feelings, in the more unconscious life of the soul. Anthroposophical research raises him into consciousness. Anthroposophy does not lead away from reality to an unreal imaginary world; it embodies the search for a cognitional method in response to which the real world will reveal itself. With due experience of Natural Science and the Mysticism confined to ordinary consciousness, Anthroposophy presses forward to the perception that a new consciousness must be developed, issuing from ordinary consciousness as, for instance, waking from the dull dream consciousness. Thus the cognitional process becomes for Anthroposophy a real inner occurrence extending beyond ordinary consciousness, whereas Natural Science is nothing but logical judgment and inference within the confines of ordinary consciousness, on the basis of outwardly given material reality, and Mysticism only a deepened inner life which, however, remains within the pale of ordinary consciousness.

In calling attention, at the present day, to the fact that an inwardly real cognitional process and an anthroposophical knowledge exist, habits of thought are encountered whose origin is due, on the one hand, to Natural Science with its wonderful achievements and great expansion, and to certain mystical prejudices on the other. Thus Anthroposophy is repudiated upon the one side for supposedly not doing justice to Natural Science, while upon the other it appears superfluous to the mystically inclined, who believe they can themselves take their stand upon true reality. Others, who aim at keeping “genuine” knowledge free from everything that extends beyond ordinary consciousness, hold that Anthroposophy disowns the true scientific character which philosophy, for instance, and its knowledge of the world should retain, and therefore lapses into dilettantism.

The following exposition will prove how little this reproach of dilettantism (especially at the hands of philosophy) is justified. A short sketch of its development will show how often philosophy has estranged itself from true reality, through not perceiving the very two cognitional obstacles alluded to above, and how an unconscious impulse is at the root of all philosophical effort to steer between these obstacles and strive for Anthroposophy. (I have dealt at greater length with this tendency of all philosophy towards Anthroposophy in my book Die Rätsel der Philosophie.

Philosophy is generally regarded by those concerned therewith as something absolute, and not as something which was bound to come into existence, under particular conditions, in the course of the development of mankind, and be subject to transformation. Many an erroneous view of its true nature is current. It is however precisely when dealing with philosophy that we are in a position to name the period when it originated (and must have originated) in the course of human development—not merely through inner experience, but also on the basis of external historical documents. Most exponents of the history of philosophy, especially of the older school, have estimated this period fairly correctly. In all such presentations we find that a beginning is made with Thales, and the course of philosophy traced from him onwards in continuity down to our times. Some modern writers on the history of philosophy, aiming at unusual comprehensiveness and perspicacity, have placed the beginning of philosophy in still earlier times, drawing upon the various teachings of ancient wisdom. This, however, is only due to a particular form of dilettantism wholly ignorant of the fact that all the teachings of Indian, Egyptian, and Chaldean wisdom were entirely different, both in respect of method and origin, from purely philosophical thought with its leaning towards the speculative. The latter developed in the world of Greece, and there the first thinker to be considered in this sense is, in fact, Thales.

We need not describe at length the characteristics of the various Greek philosophers, beginning with Thales; we need not dwell on Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, Anaximenes, or yet on Socrates and Plato. We may begin at once with that personality who appears as the very first philosopher in the narrowest sense, the philosopher par excellence—Aristotle. All other philosophies were in reality but abstractions inspired by the wisdom of the Mysteries; in the case of Thales and Heraclitus, for instance, this could easily be shown.¹

Neither Plato nor Pythagoras is a philosopher in the real sense of the word, seership being the source from which both of them draw. The chief interest in a characterization of philosophy as such does not centre round the fact that someone or other expresses himself in ideas, but round the question where the sources from which he draws are to be found. Pythagoras drew from the wisdom of the Mysteries, which he translated into concepts and ideas. He was a seer, only he expressed his experiences as seer in philosophic form; and the same was the case with Plato.

But the essential characteristic of the philosopher, manifested for the first time in Aristotle, is the fact that he necessarily rejects all other sources (or has no access to them), and works exclusively with the technique of ideas. And since this may be said for the first time of Aristotle, it is not without good historical reason that it should be precisely this philosopher who founded logic and the science, of thought. All other efforts in this direction had been of a precursory nature only. The way and the manner in which concepts and judgments are formed and conclusions drawn this entire range of mental activity was discovered by Aristotle as a kind of natural history of subjective thought, and everything we meet within him is closely connected with this inauguration of the technique of thought. As we shall revert to certain points in connection with Aristotle which are of fundamental importance for all later aspects of the subject, this short historical indication will suffice to characterize in a few words the point from which we depart. Aristotle remains the representative philosopher for later times also. His achievements were not only embodied in the post-Aristotelian period of antiquity, up to the founding of Christianity, but he was regarded most especially in the first Christian period and onward into the Middle Ages as that philosopher in whom direction was to be sought in all efforts to formulate a conception of the universe. By this we do not mean that men had Aristotle's philosophy before them as a system, as a collection of dogmas—especially in the Middle Ages, when the original texts were not obtainable; but thinkers had become familiar with the process of applying the technique of pure thought and thereby ascending step by step to knowledge, up to the point where thought encompasses the fundamental problems of life. Aristotle became to an increasing extent the Master of Logic. The medieval thinkers would say to themselves: whatever be the source of the knowledge of positive facts, be it due to man's investigation of the outer world by means of his senses, or be it due to revelation by means of divine Grace, as through Christ Jesus, these things have simply to be accepted, on the one hand as the deposition of the senses, and on the other as revelation. But if any matter, however given, is to be substantiated by a purely conceptual process, this must be done with that technique of thinking which Aristotle discovered. And, in fact, the inauguration of the technique of thinking was achieved by Aristotle in so signal a fashion that Kant was but right in declaring that, since Aristotle, logic had not advanced by so much as a single sentence.² Indeed, this statement is in all essentials true of the present day; the fundamental teachings embodying a logical system of thought will be found today almost unaltered, if compared with what Aristotle set down. The additions made today are due to a somewhat mistaken attitude, prevalent even in philosophical circles, towards the conception of logic.

Now it was not merely the study, of Aristotle, but above all the assimilation of his technique of thinking, that became the standard of the central period of the Middle Ages, or the early Scholastic period, when Scholasticism was at its prime—a period which came to a close with St. Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. When mention is made of this early Scholasticism, it should be clearly understood that no philosophical judgment is possible at the present time in this connection, unless we are unhampered by all authority and dogmatic belief. It is indeed almost more difficult nowadays to speak of these things purely objectively, than disparagingly; for if we speak of Scholasticism with disparagement, we run no risk of being charged with heresy by the so-called freethinkers; but if we speak purely objectively, it is highly probable we shall be misunderstood, because a positive and most intolerant ecclesiastical movement of the present day often bases—its appeal upon totally misunderstood Thomism. There is no question of discussing here what is accepted by orthodox Catholic philosophy; neither should we be intimidated by the possible reproach of being concerned with what is professed and determined in dogmatic quarters. Let us rather be undisturbed by what may be asserted on the right and on the left, and simply seek to characterize what Scholasticism in its prime felt of science, the technique of thinking and supernatural revelation. Early Scholasticism does not bear the character attributed to it in a ready-made modern definition. Far from being dualistic in nature, as many imagine, it is pure Monism. It sees the world's primal source as an undoubted unity; only the Scholastic has a particular feeling with regard to the perception of this primal being. He says: there exists a certain fund of supersensible truth, a store of wisdom which was revealed to mankind; human thought with all its technique falls short of penetrating, of itself, into those regions which embody the content of the highest revealed wisdom. The early Scholastic appealed to a certain fund of wisdom which transcends the technique of thinking; that is, it is only in so far attainable as thought is capable of elucidating the wisdom which has been revealed. This portion of the Wisdom must be accepted by the thinkers as revelation, and the technique of thinking merely applied for its elucidation. What man can evolve from his inner self has its being only in certain subordinate regions of reality, and here the Scholastic applies active thought for the personal investigation of man. He presses forward up to a certain boundary where revealed wisdom meets him. Thus the content of personal research and revelation becomes united in an objective, unified, and monistic conception of the universe. That a kind of dualism, owing to human limitations, is associated with the matter is only of secondary importance; this is a dualism in cognition and not a dualism in the world whole.

The Scholastic, therefore, pronounces the technique of thinking to be suitable for the rational elaboration of the material gathered by empirical science in sense-observation; further, it may press forward a stage, even up to spiritual truth. Here the Scholastic, in all humility, presents a portion of wisdom as Revelation, which he cannot himself discover, but which he is called upon to accept.

Now this special technique of thinking, as applied by the Scholastics, sprang entirely from the soil of Aristotelian logic. There was, in fact, a twofold necessity for the early Scholastics (whose period drew to its close in the thirteenth century) to concern themselves with Aristotle. The first necessity was provided by historical evolution. Aristotelianism had become a permanency. The second arose from the fact that, as time went on, an enemy to Christianity sprang up in another quarter.

The teachings of Aristotle did not expand to Western countries only, but also to the East; and everything that had been brought by the Arabs into Europe by way of Spain was, in respect of thought technique, saturated with Aristotelianism. It was a certain form of philosophy, in particular of Natural Science, extending into Medicine, which had been brought over, and which was eminently saturated with Aristotelian technique of thinking. Now the belief had grown in that quarter that nothing but a kind of Pantheism could be the consistent outcome of Aristotelianism—a Pantheism which, particularly in philosophy, had evolved from a very vague Mysticism.

There was, therefore, in addition to the fact that Aristotle's influence was still paramount in the technique of thinking, yet another reason for men to concern themselves with his teachings, for in the interpretation placed upon him by the Arabs, Aristotle is made to appear as the opponent and foe of Christianity.

It had to be admitted that if the Arabian interpretation of Aristotelianism were true, the latter could provide a scientific basis adapted for the refutation of Christianity. Now let us imagine what the Scholastics felt in this extremity. Upon the one side they adhered firmly to the truth of Christianity, yet upon the other they were bound by all their traditions to acknowledge that the logic and the thought technique of Aristotle were alone right and true. Placed in this dilemma, the Scholastics were faced by the task of proving that Aristotle's logic could be applied and his philosophy professed, and that it was exactly he, Aristotle, who provided the very instrument by means of which Christianity would be really conceived and understood. It was a task imposed by the trend of historical development.

Aristotelianism had to be handled in such a way as to make it evident that the teaching brought by the Arabs was not Aristotle's, but only a mistaken conception thereof; that, in short, one had but to interpret Aristotle correctly in order to find in his teaching a basis for the conception of Christianity. This was the task Scholasticism set itself, to the achievement of which the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas were largely devoted.

Now, however, something else happened. When the day of Scholasticism had drawn to its close, there occurred in course of time a complete rupture along the whole line of logical and philosophical thought-evolution. No criticism is here intended of this fact; we do not wish even to suggest that it could have happened otherwise; the actual course taken was necessarily such as it was, and we merely put the case hypothetically when we say that the most natural thing would have been to have increasingly expanded the technique of thinking, so that ever higher and higher portions of the supersensible world should have been grasped by thought. But the next development was not of this nature. The fundamental conceptions, which, with St. Thomas Aquinas for instance, were applicable to the highest regions, and which could have received such development that the boundaries restricting human research would have receded ever farther and upwards into the supersensible regions—this body of thought was robbed of its power and possibility, and survived only in the conviction that the highest spiritual truths transcend altogether the activity of human thought and are beyond elaboration by concepts which man can evolve from himself. By such means a break in man's spiritual life occurred. Supersensible knowledge was pronounced to be entirely beyond the compass of human thought and to be unattainable by subjective cognitional nets; it must have its roots in faith. There had always been a tendency in this direction, but it ran to extremes towards the close of the Middle Ages.

Pains were taken to accentuate the breach between faith on the one hand, which must be attained by objective conviction, and, on the other hand, whatever logical activity can elaborate as the basis of a sound judgment.

Once this chasm was opened, it was only natural that knowledge and faith should be increasingly thrust asunder and that Aristotle and his technique of thinking should also become the victims of this breach occasioned by historical development. This was more especially the case at the beginning of the modern era. It was maintained on the scientific side (and we may consider many of the statements as well founded) that no progress could be made in the search for empirical truth by merely spinning out what Aristotle had placed on record. Furthermore, the trend of historical events was such that it became inadvisable to make common cause with the Aristotelians; and as the era of Kepler and Galileo drew near, mistaken Aristotelianism had become the very bane of knowledge.

It repeatedly happens that the adherents and followers of some particular philosophy of the universe corrupt an uncommon amount of the teaching which the founders themselves presented in the right way. Instead of looking to Nature herself, instead of exercising the faculty of observation, it was found easier at the end of the Middle Ages to have recourse to the old books of Aristotle and base all academic dissertations on his written word. It was characteristic of the epoch that when an orthodox Aristotelian was invited to convince himself by inspecting a dead body, that the nerves do not proceed from the heart, as he had mistakenly gathered from Aristotle, but that the nervous system has its centre in the brain the Aristotelian replied: “Observation certainly shows me that this is actually the case, but Aristotle states the reverse, and I have greater faith in him.” The followers of Aristotle had, in fact, become a grievance; empirical science was bound to make a clearance of this false Aristotelianism, basing its authority on pure experience, and we find a particularly strong impulse in the direction given by the great Galileo.

On the other side we see an entirely different development. An aversion to the technique of thinking was felt by those who, so to speak, sought to save their faith from this invasion of independent thought. They were of the opinion that this technique of thinking was powerless when faced by the fund of wisdom acquired through revelation. When the worldly empirics invoked the book of Aristotle, their opponents confronted them with arguments gathered from a different but equally misunderstood book—namely, the Bible. This was more particularly the case at the beginning of the modern era, as we may gather from Luther's hard words; “Reason is deaf and purblind fool” that should have naught to do with spiritual truths, adding further that pure faith by conviction can never be kindled by reason in a thought founded upon Aristotle, whom he calls “hypocrite, sycophant, and stinking goat.” These are, indeed, hard words; but when considered from the standpoint of the new era, they may be better understood. A deep chasm had opened between reason and its technique of thinking on the one hand, and supersensible truth on the other. A final expression of this break is found in a philosopher through whose influence the nineteenth century has become entangled in a web from which it can only with difficulty extricate itself. This philosopher is Kant. He is, virtually, the last representative thinker whose methods can be traced to that division which occurred in the Middle Ages. He differentiates sharply between faith and that knowledge which man may claim to attain. Externally the Critique of Pure Reason is associated with the Critique of Practical Reason, and Practical Reason seeks to handle the problem of Knowledge from the standpoint of rational faith. On the other hand Kant asserts most emphatically of Theoretical Reason that it is incapable of comprehending the Actual, the “thing-in-itself.” Man receives impressions from the thing-in-itself, but he is circumscribed by his own ideas and conceptions. We could not describe Kant's fundamental error without going deeply into the nature of his philosophy and its history; but this would lead too far from the present subject, moreover the reader will find the question adequately treated in my Truth and Science.

What is of far greater interest to us at the present moment is this web in the meshes of which the philosophical thought of the nineteenth century has become entangled. Let us examine how this came about. Kant was especially alive to the necessity of demonstrating to what extent something absolute was given us in thought, something in which there could be no uncertainty, as against the uncertainty, according to him, of everything which proceeds from experience. Our judgment can only derive certainty from the fact that a portion of knowledge does not originate with external things, but with ourselves. In the Kantian sense, we see external things as through a coloured glass; we receive them into ourselves, grouping them according to lawful connections which we ourselves evolve. Our cognition has certain forms—the forms of space, time, the categories of cause and effect, and so on. These are immaterial for the thing-in-itself, at least we cannot know whether the thing-in-itself has any existence in space, time, or causality. The latter are forms created by the subjective mind of man and imposed upon the thing-in-itself the moment of its appearing; the thing-in-itself remains unknown. Thus when man finds the thing-in-itself before him, he endows it with the forms of space and time, and finds an apparent association of cause and effect, thus enveloping the thing-in-itself with a self-made network of concepts and forms. For this reason man may claim a certain security of knowledge, since, as long as he is as he is, time, space, and causality possess actual significance for him. And whatever man thrusts into the things he must also extract from them. Of the thing-in-itself, however, he can have no knowledge, for he remains ever a captive of the forms of his own mind. This view was finally expressed by Schopenhauer in his classical formula; “The world is my conception.”

Now this entire process of reasoning has been transmitted to almost the entire thought of the nineteenth century; not only to the theory of knowledge, but also, for instance, to the theoretical principles of Physiology. Here philosophical speculation was amplified by certain experiences. If we consider the doctrine of the specific energies of the senses, there would seem to be a corroboration of the Kantian theory. At all events that is how the matter was recorded during the nineteenth century. “The eye perceives the light”; yet, if the eye be affected by some other means, say by pressure or by electric current, a perception of light is also recorded. Hence it was said: the perception of the light is generated by the specific energy of the eye and transferred to the thing-in-itself. It was Helmholtz in particular who laid this down in the crudest manner as a physiological-philosophical axiom, declaring that not even a pictorial resemblance can be claimed between our perceptions and the objects exterior to ourselves. A picture resembles its prototype, but in so called sense-perception the resemblance to the original cannot be so close as even in a picture. The only designation, therefore, we can find for the experience within ourselves is “symbol” of the thing-in-itself, for a symbol need have no resemblance to the thing it expresses.

Thus the philosophical thought of the nineteenth century, until the present day, became thoroughly impregnated with elements which had long been in preparation, so that the relation of human cognition to reality could not be conceived except in the sense of the ideas given above. I often recall a conversation I had the privilege of having years ago with a highly esteemed philosophical thinker of the nineteenth century, with whose views, however, on the theory of knowledge I could by no means agree. To qualify human conceived thought as purely subjective was, I urged, a cognitional assertion which should not be assumed a priori. He replied that one need only bear in mind the definition of the word “conception,” which pronounces the latter to exist only in the soul; but since reality is only given us by means of conceptions, it follows that we have no reality in the act of cognition, but only a conception thereof. This truly ingenious thinker had allowed a preconceived opinion to condense to a definition (which, for him, was indisputable), to the effect that conceptual thought reaches only as far as the boundary of the thing-in-itself, and is, therefore, subjective. This habit of thought has become so predominant in the course of time that all writers on the theory of cognition who pride themselves on understanding Kant, consider every man a dullard who will not agree with their definition of conceptual thought and the subjective nature of apprehension. All this has resulted from the split which I have described as occurring in the spiritual development of mankind.

Now a real understanding of Aristotle enables us to find that an entirely different principle and theory of cognition might have resulted from a direct, that is, from an undistorted, development of his teaching. In the matter of the theory of knowledge, Aristotle already admitted ideas to which man today can but slowly and gradually ascend through the intellectualistic undergrowth which is the outcome of Kant's influence. We must, above all things, realize that Aristotle, by means of his technique of thinking, was able to elaborate true concepts capable of transcending those limits which were imposed upon knowledge in the way described above.

We need only concern ourselves with a few of Aristotle's fundamental conceptions in order to recognize this. It is entirely in conformity with him to say: Our initial knowledge of the things which we apprehend around us is provided by our sense-perception. Sense presents to us the individual thing. When we, however, begin to think, the things group themselves; we gather diverse things into a unit of thought. Here Aristotle finds the right connection between this unity of thought and an objective reality (which, leads to the thing-in-itself), in showing that if we think consistently we must conceive the world of experience around us as composed of “matter” and what he terms “form”—two concepts which he genuinely differentiates in the only true and possible sense. It would entail a lengthy exposition to treat exhaustively of these concepts and all they involve; some elementary notions, however, in this connection will help us to understand Aristotle's teaching of “matter” and “form” as differentiated by him. He clearly realizes that, in respect of our cognition, it is essential that we should grasp the “form” of all things which constitute our world of experience, since it is the form which is the vital principle of things, and not matter.

There are even in our day personalities endowed with a true comprehension of Aristotle. Vincent Knauer, who in the 'eighties was lecturer at the University of Vienna, was in the habit of explaining to his hearers the difference between form and matter by means of an illustration which may, perhaps, appear grotesque, but is none the less pertinent. “Think,” he said, “how a wolf, after eating nothing but lambs for a part of his life, consists, strictly speaking, of nothing but lamb—and yet this wolf never becomes a lamb!” This argument, if only rightly followed up, gives the difference between matter and form. Is the wolf a wolf by reason of matter? No! His being is given him by his form, and we find this “wolf-form” not only in this particular wolf, but in all wolves. Thus we find form by means of a concept expressing a universal, in contradistinction to the thing grasped by the senses, which is always particular and single. Our thought moves altogether along Aristotelian lines, if we, like the Scholastics, exert ourselves to conceive the nature of form by dividing the universal into three kinds. The universal, as essence of the form, is conceived by the Scholastics, firstly as pre-existent to all operation and life of the form in the single thing; secondly as permeating the single thing with life and activity; thirdly, they found that the human soul, by observing the things inwardly, endows the universal form with life in a manner consistent with its (the soul's) nature. The philosophers, accordingly, differentiated the universal that lives in the thing and comes to expression in human cognition, in the following way:

1. Universalia ante rem: the essence of the form before its incorporation in the single thing.

2. Universalia in re: the essential forms existent in the things.

3. Universalia post rem: these essential forms abstracted from the things and appearing in cognition as an inner experience of the soul, through the reciprocal relation of the soul to the things.

Until we approach this threefold difference, no genuine insight is possible, in this connection, into what is here of importance. For only consider for a moment what is involved. The insight is involved that man, in so far as he remains within the universalia post rem, is confined to a subjective element. Further (and this is especially important), that the concept in the soul is a “representation” of universally existent real forms (Entelechies). The latter (universalia in re) have incorporated themselves in the things, thanks to their having previously existed as universalia ante rem.

A purely spiritual form of existence must be attributed to the universal essences before their incorporation in the single things. The conception of such essential universalia ante rem will naturally appear as a fanciful abstraction in the eyes of those for whom only the world of sensible objects is real. But it is of essential importance that an inner experience should induce us to accept this conception. That experience is meant, thanks to which the general concept “wolf” is not merely regarded as a condensation, effected by the intellect, of all the various single wolves, but is perceived as a spiritual reality extending beyond the single thing. This spiritual reality enables us to recognize difference between animal and man in a genuinely spiritual sense. What is inherent in the species “wolf” does not find its realization in the single wolf, but in the totality of these single wolves. In man, an entity of soul and spirit is immediately revealed in the individual, whereas, in animals, only through the species, in the totality of the individuals. Or, in Aristotelian terminology with individual man the “form” finds its immediate expression in the physical human being; in the animal world the “form,” as such, remains in a supersensible region and extends itself along the line of development comprising all the individuals of the same “form.” It is permissible, in the sense of Aristotelianism, to speak of “group-souls” (the souls of kind or species) in the case of animals, and of individual souls in the case of man. If we succeed in acquiring an inner experience in the light of which the above distinction becomes equivalent to a perceived reality, we have advanced one step farther on the path of knowledge, along which Aristotelianism and Scholasticism had only progressed as far as the technique of concepts and ideas. Anthroposophical Spiritual Science seeks to prove that the above experience can be acquired. The “forms” are then not merely the outcome of conceptual differentiation, but the object of supersensible vision. The group-souls of the animals and the individual souls of men are perceived as beings of similar kind. This entire process is perceived as physical reality is perceived by the senses. The method by which Anthroposophical Spiritual Science seeks to acquire this experience will be indicated in the course of this treatise. At this point the writer's intention was to show how ideas within the range of Aristotelian doctrine can be found to corroborate Anthroposophy. There is, however, in addition to all that we have met with in Aristotle, something which finds less and less favour in modern times. We are required to exert ourselves to think in concise, finely chiseled concepts, in concepts which we have first carefully prepared. It is necessary that we should have the patience to advance from concept to concept, and above all things cultivate clarity and keenness of thought; that we should be aware of what we are speaking when we frame a conception. If, for instance, we speak, in the Scholastic sense, of the relation of a concept to that which it represents, we are required in the first place to work our way through lengthy definitions in the Scholastic writings. We must understand what is meant when we find it stated that the concept is grounded “formally” in the subject and “fundamentally” in the object; the particular form of the concept is derived from the subject and its content from the object. That is but a small, quite a small, example. The study of Scholastic works involves labouring through massive volumes of definitions most unpleasant task for the scientist of today; for this reason he looks upon the Scholastics as learned pedants and condemns them downright. He is totally unaware that true Scholasticism is naught but the detailed elaboration of the art of thinking, in order that thought may provide a foundation for the genuine comprehension of reality.

It is of course far easier to bring a few ready-made conceptions to bear upon everything that confronts us in the nature of higher reality—far easier than to construct a firm foundation in the sphere of thought. But what are the consequent results? Philosophic books of the present day leave one with a dubious impression: men no longer understand each other on higher questions; they are not clear in their own minds as to the nature and scope of their conceptions. This could not have happened in the days of the Scholastics, for thinkers of that period were necessarily acquainted with the aspect of every concept they used. A way of penetrating to the depths of a genuine thought-method was clearly in existence, and, had this path been duly pursued, no entanglement in the web of Kant's “thing-in-itself,” and the (supposedly subjective) conception thereof, would have been possible. On the contrary, two results would have been attained. In the first place, man would have achieved an inwardly sound theory of knowledge; secondly (and this is of great importance), the great philosophers who lived and worked after Kant would not have been so completely misunderstood in accepted philosophical circles. Kant was succeeded by Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel; what are they to the man of today? They are held to be philosophers who sought to fashion a world from purely abstract concepts. This was never their intention.³

But Kant's principles of thought were the dominating influence and prevented the greatest philosopher in the world being understood. People will only by degrees ripen an understanding of all that Hegel has given to the world; only when they have east off this hampering web of theories and cognitional phantoms. Yet this would be so simple! No more is necessary than the effort to think naturally and without constraint, rejecting the set habits of thought which have developed under the questionable influence of the Kantian school. The question must clearly be settled whether man (as proceeding from the subject) encompasses the object with a conception which he himself constructs within that subject. But does it necessarily follow that man is unable to penetrate into the “thing-in-itself?” Let me give a simple example. Imagine, for instance, that you have a seal bearing the name of Miller. Now press the seal on some sealing-wax and again remove it. There can be no doubt, I take it, that the seal being, let us say, of brass, no property of the brass will pass over into the wax. Were the sealing-wax to exercise the function of cognition in the Kantian sense, it would say: “I am entirely wax; no brass passes over into me, there is therefore no connection whereby I may learn the nature of that which has approached me.” And yet the point in question has in this case been entirely neglected—namely, the fact that the name “Miller” remains objectively imprinted upon the sealing-wax, without any portion of the brass having adhered to it. So long as people cling to the materialistic principle of thought that no connection is possible unless matter passes over from one to the other, they will in theory maintain: “I am sealing-wax and the other is brass-in-itself, and since none of the brass-in-itself can enter me, therefore the name of Miller can be no more than a sign. But the thing-in-itself which was in the seal and which has impressed itself upon me so that I can read it, this thing-in-itself remains forever unknown to me.” With this final formula the argument is clenched. Continuing the illustration, we might say: “Man is all wax (conception). The thing-in-itself is all seal (that which is exterior to the conception). Now since I, being wax (the subject conceiving), can but attain to the outer surface of the seal (the thing-in-itself), I remain within myself and nothing passes into me from the thing-in-itself.” So long as Materialism is allowed to encroach upon the theory of knowledge, no understanding is possible of what is here of importance.⁴

It is true that we are limited by our own conception, but the element that reaches us from outer reality is of purely spiritual nature, and is not dependent upon the transmission of material atoms. What passes over into the subject is not of material but of spiritual nature, as truly as the name Miller passes into the wax. This must be the starting-point of a sound theory and investigation of knowledge, and it will soon become apparent to what extent Materialism has gained a footing even in philosophical thought. An unbiased review of the state of affairs leaves us no alternative but to conclude that Kant could only conceive the “thing-in-itself” as matter, however grotesque this may seem at first sight. For the sake of a complete survey of the subject we must new touch upon another point. We have explained how Aristotle distinguished between “form” and “matter” in all things within our range of experience. Now if the process of cognition allows us to approach the “form” in the manner indicated above, the question arises to what extent is a similar approach possible in the direction of “matter.” It must be noted that, for Aristotle, matter was not synonymous with material substance, but comprised the spiritual element underlying the world, of physical reality. It is therefore possible not only to comprehend the spiritual element that reaches us from external things,* but also to seek immediate access to the things and identify ourselves with matter. This question is also of importance for the theory of knowledge, and can be answered only by one who has gone deeply into the nature of thought, that is, of pure thought. The concept of “pure thought” is one which we must be at pains to acquire. Following Aristotle, we may look upon pure thought as an actual process. It is pure form and, in its initial mode of existence, void of content as far as the single, individual things of the external physical world are concerned. Why? Let us make it clear how pure conception comes into being in contradistinction to perception through the senses. Let us imagine we wish to form the conception of a circle. We can, for this purpose, put out to sea until we see nothing but water around: this perception can provide the conception of a circle. There is another way, however, of arriving at the conception of a circle without appealing to the senses. I can construct, in thought, the sum of all places which are equidistant from one particular spot. No appeal to the senses is necessary for this exclusively internal thought-process; it is unquestionably pure thought in the Aristotelian sense; pure actuality.

And now a further significant fact presents itself. Pure thought thus conceived harmonizes with experience; it is indispensable for the comprehension of experience. Imagine Kepler evolving, by means of pure constructive thought, a system in which the elliptical courses of the planets are shown, with the sun in the focus, and then observation, by means of the telescope, subsequently confirming an effort of pure thought conceived in advance of experience. Pure thought is thus shown to possess significance for reality—for it harmonizes therewith. Kepler's method affords a practical illustration of the theories which Aristotelianism founded upon the science of knowledge. The universalia post rem are grasped, and, upon nearer approach, it is found that they became united with the things in a previous form, as universalia ante rem. Now if these universals are not perverted in the sense of a false theory of knowledge, if they are not made to appear as subjective notions, but are found to exist objectively in the things, it follows that they must first have become united with that “form” conceived by Aristotle as the underlying foundation of the world.

Thus the discovery is made that the apparently most subjective activity (when something is determined independently of all experience) provides the very means for attaining reality in the most objective manner possible.

Now what is the reason why human thought, in so far as it is subjective, cannot at first find free access to the world? The reason is that it finds its way obstructed by the “thing-in-itself.” When we construct a circle we live in the process itself, if only formally to begin with. Now the next question is: To what extent can subjective thought lead to the attainment of any permanent reality? As we have pointed out, subjective thought is, in the first place, expressly constructed by ourselves; it is of merely formal nature and, as far as the objective world is concerned, has the appearance of an extraneous addition. We are indeed justified in claiming that it is a matter of complete indifference to any existing circle or sphere whether our thought concerns itself therewith or not. My thought is brought externally to bear upon reality, and is of no concern to the world of experience around me. The latter exists in its own accord irrespective of my thought. It can therefore follow that our thought may possess objectivity for ourselves, yet be of no moment for the things. What is the solution of this apparent contradiction? Where is the other pole to which we must now have recourse? Can a way be found, within pure thought to create not only form, but together with form its material reality? As soon as the possibility is given of a simultaneous creation of form and matter a point of security is reached upon which the theory of knowledge may build.

When we, for instance, construct the circle, we may claim that whatever we assert concerning this circle is objectively true; but the question whether our assertions are applicable to the things will depend upon the things themselves eventually showing us to what extent they are subject to the laws which we construct and apply to them. When the totality of forms resolves itself in pure thought, some residue (Aristotle's “matter”) must remain, where it is not possible by the process of pure thought to reach reality.

Fichte may at this point supplement Aristotle. A formula along Aristotelian lines may be reached to the effect that everything about us, including all things belonging to the invisible worlds, necessarily call for a material reality to correspond with form-reality. To Aristotle the idea of God is a pure actuality, a pure act, that is, an act in which actuality (the formative element) possesses the power to produce its own reality; it does not stand apart from matter, but by reason of its own activity fully and immediately coincides with reality.

The image of this pure actuality is found in man himself, when by the process of pure thought he attains to the idea of the “I.” Upon this level (in the “I”) he is within the sphere of what Fichte calls “deed-act.” He has inwardly arrived at something which not only lives in actuality, but together with this actuality produces its own “matter.” When we grasp the “I” in pure thought we are in a centre where pure thought produces its own essential “matter.” When we apprehend the “I” in thought, a threefold “I” is at hand; a pure “I” belonging to the universalia ante rem; an “I” wherein we ourselves are, belonging to the universalia in re; and an “I” which we comprehend and which belongs to the universalia post rem. But here we must especially note that, in this case, when we rise to a true apprehension of the “I,” the threefold “I” becomes merged into one. The “I” lives within itself; it produces its own concept and lives therein as a reality. The activity of pure thought is not immaterial to the “I,” for pure thought is the creator of the “I.” Here the “creative” and the “material” coincide, and we must but acknowledge that, whereas in other processes of cognition we strike against a boundary, this is not the case with the “I” which we embrace in its inmost being when we enfold it in pure thought.

The following fundamental axiom may therefore be formulated in the sense of the theory of cognition: “In pure thought a particular point is attainable wherein the complete convergence of the 'real' and the 'subjective' is achieved, and man experiences reality.” If we now set to work at this point, if we cultivate our thought so that it shall bear fruit and issue from itself—we then grasp the things of the world from within. In the “I,” therefore, grasped in pure thought and thereby also created, something is given whereby we may break down the barrier which, in the case of all other things, must be placed between “form” and “matter.”

A well-founded and thoroughgoing theory of cognition may thus advance to the point of indicating a way into reality by means of pure thought. If this path be pursued, it will be found that it must eventually lead to Anthroposophy. Very few philosophers, however, have any understanding of this path. They are mostly entangled in their self-made web of notions; arid since they cannot but regard the concept as something merely abstract, they are incapable of grasping the one and only point where it is a creative archetype, and equally incapable of finding a bond of union with the “thing-in-itself.”

For a knowledge of the “I” as an instrument whereby the human soul's immersion in the fullest reality may be clearly perceived, we are required to distinguish most carefully between the real “I” and the “I” of ordinary consciousness. A confusion of these might lead us to assert, with the philosopher Descartes: “I think, therefore I am”; in this case, however, reality would refute us during every sleep, when we “are” though we do not “think.” Thought does not vouch for the reality of the “I.” On the other hand, it is equally true that an experience of the true “I” is not possible except by means of pure thought. As far as ordinary human consciousness is concerned, the true “I” extends into pure thought, and into pure thought alone. Mere thinking only leads us to a thought (conception) of the “I”; experience of all that may be experienced within pure thought provides our consciousness with a content of reality in which “form” and “matter” coincide. Apart from this “I,” ordinary consciousness can know of nothing which carries both “'form” and “matter” into thought. All other thoughts do not image full reality. Yet by acquiring experience of the true “I” in pure thought we become acquainted with full reality; moreover, we may advance from this experience to other regions of true reality.

Anthroposophy attempts this advance. It does not remain stationary on the level of the experiences of ordinary consciousness, but strives to achieve an investigation of reality through the agency of a transformed consciousness. With the exception of the “I” experienced in pure thought, ordinary consciousness is excluded for the purpose of this investigation.

A new consciousness takes its place, whose activity in its widest range is commensurate with the activity of ordinary consciousness at such moments when the latter can rise to the experience of the “I” in pure thought. To achieve this purpose, our soul most acquire the strength to withdraw from the apprehension of all external things and from all conceptions with which we are inwardly so familiar that we can recall them in our memory. Most seekers after the knowledge of reality deny the possibility of the above; they deny it without trial. Indeed, the only method of trial is the accomplishment of those inner processes which lead to the above-mentioned transformation of consciousness. (A detailed description of these processes will be found in my book, among others, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment.) An attitude of denial in this matter effectively hinders the attainment of true reality. Only the main points in connection with these processes can here be given; the subject is treated in detail in the author's above-mentioned and other books. The soul forces which in ordinary life and science are devoted to the perception of things and to the activity of such thought as can be recalled in memory—these forces can be applied to the perception and experience of a supersensible world. Our initial experience in this way is the perception of our supersensible being. The reason why we cannot attain this supersensible being if we remain within the limits of ordinary consciousness becomes conspicuous to us. (Though we attain it at that one point of the true “I,” as explained above, we are unable immediately to recognize it in its state of isolation.) Ordinary consciousness is produced when man's physical, bodily nature, as it were, engulfs his spiritual being and acts in its place. In the ordinary apprehension of the physical world we have an activity of the human organism which is maintained by the transformation of man's supersensible being into a sensible (physical) being. The activity of ordinary thought originates in the same way, with the difference that apprehension is ensured by the reciprocal relation of the human organism to the outer world, whereas thought evolves within the organism itself.

An insight into these facts is conditional to all true knowledge of reality. The seeker after knowledge must make the attainment of this insight the object of inner, spiritual exertion. The habits of thought prevalent in our day tend to a confusion of this spiritual exercise with all manner of nebulous, mystical amateurishness. Nothing can be more irrelevant. The effort is entirely in the direction of the fullest clarity of soul. Strictly logical thought is both the point of departure and the standard of exercise, to the exclusion of all experiences deficient in such inner clarity. But this purely logical thought is related to the inner exercise in question, as a shadow to the object which casts it. The exercise of the inner faculties strengthens the soul to such an extent that the struggle towards knowledge becomes fraught with more than the experience of mere abstract thought; the experience of spiritual realities is achieved. Knowledge is kindled in the soul, of which a non-transformed consciousness can have no conception. This development of consciousness has nothing to do with any form of visionary or other diseased condition of soul. These are inseparable from a debasement of the soul below the sphere in which clear, logical thought is active; anthroposophical research, however, transcends this sphere and leads into the spiritual. In the above-mentioned conditions of soul the physical body is always implicated; anthroposophical research strengthens the soul to such an extent that activity in the spiritual sphere is possible independently of the physical body. The attainment of this strengthened condition of soul requires, to begin with, exercise in “pictorial thought.” Consciousness is made to centre upon such clear and pregnant conceptions as are otherwise only formed under the influence of external apprehension. An inner activity is thus experienced of such intensity as only external tone or colour or another sense-perception can otherwise evoke. In this case, however, the activity is purely the result of strong inner effort. It is of the nature of thought; not such thought as accompanies sense-perception with abstract concepts, but thought which becomes intensified to the point of (inner) visibility such as ordinarily is only evident in the imagery of sense-perception. The importance does not lie in “what” we think but in the consciousness of an activity not undertaken in ordinary consciousness. We thus learn to experience ourselves in the supersensible being of our “I” which, in ordinary life, is concealed by the manifestations of the physical, bodily organization. A consciousness thus transformed becomes the instrument for the perception of supersensible reality. For this purpose, however, further exercise in respect of feeling and willing is necessary, in addition to the above-mentioned exercise, which is only concerned with the transformed faculties of perceiving and conceiving.

In ordinary life, feeling and willing are associated with beings or processes external to the soul. To bring supersensible reality within the range of cognition, the soul must give vent to the same activity which, in the case of feeling and willing, is outwardly directed; this activity, however, must now apprehend the inner life itself. For the purpose of and during supersensible investigation, feeling and will must be entirely diverted from the outer world; they must solely grasp what the transformed faculties of perceiving and conceiving create within the soul. We “feel,” and we permeate with “will” solely what we inwardly experience as consciousness transformed through thought intensified to the point of inner visibility. (A more detailed account of this transformation of feeling and willing will be found in the books mentioned above.) The life of the soul thus becomes completely transformed. It becomes the life of a spiritual being (our own) experienced in a real supersensible, spiritual world—as man, within ordinary consciousness, experiences his “self” in a sensible, physical world through his senses and the faculty of conceptual thought connected therewith. The knowledge of true reality is the goal of human effort, and the first step towards its realization consists of the insight that neither Natural Science nor ordinary mystical experience can provide this knowledge; for between them there yawns an abyss (as was shown at the outset) which must be bridged. This is effected through the transformation of consciousness as outlined in these pages. The knowledge of true reality can never be attained unless we first realize that the usual instruments of knowledge are inadequate for this purpose, and that the requisite instrument must first be developed. Man feels that something more is slumbering within him than his own consciousness can encompass in ordinary life and with ordinary science. He instinctively yearns for a knowledge which is unattainable for this consciousness. For the purpose of attaining this knowledge he must not shrink from transforming the faculties which in ordinary consciousness are directed towards the physical world, so that they shall apprehend a supersensible world. Before true reality can be apprehended, a condition of soul appropriate for the spiritual world must first be established! The range of ordinary consciousness is dependent upon the human organization, which is dissolved by death. Hence it is conceivable that the knowledge resulting from this consciousness falls short of being knowledge of the spiritual and eternal in man. Only the transformation of this consciousness ensures a perception of that world in which man lives as a supersensible being, that is, as a being which remains unaffected by the dissolution of the physical organism.

The acceptance of this transmutability of consciousness and, hence, of a possible investigation of reality, is alien to the habits of thought of the present day. More so, perhaps, than the physical system of Copernicus to the men of his time. But as this system, in spite of all obstacles, found its way to the human soul—so, too, anthroposophical Spiritual Science will find its way. An understanding of anthroposophy is also difficult for contemporary philosophy, for the latter derives its origin from a mode of thought which failed to fructify the germs of an unprejudiced technique of thought which were implanted in Aristotelianism. This shortcoming, as was shown above, was followed by the seclusion of thought and investigation, through an artificial web of concepts, from true reality, which became a “thing-in-itself.” Owing to this fundamental tendency, contemporary philosophy cannot but refuse to accept anthroposophy. In the light of the philosophical conception of scientific method, anthroposophy cannot but appear as dilettantism, and this reproach is easily conceivable if the essentials of the question are kept in view. The origin of this reproach has here been explained.

These pages will possibly have made clear what must necessarily occur before the philosophers can undertake to agree that anthroposophy is no dilettantism. It is necessary that philosophy, with its conceptual system, should work its way to an unprejudiced recognition of its own fundamental basis. It is not the case that anthroposophy is at variance with sound philosophy, but that a modern theory of knowledge, accepted by science, is itself at variance with the deeper foundation of true philosophy.

This theory of knowledge is wandering in false tracks and must relinquish these if it would develop an understanding of anthroposophical world-comprehension.

• 1. Under “Wisdom of the Mysteries” a wisdom is meant which flourished in ancient times, and differed essentially from later methods of knowledge. Its origin as an inner experience of the soul whereby the secrets of the Cosmos were revealed. During the sixth century B.C., this method of knowledge was succeeded by another which, rejecting the inner experience of the soul, sought to gain an understanding of the world by the rational observation of the physical and spiritual phenomena. The inner vision of the more ancient method was sustained by an instinctive logic. In the following period logical thought became to an increasing extent a conscious faculty. Intuitive vision disappeared and the wisdom of the Mysteries was succeeded by philosophical speculation. The philosophers of the earliest period, however, were acquainted with the wisdom of the Mysteries, either through inner vision (if they still retained this faculty) or through tradition, and applied to it the newly evolving faculty of rational thought. The reader will find a description of this historical transition in the author's Die Rätsel der Philosophie
• 2. Little or no weight can be laid on the objections raised against this statement of Kant in certain quarters.
• 3. The author is well acquainted with certain modern philosophic works in which reference is made to Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel with a view to obtaining direction from the utterances of these thinkers. But he finds such treatises deficient in a point of vital importance for the philosophers in question, namely as regards their attitude towards a spiritual reality which must be experienced in the soul. A mere reference to the abstract logical element in their philosophy falls short of attaining the vital principle therein.
• 4. It clearly follows that the term “Materialism” must be used far more comprehensively than is usually the case. A man is a “materialist” when his method of thought constrains him to believe that the real thing-in-itself remains external to his soul, because no portion of its “matter” is transmitted. He is a materialist even though he deem himself an idealist for admitting the soul, as such. And it is to a masked materialism that Kant's doctrine can be traced. Viewed in this light, the modern claim that “Science has superseded nineteenth-century materialism” appears in all its hollowness. On the contrary, Science, failing to recognize materialistic thought as such, has plunged still deeper into Materialism.

Yesterday I endeavoured at the conclusion of our consideration of Scholasticism to point out how in a current of thought the most important things are the problems which presented themselves in a quite definite way to the human soul, and which, when you think of it, really all culminated in the desire to know: How does man attain the knowledge which is essential to his life, and how does this knowledge join up with that which at the time governed the dispositions of men in a social aspect? How does the knowledge which can be won join up with the contents of faith of the Christian Church in the West? The militant Scholiasts had to deal first of all with human individuality which, as we have seen, emerged more and more, but which was no longer in a position to carry the experience of knowledge up to the point of real, concrete, spirit-content, as it still flickered in the course of time from what survived of Neoplatonism, of the Areopagite, of Scotus Erigena. I have also pointed out that the impulses set in motion by Scholasticism still continued in a certain way. They continued, so that one can say: The problems themselves are great, and the manner in which they were propounded (we saw this yesterday) had great influence for a long time. And, in point of fact—and this is to be precisely the subject of to-day's study—the influence of what was then the greatest problem—the relationship of men to sensory and spiritual reality—is still felt, even if in quite a different form, even if it is not always obvious, and even if it takes to-day a form entirely contrary to Scholasticism. Its influence still lives. It is still all there to a large extent in the spiritual activities of to-day, but distinctly altered by the work of important people in the meantime on the European trend of human development in the philosophical sphere. We see at once, if we go from Thomas Aquinas to the Franciscan monk who originated probably in Ireland and at the beginning of the fourteenth century taught at Paris and Cologne, Duns Scotus, we see at once, when we get to him, how the problem has, so to speak, become too large even for all the wonderful, intensive thought-technique which survived from the age of the real master-ship in thought-technique—the age of Scholasticism. The question that again faced Duns Scotus was as follows: How does the psychic part of man live in the physical organism of man? Thomas Aquinas' view was still—as I explained yesterday—that he considered the psychic as working itself into the physical. When through conception and birth man enters upon the physical existence, he is equipped by means of his physical inheritance only with the vegetative powers, with all the mineral powers and with those of physical comprehension; but that without pre-existence the real intellect, the active intellect, that which Aristotle called the “nous poieticos” enters into man. But, as Thomas sees it, this nous poieticos absorbs as it were all the psychic element, the vegetative-psychic and the animal-psychic and imposes itself on the corporeality in order to transpose that in its entirety—and then to combine living for ever with what it had won, from the human body, into which it had itself entered, though without pre-existence, from eternal heights. Duns Scotus cannot believe that such an absorption of the whole dynamic system of the human being takes place through the active understanding. He can only imagine that the human bodily make-up exists as something complete; that the vegetative and animal principles remain through the whole of life in a certain independence, and are thrown off with death, and that really only the spiritual principle, the intellectus agens, enters into immortality. Equally little can he imagine the idea which Thomas Aquinas toyed with: the permeation of the whole body with the human-psychic-spiritual element*. Scotus can imagine it as little as his pupil William of Occam, who died at Munich in the fourteenth century, the chief thing about him being that he returned to Nominalism. For Scotus the human understanding had become something abstract, something which no longer represented the spiritual world, but as being won by reflection, by observation of the senses. He could no longer imagine that Reality was the product only of the universals, of ideas. He fell back again into Nominalism, and returned to the view that what establishes itself in man as ideas, as general conceptions, is conceived only out of the physical world around him, and that it is really only something which lives in the human spirit—I might say—for the sake of a convenient comprehension of existence—as Name, as words. In short, he returned again to Nominalism.

That is really a significant fact, for we see: Nominalism, as for instance Roscelin expounds it—and in his case the Trinity itself broke in pieces on account of his Nominalism—is interrupted only by the intensive thought activity of Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and others, and then Europe soon relapses again into the Nominalism which is really the incapacity of human individuality, ever struggling to rise higher and higher to comprehend as a spiritual reality something which is present in its spirit in the form of ideas; so to comprehend it as something which lives in man and in a certain way also in things. Ideas, from being realities, become again Names, merely empty abstractions.

You see the difficulties which European thought encountered in greater and greater degree when it opened up the quest of knowledge. For in the long run we human beings must acquire knowledge through ideas—at any rate, in the first stages of knowledge we are bound to make use of ideas. The big question must always crop up again: How do ideas enable us to attain reality? But, substantially, an answer becomes impossible if ideas appear to us merely as names without reality. And these ideas, which in Ancient Greece, or, at any rate, in initiated Greece were the final demonstration, coming down from above, of a real spirit world, these ideas became ever more and more abstract for the European consciousness. And this process of becoming abstract, of ideas becoming words, we see perpetually increasing as we follow further the development of Western thought. Individuals stand out later, and for example Leibnitz, who actually does not touch upon the question whether ideas lead to knowledge. He is still in possession of a traditional point of view and ascribes everything to individual world-monads, which are really spiritual. Leibnitz towers over the others because he has the courage to expound the world as spiritual. Yes, the world is spiritual; it consists of a multitude of spiritual beings. But I might say that that particular thing which in a former age, with, it is true, a more distinctive knowledge not yet illuminated by such a logic as Scholasticism had, that moreover which meant in such an age differentiated spiritual individuals, was for Leibnitz a series of graduated spiritual points, the monads. Individuality is saved, but only in the form of the monads, in the form, as it were, of a spiritual, indivisible, elemental point. If we exclude Leibnitz, we see in the whole West an intensive struggle for certainty concerning the origins of existence, but at the same time an incapacity everywhere really to solve the Nominalism problem.

This is particularly met with in the thinker who is rightly placed at the beginning of the new philosophy, in the thinker Descartes, who lived at the opening or in the first half of the seventeenth century. We learn everywhere in the history of philosophy the basis of Cartesian philosophy in the sentence: Cogito ergo sum; I think, therefore I am. There is something of Augustine's effort in this sentence. For Augustine struggles out of that doubt of which I have spoken in the first lecture, when he says: I can doubt everything, but the fact of doubt remains and I live all the same while I doubt. I can doubt the existence of concrete things round me, I can doubt the existence of God, of clouds and stars, but not the existence of the doubt in me. I cannot doubt what goes on in my soul. There is something certain, a certain starting point to get hold of. Descartes takes up this thought again—I think, therefore I am. In such things one is, of course, exposed to grave misunderstandings, if one has to set something simple against something historically recognized. But it is necessary. Descartes and many of his followers—and in this respect he had innumerable followers—considers the idea: if I have a thought-content in any consciousness, if I think, I cannot get over the fact that I do think. Therefore, I am, therefore my existence is assured through my thinking. My roots are, so to speak, in the world-existence, as I have assured my existence through my thought. So modern philosophy really begins as Intellectualism, as Rationalism, as something which wants to use thought as its instrument, and to this extent is only the echo of Scholasticism, which had taken the turning towards Intellectualism so energetically.

Two things we observe about Descartes. First, there is necessarily the simple objection: Is my existence really established by the fact that I think? All sleep proves the contrary. We know every morning when we awake that we must have existed from the evening before to the morning, but we have not been thinking. So the sentence: I think, therefore I am—cogito ergo sum—is in this simple way disproved. This simple fact, which is, I might say, a kind of Columbus' egg, must be set against this famous sentence which found an uncommon amount of success. That is one thing to say about Descartes. The other is the question: What is the real objective of all his philosophic effort? It is no longer directed towards a view of life, or receiving a cosmic secret for the consciousness, it is really turned towards something entirely intellectualistic and concerned with thought. It is directed to the question: How do I gain certainty? How do I overcome doubt? How do I find out that things exist and that I myself exist? It is no longer a material question, a question concerned with the continual results of observing the world, it is a question rather that concerns the certainty of knowledge. This question arises out of the Nominalism of the Schoolmen, which only Albertus and Thomas suppressed for a certain time, but which after them appeared again. And so these people can only give a name to what is hidden in their souls in order to find somewhere in them a point from which they can make for themselves, not a picture or conception of the world, but the certainty that not everything is deception and untruth; that when one looks out upon the world one sees a reality and when one looks inward upon the soul one also sees a reality. In all this is clearly noticeable what I pointed to yesterday in conclusion, namely, that human individuality has arrived at intellectualism, but has not yet felt the Christ-problem. The Christ-problem occurs for Augustine because he still looks at the whole of humanity. Christ begins to dawn in the human soul, to dawn, I might say, on the Christian Mystics of the Middle Ages; but he does not dawn clearly on those who sought to find him by that thought which is so necessary to individuality—or by what this thought would produce. This process of thought as it comes forth from the human soul in its original condition is such that it rejects precisely what ought to have been the Christian idea for the innermost part of man; it rejects the transformation, the inner metamorphosis; it refuses to take the attitude towards the life of knowledge in which one would say: yes, I think and I think first of all concerning myself and the world. But this kind of thought is still very undeveloped. This thought is, as it were, the kind that exists after the Fall. It must rise above itself. It must be transformed and be raised into a higher sphere. As a matter of fact, this necessity has only once clearly flashed up in one great thinker, and that is in Spinoza, follower of Descartes. Spinoza really did make a deep impression on people like Herder and Goethe with good reason. For Spinoza, although he is still completely buried apparently in the intellectualism which survived or had survived in another form from the Scholiasts, still understands this intellectualism in such a way that man can finally come to the truth—which for Spinoza is ultimately a kind of intuition—by transforming the intellectual, inner, thinking, soul-life, not by being content with everyday life or the ordinary scientific life. And so Spinoza reaches the point of saying to himself: This thought replenishes itself with spiritual content through the development of thought itself.. The spiritual world, which we learned to know in Plotinism, yields again, as it were, to thought, if this thought tends to run counter to the spirit. Spirit replenishes thought as intuition. And I consider it is very interesting that this is what Spinoza says: If we survey the existence of the world, how it continues to develop in its highest substance, in spirit, how we then receive this spirit in the soul by raising ourselves by thought to intuition, by being so intellectualistic that we can prove things as surely as mathematics, but in the proof develop ourselves at the same time and continue to rise so that the spirit can come to meet us, if we can rise to this height, then, from this angle of vision we can comprehend the historic process of what lies behind the evolution of mankind. And it is remarkable that the following sentence stands out from the writings of the Jew Spinoza: The highest revelation of divine substance is given in Christ. In Christ intuition has become Theophany, the incarnation of God, and the voice of Christ is therefore in truth the voice of God and the path to salvation. In other words, the Jew Spinoza comes to the conclusion that man can so develop himself by his intellectualism, that the spirit comes down to him. If he is then in a position to apply himself to the mystery of Golgotha, then the filling with the spirit becomes not only intuition, that is, the appearance of the spirit through thought, but intuition changes into Theophany, into the appearance of God Himself. Man is on the spiritual path to God. One might say that Spinoza was not reticent about what he suddenly realized, as this expression shows. But it fills what he had thus discovered from the evolution of humanity with a kind of tune, a kind of undercurrent of sound, it completes his Ethics.

And once more it is taken up by a sensitive human being. We can realize that for somebody who could also certainly read between the lines of this Ethics who could sense in his own heart the heart that lives in this Ethics, in short, that for Goethe this book of Spinoza's became the standard. These things should not be looked at so purely abstractly, as is usually done in the history of philosophy. They should be viewed from the human standpoint, and we must look at the spark of Spinozism which entered Goethe's soul. But actually what can be read between Spinoza's lines did not become a dominating force. What became important was the incapacity to get away from Nominalism. And Nominalism next becomes such that one might say: Man gets ever more and more entangled in the thought: I live in something which the outer world cannot comprehend, a something which cannot leave me to sink into the outer world and take upon itself something of its nature. And so it is that this feeling, that one is so isolated, that one cannot get away from oneself and receive something from the outer world, is already to be found in Locke in the seventeenth century. Locke's formula was: That which we observe as colours, as tones in the outer world is no longer something which leads us to reality; it is only the effect of the outer world on our senses; it is something in which we ourselves are wrapped also, in our own subjectivity. That is one side of the question.

The other side is seen in such minds as that of Francis Bacon in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, where Nominalism becomes such a penetrating philosophy that it leads him to say: one must do away with man's false belief in a reality which is, in point of fact, only a name. We have reality only when we look out upon the world of the senses, which alone supply realities through empiric knowledge. By the side of these, those realities on which Albertus and Thomas have built up their theory of rational knowledge play no longer a really scientific part. In Bacon the spiritual world has, so to speak, evaporated into something which can no longer well up from man's inmost heart with the certainty and safety of a science. The spiritual world becomes the subject of faith, which is not to be touched by what is called knowledge and learning. On the contrary, knowledge is to be won only by external observation and by experiment, which is, after all, only a more spiritual kind of external observation.

And so it goes on till Hume, in the eighteenth century, for whom the connection between cause and effect becomes something which lives only in human subjectivity, which men attribute to things from a sort of external habit. We see that Nominalism, the heir of Scholasticism, weighs down humanity like a mountain. What is primarily the most important sign of this development?

The most important sign is surely this, that Scholasticism stands there with its hard logic, that it arises at a time when the sum of reason is to be divided off from the sum of truth concerning the spiritual world. The Scholiast's problem was, on the one hand, to examine this sum of truth concerning the spiritual world, which, of course, was handed down to him through the faith and revelation of the Church. On the other hand, he had to examine the possible results of man's own human knowledge. The point of view of the Scholiasts overlooked at first the change of front which the course of time and nothing else had made necessary. When Thomas and Albertus had to develop their philosophies, there was as yet no scientific view of the world. There had been no Galileo, Giordano Bruno, Copernicus or Kepler; the forces of human understanding had not yet been directed to external nature. At that time there was no cause for controversy between what the human reason can discover from the depth of the soul and what can be learned from the outer empiric sense-world. The question was only between the results of rational thought and the spiritual truths as handed down by the Church to men who could no longer raise themselves through individual development to this wisdom in its reality, but who saw it in the form handed down by the Church simply as tradition, as Scripture, etc. Does not the question now really arise: What is the relation between the rationalism, as developed by Albertus and Thomas in their theory of knowledge, and the teaching of the natural scientific view of the world? We may say that from now on the struggle was indecisive up to the eighteenth century.

And here we find something very remarkable. When we look back into the thirteenth century and see Albertus and Thomas leading humanity across the frontiers of rational knowledge as contrasted with faith and revelation, we see how they show step by step that revelation yields only to a certain part of rational human knowledge, and remains outside this knowledge, an eternal riddle. We can count these riddles—the Incarnation—the filling with the Spirit at the Sacraments, etc.—which lie on the further side of human knowledge. As they see it, man stands on one side, surrounded as it were by the boundaries of knowledge, and unable to look into the spiritual world. This is the situation in the thirteenth century. And now let us take a look at the nineteenth century. We see a remarkable fact: in the seventies, at a famous conference of Natural Scientists at Leipzig, Dubois-Raymond gave his impressive address on the boundaries of Nature-Knowledge and soon afterwards on the seven world-riddles.

What has the problem now become? There is man, here is the boundary of knowledge; but beyond the boundary lies the material world, the atoms, everything of which Dubois-Raymond says: We do not know what this is that moves in space as material. And on this side lies that which is evolved in the human soul. Even if, compared with the imposing work which shines as Scholasticism from the Middle Ages, this contribution of Dubois-Raymond, which we find in the seventies is a trifle, still it is the real antithesis: there the search for the riddles of the spiritual world, here the search for the riddles of the material world; here the dividing line between human beings and atoms, there between human beings and angels and God. We must examine this gap of time if we want to see all this that crops up as a consequence, immediate or remote, of Scholasticism. From this Scholasticism the Kantian philosophy comes into being, as something important at best for the history of the period. This philosophy, influenced by Hume, still has to-day a hold on philosophers, since after its partial decline, the Germans raised the cry in the sixties, “Back to Kant!” And from that time an uncountable number of books on Kant have been published, and independent Kantians like Volkelt, Cohen, etc.—one could mention a whole host—have appeared.

To-day we can, of course, give only a sketch of Kant; we need only point out what is important in him for us. I do not think that anyone who really studies Kant can find him other than as I have tried to depict him in my small paper Truth and Knowledge. At the end of the sixties and beginning of the seventies of the eighteenth century Kant's problem is not the content-problem of world-philosophy in full force, not something which might have appeared for him in definite forms, images, concepts, and ideas concerning objects, but rather his problem is the formal knowledge-question: How do we gain certainty concerning anything in the outer world, concerning the existence of anything? Kant is more worried about certainty of knowledge than about any content of knowledge. One feels this surely in his Critic. Read his “Critic of Pure Reason,” his “Critic of Practical Reason,” and see how, after the chapter on Space and Time, which is in a sense classic, you come to the categories, enumerated entirely pedantically, only, we may say, to give the whole a certain completeness. In truth the presentation of this “Critic of Pure Reason” has not the fluency of someone writing sentence on sentence with his heart's blood.

For Kant the question of what is the relation of what we call concepts, of what is in fact, the whole content of knowledge to an external reality, is much more important than this content of knowledge itself. The content he pieces together, as it were, from everything philosophic which he has inherited. He makes schemes and systems. But everywhere the question crops up: How does one get certainty, the kind of certainty which one gets in mathematics? And he gets such certainty in a manner which actually is nothing else than Nominalism, changed, it is true, and unusually concealed and disguised—a Nominalism which is stretched to include the forms of material nature, space and time, as well as universal ideas. He says: that particular thing which we develop in our soul as the content of knowledge has nothing really to do with anything we derive from things. We merely make it cover things. We derive the whole form of our knowledge from ourselves. If we say event A is related to event B by the principle of causation, this principle is only in ourselves. We make it cover A and B, the two experiences.

We apply causality to things. In other words, paradoxical though it sounds—though it is paradoxical only historically in face of the vast following of Kant's philosophy—we shall have to say: Kant seeks the principle of certainty by denying that we derive the content of our knowledge from things and assuming that we derive it from ourselves and then apply it to things. This means—and here is the paradox—we have truth, because we make it ourselves, we have subjective truth, because we produce it ourselves. And it is we who instil truth into things. There you have the final consequence of Nominalism. Scholasticism strove with universals, with the question: What form of existence do the ideas we have in ourselves, have in the outer world? It could not arrive at a real solution of the problem which would have been completely satisfactory. Kant says: All right. Ideas are merely names. We form them only in ourselves but we see them as names to cover things; whereby they become reality. They may not be reality by a long way, but I push the “name” on to the experience and make it reality, for experience must be such as I ordain by applying to it a “name.”

Thus Kantianism is in a certain way the expansion of Nominalism, in a certain way the most extreme point and in a certain way the extreme collapse of Western philosophy, the complete bankruptcy of man in regard to his search for truth, despair that one can in any way learn truth from things. Hence the saying: Truth can exist only in things if we ourselves instil it into them. Kant has destroyed all objectivity and all man's possibility of getting down to the truth in things. He has destroyed all possible knowledge, all possible search for truth, for truth cannot exist only subjectively.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a consequence of Scholasticism, because it could not acquiesce in the other side, where there appeared another boundary to be crossed. Just because there emerged the age of Natural Science, to which Scholasticism did not adapt itself, Kantianism came on the scene, which ended really as subjectivity, and then from subjectivity in which it extinguished all knowledge, sprouted the so-called Postulates—Freedom, Immortality, and the Idea of God. We are meant to do the good, to obey the categoric imperative, and so we must be able to. That is, we must be free, but as we live here in the physical body, we cannot be. We do not attain perfection so that we may carry out the categoric imperative, till we are clear of the body. Therefore, there must be immortality. But even then we cannot realize it as human beings. Everything we are concerned with in the world, if we do what we ought to, can be regulated only by a Godhead. Therefore, there must be a Godhead. Three postulates of faith, whose source in Reality it is impossible to know—such is the extent of Kant's certainty, according to his own saying: I had to annihilate knowledge in order to make room for faith. And Kant now does not make room for faith-content in the sense of Thomas Aquinas, for a traditional faith-content, but for an abstract one: Freedom, Immortality, and the Idea of God; for a faith-content brought forth from the human individual dictating truth, that is, the appearance of it.

So Kant becomes the fulfiller of Nominalism. He is the philosopher who really denies man everything he could have which would enable him to get down to any kind of Reality. This accounts for the rapid reaction against Kant which for example, Fichte, and then Schelling, and then Hegel produced, and other thinkers of the nineteenth century. You need only look at Fichte and see how he was necessarily urged on to an experience of the soul that became more intensive and, one might say, ever more and more mystical in order to escape from Kantianism. Fichte could not even believe that Kant could have meant what is contained in the Kantian Critics. He believed at the beginning, with a certain philosophic naïveté that he drew only the final conclusion of the Kantian philosophy. His idea was that if you did not draw the “final conclusions,” you would have to believe that this philosophy had been pieced together by a most amazing chance, certainly not by a thoughtful human brain. All this is apart from the movement in Western civilization caused by the growth of Natural Science, which enters upon the scene as a reaction in the middle of the nineteenth century. This movement takes no count at all of Philosophy and therefore degenerated in many thinkers into gross materialism. And so we see how the philosophic development goes on, unfolding itself into the last third of the nineteenth century. We see this philosophic effort coming completely to nothing and we see then how the attempt came about, from every possibility which one could find in Kantianism and similar philosophies, to understand something of what is actually real in the world. Goethe's general view of life which would have been so important, had it been understood, was completely lost for the nineteenth century, except among those whose leanings were toward Schelling, Hegel and Fichte. For in this philosophy of Goethe's lay the beginning of what Thomism must become, if its attitude towards Natural Science were changed, for he rises to the heights of modern civilization, and is, indeed, a real force in the current of development.

Thomas could get no further than the abstract affirmation that the psychic-spiritual really has its effect on every activity of the human organism. He expressed it thus: Everything, even the vegetative activities, which exists in the human body is directed by the psychic and must be acknowledged by the psychic. Goethe makes the first step in the change of attitude in his Theory of Colour, which in consequence is not in the least understood; in his Morphology, in his Theory of Plants and Animals. We shall, however, not have a complete fulfilment of Goethe's ideas till we have a spiritual science which can of itself provide an explanation of the facts of Natural Science.

A few weeks ago I tried here to show how our spiritual science is seeking to range itself as a corrective side by side with Natural Science—let us say with regard to the theory of the heart. The mechanico-materialistic view has likened the heart to a pump, which drives the blood through the human body. It is the opposite; the blood circulation is living—Embryology can prove it, if it wishes—and the heart is set in action by the movement of the blood. The heart is the instrument by which the blood-activity ultimately asserts itself, by which it is absorbed into the whole human individuality. The activity of the heart is a result of blood-activity, not vice-versa. And so, as was shown here in detail in a Course for Doctors we can show with regard to each organ of the body, how the realization of man as a spirit-being really explains his material element. We can in a way make real the thing that appeared dimly in abstract form to Thomism, when it said: The spiritual-psychic permeates all the physical body. That becomes concrete, real knowledge. The Thomistic philosophy, which in the thirteenth century still had an abstract form, by rekindling itself from Goethe continues to live on in our day as Spiritual Science.

Ladies and gentlemen, if I may interpose here a personal experience, it is as follows: it is meant merely as an illustration. When at the end of the eighties I spoke in the “Wiener Goethe-Verein” on the subject “Goethe as the Father of a New Aesthetic,” there was in the audience a very learned Cistercian. I can speak about this address, for it has appeared in a new edition. I explained how one had to take Goethe's presentation of Art, and then this Father Wilhelm Neumann, the Cistercian, who was also Professor of Theology at Vienna University, made this curious remark: “The germ of this address, which you have given us to-day, lies already in Thomas Aquinas!” It was an extraordinarily interesting experience for me to hear from Father Wilhelm Neumann that he found in Thomas something like a germ of what was said then concerning Goethe's views on Aesthetics; he was, of course, highly trained in Thomism, because it was after the appearance of Neo-Thomism within the Catholic clergy. One must put it thus: The appearance of things when seen in accordance with truth is quite different from the appearance when seen under the influence of a powerless nominalistic philosophy which to a large extent harks back to Kant and the modern physiology based on him. And in the same way you would find several things, if you studied Spiritual Science. Read in my Riddles of the Soul which came out many years ago, how I there attempted as the result of thirty years' study, to divide human existence into three parts, and how I tried to show there, how one part of the physical human body is connected with the thought and sense organization; how the rhythmic system, all that pertains to the breathing and the heart activity, is connected with the system of sensation, and how the chemical changes are connected with the volition system: the attempt is made, throughout, to recover the spiritual-psychic as creative force. That is, the change of front towards Natural Science is seriously made. After the age of Natural Science, I try to penetrate into the realm of natural existence, just as before the age of Scholasticism, of Thomism—we have seen it in the Areopagite and in Plotinus—human knowledge was used to penetrate into the spiritual realm. The Christ-principle is dealt with seriously after the change of front—as it would have been, had one said: human thought can change, so that it really can press upwards, if it discards the inherited limitation of knowledge and develops through pure non-sensory thought upward to the spiritual world. What we see as Nature can be penetrated as the veil of natural existence. One presses on beyond the limit of knowledge, which a dualism believed it necessary to set up, as the Schoolmen set up the limit on the other side—one penetrates into this material world and discovers that this is in fact the spiritual world, that behind the veil of Nature there are in truth not material atoms, but spiritual beings. This shows you how progressive thought deals with a continued development of Thomism in the Middle Ages. Turn to the most important abstract psychological thoughts of Albertus and Thomas. There, it is true, they do not go so far as to say concerning the physical body, how the spirit or the soul react on the heart, on the spleen, on the liver, etc., but they point out already that the whole human body must be considered to have originated from the spiritual-psychic. The continuation of this thought is the task of really tracing the spiritual-psychic into each separate part of the physical organization. Philosophy has not done this, nor Natural Science: it can only be done by a Spiritual Science, which does not hesitate to bring into our time thoughts, such as those of the high Scholiasts which are looked upon as great thoughts in the evolution of humanity, and apply them to all the contributions of our time in Natural Science. It necessitates, it is true, if the matter is to have a scientific basis, a divorce from Kantianism.

This divorce from Kantianism I have attempted first in my small book Truth and Science, years ago, in the eighties, in my Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung, and then again in my The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. Quite shortly and without consideration for the fact that things, when they are cursorily presented appear difficult, I should like to put before you the basic ideas to be found in these books. They start from the thought that truth cannot directly be found, at any rate in the observed world which is spread round about us. We see in a way how Nominalism infects the human soul, how it can assume the false conclusions of Kantianism, but how Kant certainly did not see the point with which these books seriously deal. This is, that a study of the visible world, if undertaken quite objectively and thoroughly leads to the knowledge that this world is not a whole. This world emerges as something which is real only through us. What, then, caused the difficulty of Nominalism? What gave rise to the whole of Kantianism? This, the visible world is taken and observed and then we spread over it the world of ideas through the soul-life. Now there we have the view, that this idea-world is to reproduce external observations. But the idea-world is in us. What has it to do with what is outside? Kant could answer this question only thus: By spreading the idea-world over the visible world, we make truth.

But it is not so. It is like this. If we consider the process of observation with an unprejudicial mind, it is incomplete, it is nowhere self-contained. I tried hard to prove this in my book Truth and Science, and afterwards in aThe Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. As we have been placed in the world, as we are born into it, we split the world in two. The fact is that we have the world-content, as it were, here with us. Since we come into the world as human beings, we divide the world-content into observation, which appears to us from outside, and the idea-world which appears to us from the inner soul. Anyone who regards this division as an absolute one, who simply says: there is the world, here am I—such a one cannot cross at all with his idea-world to the external world. The matter is this: I look at the visible world, it is everywhere incomplete. Something is wanting everywhere. I myself have with my whole existence arisen out of the world, to which the visible world also belongs. Then I look into myself, and what I see thus is just what is lacking in the visible world. I have to join together through my own self, since I have entered the world, what has been separated into two branches. I gain reality by working for it. Through the fact that I was born arises the appearance that what is really one is divided into two branches, outward perception and idea world. By the fact that I am alive and grow, I unite the two currents of reality. I work myself to reality by my acquiring knowledge. I should never have become conscious if I had never, through my entry into the world, separated the idea-world off from the outer world of perception. But I should never find the bridge to the world, if I did not bring the idea-world, which I have separated off, into unity again with that which, without it, is no reality.

Kant seeks reality only in outer perception and does not see that the other half of this reality is in us. The idea-world which we have in us, we have first torn from external reality. Nominalism is now at an end, for now we do not spread Space and Time and ideas, which are only “Nomina” over our external perception, but we return to it in our knowledge what we took from it on entering into our earth existence.

Thus is revealed to us the relation of man to the spiritual world in a purely philosophical form. And he who reads my The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, which rests entirely on the basis of this knowledge-theory of the nature of reality, of this transference of life into reality through human knowledge, he who takes up this basis, which is expressed already in the title of Truth and Science, that real science unites perceptions and the idea-world and sees in this union not only an ideal but a real process; he who can see something of a world-process in this union of the perception and idea-worlds—is in a position to overthrow Kantianism. He is also in a position to solve the problem which we saw opening up in the course of Western civilization, which produced Nominalism and in the thirteenth century threw out several scholastic lights but which finally stood powerless before the division into perception and idea-world.

Now one approaches this problem of individuality on ethical ground, and hence my The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity has become the philosophy of reality. Since the acquisition of knowledge is not merely a formal act, but a reality-process, ethical, moral behaviour appears as an effluence of that which the individual experiences in a real process through moral fantasy as Intuition; and there results, as set forth in the second part of my The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, the Ethical Individualism, which in fact is built upon the Christ-impulse in man, though this is not expressed in the book. It is built upon the spiritual activity man wins for himself by changing ordinary thinking into what I called “pure thinking,” which rises to the spiritual world and there produces the stimulus to moral behaviour. The reason for this is that the impulse of love, which is otherwise bound to the physical man, becomes spiritualized, and because the moral ideals are borrowed from the spiritual world through the moral phantasy, they express themselves in all their force and become the force of spiritual love. Therefore, the Philistine-Principle of Kant had to be resisted. Duty! thou exalted name, that knowest nothing of flattery, but demandest strict obedience—against this Philistine-Principle, against which Schiller had already revolted, the The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity had to set the “transformed Ego,” which has developed up into the spheres of spirituality and up there begins to love virtue, and therefore practises virtue, because it loves it of its own individuality.

Thus we have a real world-content instead of something which remained for Kant merely a faith-content. For Kant the acquisition of knowledge is something formal, for the The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, it is something real. It is a real process. And therefore the higher morality is linked to a reality—but a reality to which the “Wertphilosophen” like Windelband and Rickert do not attain at all, because they do not see how what is morally valuable is implanted in the world. Naturally those people who do not regard the process of knowledge as a real process, also fail to provide an anchorage for morality in the world, and arrive, in short, at no kind of Reality-Philosophy. The philosophical basic principles of what we call here Spiritual Science have really been drawn from the whole course of Western philosophical development. I have to-day tried really to show you how that Cistercian Father was not altogether wrong, and in what way the attempt lies before us to reconcile the realistic elements of Scholasticism with this age of Natural Science through a Spiritual Science, how we laid stress on the transformation of the human soul and with the real installation of the Christ-impulse into it, even in the thought-life. The life of knowledge is made into a real factor in world-evolution and the scene of its fulfilment is the human consciousness alone—as I explained in my book, Goethe's Philosophy. But this, which is thus fulfilled is at the same time a world-process, it is an occurrence in the world, and it is this occurrence that brings the world, and us within it, forward. So the problem of knowledge takes on quite another form. Now our experience becomes a factor of spiritual-psychic development in ourselves. Just as magnetism functions on the shape of iron filings, so there functions on us that which is reflected in us as knowledge; it functions at the same time as our form-principle, and we grow to realize the immortal, the eternal in ourselves, and the problem of knowledge ceases to be merely formal. This problem used always, borrowing from Kantianism, to be put in such a way that one said: How does man come to see a reproduction of the external world in this inner world? But knowledge is not in the least there for the purpose of reproducing the external world, but to develop us, and such reproduction of the external world is a secondary process.

In the external world we suffer a combination in a secondary process of what we have divided into two by the fact of our birth, and with the modern problem of knowledge it is exactly as when a man has wheat or other products of the field and examines the food value of the wheat in order to study the nature of the principle of growth. Certainly one can become a food-analyst, but what function there is in wheat from the ear to the root, and still further, cannot be known through the chemistry of food values. That investigates only something which follows the continuous growth which is inherent in the plant.

So there is a similar growth of spiritual life in us, which strengthens us, and has something to do with our nature, just like the development of the plant from the root through the stem, through the leaf to the bloom and the fruit, and thence again to the seed and the root. And just as the fact that we eat it must not affect the explanation of the nature of plant growth, so also the question of the knowledge-value of the growth-impulse we have in us may not be the basis of a theory of knowledge; rather it must be clear that what we call in external life knowledge is a secondary result of the work of ideas in our human nature. Here we come to the reality of that which is ideal; it works in us. The false Nominalism and Kantianism arose only because the problem of knowledge was put in the same way as the problem of the nature of wheat would be from the point of view of bio-chemistry.

Thus we can say: when you once realize what Thomism can be in our time, how it springs up from its most important achievement in the Middle Ages, then you see it springing up in its twentieth century shape in Spiritual Science, then it re-appears as Spiritual Science. And so a light is already thrown on the question: How does it look now if one comes and says: We must go back to Thomas Aquinas, he must be studied, possibly with a few critical comments, as he wrote in the thirteenth century. We see what it means sincerely and honestly to take our place in the chain of development which started with Scholasticism, and also what it means to put ourselves back into the thirteenth century, and to overlook everything that has happened since then in the course of European civilization. This is, after all, what has really happened as a result of the Papal Encyclical of 1879, which enjoins the Catholic clergy to regard the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas as the official one of the Catholic Church. I will not here discuss the question: Where is Thomism? for one would have to discuss, ladies and gentlemen, the question: Is the rose which I have before me, best seen if I take no notice of the bloom, and only dig into the earth, to look at the roots, and overlook the fact that from this root something is already sprung—or if I look at everything which is sprung from this root?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, you can answer that for yourselves. We experience all that which is of value among us as a renewal of Thomism, as it was in the thirteenth century, by the side of all that which contributes honestly to the development of Western Europe. We may ask: Where is Thomism to be found to-day? One need only put the question: What was Thomas Aquinas' attitude to the Revelation-content? He sought a relationship with it. Our need is to adapt ourselves to the revelation-content of Nature. Here we cannot rest on dogma. Here the dogma of experience, as I wrote already in the eighties of last century, must be surmounted, just as on the other side must the dogma of revelation. We must, in fact, revert to the spiritual-psychic content of man, to the idea-world which contains the transformed Christ-principle, in order again to find the spiritual world through the Christ in us, that is, in our idea-world. Are we then to rest content to leave the idea-world on the standpoint of the Fall?

Is the idea-world of the Redemption to have no part? In the thirteenth century the Christian principle of redemption could not be found in the idea-world; and therefore the idea-world was set off against the world of revelation. The advance of mankind in the future must be, not only to find the principle of redemption for the external world, but also for human reason. The unredeemed human reason alone could not raise itself into the spiritual world. The redeemed human reason which has the real relationship with Christ, this forces itself upward into the spiritual world; and this process is the Christianity of the twentieth century,—a Christianity strong enough to enter into the innermost recesses of human thinking and human soul-life.

This is no Pantheism; this is none of those things for being which it is to-day calumniated. This is the most serious Christianity, and perhaps you can see from this study of Thomas Aquinas' philosophy, even if in certain respects it was bound to digress into the realm of the abstract, how seriously Spiritual Science concerns itself with the problems of the West, how Spiritual Science always will stand on the ground of the Present, and how it can stand on no other, whatever else can be brought against it.

These remarks have been made to demonstrate that a climax of European spiritual evolution took place in the thirteenth century with High Scholasticism, and that the present age has every reason to study this climax, that there is a vast amount to be learnt from such a study, especially with regard to what we must call in the highest sense the deepening of our idea-life; so that we may leave all Nominalism behind, so that we may find again the ideas that are permeated with Christ, the Christianity which leads to the spiritual Being, from whom man is after all descended; for if man is quite honest and open with himself, nothing else can satisfy him but the consciousness of his spiritual origin.

[ 1 ] “The bud vanishes in the breaking of the blossom, and one could say that the former is contradicted by the latter. In the same way, the fruit declares the blossom to be a false existence and replaces it as its truth. These forms are not merely different from one another but they crowd each other out as they are incompatible. Their Quid nature makes them at once into moments of the organic whole in which they not only do not contradict each other, but in which the one is as necessary as the other, and it is only this equal necessity that constitutes the life of the whole.”

In these words of Hegel, the most significant traits of his mode of conception are expressed. He believes that the things of reality carry within themselves their own contradiction and that the incentive for their growth, for the living process of their development, is given by the fact that they continually attempt to overcome this contradiction. The blossom would never become fruit if it were without contradiction. It would have no reason to go beyond its unquestioned existence.

An exactly opposite intellectual conviction forms the point of departure of Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841). Hegel is a sharp thinker, but at the same time a spirit with a great thirst for reality. He would like to have only things that have absorbed the rich, saturated content of the world into themselves. For this reason, Hegel's thoughts must also be in an eternal flux, in a continuous state of becoming, in a forward motion as full of contradictions as reality itself. Herbart is a completely abstract thinker. He does not attempt to penetrate into things but looks at them from the corner into which he has withdrawn as an isolated thinker. The purely logical thinker is disturbed by a contradiction. He demands clear concepts that can exist side by side. One concept must not interfere with another. The thinker sees himself in a strange situation because he is confronted with reality that is full of contradictions, no matter what he may undertake. The concepts that he can derive from this reality are unsatisfactory to him. They offend his logical sense. This feeling of dissatisfaction becomes the point of departure. Herbart feels that if the reality that is spread out before his senses and before his mind supplies him with contradictory concepts, then it cannot be the true reality for which his thinking is striving. He derives his task from this situation. The contradictory reality is not real being but only appearance. In this view he follows Kant to a certain degree, but while Kant declares true being unattainable to thinking cognition, Herbart believes one penetrates from appearance to being by transforming the contradictory concepts of appearance and changing them into concepts that are free from contradictions. As smoke indicates fire, so appearance points at a form of being as its ground. If, through our logical thinking, we elaborate out of a contradictory world picture given to us by our senses and our mind, one that is not contradictory, then we gain from this uncontradictory world picture what we are looking for. This world picture, to be sure, does not appear in this form that is free from contradictions, but it lies behind the apparent one as true reality. Herbart does not set out to comprehend the directly given reality, but creates another reality through which the former is to become explainable. He arrives in this fashion at an abstract thought system that looks rather meager as compared to the rich, full reality. The true reality cannot be a unity, for a unity would have to contain within itself the infinite variety of the real things and events. It must be a plurality of simple entities, eternally equal to themselves, incapable of change and development. Only a simple entity that unchangeably preserves its qualities is free from contradictions. An entity in development is something different in one moment from what it is in another, that is, its qualities are contradictory at various times. The true world is, therefore, a plurality of simple, never-changing entities, and what we perceive are not these simple entities but their relations to one another. These relations have nothing to do with the real being. If one simple entity enters into a relationship with another, the two entities are not changed thereby, but I do perceive the result of their relationship. The reality we perceive directly is a sum of relations between real entities. When one entity abandons its relation to another and replaces it by a relationship with a third entity, something happens without touching the being of the entities themselves. It is this event that we perceive, namely, our apparent contradictory reality. It is interesting to note how Herbart, on the basis of this conception, forms his thoughts concerning the life of the soul. The soul is, as are all other real entities, simple and unchangeable in itself. This entity is now engaged in relations with other beings. The expression of these relations is life in thought-pictures. Everything that happens within us—imagination, feeling, will—is an interplay between the soul and the rest of the world of real entities. Thus, for Herbart, the soul life becomes the appearance of relations into which the simple soul-entity enters with the world. Herbart has a mathematical mind, and his whole world conception is derived fundamentally from mathematical conceptions. A number does not change when it becomes the link of an arithmetical operation. Three remains three, whether it is added to four or subtracted from seven. As the numbers have their place within the mathematical operations, so do the individual entities within the relationships that develop between them. For this reason, psychology becomes an arithmetical operation for Herbart. He attempts to apply mathematics to psychology. How the thought-images condition each other, how they effect one another, what results they produce through their coexistence are things calculated by Herbart. The “ego” is not the spiritual entity that we lay hold of in our self-consciousness, but it is the result of the cooperation of all thought-pictures and thereby also nothing more than a sum, a last expression of relationships. Of the simple entity, which is the basis of our soul life, we know nothing, but its continual relation to other entities is apparent to us. In this play of relations one entity is entangled. This condition is expressed by the fact that all these relationships are tending toward a center, and this tendency expresses itself in the thought of the ego.

[ 2 ] Herbart is, in another sense than Goethe, Schiller, Schelling, Fichte and Hegel, a representative of the development of modern world conception. Those thinkers attempt a representation of the self-conscious soul in a world picture capable of containing this self-conscious soul as an element. In so doing they become the spokesmen for the spiritual impulse of their age. Herbart is confronted with this impulse and he must admit the feeling that this impulse is there. He attempts to understand it, but in the form of thinking that he imagines to be the correct one, he finds no possibility of penetrating into the life of the self-conscious being of the soul. He remains outside of it. One can see in Herbart's world conception what difficulties man's thinking encounters when it tries to comprehend what it has essentially become in the course of mankind's evolution. Compared to Hegel, Herbart appears like a thinker who strives in vain for an aim at which Hegel believes actually to have arrived. Herbart's thought constructions are an attempt to outline as an external spectator what Hegel means to present through the inner participation of thought. Thinkers like Herbart are also significant for the characterization of the modern form of world conception. They indicate the aim that is to be reached by the very display of their insufficient means for the attainment of this aim. The spiritual aim of the age motivates Herbart's struggle; his intellectual energy is inadequate to understand and to express this struggle sufficiently. The course of the philosophical evolution shows that, besides the thinkers who move on the crest of the time-impulses, there are also always some active ones who form world conceptions through their failure to understand these impulses. Such world conceptions may well be called reactionary.

[ 3 ] Herbart reverts to the view of Leibniz. His simple soul entity is unchangeable; it neither grows nor decays. It existed when this apparent life contained within man's ego began, and will again withdraw from these relations when this life ceases to continue independently. Herbart arrives at his conception of God through his world picture, which contains many simple entities that produce the events through their relations. Within these processes we observe purpose-directed order. But the relations could only be accidental and chaotic if the entities, which, according to their own nature, would have nothing in common, were left entirely to themselves. The fact that they are teleologically ordered, therefore, points toward a wise world ruler who directs their relations. “No one is capable of giving a close definition of deity,” says Herbart. He condemns “the pretensions of the systems that speak of God as of an object to be comprehended in sharply drawn contours by means of which we would rise to a knowledge for which we are simply denied the data.”

[ 4 ] Man's actions and artistic creations are completely without foundation in this world picture. All possibility to fit them into this system is lacking. For what could a relationship of simple entities that are completely indifferent to all processes mean to the actions of man? So Herbart is forced to look for independent tools both for ethics and for esthetics. He believes he finds them in human feeling. When man perceives things or events, he can associate the feeling of pleasure or displeasure with them. We are pleased when we see man's will going in a direction that is in agreement with his convictions. When we make the opposite observation, the feeling of displeasure overcomes us. Because of this feeling we call the agreement of conviction and will good; the discord, we call morally reprehensible. A feeling of this kind can be attached only to a relationship between moral elements. The will as such is morally indifferent, as is also the conviction. Only when the two meet does ethical pleasure or displeasure emerge. Herbart calls a relation of moral elements a practical idea. He enumerates five such practical-ethical ideas: The idea of moral freedom, consisting of the agreement of will and moral conviction; the idea of perfection that has its basis in the fact that the strong pleases rather than the weak; the idea of right, which springs from displeasure with antagonism; the idea of benevolence, which expresses the pleasure that one feels as one furthers the will of another person; the idea of retribution, which demands that all good and evil that has originated in a person is to be compensated again in the same person.

Herbart bases his ethics on a human feeling, on moral sentiment. He separates it from the world conception that has to do with what is, and transforms it into a number of postulates of what should be. He combines it with esthetics and, indeed, makes it a part of them. For the science of esthetics also contains postulates concerning what is to be. It, too, deals with relations that are associated with feelings. The individual color leaves us esthetically indifferent. When one color is joined to another, this combination can be either satisfactory or displeasing to us. What pleases in a combination is beautiful; what displeases, is ugly. Robert Zimmermann (1824 – 1898) has ingeniously constructed a science of art on these principles. Only a part of it, the part that considers those relations of beauty that are concerned with the realm of action, is to be the ethics or the science of the good. The significant writings of Robert Zimmermann in the field of esthetics (science of art) show that even attempts at philosophical formulations that do not reach the summit of cultural impulses of a time can produce important stimulation's for the development of the spirit.

[ 5 ] Because of his mathematically inclined mind, Herbart successfully investigated those processes of human soul life that really do go on with a certain regularity in the same way with all human beings. These processes will, of course, not prove to be the more intimate and individually characteristic ones. What is original and characteristic in each personality will be overlooked by such a mathematical intellect, but a person of such a mentality will obtain a certain insight into the average processes of the mind and, at the same time, through his sure skill in handling the arithmetical calculations, will control the measurement of the mental development. As the laws of mechanics enable us to develop technical skills, so the laws of the psychological processes make it possible for us to devise a technique in education for the development of mental abilities. For this reason, Herbart's work has become fruitful in the field of pedagogy. He has found many followers among pedagogues, but not among them alone. This seems at first sight hard to understand with regard to a world conception offering a picture of meager, colorless generalities, but it can be explained from the fact that it is just the people who feel a certain need for a world conception who are easily attracted by such general concepts that are rigidly linked together like terms of an arithmetical operation. It is something fascinating to experience how one thought is linked to the next as if it were through a self-operative mechanical process, because this process awakens in the observer a feeling of security. The mathematical sciences are so highly appreciated because of this assurance. They unfold their structure, so to speak, through their own force. They only have to be supplied with the thought material and everything else can be left to their logical necessity, which works automatically. In the progress of Hegel's thinking, which is saturated with reality, the thinker continually has to take the initiative. There is more warmth, more direct life in this mode of thinking, but it also requires the constant support of the soul forces. This is because it is reality in this case that the thinker catches in his thoughts, an ever-flowing reality that at every point shows its individual character and fights against every logical rigidity. Hegel also had a great number of pupils and followers, but they were much less faithful than those of Herbart. As long as Hegel's powerful personality enlivened his thoughts, they exerted their charm, and as long as his words were heard under its spell, they carried great conviction. After Hegel's death many of his pupils went their own paths. This is only natural, for whoever is self-dependent will also shape his own attitude toward reality in his own fashion. We observe a different process with Herbart's pupils. They elaborate the master's doctrine, but they continue the fundamental stock of his thoughts without change. A thinker who finds his way into Hegel's mode of thinking penetrates into the course of the world's development that is manifested in innumerable evolutionary phases. The individual thinker, of course, can be stimulated to follow this course of evolution, but he is free to shape the various stages according to his own individual mode of conception. In Herbart's case, however, we deal with a firmly constructed thought system that commands confidence through the solidity of its structure. One may reject it, but if one accepts it, one will have to accept it in its original form. For the individual personal element, which challenges and forces us to face the self of another thinker with our own self, is lacking here.

[ 6 ] “Life is a miserable affair; I have decided to spend mine by thinking about it.” Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1861) spoke these words in a conversation with Wieland at the beginning of his university years, and his world conception sprang from this mood. Schopenhauer had experienced personal hardship and had observed the sad lives of others when he decided upon concentrating on philosophical thought as a new aim of life. The sudden death of his father, caused by a fall from a storehouse, his bad experiences in his career as a merchant, the sight of scenes of human miseries that he witnessed as a' young man while traveling, and many other things of similar kind had produced in him the wish, not so much to know the world, but rather to procure for himself a means to endure it through contemplation. He needed a world conception in order to calm his gloomy disposition. When he began his university studies, the thoughts that Kant, Fichte and Schelling introduced to the German philosophical life were in full swing. Hegel's star was just then rising. In 1806 he had published his first larger work, The Phenomenology of the Spirit. In Goettingen, Schopenhauer heard the teachings of Gottlob Ernst Schulze, the author of the book, Aenesidemus, who was, to be sure, in a certain respect an opponent of Kant, but who nevertheless drew the student's attention to Kant and Plato as the two great spirits toward whom he would have to look. With fiery enthusiasm Schopenhauer plunged into Kant's mode of conception. He called the revolution that his study caused in his head a spiritual rebirth. He found it even more satisfactory because he considered it to be in agreement with the views of Plato, the other philosopher Schulze had pointed out to him.

Plato had said, “As long as we approach the things and events merely through sensual perceptions, we are like men who are chained in a dark cave in such a way that they cannot turn their heads; therefore, they can only see, by means of the light of a fire burning behind them, the shadows upon the opposite wall, the shadows of real things that are carried between the fire and their backs, the shadows of each other and of themselves. These shadows are to the real things what the things of sensual perception are to the ideas, which are the true reality. The things of the sensually perceptible world come into existence and pass again, the ideas are eternal.”

Did not Kant teach this, too? Is not the perceptible world only a world of appearances for him also? To be sure, the sage from Koenigsberg did not attribute this eternal reality to the ideas, but with respect to the perception of the reality spread out in space and time, Schopenhauer thought Plato and Kant to be in complete agreement. Soon he also accepted this view as an irrevocable truth. He argued, “I have a knowledge of the things insofar as I see, hear, feel them, etc., that is to say, insofar as I have them as a thought picture in my mind's eye. An object then can be there for me only by being represented to my mind as a thought image. Heaven, earth, etc., are therefore my mind's imaginations, for the “thing in itself' that corresponds to them has become my mind's object only by taking on the character of a thought representation.”

[ 7 ] Although Schopenhauer found everything that Kant stated concerning the subjective character of the world of perception absolutely correct, he was not at all satisfied with regard to Kant's remarks concerning the thing in itself. Schulze had also been an opponent of Kant's view in this respect. How can we know anything at all of a “thing in itself"? How can we even express a word about it if our knowledge is completely limited to thought pictures of our mind, if the “thing in itself” lies completely outside their realm? Schopenhauer had to search for another path in order to come to the “thing in itself.” In his search he was influenced by the contemporary world conceptions more than he ever admitted. The element that Schopenhauer added to the conviction that he had from Kant and Plato as the “thing in itself,” we find also in Fichte, whose lectures he had heard in 1811 in Berlin. We also find this element in Schelling. Schopenhauer could hear the most mature form of Fichte's views in Berlin. This last form is preserved in Fichte's posthumous works. Fichte declared with great emphasis, while Schopenhauer, according to his own admission, “listened attentively,” that all being has its last roots in a universal will. As soon as man discovers will in himself, he gains the conviction that there is a world independent of himself as an individual. Will is not a knowledge of the individual but a form of real being. Fichte could also have called his world conception, The World as Knowledge and Will. In Schelling's book, Concerning the Nature of Human Freedom and Matters Connected with This Problem, we actually find the sentences, “In the last and deepest analysis there is no other being than will. Will is fundamental being and will alone can claim all its predicates: To be without cause, eternal, independent of time, self-assertive. All philosophy is striving for just this aim, to find this highest expression.”

That will is fundamental being becomes Schopenhauer's view also. When knowledge is extinguished, will remains, for will also precedes knowledge. “Knowledge has its origin in my brain,” says Schopenhauer, “but my brain must have been produced through an active, creative force. Man is aware of such a creative energy in his own will.” Schopenhauer now attempts to prove that what is active in all other things is also will. The will, therefore, is, as the “thing in itself,” at the root of all reality that is merely represented in the thought pictures of our mental life, and we can have a knowledge of this “thing in itself.” It is not, as Kant's “thing in itself,” beyond our perceptive imagination but we experience its actuality within our own organism.

[ 8 ] The development of modern world conception is progressive in Schopenhauer insofar as he is the first thinker to make the attempt to elevate one of the fundamental forces of the self-consciousness to the general principle of the world. The active self-consciousness contains the riddle of the age. Schopenhauer is incapable of finding a world picture that contains the roots of self-consciousness. Fichte, Schelling and Hegel had attempted to do that. Schopenhauer takes one force of the self-consciousness, will, and claims that this element is not merely in the human soul but in the whole world. Thus, for him, man is not rooted with his full self-consciousness in the world's foundation, but at least with a part of it, with his will. Schopenhauer thus shows himself to be one of those representatives of the evolution of modern world conception who can only partially encompass the fundamental riddle of the time within their consciousness.

[ 9 ] Goethe also had a profound influence on Schopenhauer. From the autumn of 1813 until the following spring, the young Schopenhauer enjoyed the company of the poet. Goethe introduced him personally to his doctrine of colors. Goethe's mode of conception agreed completely with the view that Schopenhauer had developed concerning the behavior of our sense organs and our mind in the process of perception of things and events. Goethe had undertaken careful and intensive investigations concerning the perceptions of the eye and phenomena of light and colors, and had elaborated their results in his work, Concerning the Doctrine of Colors. He had arrived at results that differed from those of Newton, the founder of the modern theory of color. The antagonism that exists in this field between Newton and Goethe cannot be judged properly if one does not start by pointing to the difference between the world conceptions of these two personalities. Goethe considered the sense organs of man as the highest physical apparatuses. For the world of colors, he therefore had to estimate the eye as his highest judge for the observation of law-determined connections. Newton and the physicists investigated the phenomena that are pertinent to this question in a fashion that Goethe called “the greatest misfortune of modern physics,” and that consisted in the fact that the experiments have been separated, as it were, from man.

One wants to know nature only according to the indications of artificial instruments and thereby even intends to limit and to prove what nature is capable of.

The eye perceives light and darkness and, within the light-dark field of observation, the colors. Goethe takes his stand within this field and attempts to prove how light, darkness and the colors are connected. Newton and his followers meant to observe the processes of light and colors as they would go on if there were no human eye. But the stipulation of such an external sphere is, according to Goethe's world conception, without justification. We do not obtain an insight into the nature of a thing by disregarding the effects we observe, but this nature is given to us through the mind's exact observation of the regularity of these effects. The effects that the eye perceives, taken in their totality and represented according to the law of their connection are the essence of the phenomena of light and color, not a separated world of external processes that are to be determined by means of artificial instruments.

It is really of no avail that we attempt to express directly the nature of a thing. What we are aware of are effects, and a complete account of these effects might possibly encompass the essence of that thing. Vainly do we endeavor to describe the character of a man; we put his deeds and actions together, however, and a picture of his character arises before our eyes. Colors are the actions of light; they are what light does and suffers. In this sense we can expect information from them concerning the nature of light. Color and light are indeed in close relation but we must think of them both as belonging to nature as a whole; for it is nature as a whole that is ready to manifest itself in special ways to the sense of the eye.

Here we find Goethe's world view applied to a special case. In the human organism, through its senses, through the soul of man, there is revealed what is concealed in the rest of nature. In man, nature reaches its climax. Whoever, therefore, like Newton, looks for the truth of nature outside man, will not find it, according to Goethe's fundamental conviction.

[ 10 ] Schopenhauer sees in the world that the mind perceives in space and time only an idea of this mind. The essence of this world of thought pictures is revealed to us in our will, by which we see our own organism permeated. Schopenhauer, therefore, cannot agree with a physical doctrine that sees the nature of light, not in the mental content of the eye, but in a world that is supposed to exist separated from the eye. Goethe's mode of conception was, for this reason, more agreeable to Schopenhauer because Goethe did not go beyond the world of the perceptual content of the eye. He considered Goethe's view to be a confirmation of his own opinion concerning this world. The antagonism between Goethe and Newton is not merely a question of physics but concerns the world conception as a whole. Whoever is of the opinion that a valid statement about nature can be arrived at through experiments that can be detached from the human being must take his stand with Newton's theory of color and remain on that ground. Modern physics is of this opinion. It can only agree with the judgment concerning Goethe's theory of colors that Helmholtz expressed in his essay, Goethe's Anticipations of Future Ideas in Natural Science:

Wherever it is a question of problems that can be solved through poetic divination producing imaginative pictures, the poet has shown himself capable of the most excellent work; wherever only a consciously applied inductive method could have helped, Goethe has failed.

If one sees in the pictures of human imagination only products that are added to an already complete nature, then it is of course necessary to determine what goes on in nature apart from these pictures. But if one sees in them manifestations of the essence contained in nature as Goethe did, then one will consult them in investigating the truth. Schopenhauer, to be sure, shares neither the first nor the second standpoint. He is not at all ready to recognize sense perceptions as containing the essence of things. He rejects the method of modern physics because physics does not limit itself to the element that alone is directly given, namely, that of perceptions as mental pictures. But Schopenhauer also transformed this question from a problem of physics into one of world conception. As he also begins his world conception with man and not with an external world apart from man, he had to side with Goethe, who had consistently drawn the conclusion for the theory of colors that necessarily follows if one sees in man with his healthy sense organs “the greatest and most exact physical apparatus.” Hegel, who as a philosopher stands completely on this foundation, had for this reason forcefully defended Goethe's theory of colors. He says in his Philosophy of Nature:

For the description of the color phenomenon that is adequate to its concept, we are indebted to Goethe, who was attracted early by the phenomena of color and light and who was drawn to their contemplation especially in painting; his pure and simple sense of nature had to revolt against such barbarism of reflected thought as is found in Newton. Goethe took up everything about light and color that had been stated and experimentally demonstrated since Plato. He conceived the phenomenon as simple, and the truest instinct of reason does consist in the ability of approaching a phenomenon from that side that allows its simplest representation.

[ 11 ] For Schopenhauer, the essential ground for all world processes is the will. It is an eternal dark urge for existence. It contains no reason because reason comes into existence only in the human brain, which in turn is created by the will. Hegel sees the spirit as the root of the world in self-conscious reason, and in human reason, only as individual realization of the general world reason. Schopenhauer, by contrast, recognizes reason only as a product of the brain, as a mere bubble that comes into being at the end of the process in which will, the unreasoning blind urge, has created everything else first. In Hegel, all things and processes are permeated by reason; in Schopenhauer, everything is without reason, for everything is the product of the will without reason. The personality of Schopenhauer exemplifies unequivocally a statement of Fichte, “The kind of world conception a man chooses depends on the kind of man he is.”

Schopenhauer had bad experiences and had become acquainted with the worst side of the world before he decided to spend his life in contemplation of it. It is for this reason that he is satisfied to depict the world as essentially deprived of reason as a result of blind will. Reason, according to his mode of thinking, has no power over unreason, for it is itself the result of unreason; it is illusion and dream, produced out of will. Schopenhauer's world conception is the dark, melancholy mood of his soul translated into thought. His eye was not prepared to follow the manifestations of reason in the world with pleasure. This eye saw only unreason that was manifest in sorrow and pain. Thus, his doctrine of ethics could only be based on the observation of suffering. An action is moral only if it has its foundation in such an observation. Sympathy, pity, must be the source of human actions. What better course could be taken by a man who has gained the insight that all beings suffer than to let his actions be guided by pity. As everything unreasonable and evil has its roots in will, man will stand morally the higher the more he mortifies his unruly will in himself. The manifestation of this will in the individual person is selfishness, egotism. Whoever surrenders to pity and thereby wills not for himself but for others, has become master of the will.

One method of freeing oneself from the will consists in surrendering to artistic creations and to the impressions that are derived from works of art. The artist does not produce to satisfy a desire for something; he does not produce his works because of a will that is selfishly directed toward things and events. His production proceeds out of unegotistic joy. He plunges into the essence of things in pure contemplation. This is also true of the enjoyment of art. As long as we approach a work of art with the desire stirring in us to own it, we are still entangled in the lower appetites of the will. Only when we admire beauty without desiring it have we raised ourselves to the lofty stage where we no longer are dependent on the blind force of will. Then art has become for us a means to free ourselves for the moment from the unreasoning force of the blind will to exist. The deliverance takes place in its purest form in the enjoyment of the musical work of art, for music does not speak to us through the medium of representative imagination as do the other arts. Music copies nothing in nature. As all things and events are only mental pictures, so also the arts that take these things as models can only make impressions on us as manifestations of imaginations. Man produces tone out of himself without a natural model. Because man has will as his own essence within himself, it can only be the will through which the world of music is directly released. It is for this reason that music so deeply moves the human soul. It does this because music is the manifestation of man's inner nature, his true being, his will, and it is a triumph of man that he is in possession of an art in which he enjoys selflessly, freed from the fetters of the will, what is the root of all desire, of all unreason. This view of Schopenhauer concerning music is again the result of his most personal nature. Even before his university years, when he was apprenticed to a merchant in Hamburg, he wrote to his mother:

How did the heavenly seed find a place on the hard ground on which necessity and poverty struggle for every little spot? We have been banished from the primordial spirit and are not to reach up to him. Yet, a pitiful angel has begged the heavenly flower for us and it blossoms in full glory rooted in this soil of misery. The pulsation's of the divine art of music have not ceased to beat through the centuries of barbarism, and a direct resonance of the eternal is preserved in this art for us, understandable to every soul and exalted above even vice and virtue.

[ 12 ] From the attitude that is taken toward art by the two antipodes of world conception, Hegel and Schopenhauer, one can learn how a world conception deeply affects the personal relation of man toward the various realms of life. Hegel, who saw in man's world of conceptions and ideas the climax toward which all external nature strives as its perfection, can recognize as the most perfect art only the one in which the spirit appears in its most perfect form, and in which this spirit at the same time clings to the element that continuously strives toward the spirit. Every formation of external nature tends to be spirit, but it does not reach this aim. When a man now creates such an external spatial form, endowing it as an artist with the spirit for which material itself strives without being capable of reaching it, then he has produced a perfect work of art. This is the case in the art of sculpture. What otherwise appears only in the inward life of the soul as formless spirit, as idea, is shaped by the artist out of matter. The soul, the inner life that we perceive in our consciousness as being without shape, is what speaks out of a statue, out of a formation of space. This marriage of the sensual world with the world of the spirit represents the artistic ideal of a world conception that sees the purpose of nature in the creation of the spirit, and therefore can also recognize the beautiful only in a work that appears as immediate expression of the spirit emerging in the form of nature. Whoever, like Schopenhauer, however, sees in all nature only mental pictures, cannot possibly recognize the ideal of art in a work that imitates nature. He must choose an art as his ideal that is free of all nature, that is to say, music.

[ 13 ] Schopenhauer considered everything that leads toward the extirpation, the mortification of the will quite consistently as desirable, for an extirpation of the will means an extinction of the unreasonable in the world. Man is to give up will. He is to kill all desire within himself. Asceticism is, for this reason, Schopenhauer's moral ideal. The wise man will extinguish within himself all wishes; he will annihilate his will completely. He will reach the point where no motivation forces him to exert his will. All striving consists merely in quietistic yearning for deliverance from all life. In the world-renouncing life-views in Buddhism, Schopenhauer acknowledged a doctrine of profound wisdom. Compared to Hegel's, one can thus call Schopenhauer's world view reactionary. Hegel attempted everywhere to affect a reconciliation of man with life; he always strove to present all action as a cooperation with a reason-directed order of the world. Schopenhauer regarded enmity to life, withdrawal from reality and world flight as the ideal of the wise man.

Hegel's mode of world and life conception contains an element that can produce doubts and questions. Hegel's point of departure is pure thinking, the abstract idea, which he himself once called “an oyster-like, gray or entirely black” being (in a letter to Goethe on February 20, 1821), of which he maintained at the same time should be considered the “representation of God as he is in his eternal essence before the creation of nature and a finite spirit.” The aim that he reaches is the individual human spirit endowed with a content of its own, through whom first comes to light what led only a shadow-like existence in a gray, oyster-like element. This can easily be understood to mean that a personality as a living self-conscious being does not exist outside the human spirit. Hegel derives the content-saturated element that we experience within ourselves from the ideal element that we obtain through thinking. It is quite comprehensible that a spirit of a certain inner disposition felt repulsed by this view of world and life. Only thinkers of such a selfless devotion as that of Karl Rosenkranz (1805–1879) could so completely find their way into Hegel's movement of thought and, in such perfect agreement with Hegel, create for themselves structures of ideas that appear like a rebirth of Hegel's own thought structure in a less impressive medium. Others could not understand how man is to be enlightened through pure idea with respect to the infinity and variety of the impressions that pour in on him as he directs his observations toward nature, crowded as it is with colors and forms, and how he is to profit if he lifts his soul from experiences in the world of sensation, feeling and perception-guided imagination to the frosty heights of pure thought. To interpret Hegel in this fashion is to misunderstand him, but it is quite comprehensible that he should have been misunderstood in this way.

This mood that was dissatisfied with Hegel's mode of thinking found expression in the current thought that had representatives in Franz Xaver von Baader (1765–1841), Karl Christian Friedrich Krause (1781–1832), Immanuel Hermann Fichte (1797 – 1879), Christian Hermann Weisse (1801–1866), Anton Guenther (1783–1863), Karl Friedrich Eusebius Thrahndorff (1782–1863) Martin Deutinger (1815– 1864), and Hermann Ulrici (1806–1884). They attempted to replace the gray, oyster-like pure thought of Hegel by a life-filled, personal, primal entity, an individual God. Baader called it an “atheistic conception” to believe that God attained a perfect existence only in man. God must be a personality and the world must not, as Hegel thought, proceed from him like a logical process in which one concept always necessarily produces the next. On the contrary, the world must be God's free creation, the product of his almighty will. These thinkers approach the Christian doctrine of revelation. To justify and fortify this doctrine scientifically becomes the more-or-less conscious purpose of their thinking. Baader plunged into the mysticism of Jakob Boehme (1757–1624), Meister Eckhardt (1250– 1329), Tauler (1290–1361) and Paracelsus (1494–1541), whose language, so rich in pictures, he considered a much more appropriate means to express the most profound truths than the pure thoughts of Hegel's doctrine. That Baader also caused Schelling to enrich his thoughts with a deeper and warmer content through the assimilation's of conceptions from Jakob Boehme has already been mentioned.

In the course of the development of the modern world conception personalities like Krause will always be remarkable. He was a mathematician who allowed himself to be swayed by the proud, logically perfect character of this science, and attempted a solution of the problems of world conception after the model of the method he was used to as a mathematician. Typical of this kind of thinker is the great mathematician, Newton, who treated the phenomena of the visible universe as if it were an arithmetical problem but, at the same time, satisfied his own need concerning the fundamental questions of world conception in a fashion that approached the belief to be found in revealed religion. Krause finds it impossible to accept a conception that seeks the primal being of the world in the things and processes. Whoever, like Hegel, looks for God in the world cannot find him, for the world, to be sure, is in God, but God is not in the world. He is a self-dependent being resting within himself in blissful serenity. Krause's world of ideas rests on “thoughts of an infinite, self-dependent being, outside of which there is nothing; this being comprises everything by itself and in itself as the one ground, and that we have to think of as the ground of reason, nature and humanity.” He does not want to have anything in common with a view “that takes the finite or the world as the sum total of everything finite to be God itself, idolizing and confusing it with God.” No matter how deep one may penetrate into the reality given to the senses and the mind, one will never arrive in this way at the fundamental ground of all being. To obtain a conception of this being is possible only if one accompanies all finite observation with a divinatory vision of an over-worldly reality.

Immanuel Hermann Fichte settled his account with Hegelianism poignantly in his essay, Propositions for the Prolegomena of Theology (1826), and Contributions Toward a Characterization of Modern Philosophy (1829). Then, in numerous works, he tried to prove and elaborate his view that a conscious personal being must be recognized as the basis of all world phenomena. In order to procure an emphatic effect for the opposition to Hegel's conception, which proceeded from pure thought, Immanuel Hermann Fichte joined hands with friends who were of the same opinion. In 1837, together with Weisse, Sengler, K. Ph. Fischer, Chalybäs, Fr. Hoffmann, Ulrici, Wirth and others, he began the publication of the Journal for Philosophy and Speculative Theology. It is Fichte's conviction that we have risen to the highest knowledge only if we have understood that “the highest thought that truly solves the world problem is the idea of a primal subject or absolute personality, which knows and fathoms itself in its ideal as well as real infinity.”

The world creation and preservation that comprises the world reality, consists solely in the uninterrupted consciousness-permeated will-direction of God, such that he is only consciousness and will, but both in a highest union, therefore, only person, or person in the most eminent sense of the word.

Chr. Hermann Weisse believed that it was necessary to proceed from Hegel's world conception to a completely theological mode of conception. In the Christian idea of the three personalities in the one deity, he saw the aim of his thinking. He attempted to represent this idea as the result of a natural and unsophisticated common sense and did so with an uncommon array of ingenuity. In his triune, Weisse believed that in a personal deity possessing a living will he had something infinitely richer than Hegel with his gray idea. This living will is to “give to the inner godly nature with one breath the one definite form and no other that is implied at all places in the Holy Writ of the Old and New Testaments. In it, God is shown prior to the creation of the world as well as during and after that event in the shining element of his glory as surrounded by an interminable heavenly host of serving spirits in a fluid immaterial body, which enables him to fully communicate with the created world.”

[ 14 ] Anton Guenther, the “Viennese Philosopher,” and Martin Deutinger, who was under his influence, move with the thoughts of their world conception completely within the framework of the catholic theological mode of conception. Guenther attempts to free man from the natural world order by dividing him into two parts—a natural being that belongs to the world of necessary law, and a spirit being that constitutes a self-dependent part of a higher spirit world and has an existence comparable to an “entity” as described by Herbart. He believes that he overcomes Hegelianism in this manner and that he supplies the foundation for a Christian world conception. The Church itself was not of this opinion, for in Rome Guenther's writings were included in the Prohibitory Index. Deutinger fought vehemently against Hegel's “pure thinking,” which, in his opinion, ought to be prevented from devouring life-filled reality. He ranks the living will higher than pure thought. It can, as creative will, produce something; thought is powerless and abstract. Thrahndorff also takes living will as his point of departure. The world cannot be explained from the shadowy realm of ideas, but a vigorous will must seize these ideas in order to create real being. The world's deepest content does not unfold itself to man in thoughtful comprehension, but in an emotional reaction, in love through which the individual surrenders to the world, to the will that rules in the universe. It is quite apparent that all these thinkers endeavor to overcome thinking and its object, the pure idea. They are unwilling to acknowledge thinking as the highest manifestation of the spirit of man. In order to comprehend the ultimate substance of the world, Thrahndorff wants to approach it, not with the power of knowledge, but of love. It is to become an object of emotion, not of reason. It is the belief of these philosophers that through clear, pure thinking the ardent, religious devotion to the primordial forces of existence are destroyed.

[ 15 ] This opinion has its root in a misconception of Hegel's thought world. Its misunderstanding becomes especially apparent in the views concerning Hegel's attitude toward religion that spread after his death. The lack of clarity that began to prevail regarding this attitude resulted in a split among Hegel's followers into one party that considered his world conception to be a firm pillar of revealed Christianity, and another that used his doctrine to dissolve the Christian conceptions and to replace them by a radically liberal view.

[ 16 ] Neither party could have based its opinion on Hegel if they had understood him correctly, for Hegel's world conception contains nothing that can be used for support of a religion or for its destruction. He had meant to do this with respect to any religion as little as he had intended to create any natural phenomena through his pure thought. As he had set out to extract the pure thought from the processes of nature in order to comprehend them in that way, so he had also, in the case of religion, merely the intention to bring its thought content to the surface. As he considered everything that is real in the world as reasonable just because it is real, so he held this view also in regard to religion. It must come into existence by soul forces quite beyond those that are at the disposal of the thinker when he approaches them in order to comprehend them.

It was also an error of such thinkers as Fichte, Weisse, Deutinger and others that they fought against Hegel because he had not proceeded from the realm of pure thought to the religious experience of the personal deity. Hegel had never set himself a task of this kind. He considered that to be the task of the religious consciousness. The younger Fichte, Weisse, Krause, Deutinger and the rest wanted to create a new religion through their world conception. Hegel would have considered such a task to be as absurd as the wish to illuminate the world through the idea of light, or to create a magnet out of the thought of magnetism. To be sure, in Hegel's opinion, religion has its root in the idea, just as the whole world of nature and the spirit. For this reason, it is possible that the human spirit can rediscover this idea in religion, but as the magnet was created out of the thought of magnetism before the human mind came into being, and as the latter only afterwards has to comprehend the magnet's creation, so also religion has become what it is before its thought emerged in the human soul as an illuminating part of world conception. If Hegel had lived to experience the religious criticism of his pupils, he would have felt compelled to say, “Take your hands off all foundation of religion, off all creation of religious conceptions, as long as you want to remain thinkers and do not intend to become messiahs.” The world conception of Hegel, if it is correctly understood, cannot have a retroactive effect on the religious consciousness. The philosopher who reflects on the realm of art has the same relation to his object as the thinker who wants to fathom the nature of religion.

[ 17 ] The Halle Yearbooks, published from 1838 to 1843 by Arnold Ruge and Theodor Echtermeyer, served as a forum for the philosophical controversies of the time. Starting with a defense and explanation of Hegel, they soon proceeded to develop his ideas independently, and thus made the transition to the views that are called “radical world conceptions” in the next chapter. After 1841, the editors called their journal, The German Yearbook, and, as one of their aims, they considered “the fight against political illiberality, against theories of feudalism and landed property.” In the historical development of the time they became active as radical politicians, demanding a state in which perfect freedom prevails. Thus, they abandoned the spirit of Hegel, who wanted to understand history, not to make it.