The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Physiological-psychological study. Vienna 1884

This work is one of those philosophical publications that are becoming increasingly rare in our time, which attempt to solve a specific scientific problem not from the point of view of any school of thought, but independently and without presuppositions. The author sets himself the task of explaining the significance of physiological research into the brain mechanism for the understanding of the phenomena of consciousness. First of all, he refutes the view generally held in scientific circles today that the world given to us directly through the senses, this complex of colors, sounds, shapes, differences in warmth and so on, is nothing more than the effect of objective material processes on our subjective organization. The world of appearances is therefore basically a subjective appearance that only lasts as long as we keep our senses open to the impressions of material processes, whereas these processes themselves are saturated with a reality of their own that is completely independent of us and are thus the true cause of all natural phenomena. Wahle now shows that the processes in matter have no higher degree of reality than the subjective world supposedly caused by them. We must regard both as occurrences present to us, which confront us as belonging together (coordinated), without our being entitled to assume that one is the true cause of the other. It is just as we must regard day and night, for instance, as coordinated without one of them being regarded as the effect of the other. Just as here the necessary succession is due to the structure and processes of our solar system, so also the coordination of a material process and a quality of sensation, for example, sound, color, and so on, will be conditioned by some true fact; but at any rate not by the fact that the former causes the latter. Now, the interrelation of brain mechanism and consciousness is only a special case of such coordination. According to Wahle, we are only in a position to perceive that both are parallel occurrences; but we are not entitled to regard consciousness as a real consequence of the brain mechanism. Physiology is right when it seeks the material correlates of mental phenomena; but the materialistic fantasy that wants to make the mind the true product of the brain is given the farewell letter. Indeed, Wahle even works against it by showing that the phenomena hitherto regarded in psychology as independent acts of consciousness, such as recognizing, rejecting, loving, desiring, willing and so on, are nothing other than occurrences coordinated with each other or with others, which do not at all necessitate the assumption of a special subjective activity, which would be unfavourable to physiology. The author traces the phenomena of consciousness back to a general law, whereby a conception can be recalled into consciousness by one that is not wholly but partially identical with it. Thus it would only be the task of physiology to find the corresponding mechanical fact in the brain for this psychological finding, which is certainly easier than if this had to be done for each of the above-mentioned alleged acts of consciousness.

The main significance of this little work lies in having shown in clear contours what experience actually gives us and what is often only added to it. All that the individual sciences can find consists only in the statement of related occurrences, whereby we must presuppose that the affiliation itself is founded in some true fact. We consider the author's argument to be quite convincing, but we believe that he has not drawn the final conclusion of his views. Otherwise he would probably have found that those true facts themselves are given to us as experiential occurrences - namely the ideal ones - and that the negation of materialism leads logically to scientific idealism. If, therefore, we actually see the right thing in the progression from the absolutely solid foundation laid by Wahle to a higher level of knowledge, then we unreservedly admit that we see in this work an outstanding achievement that will have a decisive effect on the branch of science to which it belongs and that will certainly occupy a place in the history of philosophy.

From the recently published book: "Erinnerungen an Moritz Seebeck" by Kuno Fischer (Heidelberg 1886), we would like to cite a few points that shed a clear light on the attitude that the excellent physicist Thomas Seebeck (Moritz's father) observed towards Goethe's Theory of Colors. Just a few words may precede this. Seebeck, to whom we owe the epoch-making discovery of entoptic colors, was regarded by Goethe as an enthusiastic supporter of his color theory. The two spent a great deal of time together in Jena, particularly from 1802 to 1810, where they carried out joint experiments in the field of this science. In 1818 Seebeck was appointed a member of the Berlin Academy. There seem to have been quite a few obstacles in the way. After Seebeck's death, Zelter reported to Goethe: "how the minister had to work to get this important man into the academy, who had been devoted to the theory of colors, but who later proved to be a moderate in the office itself, if not an apostate, because he did not find himself strong in mathematics" (see Fischer, p. 11). Goethe also regarded him as an apostate after his appointment. He had done him an injustice. Seebeck had remained faithful until his death, as Fischer shows in his book. On page 19 he says: "As far as Seebeck's attitude to color theory is concerned, Goethe did not judge it correctly. Even as an academic, Seebeck neither changed nor concealed his opinion. We hear the full testimony of the academic memorial speech: "A common interest in the phenomena of color caused him and Goethe to often carry out experiments together, in which some differences were discussed in detail, but in the main relationships there was agreement in their views of the nature of color.... In the theory of color he was on Goethe's side and, like the latter, maintained the simplicity of white light." On page 13 ff., Fischer quotes the letter that Moritz Seebeck addressed to Goethe on the death of his father (December 20, 1831). It reads: "Your Excellency's writings of any content did not come from his (Seebeck's) desk, they were his favorite reading; he often said: "Among all living naturalists, Goethe is the greatest, the only one who knows what is important." We would like to see in Seebeck's relationship to Goethe's Theory of Colors the proof that there can no longer be any question of abandoning Goethe's deep understanding in someone who has really penetrated it to such an extent that he has found the point on which everything depends.

A contribution to the history of the philosophy of our poet heroes Neisse 1884

It is no coincidence that at the end of the last century and the beginning of this one, philosophy and poetry experienced a tremendous upswing in Germany at the same time. There was a deepening of the whole essence of the nation, and it was one and the same message that was proclaimed by both philosophers and poets. German philosophy and German poetry of the classical period flowed from one spiritual direction. This explains why our greatest poets: Lessing, Herder, Schiller, Goethe, also felt the urge to deal with the deepest questions of science. They are not merely accomplished artists, they are perfect human beings in the highest sense of the word. This explains why, in addition to the writings devoted to the contemplation of the artistic creations of our classics, the writings devoted to their philosophical thoughts are constantly increasing. The above-mentioned book deals with Goethe's philosophical development.

The spirit in whose work the various forms of the German national spirit have united to form the most beautiful harmony is Goethe. Artistic creative power and scientific insight into the driving forces of nature and the human spirit are the elements that have flowed into the essence of this spirit, but in such a way that they have given up their separate existence and become a unified whole, an individuality that both broadens and deepens our world view. Only when viewed in this way does the role that philosophy plays in the organism of Goethe's spirit become clear. A treatise on Goethe's philosophical development would have to show the extent to which philosophy is, firstly, an active force in his artistic work and, secondly, a foundation supporting his scientific experiments. From the aphoristic statements about his world view alone we cannot gain a picture of it, even if they are often clarifying and complementary to it. If we apply what has been said to Melzer's book, we must admit that the author has not recognized the crucial points of the matter. We do not want to overlook some of the good points of his book. These include, above all, the basic tendency of the book to recognize Goethe not from individual statements but from the course of his development (8.3). But if, despite this tendency (p. 36), the author finds, for example, that Goethe's philosophical-religious view at the end of his youthful period was a kind of middle ground between rationalism and orthodoxy, this shows how little he sees what is actually important. Buzzwords such as naturalism, rationalism and pantheism do not lead us into Goethe's mind; they only obstruct our access to the depths of his being. For Melzer, this is why the fully determined, individual aspect of Goethe's world view is lost. Thus he sees the quintessence of the essay "Nature" (p.24) in the sentence: "it (nature) is everything" and consequently defines Goethe's view as naturalism. But while naturalism sees nature only in its finished products, as dead, self-contained, and in this form identifies the spirit with it, Goethe goes back to it as producer, as creative, and thus advances beyond contingency to necessity. He thus reaches that source from which spirit and nature flow simultaneously and can truly say of it: "it is everything." Goethe had something to proclaim to the world that could not be encompassed by any traditional system of thought, still less expressed in traditional philosophical terms. There was in him a world of original ideas, and when one speaks of the influence of older or newer philosophers on him, this cannot be done in the sense - as Melzer does - as if he had formed his views on the basis of their teachings. He was looking for formulas, a scientific language to express the spiritual wealth that lay within him. He found these in the philosophers, above all in Spinoza. Melzer shares the mistake of wanting to portray Goethe's world of ideas as the result of various teachings he had absorbed with many others who have studied the philosophy underlying Goethe's work. This overlooks the fact that anyone who wants to portray Goethe's philosophical development must have gained a belief in the originality of his mission and the genius of his being primarily from his work.

"Goethe - and still no end! Kritische Würdigung der Lehre Goethes von der Metamorphose der Pflanzen" is the title of a recently published work by K. Fr. Jordan (Hamburg 1888, Verlagsanstalt und Druckerei AG), which once again attempts to prove that Goethe's world view lacked any scientific value, that the great poet lacked the "right scientific sense" in general. The reason given by the author for this assertion is that Goethe took a completely different intellectual direction from the mechanical view of nature. For Jordan, however, science ends where the mechanical view ends; "science must be mechanical, because mechanical processes are the most comprehensible to the human mind", he claims. It is of course impossible to rise to Goethe's intellectual level with such intellectual presuppositions. It should not be denied: Goethe was an opponent of the way of thinking advocated by Jordan. But he was so because it was clear to his mind, which penetrated deep into the essence of things, that this way of thinking was only sufficient for recognizing the lower levels of natural existence and that we would be denied an insight into the actual laws of organic life if we could not rise above the thinking of mechanical lawfulness. Goethe's idea of plant metamorphosis is proof that our cognitive faculty does not fail us even when we approach life, the essence of which will never be grasped by mechanics. This idea has opened up new paths for organic science, just as Galileo's fundamental laws of mechanics did. Those who ignore this fact will not only never come to a just appreciation of Goethe's scientific position, but will also cause considerable damage to science itself, for they will deprive it of a field of fruitful ideas that has already been opened up.

For a number of years now, the writer of these lines has been trying to represent a point of view towards Goethe, the researcher, that does justice to his quite unique position within the history of science. history of science. Given the often aphoristic, often fragmentary way in which Goethe's scientific ideas are presented to us in his works, it was often necessary to go beyond the mere study and interpretation of the existing material and to search for the connecting thoughts that lay in Goethe's mind and which perhaps had not been recorded at all, perhaps for some reason had been left behind in the desk. In this way a whole of Goethe's world view emerged, which admittedly differed greatly from the usual views. The insight I recently gained into the papers left behind by the poet filled me with the deepest satisfaction. - Entrusted with the publication of a part of Goethe's scientific writings for the Weimar Goethe Edition, I was allowed to examine the rich, unprinted material. This examination resulted throughout in a complete confirmation of what one must have recognized from a thorough, loving immersion in the poet's scholarly works, but with which one nevertheless had to be prepared for such contradictions as those of Jordan, because those unifying thoughts of which we spoke above bore too much of the character of the hypothetical for many people. We do not mean that the whole of Goethe's conception did not have full scholarly value for us, but this is a conviction that can ultimately only be won by those who have the will to delve into Goethe's spirit with such affection - and that is not everyone's cup of tea, at least it seems so. - The new Weimar edition will now provide a twofold benefit: firstly, any doubt as to how Goethe thought about certain points in natural science will have to be silenced, because his own explanations clearly and unambiguously determine his point of view; secondly, the high scientific seriousness that speaks from these explanations will finally make the judgment that would portray the poet as a scientific dilettante simply appear superficial. Goethe a dilettante! He, who had direct relations with the majority of Germany's intellectual aspirants in his time and who personally contributed to so many world-shaking ideas! We see the greatest scholars of his time exchanging thoughts with him about their discoveries, we see his supportive participation in the entire development of his time.

An attempt has been made to portray Goethe as a forerunner of Darwin. This was the benevolent conviction of those who saw Darwinism as the "be-all and end-all" of the science of living beings and who wanted to "save" Goethe's scientific explanations. This view provoked objections from natural scientists who were more inclined towards the Du Bois-Reymond school, because countless passages in Goethe's writings could not be reconciled with today's conventional view of Darwin's teachings. It could not be denied that these two parties were able to come up with seemingly weighty reasons for their assertions. It was, of course, clear to those who looked deeper that Goethe could never be a Darwinian in the common sense. It did not escape his gaze that all natural beings are intimately connected with one another, that there is nothing unmediated in nature, but that transitions between the different living beings in their formation must make the whole of nature appear as a continuous sequence of stages. But he looked deeper than the Darwinism of today. While Darwinism only examines the relationships between organic beings and their environment in order to obtain as complete a family tree of all life on earth as possible, Goethe focused on the idea of the organic, on its inner nature. He wanted to investigate what an organic being is in order to see how it can appear in so many different forms. Today's Darwinism seeks the various forms of eternal change. Goethe sought the permanent in this change. The naturalist of the present day asks: what influence of the climate, of the way of life, has taken place so that this living being has developed from that one? Goethe asked: what inner organic laws of formation are at work in this development? Goethe relates to the modern natural scientist as the astronomer, who explains the phenomena in the sky by summarizing cosmic laws, relates to the observer who determines the various positions of the stars through the telescope according to experience. Goethe's scientific explanations are not only a prophetic anticipation of Darwinism, but they are the ideal prerequisite for it. Modern natural science will have to be supplemented by them, otherwise it will not rise from mere experience to theory. The Weimar Edition, however, will provide irrefutable proof of this assertion through the publication of Goethe's estate. It will show us those mediating thoughts through which Goethe's position on Darwinism will become clear in the sense indicated. The views that have been greatly shaken by this will be considerably strengthened. Goethe's idealism in science will be just as unquestionable as the significance and depth of his scientific ideas. If one can convince oneself of the struggle for true knowledge, for scientific thoroughness, which his thoughts bear witness to right from their inception, then one will no longer be able to claim that the "great poet" had no scientific sense.

In the introduction to the second volume of my edition of Goethe's scientific writings (Kürschner's "Deutsche National-Literatur", Goethes Werke, Vol. XXXIV, p.XXXVIIL£.) I have already pointed out that Goethe wrote an essay on scientific method, which he sent to Schiller on January 17, 1798, but which is unfortunately not included in the works. At that time I tried to reconstruct the views on scientific research contained in the essay. The essay seemed to me to contain Goethe's most important scientific arguments. - It has now been preserved! - It follows on from the one on the "Experiment as Mediator of Object and Subject" (see above, Goethe's Works, Volume XXXIV, pp. 10f.), but is the incomparably more important of the two. It contains a program for all scientific research; it shows how it must develop if it is to do justice to the demands of our reason as well as to the objective course of nature. All this in ingenious strokes, which at once raise us to that spiritual height where our gaze penetrates unwaveringly into the secrets of nature. In this essay we have the most direct expression of Goethe's scientific spirit. Anyone who wants to argue against this spirit in the future may first try his hand at this essay. From there, light will shine on all of Goethe's other writings, insofar as they concern science.

From all this one can see that the new edition will gain one thing above all others: We will be in a better position than was previously possible to view each individual intellectual act of Goethe in the context of his nature. And it will be the task of the edition in this respect to facilitate this as much as possible by arranging and selecting what is to be included. It is precisely in scholarly terms that Goethe research, which the Grand Duchess of Weimar has taken into her protection with loving devotion that cannot be praised enough, will gain from the publications of the Goethe Archive.

There is no doubt that some fragments will also have to be published, that many an essay that has been started and then left lying around will come before the eyes of the reader. But this stylistic completeness is not the point. The main thing is that we have all of Goethe's intellectual products before our eyes in such a form that we are able to form an intellectual picture of his world view. And in this respect Riemer and Eckermann cannot be absolved of some of the mistakes they made in editing the works they left behind. They have omitted some things that are necessary for understanding and have not followed the only correct principle in the arrangement, which brings the individual writings in such a sequence that they serve each other as a commentary.

But the realization of the sketchy, fragmentary has yet another advantage. By often seeing the thought shoot up in Goethe's mind, we will recognize its actual scope and meaning precisely from this first form, and we will experience the whole tendency of Goethe's striving from this. We will wrestle with him by looking into how his mind, which always goes into the depths, gradually rises to clarity. It will be possible for us to follow him on his paths and thus to become more and more familiar with his way of thinking.

We will see how Goethe was clearly aware that, wherever we enter the world of experience, we must finally encounter the idea through constant, unrelenting willing. He never sets out for an idea. He naively seeks only to grasp the phenomena, but he always finds the idea in the end. Every line of his work is full proof of this.

In summary, we would like to say that Goethe's scientific individuality will soon emerge in its full significance so clearly before our eyes that a writing like the one by Jordan mentioned at the beginning will be regarded by the educated world of Germany as a lamentable but essentially harmless aberration.

Leipzig 1890

A few weeks ago, German philosophy was enriched by a valuable book written in Weimar. The fact that the author of the work is the archdeacon Dr. Eduard Grimm, and the scholarly importance attached to it, justify it sufficiently if we express at this point the deep satisfaction that reading it has given us. We found one of the most interesting epochs in the development of science discussed in a truly exemplary manner. The book sets itself the task of explaining the teachings of the five English philosophers: Francis Bacon (1561 to 1626), Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1709), George Berkeley (1685-1753), David Hume (1711-1776) for epistemology, that is for that science which is concerned with answering the question: to what extent is man capable of solving the riddles of the world and investigating the laws of nature and life through his thinking?

The scientific period to which these five thinkers belong is so extraordinarily significant because it marks one of the most important turning points in scientific life. The wisdom of the Middle Ages had contented itself with continuing along the paths trodden by Aristotle, the great teacher of Alexander the Great. The way in which he approached the tasks of the sciences, the goals he set, were still considered incontestable even when new observations and experiences could no longer be properly reconciled with them. This, however, hindered all progress and made the free development of the free and independent thinking demanded by discoveries in the field of science impossible. Then Francis Bacon appeared on the scene. His aim was to purify science of all traditional prejudices and to completely rebuild it on the basis of the new achievements of the time. Grimm is a master at capturing Bacon precisely at the point where his great significance for the development of European thought is most evident. By clinging to principles that belonged to a time long past and could only have validity and value for the life of that time, science had become alienated from the life of the immediate present, indeed had become completely useless for it. But "all science has emerged from life and takes from it the right and the basis of its existence. If it departs too far from its origin, life itself cannot fail to oppose it with its own direct force and urge a new formation of science. Francis Bacon of Verulam confronts the science of his time in this way. He reproaches it with resembling a plant which, torn from its stem, no longer has any connection with the body of nature and therefore no longer receives any nourishment from it." (Cf. Grimm, Zur Geschichte des Erkenntnisproblems, pp. 5-6.) Grimm explains with as much thoroughness as truly philosophical superiority how Bacon, by establishing an infallible method of observation and experimentation, wants to put science on the right track, how he, by ruthlessly combating all prejudices and errors among scholars as well as all other educated people, wants to provide access only to absolutely certain knowledge. To this, as to the whole book in general, we must praise the only historically correct method, which does full justice to the thinkers under consideration by letting them speak for themselves wherever it seems necessary. The beneficial effect produced by the book is due in no small part to the fact that the author does not, as so many recent historians of science do, emphasize his own scientific views in assessing the thought of others, but places his personal ability, which is visible to the discerning reader everywhere, at the service of an all-round objective development of the systems of thought dealt with.

The Baconian school of thought, for all its great importance, was guilty of a one-sided overestimation of the mere observation of things at the expense of independent thinking that draws from man's own breast. This deficiency became even greater with Thomas Hobbes, who saw thinking as nothing more than a faculty mediated by language. "Understanding is the understanding of words." (Grimm, p.87.) Hobbes denies that thinking can come to knowledge by itself and through itself. "Sensual perception, imagination, and the succession of our ideas, which we call experience, is what is given to us by nature." (Grimm,.85-86.) "Hobbes calls reason that activity by which we compose ideas and words." (Grimm, p. 87.) Thus, according to Hobbes, science is not based on a thinking comprehension of the world, but merely on the rational use and correct understanding of words. The fact that words convey ideas and that our knowledge is based on them is a proposition that does not exist for Hobbes. It is understandable that under such circumstances knowledge can no longer have an independent purpose. Therefore Hobbes finds: "Knowledge is there for the sake of skill, mathematics for the sake of mechanics, all speculation for the sake of some work, some action." (Grimm,. 99.) Certainly, knowledge that consists only of words can have no independent value. However, Hobbes believed that he could only achieve what he wanted by giving science this twist. What we observe and experience in individual cases has only a limited truth. We can never know whether it is true in all the cases we have not observed. Words, on the other hand, we determine arbitrarily, so we know exactly how far what they claim is valid. This view proved fatal to Hobbes in his foundation of the doctrine of morals and the state. For if everything that has objective validity is based only on the arbitrariness of words, then any real distinction between "good" and "evil" ceases to exist. These concepts, too, become arbitrary creations of man. "There is no general rule about good and evil taken from the nature of things themselves." (Grimm,. 135-136.) And in the state, order cannot be maintained by people controlling their instincts through reason, through free insight, but only by a despotic ruler enforcing the observation of arbitrarily established moral laws.

John Locke is at the center of Grimm's work. After all, he is "the first philosopher to place the question of knowledge at the center of research as a completely independent and independent task". (Grimm, 5.173.) On the continent, Ren& Descartes (Cartesius 1596-1650) is the founder of a new philosophy that frees itself from the bonds of Aristotle. He sees the reason why we can arrive at unconditional and unquestionable knowledge in the fact that certain ideas are innate to us. We need only raise them from the hidden depths of our soul and place them in the full light of consciousness. Locke now opposed this view with the proposition that we have no innate, but only acquired knowledge. According to Locke, we do not bring any knowledge into the world with us, but only the ability to acquire it. Starting from this insight, he seeks to investigate the sources and validity of our knowledge. In doing so, he arrives at a proposition that is now a part of modern consciousness, namely that only mass, shape, number and motion are properties that really exist in bodies, while color, sound, heat, taste and so on are only effects of the bodies on our senses, but not something in the bodies themselves.

George Berkeley now claims that the first-mentioned qualities also have no existence independent of our imagination, but that they only exist insofar as we imagine them. There are no things at all that correspond to our ideas. Berkeley denies the existence of a corporeal world and allows only spirits to exist in which the divine being, through its all-dominant power, evokes the ideas. "What I perceive, I must also imagine; something of which I have no conception at all cannot be the object of my perception or experience, it does not exist for me at all." "Therefore, there is no perception, no existence, no experience beyond the limit of imagination." (Grimm, p. 385.)

Finally, David Hume takes up Locke's view that we can only gain all our knowledge through observation. But as we can only ever obtain information about individual cases by observation, we have only such knowledge as relates to particulars and no generally valid knowledge. When I see that one thing always follows another, I call the latter cause, the former effect. I expect that in similar cases the same cause will produce the same effect. That this must be so, I can never know. All our conviction rests on the habit of always presupposing what we have often found to be true. Thus Hume arrives at a complete doubt of all actual knowledge.

This doubt, by his own admission, roused Kant from his scientific slumber and inspired him to write his great work, the Critique of Pure Reason, which stirred the scientific world in all its depths. As a result, Hume, and insofar as he was based on his predecessors, also exerted a decisive influence on German science.

Knowing the development of thought and the significance of the scholars treated by Grimm is an absolute necessity for understanding modern philosophy. The author has therefore earned a lasting merit through his book. With penetrating clarity, he shows us the threads that link the five men together, and with admirable acuity he always points to the aspect in which each of them has developed one and the same basic idea. It is actually a question that they all deal with, but the different light they shed on it always leads to different conclusions. They are all inspired by the striving for satisfactory knowledge, and they are likewise imbued with the conviction that only observation and experience provide us with true knowledge. No less excellent than the presentation of the interdependence of the individual explanations is Grimm's illumination of the course of development they have undergone. This is particularly characteristic of Berkeley and Hume. In clarifying these relationships, Grimm also proves himself to be a master of psychological analysis.

We do not think we are saying too much when we culminate our judgment of Grimm's book in these words: For the specialist, it is a work that he must not pass by if he wants to approach the epoch in question; for the educated, it is an interesting lectern that will orient him on countless questions.

Introduction to the work "Philosophy in Outline". Newly edited and annotated by Max Schneidewin. Friedrich Stahn. Berlin 1891

This book belongs to the group of the many unnecessary ones produced by contemporary literature. As a philosopher, Steudel was on that shallow point of view which believes that the knowledge material gathered from everywhere can be deepened to philosophical results by mere intellectual considerations made about the individual facts of experience. Steudel had no idea that philosophy needs an object that does not lie in the sphere of the "sensually and intellectually" given. This is why he completely lacks the organ to appreciate the great advances in philosophy made by Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, and he would like to see all deeper intuition replaced by the rational raison d'être arising from Nicolaitan sentiments, which those luminaries of science, despite their great errors, brought to the ground in such mighty intellectual battles. He wants to assert the absolute judgment of reason as opposed to the absolute judgment of understanding. The only difference is that the absolute of reason is deep, while that of understanding is superficial. In all of this, Steudel's honest endeavors must be acknowledged, and for the philosophical expert it is of interest to read Steudel's "Philosophy in Outline" as the most consistent work of shallow common sense, which many still - or rather today even more so - consider to be the only sound one. However, we are unable to see who is to be served by a special reprint of the introduction, which has no independent value at all, but only acquires such value in connection with the work as a whole.

Lecture. Munich 1891

Short summaries of the main facts of hypnotism and suggestion, when made with perfect mastery of the subject, are very useful at the present time. They meet a burning interest of the time. The fact that all scientific requirements are fulfilled in the writing in question is vouched for by the name of its author. The fact that it is aimed almost exclusively at doctors and less at the educated lay public is not to be held against it. The latter has in Forel's excellent work a means of quick and all-round orientation that fulfills all requirements. But for those who have enough scientific knowledge to understand it, the Minke brochure also offers an excellent opportunity to gain knowledge of the scope of the phenomena involved in hypnotism. That it warns against the dangers which might arise if, in the opinion of some uninitiated hot-spurs, hypnotism and suggestion were to be used as a means of education or for the retention of moods for artistic purposes, we find quite justified. It seems to us appropriate to point out that with the physiological solution of the riddle that envelops sleep, the problem of hypnotism will also appear closer. Every reader will also be grateful for the compilation of data at the end, which provides a clear overview of when and by whom related phenomena - those we call hypnotic - have already been observed and attempted to be explained in the past.

Leipzig 1892

If anyone, as would seem justified by the title, were looking for the results of philosophical considerations in this book, he would be sorely mistaken. One will find views such as those put forward by the whim and arbitrariness of a witty man who shies away from serious, calm thinking, but one will also feel offended by the imposition of having to accept the most subjective talk in matters about which only reason, which has worked its way to the highest possible degree of objectivity, should speak. Bleibtreu says everything he likes about the nature of man, about sexual relations and love, about marriage and family life, about genius, about intellect and will, about criminal law and socialism, without any further qualms about the fact that personal preference for a view is not yet a criterion of its truth. I am not philistine enough to accuse Mr. Bleibtreu of blunting the feeling for conscientiousness in the great questions of life and the world through writings such as his, and perhaps I enjoyed myself too much while reading them. I also quite liked some of the witty, half-true, quarter-true and eighth-true assertions. But the book is bad because Mr. Bleibtreu has no idea that every thing has many pages. The opposite of every sentence he writes is also true. A German writer who does not know this seems like a relic from the last century. Ever since the Germans have had a philosophy and Goethe's works, they have known that one point of the eye is not enough to look at a thing, but that one must walk around it and look at it from all sides. It is splendid what Mr. Bleibtreu says about genius, that it is its own standard, that it cannot exist without a self-confidence that almost reaches the point of megalomania; but this only illuminates the essence of genius from one side, and that always produces a distorted image, a caricature. Bleibtreu is a caricaturist of "ultimate truths". He advocates monogamy with dissolution of marriage. The children should belong to the mother. He considers fatherly love to be hypocrisy. He who says A must also say B. In this case that means: whoever demands things like Bleibtreu must also describe the social conditions under which they are possible. Bleibtreu asserts the relationship between genius and insanity following Lombroso. He even wants to formulate the matter more precisely: Under unfavorable circumstances, insanity occurs wherever genius occurs under favorable circumstances. Has Mr. Bleibtreu never heard that genius has also developed under the most unfavorable circumstances? Or does he simply say: yes, then these circumstances were only seemingly unfavorable, but in reality they were favorable to genius, which was strengthened all the more by this or that difficulty? One could, of course, justify any sentence in this way. Incidentally, Bleibtreu's reasons are not very different in value from these. All in all, Bleibtreu's book would only make sense if the author were a god and his assertions were divine commandments, a kind of revelation that the rest of humanity would simply have to accept without criticism. We do not consider Mr. Bleibtreu to be a god, but his book to be amusing, amateurish writing.

Gemeinverständliche Flugschriften, edited by Dr. Hans Schmidkunz. Stuttgart 1892 - I. Moriz Carriere, Materialism and Aesthetics. A pamphlet - UI. Gustav Buhr, Thoughts of a Worker on God and the World. With an introduction by Theobald Ziegler. - II. Ola Hansson, Materialism in Literature

This collection of pamphlets against materialism must give sincere satisfaction to every educated person who has not yet been led astray by the seductive siren song of materialism. Hans Schmidkunz has done himself a great service by raising the voices of the idealists against the devastating effects of a world view that is capable of winning a wide circle of followers because it has a basic characteristic that always attracts the crowd: banality. Hans Schmidkunz has also proved through his own writings that his main aim is to oppose materialism with a dam. He has sought to explore the difficult areas of hypnotism and suggestion for psychology, because he believed he could find tasks here that materialism could not tackle with its trivialities. In this sense, we welcome the undertaking as an eminently contemporary one. If we now turn to the first three writings in the series, we must praise Carriere's as by far the best, indeed as a unique achievement of its kind. In his distinguished manner, guided as much by deep philosophical insight as by a fine connoisseurship of art, this outstanding aesthetician demonstrates how materialism will never be able to grasp the essence of beauty and establish an aesthetic. According to him, naturalism and materialism are neither capable of producing beauty nor of understanding it. Those who do not believe in an ideal world have no reason and therefore no justification to contrast the world of nature with that of art. Simply reproducing common reality in art through a kind of photographic process is not a task given by human nature. Only those who have a sense and understanding of an ideal world know why reality necessarily gives birth to a higher realm, that of idealism, of its own accord. With striking words, Carriere shows how the common world of the senses points us beyond itself in each of its points. We do not understand it if we stop at it.

Ola Hansson's writing takes second place. There is a lot of talk about this man today, especially among the younger generation. His essays and writings are always very inspiring. But his whole spiritual being seems to us like an organism without a backbone. All the nerves in his body vibrate in the most active way at the slightest impression of the outside world. Then his mind also feels prompted to make the most varied, always witty remarks. He then also says many a trivial thing, but never in a trivial way. But all his work lacks a center. His individual statements and views do not fit together. There is no common thread running through his whole being. This lack of his whole personality is also apparent here. He says many interesting things, but there is no overall view. Nor do his remarks really culminate in tangible conclusions. What he says about the mechanization of our entire literature, about the displacement of the artist by the writer, the journalist, is apt, but it lacks any depth. The book is a collection of witty apergus, but not at all witty. Anyone who wants to hear the modern, unprincipled polyglot in a typical form after Carriere, the idealist based on profound, deep German philosophy, should read this brochure by Ola Hansson. We write down this sentence in a good sense, because by right every educated person who lives with the present should get to know this type.

Finally, as far as Buhr's writing is concerned, it is interesting to hear what a simple worker - Buhr is one - thinks about God, the world and human nature. But we must confess that we have often, even frequently, heard such views from the mouths of workers. Buhr's only advantage over others is a certain command of language, which enables him to express his thoughts in a clear, comprehensible form. However, this quality should be highly valued given Buhr's limited literacy, as described by Theobald Ziegler in his very readable introduction. Anyone who wants to get to know a worker's individuality in its full depth will find this work very useful.

Thus we would like to recommend the first three writings against materialism to the widest circles as a very noteworthy and commendable phenomenon in our time.

The ancient Indian world view in modern presentation. A contribution to Darwinism, Brunswick 1891

Zeus in a tailcoat with a white bandage, that is the impression that the Indian theory of evolution, draped as modern Darwinism, gives us. You only need to fulfill two conditions: to take the esotericism of the Indians in a crude way and to extend Darwinism misleadingly beyond the realm of the physical world, then you can create a philosophical monster like this book. The intuitive wisdom of the Orient flows in a deep bed. Only the researcher who ventures into the element that is dangerous for knowledge can reach the bottom. The author of this book wants to see to the bottom with the eyes of understanding. He must therefore divert the river into a broad, shallow bed. He has succeeded in doing so. One can get by with the work without intellectual swimming. The water of the mechanical explanation of nature, to which the author - he is not on the title page - leads us, barely reaches up to the ankles. Whoever wants to recognize in the individual the All-Spirit, in the individual being the sum of existences through which it has to pass, must understand before all other things that this can only happen by delving into its inner being, not by an external way of looking at it. He who understands his own individuality as a human being finds all lower forms of existence within himself; he sees himself as the highest link in a broad ladder; he knows how everything else lives when he knows how to live it, how to relive it. A higher life is able to absorb every lower life and to visualize it in its own way. The possibility of man's understanding of the world is based on this. To imagine this idea as an embodiment of the individual in various, ever more perfect forms in the sequence of time is merely a figurative representation. This is what esotericism means. Those who take the images for what they are know nothing of esotericism. It is a peculiarity of Oriental spiritual life that it creates images which express great human ideas with great precision and vividness. One should ensure the widest possible dissemination of these pictorial masses, but they should not be distorted by the grafting on of Western realism. This book does that beyond recognition.