The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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.

Second section, volumes 6 and 7

The sixth and seventh volumes of the second section (natural science writings) contain Goethe's morphological works insofar as they relate to botany. What has been transferred from the volumes "Zur Morphologie" (1817-1824) to the "Nachgelassenen Werke" has been combined here with the as yet unprinted treatises and sketches on this subject, of which the archive is particularly rich. As a result, Goethe's "Theory of Plants" is contained in these two volumes in its complete and self-contained form. The essays published in the "Nachgelassene Werke" left many questions unanswered about the principles on which this theory is based and about the consequences Goethe drew from it. The knowledgeable reader first had to round off the matter by inserting hypotheses. Some of the gaps indicated here now appear to have been filled by the publication of the manuscript bequest.

The basis of the sixth volume was considered to be what appeared in the 1831 "Versuch über die Metamorphose der Pflanzen. Translated by Friedrich Soret, together with historical supplements". The archive contains the handwritten documents for most of this part. This is followed by the related material from the unprinted estate in such an order that Goethe's ideas appear in the systematic sequence required by their content, namely: 1. on the morphology of plants in general, containing the principles (pp.279-322 ), 2. special questions and examples from the doctrine of metamorphosis (pp. 323-344); 3. natural philosophical foundations and consequences of the whole doctrine (pp. 345-361); 4. matters relating to border areas between morphology and aesthetics (5.362-363). These essays contain the basic principles of Goethe's views on organics, his thoughts on the nature and relationship of living beings and on the necessary requirements for a scientific systematics of them. Paralipomena I ($. 401-446) comprise preliminary work on the metamorphosis of insects; Paralipomena II ($.446-451) a definition of morphology in the grand style in which Goethe conceived this science, and notes on the individual propositions of the doctrine of metamorphosis, finally sketches on the metamorphosis of worms and insects. Everything under "Paralipomena" has not yet been printed.

The seventh volume contains all of Goethe's botanical works from the period before the discovery of metamorphosis, in which the struggle with this idea is first revealed, then the essays that contain the examination of contemporaneous or historical phenomena from the point of view of the theory of metamorphosis. The first series includes the "Vorarbeiten zur Morphologie" (as yet unprinted), the second the essays on the spiral tendency of vegetation, on the systematics of plants, reviews of botanical works, the work on Joachim Jungius, the aphorisms "Über den Weinbau" (unprinted), the translation of the chapter "De la symetrie vegetale" from de Candolle's "Organographie vegetale" (unprinted), the discussion of the dispute that broke out in the French Academy between Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier and finally the "Versuch einer allgemeinen Vergleichungslehre" (unprinted), which draws the final conclusion of Goethe's organics and takes account of the teleological view of nature. The printed part was again based on the manuscripts in the archive. The "Paralipomena" contain unprinted material throughout, namely: Goethe's notes on botany as he made them on his Italian journey, his studies on infusoria and on the effect of light and color on plants, finally sketches and preliminary work and so on. When it came to the question of what should be included in the text from the manuscript bequest, consideration for formal completion took a back seat to the necessity of including everything that belonged to Goethe's body of thought. Fragmentary and sketchy material was also included if it added something new to Goethe's view or showed ideas expressed elsewhere in a new context. The principle was to compile all available material in such a way that the reader receives a complete, unbroken picture of Goethe's "System of Botany".

Second section, volume 9

The ninth volume of Goethe's scientific writings contains all of Goethe's works, which are arranged in such a way as to give an outline of his geological ideas. Studies on individual questions and further explanations of his fundamental ideas have been excluded here and relegated to the tenth volume. Volumes 9 and 10 are intended to complement each other in terms of geology, just as volumes 6 and 7 complement each other in terms of morphology. The distribution of the material in this volume was carried out according to the way in which Goethe's thoughts naturally coalesce into a systematic whole. The observations on the empirical foundations form the beginning, followed by theoretical considerations on the formation of individual geological formations, and the comprehensive views on the formation of the earth and the world form the conclusion: world formation. The first section includes the essays: "On the knowledge of the Bohemian mountains and those in other regions"; the second the works on the origin and significance of granite and other rocks; the third Goethe's contributions to the major questions of volcanism and Neptunism, his remarks on atomism and dynamism in geology and his schematic and sketchy notes on higher geology and cosmology. With regard to the second series, it should be mentioned in particular that the treatise on granite first published in Hempel's edition, which Goethe wrote in 1784, is followed by a previously unpublished one which expresses the ideas of the first in a more scientifically rigorous form. In the third chapter, the disposition for a treatise on the formation process of the earth and the agents at work in this process, also first printed in Hempel's edition, is supplemented by handwritten works in the archive (draft of a general history of nature, scheme for the geological essay, rock storage), which are to be understood as preparatory work for a "general history of nature". The manuscript material in the archive also yielded the important sketches for Goethe's relationship to the Vulcanists and Neptunists: "Ursache der Vulkane wird angenommen" and "Vergleichs-Vorschläge, die Vulkanier und Neptunier über die Entstehung des Basalts zu vereinigen".

The Paralipomenis contains: 1. a summary of Goethe's work with critical remarks: "Kritik der geologischen Theorie, besonders der von Breislak und jeder ähnliche", which is important for the understanding of Goethe's own views. 2. supplementary sketches to the essays on the mountains of Bohemia and other regions.

The need for a new arrangement of the essays in this volume arose from the fact that they were printed in Goethe's booklets "Zur Naturwissenschaft" in the random order in which they were written. This sequence, which was then also retained in the Nachgelassene

Writings, however, by no means corresponds to the content.

Second section, volume 10

The ninth and tenth volumes deal with Goethe's geological works in a similar way to the sixth and seventh volumes. Everything that forms a systematic whole, characterizing Goethe's geological views in general, was incorporated into the ninth volume; everything that fell outside the systematic development of ideas was included in the tenth volume. This volume therefore contains the essays and sketches that supplement and extend the content of the ninth volume. They are of three kinds: 1. developments of Goethe's thoughts on basic mineralogical and geological concepts, in connection with corresponding natural objects ($.1-71); 2. views on the basic laws of the action of inorganic natural forces, beginning with the laws of crystal formation and ending with the causes of mountain formation ($. 73-97); 3. descriptions of geological objects and phenomena in their dependence on certain local conditions (pp.99-207). The most important essay in the first section is the previously unpublished one on the term "porphyry-like" (pp. 7-17). Goethe began dictating it on March 12, 1812, inspired by von Raumer's "Geognostische Fragmente" (see diary note). It contains a terminological discussion of the most important concept for Goethe's geological approach: the original indistinguishable unity of the individual mineral masses that form a particular rock, from which the constituent parts have emerged through differentiation over time. Further explanations of this idea, which is opposed to the materialistic-atomistic view of the aggregation of the originally separate constituents of a rock, are contained in pp. 18-45, where the conditions under which the separation of the constituents of a rock mass takes place and the disturbances that this process can suffer are described. This is followed by the essay "King Coal" (pp. 46-50), which is a kind of explanation of the relationship between the individual rocks. The section concludes with Goethe's remarks on the accompanying phenomena of glaciers, stratification of mountain masses, gangue formation, rupture of inorganic masses. Everything here, with the exception of.46-50, is previously unpublished.

The second section contains discussions on the formation of inorganic forms of solid ($. 75-82) and solid-liquid matter (coagulation, pp.83-84). This is followed by the essay on the "Formation of Precious Stones" (pp. 85-87), which Goethe wrote in response to a request from the geologist Leonhard in March 1816. The thoughts he expresses here on the formation of a particular type of natural body lead on to the remarks on the chemical forces involved in the formation of rocks and mountains, to which the chapter "Chemical forces in the formation of mountains" ($.88--89) is devoted. The essays on "Ice Age" (pp.90-97) contain the data that Goethe was able to compile as an inductive basis for the ideas developed purely deductively from his world view in general in the essay "Geological Problems and Attempts to Resolve Them". The essays in this section are also previously unpublished.

The last main part of the volume begins with remarks on the geological conditions of the Leitmeritz district, especially on the tin formation (pp. 101-126). This chapter appears here as a self-contained unit because Goethe himself saw it as such. He had it stapled together into a file fascicle and sent it to Knebel for review on January 3, 1814, together with an introductory letter (which is included in Paralipomena p.251). P.129-182 contain what belongs to the field of purely topographical geology. Mere lists of collections of minerals and rocks have not been included here, but only that which is based on an idea rooted in Goethe's geological views as the principle of listing individual objects or to which such an idea is linked as a conclusion. The notes on "Mineralogie von Thüringen und angrenzender Länder" (p. 135 ff.) are taken from a fascicle dating from the beginning of the 1980s. The information on Bohemian minerals (pp. 142-150) was written down in Eger in 1822 (Tagund Jahreshefte 1822).

An appendix was placed at the end of the volume, which could not be accommodated in any of the three sections, such as the thoughts on a letter and a book by the geologist von Eschwege (pp. 183-185), a paleontological essay (pp. 186-188) and the treatise on the natural phenomenon to be observed at the temple of Jupiter Serapis near Puzzuoli, finally a discussion of geological methods. The latter belongs here because it indicates how Goethe recognized the deductive and inductive methods as one-sided and demanded that they merge into a higher view of nature. In this way, the essay combines volumes 9 and 10 into a whole. Of this last section, pp. 99-150, 174-176, 185-188, 205-207 are unpublished. The paralipomena of the volume contain Goethe's preliminary geological work and notes of individual thoughts that could not be incorporated into the structure of the text.

Second section, volume 11

The eleventh volume of the natural scientific writings is intended to provide a picture of Goethe's natural philosophical ideas and his ideas about scientific methods. Two points of view were decisive in the arrangement of the essays and sketches: firstly, the context of the ideas themselves, and secondly, to illustrate the methodical treatment that natural science undergoes under his influence. Trained in the study of organic life, Goethe's ideas on scientific methodology only took on a firm form when he began to deal with the less complex phenomena of inorganic nature. This is why he wrote his essays on this subject with reference to his physical works.

The principle of arrangement for pp.1-77 is: the essays on general intentions in natural philosophy (pp.1-12) are placed first; then follow the arguments on scientific methods (pp. 13-44: Fortunate Event, The Experiment as Mediator of Object and Subject and the unprinted essays: Experience and Science, Observation and Thought); concluding this part are the essays in which Goethe sought justification in contemporary philosophy for his initially naively observed method in organic science ($.45-55: Einwirkung der neueren Philosophie, Anschauende Urteilskraft); pp.56-77 (Bedenken und Ergebung, Bedeutende Fördernis durch ein einziges geistiges Wort, Vorschlag zur Güte, Analyse und Synthese, Ernst Stiedenroths Psychologie zur Erklärung der Seelenerscheinungen) contain what Goethe had to cite to justify his going beyond the foundations provided by the philosophy of the time, namely the teleological approach prevalent in organicism.

If the latter stood in the way of Goethe's view of organic life, then in the field of physics it was the sole dominance of mathematics. The essays. 78 102 contain Goethe's views on the applicability of mathematics in the natural sciences and on the limits of this application. pp. 103-163 contain the quintessence of Goethe's view of nature in individual aphorisms. The majority of these are printed in the "Nachgelassene Werke". Eckermann's arrangement has been retained; only in two places (pp. 132, 6-10, and 132, 16 to 133, 2) have previously unpublished sayings been inserted, which must necessarily find their place here. All other unpublished material has been appended to the already printed mass as a special chapter. The arrangement of these aphorisms in the "Nachgelassene Werke" has been retained because it is clear from the dates found on the existing manuscripts that Goethe himself was largely responsible for editing them together with Eckermann. It does not seem possible to determine what is Goethe's contribution and what is Eckermann's later work. pp. 164-166 deal with polarity as a general primordial phenomenon; pp. 167-169 with the significance of linguistic expression for primordial phenomena; pp. 170-174 with the series of physical effects, arranged according to the principles of polarity and intensification;.175 with a general physical observation; pp. 176-239 with Goethe's system of physical phenomena. Goethe was prompted to write down this system by the lectures he gave to a circle of Weimar ladies in the winter of 1805/06. Since Goethe did not allow the intention of offering an easy-to-understand presentation to interfere with the scientific demands he was making and, for the stated purpose, worked through physics in the individual form that it had to take according to his principles, the scheme of these lectures is given here as an example of how he wanted his methodological points of view to be implemented in particular. The schematic representation of the theory of color appears here because it belongs here as an integral part of the physical scheme. The essays: Polarity (pp.164-166), Symbolism (pp.167-169), Physical Effects ($.170-174), General (5.175), the table of physical effects between pp.172 and 173 and the physical scheme were previously unprinted. The physical schematizations are followed by the essay on a "physical-chemical-mechanical problem" (pp.240-243). The essays on the inner (factual) context of scientific ideas are followed by those on the origin of these ideas within the development of the human mind (Influence of the origin of scientific discoveries pp. 244-245, Meteors of the literary sky pp. 246-254, Invention and discovery. 255-262). Of the aphorisms in the last chapter, the following have not yet been printed: p. 259, 1 to p. 261, 5 - "Naturphilosophie" (pp. 263-264) and "Eins und Alles" (pp. 265-266) belong in the natural scientific writings, the first because of its content, the second because Goethe himself included it in the morphological booklets (II, 1). They form the conclusion of the essays included in the "Allgemeine Naturlehre" because they contain thoughts that go beyond the boundaries of the view of nature in the narrower sense and lead from this to Goethe's general world view. The study after Spinoza printed on pp. 313-319 serves the same purpose; because of its purely epistemological content, it cannot form part of the essays on the natural sciences, but should be regarded as a kind of appendix to them. The essay is published in the XII. volume of the Goethe-Jahrbuch by Bernhard Suphan. Attached to the essays on natural philosophy are the psychophysical ones: "Das Sehen in subjektiver Hinsicht" (pp. 269-284) and the previously unpublished "Tonlehre" (pp. 287-294). The volume concludes with the essays first printed here: Naturwissenschaftlicher Entwicklungsgang (pp.295-302), die biographische Einzelheit (p.303), and the sketches belonging to the general Wissenschaftslehre: Dogmatismus und Skeptizismus ($p.307308), Induktion (8.309-310), In Sachen der Physik contra Physik (pp.311-312). The latter table distributes the empirical material relevant to physics to the mathematical and chemical fields. These are purely didactic points of view; therefore they cannot be incorporated into the ongoing development of ideas.

Second section, volume 12

The most important part of this volume is Goethe's work on meteorology. Its content is made up of the following pieces. The first is the essay "Wolkengestalt" (pp. 5-13), which is based on Luke Howard's "On the Modifications of Clouds. London 1803". When Goethe wrote his notes, he was only aware of a paper on Howard's work, which was included in Gilbert's Annalen 1815 and to which he was referred by the Grand Duke (cf. p.6 of the text). The essay was written in the fall of 1817; it was first printed in the third issue of the first volume "Zur Naturwissenschaft". This work is followed in the same volume by the text of our volume pp. 15-41. The following from.4245, 3, is in the fourth issue of the first; pp.45--58, 10, in the first issue of the second volume "Zur Naturwissenschaft". Only p.5-13, line 15, of this part of the text is in manuscript form in the archive. The second part of the text is the treatise "Über die Ursache der Barometerschwankungen" (p.59-73). It is in the second volume of the second volume "Zur Naturwissenschaft" and contains a preliminary statement on the hypothesis, particularly important for Goerhe's entire scientific approach, that the causes of barometric fluctuations are not cosmic, but telluric, and that this cause is to be sought in a lawfully changing strength of the Earth's gravitational pull. The detailed exposition of this view can only be found in the "Nachgelassene Werke" under the title: "Versuch einer Witterungslehre". This essay contains a systematic sequence of Goethe's thoughts on meteorological phenomena, their mutual relationships and causes. We have made it the third part of the text (pp. 74-109). It is in manuscript form, in a transcript that is partly by Eckermann and partly by Goethe's scribe John. Goethe himself carefully corrected most of it. This transcript and the printed version in the "Nachgelassene Werke" form the basis for our text. These already printed parts of the volume are followed by the unprinted essays "Karlsbad" (pp. 110-114), Zur Winderzeugung (p. 115), Wolkenzüge (pp. 116-117), Konzentrische Wolkensphären (pp. 118-119), Witterungskunde (5.120), Bisherige Beobachtung und Wünsche für die Zukunft ($. 121-122), Meteorologische Beobachtungsorte ($.123-124). The last essay relates to Goethe's meteorological works in the same way as the methodological sketches at the end of the seventh and tenth volumes relate to the morphological and geological works. It is a methodological justification of Goethe's way of looking at things. The meteorological parts are followed by the "Natural Scientific Details": Betrachtungen über eine Sammlung krankhaften Elfenbein, Über die Anforderungen an naturhistorische Abbildungen im allgemeinen und an osteologische insbesondere, Johann Kunckel, Jenaische Museen und Sternwarte. These essays cannot be categorized in one of the usual natural science subjects. They are therefore already included in the "Nachgelassene Werke" in the special chapter "Naturwissenschaftliche Einzelheiten". The text concludes with a number of sketches that follow on from the contents of earlier volumes but were only discovered after the latter were printed. The "Paralipomena" begin with the "Instruction" which Goethe used as a basis for his meteorological observations. He worked it out in 1817 with the help of the Jenens meteorologists and improved it in 1820. He wanted the observations to be made at individual locations according to these instructions (cf. p. 123). The remaining part of the Paralipomena consists of details that belong to the field of meteorology and could not be integrated into the systematic whole of the text.

The twelfth volume concludes the second, larger half of the natural science section, the collection of writings on morphology, geology and meteorology. At the request of the editors, an index of names and subjects covering volumes 6-12 is therefore appended to this volume.

(Determinism) and the question of responsibility for our actions. Leipzig 1892

What we have here is a work that rehashes the trivialities of the heroes of force and substance. The underlying error here is simply that Vogt, like all determinists, fails to recognize the nature of causality. It is based on a certain paucity of thought to regard the category of causality as the only one by which world phenomena are governed. Admittedly, this paucity is a widespread shortcoming today. We have to hear again and again that it is the task of science to seek the causes of the phenomena that are given to us through observation. This is nothing more than a completely one-sided claim based on prejudice. The phenomena are connected in a completely different way than according to the law of cause and effect. We have by no means understood a process when we know its cause. Rather, we must delve into its own essence. The physicist today no longer studies the nature of colors, but the wave processes that cause them; the psychologist no longer studies the actions of the personality, but their impersonal causes. This is supposed to be empirical research! Anyone who truly delves into the nature of the human personality will simply have to present freedom as a fact that is just as empirically given as the processes of heat and light.

With apologetic-critical consideration of Adolf Exner's inauguration speech "On Political Education" as Rector of the University of Vienna. Vienna 1893

Brentano emphasizes that he was one of the first to say: "The method of philosophy is no other than that of the natural sciences." In this pamphlet, he makes the fate of philosophy in the future dependent on the general recognition of this principle. We must recognize in this the signature of an unphilosophical way of thinking. The extension of the scientific approach to certain areas, such as psychology, can provide nothing more than an increase in the natural sciences, an expansion of the latter with new content, but never philosophy. Wundt's experimental psychology is a scientific, not a philosophical chapter. Philosophy cannot content itself with collecting and systematizing experiences; it must go one step deeper and ask: what does experience mean at all; what value does it have? Only through philosophical thinking can the truths of experience be put in the right light. Those who know how to look at something with the right concept will see it from a completely different side than those who simply let it affect them. But we can never experience concepts. They must be generated in thought. Haeckel would never have arrived at the basic ontogenetic law if he had not conceived it freely in thought (through intuition). It is quite futile to simply observe the facts. We must place them under certain aspects. Even mere experimentation is not enough. Without guiding ideas, it remains only an artificially produced object of observation. Even if we have produced the conditions of a phenomenon ourselves in the experiment and therefore know exactly the relationship between the condition and the conditional, we still learn nothing about the nature of this relationship.

In pure mathematics we have an example of how we can really come to recognize this essence. This is the case because here we are dealing with objects that we do not look at from the outside, but that we completely generate ourselves. In contrast to experiential knowledge, pure mathematics can be regarded as a realization of the essence of its objects. It can therefore rightly serve as a model for philosophy. The latter must only overcome the one-sidedness of mathematical judgment. This one-sidedness lies in the abstract character of mathematical truths. They are merely formal. They are based on mere concepts of proportion. If we are able to create entities ourselves which have a real content, then we obtain a science not merely of forms, as mathematics is, but of essences, as philosophy is supposed to be. The supreme entity of this kind is the "I". This: cannot be found through experience, but can only be generated through free intuition. Whoever is able to generate this intuition soon realizes that he has not carried out an act of his individual, random consciousness, but a cosmic process: he has overcome the opposition of subject and object; he has found the substantive world in himself, but also himself in the world. From then on, he no longer looks at things as an outsider, but as one who stands within them. At this moment, he has become a philosopher. Philosophy wants to experience things, not merely observe them like empirical science. This is a fundamental difference. Anyone who does not admit it and simply wants to apply the scientific method to philosophy has no concept of the latter. For me, the general acceptance of Brentano's theorem would be tantamount to the general decline of philosophy.

Lecture given at the Vienna Legal Society on December 14, 1892, Vienna 1893

The question of the forensic significance of suggestion phenomena is gaining in importance with each passing day. The fact that people can be induced to commit crimes with the help of suggestion forces us to consider hypnotism in the administration of justice. Legislation must not overlook the fact that acts which are subject to civil law can be carried out under an influence which can reduce responsibility and free will to zero. Dr. Drucker: "Just as the spread of chemistry has brought about the fact that today anyone can produce explosives of the most dangerous kind without any particular difficulty, so that the legislature has found itself moved to create its own law on the production and circulation of explosives, so the spread of the teachings on suggestion and hypnotism will bring it about in a few years that everyone will learn the not difficult art of hypnotizing; after all, hypnotizing is already practiced as a sport in broad sections of the population today, and the stage is already showing how to hypnotize. But once this evil has become naturalized, it is very difficult, almost impossible, to eradicate it. It is therefore one of the duties of the legislator to prevent such conditions." Dr. Drucker very thankfully summarizes the extent to which various countries are already in a position, according to existing legislation, to consider the detrimental consequences of acts performed under suggestive influence as punishable or invalid. Incidentally, I am convinced that this could be the case to a far greater extent if the spirit of the law were more decisive in legal decisions than the letter of the law, or rather: if the latter were used to better penetrate the former. It is possible to witness trials whose course makes the layman shudder at the abundance of legal sophistry employed, and yet which the learned jurist declares to be a matter of course. Professional education sometimes broadens the horizon; often, however, it narrows it so much that the route from Hamburg to Altona is taken via Verona.

Leipzig 1892

As in Duboc's other writings, this one also contains a large number of excellent views on individual areas of life and science. Anyone who makes claims that go into the depths of science and that go beyond the standpoint of modern rationalist enlightenment will derive little satisfaction from this book. What an educated man, without being a philosopher, thinks about philosophical problems is interesting to hear here and there in conversation; systematically processed into a book, it has the character of platitude and triviality. Arbitrary reasoning is by no means philosophy. Sentences such as this: "If, in the sense of ethical mechanics, one considers only the mental apparatus of movement, then every moment which, acting in man, drives and determines him in his actions and behavior, falls under the general heading of drives or instincts" (5.49) say nothing at all about the essence of the matter under consideration. But because the author has a sound power of observation, he arrives at insights that are remarkable even from inadequate principles. These include his views on the character of the sensations of pleasure and displeasure and their relation to moral action. The drive as such is not originally concerned with bringing about a pleasurable sensation, but with restoring the inner equilibrium of man that has been lost in a certain area (8.55). "In that a sensation of pleasure springs from the activity of the instinct, which can then be imagined as such, becomes an imagination (a sensation of pleasure), this imagination is based on the instinct preceding it or its activity. In this respect, "the idea of pleasure does not first awaken the drive", if by awakening we understand something like calling into being. On the other hand, the idea of pleasure, once it has become independent, can very well awaken the drive, or stimulate it, spur it on, arouse it" (p.109f.). The drive that goes to its activity is thus the first; that it has pleasure in its wake is the second. This realization is of the utmost importance, for it shows that life does not initially aim at pleasure, but at the restoration of its disturbed equilibrium. Only the experience that a certain pleasure is connected with the activity of a certain instinct then leads to the search for this pleasure itself and to make use of the satisfaction of the instinct for this purpose. If this law is also extended to the moral instincts, it is directed against the eudaemonistic ethics, which claims that the goal of human will is pleasure. The truth is that pleasure is only a necessary consequence of the fulfillment of our will. The attempts to clarify these concepts in the chapter "Drive and Pleasure" (pp.102-163) are very interesting, and it is only a pity that the author is unable to raise them above the level of subjective ideas.

According to a document in his archive

Since 1822, German naturalists and physicians have held an annual meeting attended by their colleagues from Germany and abroad. The suggestion for this institution came from Oken. The purpose of the meetings was to exchange opinions, to enable naturalists to get to know each other personally and to acquaint them with the collections and scientific institutions of the meeting place, which was chosen to be a different major German or Austrian city each year. Goethe must have welcomed this arrangement with pleasure. His participation was particularly lively at the meetings in Munich in 1827 and in Berlin in 1828. In the first year, Goethe's interest was particularly heightened by Zelter's stay in Munich, which coincided with that of the naturalists. (Cf. Goethe's correspondence with Zelter, IV, p.381ff.) The importance of the meetings of the researchers became particularly clear to Goethe when he received a description of the Munich events from his friend Kaspar Sternberg on October 30, 1827. "The conclusion of this year's travel cycle," Sternberg wrote, "was the meeting of German naturalists and physicians in Munich; a trusted friend, whom the king immediately recognized from the portrait he saw in Weimar, will have given news of this association on his return journey." The "trusted friend" refers to Zelter. The letter made such an impression on Goethe that he took a passage from it, revised it, introduced it with a few sentences and wrote the following short essay on the importance of the meetings of German naturalists and physicians:

"If we have dared to proclaim a European, indeed a general world literature, this does not mean that the different nations take note of each other and their products, for in this sense it has existed for a long time, continues and renews itself more or less. No, it means rather that the living and striving literati become acquainted with one another and find themselves prompted by inclination and public spirit to work socially. But this is brought about more by travelers than by correspondence, since personal presence alone succeeds in determining and strengthening the true relationship between people.

So do not look too far afield, but rejoice first of all when societies, namely itinerant societies moving from place to place, emerge in the fatherland; which is why the message from a worthy friend about the last association of natural scientists that met in Munich was highly desirable to us, which reads as follows:

"The most pleasing thing about this institution is that it replaces the lack of a capital city in which natural scientists could meet from time to time to discuss everything that is pious or an obstacle to the progress of science. Indeed, these social migrations from one German capital to another have the even greater advantage that one finds something new in the collections of each and is convinced of the correctness of the scientific determination made by comparing what has already been seen. Perhaps an even greater advantage is that people who would otherwise have walked side by side their whole lives unrecognized or even misjudged now seek each other out as scientific kin and establish a relationship with each other instead of criticizing and scornfully reviewing each other. Finally, the most important thing is that the statesmen who attend these meetings through others or in person become convinced that honest research is really meant honestly. The meeting to be held in Berlin in the coming year will probably form the bridge for attracting related naturalists from northern and eastern states. In this way, hiking would once again have achieved a beautiful, beneficial purpose. May heaven grant scientific endeavors in our German fatherland peace and tranquillity for a long time to come, so that an activity will unfold that the world has only experienced in a century since the invention of printing with far fewer resources.""

With the exception of a few Goethean changes, the passage: "The most pleasing appears - has experienced aids" is identical to a part of Sternberg's letter (cf. correspondence between Goethe and Sternberg, 5.178 f.). In his letter of reply to Sternberg of 27 November 1827, Goethe writes: "Although I have received various information from some quarters about what happened in Munich, this concerned more the exterior, which was quite impressive and honorable to look at, than the interior, namely the messages themselves... It is all the more desirable for me to hear from a confident source that at least the main purpose of getting to know each other better and hopefully truly uniting our natural scientists has not been compromised. The very fact that we have agreed on the place where we intend to meet next year gives us the best hopes, and certainly the meeting in Berlin under the auspices of the generally recognized Alexander von Humboldt is likely to instil the best hopes in us" (correspondence with Sternberg, p.180 £.). This meeting in Berlin brought two important facts for Goethe. Goethe's services to natural science were warmly acknowledged in public speeches by two important natural scientists. Alexander von Humboldt gave the opening speech. He also commemorated the absent natural scientists, including Goethe, with the words: "If, however, in the face of this assembly, I must withhold the expression of my personal feelings, let me at least be permitted to name the patriarchs of patriotic fame whom the care of their lives, dear to the nation, keeps away from us: Goethe, whom the great creations of poetic imagination have not prevented from plunging his exploratory gaze into all the depths of natural life, and who now, in rural seclusion, mourns his princely friend as Germany mourns one of its most glorious ornaments" (Isis, vol. XXI, p.254). And Martius, the Munich botanist, said at one point in his lecture "On the Architectonics of Flowers" with regard to Goethe's "Metamorphosis of Plants": "Above all, I note that the basic view which I do myself the honor of presenting here is not merely the result of my research, but that it has already been accepted, at least in part, by many and is generally the result of that morphological view of the flower which we owe to our great poet Goethe. For everything rests on the assumption that there are only leaves in the flower (that calyx, stamens, corolla, pistil are only modifications of the plant unit) or that the leaf is the unit with which we can reckon" (Isis, vol. XXII, p.334). Goethe paid particular attention to the events in Berlin. A booklet still in the Goethe Archive is proof of this. In it we find some of the printed documents relating to the meeting bound together. They are the following: "Overview map of the countries and cities", which delegates sent to the Assembly; a "Notification to the members" about the individual events at the Assembly; ¹ The "printed list of participants with their proof of residence"; the program of the opening ceremony in the concert hall, which Zelter conducted and at which compositions by Mendelssohn, Zelter, Flemming, Rungenhagen and Wollank were performed; Humboldt's opening speech with his personal dedication to Goethe: "Herrn Geh. Rat von Goethe with the deepest gratitude to A. v. Humboldt"; the lecture "Über den Charakter der Vegetation auf den Inseln des Indischen Archipels" by C. G. C. Reinwardt, the Leyden botanist, also with his own handwritten dedication: "Sr. Excellenz dem Minister v. Goethe aus innigster Verehrung vom Verfasser"; a "Verzeichnis eines Systems von Versuchen über die Bestäubung der Pflanzen, angestellt in den Jahren 1821-1828 von Dr. A.W. Henschel", which had been presented to the assembly; finally, a letter "to the gentlemen naturalists and physicians" from the "Berlin Medal Mint", concerning the production of commemorative coins with the portraits of famous naturalists. Following this, the booklet also contains the aforementioned short essay by Goethe in John's handwriting, with corrections partly in Goethe's own hand and partly in Riemer's hand. It is enclosed in a special cover bearing the inscription (in Eckermann's hand): "Naturforscher in Berlin". The last item in the booklet is a number: "Notizen aus dem Gebiet der Natur- und Heilkunde" (Notes from the field of natural and medical science) from October 1829, with news about the Heidelberg naturalists' meeting of 1829, as proof that Goethe's interest in these meetings was also lively in the following period. The cover of the booklet bears the words (in John's hand): "Acta die Zusammenkunft der Naturforscher in Berlin 1828" and in the left-hand corner (in Kräuter's hand): "Auswärtige Angelegenheiten". Also worth mentioning is the notice in the program of the opening ceremony that reads on the upper sides of the hall in which this celebration took place:

"In fiery battle the fervent forces burn,
Great things are wrought by their strife, greater things by their alliance"

-Schiller

and

"It shall stir, act creatively,
First shape itself, then transform,
It only seems to stand still for moments.
The eternal continues to stir in all:
For everything must decay into nothing,
if it wants to persist in being."

Goethe

The information provided here is proof that the Naturalists' Meeting of 1828 gave Goethe a gratifying insight into the impact his scientific endeavors had on German intellectual life.

• 1. A practical measure of the organizers is to be considered here. In the "Notification to the members" it says: "So that none of the precious hours of the get-together need be sacrificed to the fulfillment of police regulations, the benevolent authority has ordered that in this case, as an exception, notification by the managing directors is sufficient. Each of the members is therefore exempt from registering at the Fremden-Bureau and from obtaining a residence card."