What
Has Geology to Say About the Origin of the World?
Berlin,
February 9th, 1911.
It
could weigh like a nightmare on the world-conception based on spiritual
science if in all earnestness and truthfulness it were obliged to come
into opposition to the well-founded results of the investigations carried
out by natural science — investigations which in the course of
the last centuries, and especially during the nineteenth century,
have accomplished such great things and brought such blessings on
mankind, not only in the field of knowledge but in the whole field of
human progress. But it would be particularly depressing if spiritual
science were compelled to take a stand in opposition to a branch of
natural science which is comparatively one of the youngest, but
which by virtue of its nature and its special tasks is able not only
to arouse human interest in the deepest sense of the word, but also
to open perspectives into the very coming-into-being of our planet,
as well as into the origin and evolving forms of the creatures
inhabiting it. This young branch of natural science is Geology, the
science which, especially since the second third of the nineteenth
century — but also already prior to that — has made such
tremendous strides and achieved results of real importance, even
though the great questions about which we shall have to speak still
remain open. Our main purpose today will be to envisage the
relationship in which spiritual science must stand to geology —
and to answer the question, how much from the point of view of
spiritual science — that knowledge which has always formed the
base of our considerations here — has geology to say about the
question concerning the origin, the gradual emergence and evolution,
of the earth and its living organisms?
To
answer this question we must first think briefly of the way in which the
methods employed in the specific study of geology really work. It is, of
course, well known that geology draws the content of its knowledge from
the solid ground of our earth itself, and that out of what it finds there
— within the earth's strata — it forms its
conclusions concerning the way in which our planet may have
come into existence and the changes it has undergone in the course of
time. We know, if, for instance during railway-construction or work
in stone quarries or mining-operations, any breaking-up of the ground
gives us the opportunity of studying deeper layers of the earth in
regard to their rock formations or other contents, that these layers
present a different appearance from that of the ground on which we
tread — which is the outermost surface. But within this
surface-layer, too, we discover very manifold variations when we
investigate the ground as to the nature of its rock-formations and
mineral character. And it is perhaps also known that some of the most
interesting studies are concerned with layers of the earth's surface
whose character is clearly such that we can say: the material which
covers the ground must originally have been dissolved in water or
have been subject to the force of water in some other way, must once
have been washed up as it were by the waters in times long past. We
still see today how rivers carry accumulations of shifting rocky
material far away and deposit them in other parts. We see the ground
covered by such alluvial deposits and we must conceive that in the
same way, in far distant times, successive layers of deposits were
formed. Over one layer which originated in that way we have to
imagine another covering it which, on examination, proves to be
different in character from the one below. Thus in its successive
layers, the earth shows us how the character of their rock-material
differs. It stands to reason that the upper strata must be the
latest, superimposed by the most recent occurrences on the earth. As
we have occasion to penetrate more and more deeply and to study the
lower parts of the earth's crust, we come to strata which are the
deposits from earlier and ever earlier times, successively overlaid
by the later ones. Likewise it is common knowledge that within these
strata of the earth all kinds of forms have been embedded,
originating, according to present-day concepts, from organic beings
of the animal kingdom, from plants which, carried away by the waters
and the alluvial layers, have met with their death, as it were, and
by this natural process have become thus entombed, and then, more or
less changed or unchanged, are to be found there in the rock-material
as the remains of prehistoric organic beings. Nor is it difficult to
come to the conclusion that a certain relationship must be presumed
between such a layer of rock-material and the fossil remains of
animals and plants within it. But we must not imagine that the
younger strata have overlaid the older ones so conveniently
over the whole face of the earth; on the contrary, there is clear
evidence that sometimes older strata — recognisable by
their character — extend to the surface, that in the course of
the earth's development manifold disturbances have occurred through
sets of layers having become intermingled, overlaid, upturned,
and so on. So that it is by no means an easy task for the geologist
to determine how one layer has been deposited over the subjacent
layer. These are matters which can only be mentioned briefly here. In
any ease we need not concern ourselves with the irregularities just
referred to; we may assume that the geologists have access to the
earth's strata with their fossiliferous constituents, and
that from this they draw their conclusions as to the appearance of
the earth at the time when the present top layer had not yet been
deposited or successive lower beds did not yet exist, and that in
this way it is possible to form some idea of the appearance
which our earth must have presented in times gone by.
Moreover,
it is an interesting and generally known fact that the upper layers —
and therefore the youngest of our terrestrial material —
contain fossils of more highly developed forms of animal- and
plant-life, and that in the deeper layers we come to fossil remains
of less developed forms of life, which today we are accustomed to
count among the lower species and genera of the animal- and
plant-kingdoms. We then come, as it were, to the lowest layers of the
earth's crust, overlaid again and again by others; we come to the
so-called “Cambrian” layer of our earth's development and
find there only fossil remains of animals which did not yet possess a
spinal column. We find other animals with a spinal column in the
upper layers, which geology is therefore justified in regarding as
the younger layers in earth-evolution:
Thus
geology seems to be fully in conformity with what natural science
knows today from other inferences, namely, that in the process of the
earth's evolution the living creatures have developed by slow degrees
from quite primitive to more perfect forms. When we now examine
the Cambrian bed, namely, the lowest layer, and imagine that all the
other layers had not yet come into existence, we shall have to assume
that in the most ancient times there existed only the lowest animal
forms, which as yet had no skeleton and were the first predecessors
of the still undeveloped animals which were entombed in the deposits
covering the lowest stratum of the rock-material. Then we must
imagine that these beings have had descendants, that the latter may
have underdone changes under the then prevailing, different
conditions. In the next layer, which is again younger, we discover
those animals in which there are already some indications of
skeleton-like structures. And as we approach the younger layers we see
evidence of more highly-developed animal species, until we come
to the tertiary layers, where we already find the mammals, and then,
in layers still younger than the tertiary layers, man.
As
you know, there is a line of thought today which simply assumes that the
lower animals of the Cambrian period have had descendants, some of which
remained unchanged, while others developed towards vertebrate forms and
so on; so that the appearance of more highly developed animals in the later,
younger layers has to be explained by the assumption that the most
primitive and simple forms of animal- and plant-life gradually
evolved to higher forms. That would give a clearly outlined picture
of the gradual development of life and also of the other occurrences
on our earth — roughly as it might have presented itself to the
eye of an observer who could have looked on during the billions and
billions of years which geology has calculated for these happenings.
Some idea of the methods applied and of the manner in which research
is conducted may be gained from the following. — If, for
instance, one observes how certain layers are still being formed
today as alluvial deposits washed up by river-action or the like in
the course of so and so many years, and if by measuring the thickness
of such a layer a certain measurement is obtained by which it can be
reckoned how many years it has taken for that layer to be deposited
– then one can calculate how long the accumulation must have
taken of all the layers we have had under review — provided
that conditions were the same as they are today. As a result, the
most divergent figures are obtained from the calculations made by the
geologists. There is no need to enlarge upon contradictions
which arise from this; for anyone who understands the contradictions
will know that they have no essential significance, although they are
really sometimes rather pronounced and amount to many billions of
years according to the results obtained by different investigators.
When
we contemplate all this we have, after all, only a picture of the course
which, according to the ideas of geology (conceived and expressed precisely
in the tone applied in the present description), the events in the
evolution of our earth have taken during the later billennia.
Moreover, geology compels us to presume that all these happenings
have been preceded by others. For all these layers which contain
remains of animal life rest, as it were, on others, and such others,
having pushed through the overlaid layers, then protrude over the
surface, form mountains, and thus become visible. The tenets of
geology, therefore, lead to the conclusion that all
fossil-carrying layers of our earth are resting on some other layer
— a conception which takes us back, so to speak, to an age of
our earth which preceded all “life.” For the composition
of this oldest and lowest stratum of the earth's crust shows us that,
when it came into being, there could not — at least according
to ideas prevailing at the present time — have been on
the earth any “life” as it is today. For geology finds
itself compelled to assume that the lowest stratum owes its origin to
a fire-process within which any possibility of life is
unthinkable. Geology, therefore, would take us back in the process of
our earth-evolution to olden times when as it were out of a
fire-process the oldest rock-formations and minerals
originated, while only later the basic foundation of the lowest layer
was overlaid by the younger, fossiliferous layers through other
events, events which occurred when, through radiating its warmth into
cosmic space, the earth had cooled down sufficiently to make
life possible. One has to envisage all this as being accompanied by
processes of a physical and chemical nature, which cannot be
described in detail.
If
in this way we look back into those oldest times of our earth when a
certain degree of cooling down had already taken place (for geology
conceives the earth before the time of the first rock-formation as
still in a state of heat), we find our globe, evolving towards the
surface, possessed of a basic layer, and we observe how over this
basic layer have spread those layers which with their fossilised
remains provide living witnesses of the fact that life has existed
on the earth for a very long time. When we consider those oldest
layers upon which the life-carrying layers are resting, and study
their rock-material which consists mainly of what is called granite
[Note: It must be pointed out that this
lecture was given in the year 1911. Granite was formerly classified by
geology as belonging to the archetypal rock-formations, as is also
indicated in the descriptions given here by Rudolf Steiner. Today, the
rocks included in the Archaean System are only old gneiss-formations
and other crystalline schist-formations. It is held today that Granite
is of eruptive origin and that there are various epochs of
granite-formation. [The above statements refer in general to the actual
archetypal rock-material, also when granite is spoken of.],
we envisage our globe in a form which, according to modern geology,
still presents itself in a kind of lifeless condition. That is where
the upper layers are open, and granite protrudes and forms mountains,
so to speak, as a witness of the oldest times of our earth.
When
Goethe, who besides being a great poet was also a great student of Nature
and of natural philosophy, found this oldest rock-formation of the earth
— granite — it was borne in upon him that this granular
rock-material is something on which, as on the bone-skeleton of
the earth, everything else rests. Intuitively, Goethe
experienced this as the echo of a primeval quiescence of our planet
— and it was with reverence that he regarded this
rock-formation. A man of his calibre was bound to contemplate the
occurrences within earth-evolution not merely with his intellect but
also with his heart, searching for what these remains can reveal of
the earth-being. Profoundly moving and leading more deeply into the
secrets than all abstract thinking are the words spoken by Goethe
when face to face with this “oldest son of the earth” as
he calls the granite:
“...
With such sentiments I approach you, you most ancient, most noble
monument of the time. Sitting on a high, bare summit with a free view
over a wide landscape, I can say
to myself: There you are resting directly on ground which reaches
down to the very lowest depths of the earth. No newer layer, no
accumulations of alluvial deposits have interposed themselves between
you and the firm basement of the primeval world; you do not walk, as
you do in those fruitful, beautiful valleys, over a perpetual grave;
these summits have produced nothing living,
have devoured nothing living; they are prior to all life, above all
life. – At this moment, as the inner attracting and moving
forces of the earth are directly affecting me, as it were, while the
influences of the heavens are weaving more closely about me, I
become attuned to higher contemplations of nature; and as the human
spirit vitalises everything, so too does a secret stir within me, a
secret of a sublimity which I cannot resist. Such loveliness, I tell
myself as I am looking down from this bare summit and hardly able to
see some modestly growing moss far away on the river bank, such
loveliness, I say, overcomes the man who wants to open his soul only
to the oldest, the first and deepest sense of truth.”
[Goethe: Abhandlung über Granit.]
That
is the mood which came over Goethe when he contemplated this rock-formation,
which by its whole nature showed that it could not contain anything living,
and consequently could not, like the overlying layers, have engulfed
anything living.
Sketchy
though it is, what I have been able to illustrate so far shows
nevertheless — as if outlined in a rough charcoal drawing
— the picture given us by geology today of the course of the
evolution of the earth and its living creatures. It was not, however,
always so conceived; this way of thinking has developed only very
gradually. In the days of Goethe, for instance, when he occupied
himself with geology, a certain dispute was raging about the origin
of our earth — the dispute between the Plutonists and the
Neptunists, as it was called. One of the principal supporters of the
latter was the geologist Werner, who was also acquainted with Goethe.
He held that, generally speaking, nothing that we are able to observe
of the accumulated layers within the earth's crust can be
traced back to any kind of action by fire, but that everything we can
learn from investigations points to the earth having in effect consolidated
out of nothing but a watery element, out of a watery form of the
planet, that even the oldest strata are alluvial deposits from water
and that, consequently, granite too owes its origin not to the action
of seething fire, but to watery deposits — and only in the
course of time, through later occurrences, underwent changes which
make its watery origin less apparent today. Everything, so to speak,
has originated from water — that was the basic conception of
the Neptunists and especially of Werner. Contrary to this, the
contention of the Plutonists was based on the assumption that the
earth, together with the whole planetary system, had emerged out of a
gaseous cosmic nebula in a state of high temperature, had detached
itself through cooling down, that this process of cooling continued
through radiating heat into cosmic apace, and that then the time came
when heat-conditions made the formation of granite and perhaps of
similar kinds of rock-material possible; but that through the
radiation of heat only the surface-crust of the earth was cooled
down, while the interior remained in a state of fiery fluid, and that
volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are living witnesses that the
interior of the earth beneath the crust remains in a fiery-fluid
state. The adherents of the Neptunistic school, on the other hand,
saw the cause of all volcanic phenomena in processes which, through
pressure from within or through chemical conditions in the interior
of the. Earth — by no means thought of as fiery — made it
possible for mighty catastrophes to take place in the interior and
erupt outwards. So that only at this juncture events occur
which in their upward trend have the effect of pushing up whole
mountain-massifs out of the interior of the earth. — In short,
here we see a very interesting dispute being carried on as recently
as the first half of the nineteenth century about the conception
which, on the one hand, can be briefly put in the words used by
Goethe in his “Faust:” “Everything has its origin
in water,” as against the other contention that fundamentally
all terrestrial formations are the result of fire-processes and that
it must be imagined that on the surface of the outer crust —
corresponding in its relationship to the interior to that
between the egg-shell and the yolk of the egg — events have
taken place through which quite a thin layer has remained in a cooled
condition, forming, as it were, a covering sheet all round the mighty
earth-volcano, which this planet under our feet was conceived to be.
Now
we must ask ourselves: What has this external investigation to tell us?
And what, with the means elucidated, in the lectures given so far, has
spiritual science to reveal about the origin of the earth? (Concerning
the present and earlier evolutionary stages of the earth, more detailed
information can be found in my book
“Occult Science.”)
How far, then, does geology lead us? We will now put into plain words
what geology can tell us. It is this: —
Look
at the layer-formations to be found in the earth's upper crust.
The order of their superpositions shows that alluvial deposits have
formed — in any case, in most recent times — as a result
of which animal beings have been entombed, whose descendants are
still on the earth, but also those which have
now become extinct and of whose existence as inhabitants of the earth
we know only from the excavation of their remains. Then we are led to
the lowest layer of the earth's crust; it still belongs to that
part which is to the whole planet what the egg-shell is to the yolk
of the egg, and shows signs that it might well owe its origin to
fire-action. But those with deeper insight — Goethe, for
example — are more cautious in their pronouncements —
also when they are intent on thinking entirely in terms of geology.
And it is interesting to hear what Goethe says about this lower layer:
“...
In the innermost bowels of the earth it (this layer) rests, firm and
unshaken; its back rises on high, where its summit was never reached
by the all-surrounding waters. So much, and so little more, do we
know of this rock-material. Composed in a mysterious way of known
constituents, it does not entitle us to trace its origin to fire
anymore than to water.”
Thus
Goethe already points out that in the last resort neither fire-action nor
water can be thought responsible for the mysterious formation of this oldest
son of our earth — granite. If against the investigations of
geology, which anyhow have reached a point from which they
cannot lead us any further, we quite simply set down what spiritual
science has to say, what clairvoyant investigation has revealed, it
presents itself somewhat in the following way.
When
with the eyes of Spirit — which can be sharpened by the methods
repeatedly indicated in these lectures — we look at the
prehistoric times of our planet, we observe what would have presented
itself to our physical eyes approximately during the periods covered
by geological research. We also see how in this research into the
past, geological investigation had to resort
to speculative phantasy. And looking backward from those beings which
from our human point of view we call perfect today, we come to ever
less and less perfect forms of life on the earth with a mixture, at
times, of grotesque forms as, for instance, the various Saurian types
such as Ichthyosaurus, Plesiosaurus, Dinosaurus, Archaeopteryx. We
then find creatures without any vertebrate skeleton, and so,
with clairvoyant vision, we do indeed come to a tellurian epoch in
which we cannot find such beings as are now living on our earth. We
must admit, therefore; that drawing from its own sources,
spiritual-scientific research also reveals this gradual advance in
degrees of perfection. When we now go back in time and clairvoyant
research comes to the period connected by geology with granite, which
according to the modern theory coagulated out of the tellurian mass
already cooled but still subject to the effects of fire-action, we
must ask: What has geology, what has spiritual science, to regard as
prerequisites for conditions prevailing in an earlier time?
If
in the field of geology we remain on really safe ground (and no student
of natural science ought to doubt what I am now saying), geology has only
suppositions in regard to what precedes the granite-age; likewise geology
can have no more than suppositions about conditions in the interior of the
earth. For the bores that have been driven into the earth by
drilling-operations reach depths which must be regarded only as tiny
pin-pricks. There are suppositions, hypotheses, and nothing else
— at best some dim divination about conditions which preceded
the weaving and surging processes in granite-formation and so forth.
Now
spiritual science — with the specific outlook often
characterised here — follows earth-evolution backward into
prehistoric times and finds in the domain which eyes can observe ever
less and less perfect beings as the forerunners of all forms of life
on the earth at the present time. But, tracing evolution backward in
this way, spiritual science finds that there is a stupendous
difference in the earth's appearance as compared with what it
is at present. When we go back to pre-historic times, the earth does
not present itself in the very least as we know it today, as the
mineral base on which we walk surrounded by air with its fog and
cloud-formations and so on. A great number of substances which are
now in the interior of the earth were still in the surroundings of
the earth in earlier times and settled only by degrees. This must
also be admitted by geology. But we find, the further we go back,
that our earth appears more and more as an utterly different
planetary body, becomes something totally different; as we go further
back, what is now the surrounding air does in effect take on the
character of a living entity; in the environment of our earth we do
not find only such mineralised air and cloud-formations as we have
them now, but in the most ancient times we find within all that
belongs to our earth something like live members of a great living
being. And as we go back in this way we can see ourselves as if we
were quite tiny beings today, standing within a human organism: if,
standing within it on a firm, bony base, we looked out into outer
space, we should there observe the blood-system, the nervous-system
and so on, like an outer world.
Thus one who stood on the earth in the remote past
and looked out into space would not have seen a weaving, mineralised
air but intense, pulsating life. And the further we go back the
more this would be the case. So that we could go back to the epoch to
which we assign granite-formation and
reflect: There the earth is essentially a mighty, living body,
containing multifarious and varied life within it, not yet inhabited
by such living beings as move today on its surface or live in the
water, and so on, but having their life
within it — like parasites of the entire living earth-organism,
swimming as it were in its blood, as today masses of rain float
through the air. And then we come to a
period of which we must say: It is true that on the earth's surface
the heat is so great that life cannot develop; but in the environment
life is developing which wants to, but cannot descend. Why is it that
it cannot descend? Down in the depths, through the fire-process,
under conditions of intense heat — it is there that what the
living organism of our earth segregates out of its system as our
living organism segregates the hard parts, the bones from the soft
parts, is first absorbed. And now we look at the granite-formation
and say: Originally the material which the granite contains —
quartz, feldspar and mica – is in a state of dissolution within
the great living being “Earth.” The 1atter needs for its
development the capability to discard these substances: it segregates
them and lets them fall to earth. What is below absorbs these
segregations, builds up a basic massif, a bone-structure in the
living being “Earth.” And when we go still further back
we must investigate the causes as to why the whole living earth
segregates from its organism the substances which today, as
chemical-substances, form our earth and which at the same time are
not those which appertain to the animal, plant, or human organism.
These chemical substances were at that time segregated in a similar
way through the effect of fire or water action, and were then
transformed into the bone-structure of the earth.
When
we now reflect how it is that there are these substances which
were eliminated from the living earth-being and form a solid
foundation from which life has departed, and when we search for the
causes which could have brought this about — then we come to
something which, if spoken of as part of the development of our
earth, is still apt to cause wide-spread annoyance today — not
indeed among the thinkers in natural science (for they ought to
acknowledge it) but especially among those who on the strength of a
few preconceived ideas want to build up a world-conception. But a
true picture must be given of the facts
established by the investigations of spiritual science. They show
that these processes — the segregation of the rock-materials
— have been preceded, within the living being of the earth, by
a process which in terms of anything occurring today can only be
described as similar to our own internal-functioning, little known to
external science, but already described to some extent in these
lectures – as similar to that activity which functions
all day in our own body when through work, through mental effort, we
exert our muscles or the instrument of our brain — in
short, our whole body. What is in operation here is the process we
call “fatigue.” It is, in essence, a kind of destructive
process of the organism. Therefore we can say: As we live our waking
life today from morning till night, through thinking, feeling and
willing, processes of destruction are working within us which we then
feel us “fatigue.” A world-conception based on natural
science would not readily admit that such processes of
spirit-and-soul, working into matter as they do, underlie external
effects in nature. But they functioned; they were at work in that
mighty organism which the earth once was. And when the earth
approached the time when granite and similar material segregated,
it was laid hold of by all such destructive processes —
which were the means whereby forces of spirit-and-soul worked upon
matter. Into that organism into which formerly were worked not only
the substances appertaining today to the plant, animal and human
organisms, but also the substances which today constitute our
earth-massif – into this organism flowed the effects of all
these destructive processes that were due to the working of forces of
spirit-and-soul. These destructive processes were introduced
into the life of the great being “Earth” by forces which
then brought about the ejection.- through a process of segregation,
as it were — of those chemical substances which today are
incorporated in the make-up of our earth, and which are not to be
found in organic bodies.
Thus
spiritual science leads us back to the earth as an organism —
not to a primeval state in which the earth was, so to speak, dead matter;
on the contrary, the earth was originally a mighty organism. From the
point of view of spiritual science one must practically reverse the
way of asking a question that is put quite wrongly today. No science
which assumes that the earth was once a dead globe in which only
chemical and physical processes were active will be able to explain
how life could arise out of this dead globe. This is a highly
controversial question; but as a rule it is put quite wrongly. For
generally people ask: How could “life” have developed out
of the lifeless? — But that is not how it is: the living is not
preceded by the lifeless, but them reverse is the case; the
lifeless is preceded by the living. The lifeless mineral is a
product of segregation, as our bones are segregations of our
organism. Similarly, all rock-material is a product of segregation in
the earth-organism, and processes of spirit-and-soul forces —
processes of destruction in the first place — are the means of
producing such segregations in the organism of the earth. And were we
to go further back we should see how this path would lead us much
further still. We are led by what operates in the mineral domain to
the earth as an organism, and indeed we already see, as we go still
further back, that we are being led not only to an organism, but to a
formation of our planet that is permeated with the working of forces
of spirit-and-soul. No longer do we trace life back to the
lifeless, but we trace the lifeless back to processes of
segregation from the living, and we regard the living as a state
emanating from the sphere of the spirit and of the soul. And the
further we go back, the nearer we come to that sphere in which lies
the real origin of the present minerals, the plant-forms and so on:
we approach the Spiritual and we let spiritual science tell us that
it was not merely out of a lifeless, fiery nebula that there came
into existence all that we perceive in the manifold forms of earthly
phenomena, but that all this has taken shape out of the Spiritual,
that originally our earth was pure Spirit, and that the course of
evolution was such that on the one side emerged those forms which
tend more towards the mineral element, and that on the other side the
possibility arose for certain new forms to develop, capable of
responding to spiritual functions of a new order. For if we now
proceed in the opposite direction and say: In the old rock-material
we have something which segregated out of the original organism of
the earth, and if we then go on to our present age, this segregation
is going on all the time. Granite is merely the oldest
segregation; but the processes which bring about the segregation
will be ever less and less living processes; for more and more they
will tend to be mere chemical, mere mechanical processes; so that at
last, in our time, we still have only those effects due to
water-action, which can be observed when, for instance, a river
carries rock-material from one place to another. But what we perceive
there as the result of mechanical-chemical processes is only the
final product; this has turned into the minerals in accordance with
the laws of nature; it is a state resulting from what was originally
at work in the realm of the life-forces.
And
so we see how actually in the course of the development of our earth
something takes place in connection with the formation of the ground
beneath us, which we find in a similar way in the individual human or
animal organism. There we see, how a man lives to a certain age, how he
then passes through the gate of death, leaving his body as a corpse, and
we see the continuation of those processes which are purely mineral
processes; during the body's lifetime, however, these chemical and
physical processes were an integral part of those working through the
forces of spirit-and-soul. Similarly we come back to a time of
earth-existence when the processes which today are of a chemical and
mechanical nature were caught up and perpetuated by organic —
yes, by spiritual and soul-processes. But what is taking place on the
ground formation of our earth is, so to speak, only the one stream,
left from earlier — to begin with more living, organic
processes — and then spiritual processes. This foundation
had to come into existence, had to form itself, so that on its firm
ground, life of a different order could function – that life
which gradually became our life, in order that as time went on such
cerebral instruments could develop in living beings which enabled
them to become “inwardly” aware of the spirit, inwardly
able to form thoughts and produce feelings which, as it were, repeat
the outer processes in reflective and emotional awareness. Therefore
the whole mass of our earth's substance had to be
“sifted,” the present purely mineral substances had to be
discarded — and those retained which today can form the
organisms which are permeated by a part only of the substance of the
old massif. These are the parts which only now can form themselves,
for example, into what man is today. The spirit which lives in the
human head, in the human heart, that is to say in a being whose
organisation is as it were, more refined than that of the planetary
being of the earth as a whole, this spirit could only originate in a
being from which were eliminated those substances which today do not
belong to organic 1ife. This “sifting” of the whole mass
of our earth's substance had taken place, and the one part was given
over as a foundation to the purely mineral life in order that on it
can develop a new life, which we see entering its lowest form at the
moment which in later times geology has marked as that of the
emergence of the most primitive beings in Cambrian form.
When,
with the outlook of spiritual science, we thus observe life as it is
today, we shall have to say: This life was originally in the
outer atmosphere encircling the earth; then it descended as it were,
but could not set foot on the surface of the earth until after it had
sent down in advance all that it needed of mass-substance
— as a basis on which to function. The process of
decomposition, caused by processes in the domain of the
spirit-and-soul forces, introduces two currents which have
since been in operation: an ascending current, which unfolded a life
of a finer, higher order – this needed only a part of the
mass-substances — and another current which continued the
process of decomposition and provides a foundation for the finer
organisms, which then culminate in the human being. The development
of these finer organisms is in the ascendancy. Why? Because (and
again this would not be admitted today) through having segregated the
coarsest material as in a mighty process of elimination, which then
became the surface of the earth, they were in a position to isolate
themselves more or less from the earth and its inner processes —
and are now open to cosmic influences streaming towards the earth from
outside. They are now exposed to the more spiritual effects of the cosmos
and it is to this that they owe the ascent from primitive forms of life
to that of man.
Looking
thus at the development of the earth, we regard the firm ground on which
we walk – irrespective of the various processes — in such a
way that we say to ourselves: On it we stand; it contains — in the
granite and in the superimposed deposits — that which the
kingdoms of the living beings could not use except as material
ejected to form the ground on which to walk. And what exists as its
continuation is a process of destruction and decomposition. That
should logically lead to the following reflection – When the
modern geologist gives us his explanation of the earth's crust
with its valleys and mountains built up in successive layers, this
would appear to be something like a decaying corpse, in which an old
process of destruction and decomposition continues to work. From the
standpoint of spiritual science, we move about on a ground in process
of destruction which had to come about in order to give us the firm,
solid ground we need when we consider the blossoming forces which
point to the future and move in the opposite direction to those we
encounter in the body of the earth; for these future-building forces
are something which, independent of the solid ground of the earth
penetrates into human souls, into human spirits, perhaps also into
those beings which are outside the human element, and are only
beginning their ascent on the foundation of the solid earth. In the
latter itself we should, however, have something in a state of
decomposition. From the point of view of spiritual science our earth
would appear as a progressively disintegrating dead body, and
the geological laws would at the same time be those governing the
decomposition of the earth-corpse. And man on earth would be a being
who lifts himself out of the dead earth body, just as the human soul,
passing through the gate of death, rises from the corpse and abandons
it to those forces which bring about its decomposition and destruction.
This
may seem to be a gloomy picture. But it can only be so
if one despairs of the spirit, regards the spirit as merely bound to
matter, and believes that together with man's desertion of the
living body of the earth, his end has come. But if we look at
things as presented by a sound observation of nature, we shall say:
In some way it must obviously come about that not only the individual
human being but the whole of humanity gradually throws off the
earth-body in order to be able to rise step by step to other realms
of development. And so, from the standpoint of spiritual science, the
mid-period of earth-evolution had already been passed ever since the
time when “the oldest son of the earth” was segregated,
and the beings which are beginnings in preparation for the future
will unfold further on the foundation thus laid down.
What
does modern geology say to this conception of spiritual science?
When
dealing with words, theories, hypotheses, world-conceptions so
light-heartedly and readily advanced by currents of thought on factional
lines and the like, it is easy enough to demonstrate that spiritual science
in itself is a contradiction of the way of thinking prevailing in
natural science. But if spiritual science, which works as
conscientiously and, methodically as any other science, is considered
in relation to natural science, it is obviously necessary to pay
attention to what natural science really has to say and, particularly
in reference to what has been brought forward today, to raise the
question: What has geology to say concerning the origin of the earth?
— Nowadays, things of a very secondary nature are often
presented to the general public in popular scientific publications
and in the form of popular views of the world; and then it is said:
“Science” has established this end that. If this is
compared with what those half-crazy spiritual investigators say, it
will strike a good many people as something which cannot be
taken at all seriously. — For that is what will be said
by many people who perhaps do not know much more about spiritual
science than what has come to them indirectly through remote sources.
But clearly there is need to turn to what real science and real
spiritual science have to say. For spiritual science must not be
regarded as being on a par with popular world-conceptions which are
only seemingly derived from “science;” spiritua1 science
must be examined with the sternness which should be applied to every
true science and which its genuine investigators will always demand.
And
now we come to somethin6 which I cannot describe to you better than by
drawing your attention to a work by one of the most eminent geologists of
our time, and which a well-known contemporary geologist has called
“the geological epic of the nineteenth century,” namely
“The Face of the Earth” by Eduard Suess. It can truly be
said that this work, on which Suess has been engaged not merely for
years but for decades, gives a comprehensive survey — compiled
with the greatest care imaginable — of the investigations which
geology, this youngest branch of natural science, has carried out in
the course of a few decades. And what does this book show us?
Suess
is a man who said: Let us for once set aside all the prejudices of the
Neptunists, of the Plutonists, and all the theories amassed by the
geologists of the nineteenth century; do not let us speculate, but let us
observe the physiognomy, the picture presented by the earth's surface.
Starting from a mental attitude based, it is true; on sense-perception
but pure and unclouded by any theory or hypotheses. Eduard Suess
arrived at results which differed from those that had been current
for many decades. He came to the conclusion that the mountains which
tower over us as seemingly mighty massifs, can after all only be
likened to wrinkles on the peel of an apple, and can be explained in
no other way than by assuming that certain forces of a purely
physical-chemical nature are at work in the body of the earth-planet,
as the result of which the unevenness, the valleys and mountains, the
various layers and so on, have been formed; so that generally
speaking, the distribution of water and land, the formation of
continents and so forth, can be explained as the result of folds
being formed, of certain forces piling up earth-massifs and thus
forcing some particular masses of rock up into towering mountains.
Other forces again have brought about the collapse of what has been
piled on high; and in that way oceans are formed. In short, to such
collapses, up-pilings, foldings and the like, he ascribes, for
instance, the formation of the Alps. In an ingenious way we are thus
shown that the face of the earth has emerged as the result of such
aggregations, subsidences, foldings and so on. The formation of
oceans and continents is explained asbeing brought about through
certain subsidences causing the waters to be drained off in one
direction, so that what had formerly been covered by sea becomes dry
land. We are therefore concerned here with an earth-surface subject
to processes due to a shaking up of earth-masses through mechanical
forces, and to subsidences. And in trying to obtain a general picture
of what is happening on the ground on which we walk, Suess arrives at
an odd conclusion: that fundamentally the whole process that is
taking place on the earth's surface is one of destruction, and that
the ground where today we plough the fields and which yields to us
the fruits of the earth, only came into existence through the
occurrence elsewhere of foldings, subsidences — in short,
through processes of destruction. I need quote only a short passage
from this most important work of present-day geology and you wil1 see
where Eduard Suess's purely sense-perceptive method of research
has led this most conscientious natural scientist:
“...
The collapse of the globe is what we are witnessing.
True, it had already begun a very long time ago, and so the brevity
of the span of human life lets us be of good cheer. Not only are
there traces of it in the high mountain ranges. Great blocks of earth
have sunk hundreds, yes, in certain cases, many thousands of feet,
and not the slightest sign of graded subsidences on the surface, but
only the differences in the kinds of rock or deep mining betray the
existence of a fracture. Time has levelled everything. In Bohemia,
in the Palatinate, in Belgium, in Pennsylvania, in numerous places,
the plough draws its furrows above the mightiest fractures.”
(Eduard
Suess, “Das Antlitz der Erde,” Vol. 1, page 778.)
Here
we have the results of
conscientious scientific research concerning the ground on which we
walk. And now think of what spiritual science has to say about the
inauguration of this process through a process of destruction
proceeding from forces of spirit-and-soul, a process which on the
one side has its continuation in the physical-mechanical process of
destruction taking place on the earth's surface, and which
careful research impels geology to admit. So it is in all fields.
When you take the results of real research and go by facts, you will
always find: here stands spiritual science with all it has to say out
of clairvoyant research, and there, provided only that it is
free from monastic, materialistic or other prejudices, natural
science stands firmly on the pure and sound basis of facts; and
everywhere, as you will see, spiritual science links up with natural
science in such a way that the latter on the pure basis of facts
provides ample proof of what spiritual science as such has to offer.
Never are there any grounds for contradictions between spiritual
science and true natural science. Contradictions arise only
between a sound spiritual science which deals with realities, and the
theories of phantasts and of those who, while they claim to be
standing on the firm ground of science, at once lose their foothold
when their theories do not concur with what the facts proclaim, and
adhere to what they themselves would like to say about the facts.
Spiritual science lets the spiritual facts speak for themselves and
tell what they have to reveal of the cosmic mysteries; natural
science speaks of what it has established by its own methods: the two
are in full concord. If you ignore those popular works which declare
this or that to be a “scientific fact” and go to the
sources, then you will find, especially in the field of geology, that
the geologists everywhere get to a certain point — and then put
a question-mark. Arriving at those question-marks, one can take them
as a starting-point for spiritual research. Then spiritual
science tells us: if it is true what clairvoyance reveals, the
external factual material must appear in this or that form. —
In the case of geology it was this: if what spiritual science has to
describe is right, then, with the present process of decomposition
continuing, our globe must now be in a state of collapse. Geology,
adhering to facts, has shown that according to the laws it is so! The
findings of true natural science everywhere are in line with the
results of spiritual scientific investigation.
When
we consider the whole
spirit and meaning of this exposition, we shall in no wise be taken
aback by the thought that we are walking on ground which is a dead
body in process of disintegration. For we realise that on this ground
something has developed which again contains seeds for the future.
The lectures to follow will show more and more clearly that just as
man looks to his spirit, so the spiritual, which once created for its
own purpose the ground on which we set our feet, is advancing towards
future epochs when it will be revealed on ever and ever higher
planes. And when such a man as the geologist Suess — because in
his intercourse with nature he enters into all that is beautifu1,
even in the destructive processes — expresses his admiration
for the wonders of the Face of the Earth, he clothes it in his
monumental work in these memorable words:
“In
the face of these open questions we rejoice in the sunshine, in the
starry firmament and in all the manifold features on the face of our
earth, which has been created by these very processes — recognising
at the same time the extent to which life is governed by the character and
destiny of the planet.”
If
even a geologist, rising above all pessimism,
experiences such a moment in his soul, how much more does the
spiritual investigator who knows the truth of the words of Goethe:
“Nature has invented death in order to have abundant
life,” and who also knows through perceptive cognition that it
is true to say, “Nature has invented death in order to have
ever higher and ever more spiritual life;” how much more must
the spiritual investigator, knowing this, say: Although we have to
regard that which has produced out of itself a higher life as a
corpse in process of destruction, nevertheless in all that moves on
this ground we see, lighting up seeds of what can quicken hope and
assurance in our hearts and tells us: We walk on the ground which a
primeval world has given us, and which, through a process of
disintegration, or destruction, has let the ground under our feet
become what it is. We walk on this ground, divining – as in the
spirit we rise to heavenly heights — that in the course of
future development we shall have to leave this ground at the right
time, in order that we may be received into the fold of the spiritual
world with which, if we have the right understanding, our inmost
being feels so firmly united.
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