The Bridge between Cosmic Spirituality
and the Physical Constitution of Humans
Hegel, Schopenhauer, Thought, Will
From: The search for the new Isis, the Divine Sophia.
(GA 202)
Lecture 4
Dornach 4 December 1920
It
is my intention now to bring several viewpoints to you
regarding the relationship between human beings and the cosmic
world on the one side and the spiritual development of human
beings on the other. Our considerations will be supplementary
to what we have already allowed to pass over our souls many
times. Today I want to add a kind of introduction to our
considerations of the next hours, which could appear to some as
remotely relevant, the necessity of which will become clear in
the next hour. I would like to remind you that in central
European-German thought development, during the first half of
the 19th century, besides events to which we have
just referred, an additional, remarkable event took place. I
have recently referred to the contrast which arises when
considering Schiller's aesthetic letters on the one hand and
Goethe's Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily
on the other. Today I wish to point to a similar contrast,
which appeared in the development of thought in the first half
of the 19th century with Hegel on the one side and
Schopenhauer on the other. With Goethe and Schiller we are
dealing with two personalities who, at a certain time in their
life, being surrounded by the constant contrasts of the central
European thought development - a development of thought
striving for equilibrium — managed to bring about an
equilibrium in their deep friendship, whereas previously they
had been repelled by one another.
Two
other personality also represented polar opposites but with
them it is impossible to say some kind of equilibrium was
established: Hegel on the one side and Schopenhauer on the
other. You only have to consider what I put forward in my
“Riddles of Philosophy” to see the deep opposition
between Schopenhauer and Hegel. It appears relevant that
Schopenhauer really spared no swearwords in what he held as the
truth in his characterization of his opponent Hegel. In many of
Schopenhauer's work there is the wildest scolding of Hegel,
Hegelianism and everything related to it. Hegel had less reason
to scold Schopenhauer, because, before Hegel died, Schopenhauer
would actually have remained without influence, not being
established amongst remarkable philosophers. The contrast
between these two personalities can be characterised by
indicating how Hegel regarded the foundation of the world and
the world development and everything pertaining to it, as
consisting of real thought elements. Hegel firmly believed that
thoughts were the foundation of everything. Hegel's philosophy
fell into three parts: Firstly in logic, not subjective human
logic but the system of thought that must form the foundation
of the world. Secondly Hegel had his philosophy of nature, but
nature for him was nothing other than an idea, not even an idea
with a difference, but the idea which implies it exists
out-of-itself. So also nature is an idea, but the idea in a
different form, in a form which is sense-perceptible to people,
ideas by contrast. The idea which reverts back to itself, this
was to him the human being's spirit which had developed out of
the simplest human-spiritual activities into the world's
history and up to the beginning of the human subjective spirit
in religion, art and science. When one wants to study Hegel's
philosophy thus, you need to allow yourself entry into the
development of world thoughts, just like Hegel let these world
thoughts explain themselves.
Schopenhauer is the opposite. For Hegel thoughts, world
thoughts were creative, actual reality in things; for
Schopenhauer every thought was merely subjective, and as a
subjective image only something unreal. For him the only
real thing was will. Just as Hegel followed with human thought
into everything mineral, animal or vegetative, for Schopenhauer
it was all about “the will of nature”. So one can
say Hegel is the thought philosopher and Schopenhauer the will
philosopher.
In
this way these two personalities stood opposite one another.
So, what do we actually have here as thoughts on the one hand
and will on the other? We would best introduce this polar
opposite in the following lecture by allowing it to be brought
before our souls when we observe human beings. We will for a
moment divert our gaze from Hegelian philosophy and look at the
reality of humanity. We already know: in people we
predominantly have an intellectual, meaning a thought element,
followed by a will element. The thought element is preferably
assigned to the human head, the will element preferably to the
human limb organism. With this we have already referred to the
intellectual element as actually being that which permeated our
bodies from a prenatal existence out of the spiritual worlds,
flowing from us between death and a new birth, as well as out
of the prenatal life and its remnants of an earlier earth life
pouring into the essence of this earth life. The will element
is however, I would like to say, the youth in contrast
to the thought element in humanity; it goes through the portal
of death and then enters the world between death and a new
birth, gets converted, metamorphosed and builds the
intellectual element in the next life. Essentially, we have in
our soul organisation our intellectual as predominant, thought
elements reaching back to antiquity; our will element reaching
into the future. With this we have considered the polar
opposites between thought and will.
Naturally we should never, in considering reality, schematize
these things. It would be naturally schematized if one could
say: every thought element directs us to earlier time and all
will elements direct us towards our time past. It is not so,
yet it is striking, I say, that which in people as the thought
element reaches to earlier times while the will element goes
into later times. Added to this human organisation it is
striking that the backward aim in the thought element is a type
of will element and included into the organisation becomes the
will element, which rings right out through death and into the
future, as a thought element. You may, when you enter with
understanding into reality, never schematize, never merely list
one idea beneath another, because you must be clear that in
reality everything can be observed which at sometime or other
appears striking, the remaining elements of reality existing
within, and that above all, what may be in the background can
at another point become a striking reality and then something
else falls into the background.
When philosophers come to consider this or that from their
particular point of view, you have your one-sided philosophers.
Now that which I've characterized for you as thought elements
in people, are not only in people bound to their head
organization, but thoughts really spread out in the cosmos. The
entire cosmos is threaded through with cosmic thoughts. Because
Hegel was the stronger spirit, who, I want to say, felt the
results of many past earthly lives, he directed his attention
in particular to cosmic thoughts.
Schopenhauer experienced less events of his previous earth
lives, thus directed his attention more towards cosmic will.
Just as will and thought live in people, so will and thought
live in the cosmos. What do thoughts mean for the cosmos as
observed by Hegel in particular, and what does will mean for
the cosmos in the way Schopenhauer observed it? Hegel didn't
consider the kind of thoughts which took form within human
beings. The entire world was for him basically only a
revelation of thoughts. In fact, he had cosmic thought in mind.
Observing the extraordinary formation of Hegel's spirit, one
can say: this spirit shaping of Hegel refers to the West. Only
Hegel manages to lift everything to an element of thought
— everything pertaining to the West, for example
materialistic developmental directives and materialistic
thoughts in Western physics. One finds with Darwin a
developmental teaching just as one finds a developmental
teaching with Hegel. With Darwin it is a materialistic
developmental philosophy, in which everything happens as if
only mighty nature substances are involved and act creatively;
with Hegel we see how everything which is in development is
permeated through with thought, like thoughts in particular
configurations, in their concrete expression — they are
the actual development.
Henceforth we can say: in the West the world is approached from
the standpoint of thought, but materialistic thought. Hegel
idealized thought and as a result arrived at cosmic
thought.
Hegel argued in his philosophy about thought but actually meant
cosmic thought. Hegel said when we look into the outside world,
be it observing a star in its orbit, an animal, plant or
mineral, we actually see thoughts everywhere, only this kind of
thought in the outer world is actually in a different form as
in the thought-form being observed. One can't say in fact that
Hegel was attempting to maintain these teachings of world
thoughts as esoteric. They remained esoteric because Hegel's
work is seldom read, but it wasn't his intention to keep the
teaching of cosmic content of the world as esoteric. However,
it is extraordinarily interesting that when it comes to western
secret societies - this teaching relates in a certain way to
the deepest esoteric teachings - that the world is actually
created out of thoughts. One could say what Hegel so naively
observed in the world, what western secret societies considered
their observations, is what the Anglo-American peoples held as
content of their secret teachings, while they had no intention
of popularizing their secret teachings. As grotesquely as
one might take it, one can say Hegel's philosophy is to a
certain extent the basic nerve of the teachings of the
West.
You
see, here we have an important problem. You could really, when
you become knowledgeable about all the esoteric teachings of
Anglo-American secret societies, content-wise hardly find
anything but Hegelian philosophy. However there is a difference
which doesn't lie in the content, it lies in the handling. It
is connected to this, that Hegel saw the things in a manner of
a revelation, and the western secret societies keep a watchful
eye over what Hegel presents to the world so it would not
become generally known and remain as an esoteric secret
teaching.
What actually lies at the basis of this? This is a very
important question. If one has some kind of content which has
originated out of the spirit and one considers it at a secret
possession, then one gives it power, because when this content
becomes popularised, it no longer has this power. Now I ask you
to really for once focus completely: Any content containing
knowledge becomes a force of power when held secret. To this is
added that those who want to retain certain teachings as
secrets, become quite unpleasant when these things are
popularized. It is almost a universal law that whatever
popularizes, gives insight. Power is given to that which is
kept secret.
I
have spoken to you over the last few years about various powers
which emerged from the West. That these emerged out of the West
did not come from knowledge which had been unknown in Central
Europe, but this wisdom was treated in a different manner. Just
imagine what kind of tragedy it predicted! It could even have
seriously warded off events in world history from the power of
western secret societies, if single individuals could have been
studied in Central Europe, if this wasn't merely done in
Central Europe but that it was thoroughly stated: In the
(eighteen) eighties — I have mentioned this —
Eduard von Hartmann openly printed that only two philosophers
in the Central European faculties had been read by Hegel. Hegel
was excessively discussed and lectures were held about him, but
only two philosophy professors could be proved to have been
shaped by Hegel. For those who have any kind of receptivity for
such things could experience the following: when they read some
volume of Hegel's out of some library they could only really
state that the volume was not very well-thumbed! Sometimes one
page to the next — I know this from experience —
was most difficult to pry apart because the volume was still so
new. And “Editions” Hegel has only experienced
recently.
Now
I haven't established this as the basis for the facts I've
particularly stipulated in the foregoing, but I want to show
how this idealism living within Hegel nonetheless points
towards the West, because on the one hand it appears again in
the clumsy materialistic thoughts of Darwinism, of Spencerism
and so on, and on the other in the esotericism of secret
societies.
Now
let's consider Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer is, I might say, the
admirer of the will. That he has cosmic will in mind
appears everywhere in Schopenhauer's work, in particular in the
delightful treatise “Regarding the Will in Nature”
where everything which exists and lives in nature is taken from
a basis of will, expressed in the elemental power of
nature.
Towards what does the entire soul constitution of Schopenhauer
point if Hegel's soul state points to the West? You can see
this in Schopenhauer himself because you soon find, in your
studies, his deep leaning towards the Orient. It rose from his
mood, it's not clear how. This preference of Schopenhauer's for
Nirvana and for all that is oriental, this inclination towards
everything Indian is irrational like his entire will
philosophy; it arose to some extent from his subjective
inclination. However in this lies a certain necessity. What
Schopenhauer presented as a philosophy is a philosophy of will.
This philosophy, as it belongs in Central Europe, he presented
dialectically in thoughts; he rationalized about will but he
actually spoke about will through the medium of thought. While
he spoke thus about will, actually cosmic will materialized,
entered deeply into his soul and rose in his consciousness as a
preference for the East. He enthused about everything Indian.
Just as we saw how Hegel pointed more to the West, so we see
how Schopenhauer pointed towards the East. In the East however
we don't find anything which is an element of will and what
Schopenhauer really felt as the actual element of the East, was
materialised and pressed into thinking and thus
intellectualized. The entire form of the representation of
cosmic will, which lies at the basis of eastern soul-life, does
not appear as originating from the intellect, it is partly a
poetic, partly a section derived directly from the observation
of the relevant representation. Schopenhauer took what the
oriental image form wanted to convey and intellectualized it in
the Central European way; however that which he refers to, the
cosmic will, this was after all the element at which he was
pointing; from this he had formulated his soul orientation.
This element is what lived in the world view of the Orient.
When the oriental world view is permeated with love in
particular, this element of love becomes nothing other than
some aspect of cosmic will, and is not just raised from the
intellect. So we may say: here the will is spiritualized. Like
thoughts are materialised in the West, so in the East will
becomes spiritualized.
In
Central European elements we see within idealized cosmic
thought, within materialized cosmic will, treated through the
medium of thought, these two worlds creating an interplay; with
reference to Hegelianism we have in western secret societies
something similar to a deep relationship between Hegelian
cosmic thought systems in the West, and if we penetrate this,
in the subjectivity of Schopenhauer's penetration with the
Orient, it brings to expression Schopenhauer's relationship
with eastern esotericism.
It
is quite extraordinary when you allow Schopenhauer's philosophy
to work on you, the thought-element appears somewhat flat;
Schopenhauer's philosophy is really not deep, but it has at the
same time something intoxicating, something wilful which throbs
within. Schopenhauer becomes most attractive and charming when
shallow thoughts are penetrated with his will element - then
traces of the warmth of will are found to some extent in his
sentences. As a result he basically has become a shallow salon
philosopher of his age. As the thought provoking age, which the
first half of the nineteenth century was, passed and people
suffered from thought deprivation, the time came for
Schopenhauer to become the salon philosopher. Not much effort
was needed to think, while the thrill of thought throbbing with
will was allowed its influence particularly when something like
“Parerga and Paralipomena” (“Appendices and
Omissions” — philosophical reflections published
1851) came through, where these thrilling thoughts could work
their craftiness.
Thus we have two opposing poles in the Hegel-Schopenhauer
antitheses in the central regions of our civilization's
development; the one a particular shaping from the West, and
the other a particular formation from the East. In Central
Europe they stood up to the time they balanced out, imperiously
side by side, being incomparable to the alliance between
Schiller and Goethe which was harmonious, as opposed to Hegel
and Schopenhauer in their disharmonious relationship.
Schopenhauer then became outside lecturer at the Berlin
University at the same time as Hegel represented his own
philosophy. Schopenhauer could hardly find an audience, his
auditorium remained empty. Probably, when Hegel was idly asked
about the Schopenhauer type philosophy - which he could manage
because he was at the time an impressive, respected philosopher
— then he merely shrugged his shoulders. When anybody
spoke from the basis of this will element and stressed it in
particular like (Friedrich) Schleiermacher, then
compared with Hegel it still indicated something, Hegel would
become uncomfortable. Therefore when Schleiermacher
wanted to explain Christianity from this thoughtless element
and said: Christianity cannot be understood through the thought
element when one includes worldwide thoughts, to some extent
the divine thoughts, grasped differently than through feeling
oneself dependant on God, through which one develops a feeling
of dependency on the universe - to this Hegel replied: Then the
dog is the best Christian, because it has the best knowledge of
the feeling of dependency! Obviously Hegel gave Schopenhauer a
piece of his mind as he gave Schleiermacher, when he took the
trouble. Hegel had to forever connect and convince everyone who
didn't change towards understanding the reality of thought. For
Schopenhauer these thoughts were nothing more than foam rising
from the breaking of waves of cosmic will. Schopenhauer, who
certainly from the characterised position had more occasion,
insulted Hegel like a washerwoman in his work.
Within life's riddles, contributing to the centre of
civilization, we thus see the contradictions which do not come
to a harmonious closure. Both however, Schopenhauer as much as
Hegel, felt a lack of what really constituted the understanding
of mankind. Hegel lived in cosmic thought, and this was exactly
that which made him so unpopular — because in daily life
people are not going to soar up to cosmic thoughts. They have a
particular feeling which they eagerly enter for comfort —
a feeling which says: why should we split our heads with cosmic
thoughts? That is done for us by the gods, or God. Being an
Evangelist one says: a God does this, why should we especially
bother with it? In particular that which appeared in the
publications on thought was extraordinarily impersonal.
History, for instance, which we discover through Hegel, has
something thoroughly impersonal. Thus we have actually from the
beginning of earth evolution right to the end of earth
development, self enfolding thoughts.
Should you want to schematically draw this Hegelian historical
philosophy, here thoughts would rise up (a drawing is made),
rise up, distort each other mutually and thus go through the
historic development and in this web of thoughts people are
spun in and are swept away by the thoughts. Thus actually for
Hegel the historical development of these coalescing, corrupt
thoughts harness people as automatons, out of these webs of
world historic thought this thought system had to develop. For
Schopenhauer of course thoughts were nothing more than froth.
He directed his gaze to cosmic will, or in other words, to this
sea of cosmic will. The human being is actually only a
reservoir where merely a little of this cosmic will is
collected. The Schopenhauer philosophy contains nothing of this
developmental reasoning or progressive thinking, but is the
unclear, irrational, the unreasonable element of will which
flows from it. Within the human beings rises up, reflects in
him as if it was reason but which he or she actually
continually develops as foolishness. For Hegel the world is the
revelation of reason. For Schopenhauer — what does the
world mean to him? It is a remarkable thing, if one wants to
answer the question: What is the world to Schopenhauer? It
struck me particularly clearly once in a sentence of Eduard von
Harman, where Schopenhauer was considered and discussed because
Eduard von Hartman had Hegel on the one side and Schopenhauer
on the other, Schopenhauer's side being predominant. I
want to with this article, which was a purely philosophic
article of Eduard von Harman, indicate, that for him the
solution to the world riddle has to be expressed as follows:
“The world is God's big foolishness.” — I had
written this because I believe it's the truth. The editor of
the newspaper, which appeared in Austria, answered me that this
had to be deleted because the entire edition would be
confiscated if this was printed in an Austrian newspaper; he
simply couldn't write that the world was God's stupidity. Now,
I didn't insist further but wrote to the editor of these
“German Words”: Delete the “God's
foolishness” but just remember another case: When I
edited the German Weekly (Deutsche Wochenschrift) you didn't
write about the world as God's foolishness, but that the
Austrian school system is a stupidity of the teaching
administration and I allowed it. - For sure, that weekly
newspaper was confiscated at the time. I wanted to remind the
man at least, that something similar had happened to him as was
happening to me, only me with the loving God, and with him the
Austrian the minister of education, Baron von Gautsch.
When one looks back over the most important world riddles, it
is clear how Hegel and Schopenhauer represent two opposing
poles, and they appear actually in their greatness, in their
admirable, dignified greatness. I know for certain that some
people find it extraordinary that a Hegel admirer like me can
likewise produce such a draft, because some people can't
imagine that when something in contrast to them is great,
humour can also be retained about it, because people imagine
one must unconditionally show a long face when one confesses to
experiencing something great in a well known person.
Thus two opposite poles present themselves, but in this case
not like with Schiller and Goethe which came to a harmonious
equilibrium. We could find some solution to this disharmony if
we consider that for Hegel the human being was evolving within
a web spun with concepts of world history and for Schopenhauer
the human being actually was nothing other than a little lamb,
a small container where a portion of world-will had been poured
in, basically only an extract of the cosmic world will. Both
failed to perceive the actual individuality and personality of
human beings. They also could not perceive what the actual
being was which they sensed in the cosmos.
Hegel looked into the cosmos and saw this web of concepts
within history, Schopenhauer looked into the cosmos and didn't
see this web of concepts — that was only a mirror image
for him — but he saw it as a sea of ruling will, to some
extent tapped into these vessels in which human beings swam in
this irrational, unreasonable sea of will (drawing is made).
Human beings were only being fooled by what reflected in their
unreasonable will as actual reason, imagination and thought.
Yet these two elements are present in the cosmos. What Hegel
saw was already in the cosmos. Cosmic thoughts exist. Hegel and
the West viewed the cosmos and perceived world thoughts.
Schopenhauer and the East looked at the cosmos and saw world
will. Both are within. A useful cosmic world view could c0me
into existence if the paradox could have been entered,
resulting in Schopenhauer's scolding bringing him so far as to
him leaving his skin behind, and despite Hegel's soul remaining
in Hegel, that Schopenhauer entered Hegel so that Schopenhauer
was actually inside Hegel. Then he would have seen the
world-thoughts and world-will fusing! This is the deed which is
within the world: world thoughts and world will. They exist in
very different forms.
What is revealed to us through actual spiritual scientific
research in relation to this cosmology? It tells us: when we
look into the world and allow world thoughts to work on us,
what do we see? We see, by letting world thoughts work on us,
thoughts of the dim and distant past, everything which worked
in the past up to the present moment. Thus we see, through our
world-thought perception, that which is dying away when we look
into the world. From this comes the hardened, the dead part of
natural laws and we can practically only use mathematics to
deal with what is dead when we consider nature's laws. However
within that which speaks to our senses, which delights us in
the light, what we hear in sound, what warms us and everything
touching our senses, works out of world will. It is this, which
rises out of the dead element of world thoughts and what
basically gestures outwards to the future. Something chaotic,
undifferentiated exists in the world thoughts, yet lives
presently in world moments as a germ which progresses into the
future. Submitting ourselves to the world's thought elements,
we experience that which originated from the most horrible
past, spilling into the present. However, in the human head is
something different. In the human head thoughts are separated
from outer world thoughts, and are bound into the human
personality in an individual will element, which in this way
may first only be looked at as that small reservoir, the little
lamb of poured cosmic will-element. However, what one has
intellectually, point backwards. We have basically developed
this germ from a former life on earth. Will was involved there.
Now it has become thought, is bound to our head organization,
resurrected like a living copy of the cosmos in our head
organization. We connect this to will, we rejuvenate it in our
will. By rejuvenating it in will, we send it over to our next
life on earth, our next earth incarnation.
This world image must actually be drawn differently. We must
draw it in such a way that the outer cosmic aspect of olden
times is particularly rich in thought elements, but becomes
ever more thinned out as we approach the present, allowing the
thoughts, as they are in the cosmos, to gradually die out. The
thought element we must consequently draw quite fine.
The
further we go back, so the thoughts outweigh the Akashic
images; the more we go forward, the ever denser the will
element becomes. We should, if we want to look through this
development, look at a light filled thought element in the most
horrible time past, and on the most unreasonable element of
will of the future.
But
it doesn't remain like this, because we drag in thoughts which
have been retained in our head. These thoughts are sent into
the future. While cosmic thoughts die out more and more,
germinate on human thoughts, from their point of origin they
push through into the future as the cosmic element of will.
Thus we are the guardians of cosmic thoughts, thus the human
being draws cosmic thought out of himself or herself into the
world outside. Along the detour through the human being cosmic
thoughts are propagated from ancient times into the future. The
human being belongs to that which is the cosmos. However he
doesn't belong like the materialist will think, that the human
being is something which has developed out of the cosmos and is
a piece of the cosmos, but that the human being also belongs to
the creative element of the cosmos. He or she carries thoughts
out of the past, into the future.
You
see, here the human being enters into the tangible. If you
really want to understand the human being you enter into what
Schopenhauer and Hegel approached so one-sidedly. From this you
realise that philosophic elements, being combined on a higher
level, need to be threefold, just as the human being is to be
understood in the cosmos.
Tomorrow we will consider the relationship between the human
being and the cosmos in a concrete manner. I wanted to give you
an introduction today, as promised; the necessity of it will be
recognised in further lectures.
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