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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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Man: Hieroglyph of the Universe
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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Man: Hieroglyph of the Universe
Schmidt Number: S-4077
On-line since: 17th July, 2002
Today I shall try to give a wider view of a subject already often
touched upon. I have frequently pointed out how, for modern man, moral
and intellectual conceptions diverge. On the one hand we are brought,
through intellectual thinking, to recognition of the stern Necessity
of Nature. In accordance with this necessity we see everything in
Nature under the law of Cause and Effect. And we ask also, when man
performs an action: what has caused it, what is the inner or outer
cause? This recognition of the necessity for all events has in modern
times acquired a more scientific character. In earlier times it had a
more theological character, and has so still for many people. It takes
on a scientific character when we hold the opinion that what we do is
dependent on our bodily constitution and on the influences that work
upon it. There are still many people who think that man acts just as
inevitably as a stone falls to the ground. There you have the natural
scientific colouring of the Necessity concept. The view of those more
inclined to Theology might be described as follows. Everything is
fore-ordained by some kind of Divine Power or Providence and man must
carry out what is predestined by that Divine Power. Thus we have in
the one case the Necessity of natural science, and in the other case
unconditioned Divine Prescience. One cannot in either case speak of
human Freedom at all.
Over against this stands the whole Moral world. Man feels of
this world that he cannot so much as speak of it without postulating
the freedom of the decisions of his will; for if he has no possibility
of free voluntary decision, he cannot speak of a morality of human
action. He does however feel responsibility, he feels moral impulses;
he must therefore recognise a moral world. I have mentioned before how
the impossibility of building a bridge between the two, between the
world of Necessity and the world of Morals, led Kant to write two
critiques, the
Critique of Pure Reason
in which he applies himself to investigating the nature of simple
Necessity, and the Critique of Applied Reason in which he
inquires into what belongs to Moral Cosmogony. Then he felt compelled
to write also a Critique of Judgement which was intended as an
intermediary between the two, but which ended in being no more than a
compromise, and approached reality only when it turned to the world of
beauty, the world of artistic creation. This goes to show how
man has on the one side the world of Necessity and on the other the
world of Free Moral Action, but cannot find anything to unite the two
except the world of Artistic Semblance, where — let us say, in
sculpture or in painting — we appear to be picturing what comes
from Natural Necessity, but impart to it something which is free from
Necessity, giving it thus the appearance of being free in
Necessity.
The truth is, man is not able to build a bridge between the world of
Necessity and the world of Freedom unless he finds the way through
Spiritual Science. Spiritual Science, however, requires for its
development a fulfilment of the aphorism which won respect centuries
ago, the saying of the Greek Apollo: “Know thyself!” Now
this admonition, by which is not intended a burrowing into one's own
subjectivity but a knowledge of the whole being of man and the
position he occupies in the Universe — this is a search that must find a
place in our whole spiritual life.
From this point of view we may really say that the course taken by the
development of the spiritual Movement directed to Anthroposophy has in
the last few days taken a step forward; it has begun to show clearly
to the spiritual life of humanity, how we must seek to illuminate
modern methods of thought with a knowledge of Man; for it is a fact
that the knowledge of Man has to a very great extent been lost in
modern times. This was our aim in the course of lectures that has just
been held for doctors, where an initial attempt was made to throw
light in a positive way upon matters with which medical science has to
concern itself. [*Published by Rudolf Steiner
Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, 1961, (third edition) with the title:
Geisteswissenschaft und Medizin. English translation (now out
of print) entitled:
Spiritual Science and Medicine,
can be borrowed from the Library, Rudolf Steiner House, London, N.W.I]
In the series of lectures given by our friends and myself, we tried to
show how a connection must be made between the individual sciences and
what these can receive from Spiritual Science. It is very desirable
that within our Movement there should be a strong consciousness of the
need for such attempts; for if we are to succeed it is absolutely
necessary to make clear to the outer world — in a sense, to
compel it to understand — that here no kind of superficiality
prevails in any domain, but rather an earnest striving for real
knowledge. This is often hindered by the way in which things reach the
public from our own circles, so that it is supposed, or may easily be
maliciously pretended, that all kinds of sectarianism and dilettantism
are allowed here. It is for us to convince the outer world more and
more how earnest is the striving underlying all that this Movement
represents. Such attempts must be carried further afield, and they
must be carried further by the forces of the whole Anthroposophical
Movement; for we have now made a beginning with a true knowledge of
Man which must form the foundation of all true spiritual culture. It
is true to say that from the middle of the fifteenth century, man's
earlier concrete relation to the world has been growing more and more
abstract. In olden times, through atavistic clairvoyance man knew much
more of himself than he does today, for since the middle of the
century intellectualism has spread over the whole of the so-called
civilised world. Intellectualism is based upon a very small part in
the being of Man, a very small part; and it produces accordingly no
more than an abstract network of knowledge of the world.
What has knowledge of the world become in the course of the last
centuries? In its relation to the Universe, it has become a mere
mathematical-mechanical calculation, to which in recent times have
been added the results of spectra analysis; these again are purely
physical, and even in the physical domain, mechanical-mathematical.
Astronomy observes the courses of the stars and calculates; but it
notices only those forces which show the Universe, in so far as the
Earth is enclosed in it, as a great machine, a great mechanism. It is
true to say that this mechanical-mathematical method of observation
has come to be regarded simply and solely as the only one that can
actually lead to knowledge.
Now with what does the mentality which finds expression in this
mathematical-mechanical construction of the Universe reckon? It
reckons with something that is founded to some extent in the nature of
Man, but only in a very small part of him. It reckons first with the
abstract three dimensions of space. Astronomy reckons with the
abstract three dimensions of space; it distinguishes one dimension, a
second (drawing on blackboard) and a third, at right
angles. It fixes attention on a star in movement, or on the position
of a star, by looking at these three dimensions of space. Now man
would be unable to speak of three dimensional space if he had not
experienced it in his own being. Man experiences
three-dimensional space. In the course of his life he experiences
first the vertical dimension. As a child he crawls, and then he raises
himself upright and experiences thereby the vertical dimension. It
would not be possible for man to speak of the vertical dimension if he
did not experience it. To think that he could find anything in the
Universe other than he finds in himself would be an illusion. Man
finds this vertical dimension only by experiencing it himself. By
stretching out our hands and arms at right angles to the vertical we
obtain the second dimension. In what we experience when breathing or
speaking, in the inhaling and exhaling of the air, or in what we
experience when we eat, when the food in the body moves from front to
back, we experience the third dimension. Only because man experiences
these three dimensions within him does he project them into external
space. Man can find absolutely nothing in the Universe unless he finds
it first in himself. The strange thing is that in this age of
abstractions which began in the middle of the fifteenth century, Man
has made these three dimensions homogeneous. That is, he has simply
left out of his thought the concrete distinction between them. He has
left out what makes the three dimensions different to him. If he were
to give his real human experience, he would say: My
perpendicular line, my operative line, my extensive or extending line.
He would have to assume a difference in quality between the three
spatial dimensions. Were he to do this, he would no longer be able to
conceive of an astronomical cosmogony in the present abstract way. He
would obtain a less purely intellectual cosmic picture. For this
however he would have to experience in a more concrete way his own
relationship to the three dimensions. Today he has no such experience.
He does not experience for instance the assuming of the upright
position, the being in the vertical; and so he is not aware that he is
in a vertical position for the simple reason that he moves together
with the Earth in a certain direction which adheres to the
vertical. Neither does he know that he makes his breathing movements,
his digestive and eating movements as well as other movements, in a
direction through which the Earth also moves in a certain line. All
this adherence to certain directions of movement implies an
adaptation, a fitting into, the movements of the Universe. Today man
takes no account whatever of this concrete understanding of the
dimensions; hence he cannot define his position in the great cosmic
process. He does not know how he stands in it, nor that he is as it
were a part and member of it. Steps will have now to be taken whereby
man can obtain a knowledge of Man, a self-knowledge, and so a
knowledge of how he is placed in the Universe.
The three dimensions have really become so abstract for man that he
would find it extremely difficult to train himself to feel that by
living in them he is taking part in certain movements of the Earth and
the planetary system. A spiritual-scientific method of thought however
can be applied to our knowledge of Man. Let us therefore begin by
seeking for a right understanding of the three dimensions. It is
difficult to attain; but we shall more easily raise ourselves to this
spatial knowledge of Man if we consider, not the three lines of space
standing at right angles, but three level planes. Consider for a
moment the following. We shall readily perceive that our
symmetry has something to do with our thinking. If we
observe, we shall discover an elementary natural gesture that we make
if we wish to express decisive thinking in dumb show. When we place
the finger on the nose and move through this plane here (a drawing is
made), we are moving through the vertical symmetry plane which divides
us into a left and a right Man. This plane passing through the nose
and through the whole body, is the plane of symmetry, and is that of
which one can become conscious as having to do with all the
discriminating that goes on within us, all the thinking and judging
that discriminates and divides. Starting from this elementary gesture,
it is actually possible to become aware of how in all one's functions
as Man one has to do with this plane.
Consider the function of seeing. We see with two eyes, in such a way
that the lines of vision intersect. We see a point with two eyes; but
we see it as one point because the lines of sight cross each other,
they cut as shown in the drawing. Our human activity is from many
aspects so regulated that we can only understand its regulation by
reference to this plane.
We can then turn to another plane which would pass through the heart
and divide man back from front. In front, man is physiognomically
organised, behind he is an expression of his organic being. This
physiognomical-psychic structure is divided off by a plane which
stands at right angles to the first. As our right and left man are
divided by a plane, so too are our front and back man. We need only
stretch out our arms, our hands, directing the physiognomical part of
the hand (in contrast to the merely organic part) forwards and the
organic part of the hands backwards, and then imagine a plane through
the principal lines which thus arise, and we obtain the plane I mean.
In like manner we can place a third plane which would mark off all
that is contained in head and countenance from what is organised below
into body and limbs. Thus we should obtain a third plane which again
is at right angles to the other two.
One can acquire a feeling for these three planes. How the feeling for
the first is obtained has already been shown; it is to be felt as the
plane of discriminative Thinking. The second plane, which
divides man into front and back (anterior and posterior) would be
precisely that whereby man is shown to be Man, for this plane
cannot be delineated in the same way in the animal. The symmetry plane
can be drawn in the animal but not the vertical plane. This second
(vertical) plane would be connected with everything pertaining to
human Will. The third, the horizontal, would be connected with
everything pertaining to human Feeling. Let us try once more to
get an elementary idea of these things and we shall see that we can
arrive at something by this line of thought.
Everything wherein man brings his feeling to expression, whether it be
a feeling of greeting or one of thankfulness or any other form of
sympathetic feeling, is in a way connected with the horizontal plane.
So too we can see that in a sense the will must be brought into
connection with the vertical plane mentioned. It is possible to
acquire a feeling for these three planes. If a man has done this, he
will be obliged to form his conception of the Universe in the sense of
these three planes — just as he would, if he only regarded the
three dimensions of space in an abstract way, be obliged to calculate
in the mechanical-mathematical way in which Galileo or Copernicus
calculated the movements and regulations in the Universe. Concrete
relations will now appear to him in this Universe. He will no longer
merely calculate according to the three dimensions of space; but when
he has learnt to feel these three planes, he will notice that there is
a difference between right and left, over and under, back and front.
In mathematics it is a matter of indifference whether some object is a
little further right or left, or before or behind. If we simply
measure, we measure below or above, we measure right or left or we
measure forward or backward. In whatever position three metres is set,
it remains three metres. At most we distinguish, in order to pass from
position to movement, the dimensions at right angles to one another.
This we do, however, only because we cannot remain at simple
measurement, for then our world would shrink to no more than a
straight line. If however, we learn to describe Thinking, Feeling and
Willing concretely in these three planes, and to place ourselves thus
in space as psychic-spiritual beings, with our Thinking, Feeling and
Willing — then just as we learn to apply to Astronomy the three
dimensions of space as found in man, so do we learn to apply to
Astronomy the threefold division of man as a being of soul and spirit.
And it becomes possible if we have here (drawing) Saturn, Jupiter,
Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and lastly Earth, then it becomes possible,
if we look at the Sun, to observe it in its outer manifestation as
something separating, as a dividing element. We must think of a plane
passing through the Sun, and we shall no longer regard what is above
the plane and what is below as merely dimensional, but must regard the
plane as a dividing plane and distinguish the planets as being above
or below. Thus we shall no longer say: Mars is so many miles distant
from the Sun, Venus so many miles; but we shall learn to apply the
knowledge of Man to the knowledge of the Universe, and say: It is no
mere question of dimensions when I say that the human head in respect
of the nose is at such and such a distance from the horizontal plane
which I have called the plane of Feeling, and the heart at such and
such a distance; but I shall bring their position and distance above
and below into connection with their formation and structure. So too I
shall no longer say of Mars and Mercury that the one is at such a
distance and the other at such another distance from the Sun, but I
shall know that if I regard the Sun as a dividing partition, Mars
being above must be of one nature and Mercury being below of another.
I shall now be able to place a similar plane perpendicularly through
the Sun. Thus the movements of Jupiter, let us say, or of Mars, will
be such that at one time it will stand on the right of this plane and
then go across it and stand on the left. If I simply proceed
abstractly, according to dimensions, I shall find it is sometimes on
the right and sometimes on the left, and such and such a number of
miles. But if I study cosmic space concretely, as I must
[study]
my own being
as man, it is not a matter of indifference whether a planet is at one
time on the left and at another time on the right, but I say there is
the same kind of difference whether it is on the right or left
as there is between a left and right organ. It is not sufficient to
say that the liver is so many centimetres to the right of the
symmetrical axis, the stomach so many centimetres to the left, for the
two are dissimilar in formation because the one is a right
organ and the other a left. Here it is so, that Jupiter, according as
he is on the right or the left, to the eye appears different.
In the same way I might make a third plane, and must again form a
judgement in accordance with that. And if I extend my knowledge of Man
to the Universe, I shall be obliged, as I connected the one plane with
human Thinking, and the second plane with human Feeling, to consider
the third plane as connected with human Will.
By all this I wanted only to show how modern cosmogony has no more
than a last remnant of external abstraction when it speaks of the
three planes perpendicular to one another, to which the positions and
movements of the stars are quite indifferently related, and then
according to these positions the whole Universe calculated out as a
machine. In the astronomical conception of Galileo, only this one
thing is taken into consideration for the Universe — abstract
space, with its point relationships. This knowledge can however be
enlarged to become an active and powerful knowledge of Man. One can
say: Man is a thinking, feeling and willing being. As an external
being, he is connected by Thinking with one plane, with another at
right angles to it by Willing, and with a third at right angles to
both by Feeling. This must apply also in the external world. Since the
middle of the fifteenth century, man has really known no more than
that he extends in three directions; all else is just material
collected for observation. A true knowledge of Man must be regained,
and indirectly a knowledge of the Cosmos by the same method. Then man
will understand how Necessity and Free Will are related, and how
both can apply to Man, since he is born from the Cosmos.
Naturally if one only takes this last remnant of the human being
— the three dimensions at right angles to one another — if
that is all one wants to imagine, then the Universe appears terribly
poor. Poor, infinitely poor is our present astronomical view of the
Universe; and it will not become richer until we press forward to a
real knowledge of Man, until we really learn to look into Man.
The anthroposophical conception of the universe leads directly into a
real spiritual knowledge of the matter. Do not such things as
Thinking, Feeling and Willing appear to human knowledge as terribly
bare abstractions? Man does not investigate himself thoroughly enough.
He does not ask himself what these things are for him to which he
applies the words. So much has become mere phrase. One should really
ask oneself conscientiously, when using the word Thinking, whether it
presents any clear idea — not to speak of Feeling and Willing.
But our speech becomes clear and plain, directly we pass from the mere
making of phrases, the using of lofty words, and go back to
pictures; even when we take just that one picture for Thinking
— putting the finger to the side of the nose! We do not need to
do it always, but we know that this gesture is often naturally made
when we have to think hard, just as we point the finger to the chin
when we want to indicate we are paying attention! We enter this plane
precisely because we wish to judge there concerning something to which
we are related. We bisect our organism as it were into right and left;
for we really act quite differently with our right and left
sense-organs. This we can appreciate if we observe that with the left
sense-organ we undertake as it were, the handling of outer objects;
and in our thinking too, there is a sort of handling or feeling of
external objects. With the right sense-organ we as it were ‘feel
our feeling’ of them. It is then that they first become our own.
We could never have attained to the ego-concept if we were not able to
perceive, together with what we experience on the right, also that
which we experience on the left. By simply laying the hands one over
the other we have a picture of the ego-concept. It is indeed true that
by beginning to use clear images instead of living merely in
phraseology, man will become inwardly richer and will gain the faculty
of visualising the Universe in greater detail.
Having entered on this path, we shall find that the Universe comes to
life again for us, and that we ourselves as human beings share in its
life. Then we shall learn again how to build a bridge between Universe
and Man. When this is done man will be able to perceive whether there
is in the Universe an impulse of Natural Necessity for all that is in
Man, or whether the Universe in some measure leaves us free; whether
it wholly determines us, or leaves us in a certain sense free. As long
as we live in abstractions, we cannot build a bridge between Moral and
Natural Law. We must be able to ask ourselves how far Natural Law
extends in the Universe, and where something enters in which we
cannot include under the aspect of Natural Law. Then we arrive
at a relation which has its significance for Man too, a relation
between what comes under Natural Law and what is Free and Moral. In
this way we learn to connect a meaning with the statement: “Mars
is a planet far from the Sun, Venus a planet nearer the Sun.” By
simply stating their distances in abstract numbers we have said
nothing or at least very little, for to define in this way according
to the methods of modern Astronomy, is equivalent to saying: I look at
the line which passes through man's two arms and hands, and I speak of
an organ that is 2.5 decimetres from this line. — Now this organ
may be so and so far under the line, and another organ so and so far
above it; it is not, however, the distance that makes the
difference, but the fact that one organ is above and the other
below. Were there no difference between above and below, there
would be no difference between the nose or eyes and the stomach! The
eyes are only eyes because they are above, and the stomach is only a
stomach because it is below, this line. The inner nature of the organ
is conditioned by the position.
Similarly the inner nature of Mars is qualified by its position
outside the Sun's orbit, and that of Venus by its position
within the Sun's orbit. If one does not understand the
essential difference between an organ in the human head and an organ
in the human trunk — the one lying over and the other under this
line — then one cannot know that Mars and. Venus, or Mars and
Mercury are essentially different. The ability to think of the
Universe as an organism depends on our learning to understand the
hieroglyph of the organism we have before us. We must learn to
perceive Man as a hieroglyph of the Universe, for he gives us the
opportunity of seeing near at hand how different are above and below,
left and right, before and behind. We must learn this first in Man,
and we shall then find it in the Universe.
Because the modern view of the Universe held by Natural Science really
gives a cosmogony omitting Man — recognising him only as the
highest of the animals, that is to say an abstraction — because
Man is not in it at all, therefore to this conception the Universe
appears as a mathematical picture only, in which the universal origin
of Freedom and Morality can never be recognised. It is, however, of
the utmost importance that we should learn to perceive scientifically
the connection between Moral Law and Natural Necessity. Today I have
endeavoured to show you, in perhaps rather subtle concepts, how a
knowledge of the Universe is to be gained from a Knowledge of Man.
To the doctors I was able to show in a strictly scientific way how
this path has to be sought in Medicine, Physiology and Biology. In
these lectures it will be our task to perceive how it must be sought
if we are to form aright our general understanding of the world; and
the social life in which we find ourselves in these times has great
need of such understanding.
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