During my recent lectures I have brought forward a few things with
the view of explaining the modern life of the spirit and its
possibilities of development for the future. I have said that we
should observe the events which have taken place in the course of
human evolution, events that have led up to a soul-constitution which
characterises the modern life of the spirit.
Let us once more bear
in mind a few things which characterise this modern life of the
spirit. By departing from various standpoints, we have gradually
struggled through to the conclusion that the fundamental note of this
modern life of the spirit is intellectualism, the intellectual,
understanding attitude towards the world and man. This does not
contradict the fact that in our times the essential character of a
world-conception is sought in the observation and elaboration of
external phenomena which can be observed through the senses. This, in
particular, will be unfolded in the next few days. We may say that
intellectualism, as such, has made its first appearance in the course
of human evolution during the time comprised within the 300
years prior to the Mystery of Golgotha, and then it has gradually
developed to a height which has not been surpassed during the three
centuries subsequent to the Mystery of Golgotha. We may say that in
the course of about six centuries, humanity has been trained to take
up intellectualism. Intellectualism developed from out a spiritual
world-conception, which began to ebb at that time, in the course of
those six centuries. External documents (I have already called
attention to this fact) hardly enable us to study the ebb of this
world-conception, because the spreading of Christianity did its
utmost to destroy, with but a few exceptions, every gnostic document.
Within the evolution of
human world-conceptions, these gnostic documents represent that
particular element which has, on the one hand, taken up something
from older traditions, from what existed in Asia, Africa and southern
Europe in the form of an ancient wisdom, from what could still be
reached in these later times, in accordance with the faculties of
human beings who were no longer able to rise to great heights of
super-sensible vision. This older form of wisdom, the last echoes of
which may still be found in the pre-Socratic philosophers and which
contains last, pale gleams of Plato's arguments, this
world-conception did not work with intellectual forces; essentially
speaking, its contents were obtained through super-sensible vision,
even if this was instinctive. At the same time, this super-sensible
vision supplied what may be designated as an inner logical system. If
we have within us the contents of super-sensible vision, no
intellectual elaboration is needed, for the human being already
possesses a logical structure through his own nature. Thus we may say
that in the course of human evolution intellectualism has, in a
certain respect, risen out of Gnosticism. It has risen out of
super-sensible, spiritual contents. The spiritual contents have dried
up and the intellectual element has remained.
A man with a
preeminently leading spirit, who at that time already made use of the
intellect (in Plato, this was not evident as yet) and who clearly
evinced that the older form of spirituality had ceased to exist and
that the human being now sought to gain a world-conception through
inner intellectual work, this preeminently leading spirit was
Aristotle. Aristotle is, as it were, the first man in human evolution
who works in a truly intellectual way. In Aristotle, we continually
come across statements showing that the recollection of an old
wisdom, gained through super-sensible means, is still alive in a
traditional form. Aristotle is aware of this older form of wisdom; he
alludes to it whenever he speaks of his predecessors, but he can no
longer connect his statements with any contents which are really
his own inner experience.
Aristotle evinces in a
high degree that things which were vividly experienced in the past,
have now become mere words for him. But on the other hand, he is
eminently intellectual in his way of working.
Owing to the special
configuration of Greek culture, Aristotle is not a Gnostic. The
gnosis of that time, with its still ample store of wisdom, which
continued to exist even in the post-Christian centuries, had an
intellectual way of grasping the old spiritual contents. These can no
longer be experienced. What the Gnostics set forth, contains, as it
were, a shadow-outline of the old spiritual wisdom. We can see
that humanity gradually loses altogether the possibility of
connecting a meaning with what had once been given to man in a
super-sensible form. This stage, of not being able to connect any
meaning with the old spiritual wisdom, reaches its climax in the
fourth century of our era. Particularly a man like Augustine clearly
reveals the struggle after a world-conception from out the very
depths of the human soul, but it is impossible for him to reach a
world-conception which is based on spirituality, so that he finally
accepts what the Catholic Church presents to him in the form of
dogmas.
The spiritual life of
the Occident (and this is, to begin with, our present subject of
study) obtained its contents above all during the centuries which
followed the first four hundred years after the Mystery of Golgotha.
It obtained its contents through what had been handed down
traditionally from a Christian direction and had gradually acquired
the form of dogmas, that is to say, of intellectual forms of thought.
Nevertheless these dogmas were connected with contents which had once
been experienced in super-sensible vision and which now existed merely
in the form of memories. It was no longer possible to gain an insight
into man's connections with these super-sensible contents; that is to
say, it was not in any way possible to convey to the human beings the
significance of these super-sensible contents. For this reason, the
education of humanity took on an essentially intellectual character
in the following centuries, up to the fifteenth century.
The spiritual life of
the fourth and fifth centuries of our era, up to the fifteenth
century, with all the experiences connected with that time
starting with the first Fathers of the Church up to Duns Scotus and
then Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus the spiritual life of
those centuries and all the experiences connected with that
time, arouse our interest not so much in view of the contents which
have been transmitted to us, as in view of the thoroughly
significant training through which the human beings had to pass, so
that their soul-constitution was directed towards intellectualism. In
regard to intellectual matters, in regard to the elaboration of
conceptual matters, the Christian philosophers have reached the very
climax. We may say, on the one hand, that intellectualism was fully
born at the end of the fourth century of our era, but we may also say
that intellectualism, as a technique, as a technical method of
thinking, evolved up to the fifteenth century. That human beings were
at all able to grasp this intellectual element, is a fact which took
place in the fourth century. But to begin with, intellectualism
had to be elaborated inwardly, and what was achieved in this
direction, up to the time of high Scholasticism, is truly admirable.
Modern thinkers could
really learn a great deal in this connection, if they would train
their capacity of forming concepts by studying the conceptual
technique which was unfolded by the scholastic thinkers of the
Catholic Church. If we observe the disorderly way of thinking which
is customary in modern science, if we observe how certain ideas which
are indispensable for the attainment of a world-conception (for
instance, the idea of subsistence in connection with existence) have
altogether disappeared, particularly in regard to their inner
character, if we observe how concepts such as hypothesis
have acquired an entirely indistinct character, whereas for the
scholastics it was a conceptual form with clearly defined outlines,
if we observe many other things which could be adduced in this
direction, we shall realise that the ordinary modern life of the
spirit does not possess a real technique of thinking. How many things
could be learnt if we would once more become acquainted with what has
been developed up to the fifteenth century as a technique of
thinking, that is to say, as a technique of intellectualism!
Thinkers who have had a training in this sphere are so superior to
the modern philosophers because they have taken up within them the
scholastic element.
Indeed, after the
disorderly thoughts contained in modern scientific writings, it does
one good to take hold of a book such as Willmann's History of
Idealism. Of course, at the present time we cannot agree
with the contents of Willmann's book, for it contains things which we
cannot accept, nevertheless it reveals a thinking activity which
gives us, as such, a feeling of well-being, in comparison with what
has just been characterised. Otto Willmann's History of
Idealism should also be read by those who adopt an entirely
different standpoint. The way in which he deals with the problems
from the time of Plato onwards, his complete mastery of the
scholastic activity of thought, can, to say the least, exercise an
extraordinary influence upon modern human beings and discipline their
thoughts.
Essentially speaking,
the task of the time which lies between the fourth and the fifteenth
century was, therefore, the development of a technique of thinking.
This thinking activity has now adopted a definite attitude in regard
to man's cognitive faculty towards the contents of the world. We may
say: Spirits such as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas have set
forth the position of man's thinking activity towards the contents of
the world in a manner which was, at that time, quite incontestable.
How do their
descriptions appear to us?
Thinkers such as
Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas had dogmatically preserved truths
which originated from old traditions, but their meaning could no
longer be grasped. To begin with, these truths had to be protected as
contents of a supernatural revelation, which at that time was more or
less equivalent to a super-sensible revelation. The Church
preserved these revelations through its authority and teachings, and
people thought that the dogmas of the Church contained the
revelations connected with the super-sensible worlds. They were to
accept what was offered in these dogmas, they were to accept it as a
revelation which could not be touched by human reason, that is to
say, by the human intellect.
In the Middle Ages it
was, on the one hand, quite natural to apply the intellectual
technique, which had reached such a high degree of development, but
on the other hand, it was evident that the intellect was not allowed
to determine anything in connection with the contents of these
dogmas. The highest truths required by the human beings were sought
within the dogmas. They had to be presented by theology, which was
supernatural, and contained the essence of everything relating to the
higher destinies of man's soul-life. The conceptions of that time
were, on the other hand. permeated by the idea that Nature could be
grasped and explained by the unfolding intellect, and that ratio,
that is to say, the intellect, enabled one to grasp in a certain
abstract manner the beginning and the end of the world, that it
enabled one to grasp even the existence of God, etc. etc. These
things were altogether considered as forming part
although in a certain abstract manner of the truths which
could still be reached through the intellectual technique. Human
cognition was thus divided into two spheres: The sphere of the
super-sensible, which could only become accessible to man through
revelation and was preserved within the Christian dogmas, and the
other sphere, which contained a knowledge of Nature, to the extent in
which this was possible at that time, and which could only be
reached, in its whole extent through an intellectual technique.
If we wish to grasp the
spiritual development of our modern times, we must penetrate into
this dual character of cognition during the Middle Ages. New
spheres of knowledge slowly begin to appear from the fifteenth
century onwards, and then more and more quickly; new spheres of
knowledge, which then became the contents of the modern
scientific world-conception. Up to the fifteenth century, the
intellect, as such, had developed, its technique had gradually
unfolded, but throughout that time it had not enriched itself
with contents of a natural-scientific character. The knowledge of
Nature which existed up to that time, was an old traditional
knowledge which could no longer be grasped to its full extent: the
intellect had. as it were, not been tested by contents of an
immediate and elemental kind.
This only took place
when the deeds of Galilei, Copernicus and so forth, began to
penetrate into the modern development of science, and it occurred at
a time when the intellect did not merely unfold its technique,
but when it began to tackle the external world. Particularly in a man
such as Galilei we can see that he uses his highly developed
technique of thinking in order to approach with it the contents of a
world which appears to the external observation through the senses.
In the centuries which followed, up to the nineteenth century, those
who were striving after knowledge were occupied above all with
this: their intellect was grappling with Nature, it was seeking
to gain a knowledge of Nature.
What lived in this
struggle of the intellect that was seeking to gain a knowledge of
Nature? In order to grasp this, we should not follow preconceived
ideas, but psychological and historical facts.
We should clearly
realise that humanity does not only carry over theories from one
epoch to the other, and that the Christian development of philosophy
has produced in an extraordinarily strong way the tendency to apply
the intellectual faculties merely to the world of the senses, without
touching the super-sensible world. If those who were striving
after knowledge had touched the super-sensible sphere with their
intellectual forces, this would have been considered a sin. Such an
attitude gave rise to certain habits, and these habits continued.
Even if the human beings are no longer fully conscious of them, they
nevertheless act under the influence of these habits. In the
centuries which preceded the nineteenth century, one of these habits,
that is to say, a habit which arose under the influence of
Christian dogmatism, produced the tendency to use the intellectual
faculties merely for an external observation through the senses. In
the same way in which the universities were, generally speaking, the
continuation of schools which had been founded by the Church, so the
sciences which were taught at these universities in connection with a
knowledge of Nature were fundamentally a continuation of what the
Church acknowledged to be right in the sphere of natural science. The
tendency to include in knowledge nothing but an empiricism based on
the observation through the senses is, in every respect, the echo of
a soul-habit which has risen out of Christian dogmatism.
This way of directing
the intellect towards the external world of the senses was more
and more accompanied by the fact that the forces which the soul
itself directed towards the contents of super-sensible dogmas
gradually paled and died. The possibility of an independent
investigation had once more arisen, and although the contents which
the intellect thus obtained were of a purely sensory kind, they were
nevertheless the contents of knowledge.
The dogmatic contents
gradually paled under the influence of contents which were
gained through a knowledge of the sensory world. This knowledge was
acquiring a more and more positive character. It was no longer
possible to adopt towards these super-sensible contents a
soul-attitude which still existed after the fourth century of our era
as a recollection of something which humanity had experienced in very
ancient times. What was connected with the super-sensible worlds
gradually disappeared completely, and what lies before us in the
spiritual development of the last three or four centuries merely
represents an artificial way of preserving these super-sensible
contents.
The contents which have
been taken from the world of the senses and which have been
elaborated by the intellect grow more and more abundant. They
permeate the human soul. The habit of calling attention to the
super-sensible contents gradually pales and disappears. Also this
fact is unquestionably a result of the Christian dogmatic
development.
Then came the
nineteenth century; the human soul had completely lost its elementary
connection with what was contained in the super-sensible world, and it
became more and more necessary for the human beings to convince
themselves, one might say, artificially, that it is, after all,
significant to accept the existence of a super-sensible world. So we
may see, particularly in the nineteenth century, the development of a
doctrine which had been well prepared in advance, the doctrine of the
two paths of cognition: the path of knowledge and the path of faith.
A cognition of faith, based upon an entirely subjective conviction,
was still supposed to uphold what had been preserved traditionally
from the old dogmas. In addition to this fact, the human beings were
more and more overcome, I might say, by the knowledge which the world
of the senses offered to them. Fundamentally speaking, just about the
middle of, the nineteenth century, the evolution of the spiritual
world of Europe had reached the following point: An abundant
knowledge flowed out of the world of the senses, whereas the attitude
towards the super-sensible world was problematic. When the human
beings investigated the sensory world, they always felt that
they had a firm ground under their feet and the facts resulting from
an external observation could always be pointed out and summed up in
a kind of world-picture, which naturally contained nothing but
sensory facts, but which grew more and more perfect in regard to
these sensory contents. On the other hand, they were striving in an
almost cramped and desperate manner to maintain a survey of the
super-sensible world through faith. Particularly significant in this
connection is the development of theology, especially of Christology,
for it shows us how the super-sensible contents of the Christ-idea
were gradually lost, so that finally nothing remained of this idea
except the existence of Jesus of Nazareth within the world of the
senses; he was, therefore, looked upon as a member of human
evolution within the ordinary and intellectual life of the senses.
[See Rudolf Steiner's, Et incarnatus est ....] Attempts
were made to uphold Christianity even in the face of the enlightened
and scientific mentality of modern times, but it was submitted to
criticism and dissolved through this critical examination; the
contents of the gospels were sieved and thus a definition was
construed, as it were, which justified to a certain extent at least
the right to point out that the super-sensible world must be the
subject of faith, of belief.
It is strange to see
the form which this development took on just about the middle of the
nineteenth century. Those who study modern spiritual science should
not overlook this stage in the development of human knowledge.
Men who have spoken extensively of the spirit and of the spiritual
life of the present, have treated in an amateurish way what has
arisen as materialism in the middle of the nineteenth century within
the evolution of mankind. Of course, it would be superficial to
remain by this materialism. But it is far more superficial to
take up an amateurish attitude towards materialism. It is
comparatively easy to acquire a few concepts which are connected with
the spirit and with spiritual life, and then to pass sentence
over what has arisen through the materialism of the nineteenth
century; but we should observe this from a different standpoint.
It is, for instance, a
fact that a thinker such as Heinrich Czolbe, and he is perhaps one of
the most significant materialistic thinkers, has given a real
definition of sensualism in his book, An Outline of
Sensualism, which was published in 1855. He states that
sensualism implies a cognitive striving which excludes the
super-sensible from the very beginning. Czolbe's system of sensualism
gives us something which seeks to explain, the world and man only
with the aid of what may be obtained through sensory observation.
We might say that this
system of sensualism is, on the one hand, superficial, but, on the
other hand, it is extraordinarily sharp. For it really attempts to
observe everything, from perception to politics, in the light of
sensualism and to describe it in such a way that an explanation
can only be given through what the senses are able to observe and the
intellect is able to combine through these sensory observations. This
book was published in 1855, when a clearly defined Darwinism did not
as yet exist, for Darwin's first epoch-making book only appeared in
1858.
Generally speaking, the
year 1858 was very trenchant in the more recent spiritual evolution.
Darwin's Origin of the Species appeared at that
time. Spectral analysis also arose at that time within the evolution
of humanity, and this has given rise to the conception that the
universe consists of the same material substances as those of
terrestrial existence. In that year the first attempt was made to
deal with the aesthetic sphere in an external, empiric manner, a
subject which in the past had always been treated in a
spiritual-intellectual manner. Gustav Theodor Fechner's Introduction
to Aesthetics was published in 1858. Finally, the attempt was
made to apply this manner of thinking, which is contained in all the
above examples, to social life. The first more important
economic book of Carl Marx also appeared in that year. This fourth
phenomenon of the modern materialistic life of the spirit thus
appears not only in the same period, but in the same year of that
period. As stated, certain things have preceded all this, for
instance, Czolbe's Sensualism.
Afterwards, the attempt
was made to permeate with materialistic world-conceptions the many
facts which were discovered at that time in regard to the external
life of the senses and we may say: The materialistic world-conception
has not been created by Darwinism, or by spectral analysis,
but the facts which Darwin had so carefully collected, the facts
which could be detected to a certain extent in spectral analysis, and
all that could be discovered in connection with certain things which
were once investigated in an entirely different manner (this may be
seen, for instance, in Fechner's Introduction to Aesthetics),
all this was immersed in the already extant conception of sensualism.
Fundamentally speaking, materialism already existed; it had its
origin in the propagation of that habit of thinking which was, in
reality, an offspring of the scholastic manner of thinking. We
do not grasp the modern development of the spirit, we do not grasp
materialism, unless we realise that it is nothing but the
continuation of medieval thinking, with the omission of the idea that
it is necessary to rise from thinking to the super-sensible with the
aid, not of human reason and human observation, but with the aid of
the revelations contained in the dogmas.
This second element has
simply been omitted. But the fundamental conviction relating to one
side of cognition, to that side which refers to the world of the
senses, this fundamental conviction has been maintained. What had
thus developed in the course of the nineteenth century, then changed
in such a way that it appeared, for instance, in the famous
Ignorabimus of du Bois-Reymond, in the early seventies. The
scholastic thinkers used to say: Human cognition, which is permeated
by the intellect, is only connected with the external world of the
senses, and everything that the human being is supposed to know in
regard to the super-sensible world must be given through the
revelation which is preserved in the dogmas. The revelation
which the dogmas have preserved has paled, but the other fundamental
conviction has been retained. This is what du Bois-Reymond
states incisively, in a modern garment, to be sure. du Bois-Reymond
applied what Scholasticism used to voice in the manner which I have
just described, in such a way that he said: It is only possible to
gain a knowledge of sensory things; we should only gain a knowledge
of sensory things, for a knowledge of the super-sensible world does
not exist.
Fundamentally speaking,
there is no difference whatever between one of the two spheres of
knowledge in Scholasticism and what has arisen, in a modern
garment, among the modern natural scientists, and
du Bois-Reymond was undoubtedly one of the most modern scientists. It is
really very important to contemplate earnestly and carefully how
the modern conception of Nature has risen out of Scholasticism,
for it is generally believed that modern natural science has arisen
in contrast to Scholasticism. Just as the modern universities cannot
deny that in their structure they originate from the Christian
schools of the Middle Ages, so the structure of modern scientific
thought cannot deny its origin from Scholasticism, except that
it has stripped off, as I have explained before, the scholastic
elaboration of concepts and the scholastic technique of thinking,
which are worthy of the greatest respect and appreciation.
This technique of
thinking has also been lost; and for this reason certain questions,
which are evident and which do not satisfy a real thinker, have
simply been overlooked with elegance in the modern scientific manner
of considering things. The spirit and the meaning contained within
this modern science of Nature, are, however, the very offspring of
Scholasticism.
But the human beings
acquired the habit of restricting themselves to the world of the
senses. This habit, to be sure, also produced excellent things, for
the human beings acquired the tendency to become thoroughly absorbed
in the facts of the sensory world. It suffices to consider that
spiritual science, the spiritual science which is orientated
towards Anthroposophy, sees in the sensory world an image of the
super-sensible world; what we encounter in the sensory world
really contains the images of the super-sensible world. If we consider
this, we shall be able to appreciate fully the importance of
penetrating into the sensory material world. We must emphasize again
and again and we should continually lay stress upon the fact that the
other form of materialism which has come to the fore in spiritism,
which seeks to cognise the spirit in a materialistic manner, is
unfruitful, because the spirit can, of course, never be seen through
the senses. and the whole method of spiritism is, therefore, a
humbug. On the other hand, we should realise that what we observe
through our ordinary, normal senses and what we elaborate from out
this sensory observation, with the aid of the intellect which
has developed in the course of human evolution, is in every way an
image of the super-sensible world, and consequently the study of this
image can, in a certain way, lead us into the super-sensible world far
better than, for instance, spiritism. In earlier times, I have often
expressed this by saying: Some people are sitting around a table in
order to summon spirits; yet, they completely overlook
the fact that there are so and so many spirits sitting around the
table! They should be conscious of their own spirit. Undoubtedly
this spirit sets forth what they should seek; but owing to the fact
that they forget their own spirit, that they are unwilling to grasp
their own spirit, they seek the spirit in a materialistic, external
manner, in spiritistic experiments which ape and imitate the
experiments made in laboratories. Materialism, which works within the
images of the super-sensible world, without being aware of the fact
that it is dealing with images of the super-sensible world, this
materialism has, after all, achieved great things through its methods
of investigation, it has achieved great and mighty things.
Of course, and in
Czolbe we may see this quite clearly, the real sensualists and
materialists have never sought a connection between that which they
obtained through their senses and the super-sensible; they merely
sought to recognise the sensory world as such, its structure and its
laws. This forms part of what has been achieved from 1840 onwards.
When Darwinism brought forward its great standpoint, Darwinism, which
had brought about the circumstance that through Darwin's person a
wealth of facts had been collected from certain standpoints, when
Darwinism made its appearance, it presented, to begin with, a
principle of research, a method of investigation.
The nineteenth century
had a few accurate natural scientists, such as Gegenbauer. Gegenbauer
never became a Darwinist in Haeckel's meaning. Gegenbauer, who
continued Goethe's work in connection with the metamorphosis of the
vertebrae and the cranium, particularly emphasized this: No matter
how the truth, the absolute truth of Darwinism may stand, it
has given rise to a method which has enabled us to align phenomena
and to compare them in such a manner that we have actually noticed
things which we would not have noticed without this method, without
the existence of Darwinism.
Gegenbauer meant to say
more or less the following: Even though everything which is contained
in the Darwin Theory were to disappear, the fact would remain that
the Darwin Theory has given rise to a definite way of handling
research, so that facts could be discovered which would
otherwise not have been found. It was, to be sure, a certain
practical application of the as-if principle.
But this practical application of the as-if principle
is not so stupid as the philosophical establishment of the
as-if principle, in the form which it took on in a
later epoch.
Thus it came about that
a peculiar structure of spiritual life arose in the second half
of the nineteenth century. In more recent times, and these do not lie
so far back, philosophy has, after all, always developed out of a
theological element. Those who fail to see the theological element in
Hume and in Kant are simply unable to have an insight into such
things. Philosophical thought has arisen altogether out of
theological thought and, in a certain way, it has elaborated certain
things in the form of intellectual concepts and these things had
almost a super-sensible colouring. In view of the fact that the things
which were dealt with in philosophy always had a super-sensible
colouring, natural science began to oppose it more and more, ever
since the middle of the nineteenth century, for the tendency towards
these super-sensible contents of human knowledge had gradually
disappeared. Natural science contained something, and it
compelled one to have confidence in it, because the contents of
natural science were substantial. The philosophical development
was powerless in the face of what was flowing into natural science
more and more abundantly, developing as far as Oken's problems, which
were grasped philosophically. It is interesting to see that the most
penetrative philosophy of the second half of the nineteenth century
calls attention to the unconscious, and no longer to the
conscious. Eduard von Hartmann's philosophy was discarded by the
intellect, because it insisted upon its right of existence as a
philosophy. The more the nineteenth century drew towards its
close, the more we watch the strange spectacle of a philosophy which
is gradually losing its contents and is gradually adopting the
attitude of having to justify its existence. The most acute
philosophers, such as Otto Liebmann, strive, above all, to
justify the existence of philosophy.
There is a real
relationship between a philosopher of Otto Liebmann's stamp, who
still tries to justify the existence of philosophy, and a philosopher
such as Richard Wahle, who wrote the book, Philosophy as
a Whole and Its End. Richard Wahle very incisively set himself
the task of demonstrating that philosophy cannot exist, and thereupon
obtained a chair of philosophy at an Austrian university, for a
branch of knowledge which, according to his demonstrations,
could not exist!
In the nineties of the
nineteenth century we may then observe a strange stage in these
results of the modern development of thought-cognition. On the one
hand, we have the natural-scientific efforts of advancing to an
encompassing world-conception and of rejecting everything connected
with revelation and the super-sensible world, and on the other hand,
we have a powerless philosophy.
This came to the fore,
one might say, particularly clearly in the nineties of the nineteenth
century, but it appears as a necessary result of the preceding course
of development. To-morrow we shall continue to examine the course of
this development. I would only like you to hold fast in particular,
that modern materialism should be considered from the following
standpoint. The things which appear in material life are an image of
the super-sensible. Man himself, in the form in which he appears
between birth and death, is an image of what he has experienced
supersensibly between his last death and his birth. These who seek
the soul within material existence, seek it in the wrong direction.
The fundamental problem
in the face of the materialism of the nineteenth century, if we
wish to grasp it historically, is: To what extent was it justified?
We grasp its historical evolution, not by opposing it, but by trying
to understand what it lacked, indeed, but what it had to lack, owing
to the fact that, during the time which immediately preceded it, the
soul-spiritual element was sought in the wrong place. People believed
that they could find the soul-spiritual by seeking it in the ordinary
way within the sensory world, through reflections of one or the other
kind, and so forth. But this is not possible. It can only be found if
we go beyond the world of the senses. Sensualism and materialism
were neither willing nor able to go beyond the world of the senses.
They remained at a standstill by the image, they thought that this
image was the reality. This is the essence, of materialism.
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