LECTURE XIII
Rudolf Steiner: Good morning, gentlemen! Has an
interesting question occurred to someone?
Question: Sir, in reference to anthroposophy:
what is it actually? What is its aim and its task in the world?
Dr. Steiner: The questioner wants to know what
anthroposophy is and what its significance is for humanity in
general. I think he means its significance also for the working
class.
It is obviously difficult to speak briefly about these
matters. Those who have been here for a considerable time will have
become more and more convinced that anthroposophy is something that
had to enter the evolution of humanity. Those who have not been here
long will naturally have some difficulty and only gradually be able
to understand.
First and foremost, we must realize that people are
little inclined to accept something new when it comes into the world.
Remarkable examples could be given of how new scientific discoveries
have been received. Think, for instance, of the extent to which
everything today has been affected by the discovery of the power of
steam and the invention of the steam engine. Think what the world
would be like today if there were no steam engines in their many
different forms! When the steam engine was first invented, a small
boat, driven by steam, made its way up a river and was smashed up by
the peasants because they said they were not going to put up with
such a thing; it was such a silly, useless thing! Nor has it always
been the peasants who behaved in that way. When an account of
meteorites was given for the first time in a learned assembly in
Paris, the lecturer was declared to be a fool. And I told you
recently about Julius Robert Mayer, who is regarded today as a most
illustrious man and a very great scholar: he was shut up in an
asylum!
The fate of the railroads has been particularly
remarkable. As you know, they have not been in existence very long;
they came into use for the first time in the 19th century. Before
that, people had to travel by stagecoach. When it was proposed to
build the first railroad between Berlin and Potsdam, the Director of
Mallcoaches
(see Note 33 )
said that two went empty from Berlin to Potsdam
every week, so he couldn't imagine what use railroads would be. It
didn't occur to him that once the railroads were there, more people
would travel by them than by the stagecoach.
Even more interesting was the attitude of a body of
medical men,
(see Note 34 )
in the forties of the 19th century. When the
railroad from Furth to Nuremberg was being built, these learned
gentlemen declared that the work should be stopped, because the speed
could very easily make a traveler ill by damaging his nerves. When
the people refused to accept this ban, they were told that high plank
walls must be erected on both sides of the tracks, in order to save
the peasants from concussion of the brain when the trains passed! You
can still read about this in delightful old documents. But despite
all this opposition, the railroads made rapid headway. And
anthroposophy, too, will make its way in the world, simply because it
is a necessity, because nothing in the world can really be understood
unless the spiritual foundation of things is recognized and known.
Anthroposophy has not come for the purpose of opposing
natural science: it has come just because natural science is there.
But science with its elaborate instruments and remarkably clever
experiments has discovered a mass of facts which — in the way
it presents them — cannot really be understood. Nor will they
ever be understood until it is realized that the spiritual world is
behind everything and within everything.
Let us take a very ordinary, practical matter: the
eating of potatoes. Once upon a time there were no potatoes in
Europe; they were introduced into Europe from foreign countries. It
is maintained that Sir Francis Drake
(see Note 35 )
introduced potatoes, but
that is not correct; they were introduced from a different source.
Yet in Offenburg there is a memorial statue of Drake. During the war
we were once obliged to stop at Offenburg, and I was curious to find
out why this statue had been erected. I looked in the encyclopedia
and there it was: A memorial statue of Drake stands in Offenburg
because he was the man who first brought potatoes to Europe.
But now what about potatoes? Suppose a scientist or a
doctor were asked to say what effect potatoes have when they are
eaten. As you know, potatoes have become a staple. In some places it
is very difficult to dissuade the people from feeding almost
exclusively on them. What does the modern scientist do when he tests
potatoes for their nutritional value? He makes a laboratory
investigation to find what substances are contained in the potato. He
finds carbohydrates, which consist of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen in
definite proportions; he also discovers that in the human body these
substances are finally transformed into a kind of sugar. But he gets
no further than that; nor can he do so. For think of this: if some
animal is fed on milk, it may thrive. But if the milk is analyzed for
its chemical components and if these chemical components are given to
the animal instead of the milk, it will waste away for lack of
nourishment. Why is that? It is because something is working in the
milk in addition to the chemical components. And in the potato, too,
there is something more than the mere chemical components: namely,
the spiritual element. A spiritual element works everywhere, in all
of nature.
If in spiritual science (anthroposophy is, after all,
only a name) genuine investigation is made into how the potato
nourishes the human being, the potato is found to be something that
is not completely digested by the digestive organs, but it passes
into the head through the lymph glands, through the blood, in such a
way that the head itself must also serve as a digestive organ for the
potato. When potatoes are eaten in large quantities, the head becomes
a kind of stomach and also digests.
There is a very great difference between eating potatoes
and, for instance, good, wholesome bread. When wholesome bread is
eaten, the material part of the rye or wheat is digested properly and
healthily in the digestive tract. And consequently only what is
spiritual in the rye or wheat comes into the head, where it belongs.
This kind of knowledge can never be derived from natural
science. When things are genuinely investigated with respect to their
spiritual quality, it becomes apparent that in this modern age
humanity has been seriously injured by the excessive consumption of
potatoes. Spiritual science finds that the eating of potatoes has
played a very large part in the general deterioration of health in
recent centuries. That is a crude example of how spiritual science
can investigate the excellent results of natural science by taking
them as the basis for its research.
But there is something else as well. Every substance in
the world can be examined to determine its spiritual quality. That is
the only way in which real remedies for illnesses can be discovered.
So spiritual science provides a very definite foundation for medicine
as well.
Spiritual science is only an extension of natural
science; it is by no means something that refutes natural science.
And besides that, we have in spiritual science something that
investigates the spiritual in a scientific way and therefore does not
ask people simply to believe things that are said. Matters of faith
are thus replaced by scientific inquiry.
It must also be said that in all provinces science
acquires a certain amount of knowledge. Humanity cannot, of course,
concern itself with scientific details, but every individual ought at
least to know something about the essential things in the world.
I'd like to tell you something that will show you how
important it is to be able to recognize how the spirit actually
works. In the year 1773, a rumor suddenly spread in Paris that a
distinguished scholar
(see Note 36 )
was to give a lecture in a certain learned
Society, in which he would prove that a comet was about to collide
with the earth and destroy it. In those days it was believed that
such a thing could be proven exactly and scientifically. So at that
time, in the 18th century, when superstition was still rife, a
terrible panic spread through the whole of Paris. If we read the
records of what happened in Paris at that time, we find that there
were enormous numbers of miscarriages: the women gave birth
prematurely out of sheer terror. People who were seriously ill, died;
others became ill because of fright. There was terrific agitation
throughout Paris because it became known that a learned man would
announce in a lecture the coming collision of a comet with the earth
and the consequent destruction of the earth. The police — who,
as you know, are ever on the alert — forbade the lecture, so
the people never discovered what the professor had intended to say.
But there was anxiety nevertheless! You may now ask: Was the
professor who wanted to give the lecture right or wrong?
Well, the matter is not quite so simple as that. For
since Copernicus propounded his new theory of the universe,
everything has become a matter of calculation, and the calculations
at that time led to the following conclusion: The sun is taken to be
the center of the universe; then come Mercury, Venus, Moon, Earth,
and Mars, then the planetoids, then Jupiter, then Saturn. And now the
comets and their orbits. And now think of it: the earth is circling
and men can calculate when it will reach a certain point where the
comet will be approaching it. Bang! — according to the
calculations-they will collide. And at that time, gentlemen, they
would actually have collided — only the comet was so small that
it dissolved in the air! Not exactly in the air over Paris, but
somewhere else. The calculation was therefore quite correct, but
there was no ground for anxiety.
In the year 1832 there was an even stranger story. For
then it was calculated that a comet — it was the Biela comet —
was about to cross the earth's orbit and would pass quite near to the
earth. This comet was not such a midget as the other, and was likely
to be more dangerous. But the calculation turned out happily, for it
showed that when the comet would be passing the earth it would still
be 13,000,000 miles away — and that's at least a tiny bit away,
don't you think? So there was no need to fear that the earth would be
demolished. But even so, the people were very alarmed at the time,
because heavenly bodies are mutually attracted to each other, and it
had to be expected that the comet would cause great convulsions in
the oceans and seas through the force of gravity, and so on. Nothing
very special happened-there was, it is true, a general unrest in
nature, but nothing of particular interest. The comet was 13,000,000
miles away — the sun is thirteen times farther away — so
no harm was done to the earth at that time.
In 1872, when I was a boy living with my parents at a
small railroad station, we were always reading in the papers: “The
world is going to be destroyed!” — for the comet was due
to appear again. Certain comets always do return, and this one, on
its return, would now be nearer to the earth and therefore more
dangerous. This remarkable comet had already come in 1845/46 and
again in 1852 — but it had then split in two! Each half had
become more rarefied in consequence of the split. And what was there
to be seen in 1872? Something like a gleaming rain of shooting stars,
a great number of shooting stars! The comet had indeed come nearer
but it had split and was throwing off rarefied matter that came down
like shining rain. Everyone could see it, for when such a tremendous
array of shooting stars occurs in the night, they can be seen coming
down from the sky. And some people who saw this happening believed
that the Day of judgment had come. Again there was great alarm.
However, the shooting stars dissolved in the atmosphere.
Now think of this: If the comet had remained whole, our
earth would have suffered badly in the year 1872. As I said, papers
reached our station announcing the imminent destruction of the earth.
The astronomers had calculated the time. According to scientific
reckoning this was quite correct. And it really would not do to put
on record how many people at that time paid large fees to their
priests — to be safely absolved from their sins. In 1773 too,
in Paris, the father-confessors had made a great deal of money
because the people wanted to be absolved from their sins immediately!
There was an astronomer called Littrow
(see Note 37 )
who made a noteworthy calculation about what would have happened if things
had remained as they were in the year 1832, that is, if the comet had not
split up as it subsequently did. In the 19th century it was still
thirteen million miles away from the earth, but every time it came it
came closer. Littrow reckoned quite correctly that in September 1872
there would be the danger of the comet colliding with the earth. If
the comet had then reached the point which as a matter of fact it did
not actually reach in that year until November 27th, it
would not just have been a matter of meteor showers but it would have
been a serious matter. Such things do indeed happen. Littrow
calculated that in 1933 (we are now in 1924), if the comet had
remained as it still was in the 18th century, a collision would be
inevitable and the earth would be demolished. The calculation was
correct to the breadth of a hair. But the comet had not remained as
it was! And so already at that time people could say: The comet has
been merciful, for if it were still fiery, in 1933 it would be
striking the earth in such a way that all the seas would surge from
the equator to the North Pole and the whole earth would perish. Yes,
the comet split up and it threw off the substance that had become too
heavy for it, in the form of meteor stones that are not harmful.
So you see, we are living at a time when we can say: If
that comet had not been merciful, none of us would be sitting here
today! That is a fact. What has finally happened is this: The comet
no longer appears as a comet, but on those dates when in the ordinary
course of events it would have appeared, there are always showers of
meteors. Gradually through the centuries it is throwing off its
entire substance. Soon it will no longer be visible because it will
have given up its substance to the universe and to the earth.
But now I want to show you the other side of this
matter. It is obvious that in the process of human evolution man's
spiritual faculties are constantly changing. Those who do not believe
this simply do not understand the spiritual evolution of mankind. For
think of it: All our modern discoveries would have been made long ago
if men had possessed the same spiritual faculties that they possess
today. In ancient times their spiritual faculties were not less, but
they were different. I have explained this to you in the most various
ways, also in answer to questions on the subject.
And now to return to the comets. The comet of which I've
been speaking is not the only one that was merciful enough to split
up and dissolve in cosmic space at the right time. There is a large
number of other comets that have done the same. A great deal of
superstition has always been connected with the subject of comets.
Anthroposophy approaches the matter in an absolutely scientific way.
But now, what will happen if we go on developing in the
same direction as we are developing today? Mankind is now so
dreadfully clever! Just compare a man of today with all his
cleverness, with all that he has learnt in school, with someone
living in the 12th or 13th century, when very, very few people could
write. Think of this: there is a beautiful poem by Wolfram von Eschenbach,
(see Note 38 )
who was a nobleman of the 13th century. He composed
the poem, but he could not write, so he was obliged to call in a
priest to whom he dictated it. And that poem was the “Parzival”
from which Wagner composed his opera. So you see, in those days
people had different faculties. We need to go no further back than
the 12th or 13th century. At that time a nobleman could not write.
Wolfram von Eschenbach could read but not write.
These faculties of ours do not come to us ready-made;
they are developed. And if we continue our present way of living,
when between the ages of seven and fourteen we are crammed with
scientific knowledge of every kind – there is, of course, a
good side to this as well — we'll gradually all suffer from
something that was previously quite unknown and that is now so
prevalent. We'll all suffer from what you call “nerves”,
from nervous illnesses. This shows you that those wise doctors in the
forties of the last century who believed so “stupidly”
that people would not be able to live if railroads were built, were —
from the knowledge they had — not so stupid after all! For
everything they knew at that time convinced them that if a man
travels in trains, he will eventually become utterly incapable of
work, lose his memory, exhaust his nerves and become shaky and
abnormally restless. The science of their day justified them in their
conviction. Moreover, what they said was correct, absolutely correct.
But there is one thing they left out of account. People
have indeed become more nervous. You yourselves, when you get home
from work, are not quite like the people of the thirties and forties
of the last century who would simply put on their nightcaps in the
evening and be snug and cozy without any trace of “nerves”.
The world has certainly changed in this respect. But what was it that
those Nuremberg doctors could not know at that time? They could not
know that while they were learning all these things from their
science, the comet was already in the process of dissolving. And what
has the comet done? It gives us the meteors, the fine meteor rain.
Instead of colliding with the earth and breaking people's heads it is
giving all its substance away, and this substance, every piece of it,
is in the earth. Every few years the comet gives something to the
earth. And people who want to live by science alone and who will not
admit that the earth receives something from the cosmos are every bit
as stupid as someone who would say that when a person eats a piece of
bread, it is not in him. Obviously, what the comet gives us is in the
earth, but science takes no notice of it. Where, then, is it to be
found? It goes into the air, is passed from the air into the water,
from the water into the roots of the plants, from the roots of the
plant into the food on our tables. From there it passes into our
bodies. We eat what the comet has been giving us for centuries! This,
however, has long been spiritualized. Instead of the comet putting an
end to the earth in 1933, its substance has long been in the earth as
a means of earthly nourishment, and it is a remedy, a cosmic remedy:
it alleviates nervous troubles in human beings.
There, you see, you have a little piece of history. The
comets appear out there in the heavens, and after a time they find
their way into us out of the earth. By that time their substance has
become spiritualized.
Such things play a real part in human life. History can
no longer be presented as it is still being presented by those who
want to be philistines; account must now be taken of what is going on
in the world spiritually. That is possible only when light is shed
upon the world through anthroposophy. You may say: Oh, well, life
will go on just the same. All that comet business shows that it
doesn't matter if we're stupid, and there is no need for us to bother
about it! Although people want to be enlightened, in practice they
are dreadfully fatalistic, thinking that everything in the world will
go on “as it is meant to.” Well, perhaps — but
there is also the opportunity either to take up a true science or to
ignore it.
You recall, gentlemen, that for years I gave lectures to
workers.
(see Note 39 )
And I often called attention to a splendid lecture given by Lassalle
(see Note 40 )
in 1863 entitled “Science and the
Worker”. I don't know whether there is still any widespread
knowledge of it, but in the meantime I've grown older and I've
witnessed the rise of the labor movement. From my parents' house in
the early seventies of the last century I could look out the window
and watch the first Social Democrats — they still wore big
hats, “democratic hats” — marching out into the
woods where they held their meetings. So I've seen all stages in the
development of the movement. At that time Lassalle was still greatly
venerated; wherever workers' meetings took place, busts of him were
displayed. Today these things have been more or less forgotten, for
fifty years have elapsed since then. I was ten or eleven years old at
the time, but I was already paying attention to what was happening.
Lassalle had given this lecture, Science and the Worker, about eight
or nine years earlier. In it he had stressed that science is
absolutely crucial for the solution of the whole labor problem and
that out of science the workers have developed a social outlook that
has occurred to no one else. In a certain sense this was an extremely
important thing that he said.
But now think what has happened since that time. I ask
you: Are you satisfied? Can you be satisfied with the way the labor
problem has developed, with the form it has taken? Are there not many
widespread complaints about the way the workers are tyrannized by
their labor unions and so forth? These things are in the air and the
worker is aware of them. But what he does not perceive is where these
conditions come from. Where do they come from? The answer is that in
very fact the solution of the labor problem cannot be found without
science. Formerly, these problems were solved through religion and
the like; today they must be dealt with by means of science. But this
requires genuinely scientific thinking — which was nowhere to
be found because attention was invariably riveted upon matter, and
science itself was sheer materialism. Nothing that is contained in
our social problems will ever be solved until science becomes
spiritual again.
This can happen only when science is prepared to look
for the spiritual element in every single thing — whether it be
a potato or a comet. For spiritual knowledge alone enables us to
investigate the true connections of things. The true connections of
social problems, too, can only be discovered through spiritual
knowledge. These connections must be fully understood; and when they
are, it will be found that the things which have been brought into
prominence through Marxism, for example, were extremely well-meant,
but they were based upon an erroneous science. I will show you in
what respect this was the case. Nothing that is based on an erroneous
science can really prosper.
Marx's arguments and calculations are uncommonly astute,
uncommonly clever, and cannot be denied, because the principles upon
which he bases them are from a science that is purely materialistic.
Everything tallies, just as it tallied for the astronomers who
calculated that the comet would collide with the earth in 1773, but
then actually the comet had dissolved to such an extent that no harm
was done to the earth! (This was the earlier, not the later comet.)
The conclusions reached by Marx are based upon an equally meticulous
but equally incomplete science.
One of his calculations was the following. He said: When
a man is working, he uses up inner forces. The forces are given up to
his work and in the evening he is fatigued. During the day he has
used up a definite quantity of force or energy. Naturally, the worker
needs something that enables his forces to be restored. It can be
calculated with exactitude how much pay will make it possible for the
worker to restore his forces. Yes, but along these lines expounded by
Marx, does one really get at the right and proper wage for labor? The
question is: Does one get at it in that way? Obviously, up to now no
great progress has been made in this direction, but the fact is that
it simply cannot be got at in that way — because although the
science itself is admirable, it is untrue.
Think of someone who does no work the whole day long,
someone who has private wealth. He can go for walks, or he can move
from one armchair to another — and from morning till night he's
using up his forces just the same. I've noticed at workers' concerts
that those who had been working all day were much less fatigued than
the well-to-do people who had done nothing at all. The latter kept
yawning, while the others were bright and lively.
You see, there is an error in the calculation. The
forces used up inwardly in our organism are not the ones we use in
our outer work or labor. That is why the calculation cannot be based
on scientific foundations. The whole matter must be approached in a
different way; it must be based upon the intrinsic dignity of man,
upon his rights as a human being, and so forth. The same applies in
many other spheres. And the consequence is that science, as it has
presented itself up to the present day, is responsible for dreadful
confusion of thought, for ignorance in the social field.
Spiritual science will show you what nutritive value
there is in potatoes, in cabbage, in salt, and so on. And then you
can get at what the human being needs in order to be healthy and to
thrive. You can only get at this through spiritual science, only on
the basis of knowledge that comes from spiritual science. Then you
can proceed to the study of social problems. And then the labor
problem will look quite different. It will finally be given a sounder
basis, because everything in connection with it will be looked at
from a spiritual point of view.
People today simply don't understand how things are
connected in this world; they believe everything goes on just as it
is. But that is not true. People must understand how things in the
world are constantly changing. And the greatest misfortune, one might
say, is that in earlier times humanity was superstitious and now it
is scientific! For little by little, superstition has crept into
science itself. Today we have a natural science that is full of
superstitions. People believe that when their stomach is full of
potatoes, they have had a nourishing meal. The truth is that the
health of their head is impaired, because the head itself then has to
become a digestive organ.
Thus all problems should be dealt with in such a way
that the spiritual aspect is not ignored as it has been for a long
time now. It should be included in every consideration. In the
sixties and seventies of the last century, people said: The worker
must have science! — and rightly so. But it must be a true
science. In those days it was not in existence. Now it is to be
found in spiritual science, which has the name, anthroposophy.
Anthroposophy refuses to put the cart before the horse as was done
formerly. It will put spirit before matter, where it belongs. Then
people will discover how things really are. And they will find proper
educational methods. There will be a pedagogy that educates children
as they really should be educated. Upon that, very much, very much
indeed depends. And then human beings will find their right place in
society.
In a single hour, naturally, I can give no more than
hints; but we have arranged these lectures so that you could indicate
by your questions what you want me to talk about. And so perhaps I
should speak further on today's subject in the next session. Today I
could only lay the foundation. But at least you have been able to
glean something as to the real aim of spiritual science.
So we'll meet again next Wednesday.
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