Afterword
B Y
means of the details given in this booklet, it was to be shown how
antbroposophical spiritual science receives its form at the
present time as knowledge of the spiritual world, by going along
lines which can hold their own by the side of the authorised lines of
a scientific way of looking at things. In order to penetrate into the
spiritual world in just as trustworthy a manner as natural science
does into the world of matter, spiritual science must take paths
which are different from those of natural science. In order to
satisfy in a spiritual sphere the same demands which natural science
satisfies in its sphere, it must work with faculties of perception
and knowledge which are adapted to the spiritual, just as those of
natural science are adapted to nature. A spiritual science with aims
such as these cannot in any way be confused with more ancient
tendencies of thought such as the Gnosis, etc. We can observe how in
the course of modern times the effort to arrive at it appears quite
clearly. Therefore it does not come forth as something which is
voluntarily fabricated at the present time, but as the fulfilment of
hopes which can be observed in
the mental development of the West. Many things might be adduced
to prove this; but we will only give two examples here, which show
that “Anthroposophy” is something that has been thought
about for a long time. Troxler, a thinker of the first half of
the nineteenth century who is much under-estimated, published his
Vorlesungen über Philosophie in 1835. In this work there
is the sentence, “Although it is highly gratifying that the
latest philosophy ... winds upwards in every Anthroposophy,
i.e., it must be revealed in poetry as well as in history, we must
not overlook the fact that this idea cannot be the fruit of
speculation, and the true personality or individuality of man
may not be confused either with what it sets up as subjective spirit
or final ego, or with what it contrasts with this as absolute spirit
or absolute personality.” What Troxler brings forward regarding
his idea of Anthroposophy is confined to statements which clearly
show how close he is to the acceptance of principles of human nature
beyond the physical body. He says, “In earlier times
philosophers differentiated a delicate, sublime soul-body from the
grosser body. This they considered to be a sort of vehicle of the
spirit, and it was an image of the body. They called it the pattern,
and looked upon it as the inner, higher man.” The
connection in which these words are found in Troxler's work, and the
whole of his conception of the world, testify that we may see in
his case aspirations which are fulfilled in the spiritual science
indicated in this booklet. Only, as Troxler is not in the position to
recognise that Anthroposophy is only possible through the development
of soul-capacities in the direction indicated in this booklet, his
own views relapse to points of view which, as compared with
those attained by J. G. Fichte, Schelling and Hegel are not an
advance, but retrogression. (See my book
Die Rätsel der Philosophie.)
In the work of J. H. Fichte, the son of the great
philosopher, viz., in his
Anthropologie,
second edition 1860,
page 608, we find the following sentences, “Anthropology ends
in the result which is confirmed from various quarters, that the true
nature of man's being and the real source of his consciousness belong
to a super-sensible world. But sense-consciousness and the phenomenal
world which appears before his eyes, together with the whole of the
life of the senses, have no other importance than merely to be
the place where that super-sensible life of the spirit is realised, by
his bringing the spiritual contents of ideas into the sense-world
through his own free, conscious act. ... The final result
of this fundamental comprehension of human nature raises
‘Anthropology’ to ‘Anthroposophy.’“
In connection with the explanation of these sentences J. H. Fichte
says (p. 609), “Thus, finally, Anthroposophy itself is only
able to find its final conclusion in Theosophy.” The
reasons why J. H. Fichte with his own view of the world did not
arrive at Anthroposophy, but fell behind J. G. Fichte, Schelling and
Hegel, are the same as in Troxler's case. For the present we will
only give these two examples out of a multitude of facts contained in
the history of the spiritual development of mankind, which could be
adduced to prove that the anthroposophical spiritual science
characterised in this booklet responds to a scientific tendency
which has existed for a long time.
In a lecture which I gave in 1902 before the Giordano Bruno Union, I
referred to these statements by J. H. Fichte (which seemed to me to
be the expression of a modern intellectual movement, not merely
of an individual opinion); that was the time when a beginning was
made with what now appears as the anthroposophical way of looking at
things. From this it may be seen that we had in view the extension of
the modern tendency of thought to the genuine observation of
spiritual reality. We did not try to bring forth certain views out of
the publications then called “theosophical” (and still so
named at the present time), but we strove to continue the aspirations
given birth to by modern philosophers, aspirations which, however, in
their case remained in abstractions, and thus did not gain entrance
to the true spiritual world. At the same time, this continuation
seemed to me to be an extension of the view which Gœthe,
placing it at the foundation of his view of nature, which he
described as being “in accordance with the spirit,” did
not actually express, but felt. One who has followed my
writings and lectures may gather all this from them; and I would not
specially mention this matter if the misrepresentation of the truth
were not brought up again and again, when it is said that I have
changed from all that I wrote and said formerly and have turned to
the views represented in the works of Blavatsky and Besant. One who
carefully studies, for example, my Theosophy, will find that
everything contained in it is developed in accordance with and as a
continuation of the above-described direction of modern thought;
he will find that the matters dealt with are presented in accordance
with certain presuppositions contained in Gœthe's conception of
the world, and that only in certain places is it mentioned that ideas
which I had arrived at (etheric body, sensation body, etc.), are also
to be found in literature which is called theosophical. I know that
by these explanations I shall not be able to do away with certain
attacks made against me again and again, for in many cases these
attacks are not made in order to arrive at the actual facts of the
matter, but for something entirely different. But what can be done in
the face of ever-recurring inexactitudes? Nothing can be done but to
reiterate the truth!
The searcher who works on the basis of the kind of knowledge
indicated in this booklet sees that the method of his investigations
is in complete accord with the endeavours of present-day natural
science. But he knows that these endeavours
of natural science must everywhere come to a stand-still or run into
blind alleys if they do not meet what spiritual science can bring to
light from opposite starting-points. A true view of the matter would
look upon both directions of work as being like the boring of a
tunnel, which commences from opposite directions, but, when the
work is properly arranged, the two parties meet. The facts of
contemporary work fully confirm this view. It is only misled
opinions-regarding these facts which deny this and presume that
spiritual science and natural science contradict each other. This
contradiction, however, does not really exist. We have a brilliant
example of the importance of the meeting of natural science and
spiritual science in a book which has just been published, in, my
opinion an epoch-making book.
Vom Schaltwerk der Gedanken: Neue Einsichten und Betrachtungen
über die Seele,
by Karl Ludwig Schleich.
If you read the important chapter on “Hysteria
— a metaphysical problem,” you will see how a
practical physician, who is at the same time a penetrating thinker,
confronts facts which can only be fully elucidated by spiritual
science, facts which compel him to say: “In the production of
tissue through the impulse of hysteria we have the metaphysical
problem of incarnation,” in “mediumistic vision, a kind
of clairvoyance of possibilities of disease.” But a person
would be under one of the very worst of illusions if he seriously
thought that without the results of spiritual science he could
explain all the actual experiences of man by the facts discovered by
natural science. The scientist who refuses to consider spiritual
science is like a man who has a piece of magnetic iron in his hand,
but has no notion of magnetism and only uses the iron for an
instrument in which magnetism plays no part. What would have come out
of it if he had put the magnetism and not the material iron to some
use? If you also read in Schleich's book the chapter on “The
myth of the change of matter in the brain,” you will see for
yourself how, by constraint of thought, the scientific physician
comes to a formal description of what spiritual science — from
a comprehensive presentation of spirit-life — appropriately
describes as the etheric body of man. It is interesting to notice how
this particular chapter in Schleich's book shows that at the present
time natural science and spiritual science often talk in vain,
because the co-operation of natural scientists and spiritual
scientists in intellectual affairs is so difficult, on account of the
dissipation of our intellectual life. Here we come to the painful
thought: How different these things would be if scientists were
really to become acquainted with spiritual science, instead of
passing it by and leaving it to the foolish misrepresentations of
those who act in accordance with the axiom: “Do not examine,
but keep your irrelevant, prejudiced verdict!” At the close of
the above-mentioned chapter Schleich says — and the case is
important, because there is no question of ill-will, it is the
statement of an upright, true investigator — “If Gœthe,
that seer and prophet, observed so many connections in nature
and demonstrated that the skull with all its parts
is nothing but an expanded cervical vertebra, because all the
constituent parts of the latter can be traced in the bony covering of
the brain, it would not surprise me if the thought I have just
expressed, namely, of the heaping up of the brain out of the elements
of the spinal marrow, did not also slip into the labyrinth of his
thought. I should not be surprised if some day a slip of paper by
Gœthe on this subject was found.” Such is our
intellectual co-operation at the present time! In 1916 an honest
searcher expects that some time a scrap of paper of Gœthe's
will be found. But this was found by me as long ago as 1891. In the
Gœian Annual
for 1892, page 175, in the article
Gœthe as Anatomist,
written by Professor K. v. Bardeleben, you
will read, “The fact that Gœthe occupied himself not only
with Osteology, but also with the ligaments, the muscles, as well as
the brain, is shown by various notes, most of them on loose leaves. In the
Venetian Diary
for 1790 R. Steiner found the following
sentence, which may be closely connected with Gœthe's thought
on the vertebral nature of the skull-bones: ‘The brain itself
is only a large principal ganglion. The organisation of the brain is
repeated in each ganglion, so that each ganglion is to be looked upon
as a small subordinate brain.’“ On the basis of this and
similar things which I found, I was able to write in 1897 in my book,
Gœthe's Weltanschauung,
out of purely scientific thought,
“Each nerve-centre in the ganglia was to him (Gœthe)
a brain at a lower stage.” And this, in addition to many other
things in connection with it, I have often mentioned since. This is
only intended to be a small example of the manner in which
investigators talk in vain in our pursuit of modern science. I
shall certainly be the last to reproach Schleich for not knowing
Gœthe's Annual
for 1892 and my book of 1897; the
uncertainty in our pursuit of science comes not from people but from
the conditions.
In this booklet it has been pointed out how unfounded is all
antagonism to spiritual science proceeding from religious points of
view. We mentioned the excellent rectorial address given in 1894 by a
catholic priest who was professor to the theological faculty at
Vienna University. We are referring to Doctor Laurenz Müllner
and his discourse on
Galileo's Importance to Philosophy.
In this address Doctor Milliner, who has remained a faithful son of his
Church, says the following: “Thus a new conception of the world
appeared (he is referring to the Galileo-Copernican view), which in
many points was apparently at variance with opinions regarding
which it was asserted, with very questionable right, that they
proceeded from the doctrines of Christianity. It was much more a
question of the contrast of the widened world-consciousness of the
modern age to the more limited one of the antique, a
contrast to the Greek, but not to the rightly understood Christian
conception of the world, which could only see fresh marvels of
divine power and wisdom in the newly discovered starry worlds,
whereby the miracle of divine love accomplished on earth could only
acquire greater importance.” In a similar manner with respect
to the relation of spiritual science to religion it may be said that
this spiritual science is often apparently at variance with opinions
which are often represented as belonging to Christianity, but which
with very questionable right assert their origin in the doctrines of
Christianity. It is more a question of the contrast of the
world-consciousness of our modern age which has extended into
spiritual reality, to the narrowly limited natural-scientific
consciousness of the last few centuries, but not to the rightly
understood Christian conception of the world, which should only see
in the spirit-worlds of Anthroposophy new marvels of divine power and
wisdom, whereby the miracle of divine love accomplished in the world
of sense can only acquire enhanced importance. As soon as in certain
directions there is a fundamental insight into spiritual science such
as was possessed by the above-mentioned noble priest and theologian,
Laurenz Milliner, into modern natural science, all the attacks which
are often made in such an unfounded manner upon spiritual science
from the standpoint of religion will cease.
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