Lecture One by Rudolf Steiner given in Berlin, 6 March 1922
“Anthroposophy and Natural Science.”
Welcome, all who are present here! It was the wish of the
committees of this High School week that I give an introduction
each day regarding the course which will take place in a
scientifically orientated process. It will be conducted with
the aim of Anthroposophy fructifying the individual branches of
science and of life, and with these introductory words I ask
you to take up this first lecture.
What has surprised me the most at the reception of the
anthroposophical research method is the opposition,
particularly from the philosophic-natural scientific side
— I'm not only saying the natural scientific side —
brought against Anthroposophy, and it stems from a basic belief
that Anthroposophy's methods stand in an unauthorised, opposing
position to those of natural science which has developed
exponentially in the last century, particularly the
19th Century. It seems to me that among all the
various things related to Anthroposophy which our
contemporaries find the most difficult to understand, is this,
that Anthroposophy in relation to natural science doesn't want
anything other than that the methods used by natural science
which have proved so fruitful, be developed further in a
corresponding manner. In any case, with the idea of further
development something else needs understanding, if one wants to
arrive at an anthroposophic understanding, than that which one
usually calls further evolution from a theoretical point of
view.
Further development from a theoretical point of view for most
people means that the particular way thoughts are linked
— particularly if I may express it as the field of
thought — remains constant, also when relevant thought
systems expand to other areas of the world's phenomena. So for
instance when you engage scientifically with lifeless,
inorganic nature you necessarily come to linking thoughts, to a
certain field of thought, which means the sum of linking
thoughts is a foundation, in order to gradually arrive at a
theory about lifeless, inorganic nature. This system of
thoughts, as it stands, you now want to extend when you enter
another sphere of the world, for example the sphere of organic
phenomena in nature, in order to understand it. You would want
with this causal orientation, which has proved itself so
fruitful in the inorganic area, to simply apply it to living
beings and in the same terms, drenching and explaining it, thus
gradually conceptualising the sphere of the living beings
similarly into an effective system derived from inorganic
causalities which you would be doing with regard to lifeless,
inorganic nature. What you have appropriated as a system of
thought derived from lifeless nature, you simply apply to
organic nature. This is what is usually understood today, as
the ‘expansion’ of thoughts and theories.
This is of course quite the opposite of what Anthroposophy
regards under such an idea as the expansion of thinking. A
fully rounded concept of an independently developed, self
metamorphosed idea need to be contained, so that if you want to
go from one sphere of world phenomena into another, that you
don't merely apply what you have learnt from lifeless natural
phenomena, and — I could call it “logically apply” —
it on to life-filled phenomena in nature. By comparison, just
as things change in the living world, growing, going through
metamorphosis, and how they often become unrecognisable from
one form into another, so thoughts should also take on other
forms when they enter into other spheres. One thing remains the
same in all spheres which is what gives the scientific point of
view its monistic and methodical character, it's the manner and
way in which you can position yourself internally to what can
be called “scientific certainty” which forms the
basis of scientific convictions.
Whoever wants to find proof why one can't use concepts gleaned
from lifeless nature, concepts which are applied through habits,
in which to verify human causalities — if I may use
Du Bois-Reymond's
expression — whoever gets to
know this intimately, can then shift over to quite different
concepts, concepts which are metamorphosed from earlier
concepts, and sound convincing in the world of the living. The
way in which the human being is positioned within the
scientific movement is completely monistic right though the
entire scientific world view. This is usually misunderstood and
results in the anthroposophic-scientific viewpoint not having a
monistic but a dualistic character.
The
second item which commonly leads to misunderstandings is
phenomenology, to which Anthroposophy with regard to natural
science must submit. We are experiencing a fruitful time of
scientific developments, a time in which the important
scientific researcher
Virchow
gave his lecture regarding
the separation of the philosophic world view from that of the
natural scientific view, how everything had been conquered
which at that time had a certain historic rating of fruitful
concepts regarding the inorganic, resulting in a certain
rationalism being established in science. This period which
worked on the one side earnestly from empiricism against the
outer world of facts, this still went over to a far-reaching
rationalism when it came down to it to elucidate the
empirically explored facts of nature.
By
contrast we now have the standpoint of Anthroposophy which
comes from — at least for me it comes from this, if I
might make a personal remark — from the Goethean
conception of nature. Anthroposophy stands on the basis of a
phenomenological concept of nature. In a certain way this
phenomenology of recent times was established again by
Ernst Mach,
and as he established it, he again appeared to reveal
fertile points of view, if one complies with his boundaries.
For Goethe it simply lies in his words: The world of
appearances is theory enough, one doesn't even need to
subscribe to artificial theories. The blue of the sky is a
phenomenon which stops there and one can't condescend in a
rational way through mere thoughts behind the appearance by
looking for hypothetical, assumed reasons for explanations.
Goethe arrived at this point by establishing what he called the
‘Ur-phenomenon’
(“Urphänomen”
or ‘Original Phenomenon’).
It is self explanatory that in the course of the
fertile time for science in the 19th Century, much
of which has become obsolete, what Goethe envisaged for natural
science was the following: The methodical, the way of thinking
itself which Goethe introduced into natural science is not only
overhauled today but it appears to me to be not sufficiently
understood.
I
know very well how in the 19th Century several
— one could say nearly all — of the details of
Goethe's interpretations regarding natural scientific things
have been overhauled. Despite that, I would like to sustain a
sentence today which I made in the eighties of the previous
(19th) Century in relation to Goethe's concept of
nature: ‘Goethe is the Copernicus and Kepler of organic natural
science.’ I want to still support this sentence today because I
believe the following is justified by it.
What is it that lets us finally arrive at a true perception of
nature on which so much of the 19th Century had been
achieved? What I'm referring to can't but be set within the
boundary of a historic category. What has been achieved through
science during the 19th century nearly always refers
back to the application of mathematical methods because even
where pure mathematics aren't applied, but thoughts steered
according to other principles of causality, where theories are
developed, here the mathematical way of thinking forms a
basis.
It
is significant in what happened: we have seen in the course of
the 19th Century how certain parties of science in a certain
rationalistic way had to form a foundation by the introduction
of mathematics. The Kantian saying claims that there is only as
much certainty in a science as there is mathematics contained
within it. Now obviously mathematics can be introduced into
everything. Claims of causality go further than possible
mathematical developments of concepts. However, what has been
done in terms of explanations of causality was done extensively
according to the pattern of mathematical conceptions. When
Ernst Mach became involved, considering it with his more
phenomenological viewpoint of these concepts of causality, as
it had developed in the course of the 19th Century,
he wanted to arrive at a certain causal understanding of the
contents. Finally he declared: ‘When I consider a process and
its cause, there is actually nothing different between it and a
mathematical function. For instance, if I say: X equals Y,
while X is the cause under the influence of the working called
Y, then I have taken the entire thing back to the concept which
I have in mathematics, when I created a concept of function. It
can also be seen in the history of science, how the concept of
mathematics has been brought into the sphere of science.’
Now
Goethe is usually regarded — with a certain right —
as a non-mathematician; he even called himself as such.
However, if one places Goethe there as a non-mathematician,
then misunderstandings arise — somewhat in the sense that
Goethe couldn't achieve much with mathematical details, that he
was not particularly talented in his time to solve mathematical
problems. That may of course be admitted. I also don't believe
Goethe in his total being had particular patience to solve
detailed mathematical examples, if it was more algebraic. That
has to be admitted. However, Goethe had in a certain sense, as
paradoxical as it might sound, more of a mathematician's brain
than some mathematicians; because he had fine insight into
mathematized nature, in the nature of building mathematical
concepts, and he prized this way of thinking, which lives
within the soul process also with the content of imagination
when concepts are created.
The
mathematician, when building concepts, scrutinizes everything
internally. Take for instance a simple example of Euclidean
geometry which proves that the three angles of a triangle
amounts to 180 degrees, where, by drawing a line parallel to
the base line, through the tip of the triangle, two angles are
created, which are equal to the other two angles in the
triangle — the angle in the tip remains the same of
course — and how one can see that these three corners at
the top add to 180 degrees, being the total of all the corners
of the triangle. When you consider this, you can see that with
a mathematical proof you have simultaneously something which is
not dependent on outer perception but it is completely observed
as an inner creation. If you then have an outer triangle you
will find that the outer facts can be verified with one's
previous inner scrutiny. That is so with all mathematics.
Everything remains the same, no perception of the senses need
to be added to it in order to arrive at what is called a
“proof”, that everything which has been discovered
internally can be verified, piece-by-piece.
It
is this particular kind of mathematics which Goethe regarded as
eminently scientific and insofar he actually had a good
mathematical brain. This for example also leads to the basis of
the famous lectures which Goethe and Schiller, during the time
of their blossoming friendship, had led regarding the method of
scientific consideration. They had both attended a lecture held
by the researcher
Batsch
in the Jena based
Naturforschenden Gesellschaft
(Nature's Investigator's Club — Wikepedia: August J G Batsch).
As they departed from
the lecture, Schiller said to Goethe that the content of what
they had heard was a very fragmentary method of observing
nature, it didn't bring one to a whole. — One can imagine
that Batsch simply took single natural objects and ordered them
one below another and refrained, as befitted most researchers
at the time, from ordering them somehow which could lead to an
overall view of nature. Schiller found this unsatisfactory and
told Goethe. Goethe said he understood how a certain
unification, a certain wholeness had to be brought into
observations of nature. Thus, he began with a few lines —
he narrates this himself — to draw the
“Urpflanze” (Original Plant), how it can be thought
about, looked at inwardly — not like some or other plant
encountered in the day, but how it could be regarded inwardly
through the root, stem, leaves, flowers and fruit.
In
my introduction to Goethe's “Naturwissenschaftlichen
Schriften” (Natural Scientific Notes) of the 80's of the
previous (19th) century, I tried to copy the image
which Goethe presented to Schiller on paper. — Schiller
looked at it and said, as was his way of expressing himself:
‘This is no experience, this is an idea.’ Schiller actually
meant that if one made a drawing of something like that, it had
been spun out of oneself, it is good as an idea and as a
thought but in reality, it has no source. Goethe couldn't
understand this way of thinking at all, and finally the
conversation was concluded by his reply: ‘If that is the case
then I can see my ideas with my eyes.’
What did Goethe mean by this? He meant — but hadn't
expressed it like this, he meant: ‘When I draw a triangle its
corners add up to 180 degrees by themselves; when I have seen
as many triangles and constructed them within me, the sum of
all triangles fit on to this triangle, I have in this way
gained something from within which fits the totality of my
experiences.’ In this way Goethe wanted to draw his
“Urpflanze” according to the
“Ur-triangle” and this Ur-plant would have such
characteristics that one could find it in all individual
plants. Just as the sum of the triangle's corners, when you
draw the Ur-triangle, amounts to 180 degrees, so also this
ideal image of the Ur-plant would be rediscovered in each plant
if you go through an entire row of plants.
In
this manner Goethe wanted all of science to take shape.
Essentially he wanted — but he couldn't continue —
to let organic science be developed and introduce such methods
of thinking as had been proven so fruitful for inorganic
science. One can very clearly see, when Goethe writes about
Italy, how he developed the idea of the Ur-plant ever further.
He more or less said: ‘Here among the plants in South Italy and
Sicily in the multiplicity of the plant world the Ur-plant rose
up for me specially, and it must surely find an image which all
actual plants possibly have within them, an image in which many
different sides may appear taking on this or that, adapting
elongated or other plant forms, soon forming the flower, soon
the fruit and more, and so on — just like a triangle can
have sharp or blunt corners.’ Goethe searched for an image
according to which all plants could be formed. It is quite
incorrect when later,
Schieiden
[Matthias Jakob Schieiden (1804-1881), botanist,
Physician and lawyer. — “The plant and Its Life”,
6th edition of Leipzig 1864, Lecture 4: “The Morphology of
Plants”, p. 86: “The idea of such laws for the design
of the plant was first developed by Goethe in his idea of
‘Urpflanz’, what he put forth as the primal, or ideal
plant. That realization was, as it were, the task of nature, and
which she more or less has completely achieved completely.”]
indicated that Goethe
was looking for an actual plant to fit his Ur-plant. This is
not correct — just as when a mathematician, when speaking
about a triangle, doesn't have a particular triangle in mind
— so Goethe was referring to an image, which, proven
inwardly, could actually be verified everywhere in the outer
world.
Goethe basically had a mathematical brain, much more
mathematical than those who develop Astronomy. That's the
essence. This led to Goethe, in his conversation with Schiller,
to say: ‘Then I see my ideas with my eyes.’ He saw them with
his eyes because he could pursue them everywhere in the
phenomena. He didn't go along with anything only being an
“idea”, because he found complete resonance in the
experience of building an idea; just like a mathematician
senses harmony within the experience of creating mathematical
ideas. This led Goethe, if I might say so, through an inner
consequence to arrive at mere phenomenology, that means not
trying to find anything behind appearances as such, above all
not to create a rationalistic world of atoms.
Here one enters into the area where many — I can but say
it — misunderstandings developed relating to battles
against some scientific philosophic points of view. It simply
meant that what the outer world offered the senses were seen as
phenomena. Goethe and with him the entire scientific
phenomenology was narrowed down to not going directly from some
sense perceptive phenomenon into the atomic content behind it,
but by focussing purely on the perceived phenomenon and
the single element of the perceived facts, and then to search
not for what lies behind it, but for its correlation to other
elements of sense-perceptible appearances relating to it.
It
is very easy — I understand totally where
misunderstandings come from — to find such phenomenology
as hopeless. One can say for instance: When one wants to merely
narrow down descriptions of mutual relationships in sensory
phenomena and search for those phenomena which are the
simplest, which possibly have the most manageable facts —
which Goethe calls “Ur-phenomena” — then one doesn't
come to an observation about endless fruitful things as modern
Chemistry has delivered for example. How — one could ask
— can one actually arrive at atomic weight ratios without
observing the atomic world? Now, in this case one can counter
this with the question: When one really reflects what is
present there, does it involve a need to start with the
phenomenon? One has no involvement with it. With atomic weight
ratios one is involved with phenomena, namely weight ratios.
Still, one could ask: To go further, could one express the
atomic weight ratios numerically in order to clarify how
specific molecular structures are built out of pure thought,
rationalistically? One could pose this question as well.
Briefly, what is not involved when Goethean observation is
used, is this: remaining stuck in the phenomena themselves. I
would like to compare it with a trivial comparison.
Let's imagine someone is confronted with a written word. What
will he do? If he hasn't learnt to read he would meet it as
something inexplicable. If he was literate he would
unconsciously join the single forms together and encounter its
meaning within his soul. He certainly wouldn't start with each
symbol, for instance by taking the W and search for its
meaning, by approaching the upward stroke, followed by the
descending stroke, in order to discover the foundation of the
letters. No, he would read — and not search for the
underlying to obtain clarity. In this way phenomenology wants
to “read” as well. You may remain within the
connections of phenomenology and learn to read them, and not,
when I offer a complexity of phenomenon, turn back to atomic
structures.
It
comes down to entering into the field of phenomena and learning
to read within their inner meaning. This would lead to a
science which has nothing rationalistically construed within it
behind the phenomena, but which, simply through the way the
phenomena are regarded, lead to certain legitimate structures.
In every case this science would be a member of the totality of
the phenomena. One would speak in a specific way about nature.
With this approach the laws of nature would be contained, but
in every instance the phenomena themselves would be contained
in the forms of expression. One would achieve what I would like
to call a natural science inherent in the phenomena. Along the
lines of such a science was Goethe's striving. The way and
manner of his approach had to be changed according to the
progress of modern times but it still is possible for the
fundamental principles to be maintained. When these fundamental
principles are adhered to, nature itself presents something
towards human conceptualising, which I would like to
characterise in the following way.
It
is quite obvious that we as modern humanity have developed our
scientific concepts according to inorganic nature. This is the
result of inorganic natural phenomena being relatively simple;
it was also the result of, or course, when one enters the
organic realm, the agents of the lifeless processes still
persist. When one moves from the mineral to the plant kingdom
then it does not happen that the lifeless activities stops in
the plant; they only become absorbed into a higher principle,
but it continues in the plant. We do the right thing when we
follow the physical and chemical processes further in the plant
organism according to the same point of view which we are used
to following in inorganic nature. We also need to have the
ability to shift our belief system towards change, to
metamorphosed concepts. We need to research how the inorganic
also applies to the plants and how the same processes which are
found in lifeless nature, also penetrate the plants. However,
this could result in the temptation to only research what lies
in the mineral world within the plant and animal and as a
result overlook what appears in higher spheres. Due to special
circumstances this temptation increased much more in the course
of the 19th Century. This happened in the following
way.
When one looks at lifeless nature one feels to some extent
satisfied because research of the phenomena can be done with
mathematical thinking. It is quite understandable that Du
Bois-Reymond in his wordy and brilliant manner gave his lecture
“Regarding the boundaries of Nature's
understanding” in which he, I could call it, celebrated
the Laplace world view and called it the “astronomical
conception” of the entire natural world existence.
According to this astronomical conception not only were the
starry heavens to be regarded this way, through mathematical
thinking constructing single phenomena into a whole, as far as
possible, but that one should try and penetrate with this into
the constitution of matter. One molecule was to construct a
small world system where the atoms would move in relation to
one another like the stars in the world's structure. Man
constructed himself in the smallest of the small world system
and was satisfied that he would find the same laws in the small
as in the big. So one had in the single atoms and molecules a
system of moving bodies like one has outside in the world
structure's system of fixed stars and planets. This is
characteristic of the direction in which mankind was striving
particularly in the 19th Century and how people were
satisfied, as Du Bois-Reymond said, as a result of the need for
causality. It simply developed out of the urge to apply
mathematics fruitfully to all natural phenomena. This resulted
in the temptation for these mathematicians to remain stuck in
their observation of natural phenomena.
It
won't occur to anyone, also not an Anthroposophist, if he
doesn't want to express himself inexpertly, to deny that this
is justified, for instance when someone remains within the
phenomena and concerns himself with details, for example in
Astronomy, and conceive it in this way. It won't occur to
anyone to start a fight against this. However, in the course of
the 19th Century it occurred that everything the
world offered was overlooked which had a qualitative
aspect and only regarded the qualitative aspect by applying
mathematical understanding to it. Here one must differentiate:
One can admit that this mechanical explanation of the world is
valid, nothing can be brought against it. One needs to
differentiate between whether it can be applied justifiably to
certain areas only, or whether it should be applied as the one
and only possible system of understanding everything in the
world.
Here lies the point of difference. The Anthroposophist will not
argue in the least against something which is justified.
Anthroposophy namely won't oppose the other and it is
interesting to follow arguments how Anthroposophy actually
admits to all which is within justifiable boundaries. It
doesn't occur to the Anthroposophist to argue against what
natural science has validated. However, it comes down to
whether it is justified to include the entire sphere of
phenomena with the mathematical-causal way of thinking, or
whether it is justifiable, out of the totality of phenomena, to
place those of a purely mathematical-causal abstraction as a
“conceived” content, as it had been done in earlier
atomic theory.
Today atomic theory has to a certain extent become
phenomenological, and to this extent Anthroposophy concurs.
However even today it comes down to some spooks of the
19th Century appearing in this un-Goethean atomic
theory, which doesn't limit itself to phenomena but constructs
a purely conceptual framework behind the phenomena. When one
isn't clear about it being a purely conceptual framework, that
the world searches behind phenomena, but that the appearance
claims this conceptual framework is reality, then one becomes
nailed down by it. It is extraordinary how such conceptual
frameworks nail people down. Through them they become more
dogmatic and say: ‘There are people who want to explain the
organic through quite different concepts which they find from
quite somewhere else, but this doesn't exist; we have developed
such conceptual structures which encompass the world behind the
phenomena; this is the only world and this must also be the
only workable way with regard the organic sphere.’ — In this way
the observation of the organic sphere is imported into the
phenomena observed in inorganic nature; the organic is seen as
having been created in the same way as inorganic nature.
Here clarity needs to be established. Without clarity no real
foundation for a discussion can be created. Anthroposophy never
intends sinning against legitimate methods in a dilettante
manner, it will not sin against justified atomic theory; it
wants to keep the route free from the creation of thought
structures which had been developed earlier for the inorganic
sphere and now needs to be created for other areas of nature.
This will happen if one says to oneself: ‘In the phenomena I
only want to “read”, that means, what I finally get
out of the content of natural laws, dwell within the phenomena
themselves — just as by reading a word, the meaning is
revealed from within the letters. If I lovingly remain standing
within the phenomena and am not intent on applying some
hypothetical thought structure to it, then I would remain free
in my scientific sense for the further development of the
concept.’ This ability to remain free is what we need to
develop.
We
may not take a system of beliefs which have been fully
developed and nailed down for a specific area of nature, and
apply it to other areas. If we develop mere phenomenology which
can obviously only happen if one takes the observed, or through
an experiment of chosen phenomena which have been penetrated
with thought and is thus linked to natural laws, one remains
stuck within the phenomena, but now one arrives at another kind
of relationship to thoughts themselves; one comes to the
experience of how phenomena already exist within the laws of
nature and how they now appear in our thoughts. If we allow
ourselves to enter into these thoughts we no longer have the
justification in as far as we are remaining within the
phenomena, to speak of subjective thoughts or objective laws of
nature. We simply dive into the phenomena and then give thought
content to the content of the natural laws, which presents us
with the things themselves. This is how Goethe could say
naively: ‘Then I see my ideas in Nature’ — which were
actually laws of nature — ‘with my own eyes.’
When you position yourself in this particular way
in the phenomena of inorganic nature, then it is possible to go
over into the organic, also within scientific terms. When a
person sees that his horse is brown or a gray
(Schimmel)
horse is white, he won't refer back to the inorganic colour but
refer to what is living in a soul-spiritual way in the organism
itself. People will learn to understand how the empowered inner
organisation of the animal or plant produces the colour out of
themselves.
In
addition, it is obvious that all the minutiae, for example the
functioning of metabolism, need to be examined from within.
However, then one doesn't apply the organic to what one has
found in the inorganic. One doesn't nail oneself firmly on to a
specific system of thought, and one doesn't apply the same
basic conviction you had in one area on to other areas. One
remains more of a “mathematical mind” than those
who refuse to allow concepts to metamorphose into the
qualitative. Then one is able to reach higher areas of nature's
existence through inner examination just as one is able to
validate through inner examination, the lifeless mathematical
structures. This is what I briefly wanted to sketch for you,
and if it is expanded further, will show that the scientific
side of Anthroposophy is always able, what Goethe calls being
accountable, to all, even the most diligent mathematician. This
was Goethe's goal with the development of his idea of the
Ur-plant, which he came to, and the idea of the Ur-animal, at
which he didn't arrive. Anthroposophy strives to allow the
origins of Goethe's world view to emerge with regards to
nature's phenomena and from the grasping of the vital element
in imagination to let it rise to the form of the plant and to
the form of the animal. Already during the eighties (1880's)I
indicated that we need to metamorphose concepts taken from
inorganic for organic nature. I'll speak more about this during
the coming days.
As
a result of this one comes to perceive within the organic what
the actual principle of the process, the formative principle,
is. Now, in conclusion of this reflection I would like to
introduce something which will lead to further observations in
the coming days; something which will show how this
materialistic phase of scientific development is not be
undervalued by Anthroposophy.
Anthroposophy must see an important evolutionary principle in
this materialistic phase of natural science, an educational
method through which one has once learnt to submit oneself to
the empiricism of the outer senses. This was extraordinarily
educational for the development of mankind, and now when this
education has been enjoyed, one can look at certain things with
great clarity. Whoever now, equipped with such a scientific
sense for observing the outer material world, will make the
observation that this material world is ‘mirrored’ in people,
if I might use this expression.
The
world we experience within is more or less an abstraction of an
inner image permeated by experiences and will impulses of the
outer material world so that when we move from the material
outer world to the soul-spiritual, we come to nothing but
imagery. Let's hold on to this firmly: outwardly there's the
totality of material phenomena, which we are looking at in a
phenomenological sense — and within, the soul-spiritual
which has a particular abstract character, a pictorial
character. If one approaches the observation with an
anthroposophical view that the spiritual lies at the basis of
the outer material world, the spirit which works in the
movement of the stars, in the creation of minerals, plants and
animals, then one enters in the spiritual creation of the outer
world; one gets to know this through imagination, inspiration
and intuition, then this is also an inner mirror image of the
human being. But what is this inner mirror image of the human
being? It is our physical organs. They respond to me in what
I've learnt to know as the nature of the sun, the nature of the
moon, minerals, plants, animals and so on; this is how the
inner organs answer me. I only get to know my inner human
organism when I get to know the outer things of the world. The
material world outside mirrors in my soul-spiritual; the soul
spiritual world outside reflects itself in the form of lungs,
liver, heart and so on. The inner organs are, when you look at
them, in the same relationship with the spiritual outer world
as the relationship of our thoughts and experiences are to the
material outer world.
This shows us how Anthroposophy consistently does not want to
reject materialism in an enthusiastic sense. Look at the entire
scope of natural science: thousands will be dissatisfied with
results obtained through the usual methods of natural science.
Anthroposophy and its methods will gradually gain an opinion
regarding the material world which does not result in
dissatisfaction. It acknowledges matter in its own organisation
and in the phenomenology of the environment but it has to
acknowledge at the same time that the inner organisation is the
result, the consequences of the cosmic soul-spiritual. Through
this it wants to supplement what has only mathematically been
accomplished in astronomy, astrophysics, physics or chemistry.
This it wants to explore further in an organic cosmology and so
on, and as a result bring about an understanding with
materialistic people. In this lies the foundation of what
Anthroposophy wants to offer to medicine, biology and so
on.
So
I believe that through these indications which I've only been
able to give as a sketch, it will point out how Anthroposophy,
when it is correctly understood, can't be seen as wanting to
initiate a war against today's science but on the contrary,
that the present day representatives of science haven't crossed
the bridge to Anthroposophy to see how it also wants to be
strictly scientific with regards to natural phenomena.
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