Lecture IV
Dornach, October 9, 1920, p.m.
Tonight I would like to add a few things to the lectures I have been
giving to you in these past few days as a substitute for the scheduled
lecturer. I would like to point aphoristically, as it were, to
something that may still be able to clarify a principle for the
fructification of medical-therapeutic study through spiritual science.
Obviously for the reasons already mentioned this morning, I cannot
speak too much detail here; that is due not so much to the shortness
of time that too, naturally but more to the fact that detailed
knowledge must be held for a really professional gathering of
physicians, again for the reasons I presented this morning.
Nevertheless, I would still like to contribute something in this
direction, something that can lead to a general understanding of the
nature of medicine so that a kind of social influence can emanate from
a spiritual scientific study of medicine, bringing about a certain
trust between the public and physicians. The better our understanding
of the nature of medicine, the more effectively will medicine be able
to work.
This morning I directed your attention to the fact that the life of
the human organism consists of the nerve-sense system the head
system working oppositely to the metabolic-limb system; these two
are then balanced by the rhythmic system. All breakdown processes, the
completely necessary breakdown processes of the nerve-sense system,
are continuously brought into harmony and exchange with the upbuilding
processes of the metabolic-limb system. You can imagine (and this can
be verified in detail) that because the two systems of the human
organism work in a thoroughly opposite way, they also work upon one
another. Thus what goes on in the details of the metabolic-limb
system, for example, should not be influenced too strongly from the
head system, bypassing the rhythmic system; when this happens an
activity suitable only to the head system works its way into the
metabolic limb system.
If we adequately penetrate what we are concerned with here, we will
come to understand how such intrusions of one system upon the other
can take place. It will be understood, in other words, how the head
system, the nerve-sense system (in which there must also be metabolic
processes, as I have explained to you), can occasionally be overcome
by metabolic processes that make the head system resemble the
metabolic-limb system inwardly and functionally. The reverse can also
take place, because the same functional system that is normally active
in the head is also active in the metabolic-limb system, though in a
subordinate way Occasionally this activity can get the upper hand, can
become too intense in the metabolic-limb system, where it should only
reach a certain level, having its actual significance in the head.
This is possible, in other words, because the nerve-sense activity
that is also present in the metabolic-limb system strongly impregnates
the metabolic-limb system with head activity, which thus becomes
predominant in the abdomen, for example. Said in a better way, it
becomes an activity whose intensity is too great. Then what should
normally take place as breakdown processes only in the nerve-sense
system will take place in the abdominal organs. Of course it will take
on another form in the abdominal system, but it will nevertheless
cause mischief there. In fact, by looking in this way into the
organization of human nature, we can see in the phenomenon I have just
described the development of a serious human illness, namely, typhus
abdominalis. The manifestations of typhus may certainly be studied
empirically, but they can be understood and placed within the entire
human organization only if one is able to penetrate the human being in
this way from the standpoint of a rational medicine, if I may use this
Goethean designation.
I have also shown you this morning how it is possible to make the
transition from the physiological-pathological to the therapeutic by
attempting not only to penetrate what goes on in human nature but at
the same time to penetrate what goes on in outer nature. Processes
take place in outer nature which, if penetrated in the right way, can
be introduced into the human organism by administering the appropriate
substances. Because outer nature the plant nature, for example
works in a certain way by virtue of its striving upward, working in an
opposite sense to what strives downward in the human being, substances
from plants can restrain certain processes that are unfolding
improperly among the three systems of the human organism.
It is interesting to explore how what I presented to you this morning
about the plant world and its connection with the human being can be
penetrated in a similar way in relation to the mineral world. In order
to penetrate this matter in relation to the mineral world, however, we
must first gain certain anthroposophical understandings of the human
being.
The soul-spiritual, the etheric, and the physical are all active in
the human being. As we will have been able to discern through the
considerations in these lectures, this soul-spiritual element works in
such a way that it can be penetrated by full ego-consciousness. If
this is the case, the human being is organized in the normal way, as
it were. On the other hand, the ego-consciousness may be weakened, may
step back in some way. If the soul-spiritual element kicks up some
kind of fuss, going its own way without being penetrated in the right
way by the ego, then various types of the so-called mental illnesses
arise.
Everything that is soul-spiritual in the human being, however, as well
as what in anthroposophical terminology is called the astral that
is, the more subconscious, dreamlike, or entirely unconscious soul
life and also what is understood as ego-activity, as the fully
conscious soul life, has its physical carrier by means of which it
works in a certain way in physical life. We may therefore say that if
we study the human being we must direct our gaze not merely to what
expresses itself as ego-activity, which is a purely spiritual activity
we must rather direct our gaze to the actual, carrier of this
ego-activity in the organism. We find that the actual carrier of this
ego-activity is essentially anchored in the blood.
I could certainly demonstrate to you in detail how, especially through
the particular activity of the blood, through the working together of
the metabolic activity in the blood with the rhythmic activity in the
blood, the ego works with the rest of the soul element, but to go into
this now would lead too far. What should interest us more right now,
however, is the bridge from physiology and pathology to therapy. There
we find something exceptionally important. We can influence the
physical scaffolding, as it were the physical carrier of a
soul-spiritual element, of the fully conscious ego, let us say,
through certain processes that we bring about in it. The physical
carrier then withdraws from the ego-activity, as it were, yet
continues to perform a function similar to what otherwise takes place
only under the influence of the ego-activity.
Drawing 1
Let me refer to a specific case in this connection. Imagine, please
I will sketch this for you that what is active as ego-activity
builds up, through the human blood system, something like a
scaffolding, a scaffolding of forces. I will designate the
ego-activity itself by these colored lines next to the line of this
force-scaffolding, the line that designates the soul-spiritual element
of the ego-activity (see drawing, red). If one can now influence the
force-organization lying at the basis of the ego-activity in a certain
way, it could be possible for this force-organization to become
independent, as it were, to tear itself away and as physical activity,
as scaffolding of physical force-activity, to separate itself from the
soul-spiritual and yet remain like an image of the soul-spiritual
activity, though working merely physically. In a certain way we thus
incorporate into ourselves a kind of double that works deeply in the
subconscious but that work; similarly though only in space, which
means only physically to the way it normally works when
surrendering itself as an unencumbered instrument for the
ego-activity.
This can be brought about by introducing too much phosphorus into the
human being, by administering to someone a powerful dose of
phosphorus. (This does not actually need to be done; in elementary
cases one can already see this. It is always possible to find the
point designated by
Goethe
as the one behind which nature reveals its
manifest secret, if one follows the appropriate path.) It is possible
to separate out the bodily carrier of this ego-activity from the
ego-activity itself. Then this ego-activity is carried out in the body
as in an image. What would be the result of this? The result would be
that, particularly under the influence of the phosphorus forces, the
blood activity would proliferate beyond its normal extent,
particularly in the bony system. In the bony system a kind of
hyperemia would arise. In this way, through this hyperemia, an
excessive blood activity in the region of the bone cartilage would run
rampant, and the calcification process of the bones would be opposed.
I have described to you what could result from treating someone with
too much phosphorus, where the function that phosphorus is normally
able to fulfill in the human organism is excessively enhanced. Those
forces that are outside in the world, however, anchored in the
different minerals, are present in the human being in another form, as
it were, in a super-sensible form, and they can be active within the
human being. Man is a microcosm in a certain respect. If these forces
that are normally anchored in phosphorus outside in nature are active
within the human being, as can occur particularly in early childhood,
then the illness rickets occurs. By penetrating the connection of the
human being with the surrounding world, we have been able to ascertain
that the manifestation of rickets in the human organism is a process
similar to the one that takes place outside in nature in the
manifestation of phosphorus. I am speaking to you aphoristically and
obviously in a way in which not all the parts of a sequence of proof
are connected; by means of a specific case, which is actually only
indicating the direction, we can see how to search in a spiritual
scientific way for this connection between the human being and the
rest of the world.
Drawing 2
Now, however, it is possible to proceed further. I have shown you
earlier today how, with the metabolic-limb system on one side and the
nerve-sense system on the other side, the balancing rhythmic system in
between, these two systems work together in a way (see drawing). You
see, in fact, that what serves as an irregularity in the metabolic-limb
system, bringing about illness, is just what induces health in the
head system. Thus in the human head system there are always certain
functions that stem from phosphorus, though from a very slight
quantity of phosphorus that is found in the human brain. We have
already become acquainted with this phosphorus-activity from the other
side, in the way I have described to you, as something that brings the
proper breakdown in the calcification processes in the metabolic-limb
organism. These phosphorus processes in the brain, however, must be
present wherever there is to be breakdown and where, above all, this
breakdown is to be continually active. In other words, because the
phosphorus process is present in the brain, we continuously have a
kind of manifestation of rickets in the brain in, you could say, a
status nascendi.
This is precisely the basis of our brain-activity, that bone
continuously wants to be formed, but this bone formation is
continuously inhibited once the skull has developed to surround the
human brain in the right way. In the human brain and this reveals
itself to human perception we have a continuous striving toward
bone formation, but this bone formation reaches its conclusion at a
certain age, at which time this activity of bone formation ceases. We
thus have here something that is really conducive to illness but that
is balanced from the other side, from the other pole of the organism;
we have here a continuous striving toward rickets.
It is interesting that a rhythm such as this one that can be observed
in the human being is also present outside in the rest of nature,
though appearing in a certain respect as the opposite. If we look at
the remarkable significance of phosphorus for the human brain, we have
to say to ourselves that as phosphorus is taken in it is worked
through up to the head. It undergoes a transformation within the human
organism itself. It follows the same direction as the growth in the
human being. It incorporates itself into this direction of growth in
the human being, thus reducing its own activity to a minimum, as it
were, diluting it. By means of this dilution the restrained rickets of
the head can become the carrier of just those soul-spiritual processes
that must be undertaken by means of the human head's mediation.
It is interesting that if very small doses of phosphorus are
administered to the human being in the right way, rather than the
somewhat larger, ordinarily perceptible doses of phosphorus, something
different is achieved even in the function of phosphorus. If these
small doses are administered to the human organism, they work in the
same way as phosphorus works in the human brain. They now work in the
rest of the organism as small doses able to restrain the rickets
process if it has begun in children. Phosphorus in small quantities,
in the smallest doses, can therefore serve as a remedy against
rickets. In a more comprehensive sense, phosphorus can generally be
used as a remedy against everything in which this ego-scaffolding, the
physical ego-scaffolding (see Drawing 1, white), which I have
sketched under the red, is freed within the organism, as a result of
illness, from the actual soul activity: in other words, phosphorus
brings back the soul activity, returning the condition to normal.
I would have to present a very complicated exposition about human
nature for you to be able to see what actually lies at the basis of
the dispute between allopathy and homoeopathy. In certain areas,
however, you could say that what homoeopathy reveals becomes perfectly
evident, as in these cases I have indicated to you. With certain small
doses of phosphorus, or also sulphur (in short, something combustible
I will return to this) rickets as well as other inflammatory
conditions can be healed, illnesses that stem from a blood-activity
that has been freed from the ego-being.
You see, then, that when we begin to study the human being as
suggested by spiritual science, as in this case, the connection of the
human being with outer, inorganic nature becomes transparent. What I
have just touched on here today can definitely be extended to other
inorganic substances. One need only pursue this in detail. It is
precisely this attempt to bring about a union of pathology,
physiology, and therapy that requires a devoted study of the world
within and the world outside of the human being. We may call
phosphorus and sulphur combustible substances. If this study is really
extended further, combustible substances reveal themselves as working
in a way thoroughly akin to what has been described of phosphorus.
They work so as to re-insert the emancipated ego-scaffolding into the
ego-activity.
Certain salts work in the opposite way, substances now that are not
combustible but that dissolve in water and then precipitate out again
when the water is cooled. These salts, carbonates and other salts,
work in such a way that they call forth a too-intense union of the
soul-spiritual, particularly the ego-activity, with the scaffolding;
they do not loosen it from the scaffolding but rather impress the
soul-spiritual too strongly into it. They can therefore be used as
remedies if this connection is for some reason too loose.
We can therefore say that if we understand the actual results of
introducing a substance into the organism, how it influences the
entire organization, then we can see how to work against a process
that is proceeding abnormally and must be countered.
For certain processes, for example the process lying at the basis of
pulmonary tuberculosis, it is precisely such salt-like substances
(therefore soluble substances) that are particularly effective. What
pulmonary tuberculosis is demanding is something to work against a
process which, in the human organism, is the opposite of what takes
place when a salt dissolves into a solution. What is important here is
that broadening one's knowledge about all of human nature leads into
the human being's connection with all his outer, worldly environment.
In these thoroughly aphoristic considerations I can only offer
examples. What I have just been speaking about could be illustrated by
still other examples. We can find such examples everywhere, but let us
take an example from a realm that can at the same time lead us into
the whole connection of the soul-spiritual with the physical. What is
transmitted through the nerve-sense system in human life constitutes
the conscious life of the human being from waking to falling asleep.
We are thus able to say, more or less, that the head system is the
expression for the conscious life of the human being. The
metabolic-limb system is not the expression for the conscious life of
the human being in the same way. We go through the world with
conscious head but with unconscious limbs. These limbs become
conscious only when they are touched in some way, when they endure an
insult of some sort. We may therefore say that the normal condition
for the head system, for the nerve-sense system, is waking
consciousness, whereas for the opposite system in the human being it
is unconsciousness. It is possible, however, to produce artificially
in the human being a kind of consciousness for this other system, for
the metabolic-limb system. This happens through massage, for example,
which consists of making conscious through outer measures what
otherwise remains unconscious. What is important here is that through
massage an improvement can be brought about of an inadequate
connection between the soul-spiritual and the physical. Take the case
of a person who has a tendency to illness because his soul-spiritual
element is insufficiently inclined to penetrate his metabolic-limb
system. Then the physical aspect of this metabolic-limb system can be
supported by massaging it, by lifting it, to a certain degree, from
the condition of the spiritual into the condition of consciousness;
the effectiveness of the system is thus supported, thereby calling
forth a stronger permeation of this system by the soul-spiritual.
If it is understood how this metabolic-limb system works, if it is
known, for example, that what pulses in the arms and hands, what
pulses there as the soul-spiritual element, continues inwardly and
rules the inner metabolism of the human being, then it will also be
known what it means to bring about a partial consciousness in the arms
and hands through massage. It means that the soul-spiritual element in
the metabolic system is enhanced the metabolic system that works
within the human being in a constructive way, bringing about
digestion, the taking up of substance.
If one finds, therefore, that a person is suffering inwardly and
organically from metabolic disturbances, metabolic disturbances that
are responsible for the inability of his nourishment to integrate
itself properly in the body or for the results of this nourishment to
proceed further into the upbuilding processes, if one finds,
therefore, that the metabolism that proceeds inward is not working
properly, then it is possible in certain cases to be of some help with
arm and hand massage (of course detailed knowledge is necessary to
carry this out in the right way). Such assistance consists of
supporting the soul-spiritual element in its activity through the
degree of consciousness brought about by means of the massage.
If the legs and feet are massaged, something else occurs. The
soul-spiritual element that permeates the legs and feet is connected
organically with processes of elimination, with breakdown processes.
One will be able to offer assistance with a massage of the legs and
feet, therefore, if the digestion in the direction of the process of
elimination is not being accomplished in the right way.
You can see that if the nature of medicine is illuminated in this way
by spiritual science, such insights can be arrived at not simply by
chance in an empirical way, should they happen to present themselves
empirically; rather it becomes possible to work fully consciously to
cultivate the connections among physiology, pathology, and therapy in
the most varied domains. I am saying these things to you, as I have
mentioned previously, only to illuminate the directions one must
pursue here. I know very well how astonishing such things appear
because it is not possible, of course, to bring together all the
details here.
If we consider an illness like diabetes mellitus, for example, which
presents doctors with so many concerns, we must again look to the
connection of the soul-spiritual element and particularly the
conscious soul-spiritual element, that element permeated with the ego
with the physical carrier of this ego-activity. Something different
now takes place from what was described in the first case today. Let
us assume that this ego-activity becomes too great within the human
organism. It extends itself beyond its proper measure. Then abnormal
processes of elimination take place like those we find in the
diabetic. In this case we are dealing with an excessive ego-activity
in the organic itself, with an excessively deep immersion of the ego
into the organic, so that through this deep immersion something is
driven outward in a way that manifests particularly in the diabetic.
Let us now shift our gaze again away from what goes on within the
human being and direct it to what goes on in the world outside the
human being. In this world outside we have plants. This morning we
already became aware of how plants in a certain way develop a process
from below upward, a process that develops in the human being from
above downward. What takes place in diabetes as the hypertrophy of
ego-activity in the organism actually proceeds in the direction
opposite to that of plant growth. If we are able to discern the right
function in the growing plant, then under certain circumstances we can
establish a relationship between what works downward in the diabetic
and upward in the plant. We must conceive of the plant in such a way,
however, that we say: the plant is a being; it is also physical; it
grows, it reproduces, and therefore it has an etheric body. For
spiritual perception it also has an etheric body, but it does not
bring it to the point of inner soul movement; therefore it has no
astral body, and also no ego-activity. Nevertheless it grows toward
the ego-activity, the astral activity. The same thing that the plant
unfolds from below upward the human being unfolds from above downward.
If we understand that we must observe what actually goes on in the
plant, seeing how it grows in the opposite direction to which the
human being develops his ego, from above downward, then we find how
something arises in the plant element that is able to have an inner
relationship to this inner ego-activity through the fact that it also
has something to do with combustibility. Earlier I drew your attention
to combustible substances. Now we see a combustible, volatile
substantiality, a substantiality approaching combustion that develops
out of the plant in the etheric oils. If we see the etheric oils
appearing in certain plants, then we can discover in a study such as
the one I have been suggesting, that this formation of etheric oils is
the opposite of the activity enacted by the ego-activity pressing
itself into the human organism through which a person becomes
diabetic. If what is present in the outer world as the opposite is
introduced into the human being in the right way, it is then possible
to work against diabetes mellitus.
In this case this must be done by adding these etheric oils to baths,
for example, or adding the plants themselves from which these oils are
developed, allowing the diabetic to bathe in them. In this way the
forces that the plant unfolds in the etheric oils work from outside
inward against the forces that bring about diabetes. We will be able
to help the person afflicted with this illness particularly by means
of such baths.
I am only introducing a few individual examples here out of the rich
wealth of examples that could be presented: I offered a large number
of them this spring in the course for physicians
(see Note 1).
I am introducing
them here only to illustrate the principles involved, but you can see
from these examples how medicine can gradually become rational. These
are examples through which one really comes to see the process taking
place within the human being and the process in outer nature; one
comes to see how these two processes either support each other or work
against each other and therefore how a process in the human organism
can be restrained, how one can work toward healing. If we extend this
way of studying into knowledge of the physical human being and its
connections with the soul-spiritual human being, we will progress
further and further.
You know that in modern medicine, according to the natural scientific
view, the problem of heredity plays a tremendous role. This problem,
however, is treated in a thoroughly abstract and external way. Through
outer science it is possible to make very few connections with what is
actually active in human nature. Now I would like to present something
to you that can only be arrived at out of a rich anthroposophical
investigation. I will present it to you as a result of such an
investigation: the human being is, in fact, formed out of the whole
rest of the world, which belongs to him as the earthly world and also
as the extraterrestrial world. He is formed out of this in various
ways. We find, for example, that the female organism is formed out of
nature, out of the cosmos, in such a way that there is a predominance
in the female organism of those forces that are less bound to the
forces of the earth, as it were. In the female organism there is
something strongly extraterrestrial. In the male organism forces are
primarily developed that are connected with earthly life. In ordinary
life this does not come so strongly into consideration, but it must be
considered in reproduction. In reproduction what matters is that the
forces active in the female organism and contributing to reproduction
are actually the transference of what inserts itself as the
extraterrestrial element into general human nature. What draws the
human being down into the earthly world, however, is inserted into the
male organism.
Now let us consider what is actually present in the human being
through his earthly environment. The most noticeable thing in man
through his earthly environment is the ego-activity. This ego-activity
gives the earthly evolution of the human being its full meaning. We
must evolve ourselves from other worlds into the earthly world in
order to be able to develop the ego-activity fully in our
soul-spiritual element. I have already indicated to you how this
ego-activity is bound to the scaffolding of forces mediated by the
blood. We must therefore say that what is primarily inserted into the
blood, working in accordance with the ego-activity, is brought about by
the male personality by way of reproduction. What inserts the
extraterrestrial into the human being, which must first be penetrated
by the ego-activity, stems more from the female side.
Thus we see male and female working together in this way in
reproduction, and only through having insight into this are we able to
gain correct concepts of heredity. To begin with, the female seed, the
female germ, is touched by the male influence, and this female germ
has a certain independence in the female organism. We must say that if
we have before us a mature female organism, this extraterrestrial
aspect works primarily in the rest of the female organism; in the part
of the female organism giving rise to the formation of the germ, it is
not active, particularly not after conception. Particularly the female
germ that has undergone conception has a certain independence so that
what it signifies as a transmitter of the ego-activity is transferred
independently onto the descendants in a certain way.
If these things are known, they can be applied so that phenomena
confronting us in the outer world illustrate what was first gained
through spiritual vision. Through spiritual vision it becomes clear
that something extraterrestrial is, in fact, anchored in the female
organism and that the earthly, which adheres particularly to the
blood-activity, is transmitted through the male organism. It becomes
evident that through this transmittal the female ovum gains a certain
independence, developing separately, as it were, from the rest of the
extraterrestrial female organism by means of the fertilization.
A process such as this, which one comes to know soul-spiritually, can
then stand in the background when one wishes to explain a remarkable
phenomenon such as hemophilia. The curious fact emerges with this
illness that there are people who suffer from an inadequate
coagulation of the blood, so that the least injury often even
without a verifiable injury causes them to lose a great deal of
blood, tending toward hemorrhage. This illness has a most unusual
characteristic: males originating from hemophiliac families do not
manifest the symptoms if they are borne by women from non-hemophiliac
families; women from hemophiliac families, on the other hand, do not
get hemophilia through heredity, but if they have children, the males
to whom they give birth will contract hemophilia. This means that
hemophilia passes through the woman. This points us to the
independence of the germ, about which I have just spoken. It points us
to the outer phenomenon that can illustrate what we came to know
through spiritual vision.
I have presented something to you in a narrative way which may be
recounted as follows. I have shown you how on the one hand it is
possible to look into the being of man through spiritual vision, into
the concrete being of man, into his upbuilding and breakdown
processes, into his processes of health and disease, which are
actually in a continuous interaction and between which a balance must
be sought. On the other hand, I have shown you how, through spiritual
vision, it is possible to find the reciprocal relationship of the
human being to his environment and thereby to build a bridge from
physiology and pathology to therapy. Finally I wanted to show you with
a specific example (I have selected an extreme case, hemophilia and
the hereditary conditions connected with it) how, if one looks in the
right way at nature in the cases where nature reveals her manifest
secret, it is possible everywhere to receive an illustration of what
was first known by spiritual scientific means. The objection often
raised in this regard therefore has no validity; this objection is
that a person who cannot yet see into the spiritual world has no way
of finding any proof for what spiritual science maintains. This is not
the case. What is important is on the one hand to be able to receive
the results of spiritual science without dogmatism and belief in
authority, and on the other hand to receive them without previously
acquired, prejudiced skepticism. One simply receives them. One doesn't
say, I believe them, nor does one rashly refuse them; rather one
takes them and verifies them in relation to outer reality.
When you apply what may initially appear paradoxical to you, even
incredible, drawn down as it is from the spiritual world through
super-sensible vision in spiritual investigation, you will see that if
you apply it in life, if you ask life, it will be confirmed in the
points that matter. You will receive empirical confirmation everywhere
for what spiritual investigation discovers. People today who refuse
knowledge of the spiritual world with the excuse that they themselves
are not able to see into the spiritual world are like the person who
sees a shaped piece of iron (this was sketched) and says, I will shoe
my horse with that, for it is a horseshoe. If one were to say to him,
It would be a mistake to shoe a horse with it, because it is a
magnet, it has magnetic forces, he would reply, I don't see any
magnetic forces to me it is a horseshoe. The spiritual is in
everything material, and we are living in an age in which this
spiritual element must be sought. A person who wishes to investigate
matter, who wishes to ask questions without seeking the spirit, is
like the one who uses the magnet to shoe his horse, who therefore does
not really know how things in the material world are to be used.
Though what I have presented to you today had to be full of gaps and
aphoristic in nature, I simply wished to indicate the direction in
which medical studies must proceed in the future, for these medical
studies are so intimately connected with the social question. Just as
the human world can be healed socially only if spiritual knowledge is
carried into social judgments, so our medicine can bring health only
if spiritual vision is carried into it.
We are not dream-spinners in any realm. We do not by any means want
dilettantes in any realm. What is important is serious research,
research that has developed the fundamental principle often applied
today. If a hypothesis is dangled here or there, it is said that it is
merely a comfortable tool fur the grasping of phenomena. Even in
mathematics the point has been reached of hatching such hypotheses or
directions of thought. Spiritual science is firmly rooted in the
principle that nothing should be avoided that may be necessary for the
progress of human life, that nothing should he avoided in applying
forces in the direction of what is required for this. From the course
of human evolution it is clearly perceptible today that the signs of
the time are saying to us: it is no longer possible to progress in the
old tracks.
What we have here in Dornach has only been able to develop because it
is no longer possible to progress in the old tracks; new guidelines
are to be sought for here. We are specialized enough. What is
important now is to bring together the individual specialties again.
Perhaps you will see from this course that the spiritual forces that
will bring together these individual specialties must flow from a
center. In order to do this, however, one must depart from those
comfortable paths that are so frequently sought today. The fruits will
lie above all in the direction of the progress of humanity. For this
reason, I would have especially liked it if everything that has been
said here out of spiritual science could have been said also by
specialists. Therefore I was not so pleased at having to substitute
for you in an important area; this is how things happened, however,
and nothing else could have been done, so we must simply accept what
happened.
Most important, however, whether a specialist or a general observer
were to present what is necessary here, would be to show that even in
this difficult area of medicine progress is possible only through
fructification by spiritual investigation. This would have been
revealed more clearly if someone could have stepped forward in this
area who could speak both out of the tradition of the time, out of
everything that the time itself is able to offer medicine, and out of
an open sense for spiritual science. Such an individual could have
shown that it is possible to stand at the pinnacle of contemporary
medical science, of official medical science, and still to be such a
good spiritual scientist that he can only believe, can only bear this
medicine if it can be illuminated by spiritual science. Whether this
became sufficiently evident to you, despite the fact that I had to
replace the specialists in medicine, I do not know, but I do hope that
there will be other occasions to show, in a way illuminated by outer
circumstances, that medicine can work into the future only if the
spirit penetrates it, as is intended or at least as is striven for
here in this Goetheanum: only if the Goethean spirit is absorbed into
medicine.
- Note 1:
- Rudolf Steiner, Spiritual Science and Medicine,
twenty lectures given to physicians in Dornach, 1920.
Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1975.
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