The Impulse for Renewal in Culture and Science
GA 81
I. Anthroposophy and Natural Science
6 March 1922, Berlin
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 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 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.