| 76. The Stimulating Effect of Anthroposophy on the Individual Sciences: Linguistics
07 Apr 1921, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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| Or rather, if this abstract concept of space is the only one that can legitimately be spoken of, then there is really only one objection that can be raised, and this is sufficiently addressed in Riemannian or any other metageometry. The fact of the matter is that, for example, Kant's definitions of space are based on the very abstract concept of space, in which one does not initially concern oneself with infinity or boundlessness, and that in the course of the 19th century, this concept of space was also shaken internally, in terms of its conceptual content, by mathematics. There can be no question of Kant's definitions still applying to a space that is not infinite but unlimited. In fact, much of the further development of the “Critique of Pure Reason” would be called into question, for example the doctrine of paralogisms, if one were obliged to move on to the concept of unlimited space curved in on itself. |
| 76. The Stimulating Effect of Anthroposophy on the Individual Sciences: Linguistics
07 Apr 1921, Dornach Rudolf Steiner |
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It seems obvious to me today that what has been discussed here, from this point of view, during these days, the harmony of the subjective and the objective, is now emerging as an introduction to my lecture, also based, so to speak, on a feeling. Yesterday morning, the reflections concluded with the speech of Professor Römer, which gave me great satisfaction – that is the subjective aspect – for the reason that it showed how a specialist, who is thoroughly and fully immersed in his field, can feel the need for the spiritual science to shed light on such a specific subject. It will also have become clear to you from what Professor Römer has already been able to cite from his field of expertise today, that above all, for this interweaving, strong, vigorous work must be developed on the part of the relevant spiritual science itself. For what has been given so far - and this should be fully recognized - are initially individual guidelines that require verification with reference to external science. In all that has been brought to me through this lecture to a certain subjective satisfaction, there was a consideration of the teeth. So yesterday we concluded with the teeth – now I come to the objective. And allow me to start with the teeth again today, though not with something that I want to tell you about the teeth on my own initiative, but with a saying that emerged from the scholarship of the 11th century, as it was in Central Europe at the time. This saying goes:
This means: just as the tongue catches the wind from its surroundings and draws it into the mouth, so it draws the word it speaks out of the teeth. Now, that is a product of 11th-century Central European scholarship. It means that the tongue draws the word out of the teeth just as it draws air into the mouth from the outside world. Now a sample of 19th-century scholarship, from the last third of the century, a word pronounced by the philologist Wilhelm Scherer, who was revered by a large number of students as a modern idol, and which you will find in his “Deutsche Sprachgeschichte” (History of the German Language), where he also uses this word that I have just read to you. The word he uses in contrast to this is this: “We laugh at such a word in the present”. That is the scientific confession from the 19th century about this word from the 11th century; it expresses the scientific attitude that still prevails today in the broadest sense and that the representatives of the corresponding field are still likely to express today in further references. If we first consider this contrast from the point of view that has been adopted here more often, that a complete change has taken place in relation to the state of mind of people since the first third of the 15th century, then we have in the time that lies between the first quoted saying and the saying of Wilhelm Scherer, we have contained approximately just what has elapsed in time since the dawning of that state of mind that existed until the beginning of the 15th century, and the direction that has emerged since then and has so far undergone a certain development. Wilhelm Scherer now continues the sentences that he began by saying that he had to laugh at such a word from the 19th He says that all efforts in the present must be directed, with regard to linguistics, to bringing together what physiologists have to say about speaking and word formation based on the physiological organization of the human body with what philologists have to say about the development of language from ancient times to the present. In other words, physiology and philology should join hands in this field of science. And Wilhelm Scherer adds that unfortunately he has to admit that the philologists are very, very far behind and that it cannot be hoped that they will meet the physiologists halfway in terms of what they have to say about the physical organization for the formation of speech. So that physiology and philology are two branches of science whose lack of mutual understanding a man regarded as a man of his time acknowledges in no uncertain terms. This points to a phenomenon that is a dominant one in our time: that the individual sciences with their methods do not understand each other at all, that they talk alongside each other without the person who is placed in the midst of this scientific activity and hears what the physiologists on the one hand and the philologists on the other have to say, and who hears what they say, is able to do something with it – forgive the perhaps somewhat daring comparison – other than to be skewered from two sides in relation to his soul by the formations of concepts. In a sense, although I do not want to say much more with this than something analogous, a certain contrast is already expressed in the word designation, which, I would like to say, is unconsciously taken seriously by the newer currents of science. The word 'physiology' expresses the fact that it wants to be a logos about the physical in man, so to speak, that which grasps the physical in a logical, intellectual way; the word 'philology' expresses: love of wisdom, love of the Logos, love of the word; so the word designation is taken from an emotional experience. In one case the word designation is taken from a rational experience, in the other from an emotional experience. And what the physiologist wants to produce as a kind of intellectual Logos about the human body, that - namely the Logos - the philologist actually wants to love. As I said, I am only trying to make an analogy here, but if we pursue it further, if we follow it historically, it will take on a certain significance. I would advise us to follow it more closely historically. But we can point out something else that comes to us from prehistory, from the forerunner of that which has emerged in human consciousness since the beginning of the 15th century. We know that what is called logic and which, in a certain respect, has its image in language, at least essentially, is a creation of Aristotle. And if one were to claim that, just as a person today who has not studied logic nevertheless lives logic in his soul activity, logic also lived in people's soul activity before Aristotle, one overlooks the fact that the transformation of the unconscious into the conscious nevertheless has a deeper significance in the course of human events. The elevation of the logical into consciousness is also a real process, albeit an inwardly real process, in the development of the soul of humanity: in older times there was an intimate relationship between the concept and the word. Just as there was such an intimate relationship between the concept or idea and the perception, as you will find explained in my “Riddles of Philosophy”, there was also an intimate connection, an interlocking, I would say, of words and ideas. The distinction that we have to make today, psychologically, between the word and the content of the idea – particularly when considering mathematization, this emerges with all clarity – was not made in older times. And it was precisely this distinction that Aristotle first arrived at. He singled out, within the life of the soul, that which is conception or concept from the fabric of language and made it into something that exists separately for knowledge. But in doing so, he pushed that which lives in language further down into the unconscious than it was before. In a sense, a gulf was created for knowledge between the concept or the conception and the word. The further back we go in the consideration of human language, the more we find that the word and the concept or idea are experienced as one and the same thing, that man, so to speak, hears inwardly what he thinks, that he has a word-picture, not so much a thought-picture. The thought is linked externally to the sense perceptions and internally to the word. But in this way, even in these early times, a certain intuitive perception was present, which can be characterized as follows: as people expressed themselves in words, they felt as if what resounded in their words had entered their speech directly from a hidden, subconscious, instinctive aspect of things. They felt, as it were, that a real process takes place between what lives in things, and especially in facts, and what inwardly forms the impulse for the sounding of the word. They felt such a real connection as a person today still feels a real connection between the substances that are outside, say egg, veal, lettuce, and what then happens inside with the content of these substances when they are digested. He will see a real process in this process, which unfolds from the outside of the substances to what happens inside in the digestion. He experiences this real process subconsciously. What one experienced in language was subconscious — even if much more clearly, already permeated by a certain dim awareness. One had the feeling that something living in the things is related to the sounds, to the words. Just as the substances of the materials one eats are connected with what happens internally in the metabolism of the human being, one felt an inner connection between what takes place in the things and facts, which is similar to words, and what sounds internally as a word. And in that Aristotle raised to consciousness what was felt to be a real process, where concepts come into play, the same was achieved for language as a person achieves when he reflects on what the substances of the materials in his organism do. Thinking about digestion is, of course, somewhat further removed from the actual process of digestion than thinking about language. But we can gain an idea of the relationship by clarifying this idea by moving from the more immediate to the more distant, and by becoming clearer in the distance. Now, for us, if we replace today's abstract view of history with a more concrete one, the fact that things that happened in Greece in the pre-Christian era, also in the pre-Aristotelian era, happened later for the Central European population - who still perceived the Greeks as barbaric, that is, at a lower level of culture - is clear. And we will be right, and spiritual science gives us the guidance to raise this feeling to certainty, if we imagine that the mental state from which we speak is spoken emotionally, “the tongue draws the outer air into the mouth just as it draws the word out of the teeth,” that this way of looking at things , this remarkably pictorially expressed view was roughly the same as that which prevailed in pre-Aristotelian times within Greece, and in the place of which there arose what was bound to arise through the separation of logic, of the logos, through the separation of the conceptual from that which is expressed in language. You are aware that in that erudition which developed first in the 15th century and from which the various branches of the individual specialized sciences have emerged, that in this erudition as education much has contributed what has asserted itself as late Greek culture. The philologists, in other words, those who are supposed to love the logos, were thoroughly influenced by what emerged from late Greek culture. And just imagine such a late Greek as a Germanic scholar, like Wilhelm Scherer, confronted with early Greek, and it tells him: the tongue pulls the language out of the teeth – then he naturally rejects it, then he wants nothing to do with it from his point of view. One must consider such facts in a light that tries to shine a little deeper into the historical context than what is often available in the ordinary popular science of history today, both in the field of external political or cultural history and in the field of language history. Now the question is what paths must be sought in order to scientifically penetrate into the structure of the language organism itself, if I may express it in this way. Even in external appearances, it is expressed how the soul, which has gradually been elevated into the realm of abstract concepts, has moved away from what was felt about language in the pre-Aristotelian period. What, for example, has been produced, as an opinion about the origin of language, by this research, which is in the sign of Aristotelism? Well, it was elevated into the abstract, and thus alienated from its direct connection with the external world, through which one could experience what really corresponds to the formed word in things. It was alienated from this, but still sought to understand what such a connection might look like, and it then also translated this connection into all kinds of abstractions. What she felt inwardly, she placed in the realm where concepts are formed externally, based on sensory or other external observations. Because it was impossible to delve into things to search for the process of how the word works from things into the human organization, an abstract concept was used in place of such an understanding, for example in the so-called Wauwau theory or in the Bimbam theory. The wauwau theory says nothing more than that what appears externally in the organic as sound is imitated. It is a completely external consideration of an external fact with the help of abstract concepts. The Bim-Bim theory differs from the Bow-Wow theory only in that it takes into account the inorganic way in which sound is released from itself. This sound is then imitated in an external way by the human being who is confronted with and influenced by external nature. And the transformation of that which children call — though not everywhere, but only in a very limited area of the earth — when they hear the dog bark: woof-woof, or that which comes into their sense of language when they hear the bell ring: ding-dong-dong, this transformation is then followed by a curious method. Thus, what has then formed into the organism of language can be seen in the indicated 'theories', which, it is true, have not been replaced by much better ones to this day. We are therefore dealing with an inwardness of the observation of language. Above all, the aim of spiritual science, as it is meant here, is to make the study of language an inward one again, so that through what can be achieved in the ascent from sensory to supersensible knowledge, what was once thought about language through feeling and instinct can be found independently again, but now in a form appropriate to advanced humanity. And here I must point out (owing to the limited time I have only to indicate the directions in which the empirical facts can be followed) how spiritual science takes a strictly concrete path when it wants to understand how the human being develops from childhood to a certain age. You will find what I am trying to suggest here outlined, for example, in my booklet 'The Education of the Child from the Point of View of Spiritual Science'. First of all, it must be pointed out how the entire soul-physical configuration of the human being in the period before the change of teeth is essentially different from what it becomes after the change of teeth. Anyone who has observed this fact knows how much is metamorphosed in the soul-physical life during the period when the second teeth replace the first. And anyone who does not seek the relationships between body, soul and spirit through abstractions such as the followers of psychophysical parallelism, but seeks them in concrete phenomena, seeks them according to a truly further developed scientific method, and is able to grasp the inner structure of the soul life in the concrete, will find just how what later, in a more soul-like way, in the peculiar configuration of conceptual life, in the implementation of that which is experienced conceptually, with will impulses, which then lead to the formation of the judgment, as something that has been working in the physical organization until the change of teeth. And he will not speculate about what can “work spiritually” in the physical organization from birth to the change of teeth. Rather, he will say to himself, what is then released during the change of teeth, released from a body in which it was previously latent, that has previously been active in a latent and bound state in the physical organization of the human being. And this particular type of physical organization, in which what can later be observed in the soul is active, comes to an end with the eruption of the second teeth, which you were also made aware of yesterday. Now, the facts at hand must be considered not only from a physiological point of view, but also from the perspective of the human soul. Just as the physiologist, with his senses and the mind bound to them, penetrates into the physical processes of the human organism, so too does the soul, with its faculties of imagination and inspiration. If one really penetrates into these processes, then one must see in the real, which is first latent from birth to the change of teeth, and then becomes free, also in terms of imagination and knowledge. That is why my writing on “The Education of the Child from the Point of View of Spiritual Science”, in summarizing this process in a formulaic way, speaks of the fact that with the change of teeth, the etheric body of the human being, which previously worked in the physical body, is only born free to be active in the soul life. This “birth of the etheric body” is expressed in the change of teeth. It is necessary to have such formulaic expressions at the starting point of anthroposophical spiritual scientific observation, such as “birth of the etheric body from the physical body”, which corresponds to an actual event. But when we seek to make the transition from spiritual science in the narrower sense — which is concerned with the observation of the human being's direct experience of the day — to the approach taken in the individual specialized sciences, then what is initially expressed in such a formulaic way becomes something similar to a mathematical formula: it becomes method, method for dealing with the facts. And that is why this spiritual science can have a fruitful effect on the individual sciences, without always merely continuing into the individual sciences that which, admittedly, must be clearly borne in mind at the starting point: that the human being is structured into a physical body, etheric body, and so on. At the beginning one can and must know such things; but if spiritual science is to bring about a fruitful influence, they must become active, they must become a method, a way of treating even the empirically given 'facts'. And in this respect spiritual science, because it rises from the inorganic, where it can do little, through the organic into the spiritual realm, I would like to say, not only in the way the individual sciences can fertilize can, but it will, as a result of its findings, have confirmations of facts to hand over to them, which will shed light on what is gained from the other side through sensory-physical observation and then seen through with the mind. Spiritual and sensory-physical research must meet. And it is one of the most important tasks for the future to ensure that this spiritual research and this sensory-physical research meet. In the process that manifests itself externally during the change of teeth, it becomes clear that what is designated as the etheric body – but by taking a concrete view, not a word concept, into the eye of the soul – becomes freely active for the entire human organism, after previously having had an organizing effect in the physical body. Now it rises into the soul, becomes free and then consciously works back to the whole human being to a certain degree. Something similar occurs again with what manifests externally as sexual maturity. There we see how, once again, something arises in human experience that expresses itself, on the one hand, in a certain metamorphosis of the physical organism and, on the other hand, in a metamorphosis of the spiritual. And an essential part of the spiritual researcher's work is to acquire a concrete way of looking at what occurs in the soul and spirit, just as someone who only wants to educate themselves through external observation acquires a concrete way of looking at what they can see with their eyes and combine with their mind. Soul cannot be looked at in this way, but can only be looked at in its reality through imagination. There is no true psychology that does not begin with imaginative observation, and there is no way to find the interrelationship of body and soul or physical body and spiritual soul other than to build a bridge between what is given to external physical sensory perception as the physical body, and what falls away from this perception, what can only be given as reality in the ascent to supersensible knowledge, the spiritual-soul. If we now turn to what occurs during puberty, we must say: here we see, in a certain sense, the reverse process of what took place when the teeth changed. We see how what plays as the capacity for desire in man, what is the instinctive character of his will, takes hold of the organism in a way it did not take hold of it before. Summarizing the whole broad complex of facts that this involves in a formulaic way, it comes about that one says: the one in which the nature of desire slumbers, the astral body of the human being, becomes free when sexual maturity occurs. It is this body that now, if I may express it in this way, sinks freely into the physical organism, takes hold of it, permeates it, and thus materializes desire, which finds expression in sexual maturation. Now, what does an appropriate comparison of these two processes show? We see, so to speak, when the change of teeth occurs, a liberation of the etheric body of the human being. How does what is happening actually express itself? It expresses itself in such a way that the human being becomes capable of further developing the formation of concepts, in general the movement in the life of ideas, which used to be more bound to his whole organism, bound to the organization of the head. To a certain extent we see, and spiritual science sees it not only to a certain extent but in its reality, that the etheric, which we ascribe to the human being as an etheric body, withdraws with the change of teeth to that which only lives in the rhythm of the human organism and in the metabolic limb-organism, and that it develops a free activity in the formation of the head, in the plastic formation of the head, in which the consciousness life of the human being participates in the imagination. In a sense, the organization of the head is uncovered during this time. And if I may express myself figuratively about a reality that certainly exists, I must say that what drives itself to the surface from the entire human organization in the second teeth is the soul-spiritual activity that previously permeates the entire bodily organization and then becomes free. Before, it permeated the whole human being right into the head. It gradually withdraws from the head; and it shows how it withdraws by revealing its no-longer-to-the-head activity in that it stops and produces the second teeth. You can visualize this almost schematically. If I indicate schematically what the human physical organization is with the white chalk, and what the etheric organization is with the red chalk, then the following would result schematically (see figure):  In the figure on the left, you see the human being in his spiritual, soul and physical activity as he stands before you until his teeth change. In the second figure, which is to your right, you see how the etheric element has withdrawn from the immediate effect of the head organization, how it has become free in a certain respect, so that from there it can freely affect the human head organism. And the last thing that happens in the physical organism as a result of this activity of the soul-spiritual is the eruption of the second teeth. I would say that you can observe in its image what is being communicated to you here as a spiritual view if you take the skulls that Professor Römer showed you yesterday, because you can compare the insertion of the first teeth with the insertion of the second teeth. If you want to follow this logically, then you have to take as a basis what has been gained here from spiritual science. Then you have to say to yourself, the first teeth, with all that is expressed in them, are taken out of the whole human organization, including the head organization. What is expressed in the second teeth is taken out after the inner soul organization, insofar as it concerns the etheric body, has slowly withdrawn into the rhythmic and metabolic organism and become free for the main head organization. In a similar way, we can say — as I said, I can only give guidelines — that something is happening with sexual maturity. What we call the astral body is sunk into the physical body, so that it finally takes hold of it and brings about what constitutes sexual maturity. But now what happens in the human being takes place in the most manifold metamorphoses. Once one has truly understood a process such as that which is expressed through sexual maturity, which brings about a certain new relationship in human development, in the development of the human being to the outer world, once one truly understands such a process inwardly, one then also recognizes it when it occurs in a certain metamorphosis. What occurs at puberty, in that it takes hold of the whole person, in that it, so to speak, forms a relationship between the whole person and their environment, is, I would say, anticipated in a different metamorphosis at the moment when language develops in the child. Only what takes place with sexual maturation in the child takes place in a different metamorphosis in the formation of speech. What takes hold of the whole human being at sexual maturation and pours into his relationship with the outside world takes place between the rhythmic and limb human being and the human being's head organization. To a certain extent, the same forces that take hold of the whole person during puberty and direct their relationship to the outside world assert themselves between the lower and upper human beings. And as the lower human being learns to feel the upper human being in the way that the human being later learns to feel the outside world, he learns to speak. A process that can be observed externally in a person at a later age must be followed in its metamorphosis until it appears as an internal process in the human organism, in the learning to speak: the process that otherwise occurs in the whole person at puberty. And once we have grasped this, we are able to comprehend how the interaction of the lower human being — the rhythmic and the limb-based human being — in its reciprocity develops an inner experience of something that is also present externally in the nature around us. This inward experiencing of what is outwardly present leads to the fact that what remains outwardly mute in things as their own language begins to resound as the human language in the human inner being. Please proceed from this sentence as from a regulative principle. Proceed from this sentence that what is in things, as they become external, material, falls silent, that in dematerialization it becomes audible in the human being and comes to speak. Then you will find the way in which you do not develop a yap-yap or a bim-bim theory, but on which you see that which is external to things – and cannot be perceived by external observation because it is silent and only exists in a supersensible way – as language in the human interior. What I am saying here is like drawing a line to indicate the direction in which one would most like to paint a wide-ranging picture. I can only present this rather abstract proposition regarding the relationship between the things and facts of the external world and the origin of human language in the inner life. And you will see everything you can sense about language in a new light when you follow the path from this abstractly assumed sentence, which initially sounds formulaic, to what the facts connect for you in terms of meaning. And if you then want to apply what has been philologically obtained in this way to physiology, you will be able to learn about the connection between external sexual metamorphosis and linguistic metamorphosis by studying facts that are still present as a linguistic remnant of the sexual maturation metamorphosis in the change of the voice, that is, of the larynx in boys, and in some other phenomena that occur in women. If you have the will to engage with the facts and to draw the threads from one series of facts to another, not to encapsulate yourself in barren specialized sciences, but to really illuminate what is present in one science as fact , through the facts that come to light through other sciences, then the individual special sciences will be able to become what man must seek in them if he is to make progress on the path of his knowledge as well as on the path of his will. In a context that might seem unrelated, we will see tomorrow in a very natural way how we can go from the change of teeth to the appearance of speech and then further back to what is the third on this retrogressive path: we see, so to speak, in what is expressed in the change of teeth, an interaction between the physical body and the etheric body. We see, in turn, in what is expressed in language, an interaction between the astral body and the etheric body. And thirdly, we must seek an interrelationship between the I and that which lives in man as an astral body, and we will be led to that which is the third in this retrospective consideration: to the embodiment of the spiritual-soul, to that which is born in the spiritual-soul. If one seeks the path from the change of teeth through the emergence of speech, the third stage is the stage of uniting the pre-existing human soul with the physical. By walling up the way out of his consideration of the change of teeth to the consideration of language through his abstraction, Aristotle was forced to resort to the dogma that a new spiritual soul is born with each new human being. Due to a lack of will to continue on a path of knowledge, knowledge of human preexistence has been lost, and with it knowledge of all that truly leads to the knowledge of the human soul. We see a historical connection, which, however, comes to expression in the treatment of certain problems, and we can say in conclusion: Today, according to the dictum of a philologist who is quite significant in the contemporary sense, philology and physiology are so opposed that they cannot understand each other. Why is this so? Because physiology studies the human body and does not come back to the mind in this study. If one pursues true physiology, then one finds the spiritual and psychological in man through the bodily in physiological observation. What happens when one pursues true philology? If one pursues true philology, then one does not reduce the logos to an abstraction, for which one then seeks to see through after-images, after-images in a scientific method, but one seeks to penetrate into that which one supposedly loves as a “philo”-logist, through imaginative and other forms of observation. But then, when one penetrates into that which has become shadowy and nebulous for today's philology, namely the genius of language, the creative genius of language, when one penetrates into it, then one penetrates through the spirit to the external corporeality. Physiology finds the spirit by way of the inner body. Philology, when viewed correctly, finds what speaks and has fallen silent in things on the way out through the genius of language. It does not find bark and bim-bam, but rather finds the reason why words and language arise in us in the things that physically surround us. Physiology has lost its way because it stops at the body and does not penetrate inwardly through the body to the spirit. Philology has lost its way because it stops at the genius of language, which it then only grasps in the abstract, and does not penetrate into the inner being of the outer things from which what lives in the word resounds. If philology does not speak as if the wauwau and bimbam are imitated in an externally abstract way by man, but speaks about the external physicality in such a way that it becomes clear to it in imaginations, how the word arises from this external physicality, which echoes internally, so that when physiology has found spirit and philology has found physicality, they will find each other. In this way I have traced the path that spiritual science in the anthroposophical sense wants to lead in conscientious work. I have only given a few hints in this particular field of introductory linguistics. Now, these things are discussed among us, these things are striven for by us. While we strive for these things, so that they may bear witness to what is being striven for on a path of knowledge that arises entirely out of the spirit of our time. And while you can see from what is being striven for that there is probably a certain seriousness that can be measured against the seriousness that exists in other areas of life, Stuttgart, a meeting raged that trampled on most of our speakers, that had no intention of listening to anything, that did not want to engage with what we had to say, but that, through trampling and similar things, sought to crush what is being seriously pursued. And, addressing my fellow students, I may say: yesterday evening in Stuttgart, your colleagues were absent – not from the other faculty, but from the other attitude – they were not absent, they were present in the trampling. Dear attendees, my dear fellow students! It will become ever clearer and clearer that there are those who, because they cannot be refuted – because they do not want to be refuted – because they do not want to engage with the new at all by inertly continuing with the old that has outlived itself, they will want to trample down on that with external force. Well, I would just like to appeal to you here in the sense that I do have faith in you, that you may say to yourself: We still have a say in this trampling down procedure! – But may this word become action. Third evening of disputations The questions did not relate to the theme of the day, “Linguistics”, but drew on problems dealt with earlier. Dr. Steiner. Here is the question: It has been said that the three dimensions of space are not equal in structure – what is the difference? In any case, the sentence was never formulated in this way: the three dimensions of space are “not equal in structure”, but what is probably meant here is the following. First of all, we have mathematical space, the space that we imagine – if we have an exact idea of it at all – as three mutually perpendicular dimensional directions, which we can thus define by the three mutually perpendicular coordinate axes. In the usual mathematical treatment of space, the three dimensions are treated absolutely equally. We make so little distinction between the dimensions up-down, right-left, front-back that we can even think of these three dimensions as interchangeable. In the case of mere mathematical space, it does not matter whether, when we have the X-axis and the Z-axis perpendicular to each other, and the Y-axis perpendicular to them, we call the plane on which the Y-axis stands “horizontal” or “vertical” or the like. Likewise, we do not concern ourselves with the limitations of this space, so to speak. Not that we imagine it to be limitless. One does not usually ascend to this notion, but one imagines it in such a way that one does not concern oneself with its limits, but rather tacitly assumes that one can start from any point – let us say, for example, the X-direction and adding another piece to what you have already measured in the X-direction, to that again a piece and so on, and you would never be led to come to an end anywhere. In the course of the 19th century, much has been said against this Euclidean-geometric conception of space from the standpoint of meta-geometry. I will only remind you of how, for example, Riemann distinguished between the “unboundedness” of space and the “infiniteness” of space. And initially, there is no necessity for the purely conceptual imagination to assume the concept of “unboundedness” and that of “infiniteness” as identical. Take, for example, a spherical surface. If you draw on a spherical surface, you will find that nowhere do you come up against a spatial boundary that could, as it were, prevent you from continuing your drawing. You will certainly enter into your last drawing if you continue drawing; but you will never be forced to stop drawing because of a boundary if you remain on the spherical surface. So you can say to yourself: the spherical surface is unlimited in terms of my ability to draw on it. But no one will claim that the spherical surface is infinite. So you can distinguish, purely conceptually, between unlimitedness and infinity. Under certain mathematical conditions, this can also be extended to space, can be extended to space in such a way that one imagines: if I add a distance in the X or Y axis, and then another and so on, and am never prevented from adding further distances, then this property of space could indeed speak for its unlimitedness, but not for the infinity of space. Despite the fact that I can always add new pieces, space does not need to be infinite at all; it could be unlimited. So these two concepts must be kept separate. So one could assume that if space were unbounded but not infinite, it would have an inward curvature in the same way as space does now, that is, in some way it would likewise recede into itself, like the surface of a sphere recedes into itself. Certain ideas of newer metageometry are based on such assumptions. Actually, no one can say that there is much to be said against such assumptions; because, as I said, there is no way to derive the infinity of space from what we experience in space. It could very well be curved in on itself and then be finite. Of course, I cannot go into this line of thought in detail, because it is almost the only one followed by the whole of modern metageometry. However, you will find sufficient evidence in the works of Riemann, Gauss and so on, which are readily available, to explore if you value such mathematical ideas. From the purely mathematical point of view, therefore, this is what has been introduced into the, I would say rigid, neutral space of Euclidean geometry, which was only derived from 'unboundedness'. But what is indicated in the question is rooted in something else. Namely, that space, with which we initially calculate and which is available to us in analytical geometry, for example, when we deal with the three coordinate axes that are perpendicular to one another, that space is initially an abstraction. And an abstraction – from what? That is the question that must first be raised. The question is whether we have to stop at this abstraction of “space” or whether that is not the case. Do we have to stop at this abstraction of space? Is this the only space that can be spoken of? Or rather, if this abstract concept of space is the only one that can legitimately be spoken of, then there is really only one objection that can be raised, and this is sufficiently addressed in Riemannian or any other metageometry. The fact of the matter is that, for example, Kant's definitions of space are based on the very abstract concept of space, in which one does not initially concern oneself with infinity or boundlessness, and that in the course of the 19th century, this concept of space was also shaken internally, in terms of its conceptual content, by mathematics. There can be no question of Kant's definitions still applying to a space that is not infinite but unlimited. In fact, much of the further development of the “Critique of Pure Reason” would be called into question, for example the doctrine of paralogisms, if one were obliged to move on to the concept of unlimited space curved in on itself. I know that for the ordinary conception this concept of curved space causes difficulties. But from the purely mathematical-geometric point of view, nothing can be objected to what is assumed there, except that one is moving in a realm of pure abstraction that is initially quite far from reality. And if you look more closely, you will find that there is a strange circularity in the derivations of modern meta-geometry. It is this, that one starts out from the idea of Euclidean geometry, which is not concerned with the limitations of space. From this, one then gets certain derived ideas, let us say ideas that relate to something like a spherical surface. And then, in turn, by undertaking certain reconciliations or reinterpretations with the forms that arise, one can make interpretations of space from there. Actually, everything is said under the assumption of Euclidean coordinate geometry. Under this assumption, one arrives at a certain measure of curvature. One arrives at the derivations. All of this is done with the concepts of Euclidean geometry. But then one turns around, so to speak: one now uses these ideas, which can only arise with the help of Euclidean geometry, for example the measure of curvature, in order to arrive at a different idea that leads to a reorganization and can provide an interpretation for what has been gained from the curved forms. Basically, we are moving in an unrealistic area by extracting abstractions from abstractions. The matter would only be justified if empirical facts made it necessary to conform to the ideas of these facts according to what is obtained through such a thing. The question, then, is: what is the experiential basis for the abstraction “space”? After all, space as such, as presented in Euclid, is an abstraction. What is the basis for what can be experienced, what can be perceived? We must start from the human experience of space. Placed in the world, human beings, through their own activity of experience, actually perceive only one spatial dimension, and that is the dimension of depth. This perception, this acquired perception of the dimension of depth by the human being is based on a process of consciousness that is very often ignored. But this acquired perception is something quite different from the perception of the plane-like, the perception of extension in two dimensions. When we see with our two eyes, that is, with our total vision, we are never aware that these two dimensions come about through an activity of their own, through an activity of the soul. They are, so to speak, there as two dimensions. Whereas the third dimension comes about through a certain activity, even if this activity is not usually brought to consciousness. We actually have to first acquire the knowledge and understanding of how deep in space something lies, how far away from us any object is. We do not acquire the extent of the surface, it is given by observation. But we do acquire the sense of depth through our two eyes. The way in which we experience the sense of depth is indeed on the borderline between the conscious and the unconscious; but anyone who has learned to focus his attention on such things knows that the semi-unconscious or unconscious, never conscious, activity of judging the depth dimension is much more similar to an intellectual, or even a soul activity, an active soul activity than to everything that is only viewed on the plane. Thus, the one dimension of three-dimensional space is already actively conquered for our objective consciousness. And we cannot say otherwise than: By observing the position of the upright human being, something is given in relation to this depth dimension — front-back — which is not interchangeable with any other dimension. Simply because a person stands in the world and experiences this dimension in a certain way, what he experiences there is not interchangeable with any other direction. For the individual, this depth dimension is something that cannot be exchanged for any other dimension. It is also the case that the grasping of two-dimensionality – that is, up-down, right-left, of course also when it is in front of us – is also tied to other parts of the brain, since it lies within the process of seeing, that is, within the sensory process of perception; while, with regard to localization in the brain, the emergence of the third dimension is quite close to those centers that are to be considered for intellectual activity. So here we can already see that in the realization of this third dimension, even in terms of experience, there is an essential difference compared to the other two dimensions. But if we then move up to imagination, we get out of what we experience in the third dimension altogether: in imagination, we actually move on to two-dimensional representation. And now we have yet to work out the other imagination, the imagination of right and left, although this has been hinted at just as quietly as the development of the third dimension in objective imagining; so that there is again a specific experience in right and left. And finally, when we ascend to inspiration, the same applies to up and down. For ordinary imagining, which is tied to our nervous sense system, we develop the third dimension. But when we turn directly to the rhythmic system by excluding the ordinary activity of the nervous sense system – which in a certain respect occurs when we ascend to the level of inspiration; it is not entirely precise to say this, but it does not matter for now – then we have the experience of the second dimension. And we have the experience of the first dimension when we ascend to inspiration, that is, when we advance to the third member of the human organization. Thus that which we have before us in abstract space proves to be exact because everything we conquer in mathematics we extract from within ourselves. What arises in mathematics as three-dimensional space is actually something that we have within ourselves. But if we descend into ourselves through supersensible representations, it is not abstract space with its three equally valid dimensions that arises, but three different valences for the three different dimensions: front-back, right-left, up-down; they cannot be interchanged. From this follows yet another: if these three are not interchangeable, there is no need to imagine them with the same intensity. That is the essence of Euclidean space: that we imagine the X-, Y-, Z-axis with the same intensity – this is assumed for any geometric calculation. If we hold the X-, Y-, Z-axis in front of us, then we must – if we want to stick with what our equations tell us in analytical geometry, but assume an inner intensity of the three axes – imagine this intensity as being of equal value. If we were to elastically enlarge the X-axis with a certain intensity, for example, the Y- and Z-axes would have to enlarge with the same intensity. That is to say, if I now grasp intensively that which I am expanding, the force of expansion, if I may say so, is the same for the X-, Y-, Z-axis, that is, for the three dimensions of Euclidean space. Therefore, applying the concept of space in this way, I would like to call this space rigid space. Now, this is no longer the case when we take real space, of which this rigid space is an abstraction, when we take space as it is experienced by a human being. Then we can no longer speak of these three intensities of expansion being the same. Rather, the intensity is essentially dependent on what is found in the human being: the human proportions are entirely the result of the intensities of spatial expansion. And we must, for example, if we call the up-down the Y-axis, imagine this with a greater intensity of expansion than, for example, the X-axis, which would correspond to the right-left. If we were to look for a formulaic expression for this real space, if we were to express in formulaic terms what is meant by 'real' here, then again we would end up with a three-axis ellipsoid. Now we also have the reason to imagine this three-axis space, in which supersensible thinking must live, in its three quite different possibilities of expansion, so that we can also recognize this space, through the real experience of the X-, Y- and Z-axis given to us with our physical body, as that which simultaneously expresses the relationship of the world bodies situated in this space. When we imagine this, we must bear in mind that everything we think of out there in this three-dimensional cosmic space cannot be thought of as simply extending in different directions with the same intensity of expansion along the X-, Y- and Z-axes Z-axis, as is the case with Euclidean space, but we must think of space as having a configuration that could also be imagined by a triaxial ellipsoid. And the arrangement of certain stars certainly supports this. Our Milky Way system is usually called a lens and so on. It is not possible to imagine it as a spherical surface; we have to imagine it in a different way if we stick to a purely physical fact. You can see from the treatment of space how little newer thinking is in line with nature. In ancient times, in older cultures, no one had such a conception as that of rigid space. One cannot even say that in Euclidean geometry there was already a clear conception of this rigid space with the three equal intensities of expansion, and also the three lines perpendicular to one another. It was only when people began to treat space in the manner of Euclidean geometry, in their calculations, that this abstract conception of space actually arose. In earlier times, quite similar insights had been gained, as I have now developed them again from the nature of supersensible knowledge. From this you can see that things on which people today rely so heavily, which are taken for granted, only have such significance because they operate in a sphere that is divorced from reality. The space that people use in their calculations today is an abstraction; it operates entirely in a sphere that is divorced from reality. It is abstracted from experiences that we can know through real experience. But today, people are often content with what abstractions are. In our time, when so much emphasis is placed on empiricism, abstractions are most often invoked. And people don't even notice it. They believe that they are dealing with things in reality. But you can see how much our ideas need to be rectified in this regard. In every concept, the spiritual researcher does not merely ask whether it is logical. Although, in a certain sense, it is only a branch of Euclidean space, it is not really possible to grasp it conceptually, because one arrives at it through a completely abstract train of thought, in which one comes to a conclusion and, as it were, turns one's whole thinking upside down. When imagining, the spiritual researcher does not merely ask whether it is logical, but whether it is also in line with reality. That is the deciding factor for him in accepting or not accepting an idea. He only accepts an idea if this idea is in line with reality. And this criterion of correspondence to reality will be given when one begins to deal with such ideas in an appropriate way, which is the justification for something like the theory of relativity, for example. It is logical in itself, I would like to say, because it only comprehends itself within the realm of logical abstraction, as logically as anything can be logical. Nothing can be more logical than the theory of relativity! But the other question is whether its ideas are realizable. And there you need only look at the ideas that are listed there as analogous, and you will find that they are actually quite unrealistic ideas that are just thrown around. It is only there for sensualization, they say beforehand. But it is not just there for symbolization. Otherwise the whole procedure would be in the air. That is what I would like to say about the question. You see, it is not possible to answer questions that touch on such areas very easily. Now there is a question regarding the sentence: “The organism of an ancient Egyptian or Greek was quite different from that of modern man. Dear attendees, I certainly did not say that! And at this point I must definitely draw attention to something that I often draw attention to, and really not out of immodesty: I am in the habit of expressing myself as precisely as I possibly can. And it is actually an extremely painful fact, not just for me personally, since it is tolerable, but from the point of view of the anthroposophical spiritual movement, that in the face of many things, for the formulation of which I have used all possible precautions to formulate the facts as adequately as possible, then everything possible is done, everything possible is said, and then these assertions are sent out into the world as “genuine anthroposophical teachings”. One of these assertions is that I am supposed to have said, “The organism of an ancient Egyptian or Greek was quite different from that of a modern man”. It can be reduced to the following. I said: the modern way of thinking imagines too strongly that man, as a whole being, has basically always been as he is today, right down to a certain historical time. I usually only speak of “completely different,” of metamorphoses of man as such, where there are great differences, where man becomes “completely different” in a certain respect: in prehistoric times. But anyone who is able to penetrate to the subtleties of the structure and the innermost fabric – as a human being can in spiritual science – will find that a metamorphosis of the human being is constantly taking place, that, for example, the modern human being differs from the Egyptian or the Greek. Of course not in terms of external, striking characteristics, which are as striking as external physiognomy and the like. That is probably what is meant in the question, but that is not my opinion, because in terms of striking characteristics, modern man is of course not “completely different” from the Egyptian. But in terms of finer internal structural relationships, spiritual science comes to the following conclusion, for example. It has to be said that since the first third of the 15th century, humanity has become particularly adept at abstract thought, at moving more and more towards abstract trains of thought. This is also essentially based on a different structure of the brain. And through the method of spiritual science, the spiritual researcher can recognize the matter. Then it turns out that it is really the case that the brain has indeed changed in its finest structures since Egyptian times. The brain of the Egyptian was such that, to take one example, he also belonged to those of whom Dr. Husemann spoke, that the ancient Egyptian also had no sense for the blue color nuance and so on. In any case, we can see that the sense of abstraction occurs to the same extent as the nuances of blue emerge from mere darkness. What occurs in the life of the soul corresponds entirely to a physical metamorphosis. It is extremely important that we do not stop at the coarser aspects of human nature, as they are presented when we go back, for my sake, to the long periods of time that lie before history. Rather, if we want to consider human beings as humanity, we must also consider the finer structural changes during their historical existence.
Well, quite a lot has actually been said in these days, let us say, also through the things that Dr. Husemann has presented, about how this fact behaves. And if we were to go into other fields of fact, there would certainly be much that could be said about these other, very fine, intimate structural relationships of the human being.
I never want to talk about anything other than what I have investigated myself. And so, in answering this question, I would only like to share what I have experienced myself. For example, I don't know the famous Elberfeld horses. I also don't know the dog Rolf, I never had the honor of meeting him. Now, with regard to such things, I could always state that the story is all the more wonderful the less one is embarrassed by not really being able to see through it, to really get to know it. But I once saw Mr. von Osten's horse in Berlin. I can't say that the calculations that Mr. von Osten presented to the horse were extraordinarily complicated. But I was able to get an instant idea of what it was all about from what was going on there – although you had to look very closely. I could only marvel at the strange theories that had been advanced about these things. There was a lecturer, I think his name was Fox or something like that, who was supposed to examine this whole story with the horse; and he now put forward the theory that every time the gentleman from the east gave some task, terribly small movements would occur in the eye or something like that. Another small movement would occur when Mr. von Osten says “three” like that, or when he says it like that; another movement would occur when he says “two”. So that a certain fine series of movements would come about if Mr. von Osten said, “three times two”; then the same sign of this movement would come again, six! And Mr. von Osten's horse should now be particularly predisposed to guess these fine movements, which the lecturer in question said he did not perceive in any way, but only assumed hypothetically. After all, the whole “theory” was based on the fact that Mr. von Osten's horse was much more perceptive, to a much greater extent in reality, than the lecturer who put forward this theory. If you stick to the flashy blue thinking in hypothesizing, you can set up hypotheses in the most diverse ways. For those who have some insight into such matters, certain circumstances were of extraordinary value. During the entire time that Mr. von Osten presented his experiments to the amazed public with his horse, he gave the horse nothing but sweets – he had huge pockets in the back of his coat. And the horse just kept licking, and that's how it solved these tasks. Now imagine that this has created a completely different relationship between the horse and Mr. von Osten himself. When Mr. von Osten continually gives the horse sugar, a very special relationship of love and intimacy develops between them. Now the animal nature is so extraordinarily variable due to the intimacy of the relationship that develops, both from 'animal to human and from human to animal'. And then effects come about that are actually wrongly described when they are called “mind reading” in the sense in which the word is often understood, but they are mediators for that which is not “subtle twitchings” that a private lecturer hypothetically posits, but which he himself says he does not see! No subtle twitches are needed to convey the solutions. It can be traced back to the following: imagine what went through the mind of Herr von Osten, who of course was vain enough to realize that the tension in the audience, made up of sensation-hungry people, was going through the most incredible twists and turns as he noticed it, and when he was then standing in front of the solution to the task, he gave the horse a piece of sugar. And add to that the effect on the horse of the mental relationship. It was truly not a command given by words or twitching, but an intimately given command that always went from Mr. von Osten to the horse when he gave him sweets to eat. Suggestion is probably not the right word. Relationships that take place between people cannot be transferred to every living being. I have tried to show these things in concrete terms by highlighting a circumstance that many will consider trivial: the constant giving of sugar as something extraordinarily essential.
When we speak of crystal forms, we are dealing with forms that are actually different in their overall relationship to the cosmos, in their entire position in the world, than the forms that one can imagine in the Primordial Plant and, again, in the plant forms derived from the Primordial Plant, that is to say, in the possibility of real existence. For example, the principle applied to the design of the primeval plant could not be applied to the field of mineralogy or crystallogy. For there one is dealing with something that must be approached from a completely different angle. And one must first approach it by actually approaching the field of polyhedral crystal forms. And this approach, I can only hint at now. I have explained it in more detail in its individual representations in a lecture course that I gave for a smaller group. This approach is taken when one starts from the consideration, an internal dynamic consideration of the state of aggregation, let us say first of all from the gaseous state downwards to the solid. I can only draw the lines now; it would take too long if I were to explain it in detail, but I will hint at it. If one descends – if I may express it this way – from the gaseous state to the liquid state, then one must say: the liquid state of aggregation shows itself in that, as the one in the whole coherence of nature, a level-limiting surface, which is a spherical surface, and the degree of curvature of which can be obtained from any point on the surface by means of the transition to the tangent at that point. What you get there includes the shape that has its outer circumference in the spherical surface, and a point in the interior that is the same distance from this spherical surface everywhere. If we now imagine the drop in an unlimited way, I do not say in an infinite way, but enlarged in an unlimited way, we get a level surface approaching the horizontal, and we have certain relationships in mind that are perpendicular to this level surface. But we arrive at the same idea by observing the connections that arise when we simply regard our earth as a force field that can attract surrounding objects that are not firmly attached to it. If we regard the earth not as a center of gravity but as a spherical surface of gravity, then we arrive at the same result for this, I would say, gravitational figure as we need in another respect for the material constitution of the drop. So for a pure force context, we get something that corresponds to a material context. And in this way we arrive at a possibility for studying the formal relationships in the inorganic. 13 So that we can say that in this context of forces, which is present in the whole body of the earth, we are always dealing with the horizontal plane. If we now move from this state of forces to one in which, let us say, there is not a point in the center to which the level surface refers as in the 'drop to the one center point', but rather several points, we would find a strangely composed surface. These relationships of the line to these 'centers' I would have to draw in the diagram in something like the following way: But if we now proceed—and now I am taking a great leap, which is well-founded, but in the short time available I can only hint at the true content—if we now proceed to assume these points not inside, within the system we are dealing with, but outside, then perhaps we would get a diagram that can be made diagrammatically in the following way: If we transfer the points into immeasurable distances, not into infinite distances, but into very great distances, then these curved surfaces, which are indicated here by curved lines, by curves, pass over into planes, and we would get a polyhedral form, which approximates to what we have before us in the known crystal forms. 14 And indeed, spiritual scientific observation leads us to look at the crystal in such a way that we do not merely derive it from certain inner figurative forces in some material substance, but we relate it to the exterior of the cosmos, and we seek in the cosmos the directions that then, through the distribution of their starting points, result in what the individual crystal form is. In the individual crystal form, we actually get, so to speak, impressions of large cosmic relationships. All of this needs to be studied in detail. I fear that what I have been able to hint at, albeit only in a few very sparse lines, may already seem to you to be something very daring. But it must be said that today people have encapsulated themselves in their world of ideas in a very narrow area, and that is why they feel so uncomfortable when one does not stick to the conceptual world that is usually taken as a basis today, I would say is taken as a basis in all sciences. Spiritual science demands an - as experience makes necessary - immeasurable expansion of concepts compared to the present situation. And that is precisely what makes some people uneasy. They cannot see the shore, so to speak, and believe they are losing their way. But they would realize that what is lost through the expanse is gained again as a certain inner firmness and security, so that there is no need to be so afraid of what appears to be an expansion into the boundless. Of course, it is much easier to make up some model or other — as was also mentioned today in a certain question — than to advance to such ideas. It is easier to say: the truth must be simple! — The reason why one says that the truth must be simple is not, in fact, that the truth really must be simple, because the human organism, for example, is incredibly complicated. Rather, the reason why it is said that the true must be simple is that the simple is convenient in thinking. That is the whole point. And it is necessary, above all, to advance to the fuller content if one really wants to understand reality bit by bit. The question that was raised here still required that one should present three hours of theory. One cannot speak about the sun through “a brief answer to the question,” because one would be completely misunderstood. And I do not want that. — So, first of all, the answerable questions are answered provisionally.
What is the question? — Not true, one must only consider from which point of view such a question can be asked. The question is posed: Is the effect of the power of Christ expressed in the material earth? — You must only bear in mind that spiritual science, based on its research, has a very definite idea about the earth that does not coincide with what one imagines about the earth when one speaks of the “material earth” in the sense of the word “material” in today's language. So the question is actually without real content. If one speaks of something like an “influence of the power of Christ on the earth”, then, since this idea is in turn borrowed from spiritual science, one must also have the idea of the earth that applies to anthroposophy, to spiritual science. And how the power of Christ stands in a certain relationship to the whole metamorphosis of the earth can only be presented in the overall context that I have given in Occult Science. And there one also finds what is necessary to answer the question, if it is formulated correctly.
I would just like to add that the aforementioned General v. Gleich, quite a long time before, for weeks before, he proceeded to his lecture and to the writing of his pamphlet, wrote a letter to our friend Mr. Molt, as a concerned father, concerned about the misfortune that he, as the owner of a forty-year-old nobility, not only “handed over” his son to anthroposophy, but also to a completely un-noble lady who is an anthroposophist! As a concerned father, he wrote to our friend Molt, asking him to visit him. Mr. Molt did so, but said that he did not know what to do with him. This was clear to him from the fact that Mr. v. Gleich demanded that we “of the threefold social order movement” should henceforth pay the son of General v. Gleich, who was employed by us, so little that the young man would not be able to marry, and that we should at least protect General v. Gleich from this marriage of his son by paying him so little. After these events, it was understandable that one could not expect the best from General von Gleich's lecture. We then actually saw even the worst expectations exceeded! It was the case with this lecture that Gleich essentially presented the content of a brochure – somewhat more fully developed, we might say – that appeared in Ludwigsburg at the same time. It had already been arranged that this brochure should appear at the same time as the lecture. In this brochure, he makes various accusations against anthroposophy in the most uninformed way, without providing any evidence for what he says – anyone who reads this brochure can see that for themselves – by actually only using the opponents of anthroposophy. This is clear from the brochure's table of contents: a few references to literature where one can find out about anthroposophy. One would think that these would be the anthroposophical books, but no, there are about twenty opponents, with the most shameless one right at the front: Max Seiling! Von Gleich essentially brings nothing new to the table that cannot be found in Seiling's brochure, only in the way General von Gleich used to give his lecture. And it was the case that this lecture was announced “without discussion”. There were numerous followers of the anthroposophical movement in the audience. After he had finished the lecture, which was full of the harshest expressions and included some of the most crude slander, he simply left the hall without entering into any discussion. And when someone tried to get a word in edgewise, and when Mr. Molt, who was there and was also personally attacked several times in the lecture, shouted: “He hereby publicly declares – he shouted this into the hall, in which there was a raging was a raging crowd of Mr. v. Gleich's supporters, he did not consider it worth replying to anything. He had already left the hall. On the other hand, the supporters, who were equipped with whistles and other noisy instruments, tried to shout down the anthroposophists who wanted to object. And it was quite close to a brawl. It was very difficult to protest against the most serious defamations, since the whole meeting immediately took on a threatening character, and it was clear that it would come to a brawl.
I would just like to say a few words. Can I have this letter again? I would just like to make a formal comment, a comment that does not concern the matter itself. So, in the letter from Mr. v. Gleich to his son, it says: “[...] If only God had willed that you, a decent Christian nobleman, had fallen for your fatherland, then I could at least mourn you with pride [...] I pray to God to take the blindness from you again, so that you may awaken from it again [...].” (space in the postscript). As you can see, a lot has been said about Mr. von Gleich's own Christianity; I would like to emphasize this: his own Christianity, in comparison with the unreasonable demand that we have been made to pay our son so badly that he cannot marry. That seems to me a very Christian act! And I do not want to be distracted by these “little piquant matters”, which are also on this program, and talk about the seriousness of the situation. Because I know very well that what happened yesterday in Stuttgart is not an end, but a beginning, that behind it stands a strong organization. And it is precisely out of this feeling that I may thank such a personality as the one who has just spoken - out of a real inner feeling for what Anthroposophy at least wants to be. But I would like to point out the seriousness of the situation and the necessity to act in the spirit of this serious situation. What I want to say must, of course, be distinguished from a certain understanding that one can also have of such Christians as General von Gleich, for example, who is a Christian! I do not want to make a comparison, not even a formal one, but I just want to say something that I had to remember with this kind of Christianity. There are, in fact, very different kinds of Christianity, even of Orthodox Christianity. When the criminal anthropologist Moritz Benedikt started working and writing in criminal anthropology, he initially found little understanding in Vienna. He then found extraordinary understanding in a director of a home for dangerous criminals in Hungary. He was given the opportunity to examine the skulls of criminals, including the skulls of the most dangerous Hungarian criminals. Among them were the strangest people, including a very devout Orthodox Christian, who, of course, could not behave towards Professor Benedikt in accordance with his Christian intentions. He was very angry with him because he was allowed to examine his skull. And he was especially angry about it because he had heard that the prison director had agreed that Professor Benedikt would get to study particularly characteristic criminal skulls after death. And since he was not released to the professor Benedikt in this institution, he wanted to be at least presented to this Benedikt in chains. During this presentation, he said that he could not admit that, given his Christian beliefs, he should allow his skull to be sent to the professor Benedikt in Vienna after his death; he would then be buried here, and his skull would lie around in Vienna! And he wanted to know how his body and his skull would be brought together at the resurrection. He believed so much in his bodily resurrection – he was a real criminal, I think even a murderer. |