The Rudolf Steiner Archive

[ 1 ] For a long time science came to a standstill in the presence of the organic. Its methods were not considered adequate to grasp life and its manifestations. Indeed, it was believed that every conformity to law such as is effective in inorganic Nature here ceases to exist. What was admitted with reference to the inorganic world—that a phenomenon is intelligible to us when we know its natural prerequisite conditions—was here simply denied. The organism was supposed to have been designed purposefully by the Creator according to a determinate plan. Each organ was supposed to have its predestined function; all questions here could be directed only to the discovery of what the purpose of this or that organ is; for what end this or that is present. Whereas, in the inorganic world, one gave attention to the prerequisite conditions of a thing, this was considered quite futile for the facts of life, and primary importance was attached to the purpose of a thing. Likewise in regard to the processes which accompany life, the question asked was not so much concerning the natural causes, as in the case of the physical phenomena, but these processes were supposed to be attributable to a special vital force. What was formed in the organism was supposed to be a product of this force, which simply took a position above other natural laws. In short, up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, science did not know how to deal with organisms. It was restricted to the sphere of the inorganic.

[ 2 ] In thus seeking the laws governing the organism, not in the nature of the objects, but in the thought which the Creator followed in forming them, men were cut off from any possibility of an explanation. How is that thought to be made known to me P I am limited to what I have before me. If this thing itself does not lay bare its laws within my thoughts, then my knowledge ceases. We cannot discuss in a scientific sense the divination of a plan held by a Being outside the thing itself.

[ 3 ] At the close of the eighteenth century, the point of view which almost universally prevailed was that there is no science which interprets the phenomena of life in the sense in which, for example, physics is an interpretive science. Indeed, Kant sought to give a philosophic basis for this opinion. He considered our intellect to be of such a nature that it can proceed only from the particular to the general. The particulars, the single things, are given to the intellect, he thought, and from these it abstracts its general laws. This form of thinking Kant called discursive, and he considered it the sole form belonging to man. Therefore, according to his opinion, there could not be any science except as regards those things in which the particular, of and for itself, is quite void of a concept, and is only subsumed under an abstract concept. In the case of organisms, Kant did not find this condition fulfilled. Here the single organism betrays a purposive—that is, a conceptual—arrangement. The particular bears traces of the concept in itself. But, according to the Königsberg philosopher, we are wholly lacking in capacity to grasp such an entity. We can understand only that in which concept and single thing are separated, where one represents the general, the other the particular. Nothing then remains for us but to make of the idea of purpose the basis for our observations of organisms: to deal with the creature as if a system of purposes lay at the basis of its phenomena. Thus Kant here established the unscientific scientifically, so to speak.

[ 4 ] Against such unscientific procedure Goethe protested vigorously. He could never see why our thoughts are not also qualified to ask in regard to the organ of a creature: “Whence comes it?” instead of, “What purpose does it serve?” This was in keeping with his nature, which always impelled him to look into every entity in its inner completeness. It seemed to him an unscientific form of observation to concern oneself only with the external purpose of an organ—that is, its usefulness to something else. What could this have to do with the inner essential nature of a thing? Therefore, it never concerns him to know for what purpose a thing serves, but always rather to know how it evolves. He wished to observe an object, not as a completed thing, but in its becoming, in order that he might know its primal origin. He was especially attracted to Spinoza because the latter did not give prominence to the external purpose of organs and organisms. Goethe demanded for the knowledge of the organic world a method which is thoroughly scientific in the sense in which that method is scientific which we apply to the inorganic world.

[ 5 ] Not with so much genius as in Goethe, yet none the less insistently, appeared the craving over and over again for such a method in natural science. Nowadays only a very small section of the scientists doubts its possibility. But whether the attempts which are being made here and there to introduce such a method have been successful or not,—this is naturally another question.

[ 6 ] First of all, a great error has been committed in this matter. It has been supposed that the methods of inorganic science should simply be transferred to the organic. The methods applied in the former field have simply been considered as the only scientific methods possible, and it has been thought that, if a science of “organics” is possible, it must be so in the same sense as physics. But the possibility has been ignored that the concept of the nature of science might be far broader than the definition “interpretation of the universe according to the laws of the physical world.” Even today men have not come to recognize this truth. Instead of seeking to learn what constitutes the scientific character of the inorganic sciences, and then seeking for a method which might be applied to the living world without sacrificing the requirements resulting from this inquiry, the laws discovered at those lower stages of existence are simply postulated as universal.

[ 7 ] But the inquiry should be, first of all, as to the basis upon which scientific thinking rests. In our treatment we have followed this principle. In the preceding chapter we have also learned that the conformity to law which characterizes the inorganic is not something isolated, but a special instance of all possible conformities to law. The method of physics is merely a special instance of a general scientific method of research in which consideration is given to the nature of the object under examination and to the field served by this science. If this method is extended to the organic, then the specific character of the latter is effaced. Instead of investigating the organic according to its nature, we force upon it a law alien to it. But so long as we negate the organic we shall never come to know it. Such scientific behavior merely repeats upon a higher plane that which it has gained on a lower plane; and, while it expects to bring the higher form of existence under these ready-made laws applicable elsewhere, this higher form eludes the investigator's efforts, since he does not know how to lay hold upon it and handle it according to its own characteristics.

[ 8 ] All this comes from the fallacious opinion that the method of a science is something external to the objects of that science, prescribed not by their nature but by ours. It is supposed that we must think about the objects in a certain manner, and indeed about all—the whole universe—in the same manner. Investigations are undertaken which are intended to show that, by reason of the nature of our minds, we can think only inductively, only deductively, etc.

[ 9 ] But in all this the fact is overlooked that the objects may perhaps refuse to yield to the methods of observation which we would vindicate upon them.

[ 10 ] That the charge which we make against the organic natural science of our time is fully justified—that is, that it carries over to organic Nature, not the scientific principle in general, but that of inorganic Nature—is evident if we glance at the opinions of the most distinguished of contemporary scientific theorists—Haeckel.

[ 11 ] When he requires of all scientific endeavor that “the causal interconnection of all the phenomena shall be made evident”—when he says: “If the psychic mechanics were not so infinitely complicated, if we were in position to survey fully the historic evolution of the psychic functions also, we should be able to reduce them all to a mathematical soul-formula”—it is clear what he wishes to do: to deal with the entire world according to the stereotyped pattern of the physical sciences.

[ 12 ] But this requirement is fundamental also in Darwinism, not in its original form, but in its contemporary interpretation. We have seen that the explanation of an occurrence in inorganic Nature means to show its derivation according to law from other sensible realities, to deduce it from other objects which belong like it to the sense world. But how does the contemporary science of “organics” apply the principles of adaptation and the survival of the fittest?—neither of which will be challenged by us as an expression of a complex of facts. It is supposed that the character of a certain species can be deduced from the external conditions under which it has existed, just as we can derive the heating of a body from the sunbeam falling on it. It is entirely overlooked that this character, according to its contentual characterizations, can never be derived as a result of these conditions. The conditions may have a definite influence, but they are not a creative cause. We are entirely safe in asserting that a species must so evolve under the influence of this or that set of facts as to develop this or that organ in a special way; but the essential (inhaltliche), the specific-organic, is not to be deduced from external conditions. Suppose that an organic entity had the essential characteristics abc and then evolved under definite influences so that its characteristics have assumed the particular form a'b'c'. When we take this influence into account, we shall understand that a has evolved into the form a'; b into b'; c into c. But the specific nature of abc can never be derived from external influences.

[ 13 ] Before everything else, we must direct our thought to this question: Whence do we derive the content of the general class of which we consider the single organic entity a particular instance? We know perfectly well that the specialization is due to the external influences, but the specialized form itself we must derive from an inner principle. The fact that this specialized form itself has evolved we can explain when we study the environment of the entity. Yet this special form is, none the less, something in and of itself; we find it possessed of certain characteristics. We see what is the essential matter. There comes into relation with the external phenomenal world a certain self-formed content which provides us with what we need in order to deduce these characteristics. In inorganic Nature we become aware of a certain fact and we seek a second fact and a third in order to explain this; and the result of the inquiry is that the first seems to us the inevitable consequence of the second. In the organic world this is not the case. Here we need still another factor besides the facts. We must conceive at a deeper level than the influences of external conditions something which does not passively allow itself to be determined by these conditions but actively determines itself under their influence.

[ 14 ] But what is this fundamental element? It cannot be anything else than that which appears in the particular in the form of the general. But what always appears in the particular is a definite organism. That basic element is, therefore, an organism in the form of the general: a general form of the organism which includes within itself all particular forms.

[ 15 ] This general organism we shall call, after the precedent of Goethe, the type. Whatever may be the meaning of the word typeaccording to its etymology, we use it in this sense intended by Goethe and mean by it nothing more than what is expressed. This type is not elaborated in all its entirety in any single organism. Only our rationalizing thought is capable of grasping this by abstracting it as a general image out of the phenomenal. The type is thus the Idea of the organism; the animality in the animal, the general plant in the specific plants.

[ 16 ] Under this term type we must not imagine anything fixed. It has absolutely nothing to do with what Agassiz, the most notable adversary of Darwin, called “an incarnate creative idea of God.” The type is something entirely “fluidic” out of which may be derived all separate species and families, which we may consider sub-types, specialized types. The type does not exclude the theory of descent. It does not contradict the fact that organic forms evolve one from another. It is only the rational protest against the idea that organic evolution proceeds merely in the successively appearing objective (sense-perceptible) forms. It is that which is basic in this entire evolution. It is the type that establishes the interconnection amid all the infinite multiplicity. It is the inner aspect of that which we experience as the outer forms of living creatures. The Darwinian theory presupposes the type.

[ 17 ] The type is the true primal organism; either primal plant or primal animal according as it specializes ideally. It cannot be any single sensibly-real living entity. What Haeckel or other naturalists look upon as the primal form is a form already specialized: the simplest form of the type. The fact that it first appears in the time sequence in the simplest form does not render it necessary that the forms appearing later in time are the results of the chronologically preceding forms. All forms are the results of the type; the first and equally the last are manifestations of the type. It is this type which we must take as the basis for a true organics, not undertaking simply to deduce the single species of animals and plants one from another. Like a red line does the type manifestitself through all the evolutionary stages of the organic world. We must firmly grasp it and then follow it in its course through all this great multiform kingdom. Then does this become intelligible. Otherwise, like all the rest of the world of experience, it disintegrates into a mass of unrelated units. Indeed, even when we believe we have reduced the later, more complex, compounded forms to the earlier simpler form, and that in the latter we have an original, we merely deceive ourselves; for we have simply derived one specialized form from another.

[ 18 ] Friedrich Theodor Vischer once expressed the opinion in regard to the Darwinian theory that it would render necessary a revision of our concept of time. Here we have arrived at a point which makes manifest to us in what sense such a revision would have to occur. It would have to show that the deducing of a later from an earlier is no explanation; that the first in time is not the first in principle. Every derivation must be out of what constitutes the principle, and at most it would be necessary to show what factors were effective in bringing it about that one sort of entity evolved in time before another.

[ 19 ] The type plays in the organic world the same role as that of the natural law in the inorganic. As the latter gives us the possibility of recognizing each single occurrence as a member of a greater whole, so the type puts us in position to look upon the single organism as a particular shaping of the primal form.

[ 20 ] We have already pointed out that the type is no circumscribed crystallized conceptual form, but is fluid: that it can assume the most manifold formations. The number of these formations is unlimited, because that by reason of which the primal form becomes a single specialized form has for the primal form no significance. The case is just like that of a natural law which controls innumerable single manifestations, because the special determinants which appear in the single instances have nothing to do with the natural law.

[ 21 ] But we are here dealing with something essentially unlike inorganic Nature. There our task is to show that a certain sensible fact can appear so and not otherwise because of the existence of this or that natural law. That fact and that law face one another as two separate factors, and no other mental work is required than that, when we behold a fact, we shall recall the law which is determinative. In the case of a living entity and its manifestations, the case is different. There our task must be to evolve the single form which meets us in direct experience from the type—which we must have apprehended. We must perform a mental process of an entirely different sort. We must not simply set the type as something finished, like a natural law, over against the single manifestation.

[ 22 ] That every body, unless prevented by some accompanying circumstance, falls to the earth in such a way that the distances covered in successive intervals of time are in the ratio 1:3:5:7 etc., is a definite law once for all fixed. This is a primal phenomenon which appears whenever two masses (the earth and bodies thereon) come into reciprocal relationship. If, now, a more special instance enters the field of our observation in which this law is applicable, we need only bring the sensibly observable facts into that relationship which gives us the law, and we shall find it confirmed. We trace the single case back to the law. The natural law expresses the interrelationship of the separate facts of the sense-world; but it continues to exist and confront the single facts. In the case of the type we must evolve out of the primal form each specialized instance that meets us. We must not confront the single forms with the type in order to see how the latter governs the former; we must cause the former to issue from the latter. Natural law governs a manifestation as something standing above this; the type flows into the single living entity, identifies itself with this.

[ 23 ] Therefore, a science of organics that sets out to be scientific in the sense in which physics or mechanics is scientific must show the type as the most universal form and then in various ideal separate forms. Mechanics also is such a grouping together of various natural laws in which the requirements of reality are presupposed theoretically throughout. The same must be true in organics. Here also, if we are to have a rational science, we must presuppose hypothetically determined forms in which the type takes shape. One must then show how these hypothetical forms can always be reduced to a definite form lying before our eyes.

[ 24 ] Just as we trace a phenomenon in the inorganic to a law, so here we evolve a specific form from the primal form. Organic science does not come about through the external comparison of special and general, but through the evolution of the former out of the latter.

[ 25 ] As mechanics is a system of natural laws, so organics must be a succession of forms evolved from the type; only that in the former case we bring together the single laws and arrange them into a whole, whereas here we must cause the single forms to proceed in living stream one from another.

[ 26 ] Here an objection may be raised. If the typical form is something altogether fluid, how then is it at all possible to set up a chain of special types in a series as the content of an organics? It may well be imagined that, in each special instance observed, a particular form of the type is to be recognized, and yet we cannot merely assemble such actually observed instances in the name of science.

[ 27 ] But we can do something else. We can allow the type to follow its course through the series of possibilities and then fix (hypothetically) in each case this or that form. In this way we arrive at a series of forms deduced by thought from the type, as the content of a rational organics.

[ 28 ] An organics is possible which will be scientific in the strictest sense just as mechanics is scientific. Only the method is different. The method of mechanics is that of proof. Each proof rests upon a certain rule. There always exists a definite presupposition (that is, prerequisites accessible to experience are given) and we then determine what occurs when these presuppositions are realized. We then comprehend a single phenomenon under the basic law. We think thus:—Under these conditions, the phenomenon occurs; the conditions are present and, therefore, the phenomenon must occur. This is the thought process we employ to explain an occurrence of the inorganic world when we meet it. This is the method of proof. It is scientific because it completely permeates an occurrence with the concept; because it brings about a coincidence of experience and thought.

[ 29 ] Through this method of proof, however, we can make no headway in the science of the organic. The type does not require that, under certain conditions, a definite phenomenon occur; it does not fix anything in regard to a relationship of elements mutually alien which confront one another. It determines only the conformity to law of its own parts. It does not point beyond itself like a natural law. The particular organic forms can be evolved only from the universal type-form, and every organic entity which appears in experience must coincide with some one of these derivative forms of the type. Here the evolutionary method must replace the method of proof. Here it is not to be established that the external conditions act upon one another in this way and for that reason bring about a definite result, but that a special form has been developed under definite external conditions out of the type. This is the radical difference between inorganic and organic science. This distinction is not made basic in any other method of research so consistently as in Goethe's. No one else recognized as Goethe did that an organics must be possible apart from all vague mysticism, without teleology, without the assumption of special creative thoughts. But neither has any one else more definitely rejected the demand to apply to this field the methods of inorganic science.

[ 30 ] The type, as we have seen, is a more complete scientific form than the primal phenomenon. Moreover, it presupposes a more intensive activity of our minds than that required by the other. In reflecting about the things of inorganic nature, our sense-perception provides us with the content. Here it is our sense-organization which yields to us what, in the case of the organic, we lay hold of only by means of our minds. In order to become aware of sweetness, sourness, warmth, light, color, etc., one needs only healthy senses. There we have to discover by means of thought only the form of the substance. But, in the type, content and form are intimately united one with the other. Therefore, the type does not determine the content in a merely formal way as does the law, but permeates it vitally from within outward as its very own. The task which is required of our mind is to participate productively in creating the contentual element while dealing with the formal.

[ 31 ] A mode of thinking in which the formal and the contentual appear in direct connection has always been called intuitive.

[ 32 ] Intuition appears repeatedly as a scientific principle. The English philosopher Reidt classifies as an intuition the act of creating a conviction of the real being of external phenomena directly from our perception of the phenomena (sense-impressions). Jacobi thought that in our feeling of God we are given, not merely this feeling, but the guarantee that God is. This judgment also is called intuitive. The characteristic of intuition, as we see, is that more must be given in the content than this itself; that one knows of a thought-characterization, without proof, merely through direct conviction. It is not considered necessary to prove such thought-characterizations as that of existence, etc. of the material of perception, but we are believed to possess these in inseparable unity with the content.

[ 33 ] But, in the case of the type, this is really true. Therefore it cannot furnish any means of proof but merely suggests the possibility of evolving each special form out of the type. For this reason, the mind must work with far greater intensity in apprehending the type than in grasping the natural law. It must create the content with the form. It must take upon itself an activity which is the function of the senses in inorganic science and which we call perception (Anschauung). The mind itself, therefore, must be perceptive on this higher plane. Our power of judgment must perceive in thinking and think in perceiving. Here we have to do with a perceptive power of thought, as was first explained by Goethe.¹² Goethe thereby pointed out as a necessary form of apprehension in the human mind that which Kant wished to prove to be quite unattainable by man because of the nature of his whole endowment.

[ 34 ] As the type in organic nature replaces natural law (the primal phenomenon) in the inorganic, so intuition (perceptive power of thought) replaces the power of judgment through proof (reflective judgment). As it has been supposed that the same laws may be applied to organic nature which are determinative at a lower stage of knowledge, so it has been supposed that the same methods hold good here as there. Both suppositions are fallacious.

[ 35 ] Intuition has often been treated with scant respect in science. It has been considered a defect in Goethe's mind that he expected to reach scientific truths by means of intuition. What is attained by way of intuition is considered by many persons as very important, to be sure, when this has to do with a scientific discovery. There, it is said, a chance idea often carries one farther than trained, methodical thought. For it is generally said to be an intuition when one has hit by chance upon something which is true but whose truth is discovered by investigators only in a roundabout way. It is always denied, however, that intuition itself can be a principle of science. Whatever intuition chances upon must afterward be proved—so it is thought—if it is to have scientific value.

[ 36 ] So Goethe's scientific achievements have also been looked upon as brilliant chance ideas which only later have attained to confirmation by the rigid methods of science.

[ 37 ] For organic science, however, intuition is the right method. It becomes quite clear, we believe, from our exposition that Goethe's mind, just because it was fundamentally intuitive, found the right way in organics. The method proper to organics harmonized with the constitution of his mind. For this reason it became all the clearer to him how far organics differs from inorganic science. The one became clear to him in connection with the other. For this reason he sketched with sharp lines the essential nature also of the inorganic.

[ 38 ] The slight value attached to intuition is due in no small measure to the fact that its achievements are not supposed to be deserving of that degree of confidence which is reposed in the achievement of knowledge through proof. Often only that which has been proved is called knowledge; all else is called belief.

[ 39 ] It must be borne in mind that intuition possesses a significance for the scientific attitude represented by the present writer (based upon the conviction that in thought we grasp in its very essence the central core of the world) altogether different from the significance it possesses according to the point of view which places this core of the world in a Beyond not accessible to our research. Whoever sees in this world lying before us, so far as we either experience it or penetrate it through thought, nothing more than a reflection, a copy of a Beyond, an unknown, an activating, which remains hidden behind this shell, not only at first glance but also in spite of all scientific research,—such a person can see only in the method of proof a substitute for our lack of insight into the real nature of things. Since he does not penetrate to the opinion that a thought-combination comes about through the essential content given in the thoughts themselves, and therefore through the thing itself, he necessarily thinks that he can support such combinations only on the ground that they harmonize with certain basic convictions (axioms) which are so simple as to be neither susceptible of proof nor in need thereof. If, then, a scientific postulate is offered him without proof—even one which in its whole nature excludes the method of proof—this seems to him to have been thrust upon him from without; a truth appears before him without his recognizing what are the grounds of its validity. He does not think he has an item of knowledge, an insight into the thing, but thinks he can only yield himself to a belief that some sort of reasons for this validity exists beyond the reach of his thought.

[ 40 ] Our view of the world is not exposed to the danger that it must look upon the limits of the method of proof as coinciding with the limits of scientific certitude. It has led us to the point of view that the central essence of the world flows into our thinking; that we do not merely think concerning the nature of the world but that thinking is an entrance into connection with the nature of reality. Intuition does not thrust a truth upon us from without, for from one point of view there is no such thing as an outer and an inner in the manner in which these are presupposed by the scientific attitude we have described, which is the opposite of our own. For us, intuition is the actual being-within, an entrance into the truth which gives to us all that comes in any way under consideration in regarding truth. It merges completely with what is given to us in our intuitive judgment. The characteristic which is significant in belief—that only existent truth is given us and not the reasons therefore, and that we lack a penetrating insight into the thing concerned—is here wholly wanting. Insight gained by way of intuition is just as scientific as that won by proof.

[ 41 ] Every single organism is the molding of the type in a special form. It is an individuality which governs and determines itself from a center outward. It is a totality complete in itself—which in inorganic Nature is true of the cosmos alone.

[ 42 ] The ideal of inorganic science is to grasp the totality of all phenomena as a unitary system, in order that we may approach each phenomenon with the consciousness that we recognize it as a member of the cosmos. In organic science, on the contrary, the ideal must be to have in the utmost entirety possible in the type and its phenomenal forms that which we see evolving in the series of single beings. Tracing the type back through all phenomena is here that which matters. In inorganic science the system exists; in organic the comparison (of each single form with the type).

[ 43 ] Spectral analysis and the perfecting of astronomy extend to the universe the truths attained on the limited sphere of the earth. Hereby these sciences approach the first ideal. The second will be fulfilled when the comparative method applied by Goethe is recognized in its full scope.

• 12. See footnote, p. 119.

[ 1 ] We have exhausted the realm of the knowledge of Nature. Organics is the highest form of natural science. What lies still higher is the spiritual, or cultural, sciences. These require an essentially different attitude of the human mind toward objects from that characterizing the natural sciences. In the latter the mind has a universal role to play. Its task is, so to speak, to bring the world process itself to a conclusion. What existed without the mind was only one half of reality; it was incomplete, at every point only a fragment. There the mind has to call forth into phenomenal existence the innermost impelling forces of reality—even though these would have possessed validity without its subjective intervention. If man were a mere sense-being without mental conception, inorganic Nature would be, none the less, dependent upon natural laws; but these would never come as such into manifest existence. Beings would certainly exist who would perceive the product (the sense-world) but they would never perceive the producing (the inner conformity to law). It is really the genuine, and indeed the truest, form of Nature which comes to manifestation in the human mind, whereas for a mere sense-being only Nature's external aspect would exist. Knowledge plays here a role of world significance. It is the conclusion of the work of creation. What takes place in human consciousness is the interpretation of Nature to itself. Thought is the last member in the series of processes whereby Nature is formed.

[ 2 ] Not so is it in the case of cultural science. Here our consciousness has to do with spiritual content itself; with the individual human spirit, with the creations of culture, of literature, with the successive scientific convictions, with the creations of art. The spiritual is grasped by the spirit. Reality possesses here in itself the ideal, conformity to law, which elsewhere appears first in mental conception. What appears in the natural sciences only as a product of reflection about the object is here born in the object. Knowledge plays a different role; essential being would be present in the objects here without the work of knowledge. It is human actions, creations, ideas with which we have to do. It is an interpretation of the human being to himself and to his race. Knowledge has here a different mission to discharge from that in connection with Nature.

[ 3 ] Here again this mission first becomes manifest as a human need. Just as the necessity of finding, in connection with the reality of Nature, the Idea of Nature appears at first as a need of our minds, so here also the function of cultural science exists first as a human impulse. Again it is only an objective fact announcing itself as a subjective need.

[ 4 ] The human being should not, like a being of inorganic Nature, act upon another being according to external norms, according to law which dominates him; nor should he be the single form of a general type; but he should himself fix the purpose, the goal, of his existence, of his activity. If his actions are the results of laws, these laws must be such as he gives to himself. What he is in himself, what he is among his own kind, in state and in history,—this he must not be by reason of external determinations. He must be this of himself. How he fits himself into the texture of the world depends upon himself. He must find the point at which to participate in the mechanism of the world. It is here that the cultural sciences receive their function. Man must know the spiritual world in order to take his share in that world according to this knowledge. Here originates the mission which psychology, the science of peoples,¹³ and the science of history have to achieve.

[ 5 ] This is the essence of Nature: that law and activity fall apart from each other, and activity seems to be controlled by law; but this, on the contrary, is the essence of freedom: that the two coincide, that the producing shall exist immediately in the product and that the product shall be master of itself.

[ 6 ] Therefore, the cultural sciences are in the highest degree sciences of freedom. The idea of freedom must be their central point, their dominant idea. It is for this reason that Schiller's letters on aesthetics take such high rank, because they undertake to find the nature of beauty in the idea of freedom, because freedom is the principle which permeates them.

[ 7 ] The spirit takes only that place in the universal, in the totality of the world, which it gives to itself as an individual. While the universal, the type Idea, must be kept constantly in mind in organics, the idea of personality is to be held fast in the spiritual sciences. Not the Idea as it lives in the general (the type) but as it appears in the single being (the individual), is here the matter in question. Naturally, it is not the casual personality, not this or that personality, which is determinative, but personality as such; not, however, as this evolves from itself outward into specialized forms and so comes first to sensible existence, but sufficient in itself, within itself circumscribed, finding in itself its destiny.

[ 8 ] The destiny of the type is to find itself realized in the individual. The destiny of the person is to achieve, even as an ideal entity, actual self-sustaining existence. When we speak of humanity in general and when we speak of a general natural law, these are two quite different things. In the latter case the particular is determined by the general; in the idea of humanity, the general is determined by the particular. If we are able to discern general laws of history, these are such only in so far as they were set up by historical personalities as goals, or ideals. This is the inner contrast between Nature and spirit. The former requires a knowledge which ascends from the immediately given, as the conditioned, to that which can be grasped by the mind, to the conditioning; the latter requires such a knowledge as proceeds from the given as the conditioning to the conditioned. That the particular establishes the law is characteristic of the spiritual sciences; that this role belongs to the general characterizes the natural sciences.

[ 9 ] That which is valuable to us in the natural sciences only as a transitional point—the particular—is our sole interest in the spiritual sciences. That which we seek in the former case, the general, is in the latter considered only to the extent that it interprets to us the particular.

[ 10 ] It would be contrary to the spirit of science if in the presence of Nature we should limit ourselves to the particular. But it would be utterly fatal to the spirit if we should comprehend Greek history, for example, in a general scheme of concepts. In the former case, the senses, cleaving to the phenomenal, would achieve no science; in the latter the mind, proceeding according to a general pattern, would lose all sense for the individual.

• 13. Volkskunde

[ 1 ] The first science in which the human spirit deals with itself is psychology. The mind here stands observing itself.

[ 2 ] Fichte assigned an existence to man only to the extent that man ascribes this to himself. In other words, human personality has only those traits, characteristics, capacities which it ascribes to itself through insight into its own being. A human capacity of which a man knew nothing would not be recognized by him as his own but would be attributed to some one alien to him. When Fichte supposed that he could base the whole knowledge of the universe on this truth, he was in error. It is ordained to be the highest principle of psychology. It determines the method of psychology. If the human spirit possesses a characteristic only in so far as it attributes this to itself, then the psychological method consists in the immersion of the mind in its own activity. Here, then, self-apprehension is the method.

[ 3 ] It is obvious that in this discussion we do not restrict psychology to being the science of the fortuitous characteristics of any one human individual (this one or that one). We release the single mind from its fortuitous limitations, from its accessory traits, and seek to raise ourselves to a consideration of the human individual in general.

[ 4 ] Indeed, what is determinative is not that we consider the wholly fortuitous individuality but that we clarify our minds as to the self-determining individual in general. Whoever should say at this point that we should in that case be dealing with nothing more than the type of humanity confuses the type with the generalized concept. It is essential to the type that it, as the general, confronts its single forms. Not so with the concept of the human individual. Here the general is active immediately in the individual being, except that this activity expresses itself in various ways according to the object toward which it is directed. The type exists in single forms and in these comes into reciprocal activity with the external world. The human spirit has only one form. But in one case certain objects move his feelings; in another this ideal inspires him to actions; etc. It is not a specialized form of the human spirit; it is always the entire and complete man with whom we have to deal. He must be released from his surroundings if he is to be comprehended. If we wish to arrive at the type, we must ascend from the single form to the primal form; if we wish to arrive at the human spirit, we must ignore the expressions in which it manifests itself, the special acts which it performs, and observe it in and of itself. We must discover how it behaves in general, not how it has behaved in this or that situation. In the case of the type we must separate the universal form, by comparison, from the single forms; in psychology we must separate the single forms only from their surroundings.

[ 5 ] Here the case is no longer the same as in organics, that in the particular being we recognize the molding of the primal form; but here, in perceiving the single forms, we recognize the primal form itself. The spiritual being of man is not one formation of its Idea, but the formation thereof. When Jacobi believes that, in becoming aware of our inner entity, we at the same time attain to the conviction that a unitary being lies at the basis of this entity (intuitive self-apprehension) his thought is in error, because we really become aware of this unitary being itself. What is otherwise intuition becomes here self-contemplation. In regard to the highest form of being this is also an objective necessity. What the human spirit can read out of phenomena is the highest form of content which it can attain at all. If the spirit then reflects upon itself, it must recognize itself as the direct manifestation of this highest: as, indeed, its very bearer. What the spirit finds as unity in multiform reality, this it must find in its own singleness as immediate existence. What it contrasts with particularization as the general,—this it must attribute to its own individuality as its very nature.

[ 6 ] From all this it becomes clear that a true psychology can be attained only when we enter into the character of the human spirit in its activity. Nowadays in place of this method the effort has been made to set up another in which the subject matter of psychology has been, not the human spirit itself, but the phenomena in which the spirit expresses its existence. It is supposed that the external expressions of the mind can be brought into an external interrelationship, as can be done with the facts of inorganic Nature. In this way the effort is made to found a “theory of the soul without any soul.” From our reflections it becomes evident that, by such a method, we lose sight of the very thing that is important. [ 7 ] What ought to be done is to separate the human spirit from its manifestations and return to the spirit itself as the producer of these. Psychologists restrict themselves to the former and lose sight of the latter. Just here they have allowed themselves to be brought to the false standpoint which would apply to all sciences the methods of mechanics, physics, etc.

[ 8 ] The unitary soul is given to us in experience just as are its single actions. Every man is conscious of the fact that his thinking, feeling, and willing proceed from his ego. Every activity of our personality is bound up with this center of our being. If, in the case of any action, we ignore this union with the personality, it ceases to be a manifestation of the soul. It belongs under the concept either of inorganic or of organic nature. If two balls lie on the table, and I thrust one against another, all that happens is resolved into physical or physiological occurrence, if my purpose and will are ignored. In all manifestations of the human spirit—thinking, feeling, willing—the important thing is to recognize these in their essential nature as expressions of the personality. It is upon this that psychology rests.

[ 9 ] But man does not belong to himself alone; he belongs also to society. What manifests itself in him is not merely his own individuality, but at the same time that of the folk-group to which he belongs. What he performs proceeds from the folk-force of his people as well as from his own force. In his mission he fulfills a part of that of his folk-kindred. The important thing is that his place among his people shall be such that he may bring to complete effectiveness the power of his individuality. [ 10 ] This is possible only when the folk-organism is of such sort that the single person can find the place where he may plant his lever. It must not be left to chance whether or not he shall find this place.

[ 11 ] The way to inquire how the individual lives within the social group of his people is a matter for the science of peoples and the science of the state. The folk-individuality is the subject of this science. It has to show what form the organism of the state must assume if the folk-individuality is to come to expression within it. The constitution which a people gives to itself must be evolved out of its innermost nature. Here also there are current fallacies of no small importance. The science of the state is held not to be an experiential science. It is held that the constitution of every people can be determined according to a certain stereotyped pattern.¹⁴

[ 12 ] But the constitution of a people is nothing else than its individual character brought into well determined forms of law. Whoever would indicate beforehand the direction in which a definite activity of a people has to move must not impose upon this anything from without: he must simply express what lies unconscious in the character of the people. “It is not the intelligent person who controls, but intelligence; not the rational person, but reason,” says Goethe.

[ 13 ] To grasp the folk-individuality as rational is the method in the science of the peoples. Man belongs to a whole whose nature consists in the organization of the reason. Here also we may cite a significant word of Goethe's: “The rational world is to be conceived as a great Immortal Individuality which unceasingly brings to pass what is necessary and thus makes itself master over the fortuitous.” As psychology investigates the nature of the individual, so the science of the peoples must investigate that “immortal individuality.”

• 14. Omitted from the new edition.

[ 1 ] Our view as to the sources of our knowledge cannot be with out influence upon our view in regard to practical conduct. Man behaves according to thought characterizations which lie within him. What he performs is directed according to purposes, goals, which he sets up for himself. But it is obvious that these goals, purposes, ideals, etc., will bear the same character as the rest of man's thought world. Thus a dogmatic science must result in a practical truth essentially unlike that which follows from our theory of knowledge. If the truths to which a person attains in knowledge are determined by objective necessity residing outside of thought, such also will be the ideals which he sets up as the bases of his conduct. In that case a person behaves according to laws in whose establishment he has no part in any real sense: he thinks a norm for himself which is fore-ordained for his behavior from without. But this is the character of a commandment which man has to obey. Dogma as a practical truth is moral commandment.

[ 2 ] The case is entirely different when the theory of knowledge here presented is made basic. This recognizes no other basis for truths than the thought content residing within these. When, therefore, a moral ideal comes into existence, it is the inner power lying in its content which governs our conduct. It is not because an ideal is given to us as a law that we conduct ourselves according to it, but because the ideal, by virtue of its content, is active within us, directs us. The impulse toward conduct lies, not without us, but within us. If we felt ourselves subjected to the commandment of duty, we should be compelled to behave in a definite manner, because it was so ordered. Here shall comes first and afterwards will, which must unite itself to the former. This is not true according to our point of view. The will is sovereign. It performs only what lies as thought-content in the human personality. Man does not receive laws from an external Power; he is his own lawgiver.

[ 3 ] Who, indeed, according to our world view, should give these to him? The World-Fundament has poured itself out completely into the world; it has not drawn back from the world in order to control it from without, but impels it from within; it has not withheld itself from the world. The highest form in which it emerges within the reality of ordinary life is that of thought and, with this, human personality. If, then, the World-Fundament has goals, these are identical with the goals which man sets up for himself as he manifests his own being. Man is not behaving in accordance with the purposes of the Guiding Power of the world when he investigates one or another of His commandments, but when he behaves in accordance with his own insight. For in him the Guiding Power of the world manifests Himself. He does not live as Will somewhere outside of man; He has renounced his own will in order that all might depend upon the will of man. If man is to be enabled to become his own lawgiver, all thought about world-determinations outside of man must be abandoned.

[ 4 ] We take this opportunity to call attention to the very excellent treatment of the subject by Kreyenbühl inPhilosophische Monatsheften(Vol. 18, No. 3). This paper correctly explains how the maxims of our conduct result directly from the determination of our individuality; how everything which is ethically great is not given through the power of the moral law but is performed on the basis of the direct impulse of an individual idea.

[ 5 ] Only from such a point of view is a true human freedom possible. If man does not bear within himself the reason for his conduct, but must guide himself in accordance with commandments, he then acts under a compulsion; he stands under a necessity almost like a mere entity of Nature.

[ 6 ] Our philosophy is, therefore, in the highest sense a philosophy of freedom. It shows first theoretically how every force which controls the world from without must fall away in order to make man his own master, in the best of all senses of that word. When man acts morally, this is not, from our point of view, the fulfillment of duty, but the expression of his wholly free nature. Man acts, not because he ought, but because he wills. This point of view Goethe also had in mind when he said: “Lessing, who was reluctantly conscious of many sorts of limitations, causes one of his characters to say, ‘No one must, must.' A brilliant and happy man said: ‘He who wills must.' A third—to be sure, an educated person—added, ‘He who has insight also wills.'” There is no impulse, therefore, for our conduct save our own insight. The free man acts according to his insight, without the intrusion of any sort of compulsion, according to commands which he gives to himself.

[ 7 ] It is about these truths that the well known Kant-Schiller controversy revolves. Kant took the standpoint of the commandment of duty. He thought it degrading to the moral law to make it dependent upon human subjectivity. According to his view, man acts morally only when he banishes all subjective motives in his conduct and simply bows to the majesty of duty. Schiller saw in this point of view a degradation of human nature. Must this be so evil that its own impulses must be thus completely set aside if it is to be moral! Schiller and Goethe's world-conception can recognize only the point of view we have set forth. The point of departure for human action is to be sought in man himself.

[ 8 ] For this reason, in history also, the subject of which is man, we must not speak of influences upon man's conduct from without, of ideas which reside in the age, etc. Least of all must we speak of a plan constituting the basis of history. History is nothing but the evolution of human action, points of view, etc. Goethe said: “In all ages it is only the individuals that have been effectual for science, not the age. It was the age that put Socrates to death with poison; the age that burned Huss; the ages have always remained alike.” All a priori constructions of plans which are supposed to form the basis of history are contrary to the historical method as this issues from the nature of history. The goal of history is to learn what men contribute for the advancement of their race; to learn what goal this or that personality has set for himself, what direction he has given to his age. History is to be based entirely on human nature. The will, the tendencies of human nature, are to be grasped. Our science of knowledge excludes all possibility that a purpose should be ascribed to history, as if men were educated from a lower stage of perfection to a higher, etc. In the same way it seems fallacious from our point of view when the effort is made (as Herder does in Ideas for a Philosophy of History of Humanity ) to set historical events in due order like facts of Nature, according to the succession of cause and effect. The laws of history are of a far higher sort. One fact in physics is so determined by another that the law stands above the phenomenon. A historical fact, as something ideal, is determined by the ideal. Here one can speak of cause and effect only when one depends wholly upon the external. Who could believe that he is in keeping with the facts when he calls Luther the cause of the Reformation? History is a science of ideas. Its reality consists of ideas. Therefore devotion to the object is the sole correct method. Every step beyond that is unhistorical.

[ 9 ] Psychology, the science of peoples, and history are the leading forms of spiritual, or cultural, science. Their methods, as we have seen, are based upon the direct grasp of the ideal reality. Their subject is the Idea, the spiritual, as that of inorganic science is the natural law and that of organics is the type.

By the Translator

Date of publication of book: 1886

A. Preliminary Questions

1. The Point of Departure. Philosophy alone, the central and unifying branch of knowledge, is uninfluenced by the great “classic age” of German thought—especially by Goethe. Hence, it fails to provide the inner certitude at present so deeply needed. Goethe possessed a profound philosophical sense. Completely centered and many-sided, he employed the appropriate form of cognition for each object of research.

2. Goethe's Science Considered According to the Method of Schiller. The present inquiry will interpret and justify Goethe's mode of cognition as applied to the living world. It will follow Schiller's method in doing this. It will not deal with mere formulae.—The return to Kant will not benefit philosophy, but the understanding of Goethe will.

3. The Function of This Branch of Science. Each of the sciences seeks to discover the relationships among objects in its special field—these being wholly unrelated in the form of pure experience. But there must be one branch of knowledge which seeks to determine the relationship between experience as a whole and the totality of thoughts, between human thoughts and the objects of reality.

B.Experience

4. Definition of the Concept of Experience. Without our participation, except in passive sense-receptivity, the world appears as if from an unknown source. This, in its first form of appearance, we term experience. It includes our feelings, our impulses of will. It includes also our thoughts. This becomes clear upon adequate observation of our thinking. For thinking is contemplation, an activity directed outward, and it would be directed into a void if an inner object of contemplation did not meet it. This object is a thought.

5. Examination of the Content of Experience. Experience is merely a juxtaposition in space and succession in time of single things, wholly unrelated—different in their impressions on the senses but undifferentiated in significance. Our own personality is, at this stage, one item of experience, also unrelated. Thinking alone establishes relationships and significance.

6. Correction of an Erroneous Conception of Experience As a Totality. The opinion that the world of experience is wholly within us, mere subjective “representations” Vorstellungswelt generated through our senses by an unknown source, is very widespread. This opinion certainly does not come from experience itself, for the untutored person never holds it. It could result only from much reflection. Therefore, it is utterly illogical to postulate such a characterization of the nature of experience, and then proceed from this point to inquire into the nature of human knowledge.

7. Reference to the Experience of the Individual Reader. The characterization of experience in 5, above, is not intended dogmatically. It is only a definition of the use of the term, merely directing attention to the nature of the first appearance of reality in consciousness before any concept arises. The best name for this is “appearance for the senses”—meaning both inner and outer senses. If this is the real nature of things, no knowledge whatever is possible beyond the registering of single unrelated sense impressions. But, if it is only the outer shell of reality, and is capable of being penetrated, knowledge is possible.

C. Thought

8. Thinking As a Higher Experience within Experience. Thought—one item of experience—is the key to all others. It differs from all others in that it appears at once in its completeness and its relationships. (For example, the thought of cause brings with it the thought of effect.) The demand of science that we must limit ourselves to experience, but must discover the inner laws within experience, becomes possible only through this one item. The requirement is fulfilled immediately in the case of this item itself, and is fulfilled in all other cases through the application of this item. Goethe practiced this principle to the full. He declared that it is impossible to get outside of Nature; that all higher views of Nature give also only Nature.—We must bear in mind two aspects of the thought world:—1. the content of ideas, law-conforming, complete in itself; 2. my inner activity, prerequisite to their appearance in consciousness. Since we ourselves permeate thought completely, we can rightly use this one item of experience to interpret all experience.

9. Thought and Consciousness. But thought is not subjective. Evidence is this.—1. We combine thoughts wholly according to their content; not at all according to our subjective nature. 2. We do not create the content subjectively; for, if we did, how could anything else than ourselves determine the combinations. What is essential is not the subjective activity prerequisite to the appearance of thoughts, but their objective content. Each personality, working with the one thought content of the world, brings to manifestation in his own consciousness thoughts which are objectively real. As a mechanic brings natural forces into interaction and produces mechanical effects, so a thinker brings thoughts into connection and creates thought combinations—ideas and whole systems.—Thoughts do not merely reflect their essential nature in their manifestations in consciousness while the essential nature is not actually present. Observation of our thinking will show that the real content is present in the manifestation.

10. The Inner Nature of Thought. Our thought realm consists of a multitude of single thoughts all interrelated. A new thought is disturbing until it is interrelated. The fixing of a harmonious relation among all thoughts creates the assurance of truth.—Thoughts are not mere photographs of experience, for the following reasons:—1. If thoughts completely copy the sense world, this world gives us all we need, and thought is superfluous. We have shown that this is not the case. 2. Thoughts do not copy essential characteristics from the sense world; for experience, as we have seen, gives no clue to what qualities are essential. 3. Nor do thoughts select even identical characteristics—without regard to what is essential—since identical characteristics practically never appear in experience.

    If, for the sake of argument, we should assume that thoughts give only a reflection of real content, while this lies beyond our reach, we should have at least indirect access in this way to real content. As to this detail of the question, we need go no further at this stage.

D. Knowledge

11. Thought and Perception. The perceptual aspect of reality, passively received, is permeated by the conceptual aspect, actively apprehended and elaborated. This union constitutes reality. Thinking is the organ for perceiving something above the level of sense-perception.—The self-sufficing harmony of thoughts seems to separate them completely from the world of percepts. But this is not true, since general thought characterizations can be made particular and concrete only by means of percepts.—Experience comes psychologically before thought, but it is really derivative. The process is as follows:—A percept stimulates me to seek for its inner nature. This seeking is really a concept working its way upward from below into consciousness. Then percept and concept unite to form one item in my thought realm. To discover the inner nature of a percept, we must have the corresponding concept already within us, or be able to evolve it from the world of concepts. In the concept we bring to manifestation the content of the empty form of the percept.

12. Intellect and Reason. Thinking is twofold:—I. It forms clearly differentiated concepts; and, 2. it establishes relationships among these. The former capacity is called the intellect; the latter, the reason. In modern science, the intellect is much more common and more highly valued. Intellectual activity is essential, for the creation of sharply differentiated parts, but only as preliminary to the development by the reason of a harmonious whole.—Kant declared all ideas—combinations of related concepts—to be merely subjective, without content, only regulative norms of our own subjective nature. This is false. Reason does strive for unity, but it can establish this only where unity is inherent in the content of the concepts. Where experience cannot function without the use of certain ideas, Kant admitted the validity of these ideas for merely practical purposes. But Kant's explanation of the creation of such ideas is incorrect; they are intuitive.

13. The Act of Cognition. All reality is in two realms; experience and thought. Experience may be considered from two points of view:—1. to what extent it is inherent in the nature of reality that it can manifest itself only as experience; 2. to what extent it is inherent in the nature of our mind, whose form of action is contemplation, that it requires this form of manifestation. From this point of view, we may consider two possibilities:—1. That the experiential form is only transitional, and is to be overcome in reaching the essential nature of the “appearance for the senses.” 2. That the experiential form is identical with the essential nature of what we experience, but that our minds require an effort in order to discover this fact. The second is true of thought; the first is true of all other items of experience.—The two realms of experience and thought must be united through thought activity. Thinking is an organ of perception. As the eye perceives light and the ear perceives sound, so does thinking perceive concepts, ideas. There is one world of ideas, but many minds.—The external is merely the form; the inner is the real nature.

14. Cognition and the Ultimate Foundation of Things. Kant achieved an important step in philosophy in pointing out that man must seek the reasons for certitude in his affirmations in his own spiritual faculties, and not in any truth imposed upon him from without. But Kant did not adequately differentiate the two scientific trends thus indicated.

    Two kinds of judgment are formed by: 1. the union of a percept with a concept; and: 2. the union of two concepts. Example of 2: “No effect without a cause.” If the content of the two concepts, as this is given to me, does not include the reason for their being united, then I can never reach that objective reason, and the real meaning of the assertion is in a world inaccessible to me. Such judgments would then be dogmas—dogmas of revelation. Moreover, those who insist that we must limit ourselves to pure experience, would condemn us to remain likewise ignorant of reality. But the author's view has shown that there is no Fundament of Being lying beyond the reach of thought: that this Fundament of Being has poured itself out in thought. According to this view, every judgment is a union of two elements in our thought, which means two elements of reality. It has shown also that thought must give a knowledge of experience, not as product but as productive—in its productive aspect.

    The real being of things exists only in connection with man. Truth is anthropomorphic. Not only is the world known to us as it appears, but it appears—to thinking contemplation—as it is.

E. The Science of Nature

15. Inorganic Nature. The simplest action in Nature occurs when two factors are external to each other. Example: a rolling stone setting another stone in motion. The whole system of such occurrences constitutes inorganic Nature. This appears first as one form of our experience. Cognition arises here only when we discover causes through our thinking. The process is the elimination of one factor after another until it becomes evident that one or more specific factors are prerequisite to the occurrence. Or it may be simplification: reducing a complex problem to a simpler form till it becomes transparent.

    An occurrence which must result inevitably and directly from observed factors is called a primal phenomenon. Identical with a law of Nature. All natural laws may be stated thus: “If this is present, that must occur.” This mode of thinking is superior to induction, which requires the observation of innumerable instances, and can never be absolutely certain. Scientific progress demands the discovery of primal phenomena. A primal phenomenon is higher experience within experience.—An experiment creates the conditions needed for discovering prerequisite factors. It is a mediator between subject and object in inorganic science.—The mind raises objects in Nature from “appearance for the senses” to appearance for the mind itself.

    A scientific insight gives satisfaction only when it leads to a self-sufficing totality. In inorganic Nature, only the cosmos is such a totality; therefore, the cosmos must be the ultimate goal in this part of science.

16. Organic Nature. Until the nineteenth century, the determinative forces in living entities were supposed to be in the mind of the Creator. Human minds were considered incapable of understanding living things. This was Kant's view. It was opposed by Goethe, who sought to discover the evolution of organs and organisms. Later came a gradual change of view but the fundamental error occurred of applying the methods of the physical sciences to living things. Scientific methods as a whole were falsely identified with methods in one branch of science.

    Environment does not create living entities. The inner forces create; environment can only modify the result of the action of the inner forces.—The essence present in each specialized form is the general which is manifest in the special. This general thus manifest is the type: the primal organism, either plant or animal. It evolves into all the specialized forms. The type corresponds in the living world to the natural law in the inorganic world.

    The activity of thought in this realm must be entirely different. In the inorganic realm, natural law determines the single phenomenon. In the organic realm, the type actually manifests itself in the single entity. Here we must first apprehend the type; then apprehend all potential modifications of the type; and finally trace the actual living form back to one of the potential modifications of the type. This demands intuitive thinking. The mind must acquire the power of perception in the supersensible realm: it must be able to perceive in thinking and think in perceiving. Goethe called this capacity the “perceptive power of thought.”

    Intuition is generally distrusted, but it is the sole mode of cognition applicable to the living world. According to the author's theory of knowledge—which he considers to be the theory implicit in Goethe's mode of scientific work—it is entirely logical to seek to develop this form of knowledge. For, according to this theory of knowledge, all thinking is a direct apprehension of reality. Limits of proof—required in the inorganic realm—do not constitute limits of knowledge.—Intuition means being within truth.

F. The Spiritual, or Cultural Sciences

17. Introduction: Spirit and Nature.Above the level of “organics” are the cultural, or spiritual, sciences. Here, again, the mind must alter its form of activity. In the natural sciences, the human mind completes the world process by bringing to manifestation (in human consciousness) the reality within phenomena, which otherwise would never reach manifestation. The mind interprets Nature to herself. Human knowledge is the conclusion of the work of creation, the final link in the process which constitutes Nature. In the spiritual sciences, the mind deals with spiritual realities already in manifestation,—human actions, thoughts, creations. Here, the human spirit comes to an understanding of itself.

    These sciences, likewise, arise out of a sense of inner need. Their function is to know the spiritual world in order that the human spirit may freely choose and play its own role. Here the idea of freedom is central. In place of the determining law (in inorganic Nature) and the evolving type (in organic Nature), we have the single personality, who determines instead of being determined.

18. Psychological Cognition. The method in psychological cognition is immersion of the mind in the contemplation of its own activity—that is, self-apprehension; but apprehension of the essential self, not of its casual manifestations. We must seek the fundamental human being in each personality. The individual here is not a specialized form of the general, but is the general. In thought applied to objects observed in external reality, man discovers the highest form of content. In contemplating himself, he finds that he is this highest content.

    Modern psychology fails because it applies in its own field the methods of inorganic science, seeking through observed phenomena to infer the activating being within. This central being is given to us in direct experience just as truly as are the phenomenal manifestations.

    But the single personality acts also partly out of the forces of his people. Hence we must add to psychology the science of folk-psychology, the psychology of a whole people.—The scientific study of any people must be based upon the inner nature of this people—the folk-personality.

19. Human Freedom. Human action is determined by human thinking. Hence a personality will act freely or under compulsion according as he knows the reality in his own intuitions or accepts dogmas dictated from without. The World Fundament has poured itself out into the world. Its highest form is manifested in human thought. Thus the Guiding Power of the world lives in human thoughts. Hence man is in harmony with this Guiding Power when he acts according to his own true intuitions. History also is determined by the thoughts of individuals.

20. Optimism and Pessimism. Since man is the central point of the world process, and his thought its highest manifestation, he is self-sufficing. Only he can determine his own happiness or unhappiness. Happiness or unhappiness bestowed upon him from without would negate his nature.

G. Conclusion

21. Scientific Knowledge and Artistic Creation. The Idea is the content of knowledge. It is the product of the activity of the mind. In cognition, man arises from the phenomenal, the product, to the Idea, the creative reality. He strips all unessentials from the manifested form, and apprehends the essential in the Idea. In art, the human spirit imprints the same eternal Idea upon an object of Nature. In doing this, it is necessary to subdue to the eternal Idea all that is casual and unessential in the object used to receive this imprint. Art is a product of the eternal laws of Nature, as Goethe discovered in contemplating the great masterpieces in Italy. In both science and art, the human spirit masters the sensible characteristics and brings to manifestation the innermost reality.

[ 1 ] When Professor Kürschner did me the honor of intrusting to me the task of editing the scientific writings of Goethe for the Deutsche National-Literatur, I was fully aware of the difficulties confronting me in such an undertaking. It would be necessary for me to oppose a point of view which had become almost universally established.

[ 2 ] While the conviction is everywhere gaining ground that Goethe's poetical writings are the basis of our whole culture, even those who go farthest in recognition of his scientific writings see in these nothing more than premonitions of truths which have been fully confirmed in the later progress of science. Because of his genius—so it is held—it was possible for him at a glance to attain to premonitions of natural laws that were later discovered again by strictly scientific methods quite independently of him. What is admitted in the highest degree as regards the other activities of Goethe—that every well informed person must reach a judgment with regard to these—is not admitted as regards his scientific point of view. It is by no means acknowledged that, by familiarizing ourselves with the scientific works of the poet, something may be gained which science does not also afford us apart from him.

[ 3 ] When I was introduced by my beloved teacher, Karl Julius Schröer, to the world-conception of Goethe, my thinking had already taken a direction which made it possible for me to direct my attention, beyond the single discoveries of the poet, to the fundamentals: to the manner in which Goethe blended such a single discovery with the totality of his conception of Nature; the manner in which he made use of this discovery in order to arrive at an insight into the interrelationships of the entities of Nature, or—to use the striking expression he himself employed in the paperAnschauende Urteilskraft ¹—in order to participate mentally in the productions of Nature. I soon recognized that those achievements which contemporary science attributes to Goethe were not the essential thing, while the really significant matter was overlooked. Those single discoveries would really have been made without Goethe's researches; but his lofty conception of Nature will be absent from science so long as this conception is not derived from Goethe himself. It was thus that the direction to be taken by my introductions for the edition was determined. These must show that each single detailed opinion expressed by Goethe is to be derived from the totality of his genius.²

[ 4 ] The principles according to which this must be carried out constitute the subject matter of the present brief treatise. It undertakes to show that what we set forth as Goethe's scientific views is capable of being established upon its own self-sufficing foundation.

[ 5 ] With this, I have said all that seemed to me necessary as a preface to the following discussion, except that I must discharge a pleasing duty—the expression of my most heartfelt thanks to Professor Kürschner, who has lent me his assistance in this composition with the same extraordinary friendliness that he has always shown toward my scientific undertakings.

Rudolf Steiner
The end of April, 1886

• 1. perceptive power of thought.Cf. Goethes naturwissenschaftliche Schriften, inKürschners Deutsche National-Literatur,Vol. I, p. 115.
• 2. The manner in which my opinions blend with the totality of Goethe's world-conception is discussed by Schröer in his foreword toKürschners Deutsche National-Literatur,Vol. I, pp. I-XIV. Cf. also his edition ofFaust, Vol. II, 2nd edition, p. VII.

[ 1 ] This study of the theory of knowledge implicit in Goethe's world-conception was written in the middle of the decade 1880–90. My mind was then vitally engaged in two activities of thought. One was directed toward the creative work of Goethe, and strove to formulate the view of life and of the world which revealed itself as the impelling force in this creative work. The completely and purely human seemed to me to be dominant in everything that Goethe gave to the world in creative work, in reflection, and in his life. Nowhere in the modern age did that inner assurance, harmonious completeness, and sense of reality in relation to the world seem to me to be as fully represented as in Goethe. From this thought there necessarily arose the recognition of the fact that the manner, likewise, in which Goethe comported himself in the act of cognition is that which issues out of the very nature of man and of the world.

In another direction my thought was vitally absorbed in the philosophical conceptions prevalent at that time regarding the essential nature of knowledge. In these conceptions, knowledge threatened to become sealed up within the being of man himself. The brilliant philosopher Otto Liebmann had asserted that human consciousness cannot pass beyond itself; that it must remain within itself. Whatever exists, as the true reality, beyond that world which consciousness forms within itself—of this it can know nothing. In brilliant writings Otto Liebmann elaborated this thought with respect to the most varied aspects of the realm of human experience. Johannes Volkelt had written his thoughtful books dealing with Kant's theory of knowledge and with Experience and Thought. He saw in the world as given to man only a combination of representations¹ based upon the relationship of man to a world in itself unknown. He admitted, to be sure, that an inevitability manifests itself in our inner experience of thinking when this lays hold in the realm of representations. When engaged in the activity of thinking, we have the sense, in a manner, of forcing our way through the world of representations into the world of reality. But what is gained thereby? We might for this reason feel justified, during the process of thinking, in forming judgments concerning the world of reality; but in such judgments we remain wholly within man himself; nothing of the nature of the world penetrates therein.

[ 2 ] Eduard von Hartmann, whose philosophy had been of great service to me, in spite of the fact that I could not admit its fundamental presuppositions or conclusions, occupied exactly the same point of view in regard to the theory of knowledge set forth exhaustively by Volkelt.

[ 3 ] There was everywhere manifest the confession that human knowledge arrives at certain barriers beyond which it cannot pass into the realm of genuine reality.

[ 4 ] In opposition to all this stood in my case the fact, inwardly experienced and known in experience, that human thinking, when it reaches a sufficient depth, lives within the reality of the world as a spiritual reality. I believed that I possessed this knowledge in a form which can exist in consciousness with the same clarity that characterizes mathematical knowledge.

[ 5 ] In the presence of this knowledge, it is impossible to sustain the opinion that there are such boundaries of cognition as were supposed to be established by the course of reasoning to which I have referred.

[ 6 ] In reference to all this, I was somewhat inclined toward the theory of evolution then in its flower. In Haeckel this theory had assumed forms in which no consideration whatever could be given to the self-existent being and action of the spiritual. The later and more perfect was supposed to arise in the course of time out of the earlier, the undeveloped. This was evident to me as regards the external reality of the senses, but I was too well aware of the self-existent spiritual, resting upon its own foundation, independent of the sensible, to yield the argument to the external world of the senses. But the problem was how to lay a bridge from this world to the world of the spirit.

[ 7 ] In the time sequence, as thought out on the basis of the senses, the spiritual in man appears to have evolved out of the antecedent non-spiritual. But the sensible, when rightly conceived, manifests itself everywhere as a revelation of the spiritual. In the light of this true knowledge of the sensible, I saw clearly that “boundaries of knowledge,” as then defined, could be admitted only by one who, when brought into contact with this sensible, deals with it like a man who should look at a printed page and, fixing his attention upon the forms of the letters alone without any idea of reading, should declare that it is impossible to know what lies behind these forms.

[ 8 ] Thus my look was guided along the path from sense-observation to the spiritual, which was firmly established in my inner experiential knowledge. Behind the sensible phenomena, I sought, not for a non-spiritual world of atoms, but for the spiritual, which appears to reveal itself within man himself, but which in reality inheres in the objects and processes of the sense-world itself. Because of man's attitude in the act of knowing, it appears as if the thoughts of things were within man, whereas in reality they hold sway within the things themselves. It is necessary for man, in experiencing the apparent,² to separate thoughts from things; but, in a true experience of knowledge, he restores them again to things.

[ 9 ] The evolution of the world is thus to be understood in such fashion that the antecedent non-spiritual, out of which the succeeding spirituality of man unfolds, possesses also a spiritual beside itself and outside itself. The later spirit-permeated sensible, amid which man appears, comes to pass by reason of the fact that the spiritual progenitor of man unites with imperfect, non-spiritual forms, and, having transformed these, then appears in sensible forms.

[ 10 ] This course of thought led me beyond the contemporary theorists of knowledge, even though I fully recognized their acumen and their sense of scientific responsibility. It led me to Goethe.

[ 11 ] I am impelled to look back from the present to my inner struggle at that time. It was no easy matter for me to advance beyond the course of reasoning characterizing contemporary philosophies. But my guiding star was always the self-substantiating recognition of the fact that it is possible for man to behold himself inwardly as spirit, independent of the body and dwelling in a world of spirit.

[ 12 ] Prior to my work dealing with Goethe's scientific writings and before the preparation of this theory of knowledge, I had written a brief paper on atomism, which was never printed. This was conceived in the direction here indicated. I cannot but recall what pleasure I experienced when Friedrich Theodor Vischer, to whom I sent that paper, wrote me some words of approval.

[ 13 ] But in my Goethe studies it became clear to me that my way of thinking led to a perception of the character of the knowledge which is manifest everywhere in Goethe's creative work and in his attitude toward the world. I perceived that my point of view afforded me a theory of knowledge which was that belonging to Goethe's world-conception.

[ 14 ] During the 'eighties of the last century I was invited through the influence of Karl Julius Schröer, my teacher and fatherly friend, to whom I am deeply indebted, to prepare the introductions to Goethe's scientific writings for the Kürschner National-Literatur, and to edit these writings. During the progress of this work, I traced the course of Goethe's intellectual life in all the fields with which he was occupied. It became constantly clearer to me in detail that my own perception placed me within that theory of knowledge belonging to Goethe's world-conception. Thus it was that I wrote this theory of knowledge in the course of the work I have mentioned.

[ 15 ] Now that I again turn my attention to it, it seems to me to be also the foundation and justification, as a theory of knowledge, for all that I have since asserted orally or in print. It speaks of an essential nature of knowledge which opens the way from the sense world to a world of spirit.

[ 16 ] It may seem strange that this youthful production, written nearly forty years ago, should now be published again, unaltered and expanded only by means of notes. In the manner of its presentation, it bears the marks of a kind of thinking which had entered vitally into the philosophy of that time, forty years ago. Were I writing the book now, I should express many things differently. But the essential nature of knowledge I could not set forth in any different light. Moreover, what I might write now could not convey so truly within itself the germ of the spiritual world-conception for which I stand. In such germinal fashion one can write only at the beginning of one's intellectual life. For this reason, it may be well that this youthful production should again appear in unaltered form. The theories of knowledge existing at the time of its composition have found their sequel in later theories of knowledge. What I have to say in regard to these I have said in my book Die Rätsel der Philosophie.³ This also will be issued in a new edition at the same time by the same publishers. That which I outlined many years ago as the theory of knowledge implicit in Goethe's world-conception seems to me just as necessary to be said now as it was forty years ago.

Rudolf Steiner
Dornach, November 1923

• 1. Vorstellungen, single concepts corresponding to single percepts.
• 2. in einem Schein-Erleben
• 3. The Riddles of Philosophy—not yet translated into English

When Rudolf Steiner, still a student and tutor in Vienna, published this terse little volume just after his twenty-fifth birthday, he concluded an intellectual struggle in which he had been engaged since childhood. He arrived at a solution of the problem: What is the relation between man's inner and his outer world?

For him the inner world had always been unmistakably a world of reality, not of mere reflections from without and subjective reactions within. His endeavor had been, not to establish the reality of either the inner or the outer world, but—through intense observation of the outer world and intense contemplation of his own mind in its activity—to discover the interrelationship between the mind and the world. Very early—perhaps, by his fifteenth year—he had rejected Kant's theory of the nature of human knowledge, saying to himself: “That may be true for him, but it is not true for me.” When he was later brought into contact with Goethe, first as poet and then as thinker, he discovered that, in the world of living things, Goethe's mode of contemplative, intuitive cognition was identical with his own; and that, through such a direct channel, Goethe had acquired knowledge essential to the innermost nature of plant, animal, and man. Hence, after editing one volume of Goethe's scientific writings, he paused in that task to build an adequate foundation upon which to base Goethe's mode of intuitive thinking and his own interpretation of Goethe.

But he not only solved the central problem with which he had been battling since youth. He also laid foundations deep in the human spirit for all his own creative thinking during the remaining thirty-nine years of his life. The whole wealth of his writings and lectures, dealing with so great a range of themes of deepest human concern, rests solidly upon this foundation. It rests upon this exposition of the reality, the spiritual nature, of human thinking: the truth he had apprehended in inner certitude of experience, and had confirmed under the rigid tests of the intellect, that “becoming aware of the Idea within reality is the true communion of man.” Later writings and lectures which set forth the potential and nascent capacity of the human spirit to rise above the low horizons of our every-day cognitions into a higher and clearer spiritual atmosphere of self-confirming intuitions rests, like everything else he has affirmed, upon the inherent nature of man's cognitive faculties as set forth, explicitly or implicitly, in this first published volume by the still youthful investigator. This compact volume represents a milestone in the history of the human mind, a crucial achievement in the struggle of man to know himself.

In essence, the argument is as follows:

One constituent of direct experience—thought, which appears before our inner activity of contemplation—is unique in manifesting immediately its essential nature and its interrelationships. It thus becomes the only key to disclose the hidden nature of all other experience.

Thought is not subjective in itself, but only as regards the prerequisite activity of our contemplation. This is evidenced by the clearly observable fact that we combine thoughts solely according to their inherent content. Our contemplation, as an organ of perception, only brings to manifestation in consciousness objectively real elements of the one thought content of the world. Through the intellectual cognition of single elements of this reality—concepts—and the rational combination of inherently related elements into harmonious complexes—ideas—we are capable of knowing gradually expanding aspects of the total reality. This knowledge is real, not a mere phantasm of the subjective mind.

But the mode of cognition suited to the inorganic is not suited to the organic. In relation to the inorganic, we possess truth when we grasp the cause of a phenomenon. In relation to the organic, we must apprehend the supersensible type, which manifests itself in the single members of a species of plant or animal. This requires direct, intuitive cognition: the mind must perceive in thinking and think in perceiving. Moreover, when we deal with the human being, we must apprehend the central reality—the ego—manifest as a self-sufficing spiritual being in its uniqueness in each single human personality.

Through this mode of intuitive cognition, we may attain to the knowledge that the universal Creative Spirit is in the single human being; that His highest manifestation is in human thought; that man is in harmony with this Guiding Power of the world when he follows freely, as an individual, the guidance of his own intuitions.

The heartfelt thanks of the translator are due to several competent specialists who have rendered important service in this difficult task: to Miss Ruth Hofrichter, of Vassar College, who painstakingly scrutinized the manuscript in its first form some years ago, in comparison with the German text, and pointed out a number of deficiencies; to Dr. Hermann Poppelbaum and Dr. Egbert Weber for very helpful detailed criticisms and suggestions.

O. D. W.
New York City
July 1940

[ 1 ] When we trace any one of the major streams of present-day spiritual life back to its sources, we always encounter one of the spirits of our classical period. Goethe or Schiller, Herder or Lessing has given an impulse, and from it one or another spiritual movement has taken its start and still continues on today. Our whole German cultural life is so fully based on our classical writers that many a person who thinks himself completely original actually manages nothing more than to express what Goethe or Schiller indicated long ago. We have lived so fully into the world they created that hardly anyone who leaves the path they indicated could expect our understanding. Our way of looking at the world and at life is so influenced by them that no one can rouse our interest who does not seek points of reference with this world.

[ 2 ] There is only one branch of our spiritual-cultural life that, we must admit, has not yet found any such point of reference. It is that branch of science which goes beyond merely collecting observations, beyond information about individual phenomena, in order to provide a satisfying overview of the world and of life. It is what one usually calls philosophy. For philosophy, our classical period does not seem to exist at all. It seeks its salvation in an artificial seclusion and noble isolation from the rest of spiritual life. This statement is not refuted by the fact that a considerable number of older and more recent philosophers and natural scientists have occupied themselves with Goethe and Schiller. For they have not arrived at their scientific standpoint by bringing to fruition the seeds contained in the scientific achievements of those heroes of the spirit. They arrived at their scientific standpoint outside of the world view put forward by Schiller and Goethe and then afterwards compared the two. They did not make this comparison for the purpose of gaining something for their own cause from the scientific views of the classical thinkers, but rather in order to test these thinkers to see how they stood up in the light of their own cause. We will come back to this in more detail. But first we would like just to indicate the consequences for this realm of science that arise out of the stance it takes toward the highest level of cultural development in modern times.

[ 3 ] A great number of educated readers today will immediately reject unread any literary or scientific book that appears with a claim to being philosophical. There has hardly ever been a time when philosophy has enjoyed less favor than now. Leaving aside the writings of Schopenhauer and Eduard von Hartmann, which take up questions concerning life and the world, questions of the most general interest, and which therefore have been widely read, one does not go too far in saying that philosophical works are read today only by people in the profession. Nobody bothers except them. An educated person not in the profession has the vague feeling: This literature ^a1 contains nothing that meets my spiritual needs; the things dealt with there do not concern me; they are not connected in any way with what is necessary for the satisfaction of my spirit. Only the fact we have indicated can bear the guilt for this lack of interest in all philosophy, for, in contrast to this lack of interest, there stands an ever-growing need for a satisfying view of the world and of life. What for a long time was a substitute for so many people, i.e., religious dogma, is losing more and more of its power to convince. The urge is increasing all the time to achieve by the work of thinking what was once owed to faith in revelation: satisfaction of spirit. The involvement of educated people could therefore not fail to exist if the sphere of science about which we are speaking really went hand in hand with the whole development of culture, if its representatives took a stand on the big questions that move humanity.

[ 4 ] One must always keep one's eye on the fact that it can never be a question of first creating artificially a spiritual need, but only of seeking out the need that exists and satisfying it. ^a2 The task of science ^e1 is not to pose questions, (see Note 2) but rather to consider questions carefully when they are raised by human nature and by the particular level of culture, and then to answer them. Our modern philosophers set themselves tasks that are in no way a natural outgrowth of the level of culture at which we stand; therefore no one is asking for their findings. But this science passes over the questions that our culture must pose by virtue of the vantage point to which our classical writers have raised it. We therefore have a science [present-day philosophy] that no one is seeking, and a scientific need that is not being satisfied by anyone.

[ 5 ] Our central science—the science that should solve the actual riddles of the world for us cannot be an exception among all the other branches of spiritual life. It must seek its sources where they have found theirs. It must not just come to terms with our classical thinkers; it must also seek in them the seeds for its own development; the same impulse must sweep through it as through the rest of our culture. This necessity resides in the very nature of the matter. It is also due to this necessity that modern researchers have occupied themselves with the classical writers in the way already described above. But this shows nothing more than that one had a vague feeling of the impermissibility of passing over the convictions of these thinkers and simply proceeding with the order of the day. But this also shows that one did not really manage to develop their views any further. The way one approached Lessing, Herder, Goethe, and Schiller shows this. Despite all the excellence of many of the books about these thinkers, one must still say, regarding almost everything written about Goethe's and Schiller's scientific ^e2 works, that it did not develop organically out of their views but was rather brought afterwards into relationship to them. Nothing demonstrates this better than the fact that the most contrary scientific theories have regarded Goethe as the thinker who had earlier “inklings” of their views. World views having absolutely nothing in common with each other point to Goethe with seemingly equal justification when they feel the need to see their standpoints recognized as being at the height of human development. One cannot imagine a sharper antithesis than between the teachings of Hegel and Schopenhauer. The latter calls Hegel a charlatan and his philosophy vapid word-rubbish, pure nonsense, barbaric word-combinations. These two men actually have absolutely nothing in common with each other except an unlimited reverence for Goethe and the belief that he adhered to their world view.

[ 6 ] And it is no different with more recent scientific theories. Haeckel, who has elaborated Darwinism brilliantly and with iron consistency, and whom we must regard as by far the most significant follower of the English scientist, sees his own view prefigured in the Goethean one. Another natural scientist of the present day, C.F.W. Jessen, writes of Darwin's theory: “The stir caused among many specialists and laymen by this theory—which had often been set forth earlier and just as often refuted by thorough research, but which is now propped up by many seeming supports—shows, unfortunately, how little people know and understand the results of natural-scientific research.” The same researcher says of Goethe that he “rose to comprehensive investigations into inorganic as well as organic nature” by finding, “through intelligent, deeply penetrating contemplation of nature, the basic law of all plant formation.” Each of these researchers can bring, in utterly overwhelming numbers, proofs of the agreement of his scientific theory with the “intelligent observations of Goethe.” It would put the unity of Goethe's thought in a very dubious light if both of these standpoints could justifiably cite it as their authority. The reason for this phenomenon, however, lies precisely in the fact that not one of these views, after all, has really grown out of the Goethean world view, but rather each has its roots outside it. The reason lies in the fact that one seeks an outer agreement of one's view with details torn out of the wholeness of Goethe's thinking, which thereby lose their meaning; one does not want to attribute to this wholeness itself the inner worthiness to found a scientific direction. Goethe's views were never the starting point of scientific investigations but always only an object of comparison. Those who concerned themselves with him were rarely students, devoting themselves to his ideas without preconceptions, but rather critics, sitting in judgment over him.

[ 7 ] One says, in fact, that Goethe had far too little scientific sense; the worse a philosopher, the better a poet he was. Therefore it would be impossible to base a scientific standpoint on him. This is a total misconception about Goethe's nature. To be sure, Goethe was no philosopher in the usual sense of the word; but it should not be forgotten that the wonderful harmony of his personality led Schiller to say: “The poet is the only true human being.” What Schiller understood here by “true human being” was Goethe. There was not lacking in his personality any element that belongs to the highest expression of the universally human. But all these elements united in him into a totality that works as such. This is how it comes about that a deep philosophical sense underlies his views about nature, even though this philosophical sense does not come to consciousness in him in the form of definite scientific principles. Anyone who enters more deeply into that totality will be able, if he also brings along a philosophical disposition, to separate out that philosophical sense and to present it as Goethean science. But he must take his start from Goethe and not approach him with an already fixed view. Goethe's spiritual powers always work in a way that accords with the strictest philosophy, even though he did not leave behind any systematic presentation of them.

[ 8 ] Goethe's world view ^e3 is the most many-sided imaginable. It issues from a center resting within the unified nature of the poet, and it always turns outward the side corresponding to the nature of the object being considered. The unity of the spiritual forces being exercised lies in Goethe's nature; the way these forces are exercised at any given moment is determined by the object under consideration. Goethe takes his way of looking at things from the outer world and does not force any particular way upon it. These days, however, the thinking of many people is active in only one particular way; it is useful for only one category of objects; it is not, like that of Goethe, unified but rather uniform. Let us express this even more precisely: There are people whose intellect is especially able to think purely mechanical interdependencies and effects; they picture the whole universe as a mechanism. Other people have an urge to perceive everywhere the mysterious mystical element in the outer world; they become adherents of mysticism. All error arises when a way of thinking like this which is valid for one category of objects is declared to be universal. In this way the conflict between the many world views is explained. If such a one-sided conception approaches the Goethean one, which is not limited—because it does not in any way take its way of looking at things from the spirit of the beholder but rather from the nature of what is beheld—then it is comprehensible that the one-sided conception fastens onto those elements of thought in the Goethean conception that are in accord with itself. Goethe's world view encompasses many directions of thought in the sense just indicated and cannot, in fact, ever be imbued with any single, one-sided conception.

[ 9 ] The philosophical sense that is an essential element in the organism of Goethe's genius has significance also for his literary works. Even though it was far from Goethe's way to present in a conceptually clear form what this sense communicated to him, as Schiller could, it was nevertheless still a factor contributing to his artistic work, as it was with Schiller. The literary productions of Goethe and Schiller are unthinkable without the world view that stands in the background. With Schiller this is expressed more in the basic principles he actually formulated, with Goethe more in the way he looked at things. Yet the fact that the greatest poets of our nation, at the height of their creative work, could not do without that philosophical element proves more than anything else that this element is a necessary part of the history of humanity's development. Precisely this dependence on Goethe and Schiller will make it possible to wrest our central science [philosophy] out of its academic isolation and to incorporate it into the rest of cultural development. The scientific convictions of our classical writers are connected by a thousand threads to their other strivings and are of a sort demanded by the cultural epoch that created them.

• a1. The attitude lying behind this assessment of the nature of philosophical literature and of the interest shown it arose out of the intellectual approach of scientific endeavor around the middle of the 1880's. Since then phenomena have come to light in the face of which this assessment no longer seems valid. One need think only of the brilliant insights that Nietzsche's thoughts and feelings have given into broad areas of life. And in the battles that took place and are taking place even today between materialistically thinking monists and the defenders of a spiritually oriented world view, there live both a striving of philosophical thinking for a life-filled content, and also a deep general interest in the riddles of existence. Paths of thought, such as those of Einstein springing from the world view of physics, have almost become the subject of universal conversation and literary expression.
  But in spite of this the motives out of which this assessment was made back then are also still valid today. If one were to put this assessment into words today, one would have to formulate it differently. Since it appears again today almost as something ancient, it is quite appropriate to say how much this assessment is still valid.
  Goethe's world view, the epistemology of which is to be sketched in this book, takes its start from what the whole human being experiences. With respect to this experience, thinkingone side. Out of the fullness of human existence thought-configurations rise, as it were, to the surface of soul life. One part of these thought-pictures constituted an answer to the question: What is the knowing activity of man? And this answer turns out to be such that one sees: Human existence reaches its potential only when it becomes active in knowing. Soul life without knowledge would be like a human organism without a head; i.e., it would not be at all. Within the inner life of the soul there grows a content which, just as the hungering organism demands nourishment, demands perception from outside; and, in the outer world, there is a content of perception which does not bear its essential being within itself, but which first reveals this essential being when the cognitive process connects this perceptual content with the soul content. In this way the cognitive process becomes a part in the formation of world reality. The human being works along creatively with this world reality through his knowing activity. And if a plant root is unthinkable without the fulfillment of its potential in the fruit, so by no means only man but the world itself would not be complete unless knowing activity took place. In his activity of knowing man does not do something for himself alone; rather he works along with the world in the revelation of real existence. What is in man is ideal semblance; what is in the world of perception is sense semblance; the inter-working of the two in knowing activity first constitutes reality.
  Seen in this way epistemology becomes a part of life. And it must be seen in this way when it is joined to the breadth of life of Goethean soul experience. But even Nietzsche's thinking and feeling do not connect themselves with this breadth of life. And still less so does that which otherwise has arisen as philosophically oriented views of life and of the world since the writing of what was characterized in this book as “The Point of Departure.” All these views, after all, presuppose that reality is present somewhere outside of the activity of knowing, and that in the activity of knowing, a human, copied representation of this reality is to result, or perhaps cannot result. The fact that this reality cannot be found by knowing activity—because it is first made into reality in the activity of knowing—is experienced hardly anywhere. Those who think philosophically seek life and real existence outside of knowing activity; Goethe stands within creative life and real existence by engaging in the activity of knowing. Therefore even the more recent attempts at a world view stand outside the Goethean creation of ideas. Our epistemology wants to stand inside of it, because philosophy becomes a content of life thereby, and an interest in philosophy becomes necessary for life.
• a2. Questions of knowing activity arise through the human soul organization in contemplation of the outer world. Within the soul impulse of the question there lies the power to press forward into the contemplation in such a way that this contemplation, together with the soul activity, brings the reality of what is contemplated to manifestation.
• e1. Wissenschaft: “science” in the broader sense, from scire, to know. –Ed.
• e2. Again: “scientific” in the broader sense –Ed.
• e3. See also Rudolf Steiner's Goethe's World View, Mercury Press, 1985. –Ed.

[ 1 ] With the foregoing we have determined the direction the following investigations will take. They are meant to develop what manifested in Goethe as a scientific sense and to interpret his way of looking at the world.

[ 2 ] The objection could be made that this is not the way to present a view scientifically. Under no circumstances should a scientific view be based on an authority; it must always rest upon principles. Let us forestall this objection at once. We regard a view founded in the Goethean world conception as true, not because it can be traced back to this world conception, but because we believe that we can support the Goethean world view upon sound, basic principles and present it as one well founded in itself. The fact that we take Goethe as our starting point should not prevent us from being just as serious about establishing the views we present as are the proponents of any science supposedly free of all presuppositions. We are presenting the Goethean world view, but we will establish it in accordance with the demands of science.

[ 3 ] Schiller has already indicated the direction of the path such investigations must take. No one perceived the greatness of Goethe's genius more clearly than he did. In his letters to Goethe, Schiller held up to him a mirror image of Goethe's being; in his letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man, he traces his ideal of the artist back to the way he recognized it in Goethe; and in his essay On Naive and Sentimental Poetry, he portrays the being of true art in the form in which he found it in Goethe's poetry. At the same time, this justifies the statement that our considerations are built on the foundation of Goethe's and Schiller's world view. We wish to look at Goethe's scientific thinking by that method for which Schiller provided the model. Goethe's gaze is directed upon nature and upon life, and his way of looking at things in doing so will be the object (the content) of our discussion; Schiller's gaze is directed upon Goethe's spirit, and his way of looking at things in doing so will be the ideal for our method.

[ 4 ] In this way we believe Goethe's and Schiller's scientific strivings are made fruitful for the present day.

[ 5 ] In accordance with current scientific terminology, our work must be considered to be epistemology. To be sure, the questions with which it deals will in many ways be of a different nature from those usually raised by this science. We have seen why this is the case. Wherever similar investigations arise today, they take their start almost entirely from Kant. In scientific circles the fact has been completely overlooked that in addition to the science of knowledge founded by the great thinker of Königsberg, there is yet another direction, at least potentially, that is no less capable than the Kantian one of being deepened in an objective manner. In the early 1880's Otto Liebmann made the statement that we must go back to Kant if we wish to arrive at a world view free of contradiction. This is why today we have a literature on Kant almost too vast to encompass.

[ 6 ] But this Kantian path will not help the science of philosophy. Philosophy will play a part in cultural life again only when, instead of going back to Kant, it immerses itself in the scientific conception of Goethe and Schiller.

[ 7 ] And now let us approach the basic questions of a science of knowledge corresponding to these introductory remarks.