The Rudolf Steiner Archive

(Determinism) and the question of responsibility for our actions. Leipzig 1892

What we have here is a work that rehashes the trivialities of the heroes of force and substance. The underlying error here is simply that Vogt, like all determinists, fails to recognize the nature of causality. It is based on a certain paucity of thought to regard the category of causality as the only one by which world phenomena are governed. Admittedly, this paucity is a widespread shortcoming today. We have to hear again and again that it is the task of science to seek the causes of the phenomena that are given to us through observation. This is nothing more than a completely one-sided claim based on prejudice. The phenomena are connected in a completely different way than according to the law of cause and effect. We have by no means understood a process when we know its cause. Rather, we must delve into its own essence. The physicist today no longer studies the nature of colors, but the wave processes that cause them; the psychologist no longer studies the actions of the personality, but their impersonal causes. This is supposed to be empirical research! Anyone who truly delves into the nature of the human personality will simply have to present freedom as a fact that is just as empirically given as the processes of heat and light.

With apologetic-critical consideration of Adolf Exner's inauguration speech "On Political Education" as Rector of the University of Vienna. Vienna 1893

Brentano emphasizes that he was one of the first to say: "The method of philosophy is no other than that of the natural sciences." In this pamphlet, he makes the fate of philosophy in the future dependent on the general recognition of this principle. We must recognize in this the signature of an unphilosophical way of thinking. The extension of the scientific approach to certain areas, such as psychology, can provide nothing more than an increase in the natural sciences, an expansion of the latter with new content, but never philosophy. Wundt's experimental psychology is a scientific, not a philosophical chapter. Philosophy cannot content itself with collecting and systematizing experiences; it must go one step deeper and ask: what does experience mean at all; what value does it have? Only through philosophical thinking can the truths of experience be put in the right light. Those who know how to look at something with the right concept will see it from a completely different side than those who simply let it affect them. But we can never experience concepts. They must be generated in thought. Haeckel would never have arrived at the basic ontogenetic law if he had not conceived it freely in thought (through intuition). It is quite futile to simply observe the facts. We must place them under certain aspects. Even mere experimentation is not enough. Without guiding ideas, it remains only an artificially produced object of observation. Even if we have produced the conditions of a phenomenon ourselves in the experiment and therefore know exactly the relationship between the condition and the conditional, we still learn nothing about the nature of this relationship.

In pure mathematics we have an example of how we can really come to recognize this essence. This is the case because here we are dealing with objects that we do not look at from the outside, but that we completely generate ourselves. In contrast to experiential knowledge, pure mathematics can be regarded as a realization of the essence of its objects. It can therefore rightly serve as a model for philosophy. The latter must only overcome the one-sidedness of mathematical judgment. This one-sidedness lies in the abstract character of mathematical truths. They are merely formal. They are based on mere concepts of proportion. If we are able to create entities ourselves which have a real content, then we obtain a science not merely of forms, as mathematics is, but of essences, as philosophy is supposed to be. The supreme entity of this kind is the "I". This: cannot be found through experience, but can only be generated through free intuition. Whoever is able to generate this intuition soon realizes that he has not carried out an act of his individual, random consciousness, but a cosmic process: he has overcome the opposition of subject and object; he has found the substantive world in himself, but also himself in the world. From then on, he no longer looks at things as an outsider, but as one who stands within them. At this moment, he has become a philosopher. Philosophy wants to experience things, not merely observe them like empirical science. This is a fundamental difference. Anyone who does not admit it and simply wants to apply the scientific method to philosophy has no concept of the latter. For me, the general acceptance of Brentano's theorem would be tantamount to the general decline of philosophy.

Lecture given at the Vienna Legal Society on December 14, 1892, Vienna 1893

The question of the forensic significance of suggestion phenomena is gaining in importance with each passing day. The fact that people can be induced to commit crimes with the help of suggestion forces us to consider hypnotism in the administration of justice. Legislation must not overlook the fact that acts which are subject to civil law can be carried out under an influence which can reduce responsibility and free will to zero. Dr. Drucker: "Just as the spread of chemistry has brought about the fact that today anyone can produce explosives of the most dangerous kind without any particular difficulty, so that the legislature has found itself moved to create its own law on the production and circulation of explosives, so the spread of the teachings on suggestion and hypnotism will bring it about in a few years that everyone will learn the not difficult art of hypnotizing; after all, hypnotizing is already practiced as a sport in broad sections of the population today, and the stage is already showing how to hypnotize. But once this evil has become naturalized, it is very difficult, almost impossible, to eradicate it. It is therefore one of the duties of the legislator to prevent such conditions." Dr. Drucker very thankfully summarizes the extent to which various countries are already in a position, according to existing legislation, to consider the detrimental consequences of acts performed under suggestive influence as punishable or invalid. Incidentally, I am convinced that this could be the case to a far greater extent if the spirit of the law were more decisive in legal decisions than the letter of the law, or rather: if the latter were used to better penetrate the former. It is possible to witness trials whose course makes the layman shudder at the abundance of legal sophistry employed, and yet which the learned jurist declares to be a matter of course. Professional education sometimes broadens the horizon; often, however, it narrows it so much that the route from Hamburg to Altona is taken via Verona.

Leipzig 1892

As in Duboc's other writings, this one also contains a large number of excellent views on individual areas of life and science. Anyone who makes claims that go into the depths of science and that go beyond the standpoint of modern rationalist enlightenment will derive little satisfaction from this book. What an educated man, without being a philosopher, thinks about philosophical problems is interesting to hear here and there in conversation; systematically processed into a book, it has the character of platitude and triviality. Arbitrary reasoning is by no means philosophy. Sentences such as this: "If, in the sense of ethical mechanics, one considers only the mental apparatus of movement, then every moment which, acting in man, drives and determines him in his actions and behavior, falls under the general heading of drives or instincts" (5.49) say nothing at all about the essence of the matter under consideration. But because the author has a sound power of observation, he arrives at insights that are remarkable even from inadequate principles. These include his views on the character of the sensations of pleasure and displeasure and their relation to moral action. The drive as such is not originally concerned with bringing about a pleasurable sensation, but with restoring the inner equilibrium of man that has been lost in a certain area (8.55). "In that a sensation of pleasure springs from the activity of the instinct, which can then be imagined as such, becomes an imagination (a sensation of pleasure), this imagination is based on the instinct preceding it or its activity. In this respect, "the idea of pleasure does not first awaken the drive", if by awakening we understand something like calling into being. On the other hand, the idea of pleasure, once it has become independent, can very well awaken the drive, or stimulate it, spur it on, arouse it" (p.109f.). The drive that goes to its activity is thus the first; that it has pleasure in its wake is the second. This realization is of the utmost importance, for it shows that life does not initially aim at pleasure, but at the restoration of its disturbed equilibrium. Only the experience that a certain pleasure is connected with the activity of a certain instinct then leads to the search for this pleasure itself and to make use of the satisfaction of the instinct for this purpose. If this law is also extended to the moral instincts, it is directed against the eudaemonistic ethics, which claims that the goal of human will is pleasure. The truth is that pleasure is only a necessary consequence of the fulfillment of our will. The attempts to clarify these concepts in the chapter "Drive and Pleasure" (pp.102-163) are very interesting, and it is only a pity that the author is unable to raise them above the level of subjective ideas.

According to a document in his archive

Since 1822, German naturalists and physicians have held an annual meeting attended by their colleagues from Germany and abroad. The suggestion for this institution came from Oken. The purpose of the meetings was to exchange opinions, to enable naturalists to get to know each other personally and to acquaint them with the collections and scientific institutions of the meeting place, which was chosen to be a different major German or Austrian city each year. Goethe must have welcomed this arrangement with pleasure. His participation was particularly lively at the meetings in Munich in 1827 and in Berlin in 1828. In the first year, Goethe's interest was particularly heightened by Zelter's stay in Munich, which coincided with that of the naturalists. (Cf. Goethe's correspondence with Zelter, IV, p.381ff.) The importance of the meetings of the researchers became particularly clear to Goethe when he received a description of the Munich events from his friend Kaspar Sternberg on October 30, 1827. "The conclusion of this year's travel cycle," Sternberg wrote, "was the meeting of German naturalists and physicians in Munich; a trusted friend, whom the king immediately recognized from the portrait he saw in Weimar, will have given news of this association on his return journey." The "trusted friend" refers to Zelter. The letter made such an impression on Goethe that he took a passage from it, revised it, introduced it with a few sentences and wrote the following short essay on the importance of the meetings of German naturalists and physicians:

"If we have dared to proclaim a European, indeed a general world literature, this does not mean that the different nations take note of each other and their products, for in this sense it has existed for a long time, continues and renews itself more or less. No, it means rather that the living and striving literati become acquainted with one another and find themselves prompted by inclination and public spirit to work socially. But this is brought about more by travelers than by correspondence, since personal presence alone succeeds in determining and strengthening the true relationship between people.

So do not look too far afield, but rejoice first of all when societies, namely itinerant societies moving from place to place, emerge in the fatherland; which is why the message from a worthy friend about the last association of natural scientists that met in Munich was highly desirable to us, which reads as follows:

"The most pleasing thing about this institution is that it replaces the lack of a capital city in which natural scientists could meet from time to time to discuss everything that is pious or an obstacle to the progress of science. Indeed, these social migrations from one German capital to another have the even greater advantage that one finds something new in the collections of each and is convinced of the correctness of the scientific determination made by comparing what has already been seen. Perhaps an even greater advantage is that people who would otherwise have walked side by side their whole lives unrecognized or even misjudged now seek each other out as scientific kin and establish a relationship with each other instead of criticizing and scornfully reviewing each other. Finally, the most important thing is that the statesmen who attend these meetings through others or in person become convinced that honest research is really meant honestly. The meeting to be held in Berlin in the coming year will probably form the bridge for attracting related naturalists from northern and eastern states. In this way, hiking would once again have achieved a beautiful, beneficial purpose. May heaven grant scientific endeavors in our German fatherland peace and tranquillity for a long time to come, so that an activity will unfold that the world has only experienced in a century since the invention of printing with far fewer resources.""

With the exception of a few Goethean changes, the passage: "The most pleasing appears - has experienced aids" is identical to a part of Sternberg's letter (cf. correspondence between Goethe and Sternberg, 5.178 f.). In his letter of reply to Sternberg of 27 November 1827, Goethe writes: "Although I have received various information from some quarters about what happened in Munich, this concerned more the exterior, which was quite impressive and honorable to look at, than the interior, namely the messages themselves... It is all the more desirable for me to hear from a confident source that at least the main purpose of getting to know each other better and hopefully truly uniting our natural scientists has not been compromised. The very fact that we have agreed on the place where we intend to meet next year gives us the best hopes, and certainly the meeting in Berlin under the auspices of the generally recognized Alexander von Humboldt is likely to instil the best hopes in us" (correspondence with Sternberg, p.180 £.). This meeting in Berlin brought two important facts for Goethe. Goethe's services to natural science were warmly acknowledged in public speeches by two important natural scientists. Alexander von Humboldt gave the opening speech. He also commemorated the absent natural scientists, including Goethe, with the words: "If, however, in the face of this assembly, I must withhold the expression of my personal feelings, let me at least be permitted to name the patriarchs of patriotic fame whom the care of their lives, dear to the nation, keeps away from us: Goethe, whom the great creations of poetic imagination have not prevented from plunging his exploratory gaze into all the depths of natural life, and who now, in rural seclusion, mourns his princely friend as Germany mourns one of its most glorious ornaments" (Isis, vol. XXI, p.254). And Martius, the Munich botanist, said at one point in his lecture "On the Architectonics of Flowers" with regard to Goethe's "Metamorphosis of Plants": "Above all, I note that the basic view which I do myself the honor of presenting here is not merely the result of my research, but that it has already been accepted, at least in part, by many and is generally the result of that morphological view of the flower which we owe to our great poet Goethe. For everything rests on the assumption that there are only leaves in the flower (that calyx, stamens, corolla, pistil are only modifications of the plant unit) or that the leaf is the unit with which we can reckon" (Isis, vol. XXII, p.334). Goethe paid particular attention to the events in Berlin. A booklet still in the Goethe Archive is proof of this. In it we find some of the printed documents relating to the meeting bound together. They are the following: "Overview map of the countries and cities", which delegates sent to the Assembly; a "Notification to the members" about the individual events at the Assembly; ¹ The "printed list of participants with their proof of residence"; the program of the opening ceremony in the concert hall, which Zelter conducted and at which compositions by Mendelssohn, Zelter, Flemming, Rungenhagen and Wollank were performed; Humboldt's opening speech with his personal dedication to Goethe: "Herrn Geh. Rat von Goethe with the deepest gratitude to A. v. Humboldt"; the lecture "Über den Charakter der Vegetation auf den Inseln des Indischen Archipels" by C. G. C. Reinwardt, the Leyden botanist, also with his own handwritten dedication: "Sr. Excellenz dem Minister v. Goethe aus innigster Verehrung vom Verfasser"; a "Verzeichnis eines Systems von Versuchen über die Bestäubung der Pflanzen, angestellt in den Jahren 1821-1828 von Dr. A.W. Henschel", which had been presented to the assembly; finally, a letter "to the gentlemen naturalists and physicians" from the "Berlin Medal Mint", concerning the production of commemorative coins with the portraits of famous naturalists. Following this, the booklet also contains the aforementioned short essay by Goethe in John's handwriting, with corrections partly in Goethe's own hand and partly in Riemer's hand. It is enclosed in a special cover bearing the inscription (in Eckermann's hand): "Naturforscher in Berlin". The last item in the booklet is a number: "Notizen aus dem Gebiet der Natur- und Heilkunde" (Notes from the field of natural and medical science) from October 1829, with news about the Heidelberg naturalists' meeting of 1829, as proof that Goethe's interest in these meetings was also lively in the following period. The cover of the booklet bears the words (in John's hand): "Acta die Zusammenkunft der Naturforscher in Berlin 1828" and in the left-hand corner (in Kräuter's hand): "Auswärtige Angelegenheiten". Also worth mentioning is the notice in the program of the opening ceremony that reads on the upper sides of the hall in which this celebration took place:

"In fiery battle the fervent forces burn,
Great things are wrought by their strife, greater things by their alliance"

-Schiller

and

"It shall stir, act creatively,
First shape itself, then transform,
It only seems to stand still for moments.
The eternal continues to stir in all:
For everything must decay into nothing,
if it wants to persist in being."

Goethe

The information provided here is proof that the Naturalists' Meeting of 1828 gave Goethe a gratifying insight into the impact his scientific endeavors had on German intellectual life.

• 1. A practical measure of the organizers is to be considered here. In the "Notification to the members" it says: "So that none of the precious hours of the get-together need be sacrificed to the fulfillment of police regulations, the benevolent authority has ordered that in this case, as an exception, notification by the managing directors is sufficient. Each of the members is therefore exempt from registering at the Fremden-Bureau and from obtaining a residence card."

Died on August 8, 1897

A man with the rarest of spiritual gifts passed away these days. Jacob Burckhardt, the incomparable performer of the Renaissance, died on August 8. He was to us what few writers can be to us. For few possess the power to resurrect an age before our souls with such grandeur as Burckhardt was able to do in his work "The Culture of the Renaissance in Italy" (1860). Anyone who has absorbed this book in the way it deserves according to its value must count it among the most important means of his education. The intellectual forces of the Renaissance are portrayed in simple, broad lines, and the great figures are described vividly and with profound insight. When you immerse yourself in Burckhardt's book, you live in the ideas, in the feelings of that mighty time. No feeling, no thought, no excess seems incomprehensible when you have followed the explanations of this brilliant man. He recreates in the best sense of the word what excited the Renaissance, what it lived out in deeds. He describes with dramatic power. He knows what moves the time, what moves the people of the time in their innermost being. People who know Burckhardt as a teacher assure us that he was captivating in his oral presentations, that he was able to bring past times to life in a marvelous way before his listeners. Anyone who delves into his writings will readily believe and understand this. What can be said of so many historians, it is basically the spirit of their masters in which the times are reflected: it has no application to Burckhardt. He knows how to awaken the spirit of the times in its very own form.

The tremendous effect Burckhardt was able to exert on receptive minds is best demonstrated by the effect he had on Friedrich Nietzsche. The times in which the great individuals flourished: they were Nietzsche's spiritual home. And no one knew how to lead him to them better than Burckhardt. He acknowledged with words of the greatest enthusiasm how Nietzsche came to life in the great historian's expositions, how he found in him the spiritual air that he most liked to breathe. Nietzsche counted the fact that he found Jacob Burckhardt in Basel when he came to the city as a young professor and was able to befriend him as one of the good gifts granted to him by fate. And the way in which Burckhardt approached the young genius speaks for the great trait in his personality. From the very beginning, he had the right sense of the intellectual power that was working its way to the surface in the young philosopher. Even then, he understood him like few others. It always speaks for the greatness of a mind when it is able to immediately recognize another great man as such.

Dr. Viktor Meyer, one of the most important chemists of our time, from whom science still expected much, ended his life on August 8. The news is shocking, because everything that has recently become known about the outstanding researcher suggests that he was working with all his might towards the goal that he often declared to be the next frontier of contemporary chemistry: the decomposition of substances that are now known as elements into simpler materials. With admirable energy and a great sense of purpose, he devised experimental methods to solve the task he had set himself. How natural bodies are composed and what their simple components are: these questions preoccupied him. He wanted to solve them by conducting laboratory experiments under the most difficult conditions. The complicated way in which simple bodies form the compounds that organic chemistry has to deal with appealed to his spirit of research. The fact that he discovered new substances, aldoximes and thiophene, appears to be a side effect of his research. This research itself aimed to fathom the constitution of matter by experimental means. It is deeply regrettable that he felt compelled to discontinue his beautiful work. There is much to do in the field that he has made his own.

Describing the significance of the physiologist Rudolf Heidenhain, who died a few days ago, for his discipline is not one of the tasks of this weekly publication. However, it should not remain unconsidered that Heidenhain's work was carried out in the Wroclaw University Laboratory, which is important for anyone who has a need for a general understanding of the world. In our age of specialization, the results of scholarly individual work do not easily penetrate the general consciousness of the educated. It is partly due to this circumstance that Heidenhain's investigations into the life of the cell have not had the influence on our modern world view that they should have had by their very nature. However, there is something else that I will mention later.

Our view of nature clearly strives towards the goal of explaining the life of organisms according to the same laws. organisms according to the same laws by which the phenomena of inanimate nature must also be explained. Mechanical, physical and chemical laws are sought in the animal and plant body. The same kind of laws that govern a machine should also be at work in the organism, only in an infinitely complicated and difficult to recognize form. Nothing should be added to these laws to make the phenomenon we call life possible. They are supposed to be able to do it alone in a manifold concatenation. This mechanistic view of the phenomena of life is gaining more and more ground. However, it will never satisfy those who are capable of taking a deeper look at natural processes. Such a person will recognize that laws of a higher order are at work in the organism than in lifeless nature. It will become clear to him that only he who does not see such laws can deny them. The person who sees more deeply will not like to argue with anyone about the laws of organic life, just as the person who sees colors will not argue with the color-blind person about colors. Such a deep seer knows that even in the smallest cell laws of a higher kind are at work than in the machine.

Through investigations such as Heidenhain's, the ideas about special laws of organisms gain specific content in detail. This researcher has shown that the cells of the salivary glands are in a state of living activity when the secretion product of the same is produced. Thus secretion is not brought about by mere physical causes, but by the active life of the small organs. Heidenhain has demonstrated something similar for the cells of the kidney and the intestinal walls. It is not the mere mechanical blood pressure or the chemical forces in question that are solely active, but special organic driving forces. Under certain conditions, these driving forces can work alone, independently of mechanical effects, under certain other conditions in combination with those others.

It remains characteristic of the way modern natural scientists think that Heidenhain himself did not draw the conclusion from his experiments that the life of cells obeys higher laws than the things of inorganic nature. He lived under the delusion that the life he perceived in the cells could still be explained by physical and chemical processes. Here one encounters a way of looking at things that immediately seems to lapse into mysticism when it leaves the ground of the simple laws according to which a stone falls to earth or according to which two liquids mix. One believes to enter the realm of miracles, of lawlessness, when one steps out of the realm of the purely mechanical laws of nature. This is the second reason why Heidenhain's experiments did not have a sufficient effect on the world view of the time. The natural scientists of today are too cowardly in their thinking. When they run out of wisdom in their mechanical explanations, they say: the matter cannot be explained for us. The future will bring enlightenment. They do not venture further than they can penetrate with the poor laws of mechanics, physics and chemistry. Bold thinking rises to a higher way of looking at things. It attempts to explain what is not mechanical according to higher laws. All our scientific thinking lags behind our scientific experience. The scientific way of thinking is highly praised today. It is said that we live in a scientific age. But basically this scientific age is the poorest that history has to record. It is characterized by a clinging to mere facts and mechanical explanations. Life is never comprehended by this way of thinking, because such a comprehension requires a higher level of imagination than the explanation of a machine.

On his seventieth birthday

On December 6, Karl Frenzel celebrated his seventieth birthday. I don't like to publish the usual birthday articles on days like this. But I also don't like to keep quiet when my feelings want to speak out. I am not the right person to write a monograph or even a brief, accurate characterization of Karl Frenzel. Nevertheless, I believe that at the present moment I should offer Karl Frenzel the birthday greeting of this organ in the "Magazin für Literatur". He has grown together with the literary development of Germany like few others. We younger people have a very special relationship with writers like him. We have learned a great deal from them. We owe them the greatest gratitude. We feel that. And yet we cannot follow in their footsteps. We are their wayward sons. The fathers scold us. We love them, but we do not obey them. We are naughty and deserve the rod according to them. But we hope that our fathers will see that we will become something after all. I would also like to wish Karl Frenzel that he may be allowed to enjoy us. That may take a long time. But that he will still experience it, that is precisely what I wish for him.

I have benefited enormously from Frenzel's essays. I was often pleased with the directional critic. This joy was always mixed with something like envy. But envy is not the right word. But there is no better one. The critics of his generation knew what they wanted from an early age. They have "principles" that they apply to everything. We present-day people live from today to tomorrow. What we believe today, we will have overcome tomorrow. And what we said yesterday, we hardly understand today. Frenzel's contemporaries were settled people who had a fixed point of view from which they did not deviate one step to the right or left. We jump from point of view to point of view. We are seekers, doubters, questioners. They had a certain certainty. They knew the right path in art, in philosophy, in science, in politics. They were able to classify every new talent. We can't do all that. We hardly know any more whether a new book we read is important or not. We look at every talent from all sides, and then we usually know nothing at all. We have fallen into a real anarchy. We each have a different opinion about our greatest contemporaries.

Even when we are united in our admiration for a contemporary, we argue. One looks for meaning in this, the other in that.

I still remember how I looked up to Friedrich Theodor Vischer as a young man. Each of his sentences drilled into my soul like an arrow. And now I read him with completely different feelings. He only interests me now, but he no longer warms me. He has become a stranger to me.

Some may find it irreverent that I am offering these words as a birthday greeting to the septuagenarian. But there is something that unites us in that we understand each other: that is mutual sincerity. We want to be true to each other. We don't want to delude ourselves with phrases. We want to tell our fathers that we honor them, that they inspire the highest respect in us. But we also want to tell them that we want to go other ways. Piety is certainly a virtue, but it sucks the strength out of people. And we need the strength because we see new tasks ahead of us.

It was a beautiful time when Karl Frenzel was working; a time full of mature ideas, full of perfect art. Those with whom he experienced his manhood were self-contained, harmonious natures. They were also happier than we are because of this. They expected more from their ideals than we do from ours. They derived more happiness from these ideals. They were greater idealists. We are as afraid of ideals as we are of deceptive illusions. We no longer utter the soothing words: the idea must triumph!

Leipzig 1898

Under the title "Graphologie und gerichtliche HandschriftenUntersuchungen" Hans Busse has published a little book (by Paul List, Leipzig) which, through its reference to the Dreyfus affair, is capable of arousing current interest and, through its clear discussion of the nature and significance of graphology, of arousing deeper interest. The time has passed when one could simply shrug one's shoulders about the justification of this branch of knowledge. Two important psychologists, Benedict and Ribot, have recently declared that the character of the personality is expressed in the writing. Scientific, experiential research into the connection between these traits and the character of the personality will yield insights that are as attractive as they are useful. Graphology must become an important chapter in psychology. The individual character of a person must be expressed in his writing to a much greater extent than in his facial features. For facial features can only remain flexible within the limits set by nature in order to adapt themselves to the changes of human nature. Writing is not subject to such limits. A crisis in the development of a personality will always bring about a change in his writing. The freer and more autocratic a person is, the more powerfully he will know how to express his character in writing. Unfree natures will remain subject to certain written forms that they have been taught. An average person will always be recognized by the fact that his writing is not individual, but that of his writing teacher. Writing, like style, is the character of a person.