1` TRUTH? REALITY? THE THINKING PATH TO THE SPIRIT
EPISTEMOLOGYTHE CONSCIOUS BRIDGE FROM NATURAL SCIENCE TO A
SCIENCE OF THE SPIRITBY DR CARL UNGER (1878-1929)Introduction by
Christopher Bodame Mob.Tel: Australia 0413 237 161 ESSAYS 1. The
Ego and the Nature of Man
2. Death of Natural Science / Birth of Spiritual Science3.
Thoughts Concerning the Philosophy of Contradiction
You cannot be a scientist if you merely interpret nature; you
have to investigate the very tool which you use for that
interpretation this tool is thinking. Rudolf.Steiner.
All philosophising is finished, except for those not finished
with it; it is a fruitless exercise except for those who have yet
to attain its fruits - its fruits being the capacity for truly
objective thinking. . Most philosophy is not the result of rational
thought but of irrational souls predisposed to justify their own
resort. C.B.
An Australian ForewordLadies and Gentlemen Gday, and get
stuffed.
2 Lets face facts at the outset. The following essays are not
beyond the comprehension of anyone with an open mind; this being
so, I also know there will be few willing especially those who deem
themselves at the cutting edge - to struggle through the short
first essay, let alone the two that follow. Why is this? - It is
simply conceptual constipation, a consequence of obesity of ego.
BOTTOM LINE Most thinking is aligned to the position a person
prepares in order to affirm the sun shines each morning up their
rear passage, and the inhalation of what they term 'fresh air'. Tis
butt - the bottom line. Obesity of ego is to think according to the
confines of ones disposition. We do not grasp that thinking is, at
its source, beyond disposition, is, beyond subject and object, for
it is thinking that first makes subject to be subject and object to
be object. And so we spend our lives opinionating according to the
form and content of our disposition, and not according to the form
and content of thinking itself. Thereby, almost invariably,
disposition leads to error, and through error to tragedy wherein
the despairing cry of Why becomes the impetus to knowledge. Such is
our individual and collective history. And when the dust of our
history has settled and we condescend to the vacuity of our
consciousness, we come to realize we are just run-of-the-mill
arseholes, blowing ill-will and erudite artifice out of our
orifices. When we survey the whole gamut of glorious informative
unknowing, there is one thing which becomes obvious, and that is
our propensity to ask questions in order to answer with
alternatives, thus avoiding both reality, and responsibility.
3
Along with this flatulence of fullness, there is another stain
that constantly skid-marks across the sheets of knowledge: the
survival of the fittest ; that statement is the arrogance of
egotism, is as blinding as an eye for an eye, and as suicidal as
Wall Streets, He who has the most when he dies, wins; the
consequences thereof being: those we pillor as we march forward
return to pillar us from behind. Or, all we possess becomes our
debt. Let us never speak of it again. The reality is: becoming
through sacrifice. We, who think we are erudite, will find on
self-analysis that our erudition is just a pile of conceptual
rubble, a garbage dump glistening with shattered splinters of a
higher knowledge. I am reminded of the last words of a celebrated
academic, who, in foraging through his rubble, who despite clear
and present danger fencing and signage included - fell to his death
The more you think youre right, the more you will be even when
youre wrong, Such is hard experience, the great rectifier to rectal
thinking. Now isnt it wonderful to be Australian; it is our right
to swear - more or less - with immunity. Almost without exception
we are born with Tourette Syndrome, and not surprising given what
confronts us: bloody flies, bloody spiders, bloody idiots, bloody
politicians, and so on. It is these intricacies of articulation
that fill us with warmth for what we generally refer to as the
Spirit of Australia, and by which we can with affection or not -
tell each other to get stuffed. Now when we tell someone to get
stuffed, all we are echoing is a derisive derivative of the
archetypal call from ancient Greece to mankind, Know Thyself, but
in the coarse, materialistic voice of
4 our time; for to get stuffed is basically to penetrate
oneself, and penetration of self in cognition is
self-knowledge.*
Pros and Cons When you take create' out of pro-create, and
ception out of con-ception, all youre left with are a lot of
X-ceptionally creative 'pros' and 'cons'. We all know that if we
are not stuffing others or ourselves, we are being slowly buggered.
Our questionable freedoms are being sold into economic slavery, our
yearnings for something other than what there is, are being sucked
dry by obesity of egoity self-absorption, greed. And yet that
egoity is part of the common egoity in each of us. And egoity in
whatever form is a corruption of the human spirit; it is
self-destructive even while having the appearance of
selfenhancement. This is why all world views, perspectives and
interpretations, in error with the true being of human being and
becoming will self-destruct. And yet all destruction is but
transformation, all death is but transformation, all transformation
is but a sacrifice, all sacrifice is but the slow rise of the
phoenix. All conflict, all wars individually or collectively - are
but the process of transformation from untruth to truth, from
illusion to reality, from not knowing to knowing, from
unconsciousness to consciousness, from un-freedom to freedom. The
divine comedy is but the human tragedy. The fact that we can in
humour acknowledge our own stupidity confirms our divinity, and is
a step towards becoming conscious of it. All suffering, all tragedy
is but the purifying fire from darkness into light a sacrificial
deed - even as the very first 'homer' to discover fire may have
danced himself into a fiery death, while many an onlooker may have
been enlivened by this gest. But when the
5 smoke had cleared it was clearly seen that a great gift had
been given unto man even in the midst of tragedy. So was there
given a great gift in the midst of tragedy, when the Light shone
into the Darkness. So is this preamble near done, whereby we can
begin to purify our thinking upon the purifying path of applied
epistemology, towards apprehending truth, of apprehending reality.
After all, how can one designate anything as being truth or
reality, if one hasn't first apprehended the reality and truth in
their own being? Thus does the light shine forth from the darkness
to ask the most fundamental of questions: Who am I? From whence
come I? Whereto go I? Obsevation and Thinking The two pillars of
all knowledge upon which the I rises to become its own fulcrum, and
by which it can raise itself and the world are, observation and
thinking. It is these two pillars that form the foundation of all
knowledge in all sciences, through all perspectives and on all
pathways of human endeavour. Upon these two pillars stands an
inverted dome on whose arched forms are sculptured all the deeds
that on earth are made visible through the deeds of humankind.
Thinking is also a deed in consciousness, and there is nothing that
is not consciousness. And yet these two pillars, which make all
knowledge conscious and visible, are supported and held upright
upon an invisible stream of love, without which nothing is
accomplished, that is accomplished. All knowledge is acquired
through suffering. Wisdom is but crystallized suffering, and the
crystal seed of wisdom flowers into Love, filling the inverted dome
to become the cup of love.
6 The epistemological foundations of I knowledge here put
forward, will in following generations become the template in all
pursuits of knowledge. And that really is the cross of it, for if
we are not masters of our own thinking, we are susceptible and
pliable slaves to the thinking of others. The graffiti is on the
wall but we have become illiterate. Despite our extended education
we have become stupefied, and in this stupefied state deem
ourselves intelligent. So it is that the stupidity inherent in
intelligence is superabundant. Were teachers to understand this
foundation of I knowledge of world involvement, our whole
educational system would be renewed into an individual and socially
enlivening experience, and not the dead, boring experience it is,
with its consequential aberrations, addictions, vandalism, and
terrorism in all its forms. It is these forms which disfigure
contemporary consciousness. And further, all ill-conceived thoughts
and ideas come to visible expression in death, in all its
disfiguring forms. The installation of a true foundational
epistemology will transfigure this death into its resurrection.
Fanaticism is the attachment to concepts in exactly the same way a
human being attaches the reality of self to physicality alone. And
just as there can be extreme pain and suffering attached to the
detachment of a human being from the body, so likewise, can there
be extreme pain and suffering in the detaching of a human being
from conceptual attachments. The culmination of the path of natural
science is ego apprehension, i.e., apprehending the reality of the
I which has been our light on our quest for knowledge. Here, the
theory of knowledge becomes for the first time fact. When the light
takes
7 hold for the first time of its own light; this is the last
step, the end and culmination, and as such, the death of natural
science. But as with all death, it is not finality but a bridge.
Here, the death of natural science signifies its transformation
into a Science of the Spirit. Hence, while ego apprehension is the
culmination of natural science, it is at the same time the first
act in the spiritual sphere. All untruth is but the aberration or
abortion of the truth in the process of conception. History is the
consequence of misconceived ideas made manifest. So it is to no
avail whether you use a microscope or a telescope, the pursuit of
truth and reality can only be investigated when the truth and
reality of that which concludes this or that to be reality is first
investigated and cognized; this is thinking thought of thought.
Pure Thinking Thinking is a holy act a conception immaculate. And
with every pure thought a holy child is wrought of earth-divine
union most holy communion. Thus this foreword done, polite applause
now thin. From hereon in the silent hand may not from page to page,
from thought to thought, lift to sift its self from sight to light
lucidity. And therein lies the rub, wherein any sounding of its
ridicule will be the fool resounding in self stupidity.* While on
this subject, it is probably well and good to overview it with a
picture towards understanding sexuality. Sexuality/procreation is a
given/driven. For most human beings the forces of sexuality are
a
8compulsion. The mythic fountain of youth is simply the forces
of procreation which ever bring forth new life youth. The life
giving force of procreation, when raised and transformed in the
light purity of I consciousness, i.e., freed from its bodily
unconscious compulsion through apprehension, understanding, becomes
by degree, i.e., gradually (gradalisgraalgrail) the free and
ever-creative power of love the spiritual fount of life as distinct
from the physical fount of life. It becomes understandable why
celibacy was held so high in religious orders; it becomes
understandable why marriage was the sanctification of
procreation/sexuality. However, all these vows and moral confines
have, with the evolution of human individual freedom in thinking
virtually disintegrated, whereby today any compulsion whether fore
or against is compelling. Only true understanding in the power
essence of the I brings freedom from compulsion, and therefore in
this case true celibacy or true marriage. And so we may see why
sexuality is such a confused issue; it images itself into fantastic
shadows in which a human being may self-destruct in the illusion of
its attraction, or find his essential I (his true I) in the reality
that stands behind the illusion the holy of holies. And the chaos
of this challenge being waged in consciousness can be seen,
especially in the youth of today. To my consideration, the
experience of sexuality in all its aberrations, is but the physical
orgiastic shadow, of that which in its pure true form is rightfully
bliss of ones spirit self in direct experience of the manifest
spiritual.
Christopher Bodame
First Essay
The Ego and the Nature of Man[The problems that confront the
world cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.
So said Einstein, but equally said by anyone with insightful
intelligence. This statement implies that there may be another
level of thinking by which the problems confronting the world could
be solved. If there was, however, a higher level of thinking, would
we whose thinking is
9constrained at the lower level, be able to raise our thinking
to the higher level? ] [If there was someone whose thinking was far
more developed than our own, and who wished to lead us upon the
path by which we too could experience depths and vistas of thinking
far beyond our present limits, how would such a person instruct us?
Such a teacher would make use of our own cognitive forms of thought
as the garb by which we might comprehend his experiences, and
thereby lead us, one step after another into higher realms of
cognition. This would however, presuppose that we should already
know and command our own forms of cognition, and that we should
also be convinced of their being fitted to apprehend reality.] The
above fact of presumption does not enter our consciousness, is not
put under question, so long as we are dealing with the simpler
departments of knowledge where we can still connect through our own
similar experiences. But the further we are led into the more
rarified realms of the results of the investigations communicated
to us by the teacher, the greater is our lack of epistemological
certainty that we can discover in ourselves. We begin to feel an
ever more insistent call, if not an admonition for us to develop
further the finer threads of our cognitive faculty whereby we can
follow the teacher and comprehend the findings of his
investigations he would have us comprehend. [And this is exactly
the path followed in all faculties of acquiring knowledge from
education, to universities and specialist natural scientific
pursuits.] Now if this is so for the natural scientific teacher,
then it must be even moreso for the teacher of the spirit,
especially if this teacher wishes to present his findings in a
scientific manner. One would even expect a scientist of the spirit
to have mastered natural science and the natural scientific method,
for how else could he lead us beyond the comprehensions of natural
science, on which our own confidence and experiential
epistemological certainty is founded. We are only able to follow
the spiritual scientist with our own understanding into the heights
of spiritual scientific investigation when we have first realized
the certain presence of the spirit in ourselves. What must be our
first goal is to understand the reality of the spirit.
10Preparation We know we have a physical body, which contains
all mineral properties, and these we have in common with the
mineral world. We know that within this physical form are also
contained the forces of growth, nutrition and procreation, and
these we have in common with the plant world. We further know that
within this physical form we carry instincts, desires and passions,
etc, and these properties we share in common with the animal world.
And then we come to the ego, which raises man above the animals and
assigns to him a kingdom of his own. When we learn to know the ego
in this manner we run the risk of contemplating, of describing the
ego from without, as we do with the lower members of our being, of
regarding it as a kind of body, of having properties which can be
described from without. But nothing could be more mistaken. This we
should realize when we are made aware that the word I signifies a
name that, when it reaches our ear from outside, can never refer to
ourselves. Anyone can say, table, of a table, but only I can say I
of myself. Any true scientific enquiry must assign the ego as the
core of mans being. If man has his own spiritual nature it must be
the ego, for it is the highest aspect of man, that which is unique
to each human being, and to which only he can claim of himself,
i.e., I am. It should be at once clear to our minds that all
knowledge, all search for reality, is most intimately bound up with
the ego. Yet we are still open to the danger mentioned above, that
is, of describing the ego from without, and which never allows us
to fully apprehend the ego from within, and thereby to apprehend
what is spiritual. This is due to the fact that when knowledge is
being imparted to us, including the members of our being, the
apprehension of the reality of the I is taken for granted. It is
presumed we have already inwardly apprehended our ego, for an
appeal is made to our powers of knowledge, of cognition,
11which only achieve their unfoldment through the ego uniting
with the object of cognition. This can be stated as a general
truth. When therefore a spiritual scientific teacher guides us
through the various members of mans being up to the essentiality of
the ego, the necessity may dawn on us of the need to apprehend the
reality of the ego itself, not from without, but from within, for
it is this reality which we have presupposed, taken for granted in
our quest for knowledge. Our spiritual scientific teacher links on
to what we already know, and leads us to the ego. Our knowledge,
however, is bound up precisely with that ego, and therefore must
start from it. And thus there arises a seeming reversal. The I no
longer seeks to confirm the reality of the world by taking its own
reality for granted, but now seeks to confirm to itself its own
reality. It is not the task here to present a detailed theory of
knowledge, merely to point out a few main principles. Cognition All
cognition proceeds as between the ego and what is other than it.
This other we may comprehensively term the non-ego. The ego seeks
the reality of the non-ego and, in so doing, presupposes its own
reality. This, however, is only feasible if the ego is capable of
apprehending its own reality. That is the main task confronting a
theory of knowledge. We can also formulate the task of the theory
of knowledge by the question: What is reality? In so doing we must
bear in mind that the ego can find reality, and therewith the
foundation of all knowledge, only in itself. Quest for Reality If
we would really attempt to apprehend the ego in its abstract
purity, we must ask ourselves whereby precisely the ego, is as such
distinguished from the non-ego. In the first place by nothing else
other than that by which other objects, too, are distinguished from
one another, that is, by judgment or thought.
12
Now thought, of course, is not the only so-called content of the
ego. But still, the ego itself grows conscious of all that can fill
it in the shape of sensations, feelings, impulses of the will, and
the like, only through the mental images and concepts connected
with them, that is to say, through thought. Through all that fills
the ego, thought is linked with the non-ego, from which it has
received its stimulus. Only with and through the mental images and
concepts therewith connected does the ego establish its own
relation to itself. Thought first makes the ego to be ego. All
other properties establish relations between the ego and the
non-ego; thought establishes the relations of the ego to itself.
Therefore, we shall only be able to apprehend the ego, the prime
reflective, when we let the force by which the ego is distinguished
from all else, turn back upon itself; that is to say, we must
envisage thought as it is after the abstraction of all that we have
called non-ego. Thought about thought. This is the formula that
states the fact that the ego is concerned only with its own
essence. Thought about thought Thought about thought. This is the
point upon which hinges the epistemological section of Rudolf
Steiners book, The Philosophy of Freedom. In this book the unique
significance of this formula for knowledge is for the first time
pointed out, and our own reflections that, despite their inner
kinship, may follow different paths, yet shows us how impossible it
is to answer epistemological questions without starting from this
formula.Note: It may dawn upon anyone who reads Steiners Philosophy
of Freedom, that it is the culmination and ending of all
philosophical reflection, surpassing in thinking all philosophers
since Aristotle. While it marks the end of Philosophy, it also
marks the beginning of Applied Epistemology.
Now what is left if thought only concerns itself with thought;
that is to say, if the ego disregards everything that protrudes
from the non-ego into the ego? There is nothing save the forms of
thought, all those laws and properties we enunciate in logic. This
we may comprehensively term the world of pure thought. When the ego
lives in pure thought, then it is alone
13with its innermost being. We can therefore designate as the
pure ego what lives in thought about thought. In thought about
thought we have the sum of what is the purest essence of the ego.
The formula, thought about thought, or more accurately, thought of
thought, contains however, another thing of the utmost
significance. Content and Form In all else that can fill
consciousness, we have to distinguish between content proper and
the form in which the content presents itself. In thought of
thought we have apprehended the only point where both coincide. The
thought that forms the content is the same as the thought applied
to it. The forms take their course precisely according to the rules
that make up the content. And this is exactly what we were seeking.
For here we have a content that is upheld by its own form, or a
form that has its own essence for content. Here, surely, we have
something that exists through itself that is dependent upon nothing
else. Therewith we have developed a concept that we can designate
by a name usually applied to every kind of thing, except the one
for which it is above all fitted, that is reality. We can call
reality only what exists through itself and through nothing else.
Reality must emerge when thought is focused upon itself. We must
now ask ourselves what it is in pure thought that emerges as
reality. Thought about thought yields in the first place the laws
of logic. They, of course, as such are not reality. Reality can
only be something in which all that is highest and purest in pure
thought is gathered into one point, comprising in itself everything
that can be called pure thought. In all discussions of logic, it is
true, thought moves in its own domain, but it does so at any one
time only with a part of itself, as it were. The sum of all that
is, that is what the reality of thought about thought must needs
be. We can in fact find such a point once we proceed to make a
simple analysis of thought. In so doing we can adhere to the course
of logical
14theory as universally presented, only we must always keep in
view what is essential. Logic Logic starts from the classification
of concepts, then goes on to combine the concepts into judgements,
and then to unite the judgements into conclusions. Now a simple act
of reflection shows us that all thought proceeds entirely by way of
concepts. Since conclusions are made up of judgements, it is
sufficient for us to show that judgements are wholly made up of
concepts. Let us take a simple judgement: Man is mortal. Here we
have the first subjective concept, man, and the predicative
concept, mortal. Both are linked together by the so-called copula,
is. This little word expresses the fact that of two concepts one
can be subjective, the other a predicative concept. If now we look
closely into the matter, that too, is a quite definite concept,
which we might designate by one word as predicativeness. It is a
concept that finds expression in all judgements. Thus, all
combinations of concepts or even of judgements are again quite
definite concepts. In this way we have so narrowed down thought
about thought that we no longer have to deal with anything save
concepts. But individual concepts are different; their
differentiation, indeed, is precisely what we are taught in the
conceptual theory of logic. The important thing for us is that the
concepts have varying degrees of purity. Thus, for instance, the
predicative concept is always purer than the subjective concept in
a judgement, for it is precisely the meaning of judgement that the
relatively less pure subjective concept shall be clarified in the
purity of the predicative concept. It is, however, our task to find
the point in pure thought that draws together all particulars. But
this must be a concept, since thought only proceeds by way of
concepts. It must be the highest and purest concept, comprising in
itself all that is conceptual. We can express such a concept, and
it represents the highest elaboration of thought, the highest
abstraction, but at the same time comprises in itself all pure
thought. It is the concept of the concept. Now what is it that this
formula expresses?
15Concept of the Concept We must be clear in our minds that the
concept as form always comprehends what may vary as content. Thus,
the concept chair comprehends all the possible forms a chair may
assume. It follows that in the same way the concept of the concept
must, as form, comprehend all that, as conceptual content may vary.
The concept of the concept, is therefore, the sum and substance of
all the potentialities of thought, or the thinking faculty.
Nonetheless, there remains a difference between the formula,
concept of the concept, and the thinking faculty, as will be seen
still more clearly later on. Whereas the faculty of thinking is
something like a form, which may also remain empty, the concept of
the concept presupposes the use of that faculty until in its
highest development it has its innermost essence for content. It is
like the starting point and end point of a circle, which actually
coincide. In any case, we have in that highest abstraction
precisely what we get when we strip the ego of all that derives
from the non-ego. Hence, the concept of the concept is the pure
ego. We see at once that we have concentrated in this formula,
concept of the concept, all that we were able to say about thought
about thought. Here, too, we have a form that has its own essence
for content, and a content that is carried by its own form. Pure
Ego / Reality the highest abstraction / Being The concept of the
concept, or the pure ego, is the reality that emerges in the course
of thinking about thought. The pure ego is reality. It is
remarkable that we have found reality in the highest abstraction,
and that on our path we have also found that we have arrived at the
Rosicrucian tenet, which, as the starting point of the Rosicrucian
ascent to higher stages of being and knowledge. It states: In pure
thought thou findest the Self, which can maintain itself. We have
found a fixed point, a beginning of understanding, a reality, and
at the same time, the standard for all that we are seeking as
understanding of reality.
16Reality is what exists through itself and through nothing
else. This standard taken out of the reality of the ego, which
apprehends itself, and with it we can now address ourselves to what
comes to us from the nonego, that is, to what we may call
observation in every form. Extending horizons of knowledge Now that
we have developed the finer threads of epistemological confidence,
we are better positioned to understand the deeper teachings of our
scientist of the spirit, who has clothed his teachings in the garb
of our conceptual understanding in order to lead us to a higher
understanding. We must not shrink from such elaborations, much as
we must be aware of empty conceptual molds, for here we link on to
a primal concept that is a most living reality, which we must
positively designate as a being, to the pure ego. We said at the
beginning that all cognition proceeds as between ego and non-ego.
The ego seeks the reality of the non-ego by presupposing its own
reality. Now that we have found that the ego can in fact apprehend
its own reality, it appears wholly permissible to attempt such a
path to knowledge where the ego extends its own standard of reality
to the nonego. Actually, all knowledge that is accessible to us and
this includes all scientific knowledge follows this path, although,
as we shall see, a far deeper justification still can be given to
it than is commonly done. But we must by no means assume that it is
the only pathway to knowledge. If knowledge is to establish a
relation between two factors, ego and nonego, then it can only be
one of several possibilities if the one factor takes up a
preferential position as compared to the other, in that the
standard for that other is taken from it. In all thought
constructions it is of the greatest importance that the most
complete harmony should always prevail between all the notes that
are sounded. The avoidance of any one-sidedness is the first
prerequisite if reflections in the sphere of thought are to lead to
a complete result. Thus, we must at least envisage the possibility
that there may be a cognition in which the other factor in its turn
plays a predominant part, where the
17reality is not determined according to the standard of the
ego, but of the non-ego. We must also even grant the possibility of
a third kind of knowledge in which neither of the factors
predominate, so that knowledge comes about through mutual
penetration.Note: The three standards for knowledge mentioned above
are easily understandable when correlated with two viewpoints. Both
may be right but remain in separation when either takes up a
preferential position. Or they can mutually penetrate each other
and come to harmony. Or if both sacrifice themselves to the dance,
then one can say, It takes two to tango true where both come
first.
Both cases are for us no more than a possibility of thought, but
only until we find ourselves faced with the results of a knowledge
so constituted. Then we may positively be led to an acknowledgement
of such results if we have previously discovered in thought the
possibility of such knowledge. Now such results are actually to be
found. This more especially is the nature of a science of the
spirit, its knowledge being gained in a different way from our
ordinary knowledge. We are shown how all mans relations take on
another form as we rise to higher stages of existence [being
through cognition]; there things no longer confront man in sharp
separation, so that, by contrast, he feels himself with them as a
being apart. The ego extends its domain so as to include things; it
feels itself united with them in a kind of inward equilibrium.
Things begin to reveal their inwardness to the scientist of the
spirit, so that he can feel with them as with beings of his own
kind. This description that a science of the spirit furnishes us of
that stage of knowledge fully agrees with the case we found to be
possible where the ego and non-ego are in equilibrium. That stage
is known as Imaginative Knowledge.Note: Imaginative Knowledge: This
objective inter-relationship of cognitive experience, is not to be
confused with the generally accepted notions of subjective
imaginaries and fancies.
The third stage described to us by the spiritual investigator is
as follows. He says that man begins to creep into things, as it
were; he no longer stands over against them; he experiences them in
their inner being, and a complete reversal takes place of the
relation known to us between the ego
18and non-ego. It is the stage of Inspired Knowledge, as it is
called by spiritual science, a stage that the ego no longer applies
its standard of reality to the non-ego, but finds its own reality,
a new and higher reality, in the non-ego. Within the whole wide
sphere of what encircles man, the initiate of this stage finds his
ego, that is, the higher self spoken of in inspired writings.Note:
It may be helpful in understanding the above by correlating it back
to ordinary parlance. We often here it said, There but for the
grace of God go I. Someone who has reached this stage of
Inspirational knowledge might well say, There with the grace of God
go I, or, of a thing, I am that.
It is a false conception to seek for the higher self in ones own
inner being; there man is left alone with himself. At best he finds
the pure ego and he can no longer get away from himself. He may
even lose himself in his egoity unless he turns to the non-ego. The
higher self lies without, and there it must be sought. That is what
we are told about it by the spiritual investigator. We have
accordingly found three stages of knowledge: 1. The ego
predominates: 2. Ego and non-ego are in equilibrium: 3. The non-ego
predominates: Intellectual knowledge. Imaginative knowledge
Inspired knowledge
These are the three worlds of which the spiritual scientist
speaks. We also see from our exposition that these three worlds are
not separated from, but lie within, one another. It depends on the
stage of development of the one who contemplates, which of the
worlds shall reveal itself to him. We see further that in order to
ascend to higher worlds [ to higher stages of knowledge], it is
necessary to step completely out of oneself; this can only be
achieved by the methods indicated by a spiritual science. We may
not be able to understand the immediate apperceptions of the
spiritual investigator, but only when he has clothed such knowledge
in the forms of our understanding, that is to say, when he
communicates it in the form of thoughts and doctrines, as we have
already stated at the beginning of our reflections. Such a stepping
out of oneself is of course, to be distinguished from what we do
when we approach the non-ego with our standard of reality derived
from the ego, in order not to remain fast in the ego, in the
egoity, for in that case, of course, separation would in fact
persist. We certainly
19can understand however, how that more theoretical passing
beyond oneself may be the first prerequisite for the ascent to
higher worlds, and it is, above all, part of this that the ego will
have first apprehended itself. Forwards / Backwards This points us
back again to that part of our enquiry where we saw how the ego
first detaches itself from the non-ego. Just as we saw a confluence
of the ego with the non-ego toward the future in the ascent of man,
so, too, the separation of the ego must be preceded by a state in
the past where ego and non-ego formed a unity. In this direction we
can also distinguish, in a strictly analogous way, three stages in
the relation between the two. The first stage is that where the ego
can focus itself where it is in a state of separation; The second
preceding the latter is one where the relations tend from the ego
to the non-ego and, vice versa, where there obtains a sort of
equilibrium. The third stage, still further removed, is that where
the ego itself does not as yet exist at all, and only its
possibility is present in the non-ego. We can now without more ado
call the stage in which the ego can apprehend itself, the spiritual
stage, where mans spirit breaks forth into the open. The stage
where the relations exist reciprocally, where the ego acts on the
non-ego, and the non-ego on the ego, points to the soul of man. The
third stage, where the ego is only potentially present in the
non-ego, as it were, is the expression for mans body. We are even
in a position to give conceptual expression to the finer
transitions, and here again our results tally with those obtained
by the spiritual investigator. In this enquiry, too, we must start
from above, that is, from the point where our concepts derive.
There we may call the pure ego born in pure thought, the first
point of mans true spirituality.
20This is the germ of what in spiritual science is called spirit
self, while the higher stages of knowledge connected with the
unfoldment of those members of mans being leading to higher
knowledge are called life spirit and spirit man.Note: Just as the
ego in the full apprehension of itself in its abstract purity, that
is, in purifying itself from all that comes to influence it from
the soul, becomes the spirit self, so the etheric or life body
purified becomes transformed into the life spirit, and mans body
when purified becomes transformed into spirit man.
Thought about thought, life in the realm of pure thought, is the
precondition for the emergence of the pure ego, the spiritual
spark. This sphere we may equate with what by spiritual science is
called consciousness soul or spiritual soul. It furnishes the
transition from the spiritual in man, where the ego has apprehended
itself, to the psychic, where it is still bound up with the
non-ego. The latter state of this transition may also be
characterized as the pre-condition of the consciousness soul in
that man must have the capacity to think before that thought can
focus itself upon itself as object. We thereby obtain an expression
for the intellectual or mind soul; it denotes the state in which
the ego draws its content from the non-ego. Also for this, it once
more needs a foundation, a state, in which the nonego can penetrate
to the ego, to which the name ego, at this stage, does not yet
properly apply, in order to give it stimuli. This state is denoted
by the expression sentient soul. With this we enter the sphere of
the non-ego insofar as it bears within itself the pre-condition for
an ego, that is, into the sphere of corporeity, which in spiritual
science is called sentient body. Thus, so far as the sphere of the
ego extends, mans nature presents itself to us as the direct result
of the theory of knowledge. That, of course, is no accident but in
truth a guarantee that our theory of knowledge, as outlined above,
attains the mark. For it is consonant with the very nature of a
theory of knowledge that it should give us information about man in
his relation to the world, that is to say, above all, about mans
own nature. From this is would also seem to follow that we are
justified in rejecting a theory of knowledge and its objections if
it does not lead to a positive result, to a real content. Regarding
the subjectivity of knowledge
21But the task of the theory of knowledge will by no means be
fulfilled by epistemological presentments that impel us to the
conclusion that man can have no objective knowledge whatever of the
world, that he cannot transcend his own conceptions, that all
knowledge must necessarily be subjective, and so on. Such a result
is completely self-destructive. Such an assumption amounts to
sawing off the branch on which one is sitting for it is this very
knowledge, about which the assertion is made that it cannot lead to
reality, that is made use of, and presumed as valid in order to
enable us to make that assertion. If all knowledge is subjective,
that is according to the usual meaning of the word, unreal, then
the knowledge, that man can have no objective knowledge, is surely
just as subjective and therefore unreal. Selfcontradictoriness,
however, is extremely prevalent and characteristic of present day
thought, as has abundantly been shown in the previously mentioned
Philosophy of Freedom. All such results bear the clear stamp of
their origin in a materialistic way of thought; it is a typical
characteristic of materialistic truths that they contradict
themselves, cancel themselves, not withstanding the pain and
suffering they incur. No brain, no thought? A saying often used,
especially as an argument against spiritual scientific thinking,
is, No brain, no thought. That saying is intended to express the
truth that all thoughts are products of the brain, in other words,
subjective productions of the organism, from which it follows that
thoughts are subjective in nature and can determine nothing as
regards objective reality [this being so, then in the first
instance it would be impossible for you to read or to understand
what is here written]. Where materialism is less sharply defined,
that statement, means at least that thoughts are tied to the
physical brain, so that our very inquiry must start from the brain.
But this very thought is made use of and its accuracy assumed, in
order to enable one to make the statement, No brain, no thought.
Such and similar objections therefore must not be allowed to
disturb us in our enquiries; rather, we must maintain the position
that thought can apprehend only itself. Spirit can only be grasped
by raising oneself to it, not by drawing it down to oneself. We
defined the sphere of the ego and by a train of pure reasoning
reached the non-ego from two directions. In one direction the path
led to sense perception; in the other, it led to supersensible
intuition.
22
Sense Perception It behoves us now to address ourselves to the
non-ego in order to get to know the value and the epistemological
significance of contemplation or perception, for the ego can only
acquire a content for cognition if it passes, on behalf of itself
to the non-ego, and first of all to that which comes to it from the
non-ego, that is, generally the object of observation. If the ego
stays within itself, then it clearly can only know its own reality
and may lose itself so far in egoity as to doubt all else whatever
(Solipsism). In our conceptual enquiries we are led right to the
boundary of the ego, which is at the same time the boundary of the
non-ego. From that point on we may not simply go forward as from
the ego, but we must seek to find the non-ego, such as it is for
the non-ego. We must now recall to mind that the ego was only able
to apprehend itself by having detached itself from the non-ego;
everything had to be excluded from what thought derives from the
non-ego. The two concepts, ego and non-ego, came into being
simultaneously; they condition each other. Thus the same rights
must accrue to the non-ego as to the ego from the moment the later
comes into being; both must bear a kind of relationship. That of
course, is not implicit in the pure conceptual negation that lies
in the expression non-ego, for horse and non-horse for instance,
need by no means be related to one another. It shows itself in this
however, that the separation of the ego from the non-ego is an
actual, thoroughly real process, as has been shown. This becomes
clearer still if we remember that a true transition takes place
from the ego to the nonego up to the point where we found the
possibility of the ego in the nonego (corporeity). Thus it is
really the non-ego that continues itself up to the point where it
becomes an ego, so that the ego presents itself as part of the
non-ego, if one may so say, and this part detaches itself by
directing itself upon itself. The ego itself withdraws itself from
the non-ego, and opposes itself to it as ego. Now the ego is to
unite again with the non-ego, and this can come about through the
ego giving back as it were to the non-ego, what it had taken from
it; this is, in the first place, pure thought.Note: I am inclined
to say that a pure sense perception is synonymous in content but
not in form, with its complementary pure thought, in the same
23way that the pure concept triangle includes all triangles, and
when a particular triangle is made visible, its form and expression
(visibility), includes many other concepts in their particular
expression. Basically, a percept and its concept are two sides of
the one. (CB)
Now the next question is this: Where can the ego set to work
with pure thought? Where can it find the non-ego? Evidently at the
very place where the ego began to detach itself and which in the
sense of spiritual science we designated as sentient soul and
sentient body. At this point we must not overlook a twofold
possibility. One has already been mentioned; it is the possibility
in the non-ego of an ego forming itself. The other is that now the
ego will find the non-ego once more. This meeting of ego and
non-ego is expressed by the term sense perception, about which
spiritual science says it comes about through the cooperation of
sentient body and sentient soul, which make up a unity. From our
standpoint we can indeed see that here in a certain sense like
things are meeting from both sides. From one side comes the ego,
which has directed itself upon itself and thereby brings the world
of pure thought up to the non-ego, that is to say, all the laws of
thought that are expressed in logic. From the other side come the
sense impressions. If now we would really present the non-ego that
here expresses itself as it is for the non-ego, then we must say
that sense impression is nothing but direction upon itself, which,
however here, proceeds from the non-ego. The sense impression,
surely, consists precisely in this that a part of the non-ego the
part of corporeity that we were compelled to call the finest
elaboration of the non-ego, since it bears within it the
possibility of an ego can direct itself upon the whole corporeal
world. Mans body, which with but slight exception is sense organ
throughout its entire surface, is an apparatus wherein the world is
reflected the non-ego to which itself belongs. Pure thought / Pure
perception Mans body can even reflect itself within itself,
yielding thereby the best expression for the peculiar reflexive
process of the non-ego. By its very sensory activity it provides
the possibility of the ego being kindled in thought. Thus, in
sensory activity, too, we have something that exists itself, and
therewith we see the standard of reality that derives from the ego
applied to the non-ego. Thus, accordingly, we have the meeting
of
24like things, since both factors come about through a kind of
reflexive activity on the one side, pure thought, on the other,
pure perception. The fact that here, indeed, like things do meet
can also be made clear to us by means of the following
considerations, which may be said to furnish a test for the
foregoing thoughts. Sense perception surveys the whole fullness of
the world of sense. For nave sense perception there appear in it so
called sense objects. In that view however, the fact is
disregarded, that each object represents a certain sum of
individual sensory quanta that are first brought into a unity by
thought. Now as soon as thought consciously immerses itself in the
world of sense, the objects are dissolved, as it were, into
individual sense perceptions such as red, bright, warm, loud, fine,
firm, etc. Now if pure thought further probes the nature of these
phenomenal forms of the nonego, it finds that all these sensory
qualities, and therewith also the objects composed of them, are
nothing else but concepts, which however, are given in quite a
different way from the concepts created by the ego in thought.
While thought, or rather the individual concepts themselves, do not
of themselves denote reality, but only when comprehended in the
pure ego, we now find these same concepts given from the side of
the non-ego in a way quite independent of the ego precisely by pure
perception. Such concepts, therefore, which the ego not merely
creates out of the sum of all conceptual possibility, but finds
again in percepts, are the real objects, or generally, the
realities of the non-ego. When pure thought and pure perception
meet together, ego and non-ego can re-unite and the result is
cognition. With this we have found the epistemological significance
of perception. Higher ego / Overview The pathway to knowledge, here
only sketched in broad outline, is actually applied in all natural
research where it keeps strictly within its province, and we find
that process to be something belonging to all the workings of
nature. Both the growth of man to the ego and the knowledge of
nature are alike processes that have great significance in cosmic
happening, and we may look with awe on natures working whose
shaping forces create the precondition for the ego.
25We may also direct with awe the pure thoughts given us by
nature working upon pure sensory experience. This awe is needed in
order rightly to carry on the process of world-becoming through
knowledge of nature. That awe consists in a recognition of the fact
that we ourselves are only part of the great becoming, that we as
ego must feel ourselves to be part of the non-ego, that the things
surrounding us are our fellows, that in their own way they are
beings like ourselves. Then our striving after knowledge becomes a
searching by our spirit, our ego, for the spirit, the ego of
things. Herein, we have the one side of the relations, which leads
to the higher ego receiving its reality from the non-ego. This is
the path to initiation or to supersensible perception, that is to
say, to a higher knowledge and reality. In principle, of course,
nothing is changed in the concept of perception as developed above,
whether we are dealing with sensible or supersensible perception.
That this second side is of the utmost importance becomes clear to
us from the fact that knowledge of nature, while it creates a
balance as between ego and non-ego, does so only as a stage on the
way to complete union. In knowledge the ego indeed gives back, as
it were, pure thought to nature, but it remains for itself its own
living being; it remains to itself, severed from the non-ego.
Hence, too, it is that the knowledge of pure thought often appears
to us as something cold and hostile to life. Warmth and life come
to this knowledge from the feeling and certainty that the stage of
pure thought signifies only the first step to a true union with the
non-ego. It cannot here be our task to describe the path to the
higher worlds, but we only want to point out, on the strength of
epistemological consideration, that such a path to higher knowledge
does exist. It is true that such a path at the beginning points to
a sacrifice that the ego has to make. At the same time we also find
as our goal the attainment of a new and higher self that lives in
the non-ego.Note: Regarding the description and knowledge of the
path to higher worlds; such knowledge and path has been described
in the book, Knowledge of Higher Worlds and its Attainment, written
after The Philosophy of Freedom, and by the same author (Rudolf
Steiner), which is significant, for these two books sequentially
follow the same directions of epistemological investigation here
set forth.
26Through initiation into the higher worlds man apprehends the
world from within out; he penetrates forward to the shaping forces
that are hidden in the workings of nature, to the ego of all
nature. This is the mighty perspective that opens before us when we
carry the theory of knowledge rightly to its conclusion. Also in
this unfoldment of a new and higher ego, we have a process enacted
in the non-ego, but while the parallel process in the working of
the senses is accomplished by the shaping forces of existence
without the help of man, this second process must be brought about
by man himself. There man attains to a real creative share in the
world process. This comes about by a sacrifice of the lower self,
but that sacrifice is only the answer made by man to the sacrifice
made by the shaping forces of existence when man was created with
his ego. Through initiation [i.e., taking upon oneself the
necessary steps to higher knowledge requiring the sacrifice of the
lower self] man gives back again to the ruling powers what they
have sacrificed in order to produce him. After all we have
reflected upon, it should not be hard for us to grasp this thought,
for our whole theory of knowledge leads us to apprehend the
severance of the ego from the non-ego as a spiritual process, that
is to say, as a process behind which there are conscious forces,
for otherwise no consciousness could form itself as the result of
this process. And the ego is spirit and consciousness and reality,
and it bodies itself forth out of the total consciousness of the
non-ego. The path to higher consciousness is pointed out to us by
spiritual science; from higher worlds it brings down to mankind
what will enable it in the future to accomplish this unfoldment of
the higher ego. When we have made ourselves familiar with the idea
that in the case of the higher worlds we are not dealing with
something abstract, but with powers and beings that stand above man
and of whose spirit the human ego is a spark, then we can
understand that with the principle of the ego-unfoldment we have
apprehended a world principle of development. Three times we saw
how something higher is shaped when a force directs itself upon
itself. The non-ego, which in sensory activity directs itself upon
itself, is, as, it were, the first unfoldment of the ego. From this
arises pure
27perception, and therewith the possibility for the human ego to
become kindled. The second unfoldment of the ego is in thought
about thought. Thirdly, the pure ego offers the possibility that
the higher self may be formed by the ego giving back of itself to
the non-ego all the spirituality that it had taken from it. If we
may presuppose this capacity in man today, we must yet admit to
ourselves that this capacity was once conferred on mankind from
higher worlds by superhuman beings, and without going beyond
outward, historical facts, we can point to the moment in time when
this happened. If we compare the conditions of our culture and
consciousness with those of the pre-Christian civilizations, we can
see how the emergence of intellectual self-consciousness, of
independence, of individualism, makes itself gradually felt out of
the group consciousness of national homogeneousness. The mightiest
ego unfoldment, we can even say, lies at this turning point of mans
development, and we can struggle through to the admission that it
is based in truth to say, that what in the beginning was with God,
out of which all that was made was made, became flesh
[individualized] at the beginning of our era, when the spirit of
mankind, out of which the growth to the ego unfolded, directed
itself upon itself. Through this there arose the higher self of all
mankind the Christ spirit, who gave the first impulse for it to
become possible for the individual human being, through his own
free sacrificial gift to hand on the great, the mighty sacrifice.
These things a true science of the spirit describes, and it may
encourage us on upon the path of the higher knowledge it points to,
if we are able from out of the self-apprehension of our own spirit,
to develop the ideas that lead us to an understanding of these
lofty doctrines.END: THE EGO AND THE NATURE OF MAN
Second Essay
28
epistemological principles
Death of Natural Science Birth of Spiritual ScienceWhoever has
made up his mind to let epistemological considerations have a
determining influence on his views, soon finds himself compelled to
extend such considerations also, to cover concepts that have long
been familiar to him, and unquestioned, so that in the end all
points of his world outlook are informed with circumspection. It is
to be noted in this connection that the need for epistemological
circumspection first makes itself felt when we have reached a
certain questioning stage of knowledge, and it does not leave us
until we have succeeded in reconciling the newly won department of
knowledge with the general principles of knowledge. Any view of the
world must at some time take a road such as this if it is to
withstand its own scrutiny, and the deeper any view of the world
seeks to penetrate into the nature of reality, so much harder will
it be to attain to epistemological circumspection at every point.
We find then that it is not enough to adhere in a general way to
certain fundamental principles, but that the important point is
just how such principles are applied, for it is on this that the
character of a world outlook will depend. It will no doubt be clear
that the epistemological principles must not in any way be coloured
by the particular world view whose foundations they are to form,
although the path along which such principles are discovered leads
backwards from knowledge to its foundations. The fact is, that what
we have to do when thus looking back is to raise up into
consciousness what, in acquiring our knowledge, we had
unconsciously used as our foundation, impelled by the urge for
knowledge. If now, a theory of the world be in question, such as a
science of the spirit or spiritual science, which claims most
comprehensively to embrace all the right apperceptions contained in
other views of the world, then if we adhere to the claims of such
spiritual science, then it not only behoves us to be in a position
to set the teachings of such spiritual science on an
29epistemological basis, but we must also show through what
special characteristics in the use of the general epistemological
principles it is that the several world views are brought about. We
may assume that such contacts with other world views will
automatically arise provided we submit right conscientiously to the
epistemological discipline of such spiritual science. But here
again it must be seen that we must first have a grasp of such
spiritual science before we can retrospectively form a true
estimate also of the other views of the universe. When, therefore,
it is said that such spiritual science subsumes in itself such true
knowledge as the other world views contain, we must conversely
believe that by simply putting the individual world views, based on
standpoints of natural science, philosophy, religion, and perhaps
of art together, we shall obtain a picture of such spiritual
science. [If such spiritual science however, throws a deepening new
light of understanding to all standpoints of knowledge then such
spiritual science must be understood out of its own foundations.]
We know from the spiritual investigator that spiritual science is
not only an aggregate of teachings but also a way to life in the
spirit; it is our task to bring our consciousness into harmony with
it at a point where we are standing, and by clothing itself in our
categories of knowledge, it provides us with the means of doing
this also. The theory of knowledge is intended to give us a firm
support within ourselves, and to show us the threads that join us
to the opinions and considerations of our fellowmen and to life as
a whole. In the essay concerning The Ego and the Nature of Man it
was shown how, above all others, the exponents of a spiritual
science have a special need to base their consciousness on
epistemological foundations. Now the attempt is to be made on the
basis of the general epistemological principles emerging in this
little treatise to present the several domains of spiritual science
in a system of ideas adapted to the normal capacity for knowledge
of our time. Now the objection might be made to such an attempt
that thereby the vital spirituality of such science would be
pressed into dry categories of thought. That objection would be
perfectly justified if we desired to employ the concepts of
everyday thought. We do not need, however, to lapse into
30the error of a dead abstractionism but will address ourselves
to the vital spring of spirituality that exists in every man. To
uncover the spring that is choked up today in most men is the
object of the essay The Ego and the Nature of Man. Therefore the
following reflections are to be raised as a structure of brief
summaries upon the epistemological foundations there contained.
What we expect of a world view is that it should explain the
relation of the world to our consciousness. If we want to know what
the world is in itself, then the question put is also: What is the
world for us? If it is possible that the world for us, is as it is
in itself, then the certainty of this can only come from ourselves.
Thus, the starting point of all striving after knowledge lies in
the ego. The ego must discover its reality within itself, and then
it may apply that reality as a standard to the non-ego, the world.
Thus it is that the ego comes to oppose itself at the outset in all
its purity to the non-ego. To this end everything must be
eliminated from the ego that derives from the non-ego to begin
with, all impressions, perceptions, sensations, and feelings, then
from thought everything that recalls the non-ego. What then is left
over is pure ego as the sum of pure thoughts, that is to say, as
the faculty for creating logical and mathematical forms. If we now
examine the nature of those forms of thought (thought of thought),
then the ego finds its own essence to be the concept of the
concept. This is, as indeed is also thought of thought, a form that
has its own essence for content, a content carried by its own form.
Therewith we have found the standard for what we sought, namely
reality. In that process of ego apprehension we see how the ego
articulates itself from out of the non-ego, and we can determine
three stages in the natural relationship between ego and non-ego:
the stage of separation; the stage of equilibrium between the two,
where the ego is only present insofar as it derives its content
from the non-ego; the stage where the ego is only potentially
present in the non-ego. Those three stages we may designate as
31
spirit, soul, and body of man. The striving after knowledge
signifies the effort of the ego to consummate its re-union with the
non-ego. The ego seeks to attain to this, firstly, by applying its
standard of reality to the non-ego by means of pure thought. That
is possible at the point where the ego began to free itself from
the non-ego. The expression for that point is sense perception,
which we must now regard as a self-direction of the non-ego itself,
in that the senses, a part of the non-ego, reflect the outer world
similarly, as when the ego emerges pure, through thought directing
itself upon itself. Hence, if like meets like pure perception and
pure thought then knowledge results Now before we pursue the
epistemological thread further, let us now more clearly demarcate
the sphere to which the epistemological method just defined is
applicable. Everything that is accessible to our senses constitutes
the object of this mode of observation. It is the world of
corporeality, and in that world mans body is the foremost object.
Mans body opens access to that world for him, and a simple
reflection will show us that it holds within itself everything that
that world signifies. We are wont to divide the sense world into
realms of nature, and we designate our knowledge thereof as natural
science. It is to be carefully noted that natural science is acting
quite rightly when it restricts itself to what is accessible to the
senses, but it is also clear that the methods of natural science,
which have been worked out on the basis of sense perception by pure
thought, must fail when the two other constituents of man are in
question the soul and the spirit for these withhold themselves from
sense perception. Just as we see that mans body essentially
constitutes the method and matter of natural sciences point of
view, so the soul signifies the way and the object of the religious
point of view, and it is only spiritual science that has the power
to present mans spirit as the basis.
32Now since it is mans spirit that immerses itself in the world
of body and in the contemplation of nature, while the soul forms
the connecting link between body and spirit, it is intelligible how
only spiritual science should have the power to solve the riddles
of existence. On the other hand, we recognize that we best approach
spiritual science and its standpoint if, by a rapid survey of the
world of sense perception, we can throw light upon the question as
to how far the beings of nature speak to our senses, and whether we
can, in doing so, detect anything that eludes the senses. We can
speedily ascertain that what lies immediately before the senses is
nothing more than a sum of sensory qualities, and if we distinguish
between the realms of nature, this does not come about on the
strength of pure perception. Distinctions in sense perceptions Now
since, on the one hand, we must apprehend sense perceptions as a
primal expression of the non-ego, on which the ego does not exert
the slightest influence, while yet on the other hand we have to
apply pure thought to these sense perceptions, we must obtain light
as to how man in the natural application of his faculty of
knowledge makes such distinctions within sense perceptions. Natural
science has the greatest successes to record in regard to the
socalled mineral world, the world of the inanimate. Since we come
upon this mineral element in the case of all objects of sense
perceptible contemplation, we can readily understand why the world
views of natural scientists tend to trace back to this mineral
element other phenomena that may occur in the world of sense. We
shall have to examine presently in how this is mistaken. Mineral On
a careful scrutiny, we call mineral or inanimate whatever remains
unchanged before a thinking that firmly confronts the sense
perception. We name mineral that part of the sensible world that
suffers no change through itself, but only when a stimulus to
change that can be shown as wholly perceptible to the senses is
given from without. Such a reaction is
33in complete accord with the inherently changeless laws of
logic that bring the pure ego to grips with the world of sense. The
fact of this agreement must not surprise us, once we have grasped
that when pure perception meets pure thought there can be a union
between elements wholly of the same kind. Here too, we find the
reason why the natural scientist, when contemplating the world,
feels the need to trace back the whole world of perception, and
even the spiritual world, to mineral relations. The laws of nature
are the expression of the said agreement, which laws are
apprehended subjectively in thought and formulated in universal
language, while they are found again in the world of sense,
objectively and actualized in the individual case. As the
expression for the inherent immutability of the mineral world,
natural science has the concept of matter, which is defined as the
bearer of the sense qualities perceived. The error that lies in
looking on matter as something really existing has often been
exposed; it is sufficient to point out that sensible qualities must
ever again be assigned to matter or to atoms that are thought of as
equally real in order to characterize them, so that for this, if
for no other reason, they are unfitted to be taken as a real basis
underlying sense perceptions. But apart from this, the reality of
matter, of the atoms and molecules, even of electrons, has in our
latter days melted away, as it were, in the hands of natural
science itself. Concept of motion Even when we examine the concept
of motion, which finds its application in all departments of modern
physics, we do not pass beyond the sphere of sense qualities no
matter whether we assume motion as underlying the cosmic ether or
the electrons, which though divested precisely of the
characteristic import of matter, show in their very capability of
motion an element perceptible to the senses. It is precisely the
concept of motion that enables us to see most clearly that the
reduction of the sense qualities to something that is objectively
real and unchanging will not work.
34If we take motion, not as a general concept but as a real
phenomenon, that is to say, as a motion that really takes place,
then we grow clearly aware that we are dealing with sense elements
connected with light, and accordingly with the visual sense. A
discussion on the nature of space, which perhaps might find a place
here, must be left for the followed chapter. We will only remark
that it is precisely the most modern of physicists and
mathematicians who adduce the physiology of the eye in order to
explain the origin of the idea of space. Sense of Touch It might be
thought that the so-called sense of touch, on the contrary,
apprehends the moments of rest from which only a posteriori
inference brings us to motion. Now when natural science feels the
need to trace back the complicated phenomena of the sense
perceptible world to motions, it thereby acknowledges that
perceptions of light are more trustworthy than any other sense
perceptions. Light That truth indeed, is of quite general
application in natural science, whose theories, one would say, are
based exclusively on the eyes perception, that is, on the
perception of light. There is no objection to referring perceptions
of sound to motion inasmuch as the phenomena of sound can be made
accessible to the eye. On the other hand, it is a logical
impossibility to refer phenomena of light to motions, for in so
doing we are by no means leaving the realm of light perception to
enter a more universal field. Surely, we may not assume as
explanatory the very thing we wish to explain. Just as it is
inadmissible to trace back thought by means of thought to something
else, so we may not validly base light on phenomena of motion. In
this connection we come upon that saying of Goethe, so surprising
to modern consciousness, Light is the simplest, undivided and
homogeneous essence known to us. It is not a compound. We can lay
it down that knowledge in natural science proceeds on the basis of
light perceptions and of pure thought. Thus we must recognize in
light perception and in pure thought, two things immediately
35correlated, fully in accordance with our theory of knowledge
that led us to conclude that when pure perception and pure thought
meet there is a mingling of absolute like elements. Here we find it
precisely established that it is one sense perception, that of
light, that immediately corresponds to thought. Therewith, however,
we have an immediate relation between a sense perceptible thing and
a supersensible thing, which can be thus formulated: Pure thought
is the supersensible element in light, or, light is the sense
perceptible expression of pure thought. It would be interesting to
inquire whether we can similarly find for the other sense phenomena
an immediately corresponding supersensible thing, for to pure
thought they are only mediately accessible by the indirect way of
light perceptions. For this, spiritual science will alone be
competent, even while here we are still dealing with considerations
of natural science. Spiritual science shows us, it is true, that
underlying tone, for example, there is still something essentially
different from simple motion phenomena of the air. Thus we see how
in all intellectual knowledge based on the senses, there is already
a mingling of a sensible and a supersensible thing, and therewith a
connection with spiritual science becomes apparent to us. If we
wish to characterize for ourselves the mineral kingdom within the
world of perception, we must seek for an expression for the part of
the perceptual world that remains unchanged before pure thought.
Since, as we saw, not all designations are admissible for a
material content of the mineral kingdom, let us tentatively say
that the mineral kingdom is analyzable for intellectual
consideration into a sum of (physical, chemical, etc) forces. Here
we do not mean by force a thing that causes or carries the mineral
properties, but those mineral phenomena themselves, in their
sensible and supersensible connection. Our next question will now
be: Can we find yet further forms of force within the perceived
world? Plant kingdom / Concept of Development If we now go on to
those sense perceptible phenomena that are termed the plant
kingdom, the first thing we meet is again the mineral forces,
though in a far more complex association. For us, this expresses
itself in such a way that a perceptual complex called oxygen, for
instance, is the same whether it has been obtained from the mineral
kingdom, or from
36artificial or natural processes in the plant world. With such
investigations, of course, we only touch the mineral part of the
plant, that is, the part that remains unchanged before strict
thought. Into the rigid laws of logic we must admit a mobile
element in order to touch the essence of the plant. That element
finds its expression in the concept of development, of growth, by
contrast with the purely logical concept of being. How far the
concept of development must be set above the forms of logic, which
deal only with being, shall be expounded in a later section of our
epistemological investigations concerning spiritual science. In
this place, it is enough for us to note that by the concept of
development we express the fact that in the case of the plant we
can see, precisely in respect of mineralogy, that it does not
remain unchanged before pure logical thought. We see the plant
grow, nourish and propagate itself, that is to say, we notice a
change that is not part, as with the mineral, caused from without,
but by the plant itself. The external condition (sunshine, rain,
suitable soil, etc.) merely provide an opportunity enabling the
mineral element, which needs external influences, to follow in the
plant itself the causes that produce changes. We see that the
mineral element in the plant by no means follows its proper laws,
but contrast with its ordinary behaviour. That, surely, is seen
from the fact that the mineral structure of the plant is at once
destroyed by external influences when the counteraction of the
plant ceases. We clearly see that we are confronted with a new kind
of forces that differ fundamentally from the mineral forces. These
forces prove themselves to be stronger than the mineral forces and
overcome them. In the life forms of plants we see the expression of
these forces, which for their own ends convert the mineral forces
into a garment in which they veil themselves. In the case of the
plant we may speak of a corporeity in which the supersensible plant
nature abides. Once again we see the contact with spiritual
science, which describes for us a supersensible part of the plant.
That part is termed by spiritual science the etheric body [or life
body], and since, in spite of everything, material conceptions ever
again so easily attach themselves to that expression, it is
important for us to be able clearly to visualize the true character
of the etheric body of the plant world on the strength of natural
scientific considerations.
37
Concept of etheric body / Cell If the designation of matter as
the bearer of the mineral properties cannot be admitted in the
mineral world, that is the case in an even greater measure as
regards plant activity. It is true that so long as we persist in
applying to the plant kingdom the purely logical forms of thought
without the fluid element of development, we cannot get away from
material conceptions. But out of this schematic treatment of
natural philosophy there also arose the concept of the cell, as a
materially objective representative of the life processes. Although
we can make use of the expression, cell, we must denote thereby
what is actually given, namely, a force center of a higher order
within the mineral world of our perception. We have before us two
kinds of forces in sensible presentation of plants, and
correspondingly, of animals and men: the mineral and plant forces.
If we now observe that these plant forces pervade all organic life
and are present wherever we can speak of a cell system, we can
designate the etheric body as the sum of those forces that make
minerals into cells. In terms of sense perception, the expression
of the supersensible etheric body is the plant forms that develop
in growth, maintain themselves in nutrition, transmit themselves in
propagation. Animal Kingdom / Nerves / Sentient body If we now go
on to the animal kingdom, we see the corporeity of the animals
again subject to the influence of a new kind of forces that differ
essentially from the plant forces. This expresses itself not only
in the mineral structure of the animal, but also in its life
history. Whereas we see the plant bound to the soil surrounding it,
so that its mineral structure is destroyed if the plant is torn out
of the soil in which it grows, we see that the animal detaches
itself from mother earth, without the mineral structure being
destroyed. Thus, these new forces in their turn show themselves
stronger than the preceding ones, and they make the mineral
formation still far more complicated. They add to the expression of
the etheric body, to the relatively simple cellular structure of
plants, a system of glands that controls the circulation of the
fluids in the organism. This organization no longer remains united
to the mother soil as in the case of the plant. These forces
incorporate with the whole a new system that is the perceptible
38expression of the new forces. The forces themselves are in
their nature inward. They give to the animal the mobility that it
needs after its separation from the mother soil for example, for
nutrition and they also set up once more a connection between the
animal and the outer world. The new system is the nervous system,
the perceptible expression of inwardness. The nerves lead the
external impression inwards through the sense organs, while they
lead the internal impulses outwards through the organs of movement.
When we give heed to the fact that these forces are present
wherever the effects if inwardness manifest themselves, we get the
picture of a new force body, in a similar way as previously in the
case of the etheric body, and therewith have a definition for the
supersensible part of animals and men, which spiritual science
describes as the sentient or astral body. The sentient body is the
sum of those forces that make the cells into nerves. After we have
thus, thoroughly explored the world of corporeity by the aid of an
epistemologically defensible natural scientific method, it becomes
our obvious task to link mans body to this chain of thought. We
find mans body to be a mineral structure, shaped by the forces of
life, illumined with consciousness by the forces of subjectivity.
We can distinguish it in respect of physical body, etheric body,
sentient or astral body, but these parts are modified by a fourth
kind of forces that in continuation of our previous definitions, we
can designate as follows. The human brain Mans body is
distinguished from that of the animal by a sum of forces that links
the nerve substance together so as to form the human brain, for
surely, there can be no doubt that in the structure and size of the
brain we have the corporeal difference between man and the highest
animals, whatever attitude we may otherwise adopt as to the
relationship between animals and men. The new form of forces with
which we are here concerned, however, must not be regarded by us in
the same way as hitherto, for in the structures in question, we no
longer have an expression of corporeity such that thought opposes
itself to their sensible manifestation. Rather, we have
39here to deal with the sense perceptible expression of thought
itself. Nor can we any longer make a distinction between ourselves
and the supersensible in those phenomena, for we ourselves are that
sum of forces. We find this sum of forces as a being, as the ego,
from which the standard for the whole of natural scientific inquiry
is taken. These new forces can alone apprehend themselves as the
theory of knowledge. In thinking of thinking, we apprehend the
supersensible immediately. In this extension of the natural
sciences it is only a spiritual science that can have a place.
Thus, the theory of knowledge that was foreshadowed at the
beginning leads us, by its application as a natural science, to the
very bounds of a science of the spirit or spiritual science. We can
now take up the thread of our epistemological considerations that
we left drop in the previous essay, The ego and the Nature of Man.
The ego apprehends itself in itself as reality. In order to be able
to thus to base itself in itself as reality, it had to separate
itself from the non-ego. Natural scientific knowledge arises
through the ego, with its most essential nature, pure thought,
reaching out to the non-ego where it finds sense perception, the
non-egos most essential expression. But yet there is another sphere
where the ego is found in an intimate natural union with the
non-ego. The expression for this is mans soul, and we succeeded in
deriving the threefold nature of the soul as sentient, intellectual
and consciousness soul, from the subtler relations between ego and
non-ego. Now that we have explored the realms of the non-ego, we
find that we have there to deal with three different kinds of
forces [mineral/body, etheric/cell, astral/nerve] with which the
fourth form, the ego, now can maintain a connection. In this way,
we gain a new understanding of the characteristic differences of
the three parts of the soul, for it is seen that the ego is, in
natural connection with each of the three realms of force. We can
now convince ourselves of this truth and once more achieve a quite
particularly intimate contact with spiritual science, if we reflect
that it is we ourselves who, in a supersensible manner, are placed
within the forces of the realms of nature, so that we are,
therefore, immediately experiencing that connection from the side
of the ego. The human soul
40
The sphere therewith indicated, the human soul, is characterized
by the concept of the personal, the unique; it effects the junction
between the universality of pure thought and the singularity of
sense perceptions. But what is here at issue, is not the thoughts
we gain regarding the world of sense, for they belong to natural
scientific knowledge, but the manner in which the ego has its being
amidst external nature. We know mans bodily organization, that part
of the non-ego that includes the possibility of the ego, as being a
mineral structure, formed and maintained by the forces of life,
unfolded to the outside world by forces of subjectivity. It is an
apparatus that possesses the capability of sensation through the
sense organs, and through the organs of motion the capability of
action. It is to be noted that neither sensation nor action become
facts in virtue of that apparatus alone. For this, the fourth kind
of force, the ego is needed, which uses or activates the apparatus.
Since the possibility of sensation and action originates with the
astral body, it is a union of the ego with the forces of the astral
body that we experience as sensation or immediate urge. Sentient
soul or sensation Insofar as the ego lives by the forces of the
astral body, it is sensation or sentient soul. In using that term
we are designating by sensation the inward experience that unites
itself to an external sense impression. But there belong to the
sphere of the sentient soul also those stimuli to action that
immediately follow upon the sensations. The next sphere of the
unique, the personal, will have to be characterized by the egos
experiences with the forces of the etheric body. Let us once more
consider the sensations; they are the subjective experiences of the
sensible qualities. Those experiences are wholly chaotic, without
any relations. One experience is worth as much as another, and the
important point is that such an experience is completely ended when
the sense organ in question turns away, or the stimulus from
outside ceases. Nothing is left over if we merely regard the
sensation, but other forces are needed if anything of the
sensations is to be retained. Such forces, however, do , namely,
the forces of the etheric body, with which the ego is now able to
unite. But since the ego is only connected to the outside world
through the senses, that is, through the forces of the astral
body
41[sentient body and sentient soul], it can only utilize the
forces of the etheric body insofar as the material for this is
supplied by the astral body. Intellectual soul / etheric / mental
images / memory The forces of the etheric body are organizing,
formative ones, and if they are united by the ego to the chaotic
sensations, experiences will present themselves to the ego in which
the sensations are cast into forms, retained, co-ordinated and
distinguished. The ego by the aid of the etheric body, transforms
the sensations into mental images. Mental images are the egos
experiences of the outside world that remain even when the
sensations have ceased. All phenomena of memory are connected with
this sphere of inward experience, comprehensively styled the
intellectual soul. The intellectual soul is the ego insofar as the
latter is united to the forces of the etheric body. To this sphere,
there also belong those stimuli to action that originate in the
faculty of memory: habits, inclinations, passions, etc. At his
point we desire to counter the objection that the definitions of
sensation, mental image, instinct, habit, etc., apply also to
animals and even to plants. For there is a widespread tendency
today, when molecular memory, atomic soul, etc., are expressions in
current use in studying the being of nature, not in their typical
appearances, but in the transition forms. The first thing to be
said in this connection, is that the aforesaid distinctions between
mineral, plant and animal have reference to the body of those
beings. Here, however, we are concerned with the soul mans soul,
the only one of which by our present means enable us to predicate
anything. In a subsequent discussion, when we have laid the
necessary foundations, we shall be able to speak also of the
psychic-spiritual aspect of the natural kingdoms. It is true that
then it will be seen that one is justified in ascribing to the
animals after their kind a sentient soul and, to the higher
species, even traces of an intellectual soul, but only by setting
out from the animal ego, which differs fundamentally from the
human. Consciousness soul /physical body / concepts / morality If
now the ego further unites itself with the forces of the physical
body, then it has taken possession of its entire corporeal
organization. We
42therewith enter that sphere of uniqueness where the ego, in
virtue of its sensations, mental images and experiences, is able to
develop its universality. The mental images become concepts; the
ego within its mineral body can feel separated from the external
world, and we get that contradistinction of ego and non-ego, which
formed the starting point of our epistemological considerations.
Whereas mans consciousness, insofar as sentient and intellectual
soul are concerned, was dependent upon external stimuli, it now
becomes a self-consciousness. That sphere of uniqueness is named by
spiritual science, consciousness soul. The sphere of action
corresponding to the consciousness soul is morality. In the
consciousness soul man attains also to moral independence, whereby
he lets his own ideals flow forth into the world through his deeds.
We see that the natural conjunction between ego and non-ego has two
forms of expression, which in consciousness soul lead to
independence, to the independence of knowledge and to the
independence of action. We can also classify action according to
three points of view, namely, according to the path it takes with
the threefold sphere of uniqueness. It is the ego that acts, but
only when the ego has apprehended itself in independence can moral
independence be achieved. Therewith, we have established contact
with spiritual science also on the side of action. That is, of the
utmost importance, for it shows us that entry into the spirituality
begins with a deed no less than with an act of knowledge. Deed and
knowledge coincide. Insofar as ego the apprehension appears as the
culmination of natural science, it is knowledge, and as deed that
is wholly enacted in the spiritual sphere, it is the entry into
spiritual worlds. By his sensory and psychic life man is dependent
upon the forces of nature; by apprehension of his ego, he takes his
place among the creative beings of the world. If we now glance back
over the path that the natural application of our faculty of
knowledge, the application of natural scientific methods, has won
for us, we see that we are able to distinguish between the realms
of nature because we ourselves, as egos, are in natural union with
those fields of force. Hence, the distinction between and a
doctrine of the natural realms can be built on the reality of the
ego.
43
Such a classification then contains nothing arbitrary or
accidental, but we find in it at various stages the reality of
spiritual life, to which the ego as a self-conscious spirit
belongs. The concepts we have formed are not dead abstractions or
else we should never have established contact with the
investigations of spiritual science. We were forced to overcome the
dead, mineral-like logic and to let living concepts grow forth from
the concept of the concept, the pure ego, which is living,
spiritual reality. But we have achieved something more than that.
By our