Etheric Formative Forces in Earth Cosmos and Man

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C O S M O S . E A R T H A N D M A N

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AH rights in this Translation are reserved.

G E R M A N E D I T I O NDie Athe rischen BildekrafteinKosmos, Erde und Mensch.Ein Weg zur Erforschung des Lebendigen2.Aufl .Philosophisch-anthroposophischer Verlag am GoetheanumDornach (Schweiz).IT A L IA N

Le forze plasmatrici eteriche nel cosmo, nella terra e nell ' uomoUna via alia ricerca di cib che e vivante.Casa Editrice " Atenor " di Todi , Succursale di Roma.Editions in Russian, Swedish, French, etc., in preparation.

Made a n d Printed iti Great Bri ta in byJ , A W R E N C E B R O S . (Weston-super-Mare) , I.td.,Nor th St ree t , Weston-super -Mare , Som .


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PAGEThe Rotation of the Earth - - - - - - 65The Heliotropism of the Earth.Etheric Earth and Solid Earth.The Etheric Currents in the Earth Organism - - 6 9Sun Current, Vertical Current.

Moon Current, Horizontal Current.The Position of the Vertebral Column and its relation toConsciousness.East-West and West-East Currents.North-South and South-North Currents.The Migrations of Birds.The Nature of Gravitation and of Terrestrial Magnetism 78Their Inter-relationships.

The Magnetic Poles.Polar Light and the Phenomenon of the Northern Lights.The Sun 83The Planets and their Spheres * - - - * 84

A third movement of the Earth.Exceptional position of Uranus and Neptune.Constellations.The Planetary Spheres.Man.The Interior of the Earth 92The Metamorphosis of the Etheric Formative Forces

in the Planetary System - - - * . 9 6The Transversion of the Inner and Outer.

The Etheric Organism of the Earth and of Man * - 102True and False Anthropocentric World Conceptions.Organic Life Processes and their Connection with Consciousness.IV THE ONTOGENETIC ORIGIN AND DISAPPEAR ANCE OF

SUBSTANCE I 107Spontaneous Dissolution of Substance.Earth Organism, Cosmic Forces, and the Genesis ofSubstance.Cloud-forming and the Genesis of Water.Genesis of Space and Earth Organism. %VI


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P A G EV. THE RELATION BETWEEN THE WORLDS OF SPIRITUALBEING, OF THE ETHERIC, OF SUBSTANCE, AND OFFORCE 114Etheric Formative Forces and Electricity." Animal Electricity."The " Spectrum of Light " and the " Spectrum of Nature."

Polarity and Intensification.VI. SPACE AND T IM E : THEIR GENESIS AND THEIR

DISAPPEARANCE 119Being and Phenomenon.VD. FUNDAMENTAL PHENOMENA FOR A NEW THEORY O F

LIGHT 125Light and Substance." Pure Light/' Cosmic Pure Light and the EarthOrganism.Terrestrial Pure Light : PhosphorescAje, Radioactivity,etc ." Heat Light " : Combustion.Forces of Light freed through the Dissolution ofSubstance.

pVm. FOUNDATION FOR A NEW THEORY OF COLOUR - 136Goethe's Theorv of Colour and Newton's " Preformation "Theory.Polaric Primary Colours.The Activity of Light and that of Darkness.The Influence of Colour upon Organisms.

IX. THE PHENOMENON OF TONE 143Tone and the Structure of Substance.Control of their Inter-relationships.The Genesis of Tone.The relation of Tone to Humidity, Pressure, and Darkness.

X. THE SHAPING OF SUBSTANCE, THE DISSOLUTION OFSUBSTANCE, AND RADIOACTIVITY - - - - 148Spontaneous Dissolution within the Earth Organism.Macrocosmic Correspondence and Ages of Substance.A New Substance Unit for the explanation of Phenomena

of Radioactivity.The Effects of Radioactivity and their Significance forHuman Evolution. vn


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PAGEXL THE SHAPE -BUILDING FORCE S AN D ARCHETYPALFORMS IN NATURE AND THE REALITY - - - 155

The Individualisation of Substance in the Process cfBecoming.The Arc hetypal Form s and their Genesis in the E ar thOrganism.The Archetypal Forms in the Mineral Kingdom.The Archetypal Forms in the Plant World .Hered i ty .Mendelism.Shaping Forces and Archetypal Forms in EmbryonalDevelopment .The Sense Organs and their Formative Forces.Animal Instincts .Man and Animal.The Differentiating Cha racteristics of the K ingdom s ofNa tu re .

XD. MAN AND MAN'S ORGANISM - - 195The Threefold H um an Organism.Polarity of the Etheric Formative Forces .Polarity of the " Cold and the Warm Flame."The Genesis of the Bony Skeleton.The N atu re and Cause of Hum an Bre athing .The Rhythmic System, Speech.Nature and Cause of the Human Blood Circulation.The Forming of Organs.The Archetypal Forms in the Human Organism (Epidermis,Blood-Crystals, etc.).Etheric Structure of the Blood Corpuscles and of the Earth.Etheric Structure cf Dead and Living Substance.The Genesis of th e W hite and the Red Blood Corpusclesand their Format ive Forces .Blood and Oxygen.The Metamorphosis of th e other Su bstances in th e H um anOrganism.Stages of Consciousness, Etheric Format ive Forces , andSubstance in Man, and their Relationship to theMacrocosm.The Etheric Life-Current in the Human Organism.The Etheric Formative Forces and the Art of Healing.

A WORLD REFLECTION 235

V I I I


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The astronomer Johann Kepler, in his work " HarmonicesMimcU," " The Harmonies of the Spheres " :

" Eve n though men m ay scorn me for my frank confessionYes! I have stolen the sacred vessels of the Egyptians that Imight make of them a sanctuary for my God, far, far from theconfines of Egypt.

" If ye forgive me, I shall be h app y ; if ye are an gry, thenI m ust bear it. Well, here I cast the die and write a bookwhether for the present or for the future is of no consequenceto me. W ha t though it w ait a hund red years for its readerGod has awaited his decipherer for thousands of years."

IX


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Foreword to the First Germ an EditionA BOOK concerned with problems of natural science will, in ourday more than ever before, grow into a treatise upon the mostprofound questions of philosophy, if it is to deal ad eq uate ly w ithits prob lem . Fo r in this materia listic age th e res ults of scientificresearch, not only in their power to illuminate but also in their powerto darken, have penetrated so deeply in to the human mind, in to i tshabits of thought, that corresponding effects show themselves even inthe outward and visible life of our agealthough the true cause of theseconditions is not any longer present to the consciousness of most ofthose who are themselves involved in the sort of life thus manifested.But the new generation now growing up sets itself, with the energy ofthose who are batt l ing for their l ives, against being swept into thiscurrent of our age, a current whose chaotic, ruinous nature is to beexplained wholly as a result of the scientific thought of the past century,but especially of the last decades.Who is not deeply impressed to-day with the feeling that thoseideas taken over from the scientific conceptions of the past century,and.then popularized and introduced into the thought and activit ies ofevery-day lifeconceptions cf " the struggle for existence," of " natu ra lselection," of the pitiless " mechanism of Nature ," of the " survival ofthe fittest " and the annihilation of all that fails to meet the requirementsof this supposedly uti l i tarian Naturewho does not feel that all theseconceptions, ostensibly learned from Nature herself but really obtruded

upon her out of one-sided and l imited hu m an tho ug ht, have brough t aterrible devastation into the minds of men, and that this spiri tual confusion has been the impelling factor in bringing about the Europeanca tas trop he ? Th is is no t a question of guilt or innocen ce. I t is aquestion as to th e m ann er in which a spir i tual s t rea m in hum an evolutionwhich took its rise in the fifteenth century, and reached its culminationat the turning point between the n ineteenth and the twe nt ie th , is drawingto i ts end. Th is spiri tual s trea m , whichwhen viewed in its brighteraspecthas brought to us the great scientific revelations, yet also hasgiven to the men of our time a phantom picture of the world wherein

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this cosmic system, in which we must l ive, appears as a great corpse.For the scientific research of these 500 yearshowever great the serviceit has conferred upon human nature in the direction of the understandingand domination of dead " m a t t e r "has , on the other hand, failed tolift ever so l i t t le that veil which conceals true knowledge and the masteryof th a t wh ich is alive. Ind eed , a future ag e, viewing more im pa rtiallythis t rend of human inquiry, wil l be able to show that the developmentof natural science in the direction of an understanding of what is deadhas fastened a leaden weight upon man's feet to hinder him from movingtoward a knowledge of what is livinga weight from which he will beable to free himself only by an almost superhuman effort.

Wherever one engages in conversation to-day in any part of theworld, especially with young men, one becomes aware of that greatprocess of fermentation through which the coming generation will freeitself of the horrible form to which our conception of the world, and thusalso our life, ha s been reduced b y a materialistic science, directed alm ostwholly tow ards merely qu an t i tat iv e resul ts . I t is for me n of this sort ,who wish to cast from their feet the leaden weight, that this book hasbeen wri t ten, in the hope that i t may give to them the elements outof w hich to build u p a new a nd different con ception of th e world, aconception in which the investigation of the l iving, the organic, as thetrue origin and starting point for knowledgewith the inorganic andlifeless con stituting th e less essential pa rt of th e world-conce ptionwithin this framework of the livingwill be the object of our study.

Of the reader of this book I would beg that, before he begins, hewill spend five minutes in bringing before his minds eye , in thoug htfulreflection, the present world situation, unmitigated, in all i ts futureperspe ctive. H e will the n en ter upon his co-operation in the problemsto be attacked with his mind equipped otherwise than one who isinterested merely in adding to his treasury of formulEe one formula more,or one who works in th e mere ly scientific fashion to pr ot ec t from di sturba nce a pet theo ry which has become necessary to his comfort . T hemethod of research appl ied in this book and the resul ts of this methodm ust be taken as a whole, as a un i ty. Whoever extrac ts any d etai lwh atever from th e book in order to play t h a t gam e of concepts so belovedby the abst ract intellectualism of our age, instead of fixing his viewupon the whole, will simply be attempting to run his head against awall that does not exist .We do not propose merely to pass over in a schematic fashion from

the results of the investigations of the lifeless to investigation of theorganic, the phenomena of l ife, the l iving; on the contrary, we proposeto unite a new sort of view of the world with a new inner mood of spiri t ,2


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which ought to penetrate us and remain with us from the beginning inthe scientific investigation of both the living and the lifeless. Herethere is no great gulf in man separating religion and science, such as hasbeen artificially created by the merely quantitative-mechanical tendency inscience. Whoever reads this book with an open and unprejudiced mindwill find, nevertheless, that the vast results of the previous investigationsin th e sam e field are used as its foun dation an d serve as its tools. B utthis is to be the chief distinction of what we shall strive to accomplish :that , al though the coming generation dare not, cannot, and will notset aside the results of the quantitative idea of the world and begin anewto work without these, but will weave the already attained results ofquanti tat ive research into their new conception of the world, wherethese are very valuable supports for knowledge, yet they will , on thecontrary, reject these, especially in their own attitude of mind, wherevertheir effect is to degrade our cosmos into a corpse.Everything contained in the following pages owes its origin to thefact that the author is an adherent of Spiritual Science as given itsdeterm inative direction by Anth roposo phy. W hate ver is false orimperfect in the book is th e fault of the au tho r an d not of the th eory .I am well aware that the volume is only the first feeble endeavour toma ster th e problems attack ed. M any sl ips, m an y failures in clari ty,have doubtless crept into this at tempt to survey by a new method suchvaried an d com plex fields of hu m an know ledge. Y et a conviction asto the lightness of this new w ay of viewing th e problem s a nd of th eurgent necessity for such a view has given me the courage to risk theatt em pt . Who ever ha s blazed a trai l in a hithe rto unknow n regionwill know that, in such a journey of exploration, no one can at firsttake the m ost direct or th e easiest pa th to his goal. Y et only a manof small nature will come to grief because of the roughness of the path,right in itself; a man of spirit will take pleasure in the new trail, andwill himself lend a hand in order that the new goal may be reached.

As a small portion of that comprehensive contribution whichAnthroposophy will make toward the evolution of humanity, this bookis dedicated, from the author's profound sense of an inner necessity,and in spite of his consciousness of its imperfections, to him who hascalled Anthroposophy into beingDr. Rudolf Steiner.Heartfelt thanks are due also to many others, al l of whom I wouldgladly mention by name, but especially to Mr. Scott Pyle, of New York,

to Count Otto von l>rchenfeld-K6fering, to Fra u H arr ie t von V acanowho has translated into German for us the great christ ian philosopherVladimir Solovjeffand to my brother, Wolfgang W a c hsm uth , aswell as Dr. Ita W e gm a n , all of whom ha ve given b oth counsel a nd


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co-operation. For scientific and experim ental collaboration, ther e isa special debt to Herr Ehrenfried Pfeiffer. To the many others whohave aided may the most earnest thanks live in my thought.GuENTHER WACHSMUTH.

The Goetheanum,Dornach, near Basel, Switzerland.1923.


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Foreword to the Second German Edition*W HOEVER has fo l lowed with watchful a t tent ion the course ofworld history and the evolution of consciousness during the lastthree years, and especially during the past year, in theirtumultuous effects on the several continents, will understand why anadditional point of view must be expressed on the occasion of the secondedition of this book for which there was no pressing occasion as regardsth e first edition . Th is is th e po int of view based upon conside rationof th e coming adjustm ent betw een Occident and Orient. Th e glaringlight of this future event is already cast upon international conferences,press despatches, modes of thought, and the events of our daily l ife.In the endeavour to set forth a natural-scientific conception of theworld on the basis of Spiritual Science, as we seek to do in the followingpages, it is inevitable that a certain point of view must from the firstbe a determ ining factor. W hoever wishes at this mom ent of t im e todepict a conception of the world with which we men of the twentiethcentury may real ly live must no t unders tand by the te rm man only theOccidental , nor only the O riental . In every m ention of Occident andOrient which here follows, we are not concerned, of course, with a higheror lower evaluation of the one or the other, but solely with factual conditions w ith which one m ust reckon. I t is by no mean s a m at te r of primeimportance nowadays merely to increase the natural-scientific knowledgeof a group of men by a dding to th a t knowledge a certain nu m ber of i tem s.The essential point of our task lies far more concretely in the choice of amethod of presentation which will be equally intelligible to the scientifically educated men of the Occident and to the Oriental, schooled in awisdom coming for thousands of years from a wholly different source.Indeed, the method must be such, fur thermore, that the two humantypes may be brought to a common basis of discussion. It is ominouslyclear, from many utterances of leading personali t ies in each group, thatat present these fail to meet one another in any of the essential pointsof tho ug ht, feeling, and will. Since th e sam e w ords , an d even seeming lyidentical concepts at the back of these words, have utterly dissimilarcontents in th e m inds of the tw o group s of men , there seems to be no h ope

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for a basis of discussion as, indeed, bo th sides admit. Therein lies a worldperil . Th e wisdom of th e W est, built upo n na tur al science, an d thewisdom dominant for thousands of years in the Orient contain conceptsso unl ike in meaning th a t the approaches a t tem pte d reciprocally duringrecent decades with all mutual good-will have only made the difficultiesgreater than ever , s ince we have thereby for the first t ime brought in toconscious realization the almost unbridgeable gulf between the twogroups.

Whoever, therefore, does not wish merely to increase Occidentalnatural science and export this to the Orient , nor merely to t ransplantthe Eastern concept ion of the world to an Occident qui te unadaptedfor its reception,such a person faces the task of discovering, first ofall, a form of expression and a nomenclature intell igible to both sides inwhich to discuss N atu re and the forces at work in N atu re. Fo r thehelping forward of the Occident alone or of the Orient alone no longersignifies helpin g forw ard hu m an ity as a whole ; it signifies r at he r t h estrengthening of the opposition between East and West, and is thereforeworking toward the ru in of humani ty .It is a duty, therefore, to point out that in the following pages aneffort had to be ventured uponin accordance with a quite definiteSuggestion of Dr. Rudolf Steinerto present certain phenomena drawnfrom our knowledge of Nature in such a way that these might be discussedat one and the same time with bo th Occidentals an d Orientals . The" Western key " to this forum of discussion was expected to be furnishedby the knowledge derived from modern na tu ra l sc i ence ; and the" Eastern key " by that derived from certain parts of the primal wisdomof the Orient, which arose by the Indian cradle of hum an evolut ion a ndleft its impression, often greatly falsified, in the Sanskrit texts and theVedanta and Yoga phi losophies, as wel l as their derivat ive cul tures.This is to be, then, not a st ruggle between mutual ly host i le concepts,bu t th e search for a new syn thesis. Tw o different keys are to throwopen the same realm of knowledge. W ha t is to be at te m pte d, therefore,is to be a twofold work of translation,on the one han d, a t ranslat ion ofthe mechanistic science of the Occident, seemingly contradictory of thefundamental religious conceptions of the whole human race, into sucha mode of presentation as opens again the doors to the realm of thespiritual and of religion ; on th e othe r h an d , a trans latio n of th e O rienta lteaching of the world-building forces, given mostly in pictures and in theforms of dialogues, into such a form of expression as will render possiblei ts appl icat ion to the mas tery of m atte r . I t is in this lat t er w ork th a tthe Occident, in spite of its giving a secondary place to the religiouselement , ha s achieved so m uch . T he W es t ha s em ployed its knowledge6


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of world-laws primarily, indeed, for the mastery of force and substancein the external world; the Orient has used its knowledge of world-lawsprim arily for personal spiritua l discipline. Th e result of a We sternknowledge of Nature leads mainly to the construction of some sort ofmach ine. The result of Ea ster n knowledge of N atu re was clothed inthe utterances of a god or a teacher to his disciples for the purposes ofpurely spiri tual practises. Bu t each hu m an grou p needs bo th theseresu lts. And the world-laws are certainly , in th e last analysis, thesame for bo th. If , then, s tud en ts of th e ideas of Newton, L aplace,Helmholtz, Hertz, Einstein, and others and the students of the teachingsset down in Oriental philosophy concerning the forces of Nature* shouldplace their concepts and nomenclature within the conception of theworld here presented, bot h would be brou ght to th e same orienta tionof thought regarding the forces that build and move the universeanorientation of thought doing justice to the conceptual systems of bothgroups.To many persons this may seem at present absurd or far-fetched.But the attentive observer of the present world status will strive to followthis p at h as the sole wa y of salv ation for the coming decades. T o strivetoward a goal does not mean that one has reached i t ; b u t it**has nowbecome a m atte r of du ty to move in th a t direction. W e do no t hereaddress that sort of s tay-at-home among scholars and scientists whobelieves he can ignore the problem of Orient and Occident because hislaboratory is some thousands of miles from Asia or from Ameiica , orelse because this prob lem lies outside his special province. W orldhistory in its onward march will not respect the seclusion of such scholars's tudies.

But whoever looks upon scientific research, not as a thing good initself, but as a task which must from t ime to t ime be adjusted to changesin world history, must to-day at least endeavour to speak of the idea ofthe world in such a way that a common basis of discussion m ay th e reb ycome into existence for both Occidental and Oriental .

In order to preclude misunderstanding, we must caution the readerthat what has just been said applies solely to the method of presentationof th e form ative forces an d ca nn ot affect in th e least th e facts themselves,or the content of the knowledge in itself. Th e con ten t of w hat is to be saidregarding these forces and their activity is the result of objective natural-scientific research, and as such is unrelated to the problem of Orient andOccident. Since, how ever, any know ledge possesses tru e value for men/ " T !rS e e G u e n t h e r S c h u b e r t : " Indische Bezeichnungen fur die Atherarten "r Indian Des ignat ions for the Kinds of Ether") . Gaa-Sophia, Yearbook of the"atural Science Section at the Goetheanum, 1926.


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to-daythat is, value for man's lifeonly when representatives of bothhuman groups understand i t and can apply i t in the practice of life,we must seek to set forth the objective nature of the world in such away that access to this is open to both groups, and i ts doors may beunlocked by both with their own keys.That the East needs to learn much more of the Occidental masteryover matter and the mechanical , in order to keep pace with human

evolution, is obvious and will be admitted freely by Oriental intellectualleaders. What now repels the Orient is the absence of any bridge inth e O ccident betw een religion and science ; it is th e soul-desolatingcha racte r of th e con cep tual sys tem of the We st. In th e W est, scientificresearch in the deeper nature of living organisms and of processes ofsoul and mind has had much to say, very honestly, through the personsof its best and most exact experts, regarding the impossibility of crossingth e presen t bo undaries of knowledge by m eans of th e m etho ds developeddurin g recent decad es. Ind ee d, no t only as regards life-processes, b uteven regarding phenomena in Nature that are to be conceived in a purelyphysical sense, th e m erely seeming su re ty of knowledge of the nin ete en thcentury has become a dangerously growing insecurity of knowledge.Such is th e statem ent of one of th e best informed and mo st nobly uprig htphysicists of our time, Professor Max Planck.* " We have seen ," wri tesProfessor Planck, " how physics, which might have been considered ageneration ago one of the oldest and maturest of the natural sciences,has now entered upon a period of storm and stress which promises tobe i ts m ost interesting period up to the present. Its m aster y will leadus, not only to addit ional discoveries of new phenomena in Nature, butassuredly also to quite new insights into t he secrets of th e th eo ry ofknowledge. In th e lat te r field there m ay st il l aw ait us man y surprises ;and i t may well happen that in this process certain ancient conceptionsnow condemned to oblivion will come to life again and begin to take on anew significance."

But the sole thing which the West lacks, in order to penetrate inexact natural-scientific research into all that pertains to the livingorganism and the soul and spiri t , appears most clearly, perhaps, in thefollowing words of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, quoted from his autobiography :f" What was lacking in those who strove to go beyond the mechanist icinterpre tation of th e world was prim arily th e courage to say to them selvesthat one who would surmount th is mechanism must surmount a lso thehabits of tho ug ht which hav e brought him to this . A confession dem andedby the time s failed to app ea r. I t is thi s : th at , by ta kin g th e direction ofSee ' 'Na tu rwi ssenscha f t en , " March 26, 1926, p. 260.f " Th e Story of My Life ." Lon don, 1928.

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given me m ost helpful suggestions. M any oth er helpers also I re m em berw ith heartfe l t th an ks .

In this second edit ion the theory of ether has not been altered atall in principle, after mature testing, but much has been modified in theendeavour to elaborate the i l lustrative material more clearly in i tsm an ne r of expression or thr ou gh amp hfication. H ere also I wouldonce more caution the reader th a t I am deeply aware of the incompletenessof this und ertak ing. Ye t m y experiences since the app earan ce of thefirst edition have only confirmed my courage to go ahead on the sameroad .

We feel that we have been called by a word of Goethe's to a beautifuland sacred task, and that we are obliged to undertake i t:

MANIFESTOYou'd s tudy Nature ? Then rememberOne and All must go together.Na ugh t fe in and naug ht without.For what's within is still without.Hasten man, look up, beholdHer open mysteries unfold !True her seeming, real her play ;Rejoice in them and her.No living thing is one, I say.Its many, everywhere.

(From Goethe's " Spriiche ")Translated by Miss F. M. Stawell.

GUENTHER WACHSMUTH.T h e G o e t h e a n u m ,D o r n a c h , n e a r B a s e l , S w i t z e r l a n d .1926.

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Introduction'HE modern scientific conception of the world seeks to reduce theendless diversity of all na tura l phenomena to two fundamenta lideas, two concepts lying at the foundation of all t h i n g s : m a t t e rand e ther . But the conceptions held by the most advanced invest iga torsin regard to these two ul t imate basic uni ts are so wide apar t tha t thet ime is certainly already at hand when the whole s t ructure of theoryreared upon these two debatable basic concepts is trembling to its fall.The t ime has come, therefore, when the knowledge which spiri tualscience has a t t a ined of ether and its activi t ies in Nature may be in t roduced into discussion without the expec ta t ion tha t one must encounterinsurmountable obstacles due to a cer ta in dogm at ism which has , unfor tunately, arisen to some extent among scientists during the las t half-century .

The dist inguished invest igator of ether , P. Lenard, says in his well-known lecture " Ube r Ather und M aterie ," del ivered before th e HeidelbergAcademy of Sciences,* that , if a scientist of our age is asked how theworld appears according to his conception, he must answer thus : " Inexpressing himself on this subject, he must first make it c lea r th a t wh a the has to say deals only wi th tha t par t of the world which is accessibleto quantitative research through the help of our physical senses.^ It isjust here , in th is quant i ta t ive character is t ic , the possibility of comparingall results quanti tat ively with the rea l i ty and thus te s t ing them , th a tphysical science differs from the mental sciences, which deal primari lywi th the other pa r t of the world . T ha t pa r t of the world which lendsitself to quant i ta t ive research by means of the physical senses we maycall also the material world. It is only wi th th i s tha t the scientist hasto do ; it is of this th a t he has formed an idea " (p. 5). One m us t certain lyexamine cri t ical ly this tendency in the scientific mode of conception ofthe past century if one would reach a fruitful view regarding the na t u ref ether and mat te r , and if one wishes to know why, unde r the self-"nposed l imi ta t ions of th i s t endency in scientific researchthat is, the

* Heidelberg, 1911.f All i ta lics throughou t are Dr. W a c h s m u t h ' s .11


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restriction of research to (1) the merely qu an titativ e, an d (2) th e merelysensually perceptiblewe can never arrive at a satisfactory understanding of ether. T he obvious reason for this lies in th e facts th at(1) ethe r has not only qu an titativ e b u t also qu alitative charac teristics,the latter of which can by no means be separated from the formerthat is, supersensible, spiritual characteristics in reference to which thecognition of the merely quantitative inter-relation of the assemblage offacts is wholly inadequ ate ; (2) th a t eth er is no t perceptible to o ur physicalsenses. Clearly, the n, one who limits himself to the qu an tita tive an dthe sensually perceptible can never arrive at a true view of the natureand the action of ether.Lenard says that the ideas held by natural scientists in our time areof two kin ds; " Qu anti tat ive they are always. B ut they m ay b erestrictedand this gives us the first kindwholly to quantitative relations among observable m agnitudes. In this case the y can be expressedcompletely in mathematical formulae, chiefly in differential equations.This is the form preferred by Kirchhoff and Helmholtz, and called byKirchhoff the math em atical description of N atu re. Ex am ples of suchconceptions are Newton's law of gravitation and Maxwell's equationsin electro-dynamics. The logically inevitable conclusions based uponthese ideasand in th e developm ent of these conclusions lie b ot hthe use and also the test of the ideasare, therefore, simply the mathem atical inferences from these equa tions and nothin g more. Bu t onemay proceed furtherand this gives us the second kind of ideasinth a t one may perm it oneself to be guided from the first by a convictionwithout which, indeed, the investigation of Nature would never havecome to an y issuethat is, the conviction th a t all phenom ena in N atur eat least, in inanimate Natureare simply phenomena of motion : thatis, they consist merely in changes of position on the part of substancegiven once for all. Then we should have in each case a question ofmechanisms, an d t he equations which we reached as o ur first sor t of ideasmust be equations in mechanics, must correspond to certain quite definitemechanisms, so that we may actually consider these mechanisms as theideas which we have formed of the phenom ena of Nature. Then the ideasof things that we hold in our minds are modelled upan mechanics anddynamics."* By way of resume, Lenard adds : " All that occurs in theworld is motion, change in position on the part of substance given oncefor all. There is n o t th e slightest sign of a first appea rance or of a disappearanc e of substa nce . Therefore, w hat remains to be done in th em atte r is only to state of wh at kind th e sub stance is, how it is distributedin space, and the n atu re of its motions ; and here we m ust first m ake

* loc. cit. p. 5.12


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the fundamental assert ion that the substance which is in motion, outof which we see the entire world come into existence, is of two kinds,rnatter and eth er." * Later , when he has introduced into this conceptionof the world the most recent investigations in radio-activity, he definesthe world as consisting, not of matter and ether, but of ether andelectricity. And ye t even Le nar d is forced to s a y : " The question issimply t h i s : whether it is possible for us in this way to form a correctimage of rea lity ; or wheth er th e hu m an m ind is at all capable of formingwithin itself an image cf the whole of Natureor even of inanimateN atu re. As to this , there is now adays the m ost serious dou bt. . . ."fHe concludes with these w o r d s : " I do no t believe t h a t the difficultiescan hinder us from cultivating and developing still further our presentconception ; for, in tha t even t, we should ha ve ab andon ed e ntirely anysuch conception, and therewith the possibility of conceiving of Naturea t all in ter m s of mecha nics. I believe th a t this will no t occur, eventhough, in order to clarify our conception of the mechanics of ether, weshould have to posit beside or behind this ether and its parts stillanother ether/'J In these words the openly confessed ignorabimus of aDu Bois Reymond is evaded only by means of the hope that some wayou t will be discovered. Bu t such a hope can nev er be realized th rou gha process whereby one seeks to save a purely mechanical interpretationof the world by inventing more and more theoretical new kinds of ether.In his conflict with the theory' cf Einstein, which would deprive theether of every mechanical property, Lenard has now already introduced,beside the ether, a still prior ether in order to rescue his conception ofth e wo rld. B ut these are steps upo n a road which will in future prov emore and more a mere blind alley.

The comprehensive thinker and investigator Karl Christ ian Plancktook in his day a bold stand against the merely mechanical explanationof such entities as hea t, light, we ight. He sou ght to co m ba t th edist inction between quanti tat ive and quali tat ive attributes of the materialworld, which arose in the scientific thought of the last century, and toshow that, because of this arbitrary distinction, a scientific conceptionof the world has been built up in which the action of something spiritualwithin th e so-called m aterial wo rld can no longer be explaine d, and th eorigin, the genesis, of the world of substance out of that which existedbefore the " primal nebula " becomes quite unintelligible.

In his " Tes tament eines Deutschen " Planck says : "And jus t asIwppens in the relationships of gravity, so also the relationship of bodies* heat and light is com pletely reversed by th a t mechan ical the ory . . . .

*hc. cit. p. 7. \loc. cit. p. 7. % he. cit. p . 51 . J e n a , 1881. 2nd Edition, 1912.13


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According to this theory, the atoms of matter have in themselves nothingwhatever to do either with heat or with light; they are conceived asbeing, in their own nature, parts "existing wholly for themselves, whichonly in their mechanical relations of motion to other atoms give rise tolight an d hea t. Th us is th e true and basic relationship of Nature andher general law of evolution completely reversed, in that those formswhich, according to the ac tual app earan ce, are the undifferentiated an duniversalconcentration, or gravi ty , and i ts exact counterparts , heatand lightare not to be considered as the original elements, but on thecontrary the independently individual and differentiated atoms ofmatter are thought of as the pre-supposit ion pre-requisi te to gravity,heat , and l ight. In spite of the fact th a t the present view of N atur e isforced to admit that the state of the heavenly bodies evolved first outof the condition of uniform and undifferentiated heat and light into astate of the variously separated and individual, yet in the last analysisth e first place is non e the less assigned, not to th e simple and undifferentia ted un ity w ith th e whole (heat , etc. ) , bu t to the sep arate an dindivid ual pa rts (atom s). T h a t law of evolution which is suppo sed tohold good for all of Nature and especially for all development oforganisms, is turned upside down, and thereby, as we shall see, al lexplanation of the organic, of the physical, and of the spiritually universal,is rendered impossible, s ince from the start the mechanical separatenessof the sepa rate atom s, th e independence of part ial existences, is m adethe primal th ing."

Planck therefore warns against the error of making the world ofatoms genetically prior to the world of the enti t ies heat , l ight, etc. ,and against adopting at the outset a view as to the investigation ofNature which must restrict the knowledge of Nature within l imits evermore and more narrow.In the midst of al l the doubts which now beset the greatest natural-scientists as to th e m ann er of viewing th e world which the y hav e hithe rto

m aintained, i t is impossible to un ders tand w hy th e orientation of researchwhich Dr. Rudolf Steiner initiated in his scientific writings, and whichfurnishes a means whereby we may be guided out of this dilemma, hasno t ye t been ad op ted . As early as 1888, Dr. Steiner poin ted out in tho sewritings of his th e false p at h take n in such a mann er of v iewing the worldas that of Du Bois Reymond, which resolves the processes of Natureinto mere " mechanics of atoms," or that of Ostwald, who reduced themall to the mere " ma nifestation of energy ." Steiner th en w rote* :* D r. R . Ste iner , " Einle i tung zu Goe thes Naturwissenschaftlichen S c h r i f t e n , "D e u t sc he Nationalliteratur, S tu t tga r t . R e p r in t e d a s " G oe the s N a tu r w i s se n -schaf tl iche Schr i f ten ," Dorn ach , 1926. This wo rk wi ll be ind ic a ted in sub seq uen treferences by the ini t ia ls E.G.N.S.

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" This is what Du Bois Reymond finds : ' It is a psychological fact ofexperience that, when such a solution (the resolution of the processes ofNature into the mechanics of atoms) cemes to us, our inner need for acausal expla nation is provisionally satisfied / This m ay be a fact ofexperience for Du Bois Reymond, but it is necessary to say to thegentleman that there are other men who have no sense of satisfactionwhatever in a crass explanation of the corporeal worldsuch as heconceives it."*It is the epoch-making achievement of Steiner to have p ointed outin contrast with all preceding views of Naturethat the previous divisionof the conception of the world into an objective part, which can begrasped only in a mathematical-mechanical fashion, and a subjectivepart, as this division has been made, has led to a complete distortionand falsification of th is conception of th e wo rld. T he reflections of th emore recent philosophers and scientists, he declares, " have led to thebelief that the external phenomena which produce sound in the ear,light in the eye, and heat in the organ of heat-perception have nothingin common with the experience of sound, light, heat, etc. On thecontrary, these external phenomena are supposed to be certain motionsof m atte r. So, the n, th e scientist seeks to discover what sorts of extern almotion-phenomena cause sound, light, heat, etc. to arise in the humansoul. He comes to the conclusion th a t, outside of the hum an organism,there exists nowhere in all space such a thing as red, yellow, or blue,but that there is only a vibratory motion of a fine elastic medium, theethe r, which, when experienced b y th e eye , manifests itself as red, yellow,or blue. The modern natural-scientist think s th at , were there noexperiencing eye, neither would there be any colour, but only ether inmotion. The ether, he think s, is som ething ob jec tive ; th e colour, merelysomething subjective produced in the human body."f

In opposition to this, Dr. Steiner maintains the following: " Anj 'one whose capacity to think has not been entirely destroyed by D escartes,I-ocke, Kant and the modern physiology will never be able to conceivehow one can consider light, colour, tone, heat as merely subjectivestates of the human organism and yet continue to maintain the existencef an objective world of phenom ena outside th e organism. W hoevermakes the human organism the creator of the occurrences known asone, heat , colour, etc. , mu st also consider th e organism as the producero t extension, ma ss, position, motion, forces, etc . Fo r these m athem atical^ d mechanical qualities are inseparably united with the other contentsthe world of experience. The sepa ration of the relationships ofP a ce, number, motion, as well as the manifestations of energy, from* E.G .N.S., p . 236. f E-G.N.S., p. 243.

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heat, tone, light, and other sensible qualities is purely a function cfabs t rac t though t . "* " The rein lies th e one-sidedness. A line is draw nthrough the midst of what is perceptible to the senses, and one part isexplained a s objective and the other as subjective. Th ere is bu t onelogical conclusion :If there are atoms, these are simply parts of matterwith the characterist ics of matter, and imperceptible to our senses onlybecause of their sm allness. B ut, the n, the re ceases to be an y possibilitythat we should find in the motion of the atoms something objectiveto set over against th e subjective qualities of colour, to ne , etc . An d the receases also to be the possibility of finding in the relationship betweenthe motion and the sensation of red, for example, anything more thanbetwe en two processes w hich belong who lly to the sense-world. I t is,therefore, obvious that motion of ether, position of atoms, etc. , belongon the sam e plane with sensations themselves. To explain th e lat teras subje ctive is only th e result of fau lty reflection. If we exp lain th esensible quali ty as subjective, we must do the same with the movementof the ether. We fail to perceive the loiter, not by reason of any principle,but only because our organs of perception are not organised delicately enough.But this is a mere chance circumstance. Humanity might conceivablyarrive, through the refining o f its sensibilities, at a point where mov emen ts ofether wou ld be directly perceptible. If, then, a man of that remote futureshould hold our subjective theory of sensation, he would have to explainmovements of ether as a lso subjective, as w e to-day do with colour, tone, etc."\Steiner now pro ves thi s in convinc ing fashion. Since th e scie ntists,he says, " cannot conceive motion apart from something that moves,they assume, as the bearer of the motion, matter void of quali t ies perceptible to the senses. W hoever is not caug ht by this prejudice of th ephysicists must perceive that the motion-phenomena are states boundup with the sense-perceived quali t ies. Th e conten t of the u nd ulato rymotions which correspond to the tone-occurrences consists of the verytone-q ualities them selve s. Th is is likewise true of th e oth er sense-qualities. We know th e co nte nt of th e oscillating mo tion in th e ph eno menal world through i ts becoming an immediate inner content , and notthrough any process of thinking from inner experiences to abstractmatter."J " When I direct my eye toward a red surface, then theexperience of red ente rs m y consciousness. In this experienc e, we m us tnow distinguish betw een beginning, du ratio n, an d end. Correspondingto the passing experience, there is supposed to be a continuing objectiveoccurrence which, as such, is likewise limited objectively in time : thatis , which has beginning, dura tion, and end . This occurrence, however.

* E.G.N.S., p. 244. t E-G.N.S-, p. 194.X E.G.N.S., p. 249.16


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is supposed to take place in matter that is without beginning or end,indestructible, in othe r words, eternal. Th is is supposed to be th e onlylasting element in the process of change, according to modem scientists."*Whereas Wundt says of matter that it is a substratum " which we cannever perceive in itself but only in its effects/' but that " we first arriveat an explanation free from contradictions when we postulate such asubstratum," Steiner, on th e c on trary , reaches th e conclusion that :" th e world perceived by the senses is th e summ ation of self-metamorphosing perceptions, "f " O n the othe r hand , there is something nonsensical in the concept of the characteristics which the hypotheticalmatter of the physicists and their philosophical defenders is supposedto possess. These qualities are borrowed from the sense-world and yetthey fall to the share of a substratum which does not belong to the sense-world/'J Th e severing of our world of perception into one pa rt quan titativ e and alone objective, which can be grasped only in a m athem atical-mechanical fashion, on the one hand, and another part qualitative andonly subjective, in the manner in which is done to-day, Steiner rejectsas purely arbitra ry, an d he proves this bj7 such an analysis of the processof perception as deprives of every appearance of justification the methodof consideration ch aracteris tic of this mater ialistic age. To follow himin detail at this point would take us too far afield.It is necessary here only to emphasize the fact that, when ether ismentioned in the following pages, we by no means refer at any time toa bearer of mechanical motion-processes or of any sort of changes inelectrical states, which is void of all non-measurable characteristics, but.on the con trary, one m ust always so conceive of ethe r tha t its natu re an daction may be indicated, not only in terms of number, measure, andcalculations, but also through qualities just as objectively conceivablebut which, in the last analysis always elude any kind of considerationand thought which can be reduced to merely mathematical concepts.Without this insight we shall never do justice to the realities of Nature.This we shall be able to indicate concretely in many spheres of natural

science.Lenard's first restriction of natural-scientific research to a con-eeption of the world capable of being held in a merely mechanical-quan titative manne r can therefore no t be accepted for th e views expressed01 the following pages, since such a conception contradicts flatly therealities of the world.But also the second demand made by Lenard, restriction to what isaccessible to the physical organ s, cann ot be ad m itted . Indeed , th e idea

* E.G.N.S., p. 208. f E.G.N.S.. p. 209. E.G.N.S., p. 250.17


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of the world held by the scientists themselves contradicts in all itsfundam entals this dema nd. For no physical sense has yet directlyperceived electrons, atoms, vibrations, and other hypothetical factorsin the natural-scientific conception of the world, since our physical sense-organs are not yet so organized as to be capable of perceiving ethervibrations, etc. When Professor Konig says in his treatise M DieMaterie " : " If, together with theoretical science, we look upon the atomor ether as the only reality, and consider bcdies perceptible to the sensesas mere phenomenal entities, we have already gone half-way over intothe realm of metaphysics,"* he therein admits directly that scienceitself does, as a matter of fact, commit constantly in its basic conceptsand hypotheses this supposedly fundamental error, which it would fainavoid, of passing beyond the limits of that which is perceptible to thesenses.We must make clear, then, first of all, what kinds of hypotheses arelegitimate and what kinds are not. Steiner saysf : " An hypothesis isan assumption made by us as to which we cannot convince ourselvesdirectly, but only by the way in which the hypothesis works. . . . A(legitimate) hypothesis can assume only that which I do not perceivebut which I should perceive if I could remove the external obstacles.An hypothesis, then, may certainly assume the not-perceived, but i tmust assume tha t which is possible of being perceived. E ve ry (legitimate)hypothesis is, therefore, of such a sort that its content may be directly

verified by future ex perience. Only hypotheses wh ich are capa ble ofceasing to be mere hypotheses are legitim ate." In this sense th e atom ichypothesis, the ether hypothesis, of modern natural science are illegitimate, since neither the "ether moved discontinuously in space andpenetrable " of Lenard, nor the ether of other investigators, nor thematter void of all characteristics perceptible to the senses, such as ishypothetically assumed in the contemporary conception of the world,can ever be perceived by our sense-organs.On the contrary, that ether which is to be set forth in the followingpages is both a legitimate " hypothesis " and also a reality subject to

proof. How is this ? Spiritual science, as given its determ inativedirection by Anthroposophy, teaches and proves that, in addition to thesense-organs of the physical body, man possesses in other departmentsof his being other potential organs which, when once awakened by thediscipline of spiritual science, are capable of perceiving and also investigating the facts of supersensible spiritual processes in a manner just asclearly conscious and real as that in which the physical organs perceive* Edmund Konig, Die Materie, Gottingen, 1911, p. 76.f E.G.N.S., p. 146.18


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the physical world. Re alities, the n, wh ich are th us open to th e capacitiesof perception that can be awakened in every man of our age may notonly be introduced into an hypothesis legit imate in the sense we haveexplained, but must be included just as exactly and methodically asresults of research among the data of our knowledge of Nature in thefuture as are the realities of the physical world as given to the sense-organs.

Now, ether especiallythat is, the sum to ta l o f e ther ic p rocesses -belongs ad m itte dly to a supersensible reality. T he future scien tistmay take either of two choices with reference to findings enunciated as aresu lt of rese arch in th e supe rsensib le :L He may assume these as hypotheses , as he has done with theconception of the atom and the ether, and may then observe whetherthese hypotheses are substantiated by their effects and their manifestations in th e physical world. As an hyp othe sis, the findings of supersensible investigations are not postulated differently for him from anyothe rs. H e will the n qu ickly observe th a t this hypothesissuch i twill still be to himoffers much more far-reaching possibilities thanother hypotheses for an entirely consistent explanation of the phenomenaof the physical sense-worldindeed, even for the understanding ofphenomena whose comprehension on the basis of previous hypotheseswas impossible : for exam ple, the life-processes. H e will see th us th a tthis hypothesis will withstand every reasonable scientific test.

2. Or he can, in the sense of the requirement stated above, ridhimself of the obstacles which prevent his perception cf the supersensibleworld, as explained in the writings of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, and he will bythis means attain to the possibil i ty of having the hypothesis of etherbecome the perception and knowledge of ether.The proper goal of scientific research in this field can naturally bereached solely in thi s la tte r w ay. E ve ry investigation of eth er willforever exhaust itself in still more complicated hypotheses, if it does

not advance to the point where the etheric is brought within man'sperce ptual and cognitional realm . Ind eed , being tru ly scientific consistsm this : th a t one should n ever decline to te st and pu t in its prop er p lacean y atta ina ble experien ce. W hoeve r, how ever, will no t himself ye tfollow this path of supersensible research, to him is given here anhypothesis , as we have said, whichif applied to the actualities of thesensible physical worldis bet ter adapted to the incontestible explana-1011 * these ph enom ena, a nd especially th e ph enom ena of life, tha n thecontradictory ether hypotheses of the most recent t imes, now becomingttore and more untenable.

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Chapter IFUNDAMENTALS OF A NEW THEORY OF MOTION

" Oh most wondrous r ighteousness of the primal Author of all motion ! "L E O N A R D O D A V I N C I .

I N order to form a clear conception of the essential nature of cosmicether, it is necessary, first of all, to come to a new conception of thena tur e of mo tion, into which all the phen om ena of N atur e a re ul tim ately reduced by the scientific research of recent centuries . Fo r inregard to the nature of ether and its relation to " motion," the views ofthe most recent investigators are altogether at variance with one anothereven in th e most elem entary and basic questions. While Lenard, thedistinguished investigator in this field, rejects the theory of an " ethercontinuous through space and m oved as a continuum " and wo uldsubstitute M ether moved not as a continuum in space," yet, on theother hand, immobility is just the one mechanical characteristic whichH. A. Lorentz would still attribute to ether; and, finally, according toEins tein, " th e whole change in th e conception of ethe r the the or y ofrelativity brought about, consisted in taking away its last mechanicalquality, namely, its im m obility."* As opposed to these, Lenard nowconceives, according to a rep ort, tw o ethe rs : one a t rest, a prim alether filling the whole cosmos, and another ether borne along bythe heaven ly bodies like the atm osphere. Th us we see th at in regardto the fundamental question, whether the ether, the ultimate somethingwhich lies at the basis of all phenomena, moves or does not move, the viewsof the most noted investigators are widely separated.

Therefore, we must first of all seek to establish clearly and fundamen tally the true natu re of motion in the natu ral world. In order totake as our point of departure something actual, which may be a partof the daily experience of every manalways the best standpoint fromwhich to approach such a problemlet us consider a motion-phenomenonof man's own body and originated by himself : for example, the raising* my arm . He re, first of all, thre e elements yield themselves toobservation.* Sidelights on Ether and Relativity, London, 1922, p. 11.

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1. An ego ; th a t is, something possessed of spi ritua l being w hichwills to raise the arm.2. A medium, which conducts the volition of the will to that whichis to movethe arm . T h at this must be present, and is not identicalwith the will, or the ego or the possible bearer of the ego, can be shown

by stimulating the appropriate nerve centre, through an influence introduced from without, whereupon the result will be, likewise, the motionof the arm.3. That which is movedthe arm . This alone can I perceive with

the physical senses.One who adheres to the modern quantitative-mechanical worldconception will say, however, at this point: The first element belongsto the field of metaphysics, and does not concern me ; the second is

presumptivelyan electric (or etheric) force ; the third is a " materialbody," which undergoes a change of place, a motion, that may bequantitatively-mechanically determined.Now, what conception or understanding of this indivisible entity,the motion of my arm, is possessed by the observer who restricts himselfto wh at is qu antitative-mech anical and perceptible to the senses ?Rea lly only one-third, so to speak, of th e tota lit y of facts which, how ever,only when all combined together comprise unitedly the reality "themotion of th e arm ." And this one-third is th e chan ge of place on thepa rt of a previously unmoved body . Although I can, in fact, gra spthis third, up to a certain point, in quantitative-mechanical fashion, yetmy thinking becomes false and arbitrary the moment that I undertaketo grasp in this way the second and the first third of the entity underobservationthat is, when I carry over my conception of motion, achange of place on the part of a body, into the remainder of thisphenomenon, which is not perceptible to the senses, and would understand this also as solely a change of place, quantitatively-mechanicallyexplicablethat is, as motion. Because th e physically perceptible time -and-space process of change of place on the p ar t of th e arm can bequantitatively-mechanically understood, modern science now seeks toexplain also in quantitative-m echan ical fashion th e fundam ental unde rlying electric-etheric process. And this brings us to the imp ortan tquestion which Dr. Rudolf Steiner has expressed as follows* : M Whetherthere does not lie at the basis of the various natural phenomena, light,he at, electricity, et c., one and th e same form of mo tion in th e eth er ?Hertz had already shown that the same law governs the propagationin space of the action of electricity and th a t of light. From this we m ay

Rudolf Steiner: E.G.N.S. , p . 230,22


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conclude that the waves which are the bearers of light lie also at thebasis of electricity. It h ad, indeed, already been assumed tha t in thespectrum of sunlight only one kind of wave motion is active, which willproduce the effects of heat, light, or chemical action according as it strikesreagents sensitive to hea t, light, or chemical action . But this is cleara p rio ri : When we seek to discover what happens in that which is extendedin space while the entities under consideration are being transmitted therein,we must conclude thai it is always a uniform motion. For a medium inwhich m otion alone is possible must react to everything by way of m otion.And all the kinds of transmission which it must perform will be carriedou t by w ay of motion. When, therefore, I seek to discover th e forms ofthis motion, then I shall not learn what the thing is which is transmitted,bu t only in w hat m anner it is conveyed to me . It is sheer nonsense tosay that heat and light are motion. Motion is merely the reaction ofmatter capable of motion to the action of heat and light.1'All, therefore, that we learn when we carry over the quantitative-mechanical me thod of observation into th e field of electric-ethericphenomena is always merely the reaction of the substance capable ofmotion to th e action of heat, light, tone , etc . The real na ture of theseentities, which consists, not only in motion, but also in other qualitiesnot perceptible to the physical senses, can never be learned by applyingto these entities mechanical- n.ithematical conceptions.

The physicist will, of course, say: " My measurements and observations show me that the measurable and calculable part of the motion-phenomenon in the propagation of sound can be represented by means ofcertain ma them atical equ ations. T he sta te of motion in th e mediumconveying the soundin this Case, essentially the airis determined bycertain quite definite numerical values of the constants found in theequations, and in such a manner, indeed, that a quite definite qualityof the tone conveyed is co-ordinate and indeed identical in significancewith each value of these constan ts. W hen th e numbers are given, thetone-state is kno w n." There can be no doubt tha t contemporary physics,in the sense of its ideal here expressed, considers the essential natu re oftone to be calculable because it believes that it has succeeded in thecase of a part of the tone-qualities in calculating and measuring them athem atical relationships and numerical values of th e con stants . B utthe assumption th at the tot ali ty of the tone-phenomenon mu st becalculable is merely an assumption based upon the wish to be able tocalculate everything everywhere in the world and then to read mechanically, from th e scheme thu s attain ed, wh at is occurring. Th e fruit ofthese acoustics is th e gramophone. One gets no nearer to th e real na tureof tone through calculating the state of motion of the tone-conveying

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can only read : A body which cannot of itself alter its state of motion iscalled inert."*

I must, therefore, distinguish between bodies which can of themselvesalter their s tate of motion, and those which cannot do this of themselves.And this brings us to one of the mo st essential dist inctions in N atu re :tha t be tween the organic an d the inorganic.

While inorganic Nature cannot of i tself al ter i ts s tate of motion,organic nature, on the other hand, by reason of i ts inherent possibil i t ies ,is able to do this of itself ; however much this capacity varies in themost widely separated degrees from men to plants, yet it actually residesalways in th a t which is organic. Now th a t which causes a carna tion, forexample, to grow always and absolutely from the seed of a carnation,and neve r any other p la nt whatsoever , tha t which induces th is m ovem entof growth, is not something which I introduce from without into theseed bu t som ething which resides within i t by i ts own na tu re . Th eobjection may be raised that the seed must be buried in the earth inord er to become a carn ation a nd do es, therefore, require a pu sh fromw itho ut. Such a tho ug ht, however, would be false, for " I cannot say,this influence from without produces this effect, but only that to thisdefinite influence from without the inner active principle responds in thisdefinite fashion. W hat happens is the result of an inner conformity tolaw."\ Whatever may be the character of the external s t imulus , theinner active principle in the seed of a carnation will, if it works at all,respond always only w ith a car natio n. W hen Haeckel wro te in referenceto a similar process in the lower orders of the animal kingdom : " In t h ecase of more th a n four thou san d species of radiolaria wh ich I hav edescribed, every single species is distinguished *by a special form ofskeleton ; th e pr odu ction of th is specific sk eleton , often of a high lyevolved form, b y m eans of a cell of extr em ely simple form (generallyglobular) is intelligible only when we ascribe to the formative plasmathe cap acity of forming a co nce pt," in such a state m ent Ha eckel m aybe going, perhaps, beyond due bounds because of at tachment to hisown theory, yet he was forced to assume in the primitive globular cellan inner active principle of its being which first manifests itself in the .completely developed animal, and which, in so far as it expresses itselfin the movement of growth, belongs to that extent to the category ofmo tion-phenomen a, l ike an y othe r sor t of m otion. In th e case of allthese phenom ena, we have to do every t im e w ith a thorou ghly objectiveset of facts , which, when we would comprehend them as merely quanti tat ive-mechanical motion-phenomena, we thereby immediately fail tograsp in the innermost essence of their being.

* E.G.N.S., p. 204. f E.G.N.S., p. 143.25


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If I assume a formative power in the seed or in the primitive germ-cell, the n I m ust also conceive thi s power as being unite d w ith th e " i d ea , "with the '* will," to become a carnationor to become the animal inquestionjust as with the capacity for motion and change of motion.The former cannot be separated from the lat ter by any arbitrariness oftho ug ht. This is th e case in all organ ic processesthat is, universallywherever there is " life " ; and, if modern science continues to place therestriction upon itself of understanding nature only mechanically andquanti tat ively, then i t must restrict i tself to the investigation of thelifeless, of the mine ral. F or this such a world-concep tion is supposedto sufficebut even for this it does not really suffice, as we shall latershow. So th a t even Lenard, although he holds to the atomic andmechanical concep tion of th e world as being indispensable for m odernnatural sciences, is forced to confess : " When, however, tens of thousandsand hundreds of thousands of atoms form a molecule, so that this is ahighly complex little w orld in itself, as for instanc e it m ust be in a moleculeof protoplasm, the molecules may then enclose within themselves thatwhich we call spir it. Th ey th en becom e th e bea rers of th e wonderfulphenom ena of life, w hich the scientist of our day, with his conceptionswhich in other ways serve him so marvellously, is entirely unable to explain,"

B ut does no t, th en , th e restriction of our world conce ption to th a twhich is mechanical-quanti tat ive and perceptible to the senses involvealso restricting ourselves to agnosticism, to ignorabimus, for ever ?

And are there, after al l , anywhere in Nature motion-phenomenawhich, when explained consistently on the basis of the quanti tat ive-m echanical view, can b e fully c om prehend ed ? " Since, without theexistence of forces, the p ar ts of hyp oth etic al m at te r w ould ne ver beginto mov e, therefore th e modern na tural-scientists assume force also asone of the elements by means of which they explain the world, andD u Bois Reym ond sa ys : ' Th e und erstan ding of N atur e consists inreducing changes in the corporeal world to motions of atoms, broughtabout by their central forces independent of t ime : or, in other words,the resolution of the phenomena of Nature into the mechanics of atoms. 'Through the introduction of the concept of force, mathematics goes overin to mechanics ."*

In every motion, therefore, according to this conception, there isan expression of a force. Bu t, in th a t case, every mo tion-phenome nonha s also two asp ects. In so far as it is perce ptible to m y senses, I canup to a certain point conceive it qua n t i t a t ive ly ; but, in so far as it isthe operation of force, I can neither perceive i t through the physicalsenses nor determine i t fully through quanti tat ive measurement, s ince

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I can never measure force in itself but always only in its physical effects.But, then, do force and motion stand in relationship to each other onlyas ca use an d effect ?

Th ey do no t. In every mo tion-phenom enon, we have to do withthe following indivisible totality:That which is moved, which weperceive in the phe nom enal world ; thro ugh this we become aware , atthe same t ime, of something not perceptible to our sensesa force ?,wh ich expresses or ma nifests itself in th a t which is mo ved. Th e entir ephenomenonin the case, for example, of a man who moves his armis clearly linked up with phen om ena of consciousness. Now , as manis a single indivisible entity, I learn nothing essential in regard tothe motion of an arm if I only establish quantitatively the change ofplace on the part of the " materia l " a r m ; what I thus learn has to doonly with the nature of the motion cf a lifeless arm, which, however,would not of itself have performed this movement! I can, therefore,understand the nature of this motion-phenomenon as a whole only whenI view tha t which is moved an d the action of th e force the re manifestedl inked up with phenomena of consciousnessas a uni ty , and notarb itrarily separ ate thes e. If I divide this un ity by considering alonethe process which is quantitative and perceptible to the senses, I not onlyseparate cause and effect, but I part from one another real Being andphenom enon. Since the phenom enon is only an externalization in aform perceptible to the physical senses of the spiri tual enti ty therecoining to expression, of the real Beingthat is, of a n individua l rea lityand is not to be separated from this Being, therefore when I consideralone the quanti tat ive, measurable process I am dealing with an unreali tyin the fullest sense of the term.

Is it otherwise in th e case of an im al, plan t, a nd m ineral ?We can readily take the right at t i tude toward this question if at

this point we divide into the following categories the totality of motion-phenomena occurring in the world.1. M otions in which there comes to clear manifestation the action of aself-conscious being, the bearer of a will (for example, a man who willsto move his arm and carries out this volition).

2 . Motions whose ultimate inducing cause is still unknown to thesciences of our tim e : motions w hich a re no t produced b y a m an or no tsubject to his will ;(a) in the organic world,(b ) in the inorganic world.We can, therefore, divide the totality of motion-phenomena in thecosmos into those in regard to which we can know directly through the perception of our physical senses the being from whose u will " they have taken

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their origin (for example, man) : and those motion-phenomena in the caseof which the primary stimulus to motion escapes our view ; that is, thosein the case of which we do not know the being out of whose will the motiontook its origin.

If w e conceive of lifethat is, of the expressions of life in the organicworld*as a to tal i ty of self-metamo rphosing m otion-phenom ena (motionof grow th, mo tion of m etabolism . . . ) , th en he who is determ inedat all costs to understand the world mechanically takes upon himself thetask, already shown to be impossible, of understanding as mere mechanicsth e phe nom ena of l ife. H e mu st either resign himself a nd give u p a nyunderstanding, or else he must say to himself that in the inner activeprinciple which always causes the seed of a carnation to become a carnation a "will to become a carnat ion" f inds expression,a will which Isimply cannot measure, weigh, or define by other mechanical means.But th i s " will to become a carna t ion , " which brings the being of thecarnat ion over into the phenomenal world, is inseparably l inked as anat t r ibute to the inner act ive principle, that force-complex, throughwhich the seed of the carnation grows into a carnation,that, therefore,which causes and determines the ent i re motion-phenomenon, bothqua nt i tat ive ly an d also qual i tat ively. As we have already said, th eforces of the surrounding soil are certainly helpers in this process, butthe individual impulse, th a t of becoming a carnat ion, is som ethingwhich resides only within the seed of the carnation, andunless we areto believe the absurd and naive theory of preformationis to be understood only when we view the force-complex residing in all seeds of carnations (etheric force-complex, we shall see) together with the '* will tobecome a carnat ion " as the spir i tual at t r ibute inseparably l inked to theseed. (We shall ta k e u p th is process in conc rete fashion in connectionwith our discussion of Mendelism, etc., Chap. XI.)

Y et an essential difference distinguishe s this so rt of m otion, ofcourse, from thos e considered in connection w ith m an . T he ind ividualwill of my own ego occasions the motion of my arm, producing themotion by m eans of the m aterial body, the a rm, through t he m edium ofth e electric-etheric forces residing in m y organism . In th e case of plants,,however, a group-will controls, a will which induces in a multi tude, agro up, of bodies of a sim ilar kin d a l ike motion-phenomenon : th e motionof growing into carnations, and this l ikewise through the medium of(etheric) forces. As we sha ll lat er see (Chap s. I l l and XI) , this act ofwill is no t free, as in th e case of ma n, bu t th e ac tivity of th e earthorganism is l inked with i t in a causal way; yet i t is not determined inits individuality, in the character of i ts being, by the earth organismotherwise all plants would be alikebut is influenced in its own action28

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on ly as to local modifications, and as to poin t of time , etc . W e shallobserve this action in detail in connection w ith a discussion of th ephen om ena of the force-currents of ea rth and atm osph ere. T ha t riddle ofthe ascent of water in plants during the spring will then be possible ofinterpretation on the basis of this reciprocal play cf etheric forces inplants and the earth organism.

We have, then, in the case Gf man, seen the individual voli t ion ascause and as accom panying ph enom enon of th e action of electric-ethericforce, and thus as inducing cause of a motion-phenomenon in substance(the arm) ; but in the case of .the plant, we have seen the group-will asuniform inducing cause of a motion-phenomenon, l ikewise wroughtthrough etheric forcesthat is , of the movement of growth.

In considering motion-phenomena in the inorganic as a whole,which to superficial observation app ea r most readily unde rstood, wemust, nevertheless, by means of more exact investigation, penetrate asfar as possible tow ard the ult ima te cause of such m otions. For, whe reasmovement carried out or induced by the will of a man brings directlybefore our eyes the inducing cause of this movement in the humanindividual, and while, in the case of organic Nature, we can observethough chiefly in individual instances of its effect in the phenomenalworldthat inner principle of action which expresses itself in the growth,etc. , we come in the case of the movements of the inorganicthose n o tinduced by human willupon t h a t " regressus ad infinitum," which findsits expression in the second of the seven world riddles enumerated bythe dist inguished natural-scientist Du Bois Reymond in bis " Grenzender Naturerkenn tn is " : The question of the primal cause of all motion I

For, if we have already distinguished between such bodies as canof them selves alter thei r s tat e of motion (the organic) and such as c ann otdo this (the inorganic), then, in the case of the latter, if we would discoverthe ultimate first cause of a movement, we must simply follow back the" regressus ad infinitum " to th e ve ry beginning of th e world. Fo r theflowing water of a brook, a stone rolling down hill, tending toward thecentra l poin t cf the e ar th, th e wind wh ich moves the leaves, etc. , etc. ,all these are only part ial expressions of phenomena of the atmosphere,of atmospheric electrici ty, of meteorology, of earth magnetism, etc. ,and these phenomena are in turn only part ia l movements in the to tal i tyof th e life-process of th e ea rt h organ ism . B ut th is life-process, to o, inall its phenomena of lifethat is, in everything which is life and motion,not death and immobilityis induced here by the sun, as the science ofour da y shows. If one continu es logically and asks then a bo ut th einduc ing cau se of the s un m otion s, he conies at once to the question of th eprimal origin of motionand as to this we will briefly explain our view.

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Modern natural science wrongly places at the beginning of all thathappens in the cosmos the primal nebula, according to the modifiedKant-Laplace th eo ry ; and at th e end, the heat-death of the entirecosmos, that vast graveyard, into which the scientist, thinking out hislaw of entropy bravely and logically to the end, allows the world tosubside. Between primal nebula and hea t-dea th, according to th e viewof modern science, lies all that play which com prises the becoming and thepassing away of universe, earth, and man.The great physicist and discoverer, Professor W. Nernst, says inhis work " Das Weltgebaude im Lichte der neueren Forschung,"* p. 13;' ' Neither Kant nor Laplace could have realized that their theories of theformation of the world necessarily pre-supposed a limited duration of allevents ; otherwise th ey themselves would certainly have denied theuniversal app licability of the ir views. I t remained for th e evolution ofthe theor3 r of heat,w ith th a t sort of assurance which applies to th e universein general a conclusion drawn from the laboratory, to draw the conclusionmentioned aboveone certainly unplea sant in the highest degree. I twas th e famous English physicist Lord K elvin who first pointed ou tthat, according to the theory of heat set up by Carnot and Clausius, thewhole store of force in the world would gradually but surely be metamorphosed into heat, and that just as certainly all existing heat wouldcome to the same tem perature . But the world is thereby doomed toeternal rest. The application of the theo ry of heatthe most universaland reliable of all the theories we possessto the Kant-Laplace ideascauses the gruesome thought to appear in the background of our mindsthat the world is striving to bring itself to the state of an eternal graveyard . This is generally expressed by saying th a t the universe isunescapably doomed to a he at-d ea th." And all who possess religiousfeeling and who seek for a meaning in human life will sympathize withProfessor Nernst as he relates how he reacted as a student to the introduction of this terrible deduction of modern science by a professor ofth e Vienna Academy in his inaugural lecture. " H e remarked, am ongother things, that all endeavours to save the universe from the heat-de ath had been futile, and th a t he also would mak e no such effort. Th ispassage, which I read as a student, made the deepest impression on me,and my attention has ever since been directed to the matter, to discoverwhether some way of escape might not appear."

We also ask, therefore : Where is the weak spot in this structure ofthe ory ? Dr. Rudolf Steiner answers thi s question in th e followingpicture :When the teacher would make clear to the school children the origin

B e r l i n , 1921.30


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of th e wo rld-system and i ts m otions, according to th e K ant-L apla cetheory of the world, he performs this by means of a drop of oil, floatingupon water , whichwhen set in rotation-throws off tiny particles of oil,wh ich, ro tat ing in tu rn , circle rou nd th e cen tral drop of oil. B ut inconnection with this l i t t le world-system he forgets always to mentionthe ultimate essential of the whole process, and the failure to mentionthis is the weak spot in the mechanical idea of the world on the grandscale. T h a t is, he forgets to call th e atten tion of th e children to the factt h a t hethe teacherhas all the time by his own will been whirlingth e ce ntra l oil dro p. If he had not done this , his little world systemwould either never have come into existence or else would come to asta te of rest . Moreover, even thoug h he continues to whirl th e c entraloil drop, the other oil drops do not continue for that duration in motion.And so he generally forgets himself, the most important factor in thewhole process. H e has set the cen tral oil drop in motion, he keeps it inmotion, and, if he wishes to keep his little world system as a whole incontinuous motion, he must not only continue the whirl ing motion of thecen tral drop, but he mu st so m ultiply himself t h a t there shall be conn ectedwith each of the separated oil drops one " who whirls " : th a t is , wh okeeps them in s teady motion.

B ut jus t such a blunde r we make in the mechanical idea of th eworld belonging to m odern nat ur al science. Th is is often no t only acertain forgetfulness, bu t also concealed indolence. Fo r th e m echa nicalidea of the world becomes endlessly complicated if I am required todemonstrate not only that something moves and how it moves (this isreally never the main problem of science but merely its working tools),but also in dealing with a motion-phenomenonthat is, if I am to understand it, not merely piecemeal and falsely, but rightly and as a wholem ust also answer th is question : Thro ugh w ha t operative principle isthis motion induced ? What will gave the initial push resulting in thismotion, and with wha t phenom ena of consciousness is this act o f willunited ?

If we are dealing, for example, with the fact of the setting in motionof the primal nebula, out of which our cosmos is supposed to have comeinto existence, and if we do not play the part of an ostrich, but admitwith logically exact thought the fact that at the basis of this first motionthere must have been an impulse of will, or a multitude of such impulses,and that these expressions of will were also undoubtedly l inked upwith phenomena of consciousness, into which we cannot, of course,think ourselves with our present normal objective consciousness, then atwofold que stion is forced up on us :

1. With wha t phenom ena of consciousness are even yet linked up31


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those operations of force in the cosmos and the motion-phenomena inducedby them w hich do not receive their initial impulse from a human ego ?

2. Are there scientifically exact methods for the investigation of otherstates of consciousness than that of the normal objective human consciousnessof our century ?

The answer to the first question leads to a complete revolution inth e mechanical stu dy of N atu re characterist ic of our t im e, a me tho dderiving from the theory of " the l imitat ion of th e knowledge of Na tur e "that is, i t brings us to a science of Nature which considers not onlythe phenomenal world wi th i t s phenomena of mot ion, which as suchcan no t be und erstoo d at all, b ut also includes in the scope of its resea rchthe real being of things which come to Irving expression in the phenomena l world,a science of Nature which str ives to know and to understand the spiri tual , the real , that which comes to act ive l iving expressionin the working, weaving world of forces.For such an inquiry into the world, the best guide and surest m eansof knowledge is the world ether, the etheric.

For such an inquiry, the " spirit " is not something which can be" imprisoned " within a molecule of protoplasm, oras modern scientificmaterialism supposessomething which has first come into existenceou t of the world of sub stance . On the con trary, for such an inq uiry,the spiri t is primary, and the metamorphosing moving substance issecondarycreated, maintained, shaped, and evolved by the spiri t , asone of i ts manifestat ions, i ts phenomenal form, which i t can and wil lagain dissolve, when the spirit , as active principle working in substance,shall have brought this from the imperfect to the perfect .

The sp iritual, the real, is a lso continuously now the ultima te cause ofall mo tion: that is, of all life in the cosmos.

Fo r suc h an inq uiry into th e world, there is no ab stra ct creat ionof a primal nebula set in motion in a manner impossible to conceive,bu t , on the other hand , the involution and evolution of a spiri tual act iv i tyin the world of substance ; a spiritual, a real, however, which was presentbefore there was substance, and will persist after the end of substance(see also pp. 105-115).The second quest ion stated above, in regard to the development ofa human capacity to perceive this world, has been answered in thenum erous writings of D r. Rudolf Steiner in which the way is shownwhereby , th rough the most exact methods, human inquiry concerningthe physically perceptible, and as such unintelligible, world of substance

can be exten ded bey ond into a direct supersensible view, clearly conscious, of the forces working in this world, the forces of the etheric,and of the spiri tual therewith united.32


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manifestations of force in the phenomenal world, is linked up with phenom ena of con sciousness to which we ourselv es are alive, since , no t only doesthe spiritual as objective active world-principle manifest i tself in man,but man himself is a separated part of this objective active world principle. " Freedom," therefore, belongs to him alone, in contrast withthe rest of the realms of Nature given to our perception, since the restof Nature is only an object of this spiritual activity.Nevertheless, a spiritual, supersensible, rules in all the phenomenaof Nature,in th e will of t he m an who m oves his arm, in th e control lingactive principle in the seed as " will to become a ca rna tion ," in th e fallingstone as " will to carry it to the centre of the earth " ; in the contentof all these perceptions the real comes to living expression in thephenomenal .

In opposition to those who have proclaimed with premature satisfaction the purely mechanical idea of the world, a few great investigatorshave from tim e to tim e poin ted warning ly to th e wea k spo t in thisme chanical idea of th e world so dog m atically asse rted. T hu s in referenceto the science of the inorganic the famous physicist Nernst, in hisendeavour to explain the process of chemical changes in substanceson the basis of the physical forces working in these, has been forcedto resign himself to this d eclaration * : " T h e final aim of the doctrineof affinity must be to ascribe the causes of material changes to wellinvestigated physical phen om ena. Th e question of the natur e cf th eforces which come into play in the chemical union or decompositionof substances was discussed long before a scientific chemistry existed.Th e Greek philosophers them selves spoke of th e ' love and ha te ' ofatoms as the causes of the changes of matter ; and our knowledge of thena ture of chemical forces had n ot ad vance d very m uch until quite recently.We retained anthropomorphic views like the ancients, changing thenames only, and seeking the cause of chemical changes in the changingaffinity of the a t o ms . "

So far goes th e physicist and discoverer Ne rns t, As to the scienceof the organic, the investigator of organisms, Oskar Hertwig, in his comprehensive book " Das Werden der Organismen/'f sketches the followingpicture : " Laplace imagined a mind capable of analyzing the wholeworld-process into th e m otions of masses m utu ally attr ac tin g an d repellingone another, of exp

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