Mystery of the Universe E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

The ancient mystery saying called on the human being to 'Know Yourself!' Rudolf Steiner explains that this maxim is not asking us to study subjectively our own personal character, but rather to come to a knowledge of our true, archetypal human nature - and with it the position we occupy in the universe. In these eloquent lectures - formerly published as Man, Hieroglyph of the Universe - Rudolf Steiner speaks of the human being as the model of creation, the primary focus of the cosmos. In an extensive exposition he talks of the constellation of cosmic forces, zodiac and planets amongst which we find ourselves situated. Only a true knowledge of our human nature and the spiritual forces which surround us - the microcosm within the greater macrocosm - can enable humanity to progress, he says. This book is an important contribution to that goal: the development of a contemporary spiritual science of the human being.

Leseprobe

MYSTERY OF THE UNIVERSE

MYSTERY OF THE UNIVERSE

The Human Being, Image of Creation

Sixteen lectures given in Dornach, Switzerland, between 9 April and 16 May 1920

RUDOLF STEINER

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

Translated by George and Mary Adams. Revised by Matthew Barton

Rudolf Steiner Press Hillside House, The Square, Forest Row, RH18 5 ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2013

First published in English as Man: Hieroglyph of the Universe by Rudolf Steiner Press 1972

Originally published in German under the title Entsprechungen zwischen Mikrokosmos und Makrokosmos, Der Mensch—eine Hieroglyphe des Weltenalls (volume 201 in the Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. This authorized translation is published by kind permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

Translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2001

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 85584 434 6

Cover illustration by Anne Stockton. Cover design by Andrew Morgan Typeset by DP Photosetting, Aylesbury, Bucks.

Contents

Introduction by Gilbert Childs

Lecture 1, 9 April, 1920

Natural necessity and human freedom. Abstract dimensions of space. Concrete planes of thinking, feeling and willing in man.

Lecture 2, 10 April, 1920

Polarity between head and the rest of the body. Metamorphosis and reincarnation. Abstraction and Imagination.

Lecture 3, 11 April, 1920

The three cosmic planes and the zodiac. Nature and freedom. Yearly rhythm and seven-year periods. The second dentition. Heart and blood circulation.

Lecture 4, 16 April, 1920

Three worlds: the world of the senses, of respiration, and of metabolism. The Platonic Year. Nutation periods and their reflection in the life of soul. Antithesis of cosmic ether and earthly matter. Sun and moon, Christ and Jehovah.

Lecture 5, 17 April, 1920

Man's astral body and the zodiac. Unconscious bodily processes. Four spheres: complete form, internal motion, organic activity, assimilation.

Lecture 6, 18 April, 1920

Cosmic evolution. Metabolism. Organic forces. Movements of sun, earth and planets. The Platonic Year. Human freedom.

Lecture 7, 23 April, 1920

Goethe and his theory of colours. After-effect and memory. Metamorphosis and reincarnation. Day, week, year. Second dentition. The principle of ‘inside out reversal’.

Lecture 8, 24 April, 1920

Body, soul, spirit and their relation to earth, planets and fixed stars. Materialism. Matter, ether and astrality. Man and animal. Theories of relativity.

Lecture 9, 25 April, 1920

Waking life and sleep. ‘Upper’ and ‘lower’ in man and in the cosmos. Hands and feet. Materialism and knowledge of the spirit. The Mystery of Golgotha.

Lecture 10, 1 May, 1920

Ideation (or thought) and will. The nervous system. Digestion. Copernicus. Jehovah and Lucifer. Sleeping and waking.

Lecture 11, 2 May, 1920

Day and year. Summer and winter. Rotations of the planets. The path of the planetary system. Dimensions and cosmic space.

Lecture 12, 8 May, 1920

Science and belief. Paganism and Christianity. Rotations of the moon. Human memory. Solar astronomy and lunar astronomy.

Lecture 13, 9 May, 1920

Man and the elements of earth and water. Egyptian astronomy. The Sun Mystery. Materialism and Christianity. Darwinism. The cosmic significance of the Christ.

Lecture 14, 14 May, 1920

Natural science and Christianity. Conservation of energy. Annihilation of substance. Sun, moon, fixed stars and their astronomical paths. Jehovah and Lucifer. Saros periods.

Lecture 15, 15 May, 1920

Evolution and degeneration. Materialism of the modern age. Ancient Isis-wisdom. Light and air. Man as microcosm. Blood circulation. Earth, planets and fixed stars. Nervous system and brain. Negative matter of the sun.

Lecture 16, 16 May, 1920

Oriental and western conceptions of the universe. The nature of heat. Pure thought. Polarity of Grail knighthood and Parsifal. Annihilation of matter and liberation of the spirit. The Christ impulse and the cosmic future of mankind.

Publisher's Note

Introduction

This series of lectures rates among the most significant and profound that Rudolf Steiner ever gave. It ranks in terms of reader enlivenment—exhilaration even—with Harmony of the Creative Word, representing as it does a veritable score for the Music of the Spheres and the harmonies of the heavenly choirs. At the same time it sets out with mathematical exactness the astronomical and other relevant details which reveal the structures that sustain the entire universe. Here is genuine harmony between spiritual science proper and a material science shorn of misconceptions and misinterpretations of the facts. These findings bear Steiner's unique stamp of transparent authenticity and crystal clarity. Once, twice or even thrice read, it will not fail to enthral.

The original title for it, Kosmologische Betrachtungen, is translatable into English as Cosmological Reflections, which hints at something of a play on words, for they not only call for earnest contemplation in terms of close application and study in view of their penetratingly thought-provoking character, but also refer to the complementary relationships between the human being as microcosm and the universe as macrocosm in a straightforwardly literal manner. Their very importance may well give reason for the fact that these 16 lectures were delivered over a period of six successive weekends, thus providing optimal opportunity for individuals to attend them.

They discuss in broad as well as particular terms the significance of the various dimensions within the natural order, and the relations of human beings, animals and plants with directions in space. Set out in fine detail are the various rhythmical rotatory, orbital and other gestures of the celestial bodies, and how these are reflected in the various life-forms to be found on the earth, particularly where the complexities of human nature and existence are concerned. In all the revelations and insights that Rudolf Steiner gives in these lectures, the rules of scientific investigation and presentation are clearly discernible, as are the laws and principles which must feature in all types of systematic enquiry.

The main theme pervading throughout may be expressed in his often reiterated statement that human beings can find absolutely nothing in the universe unless they find it in themselves first, and vice versa. Every part has its counterpart and every poise its counterpoise, for absolute balance must be maintained. Again and again Steiner echoes the Hermetic maxim ‘As above, so below; as below, so above’, which he further augments with ‘As within, so without; as without, so within’. These concepts, which he deals with convincingly, are based on the demonstrable fact that at all times and in all circumstances spirit is anterior to matter, and matter posterior to spirit. In other words, spirit is unremittingly and without exception the dynamic agent to which matter is passively patient, which fundamental law is applicable within both realms.

Steiner averred that anthroposophy is rooted in cosmosophy, and has developed out of it; hence it must be so that knowledge of the one is knowledge of the other. Therefore, as human beings are primarily spiritual in nature, and only secondarily beings of matter, there can be no incompatibilities or disparities. In reality, we are not children of the earth but children of the heavens; we have descended from and been fashioned by cosmic powers, and made manifest from the earth beneath our feet. In overall terms, we are mere sojourners on the earth, which represents a lodging rather than a home. These lectures of Rudolf Steiner have, in typically straightforward fashion, enriched material as well as spiritual science. He has made an exceptionally important contribution to our appreciation of the fact that law and order rule in both the heavenly spiritual and earthly material worlds. The Greek word kosmos can mean not only ‘world’ or ‘universe’—and this directly on account of its ‘perfect arrangement’—but also ‘order’ as antithetic to ‘chaos’. Moreover, since the laws and ordinances of the creative spiritual powers are utterly moral, it follows that natural laws must likewise show consistency and uniformity, and lack any tendency to ‘lie’ or deviate to any significant extent. Everything, whether material and manifest or spiritual and unmanifest must, in terms of the Whole, be co-existent, parallel and complementary.

We should always bear in mind Steiner's assertion that humanity truly belongs to the spiritual hierarchies, as the tenth, as Spirits of Love and Freedom. During our early stages of evolution we existed under the auspices of these exalted beings, having no choice but to accept circumstances as they were at any one time. We human beings, alone among the higher hierarchies from whom we have descended, are gradually maturing, however distant the goal, towards the accomplishment of our own impulses, fulfilment of our own destiny, and attainment of our own ideals. Stage by stage, we have as microcosms evolved from out of the macrocosm, from the time when the Gods thought and willed in us to that when we acquired an intelligence and free will of our own. For this to come about the severing of links with our divine origins in the purely spiritual realms was inevitable. In effect, human consciousness has evolved from a state of extensive apprehension of the spiritual world combined with limited awareness of the material world to limited awareness of the supersensible world but extensive understanding of the material world. During this lengthy process we acquired our present individual intelligence and free will.

However, living as we do in a world that has necessarily become materialistic through and through, we find ourselves participants in Archangel Michael's battle against retrogressive powers and devices. In so many areas of science, including cosmogony and evolution, orthodoxy rules. We have surrounded ourselves with mechanical contrivances of every kind, particularly electronic apparatus which belong to the ‘sub-natural’ realms, and which have become an indispensable part of modern life. Moreover, information technology is evolving from the status of servant to that of master. How easy it is to be taken in by simulated ‘virtual reality’ television programmes, and to hear in the name of science, instead of tentative or provisional propositions being offered for consideration, seemingly unchallengeable and unarguable statements and assertions being confidently and persuasively presented, complete with impressive ‘visual aids’, by experts exuding self-assurance and aplomb. Irritating as this kind of presumptuousness may be for many people, students of spiritual science have a virtually impossible task in refuting whatever notions, of various degrees of feasibility, proffered so blatantly as fact by such ‘authorities’.

Rudolf Steiner asserted that the study of natural science outside mankind must be underpinned by an understanding of human nature. It is self-evident that complete harmony between these two principles must obtain, for their inception is easily traceable to a common source. But all materialists are isolationists, for it is their trade to compartmentalize everything, to deal in analysis rather than synthesis, parts rather than wholes. There are of course many points of contact between material science and spiritual science, and a good example of this, and of particular interest to many people, especially in our outer-space-conscious times, and one which is relevant within the present context, is that of the lemnis-catory passage of our whole solar system through cosmic space. These lectures deal with this important topic at some length, and it may well be that the time is ripe for bringing the whole matter to the attention of contemporary scientists and other interested thinkers in vigorous and authoritative terms. During the conference with teachers of the first Steiner Waldorf School in Stuttgart on 25 September 1919 this matter was brought up and discussed. Rudolf Steiner observed that if the third law of Copernicus was invoked as well as the first two, ‘it would be child's play to show up today's teaching as humbug’.

Be that as it may, he affirmed that there is indeed light at the end of the materialist tunnel, arguing that sooner or later orthodox scientists will be faced with riddles that can only be solved by taking the spiritual into account. Steiner repeatedly emphasized that supersensibly acquired knowledge is in complete and necessary agreement with that gained from the world of the senses. This cannot be otherwise; if to the ‘half-reality’ of sense-perception is added the complementary ‘half-reality’ of supersensible perception, the result can only be the apprehension of complete and absolute reality.

Gilbert Childs

April 2001

Lecture 1

Today I shall try to give a wider view of a subject already often touched upon. I have frequently pointed out how moral and intellectual conceptions diverge for modern man. On the one hand we are brought, through intellectual thinking, to recognition of the iron necessity of nature. In accordance with this necessity we see everything in nature under the law of cause and effect. And we ask also, when man performs an action: what has caused it, what is the inner or outer cause? This recognition of the inevitable necessity of all that occurs has in modern times acquired a more scientific character. In earlier times it had a more theological character, and still has for many people. It takes on a scientific character when we believe that what we do is dependent on our bodily constitution and on the influences that work upon it. There are still many people who think that man acts just as inevitably as a stone falls to the ground. There you have the natural scientific colouring of the necessity concept. The view of those more inclined to theology might be described as follows: everything is pre-ordained by some kind of divine power or providence and man must carry out what is predestined by that divine power. Thus on the one hand we have the necessity of natural science, and on the other absolute divine prescience. In neither case can one speak of human freedom at all.

Over against this stands the whole moral world. Man feels of this world that he cannot so much as speak of it without postulating free will; for if he has no possibility of free voluntary choice, he cannot speak of a morality of human action. He does however feel responsibility, he feels moral impulses; he must therefore recognize a moral world. I have mentioned before how the impossibility of building a bridge between the two, between the world of necessity and the world of morals, led Kant to write two critiques, the Critique of Pure Reason in which he applies himself to investigating the nature of simple necessity, and the Critique of Applied Reason in which he enquires into what belongs to the moral universe. Then he felt compelled to write also a Critique of Judgment which was intended as an intermediary between the two, but which ended in being no more than a compromise, and approached reality only when it turned to the world of beauty, the world of artistic creation. This goes to show how we have the world of necessity on the one hand and on the other the world of free moral action, but cannot find anything to unite the two except the world of artistic semblance, where—let us say, in sculpture or in painting—we appear to be picturing what comes from natural necessity, but impart to it something which is free from necessity, thus giving it the appearance of being free in necessity.

The truth is that we are unable to build a bridge between the world of necessity and the world of freedom unless we find the way through spiritual science. Spiritual science, however, can only be developed by fulfilling the aphorism which won respect centuries ago, the Greek saying of Apollo: ‘Know thyself.’ Now this admonition, which does not mean burrowing into one's own subjectivity but implies a knowledge of the whole being of man and the position he occupies in the universe, is a search that must find a place in our whole spiritual movement, through spiritual science.

From this point of view we may really say that our anthroposophical spiritual movement has in the last few days begun to show clearly to the spiritual life of humanity how we must seek to illuminate and imbue modern thinking with a knowledge of man; for it is a fact that this knowledge of man has largely been lost in modern times. This was our aim in the course of lectures that has just been held for doctors, where an initial attempt was made to throw positive light upon matters with which medical science has to concern itself.* In the series of lectures given by our friends and myself, we tried to show the right relationship between the individual sciences and what they can receive from spiritual science. It would be very good indeed for a strong consciousness of the need for such attempts to live within our movement; for if we are to succeed it is absolutely necessary to make clear to the outer world—in a sense, to compel it to understand—that here no kind of superficiality prevails in any domain, but rather an earnest striving for real knowledge. This is often prevented by the way in which things reach the public from our own circles, so that it is supposed, or may easily be maliciously suggested, that all kinds of sectarianism and dilettantism are at work here. It is for us to increasingly convince the outer world how earnest is the striving underlying all that this building represents. Such attempts as we made over the last few weeks must be carried further by the forces of the whole anthroposophical movement; for we have now made a beginning with a true knowledge of man which must form the foundation of all true spiritual culture. It is true to say that from the middle of the fifteenth century man's previous concrete relation to the world has been growing more and more filtered, one may say, and abstract. In olden times, through atavistic clairvoyance man knew much more of himself than he does today, for since the middle of the [nineteenth] century intellectualism has spread over the whole of the so-called civilized world. Intellectualism is based upon a very small part of man's being; and it produces accordingly no more than an abstract schema of knowledge about the world.

What has knowledge of the world become in the course of the last centuries? In its relation to the universe, it has become mere mathematical-mechanical calculation, to which in recent times have been added the results of spectral analysis; these again are purely physical, and within the physical domain purely mechanical-mathematical. Astronomy observes the courses of the stars and calculates; but it notices only those forces which show the universe, in so far as the earth is enclosed in it, as a great machine, a great mechanism. It is true to say that this mechanical-mathematical method of observation has come to be regarded as the only one that can actually lead to real knowledge.

Now what does the mentality, which finds expression in this mathematical-mechanical construction of the universe, rely upon? It reckons with something that is founded to some extent in the nature of man, but only in a very small part of him. It reckons first with the abstract three dimensions of space. Astronomy reckons with the abstract three dimensions of space; it distinguishes one dimension, a second (drawing on blackboard) and a third, at right angles. It fixes attention on a star in movement, or on the position of a star, by looking at these three dimensions of space. Now man would be unable to speak of three-dimensional space if he had not experienced it in his own being. Man experiences three-dimensional space. In the course of his life he experiences first the vertical dimension. As a child he crawls, and then he raises himself upright and thus experiences the vertical dimension. It would not be possible for man to speak of the vertical dimension if he did not experience it. To think that he could find anything in the universe other than he finds in himself would be an illusion. Man finds this vertical dimension only by experiencing it himself. By stretching out our hands and arms at right angles to the vertical we obtain the second dimension. In what we experience when breathing or speaking, in the inhaling and exhaling of the air, or in what we experience when we eat, when the food in the body moves from front to back, we experience the third dimension. Only because man experiences these three dimensions within him does he project them into external space. Man can find absolutely nothing in the universe unless he finds it first in himself. The strange thing is that in this age of abstractions, which began in the middle of the fifteenth century, man has given all three dimensions a similar quality. That is, he has simply left out of his thought the concrete distinction between them. He has left out what makes the three dimensions different to him. If he were to express his real human experience, he would say: My vertical, my encompassing or my out-stretching dimension. He would have to assume a difference in quality between the three spatial dimensions. Were he to do this, he would no longer be able to conceive of an astronomical cosmogony in the present abstract way. He would obtain a less purely intellectual cosmic picture. For this, however, he would have to experience in a more concrete way his own relationship to the three dimensions. Today he has no such experience. He does not experience, for instance, the quality of the upright position, of being vertical; and so he is not aware that he is in a vertical position for the simple reason that he moves together with the earth in a certain direction which adheres to the vertical. Neither does he know that he makes his breathing movements, his digestive and eating movements as well as other movements, in a direction through which the earth also moves. All this adherence to certain directions of movement implies an adaptation, a fitting into, the movements of the universe. Today man takes no account whatever of this concrete understanding of the dimensions; hence he cannot define his position in the great cosmic process. He does not know how he stands in it, nor that he is as it were a part and member of it. We will increasingly have to take steps to obtain a knowledge of man, a self-knowledge, and so a knowledge of our place in the universe.

The three dimensions have really become so abstract for man that he would find it extremely difficult to train himself to feel that by living in them he is taking part in certain movements of the earth and the planetary system. A spiritual-scientific method of thought however can be applied to our knowledge of man by beginning to seek an understanding of the three dimensions. It is difficult to attain; but we shall more easily raise ourselves to this spatial knowledge of man if we consider, not the three lines of space at right angles, but three planes. Consider the following for a moment. We shall readily perceive that our symmetry has something to do with our thinking. We can discover an elementary natural gesture that we make to express a process of thinking and judgement. When we place finger on nose and move through this plane here (a drawing is made), we are moving through the vertical symmetry plane which divides our left side from our right. This plane passing through the nose and through the whole body is the plane of symmetry, and we can become conscious that it is connected with all the discriminating that goes on within us, all the thinking and judging that discriminates and divides. Starting from this elementary gesture, it is actually possible to become aware of how all human functions are related to this plane.

Consider the function of seeing. We see with two eyes, in such a way that the lines of vision intersect. We see a point with two eyes; but we see it as one point because the lines of sight cross each other. Much of our human activity is so regulated that our understanding and grasping of things is connected with this plane.

We can then turn to another plane which would pass through the heart and divide man back from front. In front, man is physiognomically organized, so as to express his soul being. This physiognomical-soul structure is divided off by a plane which stands at right angles to the first. As our right and left is divided by a plane, so too is our front divided from our back. We need only stretch out our arms, our hands, directing the physiognomical part of the hand (in contrast to the merely organic part) forwards and the organic part of the hands backwards, and then imagine a plane through the principal lines which thus arise, and we obtain the plane I mean.

In like manner we can locate a third plane which would mark off all that is contained in head and countenance from what is organized below into body and limbs. Thus we should obtain a third plane which again is at right angles to the other two.

One can acquire a feeling for these three planes. How the feeling for the first is obtained has already been shown; it is to be felt as the plane of discriminative thinking. The second plane, which divides man into front and back (anterior and posterior), would be precisely what reveals man as man, for this plane cannot be delineated in the same way in the animal. The symmetry plane can be drawn in the animal but not the vertical plane. This second (vertical) plane would be connected with everything pertaining to human will. The third, the horizontal, would be connected with everything pertaining to human feeling. Let us try once more to get an idea of these dimensions through their elementary gestures, and we shall see that this can help further our understanding.

Everything through which we bring our feelings to expression, whether it be a feeling of greeting or one of thankfulness or any other form of sympathetic feeling, is in a way connected with the horizontal plane. So too we can see that in a sense we must relate the will to the vertical plane. It is possible to acquire a feeling for these three planes. Once we have done this, we will be obliged to form our conception of the universe according to these three planes—just as we would, if we only regarded the three dimensions of space in an abstract way, be obliged to calculate in the mechanical-mathematical way in which Galileo or Copernicus calculated movements and positions in the universe. Real relationships in this universe will then reveal themselves to us. We will no longer merely calculate according to the three dimensions of space; but once we have learnt to feel these three planes, we will notice that there is a difference between right and left, over and under, back and front. In mathematics it is a matter of indifference whether some object is a little further right or left, or before or behind. If we simply measure, we measure below or above, we measure right or left or we measure forward or backward. In whatever position three metres is set, it remains three metres. At most we distinguish, in order to pass from position to movement, the dimensions at right angles to one another. This we do, however, only because we cannot make do with simple measurement alone, for then our world would shrink to no more than a straight line. If however, we learn to embody thinking, feeling and willing in these three planes in a real, concrete way, and to place ourselves as soul-spiritual beings, with our thinking, feeling and willing, into spatial dimensions—then just as we learn to apply to astronomy the three abstract dimensions of space, so do we also learn to apply to it the threefold division of man as a being of soul and spirit. And it becomes possible if we have here (drawing) Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and lastly Earth, then it becomes possible, if we look at the sun, to observe it in its outer manifestation as something separating, as a dividing element. We must think of a horizontal plane passing through the sun, and we shall no longer regard what is above the plane and what is below as merely quantitative, but must regard the plane as a dividing plane and distinguish the planets as being above or below. Thus we shall no longer say: Mars is so many miles distant from the sun, Venus so many miles; but we shall learn to apply knowledge of man to our knowledge of the universe, and say: It is no mere question of abstract dimensions to see that the human head or the nose is at such and such a distance from the horizontal plane which I have called the plane of feeling, and the heart at such and such a distance; but I shall bring their position and distance above and below into connection with their formation and structure. So too I shall no longer say of Mars and Mercury that the one is at such a distance and the other at such another distance from the sun, but I shall know that if I regard the sun as a dividing partition, Mars being above must be of one nature and Mercury being below of another.

I shall now be able to place a similar plane perpendicularly through the sun. Thus the movements of Jupiter, let us say, or of Mars, will be such that at one time it will stand on the right of this plane and then go across it and stand on the left. If I simply proceed abstractly, according to dimensions, I shall find it is sometimes on the right and sometimes on the left, and such and such a number of miles. But if I study cosmic space concretely, as I must study my own being, it is not a matter of indifference whether a planet is sometimes on the left and at other times on the right. I can say that there is the same kind of difference whether it is on the right or left as there is between a left and right organ. It is not sufficient to say that the liver is so many centimetres to the right of the symmetrical axis, the stomach so many centimetres to the left, for the two are dissimilar in formation because the one is a right organ and the other a left. It is actually the case that Jupiter becomes different according to whether it is on the right or the left—even to the naked eye.

In the same way I might make a third plane, and would again have to form a judgement in accordance with that. And if I extend my knowledge of man to the universe, I shall be obliged, as I connected the one plane with human thinking, and the second plane with human feeling, to consider the third plane as connected with human will.

By describing all this I only wanted to show how modern astronomy has no more than a last, extremely abstract vestige of concrete knowledge when it speaks of the three planes perpendicular to one another, to which the positions and movements of the stars are quite accidentally related; and when it then makes mechanical calculations about the whole universe according to these positions. In the astronomical conception of Galileo, only this one thing is taken into consideration for the universe—abstract space, with its point relationships. This knowledge can however be enlarged to become an active and powerful knowledge of man. One can say: Man is a thinking, feeling and willing being. As an outward, spatial being, his thinking relates to one plane, his willing to another at right angles with it, and his feeling to a third at right angles to both. This must apply also in the external world. Since the middle of the fifteenth century, man has really known no more than that he extends in three abstract dimensions; all else is just observations based on that. A true knowledge of man must be regained, and thereby also a knowledge of the cosmos. Then man will understand how necessity and free will are related, and how both can apply to man, since he is born from the cosmos. Naturally if one only takes this last abstract vestige of the human being's true nature—the three abstract dimensions at right angles to one another—if that is all one wants to imagine, then the universe appears terribly impoverished. Poor, infinitely impoverished is our present astronomical view of the universe; and it will not become richer until we press forward to a real knowledge of man, until we really learn to look into man's true nature.

The anthroposophical world view includes matter, the material, as part of real spiritual knowledge. Do not such things as thinking, feeling and willing appear to human knowledge as terribly bare abstractions nowadays? Man does not investigate himself thoroughly enough. He does not ask himself about the true nature of what these words designate. A great deal has become mere phrase. One should really ask oneself conscientiously, when using the word thinking, whether it presents any clear idea—not to speak of feeling and willing. But our speech becomes clear and plain the moment we pass from the mere making of phrases, the using of lofty words, and go back to pictures; even when we take just that one picture for thinking—putting the finger to the side of the nose! We do not need to do it always, but we know that this gesture is often naturally made when we have to think hard, just as we point the finger to the chin when we want to indicate we are contemplating something or paying attention! We enter this plane precisely because we wish to form judgements there about something relating to us. We bisect our organism as it were into right and left; for we really act quite differently with our right and left sense-organs. This we can appreciate if we observe that we use the left sense-organs to sense outer objects; and in our thinking too, there is a sort of handling or feeling of external objects. With the right sense-organs we ‘sense our sense’ of them, as it were. It is then that they first become our own. We could never have attained a sense of ego or self if we were not able to bring together our perceptions of what we experience on the right with what we experience on the left. By simply laying our hands one over the other we have a picture of the ego-concept. It is indeed true that by beginning to use clear images instead of mere phraseology, man will become inwardly richer and will gain the faculty of visualizing the universe in richer detail.

By taking this path we shall find that the universe comes to life again for us, and that we human beings share in its life. Then we shall learn again how to build a bridge between universe and man. When this is done man will be able to perceive whether there is in the universe an impulse of natural necessity for all that is in man, wholly determining us, or whether the universe in some measure leaves us free. As long as we live in abstractions, we cannot build a bridge between moral and natural law. We must be able to ask ourselves how far natural law extends in the universe, and where something enters in which we cannot include under the aspect of natural law. Then we uncover a relationship which has its significance for man too, a relationship between what comes under natural law and what is free and moral. In this way we learn to connect a meaning with the statement: ‘Mars is a planet far from the sun, Venus a planet nearer the sun.’ By simply stating their distances in abstract numbers we have said nothing or at least very little, for to define things in this way, according to the methods of modern astronomy, is equivalent to saying: I look at the line which passes through man's two arms and hands, and I speak of an organ that is 2½ decimetres from this line. Now this organ may be a certain distance under the line, and another organ a certain distance above it; it is not, however, the distance that makes the difference, but the fact that one organ is above and the other below. Were there no difference between above and below, there would be no difference between the nose or eyes and the stomach! The eyes are only eyes because they are above, and the stomach is only a stomach because it is below this line. The inner nature of the organ is conditioned by the position.

Similarly the inner nature of Mars is qualified by its position outside the sun's orbit, and that of Venus by its position within the sun's orbit. If one does not understand the essential difference between an organ in the human head and an organ in the human trunk—the one lying over and the other under this line—then one cannot know that Mars and Venus, or Mars and Mercury are essentially different. The ability to think of the universe as an organism depends on our learning to understand the living image of the organism we have before us. We must learn to perceive man as a living image of the universe, for he gives us the opportunity of seeing at first hand how different are above and below, left and right, before and behind. We must learn this first in man, and we shall then find it in the universe.