Study of Man E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

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

Beschreibung

Although these lectures were given to teachers as preparatory material, they are by no means concerned only with education. Study of Man is Steiner's most succinct presentation of his human-centred spiritual psychology, accessible to anyone interested in the riddles of human existence. His approach is unique in that it takes account not only of influences working into humanity from the past, but also of future states of consciousness and being.Reprinted here in the original 'classic' Harwood/Fox translation, the lectures were delivered in 1919 to the teachers of the Waldorf school in Stuttgart, the first to be founded on the work of Rudolf Steiner. Over the years, since the exponential growth of Steiner education around the world, this volume has become the basic study text for teachers in Steiner schools. But as well as providing a grounding for the work of educators, Study of Man will be of keen interest to parents, counsellors, psychologists, and students of Steiner's philosophy. For the latter, this volume provides a fundamental picture of the human being according to the anthroposophical understanding of the world.

Leseprobe

About the Author

RUDOLF STEINER (1861-1925) called his spiritual philosophy ‘anthroposophy’, meaning ‘wisdom of the human being’. As a highly developed seer, he based his work on direct knowledge and perception of spiritual dimensions. He initiated a modern and universal ‘science of spirit’, accessible to anyone willing to exercise clear and unprejudiced thinking.

From his spiritual investigations Steiner provided suggestions for the renewal of many activities, including education (both general and special), agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, philosophy, religion and the arts. Today there are thousands of schools, clinics, farms and other organizations involved in practical work based on his principles. His many published works feature his research into the spiritual nature of the human being, the evolution of the world and humanity, and methods of personal development. Steiner wrote some 30 books and delivered over 6,000 lectures across Europe. In 1924 he founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world.

STUDY OF MAN

General Education Course

Fourteen lectures given in Stuttgart between 21 August and 5 September 1919

RUDOLF STEINER

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

Translated by Daphne Harwood and Helen Fox; revised by A.C. Harwood

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

www.rudolfstemerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2012

First published in English in 1947. Revised edition published 1966, and reprinted 1975, 1981 and 1990

Originally published in German under the title Allgemeine Menschenkunde als Grundlage der Pädagogik (volume 293 in the Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. This authorized translation is published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

Translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 1966

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, recording 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 359 2

Cover by Andrew Morgan Design Typeset in the UK

FOREWORD

At the end of the first world war, Emil Molt, managing director of the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart, foresaw that a completely new basis must be found for education in the new world which even then was beginning to arise. He therefore invited Rudolf Steiner to become the educational director of a school he intended to found for the children of the workers in his factory—the first Waldorf School opened in 1919.

Steiner asked a number of people from all walks of life to become the original teachers in this school, and they gladly responded to his call. To them he gave the course of fourteen lectures contained in this book, as well as two other courses published in English as Practical Course for Teachers and Discussions with Teachers, which should be studied in conjunction with this work.

All these teachers were already familiar with Steiner’s fundamental teaching as to the nature and evolution of man and the world, such as will be found in his books The Philosophy of Freedom, Occult Science—an Outline, and Theosophy (a term which he used in a much wider historical sense than has come to be the case in England). The first of these books contains the philosophical justification for the existence of the spiritual investigations on which the present work is founded : the second gives a description of the evolution of the kingdoms of nature, the sequence of historical epochs, the relation of man to the hierarchies—on all of which much is built in these lectures: the third gives a full account of the threefold, sevenfold and ninefold nature of man, in which elements from the past are always meeting what is striving to be born out of the future. For Steiner’s psychology is unique in that it takes account not only of forces playing into man from the past but also of future states of consciousness and being, which will not be realised till the far distant future but which are already affecting his character and destiny.

It was Steiner’s way to approach a problem from one point of view at a time and develop that view fully. At another time he would approach the same problem from another viewpoint, and present what at first hearing may seem to be on almost opposite conclusion. It is important to remember in reading his works that nothing is intended to be final, conclusive or dogmatic. Life is full of complications and contradictions, and any valid account of it must reflect this fact.

After the founding of the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart in 1919 many other schools were soon founded on the same basis in a number of countries, and Steiner was called upon to lecture on education in various countries, including England. A list of further translated educational works will be found at the end of this volume.

Some personal words to the original group of teachers, stressing the importance of the founding of the school, with which Steiner opened the course of lectures, have been omitted from this translation.

A NOTE ON THE REVISED TRANSLATION

The Study of Man, like all German philosophical works and especially those of Rudolf Steiner, poses quite special difficulties to the translator with regard both to general phraseology and to individual words. In this case the latter problem is more difficult because the translator has to take into account the usage in other translated works of the same author.

Prominent among the single words is the vexed Vorstellung (verb vorstellen) which has received a variety of renderings at the hands of different translators. No single English word, or pair of words, entirely corresponds to Vorstellung. George Adams, in his translation Occult Science—an Outline has rendered it as “mental image,” “mental picture,” “thought picture” or “idea” according to the context. Michael Wilson in his revision of The Philosophy of Freedom has preferred to keep to “mental picture.” Vorstellung does not intrinsically contain the suggestion of picture, and I toyed with the idea of rendering it “mental evocation” or even of inventing the word “mentalisation.” But in the present work Steiner does rather stress the pictorial nature of Vorstellung, and as the work should certainly be studied in conjunction with the Philosophy of Freedom I have decided to follow Michael Wilson and render Vorstellung as “mental picture” throughout, and the verb as “to picture mentally”—even though the translation may appear in some places rather clumsy and not quite English. I have found that the practice of the original translators in varying the words used has led to some confusion of thought.

In The Study of Man Steiner draws a sharp distinction between two things: Vorstellung, an end product, a formed picture stemming from the past and working through antipathy towards the concept: and Fantasie a new beginning, a germ or seed drawing upon the future, working through sympathy to creation. The word Fantasie poses another special difficulty. Its real equivalent in English is “imagination” and Steiner uses it passim throughout the book. But he also uses the German Imagination, not in the special anthroposophical sense where he describes the three future soul powers as Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition, but in much the same sense as we ordinarily use it in English.

I have throughout translated Fantasie as “imagination” and when the original uses both words together I have combined “imagination” with “picture forming.” When Steiner uses Imagination in the plural, not in the sense of a faculty of the mind but as meaning the actual pictures which that faculty produces I have used “picture-forms.”

Two other words, Trieb and Begierde, appear as “impulse” and “desire.”

Steiner uses the word Bild (picture or image) in connection with both Vorstellung and Fantasie. Both, he says, have a Bild character. But, as Michael Wilson has written, ‘Vorstellung in this book is like the photograph you take of a finished object or building: Fantasie is more like the first inspired sketch an artist makes, vital, unformed, evocative, capable of evolution and growth.’ In order not to confuse Bild with Vorstellung I have throughout rendered it as “image”—again even at the expense of a more normal English usage in some places.

Another word calling for special comment is Gemüt. As applied to an individual we could fairly translate er ist ganzGemüt as “he is all heart.” As a simple noun I have had to be content with “feeling nature” or “feeling life,” not daring to venture on “allheartiness.”

The above and other considerations have called for a good many emendations of the original translation, in which however I found many felicities of expression which I should like to acknowledge.

A. C. HARWOOD

CONTENTS

Lecture I

Egoism and Materialism. Life before birth and after death. Pre-natal Education. Union of Spirit and Soul elements before birth. Union of these with Life-Body after birth. Importance of breathing in uniting the threefold man. Nature of sleep in child and adult. The teacher makes his relation with the child through what he is, which depends on his thoughts about the world. Children must learn to breathe and to sleep

Lecture II

Mental picture and Will not understood today. Image character of mental picture which is devoid of reality or being. Mental picture stems from life before birth, Will from life after death. The former works through antipathy, the latter through sympathy. Memory arises through heightened antipathy, Imagination through heightened sympathy, as also sense pictures. Contrast of nerves and blood. Decay and seed. True function of motor nerves. Three places where sympathy and antipathy meet. Cosmic relations of threefold organism of man. Concepts produce carbonic acid, imaginative pictures oxygen. Need for planting seed pictures in child

Lecture III

Equal importance of teachers of children of all ages. Twofold division of man has supplanted older division into Body, Soul and Spirit. Conservation of energy not true for man. Intellect grasps only the dying, Will, in sense perception, grasps the becoming. Unique nature of ‘pure thinking.’ Nature could not exist without man. Dead human bodies are yeast to earth. Man thinks with bones as well as nerves. Origin of geometry lies in movement. Man keeps earth alive. Man not merely a spectator but a stage for cosmic events. Transformation, not conservation, is true law of life

Lecture IV

Will and feeling not understood today. Will never fully realised in life, something remains over. The three Spiritual Principles : Spirit-Self—Manas—Manes; Life Spirit; Spirit Man. The three Soul Principles: Consciousness, Intellectual and Sentient Souls. The three Bodily Principles : Astral, Etheric and Physical. How Will works in these. In physical, as instinct—animals act according to their physical bodies. In etheric, as impulse. In astral, as desire, which reaches to soul element. Through his ego man raises these to motive. Behind motive lie, in the unconscious, wish, intention and resolution which live in the three Spiritual Principles. Story of lady and horses, illustrating cleverness of the unconscious. Teacher must understand hidden being of man. Marxist education illustrated. Repetition, not exhortation, affects the Will

Lecture V

Each of the three soul activities includes qualities of all. Balance of sympathy and antipathy in the senses. Human and animal senses. Child lives in sympathy. Moral development through antipathy. Between willing (sympathy) and thinking (antipathy) lies feeling which comprises both. True nature of judgement. Feeling is cognition in reserve and will in reserve. Meeting place of blood and nerves. Beckmesser and Walther. Wagner and Hanslick. Variety of feeling in different senses. Reality must be won through work

Lecture VI

Soul reveals itself in sympathy and antipathy. Light of consciousness in thinking. Unconsciousness of Will. Feeling lies midway. Man wakes in thinking, sleeps in willing, dreams in feeling. Types of children and how to help them. Ego, youngest principle of man, can only live in images, not in real forces of the world. How ego lives in thinking, feeling and willing. Difference of the two parts of Faust. Waking—knowing in images : Dreaming—inspired feeling : Sleeping—intuitive willing

Lecture VII

Soul apprehended through sympathy and antipathy : Spirit through states of consciousness. All comprehension comes through relating things. In childhood man principally Body; in middle years Soul; in old age Spirit. Body may block Spirit in old age (Kant—Michelet— Zeller). Man may belie Soul in middle years. Willing united with feeling in childhood, cognition with feeling in old age. Sense perception related to willing-feeling, not to cognition. Hence it lives in dreaming-sleeping. Moritz Benedikt’s work. Two zones where man sleeps— sense sphere on periphery and inner sphere of blood and muscle. Physical-chemical processes in both. Intermediate sphere of decaying nerve substance is sphere of waking, where man becomes light, sound, etc. This is space aspect. In time, forgetting is sleeping, memory is waking

Lecture VIII

Effect of sleep on ego. Need to regulate remembering and forgetting. Connection of Will and memory. Interest begets memory. Each soul force contains the others as well. The Twelve Senses. Sense of another’s ego lives in sympathy and antipathy. Touch, Life, Movement, Balance related to Will: Smell, Taste, Sight, Warmth to feeling: Ego-sense, Thought, Hearing, Speech to knowing. Interrelation of senses. Colour and form perceived by different senses. Goethe and colour

Lecture IX

In first seven-year period child develops through imitation : in second through authority; in third through individual judgement. Need to permeate thinking with logic. The syllogism. Conclusions live in waking life and should not be memorised. Judgements carried in feeling. Concepts enter sleeping soul and affect body. Concepts of child form face of adult. Characterisations needed, not definitions. Relate everything to Man. Prayer metamorphosed to Blessing. In first period child assumes world is moral; in second beautiful; in third true

Lecture X

Consideration of Body. Spherical (Sun) form of head. Moon form of breast. Radial form of limbs. Jaws are stunted limbs in head. Blood and muscle nature of limbs. Tubular limb bones : rounded head bones. Metamorphosis in bones. Head centre is within : breast centre outside: limb centre in periphery. Sense of cosmic relations in ancient sculpture. Head arrests limb movement. Head and breast turn limb dance to song and music. Head man reveals Body: Breast man Body and Soul: Limb man Body, Soul and Spirit. Council of 869 A.D. and its consequences. Head alone is evolved animal, not breast or limbs. Teacher must understand man as microcosm

Lecture XI

Relation of head to Body, Soul and Spirit. In first period of childhood Soul and Spirit are dreaming and sleeping outside child, hence he imitates. Head fully formed at change of teeth. Relation of Breast and Limbs to Body, Soul and Spirit. Head perfected but sleeping. Limbs awake but unformed. Teacher can only educate part of child. First mother milk, then mother speech awaken child. Teacher’s task to continue this awakening. Writing should be learnt by way of breast and limbs, and developed from drawing and painting. Elementary school concerned with breast man. Relation of memory and imagination to physical growth

Lecture XII

Relation of human organs to outer world. Head the oldest formation. It shapes the human being, but has tendency to create animal forms. Trunk and limb systems prevent this, and transform animal forms into thoughts. Trunk system related to plant world. Oxygen changed to carbon in breathing. Plants would arise in man if he retained carbon. Illnesses caused through plant nature asserting itself. Plants are pictures of illnesses. In digestion only middle process of combustion occurs. How breathing—the anti-plant process—unites with this middle. Hygiene of future. Mechanics of limb movement, behind which lie the forces in which the ego lives. These forces dissolve the mineral in man. Destructive illnesses arise when this does not happen. Lines of therapy

Lecture XIII

Head formed from within out; limbs from without in. Man acts as dam for inrushing Soul and Spirit. Balance between destructive activity of these and constructive of Body. Part played by chest and limb systems. Nature and effect of fat in child. Living elements absorb Soul and Spirit, decaying let them through. Blood opaque to Spirit, Nerve transparent. Spirit active in bodily work, Body in mental. Relation of sleep to different forms of bodily activity. Purposeful movements needed. Eurythmy and Sport. Sport practical Darwinism. Relation of sleep to different forms of mental activity. Interest essential ...

Lecture XIV

In Head, nose represents trunk, jaws limbs. Actual limbs are jaws of a spiritual head which continually devour man from without. Upper part of chest man develops to head nature in larynx—the “head of the throat.” Sounds of speech, nasal, etc., correspond to parts of head. When second teeth appear grammar needed as corresponding skeleton of speech. Lower trunk develops limb character towards puberty in sex organs which are coarsened limb nature. Inner warmth necessary as correspondence, i.e. Imagination. Examples in imaginative treatment of subjects. Camera Obscura and theorem of Pythagoras. No pedantry permissible in teaching. Schelling. A maxim for teachers

LECTURE I

My dear Friends,

We will begin by making a preliminary survey of our educational task; and to this I would like to give you a kind of introduction today. Of necessity our educational task will differ from those which mankind has set itself hitherto. Not that we are so vain or proud as to imagine that we, of ourselves, should initiate a new worldwide order in education, but because from anthroposophical spiritual science we know that the epochs of human evolution as they succeed each other must always set humanity fresh tasks. The task of mankind in the first Post-Atlantean epoch was different, it was different again in the second, and so on down to our fifth Post-Atlantean epoch. And we must realise that, in actual fact, what has to be accomplished in any one epoch of human evolution does not enter into the consciousness of mankind until some time after this epoch has begun.

The epoch of evolution in which we live today began in the middle of the fifteenth century. And only now is there coming forth, from spiritual depths as it were, a perception of what has to be done in this epoch, particularly in the realm of education.

Hitherto, even with the best will in the world, men’s work in education has been done in the light of the old education; I mean in the sense of the education of the fourth Post-Atlantean epoch. Now much will depend on our placing ourselves in the right relation to our task at the outset. We must learn to understand that we have to give a very definite guidance to our age—guidance which is of importance, not because it is considered valid for the whole evolution of humanity, but because it is valid just for this age of ours. For, amongst other things, materialism has brought it about that men have no idea of the particular tasks of a particular age. Please do understand this at the very beginning: particular epochs have their own particular tasks.

You will have to take over children for their education and instruction—children who will have received already (as you must remember) the education, or mis-education given them by their parents. Indeed our intentions will only be fully accomplished when we, as humanity, will have reached the stage where parents, too, will understand that special tasks are set for mankind today, even for the first years of the child’s education. But when we receive the children into the school we shall still be able to make up for many things which have been done wrongly, or left undone, in the first years of the child’s life. For this we must fill ourselves with the consciousness through which alone we can truly teach and educate.

In devoting yourselves to your task do not forget that the whole civilisation of today, even into the sphere of the most spiritual life, is founded on the egoism of humanity. In the first place, consider with an open mind that domain of spiritual life which receives men’s reverence today—the domain of religion. Ask yourselves if our present civilisation, particularly in the religious sphere, is not so constituted, as to appeal to man’s egoism. It is typical of all sermons and preaching of our time that the preacher tries to reach men through their egoism. Take for example that question which should concern people most deeply—the question of immortality. You will see how almost everything today, even in sermons and exhortations, is directed by the preachers to appeal to man’s egoism in the supersensible sphere. Egoism impels man to cling to his own being as he passes through the gate of death, to preserve his Ego. This is a form of egoism, however refined. And today every religious denomination appeals largely to this egoism when treating of immortality. Hence official religion mosdy forgets one end of our earthly existence in addressing man, and takes account only of the other. It fixes its gaze on death and forgets birth. Though these things may not be openly acknowledged, they are nevertheless underlying tendencies.

We live in a time when this appeal to human egoism must be combated in every domain, if the life of mankind is not to decline further and further on its present downward course. We must become more and more conscious of the other end of man’s development on earth, namely birth. We must consciously face this fact: that man evolves through a long period between death and a new birth and that then, within this evolution, he reaches a point where he dies, as it were, for the spiritual world—where conditions of his life in the spiritual world oblige him to pass over into another form of existence. He receives this other form of existence in that he lets himself be clothed with the physical and etheric body. What he has to receive by being clothed with the physical and etheric body he could not receive if he were simply to go on evolving in a straight line in the spiritual world. Hence although from his birth onwards we may only look upon the child with physical eyes, we will all the time be conscious of the fact—”this too is a continuation.” And we will not only look to what human existence experiences after death, i.e. to the spiritual continuation of the physical; but we will be conscious that physical existence here is a continuation of the spiritual, and that we, through education, have to carry on what has hitherto been done by higher beings without our participation. This alone will give the right mood and feeling to our whole system of teaching and education, if we fill ourselves with the consciousness : here, in this human being, you, with your action, have to achieve a continuation of what higher beings have done before his birth.

In this age when men have lost connection with the spiritual worlds in their thought and feeling, we are often asked an abstract question which in the light of a spiritual conception of the world has no real meaning. We are asked how so-called pre-natal education should be conducted. There are many people today who take things abstractly, but, if one takes them concretely, then in certain domains one simply cannot continue asking questions in an arbitrary manner. I once gave this example: on a road we see tracks. We can ask: Why are they there ? Because a carriage has been driven over the road. Why was the carriage driven? Because its occupants wanted to reach a certain destination. Why did they want to reach a certain destination? The asking of questions must come to a stop somewhere in reality. If we remain in abstractions we can continue for ever asking: Why? We can go on turning the wheel of questions without end. Concrete thought will always find an end, but abstract thought goes on running round like a wheel for ever. And so it is with the questions that are asked about domains that do not lie so close at hand. People begin thinking about education and then they ask about pre-natal education. But, my dear friends, before birth the human being is still in the protection of Beings who stand above the physical. It is to them that we must leave the immediate and individual relationship between the world and the human being. Hence a pre-natal education cannot be addressed to the child itself. It can only be an unconscious result of what the parents—especially the mother—achieve. If until birth the mother behaves in such a way that she brings to expression in herself what is morally and intellectually right, in the true sense of the word, then of its own accord what the mother achieves in this continuous self-education will pass over to the child. The less we think of beginning to educate the child before it sees the light of the world and the more we think of leading a right and proper life ourselves, the better will it be for the child. Education can only begin when the child becomes a true member of the physical world—and that is when he begins to breathe the external air.

Now when the child has come forth on to the physical plane, we must realise what has really happened for him in the transition from a spiritual to a physical plane. Firstly, we must recognise that the human being is really composed of two members. Before the human being comes down to earth a union is entered into between the spirit and the soul—meaning by spirit what for the physical world of today is still entirely hidden, and what in Spiritual Science we call Spirit-Man, Life-Spirit, Spirit-Self. These three members of man’s being are present in a certain way in the supersensible sphere to which we must now work our way through. And between death and a new birth we do already stand in a certain relationship to Spirit-Man, Life-Spirit, Spirit-Self. Now the force which proceeds from this trinity permeates the Soul element in man: Consciousness Soul, Intellectual or Mind Soul, and Sentient Soul. And if you were to observe the human being when, having passed through the existence between death and a new birth, he is just preparing to descend into the physical world, then you would find the spiritual which we have just described united with the soul. Man descends, as it were, as Spirit-Soul or Soul-Spirit from a higher sphere into earthly existence. He clothes himself with earthly existence.

In a similar way we can describe the other member of man’s being which unites itself with the one just described. We can say: down there on the earth the Spirit-Soul is met by what arises through the processes of physical inheritance. And now the Soul-Spirit or Spirit-Soul meets with the Life-Body in such a way that two trinities are united with two other trinities. In the Spirit-Soul: Spirit-Man, Life-Spirit and Spirit-Self are united with that which is soul, namely : Consciousness-Soul, Intellectual Soul and Sentient Soul. These two trinities are united with one another, and descend into the physical world where they are now to unite with the Sentient or Astral body, Etheric body and Physical body. But these in turn are united—first in the body of the mother and then in the physical world—with the three kingdoms of the physical world: the mineral, the plant and the animal kingdoms. So that here again, two trinities are united with one another.

If you regard with an open mind the child who has found his way into earthly life, you will observe that here in the child, Soul-Spirit or Spirit-Soul is as yet dis-united from the Life-Body. The task of education conceived in the spiritual sense is to bring the Soul-Spirit into harmony with the Life-Body. They must come into harmony with one another. They must be attuned to one another; for when the child is born into the physical world, they do not as yet fit one another. The task of the educator, and of the teacher too, is the mutual attunement of these two members.

Let us now consider this task more concretely. Amongst all the relationships which man has to the external world, the most important of all is breathing. We begin breathing at the very moment we enter the physical world. Breathing in the mother-body is still, if I may put it so, a preparatory breathing : it does not yet bring the being into a complete connection with the external world. The child only begins to breathe in the right sense of the word when he has left the mother-body. Now this breathing signifies a very great deal for the human being, for in this breathing there dwells already the whole threefold system of physical man. You know that amongst the members of the threefold physical human system we reckon, in the first place, the digestion and metabolism. But the metabolism, the assimilation, is intimately connected at one end with the breathing. The breathing process is connected with the blood circulation through metabolism. The blood circulation receives into the human body the substances of the external world which are introduced by another path, so that on the one hand the breathing is connected with the whole metabolic system or digestive system.