Man or Matter: Introduction to a Spiritual Understanding of Nature on the Basis of Goethe's Method of Training Observation and ThoughtLehrs, Ernst
Religion
Man or Matter: Introduction to a Spiritual Understanding of Nature on the Basis of Goethe's Method of Training Observation and Thought
Lehrs, Ernst
Anthroposophy; Cosmology; Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832
Since the parallelogram of forces is the prototype of each further
mathematical representation of physical force-relationships in nature,
the conceptual link thus forged between it and the basic theorem of
kinematics has led to the conviction that the fact that natural events
can be expressed in terms of mathematics could be, and actually has
been, discovered through pure logical reasoning, and thus by the
brain-bound, day-waking consciousness 'of the world-spectator.
Justification thereby seemed to be given for the building of a valid
scientific world-picture, purely kinematic in character.
*
The line of consideration we shall now have to enter upon for carrying
out our own examination of what is believed to be the link between the
two theorems may seem to the scientifically trained reader to be of an
all too elementary kind compared with the complexities of thought in
which he is used to engage in order to settle a scientific problem. It
is therefore necessary to state here that anyone who wishes to help to
overcome the tangle of modern theoretical science must not be shy in
applying thoughts and observations of seemingly so simple a nature as
those used both here and on other occasions. Some readiness, in fact,
is required to play where necessary the part of the child in Hans
Andersen's fairy-story of The Emperor's New Clothes, where all the
people are loud in praise of the magnificent robes of the Emperor, who
is actually passing through the streets with no clothes on at all, and
a single child's voice exclaims the truth that 'the Emperor has nothing
on'. There will repeatedly be occasion to adopt the role of this child
in the course of our own studies.
*
In the scientific definition of force given above force appears as the
result of a multiplication of two other magnitudes. Now as is well
known, it is essential for the operation of multiplication that of the
two factors forming the product at least one should exhibit the
properties of a pure number. For two pure numbers may be multiplied
together - e.g. 2 and 4 - and a number of concrete things can be
multiplied by a pure number - e. g. 3 apples and the number 4 - but no
sense can be attached to the multiplication of 3 apples by 4 apples,
let alone by 4 pears! The result of multiplication is therefore always
either itself a pure number, when both factors have this property; or
when one of the two factors is of the nature of a concrete object, the
result is of the same quality as the latter. An apple will always
remain an apple after multiplication, and what distinguishes the final
product (apples) from the original factor (apples) is only a pure
number.
If we take seriously what this simple consideration tells us of the
nature of multiplication, and if we do not allow ourselves to deviate
from it for whatever purpose we make use of this algebraic operation,
then the various concepts we connect with the basic measurements in
physics undergo a considerable change of meaning.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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