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
We know from our previous studies that the concept of polarity is not
exhausted by conceiving the world as being constituted by polarities of
one order only. Besides primary polarities, there are secondary ones,
the outcome of interaction between the primary poles. Having conceived
of Point and Plane as a geometrical polarity of the first order, we
have therefore to ask what formative elements there are in geometry
which represent the corresponding polarity of the second order. The
following considerations will show that these are the radius, which
arises from the point becoming related to the plane, and the
spherically bent surface (for which we have no other name than that
again of the sphere), arising from the plane becoming related to the
point.
In Euclidean geometry the sphere is defined as 'the locus of all points
which are equidistant from a given point'. To define the sphere in this
way is in accord with our post-natal, gravity-bound consciousness. For
in this state our mind can do no more than envisage the surface of the
sphere point by point from its centre and recognize the equal distance
of all these points from the centre. Seen thus, the sphere arises as
the sum-total of the end-points of all the straight lines of equal
length which emerge from the centre-point in all directions. Fig. 8
indicates this schematically. Here the radius, a straight line, is
clearly the determining factor.
We now move to the other pole of the primary polarity, that is to the
plane, and let the sphere arise by imagining the plane approaching an
infinitely distant point evenly from all sides. We view the process
realistically only by imagining ourselves in the plane, so that we
surround the point from all sides, with the distance between us and the
point diminishing gradually. Since we remain all the time on the
surface, we have no reason to conceive any change in its original
position; that is, we continue to think of it as an all-embracing plane
with regard to the chosen point.
The only way of representing the sphere diagrammatically, as a unit
bearing in itself the character of the plane whence it sprang, is as
shown in Fig. 9, where a number of planes, functioning as tangential
planes, are so related that together they form a surface which
possesses everywhere the same distance from the all-relating point.
Since Point and Plane represent in the realm of geometrical concepts
what in outer nature we find in the form of the gravity-levity
polarity, we may expect to meet Radius and Sphere as actual formative
elements in nature, wherever gravity and levity interact in one way or
another. A few observations may suffice to give the necessary evidence.
Further confirmation will be furnished by the ensuing chapters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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