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
What we have here described as the emergence of an individual's
intellectual consciousness from the original, purely volitional
condition of the soul is nothing but a replica of a greater process
through which mankind as a whole, or more exactly Western mankind, has
gone in the course of its historical development. Man was not always
the 'brain-thinker' he is to-day.7 Directly the separation of the nerve
system was completed, and thereby the full clarity of the brain-bound
consciousness achieved, man began to concern himself with science in
the modern sense.
To understand why this science became restricted to one-eyed,
colour-blind observation we need only apply to the human sense system,
in particular, what we have learnt concerning man's threefold being.
Sharply distinguished by their respective modes of functioning though
they are, the three bodily systems are each spread out through the
whole body and are thus to be found everywhere adjacent to each other.
Hence, the corresponding three states of consciousness, the sleeping,
dreaming and waking, are also everywhere adjacent and woven into one
another. It is the predominance of one or other which imparts a
particular quality of soul to one or other region of the body. This is
clearly shown within the realm of sense activity, itself the most
conscious part of the human being. It is sufficient to compare, say,
the senses of sight and smell, and to notice in what different degree
we are conscious of the impressions they convey, and how differently
the corresponding elements of conception, feeling and willing are
blended in each. We never turn away as instinctively from objectionable
colour arrangement as from an unpleasant smell. How small a part, on
the other hand, do the representations of odours play in our
recollection of past experiences, compared with those of sight.8 The
same is valid in descending measure for all other senses.
Of all senses, the sense of sight has in greatest measure the qualities
of a 'conceptual sense'. The experiences which it brings, and these
alone, were suitable as a basis for the new science, and even so a
further limitation was necessary. For in spite of the special quality
of the sense of sight, it is still not free from certain elements of
feeling and will - that is, from elements with the character of dream
or sleep. The first plays a part in our perception of colour; the
second, in observing the forms and perspective ordering of objects we
look at.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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