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
The fact that modern science has long ceased to be a 'natural' science
is something which has begun to dawn upon the modern scientific
researcher himself. What has thus come to him as a question finds a
definite answer in the picture of electricity we have been able to
develop. It is again Eddington who has drawn attention particularly to
this question: see the chapter, 'Discovery or Manufacture?' in his
Philosophy of Physical Science. It will be appropriate at this point to
recall his remarks, for they bear not only on the outcome of our own
present discussion, but also, as the next chapter will show, on the
further course of our studies.
Eddington starts by asking: 'When Lord Rutherford showed us the atomic
nucleus, did he find it or did he make it?' Whichever answer we give,
Eddington goes on to say, makes no difference to our admiration for
Rutherford himself. But it makes all the difference to our ideas on the
structure of the physical universe. To make clear where the modern
physicist stands in this respect, Eddington uses a striking comparison.
If a sculptor were to point in our presence to a raw block of marble
saying that the form of a human head was lying hidden in the block,
'all our rational instinct would be roused against such an
anthropomorphic speculation'. For it is inconceivable to us that nature
should have placed such a form inside the block. Roused by our
objection, the artist proceeds to verify his theory experimentally -
'with quite rudimentary apparatus, too: merely using a chisel to
separate the form for our inspection, he triumphantly proves his
theory.'
'Was it in this way', Eddington asks, 'that Rutherford rendered
concrete the nucleus which his scientific imagination had created?' One
thing is certain: 'In every physical laboratory we see ingeniously
devised tools for executing the work of sculpture, according to the
designs of the theoretical physicist. Sometimes the tool slips and
carves off an odd-shaped form which he had not expected. Then we have a
new experimental discovery,'
To this analogy Eddington adds the following even more drastic one:
'Procrustes, you will remember,' he says, 'stretched or chopped down
his guests to fit the bed he constructed. But perhaps you have not
heard the rest of the story. He measured them up before they left the
next morning, and wrote a learned paper On the Uniformity of Stature of
Travellers for the Anthropological Society of Attica.'
*
Besides yielding a definite answer to the question of how far the
seemingly discovered facts of science are manufactured facts, our newly
won insight into the nature of the electric and magnetic polarties
throws light also on the possibility of so handling both that their
application will lead no longer to a cancellation, but to a true
continuation, of nature's own creative deeds.
An example of this will appear in the next part of our studies, devoted
to observations in the field of optics.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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