Journal Fnthpsy Number 31 Spring, 1980

JOURNAL FORANTHROPOSOPHYNUMBER 31 SPRING, 1980 ISSN 0021-8235 We find in the writings of Novalis a most wonderful and unique resurrection of the Christ-Idea.... If we steep ourselves in spiritual science, . and then turn to Novalis, something seems to spring to life wherever we look. Inspirations of the greatest grandure, matters of spiritual science, are to be found everywhere in his work — inspirations like lofty dreams of science. From Novalis there emanates something that finds its way into mankind like seed — seed which will spring to life in times to come ... a heralding of Christianity! Rudolf Steiner From Earthly and Cosmic Man Journal for Anthroposophy, Number 31, Spring, 1980 © 1980, The Anthroposophical Society in America, Inc. CONTENTS ESSAYS, ARTICLES, EXCERPTS Science and Poetry Arthur G. Zajonc 3 Goethe’s World Conception, a quotation Rudolf Steiner 11 Goethe as the Sage T. S. Eliot 12 Novalis: Spirit of a New Age Lona Truding 13 Novalis: Herald and Forerunner Albert Steffen 30 Christianity or Europe Novalis 41 Raphael J . K. Lavater 44 The Blue Flower Novalis 48 The Anthroposophical Path of Inner Schooling P. E. Schiller 51 Dangers of Early Schooling Dorothy N. Moore Raymond S. Moore 58 Two Responses to a Review of The Living Earth by Walther Cloos Can we Build a Bridge Between Anthroposophy and Conventional Science? K. E. Schaefer 66 Walther Cloos and The Living Earth, a Survey Wilhelm Pelikan 70 ILLUSTRATIONS AND POEMS Novalis, Friedrich von Hardenberg, a painting 2 Raphael, an engraving after a self-portrait 46 Poems by Novalis: From “Hymns to the Night” 27 From “Sacred Songs,” VIII 29 From “Sacred Songs,” XIV 35 “When no more figures ...” 44 REVIEW S Truth-Wrought-Words, Verses by Rudolf Steiner Kari van Oordt Translated by Arvia Ege A l Laney 76 Culture and Horticulture, W olf D. Storl Herbert H. Koepf 79 A New Image of Medicine, Vol. III, Edited by Schaefer, Stave & Blankenburg K. David Schultz 83 Three Books of Poems: Selected Poems, Rosamond Reinhardt 85 Calvin’s Jungle, Frank Newell 86 Instead of Eyes, Caryl Johnston Christy Barnes 87 Raoul Ratnowsky Daisy Aldan 89 Contributors to this Issue 91 1 [Image: portrait]NOVALIS Friedrich von Hardenberg From an original portrait reproduced in Der Unbekannte Novalis by Heinz Ritter 2 Science and Poetry: Goethe's Synthesis ARTHUR G. ZAJONC Goethe presented his ideas on science over one hundred and fifty years ago. His thought has remained an historical-scientific curiosity. Frequently lumped together with the scientific work of such other German poets and philosophers as Herder, Novalis and Schelling, it is termed Naturphilosophie and often declared to be a reaction to the rationalism of the Enlighten ment. Certainly few scientists have chosen Goethe’s viewpoint as their own, although more recently an indication of sym pathy can be discerned in the philosophical essays of physicists Werner Heisenberg* and Walter Heitler** among others. In sharp contrast with the evaluations of history, Goethe placed more value on his scientific work than his poetic. In this vein we can repeat the oft quoted remark Goethe made to his secretary Eckermann on February 19, 1829, three years before his death: I do not pride myself at all on the things I have done as a poet. There have been excellent poets during my lifetime; still more excellent ones lived before me, and after me there will be others. But I am proud that I am the only one in my century who knows the truth about the difficult science of color, and in this I am conscious of being superior to many. *W. Heisenberg, Across the Frontiers, translated by P. Heath (Harper & Row, 1974). * * W. Heitler, Der Berliner Germanistentag 1968 (Heidelberg, 1970). Transla tions by F. Amrine available on request. 3 In his introduction to Goethe’s Natural Scientific Writings, which he edited in the 1890’s, Rudolf Steiner concurs with Goethe’s evaluation and states “that the natural science of the future lies in the development of Goethe’s basic conceptions.”* If we are to resolve this conflict of opinion we must evaluate the place and significance of Goethean science in the development of science as a whole. The purpose of this paper will be to sketch, at least in its outlines, the pivotal position which Goethean science holds as a necessary cultural-scientific development able to give a new direction and method to scientific inquiry. The special significance of Goethean science for anthroposophical thought will only be indicated here, but will find a fuller treat ment in a future article. From our considerations I hope it will become evident that Goethe’s science was not a reaction against genuine scientific inquiry but rather a development of its own methods which will ultimately enable mankind to reach con sciously beyond the purely physical in its investigations to ob jective research into the moral and spiritual laws that guide human growth and destiny, and which reach into all of nature’s kingdoms and world evolution. Without this under standing of ourselves and our world we stand as children total ly dependent on the grace of God, unable to help Him help us. With this understanding, we can become the conscious cause of our own evolution; with it, we can strive to make of our Earth the star which it longs to become. In the centuries since the birth of western civilization in ancient Greece, human thought has gradually shifted from a god-filled cosmology to a view of Nature shorn of the spirit. Newton’s law of universal gravitation demonstrated that the same law governed the fall of an apple and the orbit of the moon. The many stunning successes of seventeenth and eigh teenth century science led to the conviction that indeed all of Nature would one day be explained as a vast mechanism based on the principles of attraction and repulsion (gravitational or electrical). To external sight, the world that surrounded *R. Steiner, Goethe as Scientist, translated by O. Wannamaker (Anthro posophic Press, 1950) p. 250. 4 Socrates in the sixth century B.C. and the one that confronted Laplace in the seventeenth were essentially the same; but as man continued to gaze into that world, it was as though his sight had changed or withered. The night sky with its stars and planets was no longer the dwelling place of gods and the stage of myth. Nor was it even fitted with crystal spheres com prised of quintessential substance. Rather it, the Earth and we ourselves slowly came to be seen as born out of a primeval material nebula and governed by purely mechanistic laws. The logical culmination of scientific materialism and its mechanistic worldview was attained during the last half of the eighteenth century in the so-called Enlightenment: a period self-proclaimed by its leading authors as “the age of reason,” in contrast with the darkness and barbarism that had been man’s previous plight. During this period, the great discoveries and theories set forth by such figures as Kepler, Galileo, Newton and Benjamin Franklin made their way abroad. This was done not by the efforts of the scientists themselves but rather by men who popularized and published: men of letters such as Voltaire, and the French philosophes such as Diderot and Fontenelle. Roving scientist-magicians brought the marvelous phenomena of the new science to the intelligentsia of Europe and America. Every salon in Paris was filled with conversation about the new cosmology and psychology. Even in far-off Frankfurt, the young Goethe attempted (unsuccessfully) the construction of a then novel electrical apparatus. The worldview which is now a commonplace was then a novelty which caused great excitement. The world was seen as pure mechanism operating on Newtonian (or in Paris, Cartesian) principles. Fontenelle could say: “I esteem the universe all the more since I have known that it is like a watch. It is surprising that nature, admirable as it is, is based on such simple things.” Nor must we imagine that plant, animal or man are exempt from Fontenelle’s timepiece; for although Decartes placed man’s spirit beyond the extended material world (res extensa), Hobbes, Locke and their successors did not. Lamettrie was to write: “The human body is a clock, but an immense one and con structed with so much artifice and skill that if the wheel which 5 turns the second hand should stop, the minute hand would still turn and continue on its way. ...” One can justly wonder whether the reaction of the poet followed that of the philosophes. Perhaps unexpectedly we find that they, too, initially embraced the “New Philosophy.” Alex ander Pope wrote in his “Epitaph Intended for Sir Isaac Newton”: Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night; God said, “Let Newton be!” and all was light. During the first half of the eighteenth century the poets were essentially unanimous in their welcome of the New Philosophy which freed them from the illusory nature of the sense world and gave them truth. The discoveries of Newton were so great that John Hughes could write in 1717: The great Columbus of the skys I know! ’Tis Newton’s soul, that daily travels here In search of knowledge for Mankind below. 0 stay, thou happy Spirit, stay And lead me on thro’ all the unbeaten Wilds of Day. Newton’s vision was seen as penetrating to the very core of ex istence and thus providing the poet with the beacon of truth which before had been found in myth and in nature as she ap peared to the senses. Yet as the Enlightenment gained momentum in the second half of the century, such sentiments began to change.

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