CHAPTER XVIII

The Spectrum as a Script of the Spirit

The realization that Newton's explanation of the spectrum fails to meet

the facts prompted Goethe to engage in all those studies which made him

the founder of a modern optics based on intuitive participation in the

phenomena. In spite of all that he achieved, however, he never reached

a real solution of the riddle of the colour-phenomenon produced when

light passes through a transparent body of prismatic shape. For his

assumption of certain 'double images', which are supposed to appear as

a result of the optical displacement of the boundaries between the

Light-filled and the Dark-filled parts of space and the mutual

superposition of which he believed to be responsible for the appearance

of the respective colours, does not solve the problem.1

What hindered Goethe in this field was his limited insight into the

nature of the two distinct kinds of forces which, as we have noted in

the course of our own inquiries, correspond to his concepts of Licht

and Finsternis.

With the aid of this distinction - which we have indeed established

through a consistent application of Goethe's method - we shall now be

able to develop precisely that insight into the coming-into-being of

the spectral colours which Goethe sought.2

*

Dynamically, the process of the formation of the spectrum by light that

passes through a prism divides into two clearly distinguishable parts.

The first consists in the influence which the light undergoes inside

the prism as a result of the latter's special shape, the other, in what

happens outside the prism at the boundary between the Light-space -

influenced by the shape of the prism - and the surrounding Dark-space.

Accordingly, we shall study these two parts of the process separately.

As an aid to distinguishing clearly one process from the other, we

shall suppose the prism experiment to be so arranged that the light

area is larger than the width of the prism, which will then lie

completely within it. We shall further suppose the dimensions of the

whole to be such that the part observable on the screen represents only

a portion of the total light-realm situated between the boundaries of

the prism. The result is that the screen depicts a light-phenomenon in

which there is no trace of colour. For normal eyesight, the phenomenon

on the screen differs in no way from what it would be if no prism

intervened in the path of the light.

These two seemingly identical light-phenomena reveal at once their

inner dynamic difference if we narrow the field of light from either

side by introducing into it an object capable of casting shadow. If

there is no prism we see simply a black shadow move into the illumined

area on the screen, no matter from which side the narrowing comes. If,

however, the light has come through a prism (arranged as described

above) certain colours appear on the boundary between the regions of

light and shadow, and these differ according to the side from which the

darkening is effected. The same part of the light area may thus be made

to display either the colours of the blue pole of the colour-scale, or

those of the yellow pole. This shows that the inner dynamic condition

of the light-realm is altered in some way by being exposed to an

optically resistant medium of prismatic shape. If we are to find the

cause and nature of this alteration we must revert to the prism itself,

and inquire what effect it has on light in the part of space occupied

by it. By proceeding in this way we follow Goethe's model: first, to

keep the two border-phenomena separate, and, secondly, not to ascribe

to the light itself what is in fact due to certain boundary conditions.

In order to realize what happens to the light in passing through the

prism, let us remember that it is a characteristic of an ordinary

light-beam to direct itself through space in a straight line if not

interfered with, and to illuminate equally any cross-section of the

area it fills. Both these features are altered when the light is

exposed to a transparent medium of prismatic shape - that is, to an

optically resistant medium so shaped that the length of the light's

passage through it changes from one side of the beam to the other,

being least at the so-called refracting edge of the prism, greatest at

the base opposite to that. The dimming effect of the medium, therefore,

has a different magnitude at each point of the width of the beam.

Obviously, the ratio between levity and gravity inside such a

light-realm, instead of being constant, varies from one side to the

other. The result is a transverse dynamic impulse which acts from that

part of the light-realm where the weakening influence of the prism is

least towards the part where it is strongest (see long arrow in Plate

C, Fig. i).3 This impulse manifests in the deflection of the light from

its original course. Apart from this, nothing is noticeable in the

light itself when caught by an observation screen, the reason being

that the transverse impulse now immanent in the light-realm has no

effect on the reflecting surface.

The situation changes when the light-realm is narrowed down from one

side or the other - in other words, when an abrupt change of the

field-conditions, that is, a sudden leap from light to dark or from

dark to light, is introduced within this realm. In this case, clearly,

the effect of the transverse field-gradient on such a leap will be

different, depending on the relation between the directions of the two

(see small arrows in Fig. i). Our eyes witness to this difference by

seeing the colours of the blue pole of the colour-scale appear when the

field-gradient is directed towards the leap (a), and the colours of the

yellow pole when the gradient is directed away from it (b).

For our further investigation it is very important to observe how the

colours spread when they emerge at the edge of the shadow-casting

object thus introduced into the light-realm from the one side or the

other. Figs, ii and iii on Plate C show, closely enough for our

purpose, the position of the colour-bearing areas in each case, with

the dotted line indicating the direction which the light would have at

the place of origin of the colours if there were no object interfering

with its free expansion.4 We observe a distinct difference in the

widening out of the two colour-areas on both sides of the original

direction of the light: in each case the angle which the boundary of

the colour-area forms with this direction is smaller on the side of the

colours nearest the light-realm (blue and yellow respectively) than on

the opposite side (violet and red).

Remembering what we have learnt about the dynamic characteristics of

the two colour-poles, we are now in a position to state the following.

When a light-area subject to a lateral gradient is narrowed down, so

that the gradient is directed towards the narrowing object, colours

arise in which the interaction between the two polarically opposite

forms of density is such that positive density makes for lightness, and

negative density for darkness. Whereas, when the border is so situated

that the gradient is directed away from it, the interaction is such

that positive density makes for darkness, and negative density for

lightness. Further, the fact that on both occasions the darkness

element in the colour-band increases in the outward direction tells us

that in this direction there is on the blue-violet side a gradual

decrease in positive, and increase in negative, density, while on the

opposite side we find just the reverse. We note again that both

processes occupy a considerable part of the space originally outside

the boundaries of the light-area - that is, at the violet end the part

towards which the light-beam is deflected, and at the red end the part

from which it turns away.

The visual ray, when penetrating actively into the two colour-phenomena

thus described, receives evidence of a dynamic happening which may be

expressed as follows.

Where the transverse impulse, which is due to the varying degree of

Trübung in the light-realm, is directed towards the latter's edge, the

intermingling of the Dark-ingredient and the Light-ingredient,

contained in that realm, is such that Dark follows Light along its

already existing gradient, thereby diminishing steadily. Hence our

visual ray, meeting conditions quite similar to those occurring when we

look across the light-filled atmosphere into universal space, notifies

us of the presence of the blue-violet colour-pole. If, on the other

hand, the edge is in the wake of the transverse impulse, then a kind of

dynamic vacuum arises in that part of space from which the beam is

deflected, with the effect that the Dark-ingredient, imprinted on the

light within the prism, is drawn into this vacuum by following a kind

of suctional influence. Consequently Dark and Light here come to oppose

one another, and the former, on its way out of the light-area, gains in

relative strength. On this side our visual ray meets conditions

resembling those which occur when we look across the darkening

atmosphere into the sun. Accordingly our optical experience tells us of

the presence of the yellow-red colour-pole.

From our description of the two kinds of dynamic co-ordination of

positive and negative density at the two ends of the spectrum it

follows that the spatial conditions prevailing at one end must be quite

different from those at the other. To see this by way of actual

perception is indeed not difficult. In fact, if we believe that we see

both ends of the spectrum lying, as it were, flatly on the surface of

the observation screen, this is merely an illusion due to our

superficial way of using our eyes. If we gaze with our visual ray

(activated in the manner previously described) into the two sides of

the spectrum, while turning our eyes alternately in one or other

direction, we soon notice that the colours of the yellow-red rise

towards the eye so as to give the impression of protruding almost

corporeally from the surface of the screen. We feel: Density obtains

here in a state of fiery radiation. When turning to the other side we

feel our visual ray, instead of being as before caught up in the

colours, passing freely across the colours as if carried by them into

the infinite. On the blue-violet side, space itself seems to fluoresce

mysteriously5. Following Goethe's conception of the physical-moral

effect of colours, we may describe the experience received thus from

the two poles of the spectrum by saying that an 'other-worldly'

character belongs to the colours of the blue-violet pole; an 'earthly'

character to those of the yellow-red; while that of green, which

appears when both sides are made to overlap, witnesses to its mediating

nature between the two.

*

In our endeavour to view the fundamental experiment of Newtonian optics

with the eyes of Goethe we have been led from the wide expanse of the

earth's sunlit periphery into the confines of the darkened experimental

chamber. With the aid of the results gained from studying the

artificially produced spectrum phenomenon, we shall now return to our

original field of observation in order to study the same phenomenon in

nature. There it meets us in the form of the rainbow, which we shall

now be able to read as a chapter in the great book of nature.

From what we have learnt already we can say at once that the rainbow

must represent some sort of border-phenomenon, thus pointing to the

existence of a boundary between two space-regions of differing

illumination. Our question therefore must be: what is the light-image

whose boundary comes to coloured manifestation in the phenomenon of the

rainbow? There can be no doubt that the image is that of the sun-disk,

shining in the sky. When we see a rainbow, what we are really looking

at is the edge of an image of the sun-disk, caught and reflected, owing

to favourable conditions, in the atmosphere. (Observe in this respect

that the whole area inside the rainbow is always considerably brighter

than the space outside.)

Once we realize this to be the true nature of the rainbow, the peculiar

order of its colours begins to speak a significant language. The

essential point to observe is that the blue-violet part of the spectrum

lies on the inner side of the rainbow-arch - the side immediately

adjoining the outer rim of the sun-image - while the yellow-red part

lies on the outer side of the arch - the side turned away from the

sun-image. What can we learn from this about the distribution of

positive and negative density inside and outside the realm occupied by

the sun-disk itself in the cosmos?

We remember that along the gradient from blue to violet, negative

density (Light) increases and positive density (Dark) decreases, while

from yellow to red it is just the reverse-positive density increases

and negative density decreases. The rainbow therefore indicates a

steady increase of Dark towards the outer rim, and of Light towards the

inner. Evidently, what the optical image of the sun in the atmosphere

thus reveals concerning the gradation of the ratio between Light and

Dark in the radial direction, is an attribute of the entire light-realm

which stretches from the sun to that image. And again, the attribute of

this realm is but an effect of the dynamic relation between the sun

itself and the surrounding cosmic space.

The rainbow thus becomes a script to us in which we read the remarkable

fact that the region occupied by the sun in the cosmos is a region of

negative density, in relation to which the region surrounding the sun

is one of positive density. Far from being an accumulation of

ponderable matter in a state of extremely high temperature, as science

supposes, the sun represents the very opposite of ponderability. (It

would be beyond the scope of this book to show how in the light of this

fact one learns to re-read the various solar phenomena known to

science.)

Once we realize this, our judgment of all that our terrestrially

devised optical instruments, such as the telescope and spectroscope,

tell us about the nature of the sun and its surroundings, will change

accordingly. For it becomes clear that for the interpretation of solar

phenomena shown by these instruments we cannot properly use concepts

derived from observations within the earth's realm of positive density.

To compare adequately solar and terrestrial phenomena, we must keep in

mind that they are in every respect polar opposites. For instance, the

fact that the spectroscope reveals phenomena in the sun's light which

are strikingly similar to others occurring when earthly matter is first

caused to emit light - that is, brought near the upper border of its

ponderable existence - and then studied spectroscopically, should not

impose on us the illusion that the sun consists of matter in this same

condition. On the contrary, the similarity should tell us that

imponderable substance, while on its way between sun and earth to

ponderable existence, assumes, at the point of transition, aspects

exactly like those revealed by ponderable substance at the

corresponding point in its upward transformation.

What we observe, when we study the sun through a spectroscope, is not

the sun itself, but the conditions obtaining in this border-region,

where imponderable substance enters the earth-realm.

The rainbow, directly we learn to see it as the border-phenomenon that

it is, tells us something of itself which revives in modern form a

conception held generally in former ages, when it was seen as a

mediator between the cosmic-divine and the earthly-human worlds. Thus

the Bible speaks of it as a symbol of God's reconciliation with the

human race after the great Flood. Thus the Greeks beheld it when they

saw it as the bridge of Iris, messenger of the Gods; and similarly the

Germanic mythology speaks of it as the pathway along which the souls of

the fallen warriors draw near to Valhalla. By recovering this old

conception in a new and scientifically grounded form we are enabled

also to rectify the misunderstanding from which the ancient

bridge-conception of the rainbow has suffered in later days, when

tradition had begun to replace direct insight into the truth.

When with the rise of man's onlooker-relation to the world of the

senses, the rainbow could appear to him only as a form flattened

against the sky, people began to think that the ancient picture of it

as a bridge had been derived from its likeness to the latter's arched

form. Representations of the rainbow from these times indeed show

supersensible beings, such as the souls of the dead, moving upwards and

downwards along the two halves of the arch. It is not in this abstract

way that ancient man formed his cosmic imagery. What was seen going on

between the upper and nether worlds when a rainbow appeared in the

heights of the atmosphere was no traffic over the arch, but an

interplay across the rainbow between the realm of levity, glimmering

down in the rainbow's violet border, and the realm of gravity glowing

up from the red. And this is how we have now learnt to see it again.

*

At one point in our optical studies (page 259) we referred to some

words of Ruskin in which he deplored the influence exerted on the

soul-life of modern man by the world-conception of science. He

illustrated this by showing how much less inspiration a man trained in

the science of optics receives from the sight of a rainbow than does a

'simple peasant'. One lesson of our studies is that training in optics,

if it proceeds on Goethean lines, has no such detrimental effect. There

is, however, a further problem, outside Ruskin's scope, which we are

now able to approach in the same healthy way.

Ruskin distinguishes between three possible stages in man's relation to

the world of the senses. The first stage he calls that of 'inactive

reverie'; the second - in a certain respect more advanced - that of

'useful thought', the stage of scientifically awakened man to whom all

things disintegrate into countable and nothing but countable parts.

Beyond this, Ruskin conceives of a third, still higher stage, in which

man becomes capable of raising himself through 'higher contemplation'

into an artistic-ethical relation to the content of the sense-world.

Now, in the way Ruskin represents the second and third stages they seem

to be exclusive of one another. That was as far as he could go, in his

own day. Natural observation along Goethean lines leads to a form of

higher contemplation which unites the second and third stages by

nourishing man's ethical being and at the same time furnishing him with

useful knowledge-knowledge, that is, which enables him to improve the

conditions of the human race on the earth. The following is an example

of the practical possibilities that open up in the field we are

discussing if we apply the knowledge gained through our new approach to

the forces working in nature.

We shall speak here of a task of experimental research which was

mentioned by Rudolf Steiner in connexion with the renewal of natural

science.

Rudolf Steiner felt the need for pioneers who, by advancing along the

paths opened up by Goethe, would press forward into the realm of

undiscovered phenomena on the upper border of nature, and this prompted

him to give to those who were ready to listen various pointers towards

new ways of experimental research. In so far as practical results have

already been reached along these lines, they lie in the fields of

biology and physiology (and of chemistry, in a certain respect) rather

than in that of physics. Now, among the indications given in this

latter field, and not yet worked out, there is one which deals with a

way, unknown to-day, of influencing the spectrum by the magnet.

The possibility of a magnetic influence on the spectrum is, in itself,

not unknown to modern physics. It was the Dutchman, Zeeman, who first

observed a change in the appearance of certain spectral lines as a

result of light passing through a magnetic field. This discovery,

however, is in two respects typical of modern science. The Zeeman

effect consists in the splitting up of certain spectral lines into

other lines - hence, of a breaking up of a whole into parts. And by

seemingly providing a decisive confirmation of contemporary views

concerning the electromagnetic nature of light, Zeeman's discovery has

formed one of the milestones in the progress of modern physical thought

- with the usual result that an enlargement of man's knowledge of the

behaviour of natural forces has served to entangle his conception of

nature still more deeply in illusion.

Apart from the fact that our own way of combining observation and

thought guards us against drawing theoretical conclusions from Zeeman's

discovery, Rudolf Steiner's indication opens up the prospect of

achieving quite practical results, opposite in character to those of

the Zeeman effect. For in contradistinction to the use of a magnetic

field for splitting the spectrum, Rudolf Steiner has made us aware of

the possibility of uniting into a higher synthesis parts of the

spectrum which normally appear in separated form. His indication points

to nothing less than a leading over of the optically produced spectrum

from its usual linear form, with two boundaries on either side, into a

closed circular form, and of doing this by an adequate application - as

yet undiscovered - of magnetic force. Further, according to his

statement, the point where the two ends of the spectrum meet will prove

to be a fountain-head of certain higher natural forces which otherwise

are not directly accessible.

In order to understand how this is possible, we must remember that in

two respects the spectrum is not a complete phenomenon. There is, to

begin with, the fact that the colour-band visible on the observation

screen is only apparently confined to the surface of the screen. For,

as we have seen, because of the differing co-ordination of levity and

gravity at the two ends of the spectrum, the conditions of space

prevailing at each are polarically opposite. Negative space opens up

spherically behind the blue-violet colours on one side, while positive

space, filled by the radially shining yellow-red colours, arises on the

other. So we see that what we found earlier for the two poles of

magnetism and electricity holds good also for the spectrum. That is,

the two processes bringing about the relevant phenomena are not

confined to the part of space which these phenomena seem to occupy; for

the whole positive and negative realms of the universe share in them.

Hence the spectrum, though apparently bounded at its two ends, proves

by its very nature to be part of a greater whole.

Once before we were led to recognize - though from a different aspect -

that the spectrum is a phenomenon which, when rightly viewed, calls for

a certain completion. In following Goethe's initial observations we

realized that the known spectrum, extending from red via green to

violet, has a counterpart extending from violet via peach-blossom to

red. The reader may have wondered why we never returned to this other

spectrum, in spite of the role it played in making Goethe aware of

Newton's error. The reason was that in order to gain the understanding

we needed of the spectrum, we had to observe the two border-phenomena

independently - that is, without regard to their relative positions.

Moreover, with ordinary optical means it is possible to produce only

one type of spectrum at a time, so that each is left in need of being

complemented by the other. In order to have both together in finite

space, as part of one and the same phenomenon, space itself must be

dynamically transformed in such a way that the continuation of the

finite spectral band running through infinity enters into the finite as

well.

Our understanding of magnetism as a specific representation of the

polarity of the second order enables us to comprehend, at least in

principle, how magnetism might influence - not light itself, as

present-day physics erroneously believes - but the secondary polarity

of the spectral colours formed out of the primary polarity Light and

Dark. To see this in all necessary detail is a task of the future,

beyond the scope of this book. We have here to continue our account of

Rudolf Steiner's statement by communicating what he indicated

concerning the particular nature of the new source of force which would

appear in the normally infinite part of the spectrum, if this were

brought into the region of the finite.

In order to understand the significance of this indication we must turn

our attention to parts of the ordinary spectrum, well known in

themselves, which we have purposely left out of our study so far. These

are the regions of the ultra-violet and the infra-red, invisible in

themselves, but forming part of the spectrum as a whole. The

ultraviolet manifests through chemical effects, the infra-red through

thermal effects. We have left them out of our considerations because

these regions of the spectrum differ from the visible part not only

quantitatively, as present-day science believes, but qualitatively

also, and in a fundamental way. We must regard them as dynamic realms

of particularly extreme spherical and radial activities. As such they

represent metamorphoses, in the Goethean sense, of the levity-gravity

interaction represented by the optically visible part of the spectrum.

In this way the spectrum discloses a threefold differentiation of that

region of force, which up to now we have called simply levity, into

activities producing chemical, optical and thermal effects.

So far physical investigation is able to lead us, but no further. If,

however, we let nature herself speak to us, while holding this

differentiated concept of levity in mind, she tells us that beyond the

three metamorphoses envisaged so far, there must be a fourth.

Let us remember that it was certain phenomena of life which first made

us aware of the existence of a realm of forces with the attributes of

anti-gravity, and that these forces revealed themselves first as

creators of form. Now it is obvious that warmth, light and chemical

energy, though they all play an essential part in living organisms,

could never by themselves bring about that 'catching from chaos,

carbon, water, lime and what not and fastening them into a given form'

which Ruskin describes as the activity of the spirit in the plant. In

order to be in this sense an instrument of the spirit active in nature,

levity must be capable of yet another metamorphosis into an activity

which controls the other three, so that through their action,

definitely shaped organic structures may come into being.

The reason why this fourth and highest metamorphosis of Light does not

appear in the ordinary spectrum is because it is of too spiritual a

quality to be caught by the optical apparatus. In nature herself a

creative life-process requires always the presence of a germ already

imbued with life. And so, in order to call this fourth metamorphosis of

Light into the spectrum, stronger means are needed than the mere

optical transformation of light-filled spaces. This stronger agent,

according to Rudolf Steiner, is magnetism. With the aid of this it will

be possible to organize together round a common spatial centre that

part of the activity of levity which escapes the optical instrument and

thus remains cosmic, and that part which appears by itself in

terrestrial space.

Once this is practically carried out, we may expect a complete

colour-circle to appear as already divined by Goethe. The full circle

consists of twelve discernible colours, with the Goethean peach-blossom

diametrically opposite the green. It is in this region of the

peach-blossom that - again according to Rudolf Steiner - we shall find

a source of actively working life-forces, springing from the fourth

metamorphosis of levity. Such is the prospect for research work guided

on the new lines.

POSTSCRIPT

The fact of our having disclosed here one of Rudolf Steiner's

indications concerning as yet undetected possibilities of scientific

research, makes it necessary to deal with an objection which may be

raised, particularly by some readers who already know this indication

through their own relation to Rudolf Steiner's work. They may object to

a discussion of the subject in a publication such as this, feeling it

dangerous to hand over to the world information which in the economic

battles of to-day might be used in a sense contrary to the social-moral

aims to which the work of Rudolf Steiner was dedicated.

In reply it may be said that all we have gone through in this book has

shown that concrete knowledge of the world cannot be gained without a

certain ethical effort by the seeker. Therefore, anyone who receives

such knowledge with a passive attitude of soul will find it

meaningless, and will be quite unable to turn it to practical account.

We may therefore rest assured that the solution of the problem related

here, as of any other experimental task set by Rudolf Steiner, will

contain in itself a guarantee that no use will be made of it

detrimental to the true progress of mankind.

On the other hand, the present world-situation, which to so high a

degree is determined by the vast liberation of the sub-physical forces

of the earth, makes one feel it is essential not to close the

considerations of the fields of knowledge dealt with in these chapters,

without a hint at the practical possibilities which arise from a

continuation of Goethe's strivings in this field.

1 See, in Rudolf Steiner's edition of Goethe's scientific writings, his

footnote to Goethe's criticism of Nuguet's theory of the spectrum in

the historical part of the Farbenlehre (Vol. IV, p. 248, in Kürschner's

edition).

2 It is obvious that the reader who wishes to appreciate fully the

significance of the observations described in the following paragraphs,

must, as in previous cases, carry out these observations himself.

3 In this and the two following diagrams the light-realm has been

represented as being less wide than the space obtained by the prism. To

avoid unnecessary complexity the colours which, in such a case,

actually appear at the border of the light-realm where it emerges from

the prism are not shown in any of the diagrams.

4 This direction can be established with sufficient exactitude by

holding a very thin object right in front of the prism and marking with

a stretched thread the direction which leads from the object to its

shadow on the screen. The colour-producing edge must then be introduced

from either side so that it just touches the thread.

5 The difference in character of the various parts of the spectrum, as

described above, comes out particularly impressively if for capturing

the colour-phenomenon one uses instead of a flat white surface, a clear

crystal of not too small size, or else a cluster of crystals - moving

it slowly along the coloured band from one end to the other. (I am

indebted to Fr. Julius, teacher of Natural Science at the Free School

in The Hague, for this suggestion.)

PART III

Towards a New Cosmosophy

CHAPTER XIX

The Country in which Man is not a Stranger

I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any more than I question

a window concerning sight. I look through it and not with it.

WILLIAM BLAKE.

(a) INTRODUCTORY NOTE

A fundamental achievement along our path of study was the recognition

that a force of levity exists, polar to that of gravity, and that these

two together represent a primary polarity in nature which in turn is

the source of nature's manifold secondary polarities.

In the last part of these studies a vista opened up of an inner

differentiation of levity itself into warmth, light, chemical action

and the formative activity of life. Our next task will be to develop a

clearer conception of these four modes of action of levity.

In undertaking this task, however, we shall have to extend our

observations of nature beyond the frontier that can be reached by using

only what we can learn from Goethe. It is here that Rudolf Steiner

comes to our aid by what he was able to impart through his researches

in the realm of the supersensible itself.

This turning to information given by another mind, whose sources of

knowledge are beyond our own immediate reach, seems at first sight to

be incompatible with the principles guiding all our studies hitherto;

for in gaining insight into the How and Whence of a phenomenon of the

sense-world we have up to now admitted only what is yielded by an

observation of the phenomenon per se (though with the aid of the 'eye

of the spirit') and of other phenomena related to it. This is what we

have called 'reading in the book of nature', and we have found it to be

the method on which a science aspiring to overcome the onlooker-picture

of the universe must be based. So we must first make sure that the step

we now propose to take does not violate

this principle.

*

The assurance we want will be found in two characteristics of the

communications made by Rudolf Steiner from his researches. The content

of these communications was acquired by way of a 'reading' which is

nothing but a higher metamorphosis of the reading first employed by

Goethe; and the acceptance of this content by another mind is itself

nothing but another act of reading, save that the direction of the

reading gaze differs from the usual one.

In order to understand this we must go back to what we learnt in the

course of our optical studies as to the two forms of vision arising

from the activity of the eye's inner light - the dream-vision and the

seeing of after-images. Of these two, seeing in dream is in a certain

sense the purer form of inner seeing in that it arises without any

outer stimulus exercised upon the physical organ of sight. On the other

hand, it lacks that objective conformity to law characteristic of the

after-images which mirror the order of the external world. There is an

arbitrary, enigmatic element in dream-pictures, and their logic often

seems to run counter to that of waking consciousness. A further

characteristic of dream-perception is that we are tied to the level of

consciousness prevailing in the dream. While we are dreaming we cannot

awaken to the extent of being able to make the pictures the object of

conscious observation.

With the after-images it is different. Although to begin with they are

present in our consciousness with a clarity no greater than that of the

dream-pictures, nevertheless we are able so to enhance our

consciousness of them as to bring them under observation like any

external phenomenon. As previously shown, it is possible, even while

the eye is riveted on an impression from outside, to develop such

awareness in the activity of the inner light called forth by this

impression, that together with the results of the deeds and sufferings

of the light we can perceive something of these deeds and sufferings

themselves. Perception of the after-images thus turns into what we may

call perception of simultaneous images. (This activity of the eye

corresponds with what Goethe, in a different connexion, called an

'alliance of the eyes of spirit with the eyes of the body'.)

These two forms of visual perception - which we may briefly call: (1)

perception of post-images, and (2) perception of co-images - represent

successive rungs on a 'spiritual ladder' pointing beyond themselves to

a further rung. By the logic of succession this may be expected to

consist in some sort of seeing of pre-images, with the characteristic

of being a still less physical mode of seeing than the two others. This

seeing must be based on an activity of the inner light which will be

similar to that in dream by its arising without any stimulus from

external light-impressions, yet at the same time there must be no

arbitrariness in the contents of this perception. Further, our

consciousness in this perceptive activity must be such as to allow us

to be in full control of it, as we are of ordinary day-waking seeing.

This kind of pure sense-free perception does indeed exist, and it can

be aroused by means of a well-ordered training from the dormant state

in which it is present in every human being. Anyone who learns to see

in this way gains perception of the activity of cosmic light,

contacting it directly with his own inner light - that is to say,

without mediation of his corporeal eye which is subject to gravity. So

this eye-of-the-spirit becomes capable of perceiving the levity-woven

archetypes (ur-images), which underlie all that the physical eye

discerns in the world of ordinary space.

In respect of the intrinsic character of the world-content thus

perceived, Rudolf Steiner called this mode of perception, Imaginative

perception, or, simply, Imagination. By so doing he invested this word

with its due and rightful meaning.

From what we found in our optical studies concerning the nature of

after-images (Chapter XV), it is clear that the acquisition of

Imaginative perception rests on a re-awakening in the eye (and thus in

the total organism behind the eye) of certain 'infant' forces which

have grown dormant in the course of the growing up of the human being.

It thus represents a fulfilment of Thomas Reid's philosophic demand.

Consequently we find among the descriptions which Traherne gives of the

mode of perception peculiar to man when the inner light, brought into

this world at birth, is not yet absorbed by the physical eye, many

helpful characterizations of the nature of Imaginative perception, some

of which may be quoted here.

Consider, in this respect, the following passage from Traherne's poem

The Praeparative, quoted earlier. In describing the state of soul at a

time when the physical senses are not yet in operation, Traherne says:

'Then was my Soul my only All to me,

A living, endless Ey, Whose Power, and Act, and Essence was to see:

I was an inward Sphere of Light Or an interminable Orb of Sight,

Exceeding that which makes the Days,

A vital sun that shed abroad its Rays:

All Life, all Sense,

A naked, simple, pure Intelligence.''

This is the condition of soul of which Traherne says in the same poem

that through it a man is still a recipient of the 'true Ideas of all

things'. In this condition the object of sight is not the corporeal

world which reflects the light, but light itself, engaged in the

weaving of the archetypal images. In a later passage of the same poem

Traherne expresses this by saying:

'Tis not the Object, but the Light

That maketh Hev'n. ...'

And more clearly still in the following part of his poem An Infant Eye:

'A simple Light from all Contagion free,

A Beam that's purely Spiritual, an Ey

That's altogether Virgin, Things doth see

Ev'n like unto the Deity;

That is, it shineth in an hevenly Sense,

And round about (Unmov'd) its Light dispense.

'The visiv Rays are Beams of Light indeed,

Refined, subtil, piercing, quick and pure;

And as they do the sprightly winds exceed,

Are worthy longer to endure;

They far out-shoot the Reach of Grosser Air,

With which such Excellence may not compare.

But being once debas'd, they soon becom

Less activ than they were before.'

How at this stage the soul experiences the act of perception in itself

is shown in the following passage from the poem Wonder:

'A Nativ Health and Innocence

Within my Bones did grow

And while my God did all his Glories show

I felt a vigour in my Sense

That was all SPIRIT: I within did flow

With seas of Life like Wine.'

Utterances of this kind illustrate the fact that perception of the

ur-images of the world consists in a reading with the

eye-of-the-spirit, which has been rendered so strong that for its

action no support from the physical eye is any longer required. This

faculty of spiritual Imagination (which Rudolf Steiner was able to

exercise in advance of other human beings) is acquired on a path of

training which is the direct continuation of the Goethean path.1

It remains to show that acceptance of information obtained through

spiritual Imagination, without ourselves being as yet in actual command

of it, is not in contradiction with the principles of 'reading'. Let

us, to this end, think of reading in the ordinary sense of this word,

calling to mind that for the acquisition of this faculty we depend on

someone who can teach it because he already has it. Exactly the same

holds good for the reading with which we are here concerned. Here, too,

a teacher already possessing this faculty is required. Thus Goethe

became for us a teacher of reading, and it would be a mistake to

imagine that he, for his part, needed no teacher. In his case this

function was fulfilled partly by what he learned through his studies of

the earlier fruits of man's spiritual activity, that is, from an epoch

when vestiges at least of the original, instinctive faculty of

spiritual Imagination were still extant. A similar function on our own

path of study was performed by our occupation with the old doctrine of

the four elements and the basic concepts of alchemy.

Indispensable as is such a training in reading by turning to past

conceptions of man, it does not suffice to meet the present-day demands

of a scientific understanding of the universe. For this, we need a

'technique' of reading that cannot be attained along these lines alone.

Awareness of this fact led Rudolf Steiner to pursue his

spiritual-scientific investigations and to communicate the results in

such a way that they can be a 'school of reading' for those who study

them.2 In point of fact we have already made use in this sense of one

of the results of Rudolf Steiner's researches, for at the very

beginning of this book his picture of the threefold psycho-physical

organism of man was taken as the basis of our own investigations. The

reason why the present remarks were not then included is that the

relevant results of higher research were in that case of such a nature

that, once known, they could be confirmed by the simplest kind of

self-observation. The fact, however, remains that from the very

beginning we have called upon one fully trained in reading, to help in

deciphering certain facts of nature - in this case of human nature.

A similar need, though now in an amplified form, arises at the present

stage of our studies. And here, out of the wealth of knowledge conveyed

by Rudolf Steiner from the realm of supersensible Imagination, it is

his characterization of the four modifications of levity which will now

give the guidance necessary for our own observation. Adopting the

terminology chosen by him for the description of this sphere, we shall

in future speak of it as of the 'Ether' pervading the universe (thus

using this word also in its true and original meaning). Accordingly, we

shall refer to its fourfold differentiation as to the four kinds of

ether: Warmth-Ether, Light-Ether, Chemical Ether and Life-Ether.

* *

*

(b) WARMTH

We begin with the warmth-ether as the only modification of ether which

combines certain etheric with certain physical properties. Constituting

as it does a border-condition between the two worlds, the warmth-ether

has, on the one hand, the function of receiving the picture-weaving

transmitted to it by the higher ethers, and, on the other, of bringing

physical matter into the state where it becomes receptive to the

working of the etheric forces. The warmth-ether achieves this by

freeing matter from being controlled one-sidedly by the centre-bound

forces of the earth. It thus calls forth, when acting physically, the

processes of melting of solids and of evaporation of liquids: phenomena

which yielded the initial observations for our introduction of the

concept of levity. In processes of this kind we now recognize the

physical manifestation of a universal function of the warmth-ether,

namely, to divest matter of all form and to lead it over from the realm

dominated by gravity into that of levity. Provided we attach the right

meaning to the word, we may say that the function of the warmth-ether

is to bring about chaos at the upper border of physical nature. It is

thus that we have already found it working in the plant, when through

the union of the pollen with the seed a state of chaos is produced

within the seed, which enables the type to impress anew its

form-principle into it.

Another instance of the warmth-ether's anti-gravitational effect, also

discussed earlier, is the earth's seismic activity. True, it appears at

first sight as if little were gained by speaking of warmth-ether,

instead, as we did previously, of levity in general. But it must not be

forgotten that in the ether-realm as a whole, warmth - that is, the

overcoming of earthly gravity - is only one of the four modes of

etheric action, albeit the one which enables the other three to work

into the physical world. We shall see, later on, that only by taking

into account the action of the higher modifications of the ether is it

possible to gain insight into the true causes of the apparently so

arbitrary occurrences of volcanic and kindred phenomena. Here, too, it

is the function of the warmth-ether to produce in the physical sphere

the chaos which is necessary to make the physical sphere receptive to

the activities going on in higher spheres.

In view of this universal function of the warmth-ether, which

distinguishes it from the other modifications of ether, we may give it

as a second name that of 'chaoticizing ether'.

* *

*

(c) LIGHT

The function of the light-ether, the second of the four modes of ether,

can best be envisaged by thinking of the difference between a plant

growing in darkness (perhaps a potato sprouting in a cellar) and

another of the same species exposed to the influence of the light. On

Plates VII and VIII two kinds of unicellular organisms are shown, of

one which - the green algae - is accustomed to live in light, the other

- the bacilli - in darkness. These things are, of course, well-known

facts. Our purpose here, however, is not merely to record them as

'fact', but, by re-creating them within ourselves, to use them to gain

an experience of the function of the light-ether.

The following passages from Goethe's Metamorphosis of Plants are a

classical example of observation of the activity of the light-ether in

the plant. They are taken from the second part of the essay, where

Goethe is describing leaf-development:

'While the leaves owe their first nourishment principally to the more

or less modified watery parts, which they draw from the stem, they are

indebted for their increased perfection and refinement to the light and

air. The cotyledons which are formed beneath the closed seed-sheath are

charged, so to speak, with only a crude sap; they are scarcely and but

rudely organized and quite undeveloped. In the same way the leaves are

more rudely organized in plants which grow under water than in others

which are exposed to the open air. Indeed, even the same species of

plant develops smoother and less intricately formed leaves when growing

in low damp places, whereas, if transplanted to a higher region, it

will produce leaves which are rough, hairy and more delicately

finished.'

'So it is also with the anastomosis of the vessels which spring forth

from the larger veins, seeking each other with their ends and

coalescing, and thus providing the necessary basis for the leaf-skin or

cuticle. All this, if not entirely caused by subtle forms of air, is at

least very much furthered by them. If the leaves of many water-plants

are thread-like or assume the form of antlers, we are inclined to

attribute it to lack of complete anastomosis. The growth of the water

buttercup, Ranunculus aquatilis, shows this quite obviously, with its

aquatic leaves consisting of mere thread-like veins, while in the

leaves developed above water the anastomosis is complete and a

connected plane is formed. Occasionally, indeed, in this plant, the

transition may be still more definitely observed, in leaves which are

half anastomosed and half thread-like.'

The second of these paragraphs describes the phenomenon of vascular

anastomosis which, having already been more than once an object of our

study, here reveals a new meaning. If, following Goethe's method, we

re-create in our mind the repeated separations and reunions of the

sap-vessels, while keeping in view the fact that the leaf's outer form

is the result of a purposive, many times repeated anastomosis, then the

picture of the activity of weaving arises before our mind's eye. (Hence

the word 'tissue' for the flesh of a living being.) In truth all

nature's forms are woven of light, including the crystals.3

How clear a picture Goethe had of the conformity of man's act of

thinking with nature's way of producing her forms - both being an act

of supersensible weaving - is shown by the following two verses. That

on the left is a passage from Faust, from the scene in which Mephisto

(disguised as Faust) instructs the young Scholar. The other is an

altered version of it, written by Goethe at a later time to conclude an

essay (Bedenken und Ergebung) in which he deals with the problem of the

relation between Experience and Idea:

Truly, when men their thoughts conceive

'Tis as if some masterpiece they weave.

One thread, and a thousand strands take flight,

Swift to and fro the shuttles going,

All unseen the threads a-flowing,

One stroke, and a thousand close unite.1

So with a modest eye perceive

Her masterpiece Dame Nature weave.

One thread, and a thousand strands take flight,

Swift to and fro the shuttles going,

Each to the other the threads a-flowing,

One stroke, and a thousand close unite.4 -

What Goethe wants to show here by applying to the activity of nature

the same image which he used originally to depict the act of thinking,

we can express to-day by saying that it is the identity of the activity

of the light-ether in human thinking and in external nature which is

responsible for the fact that the objective ideas operating in nature

can become the content of man's consciousness in the form of thoughts.5

Following our previous procedure when we gave the warmth-ether a second

name by calling it chaoticizing ether, we can denote the light-ether

also as 'weaving ether'.

*

If at this point in our discussion we revert once more to the realm of

physical manifestations of light, dealt with in the preceding chapters,

we do so because by studying them in the present context we shall gain

further insight into the fact that one plane of nature provides

illustrations of processes which on another plane remain more or less

veiled. At the same time this will help us to learn more about the

properties of levity-space. The optical phenomenon which we shall

discuss in this sense is that of the so-called pin-hole camera. (The

pin-hole camera effect is easily produced by a keyhole in a closed door

which on one side faces a window and on the other leads to a

comparatively dark room.)

The usual explanation of the appearance of the optical image on the

back inside wall of such a camera is that light-rays, emanating from

every point outside, cross each other in the aperture of the camera and

so - again point by point - create the inverted image. No such

explanation, clearly, is open to us. For the world of external objects

is a whole, and so is its image appearing in the camera. Equally, the

light entering the camera is not a sum of single rays. Pure observation

leads to the following description of the optical process.

By surveying the path which the light takes from the illuminated

surface of the outer objects via the pin-hole to the optical image

inside the camera, we realize that the light-realm engaged in this

process has the shape of a double cone, with its apex in the opening of

the camera. Within this cone the light carries the image across the

space stretching in front of the light-reflecting objects up to the

point where the image becomes visible by being caught on the back wall

of the camera.

Thus in every section of the cone the image is present in its totality

- even in the very apex of the cone. There, too, the image in all its

details is present as a whole, though without (ideally) any spatial

extension. Seen thus, on this level of its action the light-ether

reveals as one of its characteristics the faculty of making present in

a spaceless point an image originally expanded in space, and of letting

it emerge from this point in spatial expansion.

Further, there is the fact that, wherever we set up a pin-hole camera,

the aperture in its front will cause the formation of an optical image

inside it. This shows that each point in space filled with light is the

bearer of an optical image, contracted to a point, of the entire world

of light-reflecting objects surrounding it. All we do with such a

camera is to select a particular image and bring it to separate

visibility.

Through these observations we grow aware of light's faculty of

communicating simultaneously to space as a whole, and to each point in

it, a potential image of the light-reflecting object.

What we observe here in the sphere of physical light-activity is

exactly what the light-ether performs on a higher level of nature when

with its help the spiritual archetype of a plant takes on spatial

appearance. For to this end the archetype, itself without spatial

limitations, imprints its image into the tiny seed, whence the growing

plant organism carries it again into space. And there is in principle

no limitation to the number of such seeds, each of which will bear the

complete image of the archetype.

* *

*

(d) SOUND

The characteristics of the third modification of ether are such that

they prompted Rudolf Steiner to give it as a second name, besides

chemical ether, that of sound-ether. In view of the fact, stressed at

the beginning of this chapter, that perception of the ether is achieved

by a heightening of the power of the spirit-eye, it must cause surprise

to learn that a certain mode of activity of the ether has a quality

which makes appeal to aural experiences. The full answer to this riddle

must await the discussion that follows this chapter. Two points,

however, may be brought forward at once. Firstly, where gravity, with

its tendency to individualize, is absent, no such sharp distinctions

exist between one form of perception and another as are found in the

sphere of the physical senses.6 Secondly, even in ordinary

sense-perception a certain overlapping of visual and aural experiences

is known to us. We need only think how common it is to give musical

attributes, such as 'consonant' and 'dissonant' to colours, and to

describe tones as 'light' and 'dark'. The reason is that subconsciously

we accompany visual experiences with tone-sensations, and vice versa.

Cases are even known of human beings in whom the secondary sensation

occurs with such intensity as to equal the primary one. Such people say

that they 'see' sounds and 'hear' colours.

*

Everything that is true of the supersensible sphere we may expect to

come to expression in some form in the world of sense-perception. The

sphere of the ether is the sphere of the creative archetypes of the

world, and when we learn that to one part of this world the character

of sound is attributed, we must search for a phenomenon, perceptible to

our senses, which reveals to us the secret of the sound's form-creating

power. This we have in the so-called sound-figures, discovered by the

German physicist Chladni (1756-1827) and called after him 'Chladni's

sound-figures'. A short description of how they are produced will not

be out of place.

A round or square plate of glass or brass, fixed at its centre so that

it can vibrate freely at its edges, is required. It is evenly and not

too thickly covered with fine sand or lycopodium powder and then caused

to vibrate acoustically by the repeated drawing of a violin-bow with

some pressure across the edge of the plate until a steady note becomes

audible. Through the vibrations thus caused within the plate, the

particles of sand or powder are set in movement and caused to collect

in certain stationary parts of the plate, thereby creating figures of

very regular and often surprising form. By stroking the plate at

different points on the edge, and at the same time damping the

vibrations by touching the edge at other points with the finger, notes

of different pitch can be produced, and for each of these notes a

characteristic figure will appear (Fig. 14).7

The significance for us of Chladni's experiment will emerge still more

clearly if we modify it in the following way. Instead of directly

setting the plate with the powder into vibration by stroking it with

the bow, we produce a corresponding movement on a second plate and let

it be transmitted to the other by resonance. For this purpose the two

plates must be acoustically tuned to each other and placed not too far

apart. Let us imagine, further, that the whole experiment was arranged

- as it well might be - in such a way that the second plate was hidden

from a spectator, who also lacked the faculty of hearing. This gives us

a picture of the situation in which we find ourselves whenever the

higher kinds of ether by way of a tone-activity inaudible to our

physical ear, cause shapeless matter to assume regularly ordered form.

*

This comparison of the activity of the sound-ether, as the

form-creating element in nature, with Chladni's phenomenon is drawn

correctly only if we recognize that the conception of form, as an

expression of that which is called forth through the etheric forces in

nature, comprises more than the external spatially bounded shape of an

organic or inorganic entity. Apart from the fact already indicated,

that for the formation of such entities the co-operation also of

life-ether is necessary, we can judge the activity of sound-ether

correctly only if we conceive it as a much more inward activity,

compared with the formation in external space of Chladni's figures. In

the latter case, the reason why the influence of sound causes nothing

beyond the ordering of form in outer space is because on this plane of

nature the only changes that can occur are changes in the positions of

separate physical bodies. Where the forces of sound in ether-form are

able to take hold of matter from within, they can produce changes of

form of a quite different kind. This effect of the activity of

sound-ether has given it its other name: chemical ether.

We have mentioned once before that our conception of 'form' in

organically active nature must not be limited merely to that of a

body's spatial outline. This was in connexion with Ruskin's definition

of the spiritual principle active in plant-formation as 'the power that

catches out of chaos charcoal, water, lime and what not, and fastens

them down into a given form'. Besides the external order of matter

revealed in space-form, there exists also an inner qualitative order

expressed in a body's chemical composition. Upon this inner chemical

order is based all that we encounter as colour, smell, taste, etc., of

a substance, as well as its nourishing, healing or harmful properties.

Accordingly, all these parts of an organism, both in the plant-kingdom

and within the higher organisms, have a certain inner material order,

apart from their characteristic space-structure. The one is never

present without the other, and in some way they are causally connected.

In this inner order of substance we must see in the very first place

the work of the sound or chemical ether. And we should be aware that by

the word 'chemistry' in this connexion we mean something much more

far-reaching than those chemical reactions which we can bring about by

the reciprocal affinity of physical substances, however complicated

these reactions may be. A few examples will illustrate the difference

between chemical processes caused by direct influence of the chemical

ether, and others in which only the physical consequences of the ether

are effective.

In his book, Man the Unknown, Professor Carrel shows very impressively,

by an example from the human organism, the difference of quantitative

ratio in externally similar processes, one of which occurs within the

domain of life, the other, outside it. He compares the quantity of

liquid necessary to keep artificially alive a piece of living tissue

which has been reduced to pulp, with the quantity of blood doing the

same within the living organism. If all the tissues of a human body

were treated in this way, it would take 45,000 gallons of circulating

fluid to keep them from being poisoned in a few days by their own waste

products. Within the living organism the blood achieves the same task

with 1J gallons.

Very many chemical changes within living organisms are effected by the

two polar processes of oxidation and reduction. We have discussed them

repeatedly as hieroglyphs of much that occurs in nature by way of

polarity. In accordance with the principle ruling the physical plane of

nature, that differences of level tend to disappear, oxidation can

occur by itself, whereas reduction requires the expenditure of energy.

Let us from this point of view compare the transformation of oxidized

into reduced iron, as it takes place inside and outside the realm of

life.

An example of this process in its purely physical form is the reduction

of iron-ore to metallic iron in blast-furnaces, where, with the help of

high temperature and high pressure, carbon is made to combine with the

oxygen ingredient of the ore and to impart to it its own imponderable

energy. Precisely the same process is going on continuously and

unobtrusively within the human body under normal bodily conditions of

temperature and pressure, when the oxy-haemoglobin of the arterial

blood changes over into the haemoglobin of the venous blood. A

macrotelluric counterpart of this is the transformation of the red

river-mud into the blue-black continental mud at the bottom of the sea,

around the continental shores. Here, again, reduction takes place

without those preliminaries that are necessary for carrying through the

process by technical means.

Through examples of this kind we gain insight into the nature of the

chemical ether as a 'magic' force (in the sense in which we have

introduced this term at the beginning of the book). What the chemical

ether is capable of effecting in a gentle manner, so to speak, in

cooperation with the inertness-overcoming power of the warmth-ether,

can be imitated physically only by an extraordinary concentration of

external energy and the use of masses of material substance. At the

same time the imitation is never complete. For to all that happens

through the action of the chemical ether there belongs the quality of

cosmic youth, while everything brought about in a purely physical

manner is of necessity cosmically old.8

Of all the provinces of nature towards which man's exploring eye has

turned since the dawn of the onlooker-consciousness, none has furthered

his purely quantitative thinking more than chemistry, ever since the

discovery that the chemical reactions of the various substances are

conditioned by a quite definite and constant numerical relationship. It

was these relationships which impelled the rise of the atomic

conception of matter and all its consequences. For since the

onlooker-consciousness is quite unable to conceive the existence of

numerical relationships in the physical world except as sums of

computable units in space, it was natural for this type of

consciousness to reduce all empirically established numerical

relationships to correspending relationships among quantities of the

smallest possible material or matter-like units.

Scientific thinking, if guided by knowledge of the existence of etheric

forces and their action, has no need of such an interpretation of the

numerical relationships revealed in the physical world; for it knows

them to be nothing but the last expression of the action of the

chemical ether (hence occasionally also called 'number-ether' by Rudolf

Steiner). To do justice to the appearance of measurable numerical

relationships in nature, in whatever sphere, it is necessary to free

ourselves from the abstract conception of number which governs modern

scientific thought and to replace it by a more concrete one. We shall

rind that for the existence of a certain number there may be two quite

different reasons, although the method of establishing the number

itself is the same in each case. A simple example will illustrate this.

Let us look at a number of similar objects, say a group of five apples.

We observe that the relation of the number five to the group of objects

in front of us is purely external and accidental. In applying to it the

conception 'five' we combine the single objects into a group and give

it a name, or numerical label, which has nothing to do with the nature

of the items making up the group. This way of thinking, we may observe,

is of exactly the kind which the nominalists of the Middle Ages

attributed to every conception formed by the human mind. In fact, the

process of counting is a process of pure abstraction. The more

differentiated are the things which we want to combine into a group

through the process of counting, the further this abstraction has to

go. We can count apples and pears together under the collective

conception of 'fruit'; if turnips are added, we must help ourselves out

with the conception 'vegetable products'; until finally we deal only

with 'things', without considering any qualitative differentiation.

Thus the conception of number is created solely within the human mind,

which applies it to things from outside.

From the moment when human consciousness was unable to attribute to

itself any other than a purely nominalistic mode of comprehension it

was inevitable that all explanations of natural phenomena would have

two results: (1) the exclusion from observation of everything that

could not be conceived in terms of numbers, and (2) an endeavour to

find for every numerical relationship capable of empirical proof an

explanation which could be interpreted as the result of taking

qualitatively identical units and counting them. For this method of

forming conceptions is the only one which nominalism can accept with a

good conscience. The fact that in so doing it is led ad absurdum has

only quite lately occurred to it. For if by the logical following of

this path - as in modern theoretical physics - the whole universe is

dissolved into units which can no longer be distinguished from each

other, then it will become impossible to count these parts, for it

cannot be established whether any given one of these hypothetical

elemental particles has been counted or not. None the less, Eddington

claimed to have found the exact number of particles composing the

universe - a number with 80 figures - by using a special calculus, but

this number is valid only on the supposition that the particles cannot

be counted because they are indistinguishable!9

However correct the nominalistic conception of number may be in such a

case as that of numbering the five apples, it is wholly incorrect to

restrict the concept of number itself to one valid for this kind of

occurrence. We shall see this immediately if we take one of the apples

and cut it across. There we find the number five confronting us in the

well-known star-like figure, represented by the fivefold pericarp in

the centre of the apple. What man, restricted as he was to the mode of

understanding, has completely overlooked is this: although the act of

counting, by which we establish the number five, is the same in both

cases, the quality of the number five is totally different. For in the

case of the five pericarps this number is a quality immanent in the

apple, which it shares with the whole species of Rosaceae. The apple

itself is just as much 'five' as it is 'round', 'sweet', etc. In the

supersensible type which creates in the plant its own organ of

manifestation, the creation of a number - in the apple the number five

- is part of the form-creating activities characteristic of the type.

The numerical relationships which appear between natural phenomena

depend upon the way in which the chemical ether participates. This is

true equally of those discovered by chemistry in the sphere of

inorganic matter and used to-day with such great success.

Let us be quite clear that the relationship of unity to plurality in

the case of the five apples is totally different from what it is in the

fivefold pericarp. In the first case unity is the smallest quantity

represented by each of the five apples. There, the step from one to two

is made by joining together two units from outside. The path from one

to many is by way of continuous addition. In the second case the unity

is represented by the pericarp - i.e. by the one comprising the many,

the latter appearing as parts of the whole. In such a case two is part

of one and so are three, four, five, etc. Plurality arises from a

continuous process of division of unity.

The ancient world knew the idea of number only in the last-mentioned

form. There unity appeared as an all-embracing magnitude, revealed

through the Universe. The world's manifoldness was felt to be not a

juxtaposition of single things, externally connected, but the content

of this unity, and therefore derived from it. This was expressed by the

pre-Socratic Greek philosophers in the formula έν και παν (the One and the All).

With the appearance of the Arabs on the scene of history, human thought

turned to the additive concept of number, and the original distributive

concept receded gradually into oblivion. The acceptance of the new

concept made it possible for the first time to conceive the zero. It is

clear that by a continuous division of unity one is carried to a

constantly growing number of constantly diminishing parts, but without

ever reaching the nothing represented by the number zero. To-day we

should say that in this way we can reach zero only by an infinite

series of steps. Yet the idea of the infinite did not exist in this

form for ancient man. On the other hand, in the arabic conception of

number the steps necessary to reach zero are finite. For just as by the

external addition of unities we can step forward from one number to the

next, so we can also step back on the same path by repeated

subtractions of unities. Having thus reached One, nothing can stop us

from going beyond it by one more such step. The arabic numeral system,

therefore, is the only one to possess its own symbol for zero.

It has been correctly noted that the penetration into European thought

of this additive concept of number was responsible for developing the

idea of the machine; for it accustomed human beings to think calmly of

zero as a quantity existing side by side with the others. In ancient

man the idea of nothingness, the absolute void, created fear; he judged

nature's relation to the void accordingly, as the phrase 'natura

abhorret vacuum' indicates. His capacity to think fearlessly of this

vacuum and to handle it thus had to be developed in order to bring

about the Machine Age, and particularly the development of efficient

steam engines. Consider also the decisive part played by the vacuum in

Crookes's researches, through which the path to the sub-physical realm

of nature was laid open.

Yet nature makes use of number as a regulating factor in quite a

different way from its appearance in the purely electrical and

gravitational connexions of inorganic matter, namely where sound-ether

from the upper boundary of nature so regulates nature's dynamic that

the manifold sense-qualities appear in their time-and-space order. When

we interpret the arrangement of numbers found there on a nominalistic

basis, as is done when the axis- and angle-relationships of crystals

are reduced to a mere propinquity of the atoms distributed like a grid

in space, or when the difference in angle of the position of the

various colours in the spectrum is reduced to mere differences in

frequency of the electromagnetic oscillations in a hypothetical ether -

then we bar the way to the comprehension not only of number itself, as

a quality among qualities, but also of all other qualities in nature.

*

(e) LIFE

As already mentioned, the three kinds of ether, warmth, light and

sound, are not sufficient in themselves to bring into existence what in

its proper sense we call 'life' in nature, i.e. the formation of single

living organisms. This requires the action of a fourth kind of ether,

the life-ether, ranged above the other three. We can best comprehend

the life-ether's contribution to the total activity of the ether in

nature by considering the interaction of the four kinds of ether with

the four physical elements.

We have seen that the warmth-ether has the double function of being at

once the lowest ether and the highest physical element, thus acting as

a sphere of reflexion for the other kinds of ether and the elements

respectively. Each stage in the etheric has its reflexion in the

physical, as the above table shows. Thus to the physical air the

etheric light is related. (The affinity of light and air is best seen

in the plant and its leaf-formation.) To bring about real changes in

the material composition of the physical world requires the stronger

powers of the chemical ether. Therefore it is also the first ether of

which we had to speak as 'magical' ether. Its effects reach into the

watery element which is already bound up with gravity, but by its own

strength it cannot penetrate beyond that. The causation of material

changes in the liquid sphere would in fact be all that these three

kinds of ether could achieve together.

Only when the power of the life-ether is added to the three others can

etheric action reach as far as the sphere of solid matter. Thus the

life-ether is responsible for all solid formation in nature, both in

her organic and inorganic fields (the latter-crystal-formation-being

the effect of external ether-action).10 It is to the action of the

life-ether that nature owes the existence in her different realms of

multitudes of separate solid forms. To mention an instance from our

previous studies: in the same way as volcanic phenomena manifest the

warmth-ether's gravity-overcoming power on a macrotelluric scale, so

snow-formation illustrates the life-ether's matter-shaping might.

Through its power to bind flowing action into solid form, the

life-ether is related to the sound-ether in the same way as the

articulated word formed by human speaking is related to the mere

musical tone. The latter by itself is as it were fluid. In human speech

this fluidity is represented by the vowels. With a language consisting

only of vowels man would be able to express feelings, but not thoughts.

To let the word as carrier of thought arise out of sound, human speech

possesses the consonants, which represent the solid element in it.

The emergence of the sense-bearing word from the merely ringing sound

is an exact counterpart to what takes place in nature when the play of

organic liquids, regulated by the chemical ether, is caused by the

life-ether to solidify into outwardly perceptible form. By reading in

this way the special function of the life-ether among the other three,

we are led to the term ' Word-ether' as an appropriate second name for

it, corresponding to the term sound-ether for the chemical ether.

*

Thus Levity presents itself to us as being engaged in the fourfold

activity of Chaoticizing, Weaving, Sounding and, lastly, Speaking the

form-creative Cosmic Word into the realm of Gravity.

1 To avoid misunderstandings, it should be emphasized that spiritual

Imagination is not attained by any exercise involving directly the

sense of sight and its organ, the eye, but by purely mental exercises

designed to increase the 'seeing' faculty of the mind.

2 Indeed, it is a misunderstanding of the whole meaning of

Anthroposophy when its contents are quoted - as they sometimes are even

by adherents - in such a way as to suggest that by their help a better

'explanation' may be gained of matters for which there is otherwise no,

or at least no satisfactory, explanation. The question: 'How does

Anthroposophy explain this or that?' is quite wrongly put. We ought

rather to ask: 'How does Anthroposophy help us to read more clearly

this or that otherwise enigmatical chapter of the script of existence?'

3 See Space and the Light of Creation, by G. Adams, where this

'weaving' is shown with the help of projective geometry.

4 Translation by J. Darrell.

5 We may recall here also the passage from Ruskin's The Queen of the

Air, quoted earlier, p. 118).

6 That the ether, apart from being supersensibly seen, is also heard,

was empirically known to Goethe. See the opening words of the 'Prologue

in Heaven" (Faust, I) and the call of the Spirit of the Elements in the

first scene of the Second Part of the drama, which follow upon the

stage direction: 'The sun announces his approach with overwhelming

noise.'

7 By attending Chladni's lectures on his discovery in Paris the French

physicist Savart became acquainted with this phenomenon and devoted

himself to its study. Chladni and Savart together published a great

number of these figures.

8 Understanding the attributes of the chemical ether enables us to see

in their right perspective Rudolf Steiner's suggestions to farmers for

the preparation of the soil and for keeping healthy the crops growing

on it. Attempts have been made to dismiss these suggestions by calling

them 'mysticism' and 'mediaeval magic'. Both terms are titles of honour

if we understand by the one the form of insight into the supersensible

realm of nature acquired by the higher mode of reading, and by the

other a faculty of nature herself, whose magic wand is the chemical or

sound-ether.

9 See Eddington's humorous and at the same time serious treatment of

this problem in his Philosophy of Physical Science.

10 Of the difference between external and internal ether-action more

will be said in the concluding chapter.

CHAPTER XX

Pro Anima

Thy functions are ethereal,

As if within thee dwelt a glancing mind,

Organ of vision! And a Spirit aëreal

Informs the cell of Hearing, dark and blind.

W. WORDSWORTH

(a) THE WELL-SPRINGS OF NATURE'S DEEDS AND SUFFERINGS

As our observations have shown, gravity and levity not only exist side

by side as a primary polarity; the manifold interaction of their fields

gives rise to all sorts of secondary polarities. Obviously, this

interaction must be brought about by a further kind of force to which

gravity and levity are subordinate.

In what follows we shall try, so far as is possible within the scope of

this book, to throw light on the nature of this force. Since the direct

experience of the dynamic realm constituted by it is based on faculties

of the mind other than those needed for the Imaginative perception of

the etheric realm, we shall have to examine also the nature and origin

of these faculties. This will lead us again to the study of one of

man's higher senses, this time his sense of hearing, with the aim of

finding the spiritual function that is hidden in it. But our order of

procedure will have to differ from the one followed in the last

chapter, because it will be necessary first to make ourselves

acquainted with the nature of the new force and then to turn to an

examination of the sense-activity concerned.

*

Let our first object of observation be man himself in so far as he

illustrates a polarity of the second order.

When studying man's nature with the idea of understanding the genesis

of his onlooker-consciousness, it will be remembered, we had to examine

the ordering of his consciousness into waking, dreaming and sleeping in

the different members of his organism. We recognized three different

organic systems, the sensory-nerve system, the rhythmic system and the

metabolic-limb system, as the bodily foundation of three different soul

activities. These are the thought-forming activity which belongs to

waking consciousness; the feeling activity which belongs to dream

consciousness; and the willing activity which belongs to sleep

consciousness. We then saw in these three systems representatives of

the three alchemical functions - 'sulphurous' in the metabolic,

'saline' in the nervous, 'mercurial' in the mediating rhythmic system.

Regarded thus, man's nature reveals itself as being endowed with a

physical organization, and an etheric organization, which are brought

into different relationships by being acted upon by a third

organization consisting of forces of the kind here to be studied. At

his lower pole these forces co-ordinate the ether and physical

organizations in a manner corresponding to the function of the

'sulphur'-pole of the alchemical triad. Here, therefore, the

warmth-ether takes the lead and acts in such a way that the higher

kinds of ether are able to come to expression in material processes of

the body. At the upper pole corresponding forces co-ordinate the

physical and ether organizations in a way characteristic of the

'salt'-pole. This gives the lead to the life-ether, so that the

physical organism provides the foundation for the activity of the

ether-forces without, however, being actually penetrated by them (at

least after completion of the embryonic and first post-embryonic

development). As a result, consciousness lights up in this part of the

body. The rhythmic sphere, being the 'mercurial' middle, is

distinguished by an alternation of the two conditions described. With

each diastole it becomes more akin to the pole below, and with each

systole more akin to the pole above. Here, therefore, the lighting up

of consciousness is only partial.

By means of these observations we realize that the third type of force,

in so far as it is active in man, has the capacity, by co-ordinating

the physical and etheric parts of the organism in one way or another,

to promote happenings either of a more corporeal or a more psychical

nature - namely, motion at one pole, sensation at the other, and

feeling in the middle between them.1 Remembering Goethe's formula,

'colours are deeds and sufferings of light', we realize how deeply true

the concepts were to which he was led by his way of developing

observation and thought.