Man or Matter | Page 9

the part of an 'auxiliary concept', and what man
naively conceives as force has come to be defined as merely a
'descriptive law of behaviour'. We must leave it for later considerations
to show how the scientific mind of man has created for itself the
conviction that the part of science occupied with the actions of force in
nature can properly be treated with purely kinematic concepts. It is the
fact itself which concerns us here. In respect of it, note as a
characteristic of modern text-books that they often simply use the term
'kinetics' (a shortening of kinematics) to designate the science of
'dynamics'.4
In the course of our investigations we shall discover the peculiarity in
human nature which - during the first phase, now ended, of man's
struggle towards scientific awareness - has caused this renunciation of
all sense-experiences except those which come to man through the
sight of a single colour-blind eye. It will then also become clear out of
what historic necessity this self-restriction of scientific inquiry arose.
The acknowledgment of this necessity, however, must not prevent us
from recognizing the fact that, as a result of this restriction, modern
scientific research, which has penetrated far into the dynamic substrata
of nature, finds itself in the peculiar situation that it is not at all guided
by its own concepts, but by the very forces it tries to detect. And in this
fact lies the root of the danger which besets the present age.5
He who recognizes this, therefore, feels impelled to look for a way
which leads beyond a one-eyed, colour-blind conception of the world.
It is the aim of this book to show that such a way exists and how it can
be followed. Proof will thereby be given that along this way not only is
a true understanding achieved of the forces already known to science
(though not really understood by it), but also that other forces, just as
active in nature as for example electricity and magnetism, come within
reach of scientific observation and understanding. And it will be shown
that these other forces are of a kind that requires to be known to-day if
we are to restore the lost balance to human civilization.
*

There is a rule known to physicians that 'a true diagnosis of a case
contains in itself the therapy'. No true diagnosis is possible, however,
without investigation of the 'history' of the case. Applied to our task,
this means that we must try to find an aspect of human development,
both individual and historical, which will enable us to recognize in
man's own being the cause responsible for the peculiar narrowing of the
scope of scientific inquiry, as described by the scientists cited above.
A characteristic of scientific inquiry, distinguishing it from man's
earlier ways of solving the riddles of the world, is that it admits as
instruments of knowledge exclusively those activities of the human
soul over which we have full control because they take place in the full
light of consciousness. This also explains why there has been no
science, in the true sense of the word, prior to the beginning of the era
commonly called 'modern' - that is, before the fifteenth century. For the
consciousness on which man's scientific striving is based is itself an
outcome of human evolution.
This evolution, therefore, needs to be considered in such a way that we
understand the origin of modern man's state of mind, and in particular
why this state of mind cannot of itself have any other relationship to the
world than that of a spectator. For let us be clear that this peculiar
relationship by no means belongs only to the scientifically engaged
mind. Every adult in our age is, by virtue of his psycho-physical
structure, more or less a world-spectator. What distinguishes the state
of man's mind when engaged in scientific observation is that it is
restricted to a one-eyed colour-blind approach.
*
'Death is the price man has to pay for his brain and his personality' -
this is how a modern physiologist (A. Carrel in his aforementioned
book, Man the Unknown) describes the connexion between man's
bodily functions and his waking consciousness. It is characteristic of
the outlook prevailing in the nineteenth century that thinking was
regarded as the result of the life of the body; that is, of the body's
matter-building processes. Hence no attention was paid at that time to
the lonely voice of the German philosopher, C. Fortlage (1806-81),

who in his System of Psychology as Empirical Science suggested that
consciousness is really based on death processes in the body. From this
fact he boldly drew the conclusion (known to us today to be true) that if
'partial death' gave rise to ordinary consciousness, then 'total death'
must result in