The philosophy of spiritual activity (translated)

Preface to the revised edition, 1918

Everything discussed in this book focuses on two problems that are fundamental to the life of the human soul. One of these problems concerns the possibility of achieving such an understanding of human nature that human knowledge can become the foundation of all human knowledge and experience of life. We often feel that our experiences and the results of scientific investigations are not self-sufficient; further experiences or discoveries can shake our certainty. The other question is: does man have the right to attribute freedom to his will, or is freedom of will an illusion arising from his inability to recognise the threads of necessity on which his will depends, just like a process in nature? This question is not artificially created. In a certain disposition it arises quite spontaneously in the human soul. And it is felt that the soul lacks stature if it has not at some time grappled with the question of free will or necessity with deep seriousness. The aim of this book is to show that the inner experiences caused by the second problem depend on the attitude that man is able to take towards the first problem. An attempt will be made to show that it is possible to attain such an understanding of man's nature that this can support all the rest of his knowledge, and furthermore that this understanding completely justifies the concept of freedom of will, provided that one first discovers the region of the soul where free will can unfold.

This insight in relation to the two problems is such that, once attained, it can become a living content of the life of man's soul. A theoretical answer will not be given that, once acquired, is simply carried around as a conviction, held in memory. For all the thinking on which this book is based, such an answer would not be an answer. It would not give such a finite and limited answer, but would point to a region of experience within the human soul, where, through the inner activity of the soul itself, living answers to questions are found again and again and at every moment when man needs them. Once the region of the soul in which these questions develop has been discovered, a true knowledge of this region provides man with what he needs for the solution of these two problems of life, so that, with what he has attained, he can penetrate further into the breadth and depth of life's enigmas, as need or destiny takes him. - It will be seen that a knowledge has been outlined here that proves its justification and validity, not only through its very existence, but also through the relationship it has with the entire life of man's soul. These were my thoughts on the content of this book when I wrote it twenty-five years ago. Today, again, I must write in a similar way if I am to characterise the purpose of this book. In the first edition I limited myself to saying no more than that it was strictly related to the two fundamental problems described above. If anyone is surprised that they still cannot find in this book any reference to that region of the world of spiritual experience described in my later writings, then they must consider that at that time it was not my purpose to describe the results of spiritual research, but first of all to lay the foundations on which these results can rest. This 'Philosophy of Freedom' contains no special results of this kind, just as it contains no special results of the natural sciences. But what it does contain cannot, in my opinion, be dispensed with by anyone seeking certainty in such knowledge. What I have said in this book may also be acceptable to many who, for reasons of their own, will have nothing to do with the results of my spiritual scientific research. But those who may regard these results of spiritual scientific research as something to which they are drawn will recognise what is attempted here as important. It is this: to show that an open-minded consideration of just the two problems I have indicated, problems that are fundamental to all knowledge, leads to the recognition that man lives in the reality of a spiritual world. In this book, an attempt is made to justify knowledge of the spirit realm before entering into spiritual experience. And this justification is undertaken in such a way that, for anyone who can and will enter into this discussion, there is no need, in order to accept what is said here, to cast furtive glances at the experiences that my later writings have shown to be relevant.

Thus it seems to me that, on the one hand, this book occupies a completely independent position from my writings on real spiritual scientific questions, and yet, on the other hand, it is also intimately connected with them. All this has prompted me now, after twenty-five years, to republish the contents of this book virtually unaltered in all essential elements. I have, however, made additions of some length to several chapters. The misunderstandings of my argumentation that came to my attention seemed to make these detailed extensions necessary. Changes were made only where what I said a quarter of a century ago seemed clumsily expressed. (Only ill will could find occasion in these changes to suggest that I have changed my fundamental conviction).

The book has been out of print for many years. However, and despite the fact, evident from what I have just said, that it seems to me that what I expressed twenty-five years ago about the problems I characterised should be expressed in the same way today, I have hesitated for a long time about completing this revised edition. Over and over again, I have asked myself whether at this point or that, I should not define my position with regard to the many philosophical opinions that have been put forward since the publication of the first edition. However, the heavy demands on my time in recent years, due to purely spiritual scientific research, have prevented me from doing what I might have wished. Moreover, a survey, as thorough as possible, of the current philosophical literature has convinced me that such a critical discussion, however tempting it may be in itself, has no place in the context of what this book has to say. Everything that, from the point of view of the 'Philosophy of Spiritual Activity', I felt it necessary to say about recent philosophical trends can be found in the second volume of my 'Enigmas of Philosophy'.

April 1918 RUDOLF STEINER

Conscious human action

Is man in his thinking and acting a spiritually free being or is he constrained by the iron necessity of natural law? Few questions have been debated more than this one. The concept of the freedom of the human will has found enthusiastic supporters and stubborn opponents in abundance. There are those who, in moral fervour, declare that it is sheer stupidity to deny such an obvious fact as freedom. Opposed to them are others who consider it utterly naive to believe that the uniformity of natural law is broken in the sphere of human action and thought. The same thing is here declared as often as humanity's most precious possession, as well as its most fatal illusion. Endless subtlety has been devoted to explaining how human freedom is compatible with the functioning of nature, to which, after all, man belongs. No less effort has been made to make it understandable how such an illusion could have arisen. That we are dealing here with one of the most important questions of life, religion, conduct and science, is felt by all those whose character is not entirely without depth. And indeed, it belongs to the sad signs of the superficiality of current thinking that a book that attempts to develop a 'new faith' from the results of the latest scientific discoveries contains nothing but words on this issue:

"There is no need here to enter into the question of the freedom of the human will. The supposedly indifferent freedom of choice has always been recognised as an empty illusion by every philosophy worthy of the name. The moral evaluation of human conduct and character is not touched by this question'.

I do not quote this passage because I think the book in which it appears is of particular importance, but because it seems to me that it expresses the only opinion that most of our thinking contemporaries are able to reach, regarding this question. All those who claim to have gone beyond elementary education nowadays seem to know that freedom cannot consist in choosing at will one or the other of two possible courses of action; it is argued that there is always a definite reason why, among the various possible actions, we perform a particular one.

This seems obvious. However, so far, the main attacks of those opposed to freedom are only directed against freedom of choice. Herbert Spencer, whose views are rapidly gaining ground, says:

That everyone is capable of desiring or not desiring, as he pleases, which is the essential principle in the dogma of free will, is denied by the analysis of consciousness, as well as by the content of the previous chapter.

Others also start from the same point of view in combating the concept of free will. The germs of all that is relevant in these arguments can be found as far back as Spinoza. Everything he brought forward in clear and simple language against the idea of freedom has been repeated since then without number, but usually veiled in the more complicated theoretical doctrines, so that it is difficult to recognise the thread on which everything depends. Spinoza writes in a letter of October or November 1674:

"I call free a thing that exists and acts from the sheer necessity of its nature, and I call constrained that whose existence and action are exactly and stably determined by something else. God's existence, for example, though necessary, is free because it exists only out of the necessity of its nature. Similarly, God knows himself and everything else in freedom, because it follows solely from the necessity of his nature that he knows everything. You see, then, that I regard freedom as consisting not in free decision, but in free necessity.

"But let us descend to created things, which are all determined by external causes to exist and act in a fixed and definite manner. To recognise this more clearly, let us imagine a perfectly simple case. A stone, for example, receives from an external cause acting upon it a certain amount of motion, whereby it necessarily continues to move after the impact of the external cause has ceased. The stone's continuous motion is constrained, not necessary, because it must be defined by the momentum of the external cause. What is true here for the stone is also true for every other particular thing, however complicated and multiform it may be, i.e. that every thing is necessarily determined by external causes to exist and act in a fixed and definite manner.

"Now, please, suppose that during its motion the stone thinks and knows that it is exerting itself to the best of its ability to continue moving. This stone, which is conscious only of its effort and is not at all indifferent, will believe that it is absolutely free, and that it continues to move for no other reason than its will to continue. But this is that human freedom which everyone claims to possess and which consists in nothing but this, that men are conscious of their desires, but do not know the causes by which they are determined. Thus the child believes he is free when he desires milk, the angry boy believes he is free in his desire for revenge, and the timid in his desire to escape.

Again, the drunken man believes that he says of his own free will what he would gladly have left unsaid when sober, and since this prejudice is innate in all men, it is not easy to get rid of it. For although experience teaches us often enough that man, least of all, can temper his desires, and that, moved by conflicting passions, he sees the best and pursues the worst, yet he considers himself free, simply because there are some things he desires less strongly and many desires that can be easily inhibited through the recollection of something else that is often remembered."

Since we are dealing here with a clear and definitively expressed vision, it is also easy to discover its fundamental error. Just as a stone necessarily continues a definite movement after it has been set in motion, so necessarily is a man supposed to perform an action when he is driven to it by any reason. It is only because man is conscious of his action that he regards himself as its free author. But in doing so, he overlooks the fact that he is impelled to it by a cause that he must obey unconditionally. The error in this line of thought is soon found. Spinoza, and all those who think like him, overlook the fact that man is not only conscious of his action, but can also become conscious of the causes that drive him. No one will deny that when the baby craves milk, he is not free, just as the drunkard is when he says things he later regrets. Neither of them knows anything about the causes that operate deep within their bodies and exert an irresistible power over them. But is it justifiable to lump such actions together with those in which a man is conscious not only of his actions but also of the reasons that cause him to act? Are all men's actions really of the same kind? Should the action of a soldier on the battlefield, of the researcher in his laboratory, of the statesman in complicated diplomatic negotiations, be scientifically put on the same level as that of the child when it craves milk? It is true that it is better to try to solve a problem where the conditions are simpler. But the inability to differentiate has caused endless confusion before. There is, after all, a profound difference between me knowing why I do something, or not knowing. At first sight this seems an obvious truth.

Yet those who oppose freedom never ask themselves whether a motive that I recognise and see through compels me in the same sense that the organic process in a baby that causes it to cry for milk does.

Eduard von Hartmann argues that the human will depends on two main factors: motive and character. If one considers all men as equal, or in any case the differences between them as negligible, then their will appears as determined from the outside, i.e. by the circumstances that confront them. But if we consider that men only allow a representation to become a motive for their actions if their character is such that that particular representation arouses a desire in them, then man appears as determined from within and not from without. Now, since a representation that presses upon him from without must first, according to its character, be adopted as a motive, man believes himself to be free, i.e. independent of external motives. The truth, however, according to Eduard von Hartmann, is that

'even if we ourselves first turn a representation into a motif, we do so not arbitrarily, but according to the necessity of our character disposition, i.e. we are anything but free'.

Again, this does not take into account the difference between those motives that I allow to influence me only after permeating them with my conscience, and those that I follow without having a clear knowledge of them.

And this leads directly to the point of view from which the facts will be considered here. Can the question of the freedom of our will be considered alone? And if not: with what other question must it necessarily be connected?

If there is a difference between a conscious motive for my action and an unconscious impulse, then the conscious motive will result in an action that must be judged differently from one that springs from a blind impulse. The first question must therefore be about this difference, and on the answer will depend how we approach the question of freedom as such.

What does it mean to know the reason for one's action? This question has been given too little consideration because, unfortunately, the tendency has always been to divide into two parts what is an inseparable whole: Man. One distinguishes the knower from the agent, and loses sight of what really matters: the man who acts because he knows.

It is said: Man is free when his reason has the upper hand, not his animal cravings. Or: Freedom means being able to determine one's own life and actions in accordance with one's purposes and decisions.

Nothing is achieved by such statements. For the question is only whether reason, intentions and decisions exert a coercion on a man in the same way as his animal cravings. If, without my doing so, a reasonable decision emerges in me with the same necessity as hunger and thirst, then I must necessarily obey it, and my freedom is an illusion.

Another phrase is: Being free does not mean that you are capable of wanting what you want, but that you are capable of doing what you want. This thought was expressed with great clarity by the poet-philosopher Robert Hamerling.

Man can, in fact, do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wants, because his will is determined by motives! He cannot will what he wants? Let us consider these words more closely. Do they make sense? Should freedom of will consist in being able to want something without reason, without a motive? But what does it mean to want something, if not to have a reason for doing or striving for this rather than that? To want something without a reason, without a motive, would be to will something without wanting it. The concept of will is inseparable from that of reason. Without a motive to determine it, the will is an empty capacity; only through motive does it become active and real. It is therefore correct to say that the human will is not 'free', since its direction is always determined by that motive which is the strongest. But, on the other hand, it must be admitted that in contrast to this 'non-freedom' it is absurd to speak of a conceivable 'freedom' of the will, which would end up being able to will what one does not want.

Here, too, we speak only of motives in general, disregarding the difference between unconscious and conscious motives. If a motive affects me and I am forced to act on the basis of it because it proves to be the 'strongest' of its kind, then the thought of freedom ceases to have any meaning. Should it matter to me whether I can do something or not, if I am forced by the motive to do it? The immediate question is not whether I can or cannot do something when a motive has influenced me, but whether there are only those motives that influence me with a compelling need. If I have to want something, then I can be absolutely indifferent to the fact that I can also do it. And if, because of my character or the circumstances prevailing in my environment, a motive is pressed upon me that is unreasonable to my thinking, then I should even be glad if I cannot do what I want.

The question is not whether I can carry out a decision once I have made it, but how the decision arises in me.

What distinguishes man from all other organic beings is his rational thought. Actions that he has in common with other organisms. Nothing