World Mysteries and Theosophy

GA 54 — 5 October 1905, Berlin

Haeckel, the World's Mysteries, and Theosophy

As I speak today on the subject of “Haeckel, the Mysteries of the World, and Theosophy,” I am aware that this topic presents extraordinary difficulties for the researcher of spiritual life and that my remarks may cause considerable offense on both sides. Nevertheless, it seems to me necessary to speak about it from a theosophical point of view, because, on the one hand, the gospel that Haeckel gained from his research has found its way to thousands and thousands of people through his book “The Riddles of the World.” Ten thousand copies of The Riddle of the Universe were sold in a short time, and the book has been translated into many languages. Rarely has such a serious book found such wide distribution.

If theosophy or spiritual science is to make clear what its goals are, then it must deal with such an important phenomenon, which also concerns the deepest questions of existence, and express its position on it. In itself, the theosophical or spiritual scientific view of life is not there for struggle, but for reconciliation, for the balancing of opposites. I myself am in a special position with regard to Ernst Haeckel's worldview. For I know the feelings and emotions that today can lead people, partly out of their scientific conscience, partly out of the general world situation and worldview, as if by a fascinating force, into the simple, grand trains of thought that make up Haeckel's worldview. I would probably not dare to speak so impartially today if I were what one might call an opponent of Haeckel; if I were not thoroughly familiar with what one can experience when one immerses oneself in this wonderful edifice of his ideas.

Above all, however, anyone who views the development of intellectual life with an open mind will have to acknowledge the moral force in Haeckel's work. With tremendous courage, this man has fought for his worldview for decades, fought hard and had to defend himself against many adversities that confronted him. On the other hand, we must not fail to recognize that Haeckel possesses a great power of synthesis and synthetic thinking. He has to a high degree what so many natural scientists lack in this respect. He has dared to synthesize the results of his research into a worldview, even though in recent decades the actual scientific trends have been directed against such an undertaking. This must be recognized as a remarkable achievement. I am also in a peculiar position with regard to the theosophical worldview when I speak about Haeckel. Anyone who has studied the development of the theosophical movement knows what harsh words and struggles have been directed by the theosophists, and especially by the founder of the theosophical movement, Mrs. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, against the conclusions that Ernst Haeckel drew from his research. Few phenomena in the field of worldviews are fought against with such passion in The Secret Doctrine as Haeckel's arguments. I believe I can speak impartially, because I believe that in my essay “Haeckel and His Opponents,” as well as in my book on “Worldviews and Views of Life in the 19th Century,” I have done full justice to the true content of Haeckel's worldview. I believe I have extracted from his works that which is imperishable and fruitful.

Consider the whole situation of worldview insofar as it is based on scientific grounds. In the first half of the 19th century, the intellectual climate was very different from that of the second half. And Haeckel's emergence coincided with a time when it was very natural to give the young so-called Darwinism a materialistic consequence. If one understands how close it was at that time, when Haeckel entered the natural sciences as a young enthusiastic researcher, to interpret all scientific discoveries in a materialistic way, then one will understand the materialistic tendency and take the path of peacemaking rather than that of struggle. If you look at those who, in the middle of the 19th century, turned their gaze freely to the great mysteries of humanity, you will find two things. On the one hand, a complete resignation towards the highest questions of existence, an admission that from a scientific point of view it is not possible to penetrate the questions of the divine world order, immortality, freedom of will, the origin of life, in short, the actual mysteries of the world. On the other hand, in addition to this mood of resignation, you will also find remnants of an old religious tradition among natural scientists. In the first half of the 19th century, bold advances in the investigation of these questions from a scientific point of view can only be found among German philosophers, for example Schelling, Fichte, or even Oken, a man of freedom without equal in other areas of life as well. What haunts natural scientists today who want to establish worldviews can already be found in broad strokes in Oken. But a peculiar breeze still blows over it; the feeling of old spiritualism still lives in it, which is clear that behind everything that can be perceived by the senses and explored by instruments, something spiritual must be sought.

Haeckel himself recounted time and again how this peculiar breath blew through the mind of his great teacher, the unforgettable natural scientist Johannes Müller. You can read in Haeckel how, when he was working with Johannes Müller at Berlin University and studying the anatomy of animals and humans, he was struck by the great similarity, not only in external form, but in what is expressed in the form, in the tendency of the form. When he then expressed to his teacher that this pointed to a mysterious kinship between animals and humans, Johannes Müller, who had looked so deeply into nature, replied: Yes, whoever once fathoms the mystery of the species will attain the highest. One must simply think one's way into the mind of such a researcher, who would certainly not have stopped if there had been a prospect of penetrating the mystery. On another occasion, when teacher and student were on a research trip, Haeckel again expressed his view of the great kinship that existed among animals; Johannes Müller again said something very similar. I only wanted to characterize a mood here. If you read any important natural scientist of the first half of the 19th century, for example Burdach, you will find, despite the careful elaboration of all scientific details, that wherever the realm of life is discussed, there is always a reference to the fact that it is not only physical and chemical forces that are at work, but that something higher must also be taken into account.

But when the development of the microscope enabled humans to look inside the peculiar composition of living beings and observe that they are made up of a fine tissue of tiny creatures that form the physical body of these beings, things changed. This physical body, which serves as a garment for plants and animals, dissolves into cells for the natural scientist. The discoveries about the life of cells were made by natural scientists at the end of the 1830s. And because so much of the life of the smallest creatures could be explored in a sensory way through the microscope, it was obvious that what acts as the organizing principle in living beings was forgotten and overlooked, because it cannot be recognized by any physical sense, by anything external at all.

At that time, Darwinism did not yet exist, but under the impression of these great successes in the field of sensory research, a materialistic natural science emerged in the 1840s and 1850s. It was thought that the whole world could be understood from what could be perceived and explained by the senses. What seems downright childish to many people today caused a tremendous sensation at the time and formed, so to speak, a gospel for humanity. Force and matter, Büchner, Moleschott—these were the buzzwords and the leading figures. It was considered an expression of childish imagination from earlier epochs of humanity to suspect that there was something beyond what could be seen with the eyes, beyond what was obvious and perceptible to the senses.

Now you must bear in mind that, alongside all power of judgment, alongside all research, feelings and sensations play a major role in the development of spiritual life. Anyone who believes that worldviews are formed solely on the basis of cool considerations of judgment is very much mistaken. If I may speak radically, the heart always has a say in this. Secret educational influences also play a part. In its latest phase of development, humanity has undergone a materialistic education. Although this education has its origins far back in time, it has only reached its peak in the period we are discussing. We call this epoch of materialistic education the Age of Enlightenment. Human beings had to learn to find their way on this firm ground of reality — which was also the ultimate consequence of the Christian worldview. The God they had sought for so long beyond the clouds was now to be sought within themselves. This had a profound effect on the entire development of the 19th century; and anyone who, as a contemporary psychologist, wants to study the development of humanity in the 19th century will understand all the phenomena that occur in it, such as the freedom movement in the 1830s and 1840s, only as individual, lawfully occurring storms of the developing feeling for the significance of physical reality. We are dealing with a direction of human education that initially tore all prospects of a spiritual, intellectual life out of the human heart by force. And it was not from natural science that the conclusion was drawn that the world consists of phenomena that can be perceived by the senses, but rather, as a result of the education of humanity at that time, materialism was introduced into the explanation of scientific facts. Anyone who truly studies things impartially, as they are, will find that it is as I say, although I cannot speak about it in detail in a short hour.

The tremendous advances in the fields of natural science, astronomy, physics, and chemistry, through spectral analysis, through expanded theoretical knowledge of heat, and through the theory of the development of living beings, known as Darwin's theory, fall within this period of materialism. If these discoveries had occurred at a time when people still thought as they did at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century, when they still had a more spiritual sensibility, then they would have seen in them just as much evidence of the spirit's rule and work in nature. The wonderful discoveries of natural science would have led precisely to proof of the primacy of the spirit. From this we can see that scientific discoveries did not necessarily and under all circumstances have to lead to materialism; rather, it was only because many bearers of spiritual life at that time were materialistic in their thinking that these discoveries were interpreted in a materialistic way. Materialism was brought into natural science, and natural scientists such as Ernst Haeckel unconsciously accepted it. Darwin's discovery itself did not necessarily have to lead to materialism. In his first work, you will find the sentence: “I believe that all living beings that have ever been on earth are descended from a primordial form into which life was breathed by the Creator.” These words are found in Darwin's book On the Origin of Species, the work that materialism uses as its foundation.

It is clear that anyone who approached these discoveries as a materialist thinker had to give Darwinism a materialist slant. Haeckel's bold materialist way of thinking gave Darwinism its current materialist tendency. It had a great impact when, in 1868, Haeckel proclaimed the connection between humans and the lordly animals (monkeys). At that time, this could only mean that humans descended from the lordly animals. To this day, however, thinking has undergone a peculiar course of development. Haeckel remained stuck at the idea that humans descended from the lordly animals, which in turn descended from the lower animals, which in turn descended from the simplest living creatures. In this way, he developed the entire family tree of humans. As a result, for him, all spirit was eliminated from the world and existed only as a manifestation of the material. Haeckel still seeks to help himself, since in his innermost being, alongside his materialistic thinking soul, he has a peculiar spiritualistic emotional soul. These two have never really been able to balance each other out in him, never really been able to find a brotherly agreement. He therefore concludes that even the smallest living creature has a kind of consciousness; however, it remains unexplained how the complex human consciousness developed from the consciousness of the smallest living creatures. Haeckel once said during a conversation: People take offense at my materialism, but I do not deny the spirit, I do not deny life; I only want people to consider that when they put substances into a retort, everything soon lives and moves within it. — This shows very clearly how Haeckel has a spiritualistic emotional soul alongside his scientific thinking soul.

One of those who, at the time of Darwin's appearance, also claimed that humans descended from higher animals was the English researcher Huxley. He stated that there is such a great similarity in external structure between humans and higher animals that this similarity is greater than the similarity between higher and lower species of apes. One could only conclude from this that humans descended from higher animals. In more recent times, researchers have discovered new facts; even those feelings that had been cultivated in the hearts and souls of humans through centuries of education were transformed; and so it came about that in the 1890s, shortly before his death, Huxley expressed what was for him a remarkable view: We see, then, that in nature we find a sequence of living beings, from the simplest and most imperfect to the most complex and perfect. We can see this sequence. But why should this sequence not continue into a realm that we cannot see? — These words indicate the path by which man can rise from natural science to the idea of a divine being that stands high above man, a being that stands higher above him than he himself stands above a simple cellular organism. Huxley once said: I would rather descend from ancestors that are animal-like than from those that deny human reason.

Thus, the concepts and feelings, what the soul thinks and feels, have changed. Haeckel continued his research in his own way. As early as 1868, he published his popular book “Natural History of Creation.” Much can be learned from this book; one can learn how the realms of living things in nature are connected according to natural laws. One can look into the gray times of the past and connect the living with the extinct, of which only the last remnants remain on earth. Haeckel understood this perfectly. I can only clarify the world history that unfolds in the wider sense by means of a comparison. Those who are willing to engage with such things will find that this comparison is no more flawed than all comparisons are flawed, but that it can nevertheless be apt. Suppose an art historian came along and described the great realm of painting from Leonardo da Vinci to the present day in a beautiful art-historical treatise. Everything that had been created in this direction during this period would appear before your soul, and you would believe you were looking into this freely developing weaving and working of the human spirit. Suppose, further, that someone came along and said about this description: But everything the art historian presents here is not real, it is something that does not exist at all, it is only a description of imaginary constructs that do not exist, and what do these fantasies have to do with me? One must examine the real in order to arrive at a correct art-historical representation. I therefore want to examine the bones of Leonardo da Vinci and try to reassemble his body, examine what kind of brain he had and how it worked. — The same things are thus described by both the art historian and the anatomical natural historian. No mistake needs to be made, everything could be correct. Then the anatomical historian said that we must fight against what the idealistic art historians tell us, we must fight it as a fantasy, because it is almost as if a superstition had come over people, trying to make us believe that, in addition to the figure of Leonardo da Vinci, there was also a gaseous vortex as his soul.

This comparison is apt, although it may seem silly. This is the situation of those who swear by the sole correctness of the “natural history of creation.” They, too, cannot be fought by proving them wrong. There may well be errors, but that is not the point here. What is important is that the obvious has been presented in its inner context. This has been done in a great and comprehensive way by Haeckel. It has been done in such a way that those who want to see can also see how the spiritual is effective in the formation of forms, where apparently only matter reigns and weaves. Much can be learned from this; one can see how to grasp the spiritual connection in the world with seriousness, dignity, and perseverance. Anyone who studies Haeckel's “Anthropogeny” will see how form is built up from the simplest living beings to the most complex, from the simplest organisms to human beings. Those who understand how to add the spirit to what the materialist says will study the most beautiful elementary theosophy in this Haeckelism.

Haeckel's research results form, so to speak, the first chapter of theosophy or spiritual science. Studying his works is a far better way than any other to understand the development and transformation of organic forms. We have every reason to show what great things have been achieved through the progress of this deepened knowledge of nature.

At the time when Haeckel constructed this marvelous edifice, the deeper mysteries of humanity were regarded as unsolvable problems. In a rhetorically brilliant speech in 1872, Du Bois-Reymond spoke about the limits of natural science and the knowledge of nature. Few things have been discussed more in recent decades than this speech with its famous “Ignorabimus.” It was an important act and represents an important contrast to Haeckel's own development and his theory of human descent. In another speech, Du Bois-Reymond identified “seven world riddles” as the great mysteries of existence that natural scientists can only partially answer, if at all, namely:

i. The origin of force and matter.

1. How did the first movement come into this dormant matter?

2. How did life arise within moving matter?

3. How can it be explained that there is so much in nature that bears the stamp of purposefulness, as is usually only found in acts performed by human reason?

4. How can it be explained that, if we could examine our brains, we would find only tiny particles swirling around, yet these particles enable me to see “red,” hear organ music, feel pain, and so on? — Think of swirling atoms and it will immediately become clear to you that they can never give rise to the sensations expressed in the words “I see red, I smell the scent of roses, and so on.”

5. How do intelligence, reason, thought, and language develop within living beings?

6. How can free will arise in a being that is so bound that every action must be caused by the swirling of atoms?

In reference to these “world riddles” of Du Bois-Reymond, Haeckel named his book “Die Welträtsel” (The World Riddles). He wanted to provide the answer to Du Bois-Reymond's explanations. A particularly important passage is in Du Bois-Reymond's speech on the limits of natural knowledge. We are led to this important passage and can be guided through it to theosophy.

When Du Bois-Reymond spoke to natural scientists and physicians in Leipzig, the spirit of natural science was looking for a purer, freer, and higher air, the air that led to the theosophical worldview. Du Bois-Reymond said the following at that time: When we look at human beings from a scientific point of view, they are for us a combination of unconscious atoms. To explain man scientifically means to understand these atomic movements down to the last detail. — He believes that if one is able to indicate how the atoms move at any point in the brain when one says, “I think” or “give me an apple,” then one has solved this problem scientifically. Du Bois-Reymond calls this the “astronomical” understanding of humans. The moving groups of human atoms would look like a small starry sky. What has not been understood here is how it happens that in the consciousness of humans, of whom we know, let's say, exactly how their atoms move — sensations, feelings, and thoughts arise. No natural science can determine this. No natural science can say how consciousness arises. Du Bois-Reymond concluded as follows: In the sleeping human being, who is not aware of the sensation expressed in the words “I see red,” we have before us the physical group of moving body parts. With regard to this sleeping body, we do not need to say, " We will not know,“ ”Ignorabimus." We can understand the sleeping person. The awake person, on the other hand, is incomprehensible to any natural scientist. What is present in the awake person is not present in the sleeping person, namely the consciousness through which he or she appears to us as a spiritual being.

At that time, the despondency of natural science made further progress impossible; At that time, it was not yet possible to think of theosophy or spiritual science, because natural science had sharply defined the boundary, the point beyond which it did not want to go in its own way. Because of this self-imposed restriction on natural science, the theosophical worldview began at the same time. No one will claim that when a person falls asleep in the evening and wakes up again in the morning, they cease to exist in the evening and come into being anew the next morning. Nevertheless, Du Bois-Reymond says that at night, what is present in a person during the day is not there. This is where the theosophical worldview has an opportunity to intervene. Sensory consciousness does not speak in sleeping humans. But since natural scientists rely on what this sensory consciousness conveys, they cannot say anything about what lies beyond it, about the spiritual, because they lack precisely that which makes humans spiritual beings. We cannot penetrate the spiritual realm with the tools of natural science. Natural science relies on what is perceptible to the senses. What is no longer perceptible when a person is asleep cannot be the object of its research. But it is precisely in this something that is no longer perceptible in a sleeping person that we must seek the essence that makes human beings spiritual beings. We cannot say anything about what transcends the purely material, the sensory, until — and this is something that natural scientists, as such, cannot know if they base their research solely on what is perceptible to the senses — organs, spiritual eyes, are created that can also see what transcends the sensory. Therefore, one must not say that these are the limits of knowledge, but only that these are the limits of sensory knowledge. The natural scientist perceives with the senses, but is not a spiritual seer. However, he must become a seer in order to be able to see what is spiritual in human beings. This is also what all deeper wisdom in the world strives for, not merely an extension of sensory knowledge, but an elevation of human abilities. This is also the great difference between today's natural science and what theosophy teaches. The natural scientist says to himself: Man has senses with which he perceives, and a mind with which he combines his sensory perceptions. What cannot be achieved with these lies outside the realm of natural scientific knowledge. Theosophy has a different view. It says: You are right, natural scientist, when you judge from your point of view; you are just as right as the blind man is right from his point of view to say that the world is colorless and without light.

I have no objections to the scientific point of view; I would only like to contrast it with the view of theosophy or spiritual science, which says: It is possible, no, it is certain that man does not have to remain at the point of view he stands at today. It is possible that organs, spiritual eyes, develop in a similar way to how sensory organs, eyes, and ears have developed in this physical body. Once these organs are developed, higher abilities emerge. One must first believe this — no, one does not even need to believe it, one can simply accept it impartially as a story. But just as not all believers in the “natural history of creation” have seen what is presented as fact in it — for how many have really seen these facts? — so too can the fact of supersensible knowledge not be demonstrated to everyone here. There is no way for the ordinary sensory human being to enter this realm. We can only enter the spiritual realms with the help of occult research methods. When a person transforms themselves into an instrument for the higher powers, in order to look into the worlds hidden from the sensory human being, then very special phenomena occur within them — I will speak about this in detail in the ninth lecture on “Inner Development.” The ordinary human being is incapable of seeing himself or consciously taking in the objects in his environment when his senses are asleep. But when the human being applies occult research methods, this inability ceases, and he begins to perceive impressions in the astral world in a conscious manner.

First of all, there is a transition, familiar to everyone, between the external life of sensory perception and that life which does not die even in the deepest sleep. This transition is the chaos of dreams. Everyone is familiar with it, usually only as an echo of what they have experienced during the day. How could they possibly take in anything new in their sleep? The inner human being does not yet have any organs of perception. But something is there. Life is there. What has left the body during sleep remembers, and this memory arises in more or less confused images in the sleeping person. If you would like to learn more about these things, please refer to the essays “How to Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds.” Instead of chaos, order and harmony gradually begin to enter the realm of dreams. This is a sign that the human being is beginning to develop spiritually; and then he sees in his dreams not only the echoes of reality in a chaotic way, but also things that do not exist in ordinary life. Certainly, people who want to remain in the realm of the tangible, in the realm of the senses, will say: “Those are just dreams.” But if you thereby gain insight into the highest secrets of the world, it can actually be quite irrelevant to you whether you received them in a dream or in a sensory way. Consider whether Graham Bell invented the telephone in a dream. That would not matter today if the telephone had in any case become a significant and useful device. Clear and orderly dreaming is therefore the beginning.

When a person becomes accustomed to dreams in the silence of night, when they have become accustomed to perceiving completely different worlds, then the time soon comes when they learn to step out into reality with these new perceptions. Then this whole world takes on a new appearance for them, and they are as aware of this newness as we are aware of the sensory world when we walk through these rows of chairs, through everything you see here. Then they are in a new state of consciousness; something new and essential opens up within them. Through this, the person then progresses further in their development, ultimately reaching a point where they not only perceive the peculiar phenomena of the higher worlds, such as light phenomena, with their spiritual eye, but also hear the sounds of the higher worlds, so that things reveal their spiritual names to them and appear to them in a new meaning. In the language of the mysteries, this is expressed with the words: Man sees the sun at midnight, that is, for him there are no longer any spatial obstacles to seeing the sun on the other side of the earth. Then what the sun does in the universe also becomes apparent to him, and he also perceives what the Pythagoreans held to be a truth, the harmony of the spheres. This ringing and sounding, this harmony of the spheres, becomes something real for him. Poets who were also seers knew that there is such a thing as harmony of the spheres. Only those who understand Goethe from this point of view can understand him. The words in the “Prologue in Heaven,” for example, can be taken either as mere rhetoric or as a higher truth. When Faust is introduced to the spirit world in the second part, he speaks again of this sound: “The new day is already being born, resounding in the ears of the spirit.”

Here we have the connection between natural science and theosophy or spiritual science. Du Bois-Reymond pointed out that only the sleeping human being can be the object of natural science. But when a person begins to open their inner senses, when they begin to hear and see that there is also a spiritual reality, then the whole edifice of elementary theosophy, which Haeckel has so wonderfully constructed and which no one can admire more than I, begins to take on a whole new splendor, a whole new meaning. After this marvelous construction, we see a simple living being as the primordial being, but we can also trace our being spiritually back to an earlier state of consciousness.

I will now discuss the theory of descent from a theosophical or spiritual scientific perspective. Of course, any “proof” for this must be completely disregarded in a single lecture. It is natural that for all those who are familiar only with today's common mental images about human ancestry, everything I am about to say will sound improbable and fantastical. But all these mental images have sprung from the prevailing materialistic schools of thought. And many who may currently want to reject the accusation of materialism are merely caught up in a—admittedly understandable—self-deception. The true theosophical or spiritual-scientific doctrine of evolution is hardly known today. And when opponents speak of it, those who are familiar with it immediately see from their objections that they are speaking of a caricature of this doctrine of evolution. For all those who recognize only a soul or spirit that is expressed within the human or animal organization, the theosophical way of thinking is completely incomprehensible. Any discussion of this subject with such people is fruitless. They would first have to free themselves from the materialistic suggestions in which they live and familiarize themselves with the foundations of spiritual science thinking.

Just as the sensory-scientific research method traces the physical-bodily organization back to distant, indeterminate primeval times, so does the spiritual-scientific way of thinking do with regard to soul and spirit. The latter does not contradict the known scientific facts in the slightest; it simply has nothing to do with the materialistic interpretation of these facts. Natural science traces physical living beings back to their origins. It leads to increasingly simple organisms. Now it says that perfect living beings are descended from these simple, imperfect ones. As far as physical corporeality is concerned, this is true, although the hypothetical forms of primeval times, of which materialistic science speaks, do not entirely correspond to those known to theosophical or spiritual scientific research. But that may not concern us further for our present purpose.

In terms of sensory-physical relationships, spiritual science also recognizes the kinship of humans with higher mammals, i.e., with human-like apes. However, there can be no question of modern humans descending from beings similar in spiritual value to modern apes. The situation is quite different. Everything that materialism puts forward in this regard is based on a simple error in thinking. This error can be clarified by a trivial comparison, which is nevertheless not inaccurate, even though it is trivial. Take two people. One is morally inferior and intellectually insignificant; the other is morally superior and intellectually significant. Let us say that some fact establishes the relationship between the two. Can we now conclude that the higher-ranking person is descended from someone equivalent to the lower-ranking person? Never. We might be surprised by another fact, which states that the two people are related; they are brothers. But their common father was not entirely equivalent to either brother. One of the brothers has fallen; the other has worked his way up.

Materialistic science makes the mistake implied in this comparison. Based on the facts known to it, it must assume a relationship between apes and humans. But it should not conclude that humans are descended from ape-like animals. Rather, it should assume a primordial being — a common physical progenitor — but the monkey is the brother who has fallen, and man is the brother who has risen higher.

What has elevated that primordial being on the one hand to man, and on the other hand pushed it down into monkeyhood? Theosophy or spiritual science says: The human soul itself did this. This human soul already existed at the time when only the common ancestors of humans and apes roamed the physically visible earth as the highest sensory beings. Of this group of ancestors, the best were able to submit to the higher educational process of the soul; the inferior ones were not. Thus, today's human soul has a soul ancestor, just as the body has a physical ancestor. For the sensory perception of those “ancestors,” however, the soul would not have been detectable within the body in the present sense. In a certain sense, it still belonged to the “higher worlds.” It also had different abilities and powers than the present human soul. It lacked today's intellectual activity and moral sense. It did not build tools from the things of the outside world and did not establish states. Its activity was still largely directed toward the reworking and transformation of the “ancestral bodies” themselves. It reshaped the imperfect brain so that it could later become the carrier of thought activity. Just as the soul today, which is directed outward, builds machines, so the ancestral soul still built on the human ancestral body itself. One might of course object: Yes, but why can the soul no longer build on its own body to the same extent today? — This is precisely because the power that was previously used to transform organs was later directed outward toward the control and regulation of the forces of nature.

Thus, in primeval times, we arrive at a dual origin of the human being. The human being did not first come into being spiritually and soul-wise through the perfection of the sensory organs. Rather, the “soul” of the human being was already there when the “forefathers” still walked the earth. It chose for itself — comparatively speaking, of course — a part of the “ancestral group,” to which it gave an external physical expression that made it into the human being of today. The other part of this group has atrophied, degenerated, and represents today's human-like apes. These have thus formed – in the true sense of the word – from the human ancestors as a branch of them. Those “forefathers” are the physical ancestors of humans; but they could only be so because they carried within themselves the ability to be transformed by human souls. Thus, humans are physically descended from this ‘forefather’; but spiritually, they are descended from their “spiritual ancestors.” Now we can go further back in the family tree of beings. We come to a “progenitor” who was even more physically imperfect. But even in his time, the “soul ancestor” of man already existed. He himself elevated this “progenitor” to ape existence, leaving behind his brothers who were incapable of development at that stage. These then became beings whose descendants are still among the apes in the mammalian series today. And so one can go back to that distant past, when the earth looked very different from today and only the simplest living beings existed, from which Haeckel derives all higher forms. Their contemporary was already the “ancestor of the soul” of man. He transformed the useful ones and left the useless ones behind at each particular stage. The entire sum of earthly living beings thus truly descends from man. What today thinks and acts as the “soul” within him has brought about the development of living beings. When our Earth was in its infancy, he himself was still a purely spiritual being. He began his career by forming a very simple body. And the entire series of living beings represents nothing other than the stages he left behind as he developed his physique to its present perfection. Of course, today's living beings no longer reflect the form that their ancestors had at a certain stage when they branched off from the human family tree. They have not remained static, but have degenerated according to a certain law, which cannot be considered further here due to the necessary brevity of the presentation. The interesting thing is that, externally, spiritual science also arrives at a human family tree that is not so dissimilar to the one constructed by Haeckel. However, Haeckel turns the physical “forefathers” of humans everywhere into hypothetical animals. In truth, however, all the places where Haeckel puts animal names should be filled with the still imperfect ancestors of man, and the animals — indeed, all beings — are only the atrophied, degenerate forms that have retained the stages through which the human soul was formed. Outwardly, therefore, there is a similarity between Haeckel's and the theosophical or spiritual scientific family trees; inwardly — in terms of meaning — they are worlds apart.

This is why Haeckel's writings are so good for learning elementary spiritual science. One need only penetrate the facts he has worked on theosophically or spiritually and elevate one's own naive philosophy to a higher one. When Haeckel rebukes and criticizes such “higher” philosophy, he is himself naive; just as if someone who has only mastered the basics were to say: What I know is true, and all higher mathematics is just fantastic stuff. — The point is not that someone who is a theosophist wants to refute what is an elementary fact of natural science, but only that the researcher, taken in by materialistic suggestions, does not know what theosophy is talking about.

It depends on the person what kind of philosophy they have. Fichte said this in the words: Those who do not have a perceptive eye cannot see colors; those who do not have a receptive soul cannot see the spirit. Goethe also expressed the same idea in the well-known saying: "If the eye were not sunlike, it could never see the sun; if the power of God did not lie within us, how could we be enchanted by the divine?" And putting a saying of Feuerbach in the right light, one can say: Everyone sees the image of God as he himself is. The sensual person creates a sensual God, while the one who perceives the spiritual also knows how to find the spiritual in his God. “If lions, bulls, and oxen could make gods, they would be similar to lions, bulls, and oxen,” remarked a philosopher in ancient Greece. Something also lives in the fetish worshipper as the highest spiritual principle, but he has not yet found it within himself; he has therefore not yet come to see anything more in his god than a block of wood. The fetish worshipper cannot worship more than he feels within himself. He still considers himself to be like the block of wood. Those who see nothing more than swirling atoms, who see the highest only in the small, merely material dots, have not recognized anything higher within themselves.

Haeckel has honestly acquired what he presents to us in his writings, and he must therefore be allowed to have the faults of his virtues. The positive aspects of his work will have an effect, the negative aspects will disappear. Seen from a higher point of view, one can say: The fetish worshipper worships the fetish, a lifeless being, and the materialistic atomist worships not only a small idol, but a multitude of small idols, which he calls atoms. The word “worship” is not to be taken literally, of course, for the ‘materialistic’ thinker has not given up fetishism, but he has given up “worship.” As great as the superstition of the fetish worshipper is, so great is that of the materialist. The materialistic atom is nothing more than a fetish. After all, the block of wood also contains only atoms. Haeckel says at one point: “We see God in the stone, in the plant, in the animal, in man. God is everywhere.” But he only sees the God he understands. Goethe so aptly has the Earth Spirit say to Faust: “You resemble the spirit you understand, not me.” Thus, the materialist sees the swirling atoms in the stone, in the plant, in the animal, and in the human being, and perhaps also in the work of art, and claims that he possesses a unified worldview and has overcome the old superstitions. But theosophists also have a unified worldview, and we can use the same words as Haeckel: We see God in stones, plants, and humans, but we do not see a whirlwind of atoms, but rather the living God, the spiritual God, whom we seek to find in nature because we also seek him within ourselves.