Lecture I

“Forms”, I said—hence we see that the philosophers of Nominalism, who stand before a boundary-line, go about their work in a certain realm, the realm of the Spirits of Form. Within this realm, which is all around us, forms dominate; and therefore in this realm we find separate, strictly self-contained forms. The philosophers I mean have never made up their minds to go outside this realm of forms, and so, in the realm of universals, they can recognize nothing but words, veritably mere words. If they were to go beyond the realm of specific entities—i.e. of forms—they would find their way to mental pictures which are in continual motion; that is, in their thinking they would come to a realization of the realm of the Spirits of Movement—the next higher Hierarchy. But these philosophers will not condescend to that. And when in recent times a Western thinker did consent to think correctly in this way, he was little understood, although much was said and much nonsense talked about him. Turn to what Goethe wrote in his “Metamorphosis of Plants” and see what he called the “primal plant” ( Urpflanze), and then turn to what he called the “primal animal” ( Urtier) and you will find that you can understand these concepts “primal plant” and “primal animal” only if your thoughts are mobile—when you think in mobile terms. If you accept this mobility, of which Goethe himself speaks, you are not stuck with an isolated concept bounded by fixed forms. You have the living element which ramifies through the whole evolution of the animal kingdom, or the plant-kingdom, and creates the forms. During this process it changes—as the triangle changes into an acute-angled or an obtuse-angled one—becoming now “wolf”, now “lion”, now “beetle”, in accordance with the metamorphoses of its mobility during its passage through the particular entities. Goethe brought the petrified formal concepts into movement. That was his great central act; his most significant contribution to the nature-study of his time.