{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 18/pref1923/p002-p004","extent":"range","passage_number":2,"through":4,"paragraph_count":3,"first_locus":"GA 18/pref1923/p002","last_locus":"GA 18/pref1923/p004","lang":"en","edition":"AP1973","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"title":"Preface to the 1923 Edition","date":null,"location":null,"alignment_confidence":"medium","alignment_reason":"off_by_one_paragraph","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":null,"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["AP1973"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":null,"band":"no_original","note":null,"word_count":1507,"original_word_count":null,"may_be_abridged":false},"site_heading":null,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/18/pref1923/p002-p004","json_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/18/pref1923/p002-p004.json","lecture_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/18/pref1923#p002","word_count":630,"quote_safe":true,"passages":[{"passage_number":2,"locus":"GA 18/pref1923/p002","text":"For many observers, however, such a display has a depressive effect. It causes doubt to invade their minds. They see thinkers of the past contradicting their predecessors and contradicted by their successors in turn. It is the intention in my account of this process to show how this depressing aspect is extinguished by another element. Let us consider two thinkers. At first glance the contradiction of their thoughts strikes us as painful. We now take these thoughts under a closer inspection. We find that both thinkers direct their attention to entirely different realms of the world. Suppose one thinker had developed in himself the frame of mind that concentrates on the mode in which thoughts unfold in the inner weaving of the soul. For him it becomes a riddle how these inward soul processes can become decisive in a cognition concerning the nature of the external world. This point of departure will lend a special color to all his thinking. He will speak in a vigorous manner of the creative activity of the life of thought. Thus, everything he says will be colored by idealism. A second thinker turns his attention toward the processes accessible to external sense perception. The thought processes through which he holds these external events in cognitive perception do not themselves in their specific energy enter the field of his awareness. He will give a turn to the riddles of the universe that will place them in a thought environment in which the ground of the world itself will appear in a form that bears semblance to the world of the senses.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":266,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/18/pref1923/p002","witness_quality":{"translator":{"status":"unknown","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. An unattributed translation cannot be weighed as a witness: you cannot tell which hand made the choices in it. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"entity_parity":{"status":"not_checkable","note":"No verified paragraph alignment covers this passage, so its names cannot be compared with the German."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}},{"passage_number":3,"locus":"GA 18/pref1923/p003","text":"If one approaches the historical genesis of the conflicting world views with presuppositions that result from such a thought orientation, one can overcome the deadening effect these world perspectives have on each other and raise the point of view to a level from which they appear in mutual support.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":49,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/18/pref1923/p003","witness_quality":{"translator":{"status":"unknown","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. An unattributed translation cannot be weighed as a witness: you cannot tell which hand made the choices in it. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"entity_parity":{"status":"not_checkable","note":"No verified paragraph alignment covers this passage, so its names cannot be compared with the German."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}},{"passage_number":4,"locus":"GA 18/pref1923/p004","text":"Hegel and Haeckel, considered side by side, will at first sight present the most perfect contradiction. Penetrating into Hegel's philosophy, one can go along with him on the path to which a man who lives entirely in thoughts is bound. He feels the thought element as something that enables him to comprehend his own being as real. Confronted with nature, the question arises in him of the relation in which it stands toward the world of thought. It will be possible to follow his turn of mind if one can feel what is relatively justified and fruitful in such a mental disposition. If one can enter into Haeckel's thoughts, one can again follow him part of the way. Haeckel can only see what the senses grasp and how it changes. What is and changes in this way he can acknowledge as his reality, and he is only satisfied when he is able to comprise the entire human being, including his thought activity, under this concept of being and transformation. Now let Haeckel look on Hegel as a person who spins airy meaningless concepts without regard to reality. Grant that Hegel, could he have lived to know Haeckel, would have seen in him a person who was completely blind to true reality. Thus, whoever is able to enter into both modes of thinking will find in Hegel's philosophy the possibility to strengthen his power of spontaneous, active thinking. In Haeckel's mode of thought he will find the possibility to become aware of relations between distant formations of nature that tend to raise significant questions in the mind of man. Placed side by side and measured against one another in this fashion, Hegel and Haeckel will no longer lead us into oppressive skepticism but will enable us to recognize how the striving shoots and sprouts of life are sent out from very different corners of the universe.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":315,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/18/pref1923/p004","witness_quality":{"translator":{"status":"unknown","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. An unattributed translation cannot be weighed as a witness: you cannot tell which hand made the choices in it. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"entity_parity":{"status":"not_checkable","note":"No verified paragraph alignment covers this passage, so its names cannot be compared with the German."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}],"witnesses":[{"lang":"en","edition":"AP1973","is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"first_passage":1,"last_passage":10,"passage_count":10,"word_count":1507,"completeness":{"ratio":null,"band":"no_original","note":null}}],"aligned_witness":{"status":"no_other_language","note":"No German witness of this unit is served."}}