Fourth Lecture

Now we know – if we draw schematically the cosmic of the past up to the present (violet) – after we have spoken so much about the so-called law of the conservation of energy or matter, which does not exist! – that, to a certain extent, what is purely naturally real in the present, except for the material, ceases. We know that what is merely spiritually present today is also the germ of the material substance of the future (red). If we look at things spiritually, we have to say that everything that is now in the order of the past has flowed out of the spiritual. That which has flowed out will find its end. What is the future order is only now flowing out of the spiritual. It could never assert itself as the natural order if there were conservation of energy and matter. But the idea that there is conservation of matter and energy is the strongest of all superstitions that have ever existed. The spiritual, which today announces itself in mere thoughts, is just as much the germ for the natural order of the future as the small plant germ, which announces itself in the plant of this year, is the germ for the plant of the next year.