VI. A Lecture for Public School Teachers

Now those who, strengthened by spiritual scientific methods, observe the developing child will find an important developmental juncture at approximately the time of the change of teeth, around six or seven years of age. There is an oft-quoted saying that nature makes no leaps. To a certain degree, this is quite correct. However, all such views are basically one-sided. You can see their correctness only if you recognize their one-sidedness, for nature continuously makes leaps. Think about a growing plant, to name only one example. Fine. You can use this saying, nature makes no leaps. However, in the sense of Goethe’s law of metamorphosis, we must say that, despite the fact that the green leaf is the same as the colorful flower petal, nature does make a leap from the leaf to the colorful petal, and yet another leap from the petal to the stamen, and another quite special leap to the fruit. We do not get along well in life if we abstractly adopt the point of view that nature, or life in general, does not make leaps. And this is particularly true with people. Human life flows along without leaps, but in this other sense, there are such leaps everywhere.