III. Education Based on Knowledge of the Human Being II

But there is still a third book by Darwin that deals with the expression of feeling. To those who occupy themselves with problems of the soul, this work seems to be far more important than his Origin of the Species and Descent of Man. Such people can derive great satisfaction from this book—so full of fine observations of the human expression of emotions—by allowing it to work in them. It shows that those who have disciplined themselves to observe in a natural scientific way can also attain faculties well suited for research into the soul and spiritual sphere of the human being. It goes without saying that Darwin advanced along this road only as far as his instinct would allow him to go. Nevertheless, the excellence of his observations shows that a training in natural scientific observation can also lead to an ability to go into the supra-sensory realm. This fact lies behind the hope of anthroposophic work, which, in any task that it undertakes, chooses not to depart by a hair’s breadth from the disciplined training of the natural scientific way of thinking. But, at the same time, anthroposophy wishes to demonstrate how the natural scientific method can be developed, thus transcending the practical limits established by Darwin, crossed boldly by Haeckel’s naturalism, and stated as a theory by Du Bois-Reymond. It endeavors to show how the supra-sensory world can be reached so that real knowledge of the human being can finally be attained.