Lecture II

On the other hand, if we are considering the so-called mental illnesses, we remain purely in abstractions if we believe that anything can be gained from a half-baked phenomenology, if we believe that simply by describing soul-spiritual abnormalities one can arrive at anything (though to describe them is, of course, most useful). With such descriptions one can naturally create a sensation among laymen, because it is always interesting to learn how a person who has gone mad deviates from life's normal standard. Anything unusual is interesting, and in our time it is still rare to deviate in this way from normal life. But to remain stuck in simple description should not be the important thing. It is particularly important not to press on from that point to the dilettantish judgment that in such cases the soul and spirit are ill and that the soul and spirit can be cured somehow by soul-spiritual measures, as is commonly dreamed up by those who remain stuck in abstractions.