10. The Supernatural Human Being III

This brings me to a subject that is also frowned upon today; but it will probably not be long before an inner necessity leads people to it. One need only recall the significant speech given in the 1870s by the famous physiologist Ds Bois-Reymond on the “limits of natural knowledge,” in which he spoke about the “mysteries of the world.” Du Bois-Reymond was inclined, in a certain respect, to consider carefully not to sail full steam ahead into materialism. He established two such limits of knowledge: consciousness and matter. He rightly said: In material life, the same thing happens as in the brain: hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon atoms move according to certain laws; but this comes to the consciousness of the soul, and even the simplest sensations that arise in consciousness cannot be derived from the movements of atoms, nor can any connection between the movements of atoms and sensations be derived. And then he says, and this is significant: if we knew what was there, where matter haunts space, we might also know how matter thinks. He does not know what it is that he thinks “haunts” space. In a certain sense, he is right, but he is also right about what he considers to be the “limits” of his science. For with the ordinary consciousness that one also has in ordinary science, one develops ideas, sensations, thoughts; but all of this is actually quite distant from the processes of material life. And that is precisely why Du Bois-Reymond was able to point out: We do not know what haunts space as matter; if we knew that, we could immerse ourselves in these material processes, and we could also discover what is connected with a material process as spiritual life. In a certain sense, he is right, even though his way of thinking is entirely materialistic: that even with ordinary thinking, one is far removed from the processes of spiritual life. One does not see through them; they are more like shadowy formations; one does not penetrate down into the processes.