20. How Does the Soul Find Its True Essence?

However, dear audience, as certain as it is that spiritual science is the true child of natural science, it must be admitted that today one might believe oneself to have been abandoned by all the good spirits of natural science if one can stand on the ground of this spiritual science. For the whole mood in the soul of the spiritual researcher is fundamentally different from that in the soul of the natural scientist. Let us consider, dear audience, how the natural scientist feels about the external world. He applies his senses, either unarmed or armed with the appropriate tools, to external things; he applies his thinking to recognize the laws of the facts of nature. Just as human beings are, just as they are, as it were, placed in this world by themselves, so human beings, in their desire to understand nature, face the world. They apply their thoughts, their powers of judgment, their senses, as they are given to them, to the exploration of the facts of existence.