3. Natural Science and Anthroposophy

But perhaps the second aspect is even more important today. This is that today, in view of the exactitude that has been assumed in natural science, one will no longer be able to get by - not even in the descriptive natural sciences - without a certain basic mathematical education. Indeed, in the natural science of the most recent times a definition has emerged that may seem somewhat paradoxical, somewhat extreme, but which shows the spirit that actually inspires this natural science thinking. The definition has emerged: Being is that which can be measured. Such a definition indicates how much the natural scientist today feels in his element when he has mastered the art that lies in geometry and in the exact measurement that geometry produces, in arithmetic and in the other branches of mathematics. This mathematical training is, so to speak, something that must be brought along today as a basic condition for beneficial scientific research.