The Essence of Anthroposophy

GA 80a/1922-01-16/p047 ·1922-01-16 · English HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
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Anthroposophy does not want to be abstract knowledge, it does not want to be mere theory. It cannot merely fertilize the individual sciences, but it penetrates from the formed world to the forming world. And let us take a saying by which Goethe has just characterized his own artistic perception. He says: Art is a manifestation of secret laws of nature that could never be revealed without art. By creating art, Goethe does not want to implant human arbitrariness into the material, but rather what is felt or, as we would say today, seen in the spiritual from the cosmos itself. A building could arise that says exactly the same thing in its forms for external observation as is said in words, by representing the anthroposophical view, the view of the spiritual world, from the idea. And so anthroposophy will also be able to have a fruitful effect on artistic life.

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Cite: GA 80a/1922-01-16/p047 · edition English