only possible critique of the atomistic concepts

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Atomism and its Refutation

A Letter and Essay by

Rudolf Steiner

from GA 38 / Bn 38.1

Atomism and its Refutation was translated by Ruth Hofrichter from the originalGerman ofDie Atomistzk und ibre Widerlegung(September 23, 1890.) This

edition also includes Dr. Steiner's letter to Friederich Theodor Vischer(November 25, 1886) and his answers to six questions about some basic

concepts of natural science (1919).

The original texts were included inZeitschrift Anthroposophie, Buch 3 und 4,1935.

This translation has been authorized for the Western Hemisphere by agreementwith the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.

Copyright 1975

This e.Text edition is provided through the wonderful work of:

The Mercury Press

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[ Cover| Letter| Article]


LETTER TO FRIEDERlCH THEODOR VISCHER
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(See above for a Facsimile of the original letter.)

Nov. 25, 1886

Three years ago, you were so kind as to give me your opinion, an opinion of surpassing value to me,

about a short essay in which I treated the mistakes of atomism, and of modern natural science in general. I

had submitted to you the mss. of the essay.

This incident encourages me to send you also the attached treatise about the theory of knowledge in

Goethe's view of the world.

Though the essay refers to Goethe, I confess that my main concern was to provide a contribution to the

theory of knowledge rather than to Goethean research.

In considering Goethe's Weltanschaung view of the world my concern was not as much with his

positive presentation as with the direction of his way of looking at the world. Goethe's and Schiller's

scientific disclosures are for me a middle for which the beginning and the end have to be sought.

The beginning: by an account of the fundamental principles which we must think of as supporting this

view of the world; the end: by an exposition of the consequences which this method of viewing the world

has for our view of the world, and of life.

If I tell you that I owe much of my philosophic education to the study of your writings, you will

understand how desirable it is for me to find your approval of my own thinking.

Commending myself to your benevolence, I am, most sincerely,

Rudolf Steiner


First, we will call to mind the current doctrine of sense impressions, then point to contradictions contained in it, and to

a view of the world more compatible with the idealistic understanding.

Current (1890) natural science thinks of the world-space as filled with an infinitely thin substance called ether. This

substance consists of infinitely small particles, the ether atoms. This ether does not merely exist where there are no

bodies, but also in the pores (pertaining) to bodies. The physicist imagines that each body consists of an infinite

number of immeasurable small parts, like atoms. They are not in contact with each other, but they are separated by

small interstices. They, in the turn, unite to larger forms, the molecules, which still cannot be discerned by the eye.

Only when an infinite number of molecules unite, we get what our senses perceived as bodies.

We will explain this by an example. There is a gas in nature, called hydrogen, and another called oxygen.

Hydrogen consists of immeasurable small hydrogen atoms, oxygen of oxygen atoms. The hydrogen atoms are given

here as red circlets, the oxygen ones as blue circlets. So, the physicist would imagine a certain quantity of hydrogen,

like a figure 1, a quantity of oxygen like figure 2. (See table)

Now we are able, by special processes, not interesting us here, to bring the oxygen in such a relation to the

hydrogen that two hydrogen atoms combine with one oxygen atom, so that a composite substance results which we

would have to show as indicated in figure 3.

Here, always two hydrogen atoms, together with one oxygen atom form one whole. And this still invisible, small

formation, consists of two kinds of atoms, we call a molecule. The substance whose molecule consists of two hydrogen

atoms, plus one oxygen atom is water.

It also can happen that a molecule consists of 3, 4, 5 different atoms. So one molecule of alcohol consists of atoms

of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.


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But we also see by this that for modern physics each substance (fluid, solid, and gaseous) consists of parts between

which there exist empty spaces (pores).

Into these pores, there enter the ether atoms which fill the whole cosmos. So, if we draw the ether atoms as dots,

we have to imagine a body like figure 4. (The red and blue circlets are substance atoms, the black dots are ether atoms.)

Now we have to imagine that both the substance-atoms and the ether-atoms are in a state of constant motion. The

motion is swinging. We must think that each atom is moving back and forth like the pendulum of a clock.

Now in A (see figure 5) we imagine a body, the molecules of which are in constant motion. This motion is

transferred also to the ether-atoms in the pores, and from there, to the ether outside of the body of B, e.g. to C. Let us

assume in D a sense-organ e.g. the eye, then, the vibrations of the ether will reach the eye, and through it, the nerve N.

There, they hit, and through the nerve-conduit L, they arrive at the brain G. Let us assume for instance that the body A

is in such a motion that the molecule swings back and forth 461 billion times a second. Then, each ether-molecule also

swings 461 billion times, and hits 461 billion times against the optic nerve (in H). The nerve-conduit L transfers these

461 billion vibrations to the brain, and here, we have a sensation: in this case high red. If there were 760 billion

vibrations I could see violet, at 548 billion yellow, etc. To each color sensation there corresponds, in the outside world,

a certain motion.

This is even simpler in the case of the sensations of sound. Here also the body-molecules vibrate. The medium

transferring this to our ear is not the ether but the air. At 148 vibrations per second we perceive the tone D, at 371 the

tone F sharp, etc.

Thus we see to what this whole interpretation leads: whatever we perceive in the world with our senses, colors,

tones, etc., is said not to exist in reality, but only to appear in our brain when certain vibratory forms of motion are

present in the outer world. If I perceive heat, I do so only because the ether around me is in motion, and because the

ether atoms hit against the nerves of my skin; when I sense light, it is because the same ether atoms reach the nerve of

my eye, etc.

Therefore, the modern physicist says: in reality, nothing exists except swinging, moving atoms; everything else is

merely a creation of my brain, formed by it when it is touched by the movement in the outer world.

I do not have to paint how dismal such a view of the world is. Who would not be filled with the saddest ideas if for

example, Hugo Magnus, who is quite caught in that way of thinking, exclaims, This motion of the ether is the only

thing which really and objectively exists of color in creation. Only in the human body, in the brain, these ether

movements are transformed into images which we usually call red, green, yellow, etc. According to this, we must say:

creation is absolutely colorless ... Only when these (colorless) ether movements are led to the brain by the eye, they are

transformed to images which we call color. (Hugo Magnus, Farben und Schpfung, 8 lectures about the relation of

color to man and to nature, Breslau, 1881, p. 16f.)

I am convinced that everyone whose thinking is based on sound ideas, and who has not been subjected from early

youth to these strange jumpy thoughts, will consider this state of affairs as simply absurd.

This matter, however, has a much more dubious angle. If there is nothing in the real world except swinging atoms,

then there cannot be any true objective ideas and ideals. For when I conceive an idea, I can ask myself, what does it

mean outside of my consciousness? Nothing more than a movement of my brain molecules. Because my brain

molecules at that moment swing one way or another, my brain gives me the illusion of some idea. All reality in the

world then is considered as movement, everything else is empty fog, result of some movement.

If this way of thinking were correct, then I would have to tell myself: man is nothing more than a mass of swinging

molecules. That is the only thing in him that has reality. If I have a great idea and pursue it to its origin, I will find

some kind of movement. Let us say I plan a good deed. I only can do that if a mass of molecules in my brain feels like

executing a certain movement. In such a case, is there still any value in good or evil? I can't do anything except

what results from the movement of my brain molecules.


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So, the whole way of explanation falls. We must ascribe to color, warmth, sounds, etc., the same reality as to

motion. With this, we have refuted the physicists, and have proved the objective reality of the world of phenomena and

of ideas.

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Dr. Rudolf Steiner's Answers to Six Questions about Some Basic Concepts of Natural Science. (Answered in 1919.)

(The exact questions no longer exist.)

I. Atoms are to be regarded as ideal contents of space. The contents are the results of force-directions meeting

each other e.g., directions of force.

a b c are active in space, and by their meeting a resultant force is carried which is effective as an atom of

tetrahedral character.

Elements are the expression of certain meetings of forces; that they manifest themselves as such is due to the

fact that one force, in meeting another, produces a result, while other effects of forces on each other are without

result.

Crystals are the result of more complicated meetings of forces, atoms the result of simple meetings.

Amorphic masses result from the neutralization of force-reactions.

II. Force is the revelation of spirit viewed in a one-sided way. One cannot say that force has an effect on matter,

since matter consists merely in the affects of the force-rays when they meet. Never does one form of energy

pass over into another one; as little as the activity of one man goes into that of another. What passes over ismerely the arithmetical expression of measure. If mechanical energy passes over into warmth the real

occurrence is as follows: a certain quantity of this revelation which reveals itself in warmth is stimulated in a

spiritual being by a certain quantity of mechanical energy. (This is so in a healthy fashion with Mayer. It was

only Helmholtz who botched up this matter.)

III. Neither sound, nor warmth, nor light, nor electricity are vibrations, just as little as a horse is a sum of gallop-

paces. Sound, for instance, is an essential entity, and the effect of this real quality in its passage through the air

is vibration. For man as a sensing being, the vibration is motivation to imitate the essential entity in himself;

this constitutes the perception of sound. It is similar with others: light, etc.

IV. Light is that by which it is perceived. (See my introduction to Goethe's Theory of Color.) The vibration is the

revelation of light in the ether.

The refraction of light is the result of the effect of a certain force-direction upon the light-direction. Newton'scolor rings (circles), phenomena of interference, are results of light-radiation (effect of light in the ether), and

of the effects of other forces found in the path of light (weakening effects, gradually weakening affects of other

forces). The same goes for phenomena of polarisation. One should not seek the polarisation figures in the

structure of the essence of the light but in the structure of the medium which places itself in the path of light.

The speed of transmission is the result of a kind of friction of the light against the medium.

V. Light is not to be considered as a function of electricity, but the latter is to be considered as a kind of corporeal

carrier of light.

Electrically charged matter: certain accumulations of force retain those accumulations of force which manifest

as electricity.

VI. Mathematics is the abstracted sum of the forces effective in space. If one says, Mathematical propositions are

valid a priori, this comes from the fact that man exists within the same lines of force as the other beings, and

that he can disassociate himself from everything that does not belong to the scheme of space, etc.

Only Possible Critique of the Atomistic Concepts

An Letter By

Rudolf Steiner

from GA 38 / Bn 38.1

Only Possible Critique of the Atomistic Concepts was translated by Daniel Hafner from the original German ofBeitrge zur Rudolf SteinerGesamtausgabe. This edition is highlighting Dr. Steiner's letter to Friederich Theodor Vischer (mailed, June 20, 1882).

This presentation was translated by Daniel Hafner, August 2005, and revised October, 2011. Reproduced here with kind permission of thetranslator.


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This translation has been authorized for the Western Hemisphere by agreement with the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach,Switzerland.

The following is the first extant essay by Rudolf Steiner

(from vol. 63 ofBeitrge zur Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe).

He mailed it to Friedrich Theodor Vischer on June 20th, 1882.

Translated by Daniel Hafner, August 2005, revised Oct. 2011.Reproduced here with kind permission of the translator.

This e.Text edition is provided through the wonderful work of:Daniel Hafner

Modern natural science regards Experience as the only source for the investigation of truth. And not wrongly, to be

sure. Its area is the realm of outer, spatial things and temporal processes. How should one be able to make anything out

about an object belonging to the outer world, without having gotten to know it by means of sense-perception, that is,

the only manner of coming in contact with things spatial-temporal. First get to know the object, [ see note 1] and then

theorize about it, so goes the maxim asserted by modern science over against the speculative systems of thephilosophers of nature from the beginning of this century. This principle is completely justified, but by an erroneous

conception, it has led science astray. The misunderstanding lies in the character attributed by the inductive method, and

by the materialism and atomism issuing from it, to general concepts. For the person of understanding, there can be no

doubt that the current state of natural science in its theoretical part is essentially influenced by concepts as they have

become dominant through Kant. If we want to go into this relationship more closely, we must commence our

consideration with him. Kant limited the scope of Recognition to Experience, because in the sensory material

communicated by it, he found the only possibility of filling in the concept-patterns, the categories, inherent in our

mental organization, by themselves quite empty. For him, sensory content was the only form of such a conceptual

pattern. Thereby he had steered the world's judgment into other courses. If, earlier, one had thought of concepts and

laws as belonging to the outer world, if one had ascribed to them objective validity, now they seemed to be given

merely by the nature of the I. The outer world counted merely as raw material, to be sure, yet as that which alone

reality was to be ascribed to. This standpoint was inherited from Kant by Inductive Science. It too counts the materialworld as the only thing real; for it, concepts and laws are justified only to the extent that they have that world as their

content and mediate the recognizing of it. It regards concepts reaching beyond this realm as unreal. For it, general

thoughts and laws are mere abstractions, derived from the agreements experienced in a series of observations. It knows

mere subjective maxims, generalizations, no concrete concepts bearing their validity in themselves. This must be borne

in mind if one wants to penetrate from a lot of murky concepts circulating nowadays through to complete clarity. One

will first have to ask oneself: what then is Experience, really, gained of this or that object? In works on the philosophy

of experience, one will search in vain for a matter-of-fact, satisfying answer to this certainly justified question.

Recognizing an object of the outer world in its essential being cannot, after all, possibly mean perceiving it with

the senses, and as it presents itself to them, so drawing up a likeness of it. One will never see how, from something

sensory, a corresponding conceptual photograph could come about, and what relation there could be between the two.An epistemology that starts from this standpoint can never get clear about the question of the connection of concept

and object. [see note 2] How is one to see the necessity of going beyond what is given immediately by the sense, to the

concept, if in the former the essential being of an object of the sensory world were already given? Why the conceptual

comprehending too, if the looking-at were already sufficient? At the least, the concept, if not a falsification, would be a

highly unnecessary addition to the object. That is what one must arrive at, if one denies the concreteness of concepts

and laws. Over against such pictorial explanations as, say, that of the Herbartian school, too: that the concept is the

mental correlate of an object located outside us, and that the recognizing consists in acquiring such a picture, we now

want to seek a reality explanation of recognizing. In keeping with the task we set ourselves, we here want to limit

ourselves merely to the recognizing of the outer world. In this case, two things come into consideration in the act of

recognizing: The confirmation [see translator's note 1] of thinking, and that of the senses. The former has to do with

concepts and laws, the latter with sensory qualities and processes. The concept and the law are always something

general, the sensory object something particular; the former can only be thought, the latter only looked at. The mediathrough which the general appears to us as something particular are space and time. Every particular thing and every

particular process must be able to be fitted into the conceptual content of the world, for whatever of it were not lawful

and conceptual in nature does not come into consideration for our thinking at all. Hence, recognizing an object can only

mean: giving what appears to our senses, in space, a place in the generality of the conceptual content of the world,

indeed letting it merge into it completely. In the recognizing of a spatial-temporal object, we are thus given nothing
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else than a concept or law in a sense-perceptible way. Only by such a conception does one get over the previously

mentioned unclearness. One must allow the concept its primariness, its own form of existence, built upon itself, and

only recognize it again in another form in the sense-perceptible object. Thus we have reached a reality definition of

Experience. The philosophy of induction can by its nature never reach a definition of this kind. For it would have to be

shown in what way experience transmits concept and law. But since that philosophy sees these two as something

merely subjective, its path to that is cut off from the beginning.

From this, one sees at the same time how unfruitful the undertaking would be to want to make out anything about

the outer world without the help of perception. How can one gain possession of the concept in the form of viewing,

without accomplishing the viewing itself? Only when one sees that what perception offers is concept and idea, but inan essentially other form than in pure thinking's form freed of all empirical content, and that this form is what makes

the difference, does one comprehend that one must take the path of experience. But if one assumes the content to be

what matters, then nothing can be put forth against the assertion that the same content could after all also be acquired in

a manner independent of all experience. So experience must indeed be the maxim of the philosophy of nature, but at

the same time, recognition of the concept in the form of outer experience. And here is where modern natural science,

by seeking no clear concept of experience, got on the wrong track. In this point it has been attacked repeatedly, and is

also easily open to attack. Instead of acknowledging the apriority of the concept, and taking the sense world as but

another form of the same, it regards the same as a mere derivative of the outer world, which for it is an absolute Prior.

The mere form of something is thus stamped the thing itself. Atomism, to the extent that it is materialistic, issues from

this unclearness of the concepts. We want here, based on the preceding, to subject it to a careful, and as I believe I

can assume the only possible, critique.

However opinions may diverge in the detail, atomism ultimately amounts to regarding all sensory qualities, such

as: tone, warmth, light, scent, and so on, indeed, if one considers the way thermodynamics derives Boyle's law, even

pressure, as mere semblance, mere function of the world of atoms. Only the atom counts as ultimate factor of reality.

To be consistent, one must now deny it every sensory quality,because otherwise a thing would be explained out of

itself. One did, to be sure, when one set about to build up an atomistic world system, [see note 3] attribute to the atom all

kinds of sensory qualities, albeit only in quite meager abstraction. One regards it, now as extended and impenetrable,

now as mere energy center, etc. But thereby one committed the greatest inconsistency, and showed that one had not

considered the above, which shows quite clearly that no sensory characteristics whatsoever may be attributed to the

atom at all. Atoms must have an existence inaccessible to sensory experience. On the other hand, though, also, they

themselves, and also the processes occurring in the world of atoms, especially movements, are not supposed to be

something merely conceptual. The concept, after all, is something merely universal, which is without spatial existence.But the atom is supposed, even if not itself spatial, yet to be there in space, to present something particular. It is not

supposed to be exhausted in its concept, but rather to have, beyond that, a form of existence in space. With that, there is

taken into the concept of the atom a property that annihilates it. The atom is supposed to exist analogously to the

objects of outer perception, yet not be able to be perceived. In its concept, viewability is at once affirmed and denied.

Moreover, the atom proclaims itself right away as a mere product of speculation. When one leaves out the

previously mentioned sensory qualities quite unjustifiably attributed to it, nothing is left for it but the mere

Something, which is of course unalterable, because there is nothing about it, so nothing can be destroyed, either. The

thought of mere being, transposed into space, a mere thought-point, basically just the arbitrarily multiplied Kantian

thing in itself, confronts us.

Against this, one could perhaps object that after all it is all the same what is understood by Atom, that one shouldlet the scholar of natural history go ahead and operate with it for in many tasks of mathematical physics, atomistic

models are indeed advantageous ; that after all, the philosopher knows that one is not dealing with a spatial reality,

but with an abstraction, like other mathematical notions. To oppose the assumption of the atom in this respect would

indeed be mistaken. But that is not the issue. The philosophers are concerned with that atomism for which atom and

causality [see note 4] are the only possible motivating forces of the world, which either denies all that is not mechanical,

or else holds it to be inexplicable, as exceeding our cognitive ability. [see note 5] It is one thing to view the atom as a

mere thought-point, another thing to want to see in it the fundamental principle of all existence. The former standpoint

never goes beyond mechanical nature with it; the second holds everything to be a mechanical function.

If someone wanted to speak of the harmlessness of the atomistic notions, one could, to refute him, go ahead and

hold up to him the consequences that have been derived from them. There are especially two necessary consequences:firstly, that the predicate of original existence is squandered on isolated substances void of spirit, quite indifferent

toward one another, and otherwise wholly undefined, in whose interaction only mechanical necessity rules, so that the

entire remainder of the world of phenomena exists as their empty haze, and has mere chance to thank for its existence;

secondly, insurmountable limits to our recognizing result from this. For the human mind, the concept of the atom is, as

we have shown, something completely empty, the mere Something. But since the atomists cannot be content with
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this content, but call for actual substance, yet determine this substance in a way in which it can nowhere be given, they

must proclaim the unrecognizability of the actual essential being of the atom.

Concerning the other limit of knowledge, the following is to be noted. If one sees thinking too as a function of the

interaction of complexes of atoms, which remain indifferent toward one another, it is not at all to be marveled at, why

the connection between movement of the atoms on the one hand, and thinking and sensation on the other, is not to be

comprehended, [see note 6] which atomism therefore sees as a limit of our recognition. Only, there is something to

comprehend only where a conceptual passage over exists. But if one first so limits the concepts that in the sphere of the

one, nothing is to be found that would make possible the passage to the sphere of the other, then comprehending is

excluded from the start. Moreover, this passage would have to be indeed not of a merely speculative nature, but ratherit would have to be a real process, thus permitting of being demonstrated. But this is again prevented by the non-

sensoriness of atomistic motion. With the giving up of the concept of the atom, these speculations about the limit of our

knowledge fall away by themselves. From nothing must one guard oneself more than from such determinations of

boundary, for beyond the boundary there is then room for everything possible. The most irrational spiritism, as well as

the most nonsensical dogma, could hide behind such assumptions. The same are quite easy to refute in every single

case, by showing that at their foundation there always lies the mistake of seeing a mere abstraction for more than it is,

or holding merely relative concepts to be absolute ones, and similar errors. A large number of false notions has come

into circulation especially through the incorrect concepts of space and time. [see note 7]

Hence we must subject these two concepts to a discussion. The mechanistic explanation of nature needs for the

assumption of its world of atoms, besides the atoms in motion absolute space as well, that is, an empty vacuum, and an

absolute time, that is, an unalterable measure of the One-After-Another. [see note 8] But what is space? Absolute

extension can be the only answer. Only, that is only a characteristic of sensory objects, and apart from these a mere

abstraction, existent only upon and with the objects, and not beside them as atomism must necessarily assume. If

extension is to be present, something must be extended, and this cannot again be Extension. Here, for a proof of the

absoluteness of space, one will be able to raise as an objection, say, the Kantian invention about the two gloves of the

left and right hand. One says, their parts have, after all, the same relationship to one another, and yet one cannot make

the two congruent. From this, Kant concludes that the relationship to absolute space is a different one, hence absolute

space exists. But it is more obvious, after all, to assume that the relationship of the two gloves to one another is simply

such that they cannot be made congruent. How should a relationship to absolute space be thought of, anyway? And

even assuming it were possible, the relationships of the two gloves to absolute space would, however, only then

establish in turn a relationship of the two gloves to one another. Why should this relationship not just as well be able to

be a primary one? Space, apart from the things of the world of the senses, is an absurdity. As space is only somethingupon the objects, so time is also given only upon and with the processes of the world of the senses. It is inherent in

them. By themselves, both are mere abstractions. Only the sensory things and processes are concrete items of the world

of the senses. They present concepts and laws in the form of outer existence. Therefore they in their simplest form must

be a fundamental pillar of the empirical study of nature. The simple sensory quality and not the atom, the fundamental

fact and not the motion behind what is empirical, are the elements of the empirical study of nature. It is thereby given a

direction which is the only possible one. If one takes that as a basis, one will not be tempted at all to speak of limits of

recognizing, because one is not dealing with things to which one attributes arbitrary negative characteristics such as

supersensible and the like, but rather with actually given concrete objects.

From these mentions, important conclusions will also result for epistemology. But foremost, it is certain that the

atom and the motion behind the empirical must be exchanged for the fundamental sensory elements of outer

experience, and henceforth can no longer count as principles of the study of nature.

Notes

1. Compare Vischer ,Old and New, Part 3, pp. 51ff.

2. Compare with this the keen-minded discourses of John Rehmke in his sound workThe World as Perception

and Concept, Berlin, 1880.

3. Here belong the indications Du Bois-Reymond gives about such a system, as well as the experimentsperformed by Wiessner, Schramm [see translator's note 2], and others.

4. Compare Vischer ,Old and New, Part 2.

5. This view is advocated by Du Bois-Reymond in Concerning the Limits of the Recognition of Nature and The

Seven Riddles of the World, Leipzig, 1882.

6. Du Bois-Reymond: Concerning the Limits of the Recognition of Nature (see p. 4, footnote).
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7. Vischer has repeatedly pronounced the necessity of a correction of our concept of time (Critical Passages,

1873, Old and New, Part 3).

8. Compare: Otto Liebmann, Thoughts and Facts, Strasbourg, 1882.

Translator's Notes

1. confirmation (Besttigung) could be a mistake for activation (Bettigung).

2. Schrann is presumably a mistake for Schramm (Heinrich Schramm wrote The General Movement of

Matter as Fundamental Cause of All Phenomena), and so I have changed it.

Individualist Anarchism:

An Opponent of the "Propaganda of the Deed"

An Open Letter to Herr Dr. Rudolf Steiner,

Editor of the Magazine for Literature,

In response to John Henry Mackay

Written in 1898; GA 31; Bn 31.2.30 and 31.2.31

From theMagazin fr Literaturof 30 September 1898. This translation, according to text in Volume 31 of the Complete Edition of the works of

Rudolf Steiner, consistes of two letters: the first from John Henry Mackay to Rudolf Steiner, Bn 31.2.30, and the second, an answer from RudolfSteiner to Mr. Mackay, Bn 31.2.31. Translated by Daniel Hafner: first English translation, revised as of February, 2007. Reproduced here with the

kind permission of the translator, and the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwltung, Dornach, Switzerland.

Individualist Anarchism:

An Opponent of the Propaganda of the Deed

Dear Herr Dr. Steiner!

More urgently than ever in the last years, the request of my friends reaches me in these days to take a position

anew against the tactics of violence, so as not to see my name thrown together with those anarchists who are no

anarchists, but one and all revolutionary communists. People are pointing out to me that as a foreigner I am running a

danger, in the event of the international measure of an interment of the anarchists, of being dismissed from Germany.

I refuse to follow the advice of my friends. No government is so blind and so foolish as to proceed against a person

who participates in public life solely through his writings, and does so in the sense of a reshaping of conditions without

bloodshed. Besides, for years I have unfortunately lost almost all outer contact with the social movement in Europe,

whose outer development, by the way, no longer claims my interest in the same degree as the spiritual progress of the

idea of equal freedom in the heads of individuals, which is the only thing all hope for the future still rests upon.

In 1891, in my workThe Anarchists (in both editions now published by K. Henckell & Co. in Zurich and Leipzig),

in the 8th chapter, entitled The Propaganda of Communism, I took a position with Auban against the propaganda of

the deed, so sharply and unambiguously that there cannot be the slightest doubt as to how I think about it. I just reread

the chapter for the first time in five years, and have nothing to add to it; I could not today say better and more clearly

what I think of the tactics of the communists, and their dangerousness in every respect. If since then a portion of the

German communists has been convinced of the harmfulness and pointlessness of every violent proceeding, then I claim

an essential part in this service of enlightenment.

Also, I am not in the habit of repeating myself, and moreover, for years I have been occupied with an extensive

project, in which I am trying to approach psychologically all questions pertaining to the individual and his position

toward the state.

Finally, in the seven years since the appearance of my work, the situation has, after all, changed drastically, and

one knows today, wherever one wants to know it, and not only in the circles of experts, that not only in respect of

tactics but also in all fundamental questions of world view, there are unbridgeable contrasts between the anarchists who
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are anarchists and those who falsely so call themselves and are called, and that apart from the wish for an improvement

and reshaping of social conditions, the two have nothing, but nothing whatsoever, in common.

Whoever still doesnt know it can learn it from the leaflet by Benj. R. TuckerState Socialism and Anarchism,

which he can get for 20 pfennig from the publisher B. Zack, Berlin SE, Oppelnerstrae 45, and in which he will also

find a list of all the writings of individual anarchism an incomparable opportunity to increase his knowledge in an

invaluable way for the price of a glass of beer.

To be sure, there is a dirty press (it strangely prefers to call itself the decent press), which continues to falsify ever

anew even established facts that have become a matter of history. But any battle against it is not only pointless butdegrading. It lies because it wants to lie.

With friendly greetings, your devoted

John Henry Mackay

for now Saarbrucken, Rhine Province, Pesterstr. 4

15 September 1898.

Answer to John Henry Mackay

Dear Herr Mackay!

Four years ago, after the appearance of myPhilosophy of Spiritual Activity, you expressed to me your agreement

with my direction of ideas. I openly admit that this gave me deeply felt joy. For I have the conviction that we agree,

with respect to our views, every bit as far as two natures fully independent of one another can agree. We have the same

goals, even though we have worked our way through to our world of thought on quite different paths. You too feel this.

A proof of this is the fact that you chose me to address the above letter to. I value being addressed by you as like-

minded.

Hitherto I have always avoided using even the term individualist anarchism or theoretical anarchism for my

world view. For I put very little stock in such designations. If one speaks ones views clearly and positively in ones

writings: what is then the need of also designating these views with a convenient word? After all, everyone connectsquite definite traditional notions with such a word, which reproduce only imprecisely what the particular personality

has to say. I utter my thoughts; I characterize my goals. I myself have no need to name my way of thinking with a

customary word.

If, however, I were to say, in the sense in which such things can be decided, whether the term individualist

anarchist is applicable to me, I would have to answer with an unconditional Yes. And because I lay claim to this

designation for myself, I too would like to say, just at this moment, with a few words, exactly what distinguishes us,

the individualist anarchists, from the devotees of the so-called propaganda of the deed. I do know that for rational

people I shall be saying nothing new. But I am not as optimistic as you, dear Herr Mackay, who simply say, No

government is so blind and foolish as to proceed against a person who participates in public life solely through his

writings, and does so in the sense of a reshaping of conditions without bloodshed. You have, take no offense at me for

this my only objection, not considered with how little rationality the world is governed.

Thus I would indeed like to speak once distinctly. The individualist anarchist wants no person to be hindered by

anything in being able to bring to unfolding the abilities and forces that lie in him. Individuals should assert themselves

in a fully free battle of competition. The present state has no sense for this battle of competition. It hinders the

individual at every step in the unfolding of his abilities. It hates the individual. It says: I can only use a person who

behaves thus and thus. Whoever is different, I shall force him to become the way I want. Now the state believes people

can only get along if one tells them: you must be like this. And if you are not like that, then youll just have to be

like that anyway. The individualist anarchist, on the other hand, holds that the best situation would result if one would

give people free way. He has the trust that they would find their direction themselves. Naturally he does not believe

that the day after tomorrow there would be no more pickpockets if one would abolish the state tomorrow. But he knows

that one cannot by authority and force educate people to freeness. He knows this one thing: one clears the way for the

most independent people by doing away with all force and authority.

But it is upon force and authority that the present states are founded. The individualist anarchist stands in enmity

toward them, because they suppress liberty. He wants nothing but the free, unhindered unfolding of powers. He wants

to eliminate force, which oppresses the free unfolding. He knows that at the final moment, when social democracy


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draws its consequences, the state will have its cannons work. The individualist anarchist knows that the representatives

of authority will always reach for measures of force in the end. But he is of the conviction that everything of force

suppresses liberty. That is why he battles against the state, which rests upon force and that is why he battles just as

energetically against the propaganda of the deed, which no less rests upon measures of force. When a state has a

person beheaded or locked up one can call it what one will on account of his opinion, that appears abominable to

the individualist anarchist. It naturally appears no less abominable to him when a Luccheni stabs a woman to death

who happens to be the Empress of Austria. It belongs to the very first principles of individualist anarchism to battle

against things of that kind. If he wanted to condone the like, then he would have to admit that he does not know why he

is battling against the state. He battles against force, which suppresses liberty, and he battles against it just the same

when the state does violence to an idealist of the idea of freedom, as when a stupid vain youngster treacherouslymurders the likeable romantic on the imperial throne of Austria.

To our opponents it cannot be said distinctly enough that the individualist anarchists energetically battle against

the so-called propaganda of the deed. There is, apart from the measures of force used by states, perhaps nothing as

disgusting to these anarchists as these Caserios and Lucchenis. But I am not as optimistic as you, dear Herr Mackay.

For I cannot usually find that speck of rationality that is, after all, required for such crude distinctions as that between

individualist anarchism and propaganda of the deed, where I would like to seek it.

In friendly inclination, yours

Rudolf Steiner

Reordering of Society

The Fundamental Social Law

An Essay By

Rudolf Steiner

GA 34 / Bn 34.1.17 (an exerpt)

Copyright 1927

This e.Text edition is provided through the wonderful work of:

The Anthroposophical Publishing Company

London

--| THE FUNDAMENTAL SOCIAL LAW |--------------------------------------

Briefly as the subject must be dealt with, there will always be somepeople whose feeling will lead them to recognize the truth of what it

is impossible to discuss in all its fullness here. There is a

fundamental social law which spiritual science teaches, and which is

as follows:

The well-being of a community of people working together will be the

greater, the less the individual claims for himself the proceeds of

his work, i.e. the more of these proceeds he makes over to his

fellow-workers, the more his own needs are satisfied, not out of his

own work but out of the work done by others.

Every arrangement in a community that is contrary to this law will

inevitably engender somewhere after a while distress and want. It is afundamental law, which holds good for all social life with the same

absoluteness and necessity as any law of nature within a particular

field of natural causation. It must not be supposed, however, that it

is sufficient to acknowledge this law as one for general moral

conduct, or to try to interpret it into the sentiment that everyone

should work in the service of his fellow men. No, this law only lives


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in reality as it should when a community of people succeeds in

creating arrangements such that no one can ever claim the fruits of

his own labour for himself, but that these go wholely to the benefit

of the community. And he must himself be supported in return by the

labours of his fellow men. The important point is, therefore, that

working for one's fellow men and obtaining so much income must be kept

apart, as two separate things.

Self-styled practical people will of course have nothing but a smile

for such outrageous idealism. And yet this law is more practical

than any that was ever devised or enacted by the practicians. Anyonewho really examines practical life will find that every community that

exists or has ever existed anywhere has two sorts of arrangements, of

which the one is in accordance with this law and the other contrary to

it. It is bound to be so everywhere, whether men will it or not. Every

community would indeed fall to pieces at once, if the work of the

individual did not pass over into the totality. But human egoism has

from of old run counter to this law, and sought to extract as much as

possible for the individual out of his own work. And what has come

about from of old in this way due to egoism has alone brought want,

poverty and distress in its wake. This simply means that the part of

human arrangements brought about by practicians who calculated on

the basis of either their own egotism or that of others must always

prove impractical.

Now naturally it is not simply a matter of recognizing a law of this

kind, but the real practical part begins with the question: How is one

to translate this law into actual fact? Obviously this law says

nothing less than this: man's welfare is the greater, in proportion as

egoism is less. So for its translation into reality one must have

people who can find their way out of egoism. In practice, however,

this is quite impossible if the individual's share of weal and woe is

measured according to his labour. He who labours for himself must

gradually fall a victim to egoism. Only one who labours solely for the

rest can gradually grow to be a worker without egoism.

But there is one thing needed to begin with. If any man works foranother, he must find in this other man the reason for his work; and

if anyone is to work for the community, he must perceive and feel the

value, the nature and importance, of this community. He can only do

this when the community is something quite different from a more or

less indefinite summation of individual men. It must be informed by an

actual spirit, in which each single one has his part. It must be such

that each one says: It is as it should be, and I will that it be

so. The community must have a spiritual mission, and each individual

must have the will to contribute towards the fulfilling of this

mission. All the vague abstract ideals of which people usually talk

cannot present such a mission. If there be nothing but these, then one

individual here or one group there will be working without any clear

overview of what use there is in their work, except it being to theadvantage of their families, or of those particular interests to which

they happen to be attached. In every single member, down to the most

solitary, this spirit of the community must be alive ...

No one need try to discover a solution of the social question that

shall hold good for all time, but simply to find the right form for

his social thoughts and actions in the light of the immediate need of

the time in which he lives. Indeed there is today no theoretical

scheme which could be devised or carried into effect by any one person

which in itself could solve the social question. For this he would

need to possess the power to force a number of people into the

conditions which he had created. But in the present day any such

compulsion is out of the question. The possibility must be found of

each person doing of his own free will that which he is called upon to

do according to his strength and abilities. For this reason there can

be no possible question of ever trying to work on people

theoretically, by merely indoctrinating them with a view as to how

economic conditions might best be arranged. A bald economic theory

can never act as a force to counteract the powers of egoism. For a


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while such an economic theory may sweep the masses along with a kind

of impetus that appears to resemble idealism; but in the long run it

helps nobody. Anyone who implants such a theory into a mass of people

without giving them some real spiritual substance along with it is

sinning against the real meaning of human evolution. The only thing

which can help is a spiritual world-conception which of itself,

through what it has to offer, can live in the thoughts, in the

feelings, in the will in short, in a man's whole soul ...

The recognition of these principles means, it is true, the loss of

many an illusion for various people whose ambition it is to be popularbenefactors. It makes working for the welfare of society a really

difficult matter one of which the results, too, may in certain

circumstances comprise only quite tiny part-results. Most of what is

given out today by whole parties as panaceas for social life loses its

value, and is seen to be a mere bubble and hollow phrase, lacking in

due knowledge of human life. No parliament, no democracy, no popular

agitation can have any meaning for a person who looks at all deeper,

if they violate the law stated above; whereas everything of this kind

may work for good if it works on the lines of this law. It is a

mischievous delusion to believe that particular persons sent up to

some parliament as delegates from the people can do anything for the

good of mankind, unless their activity is in conformity with the

fundamental social law.

Wherever this law finds outer expression, wherever anyone is at work

on its lines so far as is possible in that position in which he is

placed within the community good results will be attained, though it

be but in the single case and in never so small a measure. And it is

only a number of individual results attained in this way that will

together combine to the healthy collective progress of society.

The healthy social life is found

When in the mirror of each human soul

The whole community is shaped,

And when in the community

Lives the strength of each human soul.

---

Taken from: Understanding the Human Being, selected writings

of Rudolf Steiner, Edited by Richard Seddon, Rudolf Steiner Press,

Bristol, 1993, ISBN: 1 85584 005 7.

From: Chapter 7 - Reordering of Society:

Essay Source = Anthroposophy, 1927 Vol. II, No.3, Anthroposophy

and the Social Question, 1919, GA 34.

only possible critique of the atomistic concepts

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