First Scientific Lecture-Course

Prefatory Note

At the beginning of this scientific lecture-course, Dr. Walter Johannes Stein read out the following quotations: —

From Goethe's Scientific Works, Kuerschner's Edition, Vol. 3 (1890), page XVII of the Introduction by Rudolf Steiner: —

“Needless to say I am not wanting to defend Goethe's Theory of Colour in every detail. It is the underlying principle which I would like to see maintained. Nor could it here be my task to derive from this principle the phenomena of colour which were not yet known in Goethe's time. I could only do justice to such a task if I were fortunate enough one day to have the leisure and the means to write a scientifically up-to-date Theory of Colour in Goethe's spirit.”

Fr. Vol. 1 of the same Edition (1883), page LXXXIV of the Introduction by Rudolf Steiner:

“May scientists and thinkers young in mind and in ideal — those above all who seek not only to extend the range of information but who look deep into the central issues of our life of knowledge — pay heed to what I have set forth and follow in large numbers, so to work out more fully and more perfectly what I have here attempted.”

From “The Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Mankind” by Rudolf Steiner (1911):

“In time to come there will be physicists and chemists whose teaching will not be such as now prevails under the influence of the Egypto-Chaldean Spirits that have remained behind, but who will teach that Matter is built up in the way in which the Christ has gradually ordained it. Even into the laws of Chemistry and Physics the Christ will be found. Thus will a spiritual form of Chemistry and Physics come to pass in future”.