CW 170 The Riddle of Humanity: Lecture 2 (Dornach, 30 July 1916) by Rudolf Steiner
Oct 6, 2026 · 33 min · 11 segments
- Top entities
- Jupiter×19Earth×29Uranus×10Dornach×4Easter×6
- Show signals
- SuitabilitySafeBiasNot political
Oct 6, 2026 · 33 min · 11 segments
Today I would like to begin by considering a simple fact of which everyone is aware.
If we cast an understanding and observant eye, E-Y-E, over the variety of natural occurrences, we will notice that they seem to fall into two very different and distinct realms.
One realm which manifests the greatest kind of regularity and order, and another realm of extensive disorder, irregularity, and virtually impenetrable interconnections.
This, at any rate, is how we experience them.
Even though there is a sharp dividing line between these two realms, our normal natural sciences do not distinguish clearly between them.
On the one hand, we have all the things that happen with the regularity with which the sun rises and sets each morning and evening, and with which the stars rise and set, and with which all the other things associated with the rising and setting of the sun occur, such as the plants which regularly send forth their growing shoots in the spring, develop through the summer, then fade away and disappear in autumn.
And the realm of nature presents us with many other things in which we can see a similarly great degree of regularity and order.
But there is another realm of nature, one which cannot be experienced in the same way.
One cannot anticipate storms in the way one can anticipate the sunrise and sunset each morning and evening, for storms do not occur with that kind of regularity.
We can say that the sun will occupy a certain position in the heavens at ten o'clock tomorrow morning, but we cannot say that we will see a certain cloud formation in a certain position, let alone say anything about how the clouds will look.
Nor can we predict, in the way we can predict the quarters of the moon, that here in our building in Dornach we are going to be surprised by a storm or shower at some particular time.
It is possible to calculate eclipses of the sun and moon that will happen centuries hence quite accurately, but the occurrence of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions cannot be predicted with the same degree of certainty.
You see here two distinct realms of nature, one that manifests regularities our reason can grasp, and the other whose manifestations are irregular and cannot be experienced in the same way.
Great regularity and extreme unpredictability are intertwined in what we call nature as a whole.
I would like to describe the overall impression that nature makes on us at a given instant as a mixture of the orderly procession of regular events with those other events, the ones that can take us by surprise, even though they come again and again with at least a certain degree of consistency.
Now there is a profound truth that we have considered from many points of view in the course of our studies here, the truth that man is a microcosm, that man mirrors the macrocosm, and that everything that is to be found at large in the macrocosm can be rediscovered in some form in mankind.
So we would expect to find these two spheres of nature expressed in some human form, one which exhibits great order, the other which exhibits a pronounced lack of order.
Naturally in a human life these would be expressed very differently from the way they are expressed out there in nature.
Nevertheless, that twofold division of nature into order and irregularity should remind us of something in man.
Today I would like to begin by considering a simple fact of which everyone is aware.
If we cast an understanding and observant eye, E-Y-E, over the variety of natural occurrences, we will notice that they seem to fall into two very different and distinct realms.
One realm which manifests the greatest kind of regularity and order, and another realm of extensive disorder, irregularity, and virtually impenetrable interconnections.
This, at any rate, is how we experience them.
Even though there is a sharp dividing line between these two realms, our normal natural sciences do not distinguish clearly between them.
On the one hand, we have all the things that happen with the regularity with which the sun rises and sets each morning and evening, and with which the stars rise and set, and with which all the other things associated with the rising and setting of the sun occur, such as the plants which regularly send forth their growing shoots in the spring, develop through the summer, then fade away and disappear in autumn.
And the realm of nature presents us with many other things in which we can see a similarly great degree of regularity and order.
But there is another realm of nature, one which cannot be experienced in the same way.
One cannot anticipate storms in the way one can anticipate the sunrise and sunset each morning and evening, for storms do not occur with that kind of regularity.
We can say that the sun will occupy a certain position in the heavens at ten o'clock tomorrow morning, but we cannot say that we will see a certain cloud formation in a certain position, let alone say anything about how the clouds will look.
Nor can we predict, in the way we can predict the quarters of the moon, that here in our building in Dornach we are going to be surprised by a storm or shower at some particular time.
It is possible to calculate eclipses of the sun and moon that will happen centuries hence quite accurately, but the occurrence of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions cannot be predicted with the same degree of certainty.
You see here two distinct realms of nature, one that manifests regularities our reason can grasp, and the other whose manifestations are irregular and cannot be experienced in the same way.
Great regularity and extreme unpredictability are intertwined in what we call nature as a whole.
I would like to describe the overall impression that nature makes on us at a given instant as a mixture of the orderly procession of regular events with those other events, the ones that can take us by surprise, even though they come again and again with at least a certain degree of consistency.
Now there is a profound truth that we have considered from many points of view in the course of our studies here, the truth that man is a microcosm, that man mirrors the macrocosm, and that everything that is to be found at large in the macrocosm can be rediscovered in some form in mankind.
So we would expect to find these two spheres of nature expressed in some human form, one which exhibits great order, the other which exhibits a pronounced lack of order.
Naturally in a human life these would be expressed very differently from the way they are expressed out there in nature.
Nevertheless, that twofold division of nature into order and irregularity should remind us of something in man.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.