Regarding atoms

 

Rudolf Steiner:  "Consider a certain class of human beings to which very many in the nineteenth century belonged: the atomistic philosophers, those who conceived the idea that atoms in movement were at the basis of all the phenomena of life. They had the idea that behind this entire visible and audible world there was a world of atoms in movement, and through this movement arose processes perceived by us as what appears in our surroundings. Nothing spiritual is there, the spiritual is merely a product of atomic movement, and all-prevailing atomic activity. Now, how has the thought of these whirling atoms arisen? Has anyone seen them? Has anyone discovered them through what they have experienced or come to know empirically?  Were this the case they would not be what they are supposed to be, for they are supposed to be concealed behind empirical knowledge.  Had they any reality, by what means would they have to be discovered? Suppose the movement of atoms were there — the understanding cannot discover them in what is sense-perceptible. What would a man have to be in order to possess the right to speak of this world of atoms?  He would have to be clairvoyant; the whole of this atom-world would have to be a product of inner vision, of clairvoyance. The only thing we can say to the people who have appeared as the materialists of the nineteenth century is: There is no need for us to prove that there are clairvoyants, for either you must be silent about all your theories, or you must admit that to perceive these things you are possessed of clairvoyant vision — at least to the point of being able to perceive atoms behind the world of the senses.  For if there is no such things as clairvoyance it is senseless to speak of this material world of atoms. If you find it a necessity to have moving atoms you prove to us that there are clairvoyant human beings."

Source: May 2, 1915. GA 161