We murder to dissect

 

Rudolf Steiner:  "Thinking in connection with observation, with experiment, has nowadays become completely abstract — so abstract that it does not trust itself to call forth anything of the nature of knowledge or of truth out of its own inner being. It is this gradually developed characteristic of thinking which demands before everything else — so it appears at first — the rejection of all that the human being is in himself by reason of his inner nature. For what he himself thus is must be set forth in activity; this can really never exist wholly apart from the impulse of his will. Thus we have arrived at the point — and we have rightly reached this point in the field of external research — of actually rejecting the activity of thinking.... In a certain sense, the human being has eliminated himself in connection with his research; he prohibits his own inner activity."

from "The Tables Turned" by William Wordsworth:



Come forth into the light of things, 

Let Nature be your teacher. 


She has a world of ready wealth, 

Our minds and hearts to bless— 

Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, 

Truth breathed by cheerfulness. 


One impulse from a vernal wood 

May teach you more of man, 

Of moral evil and of good, 

Than all the sages can. 


Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; 

Our meddling intellect 

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:— 

We murder to dissect. 

Related post:

https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2023/01/turning-heads.html

Source: September 26, 1923 GA 84