It is important that one does not only come upon ingenious and clever ideas but that the right thoughts are discovered, that one finds ideas that can actually be applied and used. And in spiritual science, it depends on healthy thinking, a thinking that can truly penetrate reality. You can have the most complicated ideas in relation to outer physical events but then at most only indicate from out of the basic principles of pure mathematics and technology if a mistake was made: It can happen for instance that someone builds a railway bridge incorrectly and maybe after the third train travels over it, the bridge collapses. But you cannot demonstrate, for example, let’s say from medical science, when so and so many people regain their health and so and so many people die, what share medical science had in the resulting casualties or recoveries. There the situation is not so clear. And with respect to the social organism the situation is even much more nebulous. There the blundering and quackery can cause the utmost confusion.
Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 192 – Geisteswissenschaftliche Behandlung sozialer und pädagogischer Fragen – Stuttgart, April 21, 1919 (page 30)
Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger
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