On "Science"

"Truth can be unpleasant, perhaps even cruel, at times. But modern man has no business to become rickety in soul through following a vague incomplete mysticism. What is required today is to penetrate the true mysteries of man's inner nature with all our intellectual powers — with the same powers that we have disciplined in the cause of science and used to effect in the outer world.

There is no mistaking what science is. It is respected for the very method and discipline it demands. It is when we have learnt to be scientific that we appreciate the achievements of a vague mysticism at their true worth but we also discover that they are not what spiritual science has to foster. On the contrary, the task of spiritual science is to reveal clearly the true nature of man's being. This in turn makes possible a sound understanding of the outer world."

– from Paths to the Spirit in East and West, Rudolf Steiner