In his commentary on Goethe’s Scientific Writings, Rudolf Steiner remarks apropos the structure of the Didactic Part of the Farbenlehre that the “impulse of the age that led to the architecture of Hegel’s whole system is obvious in this path moving from subject to object and back again”.

This “impulse of the age” did not only lead to Goethe’s Farbenlehre and Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit—we also find it developed in the evolutionary thought of Owen Barfield, which his fellow Inkling J.R.R. Tolkien brought to expression in his increasingly popular Legendarium. In this lecture we will consider the structure of the Didactic Part of Goethe’s Farbenlehre as an evolution of consciousness and then compare this with Owen Barfield’s conception of evolution (with a short intermezzo on the Phenomenology and history of the elves).

Dr Troy Vine

Free entry

All welcome