“Plomp! There Lay Our Philosopher on the Floor”—The Beginning of the Friendship between Rudolf Steiner and Moritz Zitter

Marginalia on Rudolf Steiner’s Life and Work No. 35

In his autobiography, Rudolf Steiner describes Moritz Zitter (1861–1921), who was born the same year as Steiner and came from Transylvania, as one of his five closest friends during his youth. They remained friends until Zitter’s death in 1921.

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After completing his studies, Moritz Zitter spent several years working as a private tutor in his hometown before returning to Vienna in 1892. He then worked in various editorial offices and advertising agencies. Eventually, he ran such an office himself and was the publisher of the Wiener Klinische Rundschau [Vienna Clinical Review], among others. In 1898, he was also co-editor of the Magazin für Literatur [Magazine for Literature] for a time.

The friendship between the two proved itself “through many storms of life”¹ and was not without tension. Zitter seems always to have wished for more time and attention from Rudolf Steiner. As can be seen from their letters, he wavered between phases of great disappointment—that Rudolf Steiner’s next letter was once again too long in coming—with phases of enthusiastic exuberance when the letter finally arrived.

The beginning of their friendship was marked with a special signature. The friends met during their studies at the Technical Institute in Vienna, in a course led by Karl Julius Schröer on “Practice in Oral Lecturing and Written Presentation.” Students practiced writing essays and giving lectures on topics of their own choosing, observing and reflecting on each other’s work, and even giving “opposing lectures.”

Moritz Zitter once gave a lecture on pessimism: “Everything Schopenhauer had put forward in favor of this view of life came alive in this lecture. Added to this was the young man’s own pessimistic outlook on life.” Rudolf Steiner offered to “give an opposing lecture” in which he “refuted pessimism with thunderous words,” calling Schopenhauer a “narrow-minded genius” and culminating with the sentence: “If the lecturer were right in his presentation on pessimism, then I would rather be the wooden beam upon which my feet stand than a human being.”²

Zitter responded (in writing and probably also orally), addressing Rudolf Steiner’s opposing lecture in detail. This reply from the spring or summer of 1882,³ which still survives, is in a sense the earliest presentation of a lecture by Rudolf Steiner. Moritz Zitter writes:⁴

“Gentlemen! You’ll readily admit that, judging by the applause you gave the work of Mr. Steiner, it is in itself a thankless task to criticize it. Yes, if I were so clever as to say: I agree with every word Mr. Steiner said, except for the dot on the ‘i’ and the beam upon which Mr. Steiner stood, and which he preferred to be rather than be a pessimist, you would probably be satisfied with my review and perhaps even reward me with applause . . . You know, gentlemen, it is the custom to only speak well of the dead. Gentlemen! Now that Mr. Steiner has finished his speech, I must also say something positive about it. And it truly does contain positive and beautiful elements. What makes Mr. Steiner’s lecture especially remarkable is the broad knowledge upon which it is based. I have come to know Mr. Steiner quite well, also through personal interactions, and you will certainly agree with me when I call Mr. St. the ‘philosopher’ among us. Mr. Steiner has really studied Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Hartmann, Schopenhauer, Fichte, and all the others with great diligence and understanding. And the fact that he lets us hear about them is a special merit for which I believe I must express our gratitude on behalf of all of us here. We technicians rarely have the opportunity to hear such things, so we owe him all the more gratitude. And what elevates him and his lecture most in our eyes is probably the sincere enthusiasm he feels for the cause he represents, which is an essential requirement if it is to prevail. . . . There exists a certain elegance, what I’d call, in this case, a mild, persuasive force that captivates and wins people over—and I found this elegance completely lacking in Mr. Steiner’s presentation of his ideas; Mr. Steiner simply tore down Schopenhauer with a speed and energy that astounded me. Without further ado, he calls Schopenhauer prosaically poor, morally narrow-minded—and what means did he use to do so? He presented us with a caricature of his philosophy and indulged in unproven claims, and plomp, there lay our philosopher on the floor, and Mr. Steiner cast him a crushing glance. I felt—I don’t know whether you felt it too gentlemen—that my funny bone was often tickled by the suddenness of expression used by Mr. Steiner, so I often hardly noticed his irony when he spoke about originality and naivety of expression . . . . I do not wish to defend Schopenhauer in everything, but I ask you not to misunderstand my endeavor, gentlemen. First, I would like to show you how Mr. Steiner, upon closer inspection, has quite often become entangled in contradictions; and second, I would wish that you not have as bad an opinion of Schopenhauer as Mr. Steiner has given in his portrayal of him. Schopenhauer’s services to our philosophy are great because he tried to popularize it and because he is, as it were, a supplement to Kant, our greatest philosopher. Mr. Steiner goes on to explain that those who hold to an idealism that finds its ideals in reality are opposed to those who do not see ideals realized in the world. And he is right! But is he right when he explains that the latter are incorrect and that the best way to cure them is to demand that they present this ideal world to us in thought, and how then it will be made clear that they actually have no ideals in their head at all, but instead merely delude themselves with rapturous illusions? . . . I believe in the same ideal as Mr. Steiner, but I do not believe that the ideal also exists in reality. And I call it a fantasy of Mr. Steiner when he claims that I cannot bring forth my ideal, as he said; and, if I am to agree with him, I demand he do what he has yet to do—that he shows me these ideals as realized in nature. He just baldly asserts that these ideals are embodied in nature and in history, in art, religion, and science. . . . From my point of view, of one who does not see the ideals manifested in reality, I must strictly deny the embodiment of ideals in nature; and as far as history, art, and religion are concerned, these are such ideal fields that one cannot speak of ideals existing there at all. . . .”

It is interesting to see that Rudolf Steiner was apparently already recognized as a “philosopher” among his peers at that time—and that he spoke out so vehemently against Schopenhauer, whose works he would publish some ten years later as part of the world literature series published by Cotta.⁵ We can further gather from the text that he emphatically advocated a kind of realistic idealism, proceeding from the assumption that ideals could also be found in reality.

Moritz Zitter concludes his text by quoting in more detail the context of the “wooden beam” statement that Rudolf Steiner mentioned more than forty years later in his autobiography, and ends with a critique of his classmate’s speed of speaking:

“In my opinion, these are false statements by Mr. Steiner. And I would conclude with that, were I not left with no other choice but to remind you of those passages where Mr. Steiner escalated to the point of exaggeration. After explaining indifferentism, he asks: What is the human being according to this view? And he gives the answer: a lump of flesh stuck in a medium (called ether), which has a little drum on the front surface of its body that ordinary people call eyes, etc. He continues in this nerve-racking manner until he finally goes so far as to say that under such circumstances, he would rather be the floor beam upon which he stood. I confess openly that I would not want to be that; I still prefer to be a human being who sees, hears, smells, and speaks rather than a piece of wood, and I hereby declare that this was probably just a lapse of taste on Mr. Steiner’s part. So that you, gentlemen, can breathe more freely already, I would like to inform you that I am coming to a close and, although I have already done so privately, I would like to ask Mr. Steiner, for the sake of aiding comprehension, to moderate his speech somewhat and not to speak so quickly. Firstly, he will then not easily find himself in the position of leaving sentences unfinished and, secondly, of making his words incomprehensible. . . .”

These notes also include an interesting reply by Rudolf Steiner to Moritz Zitter’s contribution. It reads: “The situation called for one to actually touch upon the views themselves. The business of a critic cannot consist in running around talking about things that are external and unessential to the lecture itself. When Mr. Zitter says that my interpretation of Schopenhauer is a caricature, he should have provided a corrected view. He accuses me of having proven nothing, yet it is he who indulges in the most unproven statements. The act of exposing my opponent’s views is proof enough for my argument. Any other proof is unconvincing. One can prove all possibilities through sophistry and formulas. Popularity is not a sign of a high-standing philosophy.”

Rudolf Steiner’s explanation that if Zitter was right in his pessimism, he would rather be the wooden beam he was standing on than a human being was, as he recounts in his autobiography, “mocked by my acquaintances for some time.” “But,” which may come as a surprise after the heated argument, “it made the young pessimist and me close friends.”⁶

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Translation Joshua Kelberman

1. Rudolf Steiner, Autobiography: Chapters in the Course of My Life, CW 28 (Great Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks, 2006), p. 38 f.
2. Ibid.
3. Notes 5588–5590, Rudolf Steiner Archive, Dornach. Other remarks on these note pages allow for an approximate dating. See also Sämtliche Briefe [Collected letters] 1, GA 38/1 (Basel: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 2021), p. 74 f.
4. The text here has been shortened by about half. Spelling and punctuation have been adapted to modern [German] standards (e.g., Zitter writes “Phylosophie” instead of “Philosophie”), and abbreviations have been written out in full. Some parts of sentences were crossed out in the original and have not been included here.
5. In his autobiographical lecture of February 4, 1913, he says about this incident: “Such was the soul mood of the young man [Steiner], who wanted to defend himself against an ardent Schopenhauerian [Zitter]. That he [Schopenhauer] would no longer repel him [Steiner] is evident from the fact that he [Steiner] published an edition of Schopenhauer, in which he attempted to do justice to Schopenhauer’s views.” Rudolf Steiner, Self-Education. Autobiographical Reflections 1861-1893 (Spring Valley, NY: Mercury Press, 1985); cf. Rudolf Steiner, Zur Geschichte der Deutschen Sektion der Theosophischen Gesellschaft 1902–1913 [On the history of the German Section of the Theosophical Society 1902–1913], GA 250 (Basel: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 2020), p. 645; [for the edition of Schopenhauer, see Arthur Schopenhauer, Arthur Schopenhauers Werke in 12 Bänden. Mit einer Einleitung von Dr. Rudolf Steiner [The works of Arthur Schopenhauer in 12 volumes. With an introduction by Dr. Rudolf Steiner] (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1894–1896); Rudolf Steiner, “Arthur Schopenhauer,” in Biographien und biographische Skizzen 1894–1905 [Biographies and biographical sketches 1894–1905], GA 33 (Basel: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1992), first published in above-mentioned Cotta edition, vol. 1., pp. 5–32.]
6. See footnote 1.