The reader will readily appreciate what this title meant for me. In the
circles where my work lay, an intense controversy was just then raging
round Einstein's ideas. I usually took sides with the supporters of
Einstein, for it seemed to me that Einstein had carried the existing
mode of scientific thinking to its logical conclusions, whereas I
missed this consistency among his opponents. At the same time I found
that the effect of this theory, when its implications were fully
developed, was to make everything seem so 'relative' that no reliable
world-outlook was left. This was proof for me that our age was in need
of an altogether different form of scientific thinking, equally
consistent in itself, but more in tune with man's own being.

What appealed to me in the lecture-title was simply this, that whereas
everyone else sought to prove Einstein right or wrong, here was someone
who apparently intended, not merely to add another proof for or against
his theory-there were plenty of those already - but to take some steps
to overcome it. From the point of view of orthodox science, of course,
it was absurd to speak of 'overcoming' a theory, as though it were an
accomplished fact, but to me this title suggested exactly what I was
looking for.

Although it was the title of this lecture that drew me to the Stuttgart
Conference (circumstances prevented me from hearing just this lecture),
it was the course given there by Rudolf Steiner himself which was to
prove the decisive experience of my life. It comprised eight lectures,
under the title: 'Mathematics, Scientific Experiment and Observation,
and Epistemological Results from the Standpoint of Anthroposophy'; what
they gave me answered my question beyond all expectation.