Earthly Knowledge and Heavenly Insight

GA 221 — 17 February 1923, Dornach

VI. Moral Impulses and Physical Effectiveness in Human Beings. The Comprehension of a Mental Process. (continued)

Yesterday, using Nietzsche as an example, I tried to show how a person who lives entirely in the external world of today's civilization, and yet, like Nietzsche, wants to seek moral impulses from human nature, must fail because it is impossible to find out from the present-day way of knowing how moral impulses intervene in physical life. Today we have a civilization that, on the one hand, accepts the laws of natural science and shapes our education accordingly, so that from childhood we absorb views about the interrelationships in nature. On the other hand, we have a moral world view that stands on its own. We understand moral impulses as commandments or as conventional rules of conduct that arise in the context of social human life. But we cannot conceive of the moral life on the one hand and the physical life on the other as being intimately connected. And yesterday I pointed out how Nietzsche, starting from what he made his supreme virtue, from honesty, from honesty towards himself and others, ultimately came to accept only the physical in man, and then to let the moral emerge from the physical, which he perceived as the humanly all-too-human. Because he wanted to be honest with the world view of his time, his moral philosophy failed because he could not see how the moral and the physical interact in one.

This interaction cannot be seen either unless one enters into that realm which, in the right sense, is called the supersensible. One must be clear about the fact that only in human life itself is contact established, as it were, between what one feels as moral impulses, between moral ideals for my sake, and the physical activity, the physical processes in the human being itself. And the big question today is this: when I have a moral impulse, does it remain something quite abstract, or can it intervene in the physical organization?

I told you yesterday: When we stand before a machine, we can be sure that a moral impulse will not intervene in the workings of the machine. There is initially no connection between the moral world order and the mechanism of the machine. If, as is increasingly the case in the modern scientific world view, the human organism is also depicted in a machine-like way, then this also applies to humans, and moral impulses remain illusions. At most, man can hope that some being, given to him through a revelation, will intervene in the moral order of the world, rewarding the good and punishing the bad; but he cannot somehow see a connection between moral impulses and physical processes from within the world order itself.

Today, I would like to point out the area in which this connection between what a person experiences within themselves as moral and the physical really occurs. To better understand the explanations that I will give, let us first take the animal.

In the animal, we have an interaction of the physical organism, an etheric formative forces organism and the astral organism. The actual I is not directly embodied in the animal organization itself, but intervenes from the outside as a group I in the animal organization. Now, with the animal, we must be clear about the fact that two directions can be clearly distinguished in its organization. We see the animal head. In the higher animals, as in man, the head is the most excellent carrier of the nervous-sensory organism. We see how everything that the animal takes in from the external sensory world essentially penetrates the animal through the organs of its head.

What I have emphasized again and again is certainly true: we cannot directly relate the structure of an organism to a physical part of it. We have to say: the animal is entirely head in a certain respect, because it can perceive all along its body. But the animal is primarily a nerve-sense organism at the head. This is where it effects its relationship to the external world. If we then look at the animal in its overall organization, in that we see it in relation to the rest of its organism, how it has, as it were, the other pole of the head organization towards the tail end, then, when we look at the structure of the animal in its physical, etheric and astral organization, we have the matter in such a way that, as it were, the astral mobility of the animal flows from back to front. The astral currents, the currents of its astral organism, constantly flow from back to front, and they encounter the impressions that the senses experience at the head. So that we have an intermingling from back to front and from front to back in the animal. I would like to draw this interflow schematically in such a way that the astral currents in the animal flow from back to front (red arrows), and that the sense impressions flow from the head to the back (yellow arrows). Between these two currents, there is an interaction in the animal that extends throughout the entire organism.

You can clearly see this interaction in the dog. The dog sees its master and wags its tail. When the dog sees its master and wags its tail, this means that it has the impression of its master, and that the astral current flows from the inside towards this impression, which goes from front to back, from the outside. And this flowing towards the tail from the whole organism from back to front is expressed in the dog's wagging. There is a complete coming together. And anyone who wanted to ask about the dog's physiognomy when it expresses joy should not so much look at the dog's face when it looks at its master, but should consider the wagging of the tail: there is a physiognomy in that.

This is basically the case with every animal. Only, let us say, when we go down to the fish, it is not noticed so much because the astral body has a great deal of independence there. But for the observing consciousness it is all the more vivid. It becomes quite clear to the observing consciousness that when the fish perceives something through its nervous-sensory apparatus, which comes towards it in the current, it itself sends its own astral current from behind towards the front, and then there is a wonderful interlocking of what the fish sees and what it brings. This intimate interlocking of the astral current from outside – for it is an astral current from outside that a being receives with the sense impressions – and the astral current from behind to the front is interrupted in the human being by the fact that the human being is an upright being.

Because man is an upright being, he is not able to send the astral current directly towards the sense impressions in the same way as a dog, for example. The dog has a horizontal spine. The astral movement from back to front passes directly through its head. In man the head is raised. Thus the whole relationship of those astral currents that flow from back to front, which make up the actual inner being, the harmony of these currents with those currents that come through the sense impressions, is not as simple as it is in the animal. And especially as regards the moral nature of man, one must study exactly what I have just assumed in order to understand the intervention of the moral in the physical in man. With animals we do not speak of morality because in the animal world this streaming of the astral from behind to the front and from the front to the back is uninterrupted. In man the following occurs.

The human being raises his head out of the astral current that comes from him and goes from behind to in front. This raising of the head signifies the embodiment of the actual self. The fact that the blood does not just take the horizontal path, but that the blood must flow up as a carrier of the inner ego forces, makes that the human being experiences this ego as his ego, as his individual ego. But it also means that in the human being, the head, the main seat of sensory impressions, is purely devoted to the outside world. In fact, the human being is much more organized in such a way that he has a looser connection between his sense of touch and his sense of sight than the animal. In the animal, the sense of touch and the sense of sight are more intimately connected. When the animal sees something, it immediately feels what it sees. The organs of touch are also stimulated by sight. This stimulation of the organs of touch then comes together, in particular, with the current that goes from back to front. In humans, the head is raised and purely devoted to the external world. This is particularly evident in the sense of sight. One might say that the human sense of sight is a kind of etheric sense. We only gradually learn to assess, through our judgment, what distances or the like are in the physical world. As human beings, we see primarily what is expressed in color and in the shades of color.

Consider only that it was only in the time when intellectualism was born that man also began to use perspective in painting. You won't find spatial perspective in the older painters, because only in this period, through the detour of judgment, of intellectualism, have the eyes become accustomed to seeing that which is real, which expresses itself in perspective, that is, in distances.

The eye is primarily for color, light and dark, and gradations of light and dark. But this – in that it is spread over the objects – actually comes from outer space. The sun sends forth light, and in that the light that comes from outer space falls on the things of the earth and is reflected back, the eye actually sees the things not with the help of earthly powers, but with the help of cosmic, of world powers.

But this is symptomatic of the human head in general. It is more devoted to the ethereal world than to the physical. Man actually finds his way into the physical world by walking around in it, by touching it. But he finds his way into the physical world less through the senses of his head.

Just think how ghostly the world would be, how ethereally ghostly, if we did not grasp space through the sense of touch, but if we only grasped what the eye transmits to us about space! The animal organization in relation to the head is quite different from the human organization. The animal organization is much more closely connected with physical reality through the head than is the human organization. When man takes the perceptions of his head, he has something ideal in it because it is ethereal. He actually lives entirely in the etheric world through his head.

Now the head is also external – and this is not something merely superficial that I am mentioning – but the head is also externally reproduced in man according to the cosmos. Take the individual animal head formations. They are directly an expression of the animal's own physicality. You cannot find that cosmic roundness of the formation of the head in animals. Man is indeed an image of the cosmic-spherical in his head, and he struggles to achieve this image of the cosmic-spherical by having not the horizontal but the vertical to his bodily line; by rising from the horizontal to the vertical.

This is particularly evident when we consider the whole organization of the human being. The physical organization of the human head is bound to an etheric organization that truly reflects the purity of the cosmos. Throughout a person's earthly life, the organization of the human head in the etheric body is something that is rarely touched by the earthly, but which remains thoroughly cosmic in its etheric and even more so in its astral. It is also the case that when a person passes from one earthly life to the next, the organization that lies outside of his head, that is, what is below his head (the head loses itself as a system of forces after death), is transformed, not the physical matter of course, but the context of forces, is metamorphosed and becomes the head in the next incarnation, in the next earthly life. Thus, in order to become an organization of the head, the human organization must first pass through the cosmos. The human organization of the head cannot develop at all on earth. Through his head, man is completely devoted to the cosmic, only through the rest of his organization is man bound to the earthly. Therefore, we can say: In the animal, the entire configuration of the head arises from the rest of its organization, while in the human being, the head stands out with a certain independence from the rest of the organization. This remaining organization, however, is expressed in the human being's head in everything that becomes a gesture and facial expression. If you have an inner agitation, let us say a feeling of fear, that which lies within the metabolic area, in the blood circulation system, is expressed by the forces of the human organism in the paleness of the face and in the play of expressions. And it is similar with other inner agitations. We see in the human being what is in the rest of the organism, pouring into the head spiritually and mentally, but astrally, and what lives astrally in the rest of the organism is expressed physiognomically, one might say, in the movement of the facial muscles, in the skin coloration, but especially in the play of expressions in the head.

It is a very interesting study when, for example, we see how a person accompanies what he speaks – which of course comes from his I – with a certain facial expression, how what lives in his astral body is expressed in his face. If you look at a person's face as they speak, you receive their thoughts with the words they utter and the accompanying processes in their astral organism with their facial expressions. But the etheric organism of the head is also connected with this astral organism of the head, and this etheric organism of the head is a wonderful reflection of the cosmos. It is a very remarkable experience to observe a person speaking by means of supersensible vision. We see how the astral organism is everywhere manifested in the play of expression, but how the etheric organism of the head is little affected by it. The etheric organism of the head resists the entry of the play of expression into its own formation. It is very interesting to see that certain hymn-singing, for example, in which the human being is imbued with a sense of holiness in his astral body, are easily absorbed into the etheric body of the head, and in fact the etheric body shows a play of light on the side facing the face with every expression; but in the parts situated further back, the etheric body shows a sharp resistance to the absorption of any processes from the expression.

From this you can see that although the human head is related to the rest of the organism, this relationship is subject to certain laws because the etheric body is modeled on the cosmos and wants to remain in this configuration of the cosmos, not wanting to be distracted, especially not by what comes from the passions, the drives, the instincts of human nature.

Now there is something else that is highly significant. In the countenance, we see a certain play of expression that manifests itself outwardly in man. This play of expression depends on the temperament, the character of the person, and on various mental and physical peculiarities. But there is another play of expression in man, even a much more lively play of expression, only this play of expression is not in his consciousness, but in the subconscious. It is extrasensory in nature. It lies in a realm that man cannot reach with his sensory observation. If you look at the human being's astral body, not as it belongs to the head, but as it belongs to the metabolism-limb-organism, if you look at the human being's astral body as it encompasses and permeates the legs, how it encompasses and permeates the abdomen, then, in this part of the astral organism, if you have supersensible vision, you also get to see a play of expression, a very lively play of expression, a physiognomy that is expressed there. And the strange thing is that this play of features, this physiognomy, reveals itself from the outside in. So while the play of features that expresses human speech or the human aspect in the environment reveals itself to the outside, a play of features that the human being does not have in his ordinary consciousness reveals itself to the inside. This is a very interesting fact.

I would like to show you this schematically. Suppose you have the human being here. Then we have the astral body (red), which is the cause of the play of expression and reveals itself to the outside. We have the same astral body, but a different part of it here (yellow), and while here (above) in this astral body we have the play of expression revealing itself outwardly, here (below) we have a play of expression that reveals itself entirely inwardly: this part of the astral body, so to speak, turns its face inward. The human being is unaware of this in ordinary consciousness, but it is so. When we look at a child, we find that this part of the astral body is constantly turning its expression inward, and when we look at more adult people, the expressions even become more or less permanent. The human being takes on an inward physiognomy. And what is this facial expression? Yes, this facial expression is based on the following.

If a person has an impulse for what in everyday life, and rightly so, is called a good deed, a moral deed, then the play of expression within is different than when one has an impulse for an evil deed. There is, as it were, an ugly expression, an ugly facial expression, if I may say so, inwardly, when a person performs an egoistic act. For basically all moral acts reduce themselves to the non-egoistic, all immoral acts to the egoistic. The only difference is that in ordinary life this true moral judgment is masked by the fact that someone can actually be very immoral, namely thoroughly permeated with selfish motives, but conventionally follows certain moral rules. These are then not his own at all. He is integrated into what he has been raised in, or what he does because he is embarrassed about what others will say. He is threaded in as a link in a chain. But the truly moral, which actually adheres to human individuality and lives in it, is already such that the good comes from the interest that we have in the other person; from the interest that we can gain from we can feel what others feel and experience as our own, while the immoral is something that originates in the fact that the human being closes himself off, where he does not empathize with what other people feel. To think good is basically to be able to put yourself in other people's shoes, to think evil is not to be able to put yourself in other people's shoes. This can then become a law, a conventional rule, something that one is or is not ashamed of. Then what is actually selfish can be greatly suppressed by convention. But basically, it is not what a person does that is decisive for the moral evaluation; rather, one must look deeper into the human character, into human nature, in order to be able to judge the actual moral value of the person.

The moral value expresses itself in the astral body in that this part of the astral body turns a beautiful countenance inward when unselfish actions and altruistic impulses live in the person, and an ugly facial expression inward when selfish, evil impulses live in the person. So that a spirit who reads inside the [astral] person can judge exactly the same way by this physiognomy whether a person is good or evil, as one can judge the person by other characteristics of his facial expressions. All this is not in the ordinary consciousness, but it is inevitably there. There is no possibility that dishonesty does not go deep into this person. One could imagine a devious scoundrel who has complete control over his facial expressions, what goes outwards, who has the most innocent face in the world, while unfolding the most villainous impulses; but in what is there in his astral body and gives him an inward expression, a facial expression, there he cannot be dishonest, there he makes himself a devil in the moment when he has his immoral motives. Outwardly, he can look as innocent as a child; inwardly, within himself, he looks like a devil; and the pure egoist looks at his heart with a devilish grin. This is just as much a law as the laws of nature are laws.

But now comes the crucial point. When an ugly physiognomy develops here (below), then the head, accustomed to the cosmos, rejects this physiognomy, does not take it in, and the human being forms in his etheric body such a body as was done with Ahriman, where the head has atrophied, has become instinctualized. Everything goes into the lower limbs of the etheric body. The head does not absorb this, and the human being makes himself Ahrimanic in his lower etheric body, and then also permeates his head with what this Ahrimanic body still pushes into the head. That is the strange thing, that in his head, already in the warmth ether of the head, the human being repels the physiognomy of the immoral, does not let it up. So that the immoral person carries an etheric Ahrimanic organism within him and his head remains unaffected by what is within him. It remains an image of the cosmos, but it actually belongs to him less and less because he cannot permeate it with his own being.

An immoral person gets little further than his life in the previous incarnation. Whatever has become his head in the transformation from the rest of the body of the previous incarnation remains the head, and when he dies, he has not come very far at all in relation to his head. On the other hand, what the moral imagination inwardly brings about flows up to the head in man. It causes the vertical direction. In fact, no immoral thing flows in the vertical direction. This gathers together and Ahrimanizes the human being. Only the moral flows in the vertical direction. And this is so because in the ether, in the warmth ether of the blood, the physiognomy of the immoral is rejected in the vertical direction. The head does not absorb this. The moral element, however, goes up into the head with the warmth of the blood, even more so in the light ether, and especially in the chemical and life ether. Man permeates his own being with his own being.

There is truly an influence of the moral into the physical, so that one can say: the etheric organization of the head has affinity for the moral in man, but not for the immoral. And no one can see how the moral impulses work into the physical through the detour via the ethereal, if they stop at mere physical-sensory observation of the world. One must take the human being as a whole, according to his etheric and astral organization, and then one has the field in which one sees how the moral element intervenes in the whole organization of the human being.

Now you can imagine what it looks like when a person dies. If his head has repelled the forces of his other organizations, then in fact nothing of him is actually in his head in the etheric body, which he sheds after a few days. He makes no particular impression on the world. He does not work with the further development of the earth, because he does not send any forces into that which reaches into the future. If a person has developed moral impulses within himself, which his head has taken up, then his ether body leaves him as a human being. The immoral person is abandoned by his ether body, in that the ether body really looks truly ahrimanic. One gets a good impression of the Ahrimanic form, even without making an effort to meet Ahriman himself, when one sees the etheric body of immoral people passing into the cosmos. It is Ahrimanized in form. In contrast, the etheric body that detaches from the astral body and the ego two or three days after the death of a person with moral impulses is humanized, humanly rounded and serene.

Such a person processes what he experiences as a human being on earth, including in his head, not just in the rest of his organism, and he hands it over to the cosmos through the similarity of his head. The head is indeed similar to the cosmos, the rest of the organism is not very similar to the cosmos; after some time, after it has been handed over to the cosmos, it is, one might say, scattered like a cloud and more or less falls to the earth, or at least is driven into currents that circle around the earth. But what a person has imprinted in his head in terms of morality is poured out into the vastness of the cosmos, and in this way the person contributes to the reshaping of the cosmos. And so we can say: By the way a person is moral or immoral, he contributes to the future of the earth. The immoral person hands over to the forces that surround the earth - and these are important for all activity, because the physical of the earth later arises out of the etheric - that which etherically trickles down to the earth and in turn connects with the earth, or what lives in the vicinity of the earth. The moral man, on the other hand, having absorbed into his head the forces that develop precisely through the moral impulses, gives to the whole cosmos what he has worked for on earth.

On Earth, if you remain attached to it, you cannot see how the moral impulses actually work; they remain abstractions. Take the moral impulses of any moral philosopher, say, for example, Ferbart. He lists five moral impulses: inner freedom, benevolence, perfection, equity and legality. So if a person acts according to these five types of virtue, he is a moral person. But Herbart cannot actually say what that is more than something abstract: he is just a moral person. But what that means for the world, that is not stated by such a philosopher.

Well, you can also name the virtues differently, depending on whether you summarize certain human impulses in one way or another. Yesterday I mentioned Nietzsche's four cardinal virtues, which in turn group somewhat differently. He distinguishes, as I said, honesty towards oneself and one's friends, bravery towards one's enemies, generosity towards the defeated, and courtesy towards all people. And other moral philosophers have listed other virtues. But all these virtues remain abstractions if one only knows the physical about a person. Then one stands before people with these virtues as impulses, as one stands before a machine with an order: No matter how well you address a machine, it does not occur to it to accept any of your impulses. Likewise, human nature, as expressed by today's world view, cannot accept any of the moral impulses. In order to understand the reality and effectiveness of the moral, one must enter the supersensible realm.

A supersensible thing is the inward-turned facial expression, the inward-turned gesture, which, depending on whether it is moral or immoral, is taken up or rejected by the head and thus passes into the world, or is shattered, burst, splintered on the earth.

Thus even a moral philosopher like Nietzsche, with his moral principles, is completely adrift and can only achieve a kind of consolidation, as I told you yesterday. But this is not a real consolidation. Despite everything, he ultimately had to resort to the human physical plane, despite all his “Beyond Good and Evil.” He failed because of this. Thus, if we wish to consider the efficacy of the moral, we must go beyond the mere physical world order, we must enter the supersensible realm, and we must be clear about the fact that although the moral appears abstractly in the physical, its efficacy can only be seen and judged in the supersensible.