How Spirit Works in Nature

GA 351 — 20 October 1923, Dornach

4. The Essence of Hydrogen

Is there perhaps something else on your soul that wanted to be asked?

Questioner: We have only heard about oxygen and nitrogen. But hydrogen also exists. Could we hear something about it?

Dr. Steiner: Well, I have already mentioned hydrogen a little. So let us start from your question. The human being of every age carries in himself as the main substance, the protein. He emerged, after all, from protein. Breast milk is mainly formed from protein. The human being carries the protein in himself. This protein essentially has five substances processed into it: carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen and sulfur. These substances are different from the others that are otherwise present in the body, and there are quite a few of them. These substances are already in the original protein from which the human being is formed.

Now I have told you that carbon is constantly at work in us; the food we eat becomes carbon. We now breathe in oxygen and also some nitrogen. Carbon combines with oxygen to form carbonic acid. Carbonic acid, I told you, is present in those pearls that are in the seltzer water, also in the naturally acidic water. But this carbonic acid is also in us, and it is important because it is constantly being supplied to the head through breathing. And if we didn't have this carbonic acid in our heads, we wouldn't be bright minds, and that's what we all are. We wouldn't be that if we didn't get the carbonic acid into our heads; not in as large a quantity as, for example, in carbonic acid water, but in a very small amount, we have to constantly refresh our heads with the carbonic acid. Now, however, I told you the other day: if we are stupid, it is because the carbon does not carry enough oxygen into our heads, that is, not enough oxygen gets in, but the carbon combines with the hydrogen. Carbonic acid has something refreshing; but when the carbon combines with the hydrogen, well then, gentlemen, then it is the case that the swamp gas is formed, the gas that is found in particular in caves, in cellars and so on, where things decompose; that is where the swamp gas is formed. It is not a refreshing gas; it is a gas that kills and paralyzes. And if there is such an irregularity in our body that the carbon combines with the hydrogen, then marsh gas is formed, and it goes into the head. So when we get such a “cellar head,” we become stupid. So it is very important whether we get enough carbonic acid or too much marsh gas up, that is, hydrogen; because we always need some marsh gas, otherwise we would become too clever as human beings, and if we became too clever, then we would have poor digestion. It is precisely through such mixing ratios that life is established in the right way. But hydrogen, which is actually wrong in the head when there is too much of it, plays a very unpleasant role in marsh gas. This hydrogen is everywhere in the universe – everywhere. Today, it is possible to determine which substances are at work in the universe by means of so-called spectral analysis. Wherever you direct the spectroscope into space, you get such a coloration everywhere that you can conclude: hydrogen is active everywhere. Hydrogen is everywhere.

This hydrogen, on the other hand, is extremely important for very specific things. I told you that it has a harmful effect in the head when there is too much of it. So when it is brought into the head, hydrogen prevents a person from developing his thinking. A person can think because he does not have too much hydrogen in his head.

But now let us look at the other end of thinking. What is the other end? Yes, the other end of thinking is reproduction, the creation of new living beings. That is the other end. Just as the north pole is related to the south pole, so is thinking related to reproduction.

Now we can observe something very interesting in living beings. It happens that they change the whole way they reproduce when hydrogen plays a different role for them than it usually does. There are certain snakes; these snakes lay eggs and new snakes hatch from the eggs. What actually happens when a snake lays an egg and another snake hatches from it? The egg has to be laid somewhere where it can get the necessary warmth. You can see that the egg needs warmth in order for an animal to hatch from it, just as you can see with a bird's egg. The bird's egg is laid; but a new bird would not hatch from it unless the old bird sat on it and incubated it. The warmth that radiates from the old bird is necessary for a new bird to emerge from the egg. So the egg needs not only what is within it, but also the warmth that comes from the whole universe. It is not enough simply to lay an egg; the warmth coming from the whole universe is needed, and this warmth contains the power that drives the new being out of the egg. It is the same with snakes. The eggs are laid. Through the effect of the warmth of the sun, the living element of the new snake is brought out of the egg.

The story I have told you now happens with certain snakes, but only if they live very regularly. It is not the case with all snakes, but only with a certain species of snake, which I am telling you about. If such a snake is a perfectly decent snake, then it lays its eggs, and if they are incubated, new snakes will crawl out of them. What does it mean when we say that a snake is a decent snake? Now, when it comes to people, it means a great deal when we say that someone is a decent person; but when it comes to snakes, it means a little less. Above all, a snake needs a great deal to be decent, which is sometimes quite difficult for a person: a new dress, that is, a new skin. So a snake is only a decent snake if it sheds its skin every year, discarding the old skin and growing a new one on its body. So the snake must not walk around in last year's old rags, but must have a new skin every year. We can therefore distinguish between decent and indecent snakes. Such indecent snakes are those that walk around in last year's old rags.

Now you will say: Does that actually happen? Does nature give the snake a new dress? It would be very pleasant for us if nature would also give us a new dress. But man is a much more valuable being than the snake. Therefore, he has been given the freedom to give himself a new dress. ... [Gap.] You can lock up such snakes, and if you lock them up and deprive them of the right amount of water, not giving them enough moisture, the strange thing happens that the snake suddenly becomes indecent: it keeps its old dress! And so we can artificially create the condition – nature doesn't do us the favor – that certain snakes become indecent snakes that keep their old clothes from the previous year.

Yes, but, gentlemen, that is not the only thing: the snake then wears its old, faded dress; but if you get such snakes to mate, if you get them to reproduce, they don't lay eggs, but give birth to live little snakes! So these snakes, when you deprive them of the opportunity to have enough water to shed their skins, when you force them to become indecent snakes, to wear their old faded clothes – that is the cause – these snakes now start to give birth to live young, so to speak, real little snakes, instead of laying eggs.

You see, that is a very remarkable story; for what has actually happened? We have deprived the snake of water. Water contains hydrogen; it contains oxygen, but mainly hydrogen, because water consists of oxygen and hydrogen. Yes, gentlemen, when we deprive the snake of water, we also deprive it of the ability to reproduce by depriving it of the ability to form a new skin, the ability to form an egg shell inside. The animal can no longer form the hard part if it does not have the hydrogen. It cannot form the hard part within itself, it cannot form an egg shell on the inside and no skin on the outside. And the consequence of this is that the snake's young must hatch without a shell. The snake must use its own warmth to initially care for the young snake.

It is extremely important to know this about such a snake-like creature. Because now we know: just as it is harmful at one end of the creature, at the head, when oxygen is withdrawn, so it is harmful for reproduction when hydrogen is withdrawn. And now we see why hydrogen is present everywhere in the world, everywhere we look – we can look in any direction. Why is hydrogen present throughout the world? Yes, gentlemen, hydrogen is present throughout the world for the reason that the world would have to be destroyed immediately if there were no hydrogen. Wherever there is reproduction, hydrogen must also be at work. Now the world is constantly being destroyed. You see, the world is constantly turning into death everywhere. The rocks are ground down, everything is pulverized everywhere. The living beings decay, all kinds of fermentation processes, which are also decay processes, arise in the world. We actually live because something is constantly fermenting in us. And only because something ferments, can the higher then arise. This is even the case with wine; if the grape juice did not ferment, if it did not send the decomposing part outwards, wine could not arise from the grape juice, which is something so desirable for many, which has an invigorating effect. This is the case throughout the world. That which causes that which gives life to arise from that which decays, yes, that is precisely hydrogen.

But now you can object. You can say: But you are now telling us that hydrogen is the element that has a revitalizing effect. But swamp gas contains hydrogen, and in that case it does not revitalize, but kills.

Yes, but why? You see, gentlemen, when hydrogen forms in the dark, and that is the case with mine gas or swamp gas, it has a harmful effect when it develops in the absence of light, as it also does in our brains. But when hydrogen develops in the light, as it is spread throughout the world in the light, it is the invigorating element; it is there that it produces new life from the decomposing and the fermenting. For hydrogen, as it is everywhere, is basically the same as what we have in our matches when we light them: phosphorus. Certainly, in chemistry, hydrogen is a completely different substance from phosphorus; but only because chemistry cannot go so far as to convert phosphorus into hydrogen! But if chemistry could go further than it is today, it would be able to convert phosphorus into hydrogen. So that we can say: What then is hydrogen, which is spread all over the world? The hydrogen that is spread throughout the world is the world phosphorus. Wherever we look, everywhere, everywhere there is phosphorus. And with that I have described to you what is everywhere in the world's orbit: phosphorus. So we have now really got to know something tremendously significant: we have got to know hydrogen in its magnificently significant effect in the universe.

Now let us look at the matter from the other side. I told you that carbonic acid is at the other end. Well, gentlemen, let us take a very close look at what I told you. Imagine that there is the earth (it is drawn), and all around it is hydrogen, which actually means phosphorus. So, all around the Earth in space, we have hydrogen, which actually means phosphorus. In fact, there are small fires everywhere. Now let's look at the Earth itself. Let's go from space to Earth. Everywhere you will find what is called lime. But there is not only lime present, but there is also something of a substance that you know very well everywhere in the soil. Just as I have now shown you that hydrogen, that is, phosphorus, is spread all around our earth – because phosphorus is spread everywhere – so that is what we can now see quite well.

You know that when your wives or anyone else wants to wash, they put something called soda in the washing water. You know that. You may also know that the same substance, soda, which looks like a salt but is actually a salt, is used in a variety of other ways. If you go to a soap factory, for example, you know that soda is used as the most important raw material; for example, in glass production, it is one of the most important raw materials for processing glass windows; if you have laundry, you know that you add soda to the water. Likewise, if you treat your laundry with soda, it bleaches; it becomes lighter, more akin to light through the soda. Now there are many other things where soda is used. For example, if you go to factories where colors are made, you would find that soda is needed everywhere. In particular, the blue colors need soda if you want to make them. Prussian blue can only be made by using soda. Then there is a substance that is introduced into the human body and that, as it thrives in nature, would be much more harmful to the human body if it were introduced into the human body without first being treated in some way: that is tobacco. The tobacco must first be mordanted. Certain things must be removed that would otherwise attack the human body too strongly. Tobacco is again treated with soda. So you see, this soda, which you know as an additive to washing water, is actually of great importance in industry throughout the world. But it is also of great importance in the entire world industry, in the so-called cosmetic industry. Soda is actually everywhere, only in small quantities.

So, gentlemen, what exactly is this remarkable substance, soda? There is a white, silvery metal, which is called sodium, and when this sodium combines with carbonic acid - now we have carbonic acid again, which we have in our heads - the result is soda. So sodium and carbonic acid together form the soda. Sodium, this metal, is a peculiar thing: we say “sodium”, not “a gentleman” or “a lady”. It is a strange child in nature; it stores carbonic acid and carries it with it. Wherever there is soda in nature, carbonic acid is stored and is as salty as it is in soda. There the carbonic acid is hidden, stored.

Now, in this yellow area (see illustration), I have shown you the world phosphorus in hydrogen; I must now show you the soda as a whitish area in the earth itself. Of course it is not everywhere, but in small quantities it is spread almost over the whole earth. Just as we can use it in industry for all kinds of purposes, for bleaching laundry, for glass production and so on, so nature uses this soda in a high degree. But let us consider what nature can do with this soda. Nature is really even cleverer than man. Man feels terribly clever when he can say: I extract the soda, make glass, soap, colors out of it. I use it to flavor my tobacco, to bleach and wash my clothes – I invented all that, man says to himself, I am terribly clever. – Yes, but nature is much cleverer! That is precisely what one must always remember: nature is much, much cleverer. Just think about what is actually everywhere when we use soda. Let's start with soap production. Soap helps us to keep clean, otherwise we would constantly look like coal burners. So soap promotes cleanliness, but it only does so because of the soda in it. Soda is needed to make glass. Glass is transparently pure. Soda is needed to make glass transparently pure. Furthermore, we wash our laundry with soda. We wash it, we make it pure, so that it shines like the light. We use the soda for bleaching. Bleaching means making something light. We use soda wherever light is to arise somehow, light is to become effective out of darkness. Now, you know that light is where colors arise. I have told you this in the most diverse ways. We now need soda in paint factories. And it is curious that wherever soda is used, light must arise. When curing tobacco, for example: human beings need light to live. If they only had dark tobacco, they would have nothing to stimulate them, only something destructive. Soda is present wherever it has stored sodium and carbonic acid and releases the carbonic acid so that we can bring something of the light into the world. Nature does this to a much, much greater extent; she is simply much cleverer than man. Man just gropes around and has gradually discovered that soda can be used in the world. But nature is such that it uses soda in a most remarkable way. It is present wherever I have drawn the white. And so it is that wherever soda, that is, carbonic acid of sodium, comes into contact with the surrounding phosphorus of the world, new life is created. Otherwise everything would always die. So that from the interaction of soda of the earth and hydrogen, that is, phosphorus of the universe, everything is constantly being recreated.

Now you have a great meaning of hydrogen. That hydrogen is everywhere is most useful in the universe; but it is only useful if soda is present in the earth at the same time. Because of this interaction, the death of everything is prevented. Hydrogen, that is phosphorus, always works together with soda, and death is thereby prevented. New life is constantly emerging. Otherwise we would only be able to breathe dead air and all of us would die. Yes, is there anything that could prove this to us even more? We say that all life actually arises from the coming together, from the right interaction of hydrogen, that is phosphorus, and soda, that is carbonic acid sodium. This brings us to something very significant. You know that the human being as a physical human being comes into being through the coming together of the female egg, which consists essentially of protein, and the male seminal fluid. Let us ask ourselves what this male seminal fluid mainly consists of. You see, this male seminal fluid consists of soda, which is inside, and of world phosphorus, hydrogen. So if you look out into the world, all life comes from hydrogen and soda. If you look at the small-scale production, then new life on earth comes from what is inside the male seed in terms of soda and phosphorus. Both substances can be found in male seed. Man takes a little of what is effective in the world, a little soda from the earth, a little phosphorus, hydrogen, from the universe, and forms the male seed, which brings about procreation. So that in the smallest, namely in procreation, and in the largest outside everywhere, one can see what role hydrogen plays on the one hand and carbonic acid with sodium, soda, together on the other. You see, gentlemen, nature uses soda in a much more wise way than man. Because, as we have seen, soda must be present wherever light works, where light is created, where light is formed. If hydrogen is used in the dark, marsh gas is produced; there it kills. But if hydrogen is treated with light, it does not kill, it creates. Now, nature treats hydrogen and phosphorus with soda. It does, therefore, on a large scale, what we do in bleaching and washing: it brings light to hydrogen, and the living comes into being. It is truly amazing when you look out into the world and see how, through the illuminated hydrogen, the new being arises everywhere from the old, which would otherwise die; and when you then look into the smallest thing that is emerging, and find the same thing there. It is only through such contemplation that a real science comes into being!

Now let us return to our snake example. If we simply leave the snakes to their own devices – this species of snake that I have been talking about – then, yes, the water that the snake absorbs to form a new skin contains this soda. And the young snake gets its skin from the water it absorbs, just as the old snake got its skin, the hard skin, which is not only formed from soda but for which the soda power is necessary. So it is not so much the intake of water that is important, but the intake of the soda contained everywhere in water. So that this soda, which the snake takes in with the water, first puts on a new dress for the snake. The snake can, so to speak, form substances on the outside, it gets a new dress, and in addition, it can form the harder egg shell on the inside when reproducing - it is not completely hard, it is still somewhat soft. ... (Gap.) Man can become indecent when he drinks wine. If you take water from the snake, it can become indecent. So it is different in nature. If the snake does not get soda, it does not form an egg shell, then the young must emerge without an egg shell, must be incubated in the snake itself, and emerge as a living young. That is something most remarkable. Suppose a living snake crawls out of the old snake; then what has happened in the snake is the effect of hydrogen or phosphorus on the soda. That happened in the snake. The snake had to use its old soda, which it still had in its body; it had to sacrifice it to allow the young to emerge. Therefore, if you continue the story for a long time, you can cause the snakes to become indecent; and once or twice they have given birth to live young, then they become infertile, then they no longer give birth because they have to take all the soda out of their bodies. It then exhausts itself if you do not let the new soda dissolved in the water flow to them.

But what happens when the snakes remain decent and shed their old skin? Well, the egg is laid, and what the little living snake would otherwise take from the old soda stored in its body, from the phosphorus, the hydrogen, it now takes from the universe. And you can see: when a living animal is formed in such a snake, then internally, soda and hydrogen, phosphorus, are joined together; when an egg is formed, then externally, hydrogen or phosphorus is joined with soda from the universe. So you have it constantly before your eyes in this creature that the same thing happens in the great world as happens in the interior of the human being during reproduction. The whole world is reproduction. Because with this snake, which, when its water supply is cut off, gives birth to living young, we see that when it gives birth, it uses what is inside the body - the inner hydrogen, phosphorus and soda. And when it lays eggs, it uses the outer hydrogen, phosphorus, and soda. This is the strongest proof when you look at something like this that the nature around us is not something dead but something just as alive as we are. You have to look at such proofs. You don't just have to look thoughtlessly at what is emerging as something most remarkable, when such a snake, which cannot shed its skin due to the loss of water, and thus mainly due to the loss of soda, suddenly begins to give birth to living young. You don't just have to look thoughtlessly at something like that, but you have to put it in context with the forces of the whole universe. It is something most significant.

Now, of course, a human being does not lay eggs from which new human beings arise, but a human being must be born as a living young creature; even the higher animals must be born as living young. So what is this higher development actually based on? You see, this higher development is based on the fact that what is contained out there in the world enters into the beings, into the higher animals and into man inwardly, that man absorbs the forces of the world into himself. What is outside is also inside with the higher beings.

But what about the very lowly creatures? Yes, you see, gentlemen, that is the eternal dispute in science, how the very first living things came into being. People talk about Generatio aequivoca; by self-generation, they say. Yes, but then the scholars say to themselves again: the first living things must have come into being once. But when the scholars now think about what substances these first living things were made of, then there are no substances at all. But that is not due to nature, it is only because these scholars do not know the substances. Namely, they do not know what hydrogen really is, which is found everywhere: that it is phosphorus, the same as is still contained in male semen and gives the male semen its peculiar smell, which contains phosphorus. If you combine male seed with certain plants, it has exactly the same effect as combining soda with certain plants, in terms of bleaching and the like. All this is contained in old alchemical teachings, which of course should not be resurrected today; because we do not want the old ways. All this has been studied. And today we can get to know it again through real anthroposophical science. And what the male seed requires in the way of soda, phosphorus or hydrogen can develop in the great outdoors. So we no longer need to ask ourselves how the first living things came into being. When the Earth did not yet have higher living things, the lower ones arose through the interaction of phosphorus with the Earth's soda. And then we have abiogenesis, generation aequivoca.

So you see, you just have to study things to their conclusion, then certain so-called world riddles that otherwise cannot be solved will be solved. Of course, if someone asks: How do carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen come together in such a way that a living being is created? then he cannot come up with today's chemistry, because it does not show him that if phosphorus is present on one side, and on the other side, soda, carbonic acid with sodium, then this living creature is formed. That is precisely the point: you cannot, of course, get to the bottom of this delicate matter with the crude instruments that our laboratories have. But you have to look at such phenomena properly. If you have a snake that simply lays its eggs and the living snakes first emerge from the egg, then the great nature is still at work in it, the phosphorus and the soda from the great nature. If you isolate the snake from the great nature, if you bring it into an environment where it has too little water to shed its skin and to create egg shells inside, then it acts as a small nature, as that which it has still taken out of the great nature and carries within it as an inheritance; then, in a certain respect, it acts as a higher being.

You see, the further development of man in the world consists, for example, in the fact that he cuts himself off from nature in a certain way. Humanity cuts itself off; above all, it cuts itself off through culture. And progress would not come about if man did not cut himself off in a certain way. Because in a certain respect, the snake becomes a higher being when it learns to produce living young by withdrawing water. The entire development of humanity is based on the fact that people have increasingly isolated themselves from nature and now not only give birth to living offspring, but also develop all their other powers in isolation from nature, and thus everything that used to come from nature comes out of people.

Yes, gentlemen, little by little what used to come out of nature is coming out of people. I can give you various examples of this. I will mention just one: today we write on paper. This paper is not that old. You know that in the past people had to write on very different materials. And today's paper is essentially made from linen rags. That is why it was called linen rag paper when it came into being, at the same time as gunpowder. So it is relatively recent that man has come up with the wisdom to produce paper pulp. But there is something in nature that has existed as paper pulp for a long, long time: that is what wasps make their nests out of! That is real paper pulp. You only needed to treat and bleach the wasp nest a little further and you would have paper pulp from it. Wasps are actually nature's finest paper makers. So you can say that millennia and millennia ago, the small, tiny wasps discovered papermaking! Paper production took place outside in nature. Later, man did it from within. In paper production you have approximately the same process that you have with snakes with live young; if you isolate the snake from the outside world by depriving it of water, then it gives birth to live young, appearing on a somewhat higher level of generation. Isolate man more and more by creating his culture, then he creates paper, which nature used to create, just as the snake creates living young out of itself. Millennia ago, wasps produced paper out of nature; now, out of his inner being, man produces paper with his intellect. Yes, the intellect has gone into the inner being, just as the power of the snake to produce living young has gone into its inner being.

And so it is now also in human semen. There we find soda, as we have said, and hydrogen, phosphorus. If we examine the nerves that emanate from the brain, then the most important substances in these nerves are again soda and phosphorus. Only that they are connected to each other differently than this semen is, that they are hardened together, so to speak. It is not at all surprising that something like thoughts should also arise from within the human being. By absorbing what otherwise only lies in the seed, the human being processes soda and phosphorus in the nervous system. Just as phosphorus and hydrogen are everywhere in the world, [and] soda, so is soda and phosphorus in this human brain sphere. But now you can also see why we need the carbonic acid inside our heads. The soda is constantly being converted. The carbonic acid separates from the sodium, and we would end up with a hard skull from the sodium - which is a shiny silver metal - if the carbonic acid did not constantly tingle inside us and produce the soda in us. So we absorb carbonic acid into the sodium so that the soda is properly distributed in our head. And from what is all around us, we absorb phosphorus and hydrogen through our hair and skin. You just have to make sure that the hydrogen in the swamp gas does not come from the inside, but from the outside. The human head is really a kind of egg; just as the egg, which is laid, absorbs soda from the earth and hydrogen from the air, so the human head absorbs soda from the earth below, and from the outside it gets hydrogen and phosphorus if it cannot get it from the inside as well. Then they work together and produce a substance inside that can be the mediator of thoughts, that is, it produces thoughts.

This is how we can find out how man is connected with natural phenomena. But we must observe natural phenomena in the right place. If a scientist draws the water out of his snakes and then gapes when they bear live young instead of laying eggs, he will find out nothing. But if he knows what he has actually brought into his laboratory, then he can discover the secrets of the world.

More on this next Wednesday.