The Eternal in the Human Soul

GA 67 — 15 April 1918, Berlin

8. The Super-Sensible Human Being I

The Human World and the Animal World in Terms of Origin and Development, Presented in the Light of Spiritual Science

In this week's three lectures, I would like to discuss the results of spiritual scientific research relating specifically to human beings, the results of that research which has formed the content of the lectures I have given here so far this winter. In today's lecture, I would like to lay the foundation for entering into the center of our consideration of the supersensible human being next time, and in the third lecture, I would like to bring up for discussion the two most important questions relating to the general mystery of the human being: the question of human free will and the question of the immortality of the soul.

With regard to what is to be discussed today, I am in a somewhat difficult position, firstly because the content of today's lecture will be considered in relation to what I have often pointed out in the course of these discussions: that the results of the spiritual scientific research referred to here are in complete harmony with all the great achievements of natural science in recent centuries and up to the present day, but that, on the other hand, what can be said from the point of view of spiritual science in harmony with the results of natural science is in complete contradiction to what natural scientists or those who interpret scientific results today say themselves about human beings and their nature in relation to these scientific facts. On the one hand, complete harmony with the facts; on the other hand, outright contradiction with those who are accustomed to speaking about these facts today — that is one objective difficulty. The other is that I only have one evening's lecture at my disposal, and that what is to be discussed today would require at least thirty lectures if it were to be dealt with in detail. So I will only be able to present the results in outline form, and in many respects this may easily lead to misunderstandings. However, my intention today is not so much to communicate details as it is to evoke a sense of the direction that spiritual-scientific thinking must take if it is to deal with the question of human nature in particular in relation to contemporary scientific views.

Today, scientific views have, in a very special way, prompted every human soul to ask questions about the relationship between humans and the animal world and about everything that this relationship implies for our understanding of human nature itself. The views that have developed on this question in recent times have also brought to the fore the following: man in relation to his organization, and the animal in relation to its organization. What has had a particularly strong suggestive effect in relation to this question — and I can say this with a certain degree of justification, because I am not speaking in opposition to natural science — is the form that the purely scientific theory of evolution has taken in recent times. But basically, people have false ideas about the scope and actual character of this theory of evolution, and that is because they always take the question too straightforwardly, I would say too trivially. People have the idea that “rigorous scientific research” in recent times has established the relationship between humans and animals, the development of humans from the animal kingdom, and, within the animal kingdom itself, the development from imperfect to more perfect beings.

Now, one thing about these ideas is not correct, namely the belief that the view that humans are related to animals in terms of their physical organization is absolutely new. It is by no means new. Even if we disregard the fact that traces of it — or rather more than traces — can already be found in the science of ancient Greece, and basically also in the Church Fathers, there is still something significant in the fact that, for example, Goethe, as a very young man, had to struggle with certain fantastical ideas of development that were prevalent in his time. And anyone who knows Goethe from his own biography knows how he rebelled against the idea that if only certain other living conditions were created, then some animals could transform into others, or even into humans. Goethe rebelled against this, even though both he and Herder were based on the idea of one organism emerging from another, and even though they were followers of the “theory of evolution.” It is important to note that it is not the theory of evolution as such that is new, but that, basically, an older view has been immersed in recent times in certain strongly materialistic ideas, in ideas that also bring human organization closer to that of animals. It is more the character of the interpretation, the whole way of thinking about things, that is actually the essential thing that has emerged in recent times. If one takes this into account, it will not be so difficult to find the transition to the ideas of evolution that must be considered here today.

Anyone today who thinks they stand on the firm ground of science with a certain materialistic way of thinking and believes they should characterize this theory of development usually begins by saying: The newer, natural view of the emergence of human beings from other animal beings stands in stark contrast to the superstitious, prejudiced view that is still somehow linked to the Mosaic story of creation. Now, it cannot be my task today to speak about the Mosaic story of creation. I believe that, as it stands, it has often led to misunderstandings about what lies at its foundation, and that in reality it deals with an ancient human wisdom. That is just an aside. What is important to consider today is that, on one particularly significant point, the scientific theory of evolution is in complete harmony with the Mosaic creation story, whether it is understood correctly or incorrectly. namely, that in the course of the development of living beings, man appeared, so to speak, as the most perfect animal or something else, when the other animals had already undergone their development before him, that he appears, so to speak, as a human being after the animals. This is what the modern scientific worldview has in common with the Mosaic story of creation.

This is precisely what today's view must oppose in particular. And so one could say: The novelty of this spiritual-scientific history of development will be revealed in the fact that it must, in a sense, break with what today is presented to it on all sides, both scientifically and otherwise, as a completely certain result. However, some of the ideas that can only arise on the basis of the spiritual science referred to here are necessary if understanding is to develop for such things as are being discussed today. It is necessary, for example, to gain some clarity about theoretical disputes that are commonplace but must and will disappear, precisely when spiritual science becomes more established in people's minds.

Today, one still encounters various worldviews that appear to contradict each other. On the one hand, there are those who interpret the world and its phenomena in a materialistic way. They are called “materialists.” On the other side are the “spiritualists” — not “spiritists,” but “spiritualists” in the positive sense of German philosophy. They hold the view that only the material, the physical, is the basis of all being and becoming, and that the spiritual develops, as it were, as a result of the physical and its processes. Spiritualists, on the other hand, reject this view in the strictest sense and emphasize above all that the “spirit” as such can be observed in human beings, and that all worldviews must start from the “spirit.” The spiritual science referred to here is completely indifferent as to whether someone starts from materialism or spiritualism. The only thing that this spiritual science demands—demands of itself and of others—is that thoughts be thought through to their conclusion, that the inner content of thought and research really be thought through to its conclusion. Let us assume that someone becomes a materialist because of their particular disposition: if they really take a close look at matter and its manifestations and pursue their research to its conclusion, they will inevitably come to the spirit via matter. And if someone is a spiritualist and does not delve into the spirit purely theoretically, but grasps it in its reality in such a way that, in this grasping of the spirit, they are also able to comprehend the revelations of the spirit in the material world, to look into the mysteries in which the spirit works in the material world, then the spiritualist will discover how to understand the material processes in their foundations and ramifications.

The starting point for the true spiritual scientist is quite different. It is a matter of having the inner courage to really think things through to the end. But thinking things through to the end requires, first, a certain penetrating power that wants to think things through to the end, and second, an ability to really see the phenomena that are before one. With regard to the latter, one can make remarkable discoveries. Who today actually believes that they are more grounded in reality? This is emphasized at every opportunity.

I have often pointed out what actually happened in the 1860s, but it is always interesting to refer to this fact once again. Eduard von Hartmann's philosophy—I do not wish to advocate it everywhere, but it was an ingenious attempt to save the spiritual from the onslaught of materialistic research—attempted, from the end of the 1860s onwards, to overcome the materialistic interpretations of scientific research. When the “Philosophy of the Unconscious” appeared, natural scientists agreed: This is a completely amateurish philosopher who talks about nature in this way and yet knows nothing really about it. Counter-writings appeared against the “Philosophy of the Unconscious,” which were intended to show how amateurishly and ignorantly the Darwinian research results were treated there. Among these counter-writings was one by an anonymous author entitled “The Unconscious from the Point of View of the Theory of Descent and Darwinism.” The author of this work had set himself the task of attacking “this amateurish opponent of Darwinism” in particular. Haeckel, Oscar Schmidt, and others all commented on this work along the lines of: It is a pity that this anonymous author did not reveal his name; if he did, we would consider him one of our own, for no one could better tell this scientific dilettante Hartmann the truth than this anonymous author! — And they then contributed to the work quickly selling out. A second edition appeared, now with the author's name: it was Eduard von Hartmann! — That was a necessary lesson, and one that should be learned by all those who believe that anyone who does not speak about scientific results in exactly the same way as a scientist must necessarily be an amateur.

Now, those listeners who were present at the earlier lectures know that I have highlighted a recent work as particularly valuable, namely “Das Werden der Organismen” (The Development of Organisms) by Oscar Hertwig. I consider this book to be particularly excellent and particularly characteristic of our time for the following reason: Oscar Hertwig, a student of Ernst Haeckel, emerged as a young man from the more or less materialistic implications of Darwinian research results.

In the book “Das Werden der Organismen,” Oscar Hertwig—it is a kind of Penelope problem—has, as it were, unraveled everything that was believed to be a special achievement of Darwinian research results. “Das Werden der Organismen” is therefore an excellent book based on today's natural science.

Now, the same Oscar Hertwig has published a work that deals more with other problems; it is called “Zur Abwehr des technischen, sozialen und politischen Darwinismus” (Against Technical, Social, and Political Darwinism). Now I am in a special position: I will always consider Hertwig's “Das Werden der Organismen” to be one of the best books ever written on these subjects, and I will have to consider Hertwig's latest book to be one of the most thoughtless, most impossible products of modern thinking. It shows nothing other than how helpless the modern natural scientist becomes when he has to move from his familiar ground to another field. Such a fact is very instructive, and one finds oneself, I would say, in a somewhat tragic conflict when one must admire on the one hand and radically condemn on the other. Now, I do not want to talk about Hertwig's latest work in general and in detail; I would just like to mention one thing:

I said just a moment ago that every natural scientist will emphasize the importance of standing on “solid ground” as much as possible. Among the countless passages in this impossible book by Hertwig, you will find one that reads something like this: One must admire how modern natural science was introduced by the research of Newton, Copernicus, and Kepler on celestial phenomena. It has become great because it has become accustomed to looking at things in physics, chemistry, and biology in exactly the same way that Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton looked at celestial phenomena. Now I ask you: the observation of the facts that take place immediately around us, the facts that everyone has before their eyes, should be done according to the model of the field where the facts are as far away from us as possible! I am convinced that thousands of readers will overlook such an incredible contradiction. It is precisely such contradictions that show how impossible it is for a great, important researcher to think so far ahead that this research can also be elevated to the spiritual realm.

It is essentially because of such and similar things that this whole new theory of evolution, as magnificent and profound as it is in its essence, is based on ideas that are far too straightforward and far too abstract, and which are not at all suitable for approaching the real facts, especially not the facts that are relevant to the solution of the great mystery of man itself.

This human mystery can be characterized from the outset as follows: through his entire position in the world, man appears to be called upon not to know at first what he represents in the world and how he stands in it, in order to first draw from the depths of his being that which can enlighten him about what he actually is. This is also, in essence, the meaning of spiritual scientific research: that what otherwise lies dormant in the human spirit is brought up from the depths of the human spirit itself, brought up only through soul exercises — let us call them that — which ordinary consciousness does not use at all, and that only through this does the human being enable himself for “seeing consciousness.” And only when what I have called seeing consciousness in my book The Riddle of Man has been brought up from the depths of the human soul, where the human being then really has to do with what can be called “spiritual eyes” and “spiritual ears,” in order to have a spiritual world around them, just as the physical eyes have the physical world around them, only then can a solution to the great riddles be approached at all.

Today's remarks are intended to reinforce this: human beings actually sleep through their essence. A good part of the lectures were intended to show that human beings sleep through part of their essence and continue the state of sleep into the waking state. Deep down in the depths of their being, something is constantly asleep, and their being must first be awakened. Just as we need what sleep gives us in our ordinary daily life, so too, if ordinary knowledge is to be fruitful and provide insight into what it is directed at, we need what human beings actually sleep through constantly in their being. The facts that surround us, I said, must first be taken into account. It is particularly important to put oneself in a position to contemplate the difference between humans and animals from the point of view of contemplative consciousness; for without being able to truly see this difference, one cannot arrive at any view of the development and origin of humans and animals. Now I will sketch out what can be said from the point of view of spiritual science about the difference between humans and animals.

The animal world appears to us in a wide variety of forms when observed superficially. Animals are diverse in their forms. Animals are therefore divided into “genera” and “species.” You know that there have been numerous philosophers who believed that what we call “genera” or ‘species’ in animals — that is, “wolf,” “lion,” “tiger,” and so on — are actually only summary names. What one encounters in reality is actually always the “substance,” which, due to its own configuration, is only shaped in various ways; the rest is just names. In contrast, there is nothing else to do but to take a good, unbiased look at what is actually there. This always reminds me of an image that my old friend, Professor Vincenz Knauer, always used when talking about these things. He said: Those people who claim that it is only names that are expressed in these genera and species, but that it is basically the same substance everywhere, which does not change whether it is in a tiger or a wolf, should think about whether it is really the same substance that is in a lamb and in a wolf. It cannot be denied that, from a physical point of view, it is the same substance. But one should lock up a wolf so that it has nothing else to eat for a long time but lambs, and then try to see if it has taken on something of the nature of a lamb. It will become very clear that what defines the “wolf,” what determines its configuration, is not merely a “name,” but something that encompasses the material in its configuration.

What is it that shapes and configures these different animal species in their own way? I must confess that I am very reluctant to touch on purely personal matters, but since I can only sketch the outline, it is necessary for me to make such a personal remark. For about thirty years, I have been observing everything that recent research in physiology has produced in relation to these questions and comparing it with what spiritual scientific research has to say. It would be very appealing to give a series of lectures to substantiate what I am now saying about his findings. What is configured in the most diverse animal forms, what one encounters in these different animal forms, is closely related to what one might call the equilibrium of the animal structure. But study it as carefully as possible, because superficial study in this field leads away from the truth about the structure of an animal, but not just as it appears to the outer eye. Instead, study the structure of an animal according to its balance of forces: how differently an animal behaves in relation to gravity and the overcoming of gravity when its hind legs are formed differently from its front legs, how differently an animal behaves depending on whether it has hooves or claws, and so on. Study how the animal uses its balance to adapt to the conditions that are given to it, and you will find the innermost relationship between the earthly conditions of balance and the way in which the animal is placed in these conditions of balance. And it is precisely these conditions of balance that are radically different in humans than in the animal world. Humans stand out from the equilibrium conditions in which animals are placed because the line that runs through the spinal cord is essentially parallel to the earth's surface in animals, but essentially perpendicular to the earth in humans. I do not mean the purely external position, because of course humans are also parallel to the earth's surface when they sleep. The human body is organized in such a way that the Earth's center of gravity coincides with the line of the spinal cord. In animals, the spinal cord line runs parallel to the Earth's surface. As a result, in humans, the center of gravity line that runs through the head coincides with the center of gravity line of the rest of the organism. The head rests on the center of gravity line of the torso; in animals, it hangs over it.

This places humans in a completely different state of equilibrium in relation to the earth than animals; it places them in a state of equilibrium that they themselves create during their lifetime, for they are born in a similar state of equilibrium to animals. By rising above the equilibrium imposed on animals, humans rise above all the forces that underlie the various genera and species, and essentially become a “genus,” a “species.” He frees himself from precisely what is the basis of the manifold forms of other animals; he creates his own uniform form by freeing himself from this determining factor through his upright position. And everything that is expressed in human language and human thought is intimately connected with these states of equilibrium. Certainly, materialistic research in the second half of the nineteenth century drew attention to this; but it was unable to exploit this fact fully. For it is precisely those who think deeply about the fine configuration of matter who will be able to see that the matter of external nature is absorbed by a being in a completely different way, brought into completely different directions than in all others. This sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Related to this is the fact that the entire human equilibrium is one that is achieved entirely within the organism itself, while that of animals is achieved in connection with the world. Take only the most obvious example: animals stand on all fours, whereas human beings are bound to a balance that is not determined by external factors, but one that is built up within their own organism.

This different equilibrium is associated with something very specific. Humans have—those who are able to observe in such a way that the spiritual also falls within their field of observation can observe it—a dull, dreamlike feeling of standing within this state of equilibrium, which only dimly shines through into ordinary daytime consciousness. This feeling actually only comes into ordinary consciousness with the dullness of a dream, sometimes only with the dullness of sleep consciousness. And how does this feeling of resting on one's own physical foundation live in ordinary consciousness? This feeling is identical with the feeling of self, with the sense of self. What we will learn about in the next lecture as the human “spirit,” which first reveals itself in the ego, does not initially take hold in the human organization in anything else, but in these conditions of equilibrium, which are not present in animals. I said that the newer natural history theory of evolution has something suggestive about it, so that one might believe that everything that is said against it seems foolish and amateurish. There is something fascinating about the statement that human beings have just as many bones and muscles and so on as animals, so how could they be a different kind of being? But the “I” does not dwell in what humans have in common with animals. The I does not dwell in the bones and muscles, does not reach into them, but first takes hold in the feeling, and this feeling rests in the balance.

But there is something else. The animal world is diverse in form. This is expressed in its many shapes. Does this diversity, which is actually determined by external factors, by the gravitational and other forces of the earth, have no significance for humans? Because humans, through their different equilibrium, break out of all the equilibrium relationships into which animals are determined, they have their own form, which appears as a summary of animal forms. But everything that works in animal forms nevertheless lives out in them. It is within them, but it is spirit. What is spread across the most diverse animal forms as sensory phenomena is spiritual in humans. What is it within them?

Once again, there is the observation for those who have acquired the ability to observe, as described in the book “How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds.” : the very same thing that gives the animal its external sensory form lives in man, but as a supersensible, mobile element. It lives in his thinking. What enables us to think about things is within us — in a supersensible way — exactly the same as what is outside in the animal world in the manifold species and genera of animals. By breaking away from the diversity of animals and giving himself a form independent of the animal in relation to gravity, which is the dwelling place of the I, man invisibly appropriates what is visible in the animal world. This lives in his thinking. In the animal world, what is poured out in us as we contemplate the world in our thinking is poured out in the most diverse forms. We follow what we can observe and form thoughts about it. I am aware, of course, of all the objections that can be raised against this. I also know the objection: Can you really see inside animals? Couldn't animals also have a kind of thinking like humans? But anyone who can adopt Goethe's principle that phenomena are the true teachings, if only they can be observed correctly, knows that what is revealed in phenomena is also decisive for observation. One of the most essential characteristics is that what is sensually poured out over the manifold animal forms lives supersensually in human beings. While freeing their form from the formative influence of animals, they are able to take this into their supersensible realm. Animals are “further” in terms of sensual form than human beings. Humans have a labile form. Animals are built in accordance with the entire structure of the earth. With humans, it is different; with them, it is incorporated into their own form. This enables them to grasp spiritually what is expressed externally in the animal structure in a form that is apparent to the senses.

Already at this point, one can see what is actually wrong with the newer theory of evolution. I may say that it is precisely because I have become a full adherent of this newer theory of evolution, but have tried to carry it through to its logical conclusion, that I have come to discover what is wrong with it. It presents everything in a linear fashion, so to speak: imperfect animals, then more perfect ones, then even more perfect ones, up to and including human beings. But that is not how things are. Anyone who looks at the phenomena independently will come to the conclusion that this purely ascending development, which proceeds only from the imperfect to the perfect, is actually one-sided; for it lacks an essential element which, although it is taken into account here and there in modern times, has not really been researched to its conclusion and applied to the individual. We are dealing with a continuously ascending development and a continuous regression. Regression would mean something that is of such great importance for understanding human beings, and here too I advise you, without prejudice, to consider physiological matters.

If one remains stuck with the general, trivial ideas of development, one has the impression that the human being is the most perfect of the animals, that even its individual organs, even if degeneration is admitted here and there, are essentially to be understood as undergoing upward development. This is not the case. Thousands of facts could be cited in this regard. I will mention just one. Study the human eye and compare it with the eyes of vertebrates, with the eyes of animals somewhat lower down the scale: if you go down the animal scale, you will find a more complex internal structure than in humans. In humans, the eye has become simpler again. I will only mention that the sword-shaped process and the fan, which are present in the eyes of lower animals, are not found in humans. Evolution has pushed them back again. The human eye is a more imperfect organ than that of lower animals; it has regressed. When you really study it, the entire human organism is, in a certain respect, not only more advanced than animal organisms, but also regressed; it has, in a sense, reversed its development. What has happened here?

By eliminating certain powers, by regressing, humans have become capable of becoming carriers of the spiritual-soul, of absorbing this spiritual-soul. What I have mentioned so far is essentially nothing other than regression, “devolution,” as opposed to “evolution.” Take what gives each animal its specific form, and another animal a different form: this idea determines the entire organization of the animal through and through. Humans, on the other hand, regress in their organization. It does not go so far as to be determined through and through; it returns to an earlier stage. In this way, he can give himself the equilibrium that nature does not give him, thereby freeing himself from what nature imposes on other beings. The whole human being has remained behind in development; this gives rise to what has become the organ of thought in humans, for of course this organ is based on these organs. What underlies thinking is essentially an organ of thinking because it is regressed, because it has not reached the stage that the animal form has reached and expresses externally in its form. Man lives the form backwards and can live out the form in thinking in a supersensible way, just as the animal lives it out in the external sensory world.

Something else. So in humans we are not only dealing with evolution, but also with devolution, with regression. And precisely because humans are more regressed than animals, they can become the bearers of the spiritual-soul. Everything I have said so far is essentially connected with something else. Anyone who can truly observe how animals express what — already according to observation — must be the organ of imagination, the organ of perception, of feeling, that is, the forward-facing parts of the animal organization, will find that what is expressed in form is expressed objectively. They will find that everything located at the front of the animal organism has to do with the life of imagination, perception, and feeling, and that everything located at the back has to do with the element of will. The two sides are, of course, connected again. Because the animal is placed in its equilibrium, it has, in a sense, side by side what the human being has one above the other: the will organization on the one hand and the intellect and instinct organization on the other. This creates a completely different connection in the animal between everything intellectual, everything imaginative, and everything that concerns the will. In humans, the organs of imagination are superimposed on the organs of will. This creates an inner contact between the organs of will and imagination. Anyone who knows how to observe the soul life will see that this human life of imagination is characterized by the fact that the will extends into it. Study the problems of attention and you will see that the will exerts its power there. This gives rise to the capacity for abstract thinking, which animals cannot have because their imagination lies alongside the will and not above it. Conversely, the will and the life of imagination exert their influence on each other, so that the will is also influenced by the imagination. It is only because the organs of the will belong to the subconscious that the will itself is expressed only as in sleep consciousness. In the state of sleep consciousness, human beings experience the actual process of the will in the same way as the other processes of sleep consciousness. This also highlights the unique connection between imagination and will that is peculiar to human beings: the life of imagination, which in animals is always in a dull, dreamlike state, is illuminated by the will. And likewise, the life of will in animals is much more intimately connected with the life of imagination; animals feel a much deeper connection with their will. This in turn means that in humans, the free life of feeling relates to the life of imagination and will in a completely different way, expressing itself much more deeply than in animals. In animals, the life of feeling rests in the organism; it is, in a sense, only a formal expression of the life of thought. On the other hand, the life of feeling in animals is only inhibited or uninhibited will, depending on whether it can achieve something or not. This is expressed in its entire life. Precisely because of this, it is much more connected with the entire external world.

If we consider this, we can understand something else, which, however, can only be revealed by careful observation of the human soul life. Spiritual science must proceed differently in many respects from other sciences, which often take things from trivial ideas and then reject them because they cannot figure out how to explain them. The spiritual researcher will focus much more on the positive, will not be content, for example, to accept the idea of immortality, the permanence of the soul, but will first and foremost ask: How does the human being come to have the “immortal” as a thought or feeling within themselves? How does the immortal come to play a role in their soul life?

This can only be understood if one is able to extend Goethe's theory of metamorphosis to such an extent that one can now really approach the question of the extent to which human beings, in relation to their higher nature, which is expressed through their head and brain organization, are dependent on their lower nature. Whereas we have so far attempted to understand the special connection between thinking and willing in humans and animals, we must now address what connects humans with animals in relation to something that is closely connected with the question of development. This is what enters into animal and human life through the two phenomena of conception — I am not saying birth — which is regarded as the first emergence of the human, the union of male and female, and death on the other hand. Conception and death are linked to certain parts of the organism in humans and animals; in the case of conception, this is obvious from the outset.

Now it is a matter of realizing that what appears in one place in some animal form — it is the same with plants — also finds expression in other organ systems, but in a transformed way. Attention can be drawn to this from the outset: how will that which is connected with conception and death behave in humans and animals, since one difference has already been discovered that is directly linked to the organism? If one really investigates the phenomena and facts and considers things sensibly, it turns out that what is the human and animal head is actually, in essence, only a higher organized, transformed abdomen, strange as it may sound, just as — remember the lecture in which Goethe's worldview was discussed — just as the bones of the head are transformed bones of the spine. In terms of physical structure, we are dealing with the fact that the individual organ systems are transformations of each other, real transformations, and also the activities, the functions of the organ systems, are transformations of each other. What is “perception”? Perception — it is objective research, and one must look things straight in the eye — relating to the outside world through the senses is a higher — for my part, let's say a more spiritual — development of the conception, specified by the various senses, but development of the conception, of the conception. By allowing certain other organ-forming forces to atrophy and pass into the extremities, the head organism develops, on the one hand, into the higher sensory organism of the head, and thus the progressive development of the head organism corresponds to the advanced conception expressed in sensory perception. Each organic system develops the whole organism in a certain way; the head develops everything that the lower abdomen contains, and the lower abdomen develops everything that the head contains. Because the organ-forming forces of the extremities are atrophied, what belongs to their life is expressed in the head in a spiritual way. The capacity for production, the capacity for creation, is transformed into the development of thoughts. In the head, the organ of thought is simply predisposed by the fact that the conceptual is developed in a one-sided manner, so to speak, and the productive is reduced, but the productive, in being reduced, in turn provides the basis for thoughts. For just as animals and humans produce their own kind through their other organism, so humans produce themselves in a spiritual way: namely, the world of thoughts. The world of thoughts is the spiritualized human being, whereby what is otherwise formed in the outer world is taken up into the mobile supersensible.

This thought, which I have just expressed, has far-reaching implications, and it is with deep regret that I exhaust such things in a single lecture. For such things are the result of decades of spiritual research. But they must be expressed at some point, because it is important that these things reach people so that those who have the opportunity to investigate them in clinics and laboratories can also investigate the details as they need to be investigated, as they belong in reality.

Those who can grasp the full significance of this idea will also find that something else is purely organically predisposed in them. They learn to observe two moments in animal life: the moment of conception and the moment of death. These are as far apart as the beginning and end of animal life. One is connected with progressive development: conception, and everything that can be based on the study of conception leads to the knowledge of progressive development. But everything that determines the death of the animal from the conditions of earthly life is connected with regressive development, with devolution. Only by applying the kind of research referred to in these lectures to spiritual life can one gradually arrive at what these two moments — conception and death — actually are for the animal being, for the whole of animal evolution. The animal is seized by everything connected with conception and subsequent production. This evolution, this development, is the highest unfolding of organic life. It is just as in the case of an increase in organic life, for example in feverish states, that the normal state of consciousness appropriate to its nature is suppressed. Thus, the arousal of organic life is associated with a suppression of consciousness, a dulling of consciousness, and everything connected with devolution and regressive development is associated with a brightening of consciousness, with the moment of most intense consciousness. The moment of highest brightening, of most intense consciousness — and as a spiritual researcher I may say: a moment when the animal element comes close to the human, just try once to observe animals in death! — that is the moment when the animal dies. These two moments of highest darkening and highest brightening of consciousness, conception and death, are like two separate points in animals, like beginning and end.

It is different for humans. Because the head stands out from the rest of the organism in the manner described, humans are organized in such a way that they constantly experience the interplay of conception and death. This runs through the whole of human life. We are organized in such a way that in the brain organization, which underlies our thinking in its connection between perception and volition, we constantly experience, translated into the spiritual realm, with every production of a thought — but as if in a dreamlike sleep or even subconsciously — what is otherwise experienced by animals only once during conception. And on the other hand, because the organism transformed into the head has its spiritual organism in the head, death constantly plays into our consciousness. We die every moment. More precisely: every time we conceive a thought, the human will is born in the thought, and every time we conceive a desire, the thought dies into the will. This is what Schopenhauer never understood. For him, on the one hand, the will became the actual reality; on the other hand, thought disappeared for him as if into a world of illusion, because he did not understand that will and thought belong together like the young and the old, in that the will becomes will when thought dies in it, and the will, on the other hand, when thought is born in it, now experiences its youth in it.

Human beings experience birth and death continuously. In space, I have described the human configuration to you through the relationships of equilibrium. In time, I describe it by drawing your attention to the fact that the result of spiritual science is that what can only be experienced at the beginning and end in animals continues throughout the whole of human life; in a subtle, dreamlike confusion, there is a constant, quiet experience of conception and death in his subconscious. Because this lives deep within the human soul, because it pulsates upward, because the human being is vaguely aware that he carries conception and death within himself and not outside himself, he has the feeling that their being lives beyond death and birth, encompasses more than what begins with conception and ends with death. Humans carry conception and death within themselves. I express this in a few words. But explore everything that physiology and psychology can currently offer: you will find confirmation that humans carry within themselves throughout their lives what is spread over two moments in animals. This creates in him the idea of immortality. As a result, he truly carries within him the feeling, the thought of immortality. And only when this is taken into account can the connection between animal and human being be considered.

How does the human being stand at the end? More degenerate than is the case with animals, and this gives them the basis for their spiritual nature. If one examines them thoroughly, one finds something remarkable: just as the eye is degenerate, so too is everything that is visible in their external appearance degenerate in relation to animals. They develop this under the same conditions under which animals develop their nature and form. The same conditions affect animals and humans. They affect humans by providing them with a “shell,” as it were. What I have just described is actually the inner being of the human being. It is transformed and kept soft so that the human being can produce its own balance, so that what takes on a fixed form in animals is found in the human being in the flexible forms of its thoughts. All this is within them. As a result, they stand before the outside world as if enclosed by a shell.

What can be discovered in human beings can actually only be discovered by spiritual science. Only spiritual science can penetrate this shell. But what then emerges? Something similar to memory. We perceive the outside world as it is and process it. But we bring what we have absorbed from the outside world back to the surface in our memory later in life. I cannot explain today what the organism of memory is based on, but it is obviously not based on the facilities of the body's periphery, but on those of the body's interior. If we now go deeper into what covers the shell, as we go into ordinary memory — except that ordinary memory unconsciously evokes what the organism preserves — if one enters consciously through contemplative consciousness, then one brings up what in the depths of human nature causes everything I have described today. The shell is brought forth by what determines today's animal world. How does what lives within the human being differ from this? For the spiritual seer, this becomes like an elevated, visualized memory; he brings forth something from the human being that becomes truly vivid, that truly comes before the human capacity for vision. Just as what the senses have experienced comes before ordinary consciousness, so something comes before the visionary consciousness when one delves deeply into what is below. Then it emerges that the period of development which human beings spent together with the animals — the period of earthly development — was followed by another period for human beings in which the animals of today could not yet have developed. Human beings developed before the animals, but in a different form, of course; for they assumed their present form by being placed in conditions that the animals had created. But what rests in the “shell” leads, in spiritual perception, back to an earlier configuration of the earth, to a state that we cannot understand through geological conclusions; but when we learn to understand human beings, we come to the realization that human beings are older than animals, that animals came into being later. However closely related they are to humans, they came into being later. For we return to a form of the planet when animals did not yet exist. At that time, the planet looked such that, under the influence of its conditions, that which today must be protected by the outer shell, which today stands opposite the animal world, could form.

What I have discussed today as a thought first forms as a spiritual vision in those who see spiritually: one looks back at earlier stages of the Earth's development. But this gives one the impulse to view the stages of development as they are, as they must be, so that one can see what one finds when one first looks.

But there are other circumstances as well. Today, in trivial scientific life, it is quite acceptable to view the phenomena of the earth in the same way as the phenomena of the heavens; but it has also taken some effort for this idea to gain acceptance among modern humanity, which does not want to believe in authority at all, but instead regards contemporary science as an infallible authority. You can experience this for yourself. If you go to Mulhouse in Alsace, you will find a monument: at the top is a celestial sphere, in front of which stands a statue of Johann Heinrich Lambert, a contemporary of Kant, who conceived something similar, but much more inspired than the so-called Kant-Laplace theory. If one were to add something else that Lambert thought, one would not be far from what spiritual science is today. But today we have reached the point where, by decision of the honorable council, a monument is being erected to the man who contributed to the creation of modern astronomy. However, if one goes back a hundred years from the erection of the monument, one encounters something else. Lambert was a young tailor's apprentice. Some people sensed what he was capable of; Kant, for example, called him the “greatest genius of the century,” and his father sent petition after petition to the council so that his son could advance. They then gave him forty francs, but only on condition that he leave and never return. That was a hundred years ago. A hundred years later—the monument was erected! Such is the course of human development, one example among many!

But to return to my starting point: viewed from the outside, the modern scientific way of thinking shares the same idea as the Mosaic story of creation, namely that man came after the animals. In contrast, modern spiritual science must say, based on its findings, that man precedes the animals, and that we must go back from our earthly state to a state in which man, unprotected by an outer shell, could only develop what he was at that time by exposing himself to external conditions. This brings us back to stages of development in our earthly life that differ from what is known as the Kant-Laplace theory. Outwardly, it may well be true that a primordial nebula formed and condensed. Some time ago, I quoted some significant words by Herman Grimm: that future generations will have great difficulty in comprehending the eccentricity of the present, which has allowed itself to believe that everything that now exists developed out of such a primordial nebula. However, it will be a long time before humanity is mature enough to grasp things spiritually in such a way that the mystery of the human being can be viewed as it has been presented today. But then a different idea of development will emerge, and I do not shy away from repeating something at the end that I have already pointed out, because I must repeatedly emphasize from which direction life and movement must be brought into the scientific thinking of today.

One can have scientifically very correct ideas, but these can be very far removed from reality. I must repeatedly refer to that lecture by Professor Dewar in London at the Royal Institution, in which he explained what the earth will be like after 200,000 years. It is calculated quite correctly and there is no doubt about it, just as one can also calculate the Kant-Laplace theory quite correctly. Like this, one can also calculate this final state of the Earth, cooled to minus 200 degrees Celsius. There is no mistake in this: our atmosphere will then be condensed like water. Dewar explains in detail how things on Earth will have taken on different states of aggregation. Milk will, of course, be solid. I don't know how it will be produced, but it will obviously be solid. Certain objects will be fluorescent; you will be able to coat walls with egg white and read the newspaper at minus 200 degrees Celsius during the night. There is no mistake in this. The only question is whether it corresponds to what the researcher in the humanities has to look at: whether it is not only “correct,” but whether it corresponds to reality, whether thinking knows where to stop because it is no longer in reality. What methods are used to calculate all these things? Methods such as this: Someone studies the stomach of a thirty-year-old person, follows it over three hundred years, and calculates that after three hundred years, this person's stomach will have developed in such and such a way. He can calculate this just as Professor Dewar can calculate the final state of the Earth. The only mistake is that humans will no longer be alive then, just as the Earth will no longer exist after 200,000 years. And in the same way, one could calculate what the Earth looked like 300,000 years ago, because one can also calculate Kant-Laplace's theory in the same way; but at that time, the Earth did not yet exist. The point is to learn to distinguish between realistic thinking and merely “correct” thinking.

This says a great deal. For the idea I have expressed, that by studying human beings themselves, if one is only able to respond to what constitutes human beings, one arrives at conditions under which the Earth looked completely different, can only be gained by immersing oneself in realistic thinking. But this also makes it possible to think about how human beings, protected from the current earthly conditions by the outer shell I have described, can overcome the final state of the earth — which will certainly be different from that described by Professor Dewar — so that human beings can evolve into times when the earth will certainly be different, when today's animals will no longer exist.

Today we have discussed the human world and the animal world in relation to their origin and development, as presented in spiritual scientific findings. Next time, we will show how human beings themselves return in repeated earthly lives, so that we have every reason to accept Lessing's view of repeated earthly lives. Today, I wanted to lay a foundation for showing how spiritual science arrives at completely different initial and final states for our Earth's development, and how we must indeed break with the opinion that First the animal world was there, and it was on this basis that human beings were able to develop. Human beings are advancing with their development. Spiritual science will bring these things to light. A small foretaste of this relationship can actually only be found — as I have explained in my “Riddles of Philosophy” — in a very spiritual and energetic researcher of the nineteenth century, Wilhelm Heinrich Preuß. There you will find the first beginnings of these things, but everything remains more or less assertion. These things can only be researched if one penetrates with contemplative consciousness into what man is spiritually and soulfully, and of which natural science cannot speak at all. For it can only ask: How does man, as a spiritual and soulful being, relate to the animal organization? But the highest of the spiritual-soul does not relate to the animal organization at all; rather, it relates to it in such a way that it lifts the organization out, creates entirely different balances, so that the experience of conception and death merge into a single moment, so that through the perception of the continuous experience of conception and death, the experience of immortality dimly dawns within the human being.

To sum up, I would say that today's reflection should once again point to the mystery of the human being, which must increasingly occupy our minds. Certain people have pointed out — quite rightly — what would actually happen if someone came along and solved the mystery of the human being or the mysteries of the world in general. Then life would become terribly lazy and sluggish, for it is precisely in the striving for the solution that everything that has an inspiring and encouraging effect on spiritual life consists. And so there is a certain concern that solving the riddles of the world could make human life more sluggish. But if you take the spirit from which today's and the other lectures were given, you will see that it is something completely different. Here, the solution to the mystery of humanity is not pointed out by a theory or a few sentences, as some believe. However, when we look out into the worlds of the universe, they become a great mystery to us in terms of space and time. Where is the answer? Those who proceed from the spirit that underlies these considerations and seek the answer there will not find it in a single sentence, nor in a ‘theory’, but will find it by pointing to the fact that something mysterious has been compressed in human beings themselves from the vastness of space and the passage of time. The universe gives us the riddle; the answer lies in human beings. But the further one goes, the further and deeper times one brings to the surface. By looking at different times, one brings out ever new sides of the human being. One does not answer with a sentence, not with a theory, but with the living human being itself. The depths of space and the expanses of time pose the riddle to man, but he himself is the answer. We can do nothing else but challenge human beings: Know thyself, for the deeper and deeper you look into yourself, the deeper and deeper you will find the answer to the riddles posed by the vastness of space and the remoteness of time. By pointing not to a sentence, not to a theory or a science, but to life itself, and saying: The answer lies in looking within yourself — the possibility of an answer is opened up, and indeed to the extent that we send our awakening thoughts and feelings into the future. There will be no slackness in spiritual life, for the mysteries of the world will approach us in ever new forms, and the answer will also reveal itself in ever new forms. Everything will depend on the correct grasp of the world's mystery, so that not only the answers, but also the questions are found in the right way. But then the answer must not be conceived, but experienced. And life itself is infinite.