Inner and Outer Evolution

GA 91 — 22 August 1904, Graal

6. Form, Life, Consciousness

Let us make clear exactly the position of the three kingdoms in nature, the difference between mineral, plant, and animal.

Let us begin with the difference between the nature of a mineral and that of a plant. Here we notice that the minerals, plants and animals of our physical plan cannot be authoritative for the concepts we form. We must think of them on higher plans. What we can trace on the physical plan is mixed product. Lower animals are often called "plant animals>. They were much more common in the first stages, back when there were no warm-blooded animals. They are so small now, which were more grandiose and beautiful then, because they have atrophied by the change of the earth. So, what we meet today cannot give any objection against mystical explanation, because mixtures have arisen. Many plants have the trait of the animal kingdom.

Let us now realize the difference between real mineral, plant and animal.

Let us consider common salt to know what a mineral is. We know it powdered and as a beautiful transparent cube. These cubes form by themselves when we put table salt in absolutely still warm water. Common salt, then, is a body that is not naturally formless, but has a definite shape, that of the cube; this is the natural form of the mineral. Common salt is composed of two substances: Sodium, a white metal when it is free, and Chlorine, a gas when it is free. At the sodium and chlorine must sit the forces that, when they come together, form the crystal. Rock crystal is silicon and oxygen, forms a hexagon. Pyrite - [iron] and sulfur - chemically combined, form an octahedron [or even a cube]. Shape is the form which is given to a particular substance. The mineral has shape. If we take a hammer and pound the hexahedron, pulverize it, then the salt cube is over, and the same forces must form anew the shape in question. There is no question of the cube having a definite existence [beyond itself]

The mineral is a natural being whose form is always anew animated by the general forces of nature.

The plant also has a definite form, not so geometrical, of course; but pronounced in lily, oak, carnation, and others. There is a basic type there, with modifications for each one. We find that this form is formed in quite a different way from that in the mineral, absorbing carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur, some salts, etc., from the air and soil. If we were to try to make a plant in a similar way [as in the mineral], it would not succeed, of course. The mineral originates from the general force of nature; the plant receives its form by descent from another plant. And indeed this form, which the plant receives, is contained in the little seed at the moment it begins. Where there are no natural forces to conjure up the form, for example on poor soil, nothing would come; but also without seed nothing. The plant is a natural being whose form is always formed by an already existing form. The seed would be dead without general enlivening forces of nature: Life must be added to the form. The plant must fall off the stem, take its life out of the general life. It is a natural being whose life is always formed anew by the general universal natural life.

Let us compare from this point of view: The mineral takes nothing for itself but form; it leaves life to the general life.

The plant.

The plant particularizes form and life, and does so in such a way that the form is transferred from the former form.

Third, when we look at animal life, we find that it has form and life. Life is somewhat different in the animal than in the plant. In the animal, as a rule, life is not developed directly on the universal life, but to the life of an animal the life of a preceding animal is as necessary as in the plant form the form of the preceding plant. Already with the birds the offspring is not formed in the body, but at least the life warmth of the preceding animal is necessary, thus the special life. The animal is a natural being whose life is always formed by an already existing life. Inheritance of life, as in the plant [inheritance] of form. To form and life something is added in the animal, which we must make clear to ourselves by the behavior of the animal to the outside world. The life of a plant depends only on itself, the power lies in the plant itself. The animal depends on the circumstances. It has life, arbitrariness. The plant draws food to itself, the animal goes. It develops what cannot be with the plant: the desire. This must be formed anew with every animal, because it confronts the being itself. The animal is a natural being whose desire is always formed anew by general or universal natural conditions. The mineral claims only the form, leaves the life to the AllLife, whose expression it is, and knows nothing of the desire. The plant sucks from the general life each for itself a special life. In the animal we have all three in particular: form, life, desire. The animal sucks for itself from the universal desire a special one - desire for existence.

Where there is no form, there is no stone; the mineral claims nothing but that, is for itself only Atma, and leaves in nature the universal life - Budhi -- and Manas. The desire, the drive to existence, to manifestation, is called Manas.

The plant takes for itself Atma and separates out for itself still Budhi, leaves in nature Manas.

The animal takes all three for itself: atma, budhi, manas.

Atma as form in particular is called Prana. The general Manas as a property of the particular life is called Kama. Kama is thus Manas, claimed for a particular being, distributed to a particular. In the plants, which already have a similar kind of seed as the animal, one already sees an astral aura, in the simple ones not. In the higher animal, kama already floods in the astral. The physical nature of the mineral, therefore, is essentially nothing but force action; whereas the physical nature of the plant is the substance of which the cell is formed, swelling matter or plasma. This plasma, only when imbued with kama, is gifted with the capacity to be flesh. The physical nature of the animal is flesh. Plasma and flesh: they are basically the same substances. So what is the difference between force effects? Plasma the substances become by being infused with life; flesh by being infused with life and kama.

Form, life, consciousness are three aspects in nature; distributed essentially among mineral, animal, and plant.