II. Introductory Explanations Concerning the Nature of Man

GA 100/1907-06-17/p008 ·1907-06-17 · English MediumMedium alignmentSome paragraph re-numbering between this translation and the German original — the locus may slip by a paragraph or two.
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If we contemplate man with our physical senses, when he stands before us as an earthly being, if our eyes perceive him and our hands can touch him, we look upon him, from the materialistic standpoint, as complete, as a whole being. Yet a deeper, that is to say, a spiritual contemplation of the world, sees in that which is perceptible to our physical senses only a small part of the human being, that part which the anatomist dismembers and dissects, The anatomist endeavours to understand the human being through the intellect, by dissecting the visible part into cells which can only be perceived through the microscope, and he thinks that he thus obtains an idea of the structure and activity of the single organs.

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Cite: GA 100/1907-06-17/p008 · edition English