Lecture VI

We must not, however, content ourselves with the idea that we have to do with a mere reversal. Just as the blood-system in its first rudiments appeared on the Earth as a kind of warmth-man, as I described last time, yet at the same time it was really a kind of sense-system. It was in fact a system of warmth and perception. The human being was, so to say, wholly a blood or warmth-man. He was not permeated by the substance of blood, but etheric warmth-lines of force penetrated him, and these etheric warmth-force lines out of which the blood-system later arose were in the first rudiments distinctly a kind of sense-system. It was the first rudiments of a sense-system, and the nerve-and-light system was at first a kind of glandular system, and the later glandular system which was organized was really only able to arise because the other systems, the blood- and nerve-systems, now incorporated, advanced in their development. This advance occurred in the following way: Whereas the nervous system developed as a kind of glandular system, something of the blood remained behind as the later rudiments of the blood. But as well during the second stage the blood-system itself changed to a kind of nerve-system; and when that was achieved and, in the third stage, the glandular system was incorporated, the two earlier systems again changed, so that in fact the blood-system advanced a degree and the nerve-system also a degree. Changes and transformations are continually taking place. Evolution is very complicated and one may not rest content with the idea of the reversed recapitulation. For the “reversal” is again only partial: the blood-system is a sense-system which is transformed later, and it is the same with the nerve-system, and so on.