7. The Conscious Life of Man

We have been able, in the course of these lectures, to form the impression that the different systems of organs and structural parts of the human being participate in the greatest variety of ways in the combination of processes within the organism. We have referred to various facts in this connection, and have found ourselves already compelled to ascribe as a preliminary the activities at work in the different systems of organs to higher, super-sensible members of the human organism. We had to assert, for instance, that in man the circulation of the blood bears an intimate relation to what we call the human ego, so that we had to speak of the blood as an instrument of the human ego; and, further, we have been able to attribute to the nervous system everything which as conscious life comes to meet this ego. We have at the same time shown how one special portion of the nerve-system, the sympathetic nerve-system, has a function to a certain extent contrary to that of the rest of this system, a function which consists in holding back everything that goes on in the depths of man's organisation, everything that is brought about by the activity of the members of the inner cosmic system in man, so that for the normal consciousness it does not at first force its way up to the horizon of the ego. Yesterday, moreover, we attempted to arrive at an approximate understanding of the fact that what has constructed itself into the firm bony scaffolding, withdraws itself most of all from this conscious life of man; yet at the same time we had to emphasise the fact that, even in this solid scaffolding, a quality of Being must be active such as enables man to evolve an organ for the life of his ego, namely, the circulation of the blood.