8. The Human Form and Its Co-ordination of Forces

We must now give still further attention to the individual phases of this circulation. And what concerns us here, first of all, is to follow once more the nutritional process, the taking in of nutritive substances which become a living stream in the human organism through the fact that they are taken up by the ether-body, or, rather, are grasped by the force of the ether-body. The inner cosmic system, consisting of the seven organs, then meets these substances; and it does this because, as we have seen, the human being would otherwise not rise above a plant-existence. The higher stage of man's being requires that these seven organs should go out to meet the digestive process. So that it really is what comes to life in the astral nature of man that works upon the nutritional stream: this stream comes from without, and that which constitutes the inner nature of man goes forth to meet and work upon it. First of all the ether-body meets the nutritional stream, and metamorphoses its substances all along the course of the digestive system; then the astral system goes forth to meet them, metamorphoses them still further, and makes them so much a part of the inner world that they more and more become inner vital activities. And now, since everything in the human organism constitutes a co-operative unity, the entire nutritional stream must in addition be taken hold of by the forces of the ego, by the blood itself. That is, the instrument of the ego must extend its activity down to where the nutritional stream is taken up. Does the blood do this? Can we verify that which occult perception compels us to affirm?