VI. Nature and Spirit in the Light of Spiritual Science

GA 150/1913-06-08/p012 ·1913-06-08 · English MediumMedium alignmentSome paragraph re-numbering between this translation and the German original — the locus may slip by a paragraph or two.
Record: unknown. How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.

There we see what is important. When observing human beings, it is important to find the starting point from which the part can be seen as part of the whole, and not to crumble the part away from the whole. Man as such is a whole. But when it comes to the earth, the whole earth is to be regarded as a whole. If we separate nature and its effects from the earth, what then is this nature? Then it is our product of the imagination, which does not really exist, which only appears to us because we cut a part out of a whole. Therefore, it can be seen that it is not at all important that someone describes something accurately, but that he knows how a part is integrated into the whole, or rather grows out of the whole. The earth must be seen as a whole, not as a physical whole, but as a living being that belongs to its spirit.

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Cite: GA 150/1913-06-08/p012 · edition English