The Etheric Being in the Physical Human Being

When studying human life from the inner aspect, we should look upon it as a structured life; but when we leave the body, the human being immediately appears structured, subdivided into four parts. We have, to begin with, the force which lies at the foundation of memory. Through memory, things experienced in the past rise up in our consciousness. Memory brings a connected sequence into life, so that our existence from birth to death becomes a whole, a unity.—A second element is what we call thinking, our representing power—I cannot go into further details, this is not the essential point just now, but our thinking activity is something that lives in the present. And if we proceed further, we come to feeling, and still further to the will. When we look into ourselves, our own inner being takes on the aspect of memory, thinking, feeling and will.