{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 157a/1915-12-19/p040","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"Is this any different from looking at the same matter in a completely different realm? For one who thinks the way Haeckel thinks today, Haeckel's science can become a refusal to recognize any meaning in earthly existence. It can happen that a person wants to prove out of the events that are taking place so painfully today that earthly life as such has no meaning. But, if one takes hold of the problem in our way—we have done this frequently—precisely this same science takes as its starting point the deep and great meaning that can be unraveled by us in world phenomena. For this to happen, however, something spiritual must be active in the world; we must be able to unite ourselves with the spiritual, It is impossible for people to find a meaning for the earth, a real meaning, because our educated people do not yet understand that it is necessary to permit the power to work upon them that once so wonderfully conquered hearts, souls: the power that arose on looking at the Christmas mystery, from which a profane comprehension evolved into a sacred comprehension. Scholars are unable to grasp this yet; they cannot yet unite the Christ impulse with what they see in the outer world, and thus it is impossible for them to find a meaning for the earth.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"A Christmas Thought and the Secret of the Ego","site_heading":null,"date":"1915-12-19","location":null,"word_count":223,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/157a/1915-12-19/p040","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"G. Karnow and A. Wulsin","identified_edition":"Singles","book_title":"Festivals of the Seasons","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA157a/English/Singles/19151219p02.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/157a/1915-12-19/p040"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/157a/1915-12-19/p040","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"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.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"other_renderings":{"loci":[{"locus":"GA 157a/1915-12-19_02","ga":"157a","lecture":"1915-12-19_02","kind":"renderings","relation":"another translation or transcription of the same lecture"}],"note":"The same lecture is also served at the loci listed, each with how it relates to this one. They are ONE witness, not independent attestations: quote the rendering you fetched, and do not cite another as corroborating it. Wording differs between translations, so a quotation found in one need not occur in the other."},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1915-12-19","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 157a/1915-12-19/p028","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/157a/1915-12-19/p028"}],"bead_confidence":"high","length_check":{"de_words":190,"en_words":223,"ratio":1.17,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.05,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":8474,"original_word_count":8044,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"G. Karnow and A. Wulsin","identified_edition":"Singles","book_title":"Festivals of the Seasons","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA157a/English/Singles/19151219p02.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 157a/1915-12-19/p028"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}