Lecture II

GA 161/1915-05-01/p044 ·1915-05-01 · 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.

But in a certain part of our body there is something inserted, namely, the secondary nervous system, the glandular system, the nervous system of the abdomen—part of which is often called the solar plexus. As developed in a man at present this nervous system is an unfinished organ; it exists only in an embryonic state. It will develop itself later. But just as of a child we know that he has qualities which can still go on developing as he grows up, we can know that this nervous system, today in the service of organic activity, will also develop further. This nervous system which works side-by-side with the systems of brain and spine and with the nerves that branch-out into the limbs, this abdominal nervous system is not so far developed today that it would be able to do what it will do when man has once reached Jupiter. By that time brain and spine will have lost ground and the abdominal nervous system will have progressed to something quite different from what it is today. It will then be placed on the surface of a man; for all that to begin with was within a man will later have its place on his surface.

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Cite: GA 161/1915-05-01/p044 · edition English