6. Tree of Knowledge II

We must grasp the matter thus—the human being thrusts forward into the world as the most external of evolved members; what we can call his physical quality ( Physikalisches). This physical nature of the sense-organs can be seen in the fact that during sleep the ears are naturally influenced just as they are during waking life; only the ego and astral body are not concerned with them. If we had our eyes open during sleep, it is obvious that just the same would happen as during waking. We can summarise it by saying: man thrusts out into the world his external faculties of perception.