Human Knowledge and Its Significance for Man and the Cosmos

What, then, is the function and purpose of what we call the True?—I mean, in the sense in which the primary purpose of the grain of wheat is to bring a new plant into being? The primary purpose of the forces of Knowledge within us, of our efforts to get hold of truth, is to develop forces within us between birth and death whereby our organism will be transformed after death—that is to say, the forces underlying the body in this incarnation, for it is these forces that will be transformed into the head of the next incarnation. This is the remarkable connection which becomes clear to us when we study the existence of the human being on the one side between birth and death and on the other side between death and a new birth. The knowledge we acquire serves to make it possible for the body to be transformed into the head of the next incarnation. You will say: ‘Yes, but there are so many who acquire no knowledge at all, who remain simpletons all their life, only a very few have really learnt anything.’ And those who make this remark generally include themselves among these few! But remember, several thinkers have rightly said, quite independently of each other, that during the first three or four years of life the human being learns more, assimilates more wisdom than in the three years spent in later life at the university. This is literally true. In the first three years of life we learn a very great deal; we learn what can only be learnt on Earth, namely the knowledge that is essential in order to be able to speak, to understand what is spoken, and a great deal more besides. In those first three years we learn very much, and what we thus learn forms part of what is known as the substance or content of wisdom.