Fourth Lecture

The difference between the human intellect and the human will is that the human intellect develops at most a memory for personal, individual life, but the will, which the human being cannot reach with his intellect, has the memory of the cosmic past. Man carries within himself the memory of the cosmic past, but he cannot reach it with his intellect without spiritual scientific research. So we can say that on the one hand, the human being stands there as a volitional being, bearing within himself, if I may call it memory - it is only a figure of speech - the memory of the cosmic past. He stands there as an intelligent being, bearing within himself, as an intelligent being, only the present, because the intellect is only a germ for the future, not yet something present. Just as the germ of a plant is not yet present, but something of the future, so the intellect in relation to the will is the same as the small plant germ is to the whole plant. In that we are volitional beings, we stand as cosmic human beings through the individual on the soil of the whole past; in that we are intelligent human beings, we stand in the present and prepare to grow into the future.