I. The Difference Between Man and Animal

But now let us look at the matter from the point of view of Spiritual Science, there the whole affair will meet you in its true meaning. For you see when we start from Spiritual Science, from the conceptions and experiences in connection with it which can be acquired in the spiritual world, we see, on the one side that without the considerations of Spiritual Science we may arrive at the delusive statement or which I have just spoken, and that it must actually hold good for anyone who will not become a spiritual scientist just because he has had a good training in philosophy. This is seen on the one hand. On the other hand one sees the following—sees it simply by observing things in the world—that when with the hypotheses of Spiritual Science man and animal are compared, it becomes apparent that man confronts the objects in the world in a series of single observations afterwards forming abstract concepts by all manner of thought processes in which he reunites what he has seen as separate entities. It may also be admitted that the animal does not possess this kind of abstraction, it does not practise this activity of abstraction. The curious thing is, however, that the abstract concept is not lacking in the animal, that, in its soul the animal is actually living in the most abstract concepts which we men only form with much difficulty, and that the animal does not see things separately as we do. Where we excel is just in our freer use of the senses and in a quite definite kind of co-operation between senses and inner emotions and will-impulses. We have that advantage over the animal. The sureness of instinct possessed by animals rests on the very fact that the animal from the start lives with those abstract concepts that we have first to form. We differ from animals in the emancipation of our senses and in their freer use where the outer world is concerned, also in being able to pour will into our senses which the animal is unable to do. What we men do not have but must first acquire, namely, the abstract concept, is just what the animal does have, strange as it may seem. It is true every animal has only a limited sphere but in this sphere it has this kind of concept, however odd this appears. Man's attention is directed to one dog, two, three dogs, and he then forms the abstract concept “dog”. The animal in this sphere has the same abstract concept “dog” that me have, it has the quite exact concept without needing to form it. We have first to form it which the animal has no need to do. The animal, however, has no capacity for distinguishing with precision one dog from another or for giving it any precise individuality through sense-perception.