I. The Difference Between Man and Animal

Should this be? And should this unconscious appearance of animal nature hold man back from going forward when he comes to the Guardian of the Threshold? No, this should not happen—but something else has to take place. By going beck during his apparent progress, this backsliding of of man's must so happen that it is not simply a matter of going forward and then back (as it certainly would be were man to develop only a faculty for abstraction), for then man would come back to the earlier stages of his development, he would return altogether to the animal. No, there must be a going backward, but like this (see diagram); an advance must take place, a going upward that must lead into the spiritual.