V. Connections Between Organic Processes and the Mental Life of Man

You see the human being becomes a part of the whole world organism; and I should like to close these considerations by pointing out to you an idea, asking you to think about it rather thoroughly, and to make it a subject of meditation. Science today postulates a cosmic process, and within this cosmic process the earth once arose. In the end the earth, when the entropy is fulfilled, will be consumed in cosmic heat. If today we form for ourselves a concept such as the Copernican, or any modification of it, then we take into consideration only the forces which formed the earth out of the primeval nebula, and human life really becomes a sort of fifth wheel on the wagon; for the geologist and the astronomer do not consider mankind. It does not occur to them to seek in any sense within mankind itself the cause of a future world organism. The human being is everywhere present in this cosmic process, but he is the fifth wheel on the wagon. The world process takes its course, but he has nothing to do with it. Consider it in this way: the world process comes to an end, ceases, is dispersed in space. It stops, and the causes of what ensues are always within the human being himself, inside his skin; there they find their continuation.