{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 212/1922-05-28_02/p016","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"Thus, in the solid earth element live spiritual beings of an elementary kind who are very much more clever than human beings. Even a person of extreme astuteness intellectually is no match for these beings who, as supersensible entities, live in the realm of solid earth. One could say that just as man consists of flesh and blood, so do these beings consist of cleverness, of super cleverness. Another of their peculiarities is that they prefer to live in multitudes. When one is in a position to find out how many of these astute beings a suitable earthy object contains, then one can squeeze them out as if from a sponge—in a spiritual sense, of course—and out they flow in an endless stream. But counting these gnome-like beings is a difficult task. If one tries to count them as one would cherries or eggs—i.e., one, two, three- one soon notices that they will not be counted that way. When one has reached say three, then there are suddenly a lot more. So counting them as one would on the physical plane is no use; nor is any other form of calculation, for they immediately play tricks on you. Suppose one put two on one side and two on the other in order to say that twice two makes four. One would be wrong, for through their super cunning they would appear as seven or eight, making out that two times two makes eight, or something like that. Thus, these beings defy being counted. It must be acknowledged that the intellect, developed by man in recent times, is very impressive. But these super-intelligent beings show a mastery over the intellect even where it is merely a question of numbers.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"8. The Elementary World and its Beings","site_heading":null,"date":"1922-05-28","location":null,"word_count":288,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/212/1922-05-28_02/p016","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Rita Stebbing","identified_edition":"AP1984","book_title":"The Human Soul in Relation to World Evolution","publisher":"Anthroposophic Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA212/English/AP1984/19220528p02.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/212/1922-05-28_02/p016"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/212/1922-05-28_02/p016","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"other_renderings":{"loci":[{"locus":"GA 212/1922-05-28","ga":"212","lecture":"1922-05-28","kind":"excerpt","relation":"an excerpt or summary of the same lecture, or the lecture this unit excerpts"}],"note":"The same lecture is also served at the loci listed, each with how it relates to this one. They are ONE witness, not independent attestations: quote the rendering you fetched, and do not cite another as corroborating it. Wording differs between translations, so a quotation found in one need not occur in the other."},"unit_kind":{"kind":"second_translation","base_unit":"GA 212/1922-05-28","note":"A second English translation of the same lecture as 1922-05-28.","same_lecture_as":"GA 212/1922-05-28"},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1922-05-28_02","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 212/1922-05-28_02/p015","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/212/1922-05-28_02/p015"},{"locus":"GA 212/1922-05-28_02/p016","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/212/1922-05-28_02/p016"}],"bead_confidence":"high","length_check":{"de_words":493,"en_words":457,"ratio":0.93,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":0.91,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":6538,"original_word_count":7198,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Rita Stebbing","identified_edition":"AP1984","book_title":"The Human Soul in Relation to World Evolution","publisher":"Anthroposophic Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA212/English/AP1984/19220528p02.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 212/1922-05-28_02/p015","GA 212/1922-05-28_02/p016"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}