{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 239/1924-06-07/p014","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"Let a man who has reached a certain age in this incarnation observe his earlier life quite objectively and impartially. He is, let us say, fifty years of age, and he surveys the course of the years back to childhood. He will then perceive how, following some inner urge, *he himself* made the approach to everything that befell him. It is not always a pleasant experience. But as he follows the events of his life backwards, he will be obliged to admit in respect of those that were really decisive that he made straight for those events in time, just as he may make straight for some point in space. The stream of destiny *issues from ourselves*. And so it is understandable when men such as Goethe's elderly friend Knebel say that observation of human life clearly reveals a plan running through it from beginning to end. True, this plan is not always such that in looking back over it a man will always insist that he would act in the same way again. But when he closely observes the details of his actions and their consequences, he will always perceive that an inner urge led from the earlier to the later. Thus are the various events in our lives explained. And this enables us to perceive that the law taking effect through our moral life of soul is entirely different from the law taking effect in the life of Nature. All this helps to create the attitude which should be adopted towards the spiritual investigator who from his vision of the spiritual world is as well able to describe the laws governing the forming of destiny as the naturalist is able to describe the laws of Nature. And to understand the working of spiritual law in the Universe is the task of Anthroposophy in our present age.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Lecture I","site_heading":"Birth and Death: Gateways to Understanding Human Karma","site_heading_note":"A heading the site wrote for this unit from a summary of it; not in the edition, and not the words of Rudolf Steiner or of the translator. Cite the unit by its title and locus, never by this heading, and do not quote it.","date":"1924-06-07","location":null,"word_count":308,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/239/1924-06-07/p014","alignment_confidence":"medium","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"D. S. Osmond","identified_edition":"RSP1973","book_title":"Karmic Relationships: VII","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA239/English/RSP1973/19240607a01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row","note":"rsarchive's lecture list writes out the given names of the credit 'Dorothy S. Osmond'; the lecture pages of this edition print 'D. S. Osmond', which is served.","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/239/1924-06-07/p014"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/239/1924-06-07/p014","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},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1924-06-07","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 239/1924-06-07/p013","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/239/1924-06-07/p013"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","length_check":{"de_words":310,"en_words":308,"ratio":0.99,"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":0.97,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":4361,"original_word_count":4503,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"D. S. Osmond","identified_edition":"RSP1973","book_title":"Karmic Relationships: VII","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA239/English/RSP1973/19240607a01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row","note":"rsarchive's lecture list writes out the given names of the credit 'Dorothy S. Osmond'; the lecture pages of this edition print 'D. S. Osmond', which is served.","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 239/1924-06-07/p013"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"medium","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."}}