{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 251/1922-05-21/p028","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"If we now consider ourselves as physical human beings, we live here on earth within the forms of existence that older people called “elements”: earth, water, air, fire. Today we speak of the solid material, the liquid material, the gaseous material and the warm etheric. Our organism is woven from this fourfold materiality, as is everything that our organism moves towards between birth and death. Today's man looks at this materiality, forms his world view through his lawful perception of this materiality, which is essentially an external scientific one, even if ancient religious traditions play into today's concepts. But this materiality is based on spiritual beings. The earthly solid is based on spiritual entities from the sphere of the elementary spirits, older intuitive clairvoyance called them “gnomes” and the like. Today's intellectualism regards this as fantasy. What we call them is unimportant, but underlying all that is solid on earth lies a world of spiritual elemental beings who, I might say, in their physicality, invisible to human senses, have a greater degree of intellect, of pure rationality, than we humans have ourselves and who are extremely clever compared to us humans, clever to the point of cunning, clever to the point of speculation, clever to the point of the shrewd foreknowledge of that which always gets in the way of man in the work he does based on his lesser intellectuality. Underlying all earthly solid matter is a world of elemental beings that are truly extraordinarily clever, and whose cleverness is the fundamental character of their being.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"39. On the Character of the Present Day","site_heading":null,"date":"1922-05-21","location":null,"word_count":257,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/251/1922-05-21/p028","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"The History of the Anthroposophical Society 1913–1922","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA251/English/SOL2024/19220521s01.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/251/1922-05-21/p028"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/251/1922-05-21/p028","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 261/1922-05-21","ga":"261","lecture":"1922-05-21","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."},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 251/1922-05-21/p028","passage_number":28,"text":"Wenn wir uns nun als physische Menschen betrachten, so leben wir hier auf der Erde innerhalb derjenigen Daseinssformen, welche die älteren Menschen «Elemente» genannt haben: Erde, Wasser, Luft, Feuer. Wir sprechen heute von dem festen Stofflichen, dem flüssig Stofflichen, dem gasförmig Stofflichen und dem wärmehaft Ätherischen. Aus dieser vierfachen Stofflichkeit ist unser Organismus gewoben, ist alles das gewoben, zu dem unser Organismus zwischen Geburt und Tod sich bewegt. Auf diese Stofflichkeit sieht der heutige Mensch hin, formt sich durch seine gesetzmäßige Auffassung dieser Stofflichkeit seine Weltanschauung, die im Wesentlichen eine äußerlich wissenschaftliche ist, wenn auch alte religiöse Traditionen in die heutigen Begriffe hineinspielen. Aber dieser Stofflichkeit liegen zugrunde geistige Wesenhaftigkeiten. Dem irdisch Festen liegen zugrunde geistige Wesenheiten aus der Sphäre der Elementargeister, älteres ahnendes Hellsehen hat sie «Gnomen» und dergleichen genannt. Der heutige Intellektualismus sieht das als Phantasterei an. Wie wir sie benennen, ist gleichgültig, aber es liegt allem festen Irdischen zugrunde eine Welt von geistigen Elementarwesen, die - ich möchte sagen - in ihrer für die menschliche Sinnlichkeit unsichtbaren Leiblichkeit einen größeren Einschlag von Intellekt, von reiner Verstandesmäßigkeit haben, als wir Menschen selber haben, und die gegenüber uns Menschen unmäßig klug sind, klug bis zur Listigkeit, klug bis zum Spintisieren, die klug sind bis zum schlauen Vorauswissen desjenigen, was dem Menschen immer hindernd in den Weg tritt bei der Arbeit, die er aus seiner geringeren Intellektualität heraus bildet. Es liegt allem irdisch Festen zugrunde eine Welt von Elementarwesen, die wirklich außerordentlich gescheit sind, und deren Gescheitheit der Grundcharakter ihres Wesens ist.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":252,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/251/1922-05-21/p028"}],"english":["GA 251/1922-05-21/p028"],"method":"identity","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":252,"en_words":257,"ratio":1.02,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","reader"],"reader_german":["GA 251/1922-05-21/p028"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.03,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":8564,"original_word_count":8348,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"The History of the Anthroposophical Society 1913–1922","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA251/English/SOL2024/19220521s01.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 251/1922-05-21/p028"],"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."}}