III. The Gestures: How They are Formed and Experienced

Now let us begin by referring once more to that quality, which is most intimately bound up with the human being, and which was described by the Greeks when they said that it was experienced by man when he was confronted by the riddles of existence, when they said that Philosophy, love of wisdom, could only proceed from a feeling of wonder and amazement. Let us think of this and remind ourselves that the human feeling of wonder is something purely human and belongs to those qualities which raise man above the level of the animal. And when we ask ourselves: What faculty is it in the human being which raises him above the level of the animal?—then we must say: It is the possibility, inherent in the human being, of influencing matter, of bringing movement into certain substances whereas the same substances impose upon the animal its definite form. Man must therefore be looked upon as a centre towards which certain forces gravitate and in which they are finally merged. There would be a sense of monotony in the idea that the origin of man, which should call up in him a feeling of wonder and awe, must be looked for as proceeding from one single point of the universe,—which is indeed the case with the plants and, the animals. That which calls up in man the feeling of wonder with regard to his own being can only be felt by him as coming from different directions of cosmic space. And we only understand ourselves as men, in our true human dignity when we begin to realize that the Gods are radiating their forces into us, from the surrounding cosmos.