Lecture II

When we consider outer nature in relation to the finished processes of nature, we can say nothing more than that “To know nature means at most to recreate nature in thoughts.” Therefore what we call our thoughts bring us no further than recreating nature since they lack the inner formative force; this is what we develop in our thinking, in the soul life permeated by thoughts, by mental images. It has been pointed out previously, however, that this soul life permeated by mental images is basically nothing but what emancipates itself from the physical-etheric organism at the time of the change of teeth, what the human being therefore has within the physical-etheric organism until the change of teeth.