Lecture III

In view of the increasing superficiality of psychological thinking, it was only natural that man could no longer penetrate to those inner depths of soul where geometrical thought has its base. Man takes his ordinary consciousness for granted and fills this consciousness with mathematics that has been thought-out but not experienced. As an example of what is thought-out but not experienced, let us consider the three perpendicular dimensions of Euclidean space. Man would have never thought of these if he had not experienced a threefold orientation within himself. One orientation that man experiences in himself is from front to back. We need only recall how, from the external modern anatomical and physiological point of view, the intake and excretion of food, as well as other processes in the human organism, take place from front to back. The orientation of these specific processes differs from the one that prevails when, for example, I do something with my right arm and make a corresponding move with my left arm. Here, the processes are oriented left and right. Finally, in regard to the last orientation, man grows into it during earthly life. In the beginning he crawls on all fours and only gradually, stands upright, so that this last orientation flows within him from above downward and up from below.