10. Soul Nature And Moral Human Value In The Light Of Spiritual Science (Anthroposophy)

Now we need only consider some of the things mentioned here yesterday to see clearly and in all their depth how the world cannot be known by man unless he can first enlighten himself. We will only recognize the processes going on in the world in their true essence if we can explore them from the soul's point of view. In this way we remember, as was asserted yesterday, how the spiritual science meant here seeks its methods and spiritual insights through the inner development of the soul. And once again I would like to briefly point out what is developed within the human soul, how this human soul being is brought further than in ordinary life and in ordinary science, in order to enter into the insights of the spiritual world. I have already pointed out how the head develops, how we see in the child, as it enters the world, how from day to day, from year to year, an inner soul-spiritual element pushes its way to the surface. We see how the features of the child's face become more and more soulful, more and more spiritual, how something is at work in there that is shaping the human being into the surface in a plastic way. We may only sense it, but an unbiased observation that delves deeper into things sees through it, that what is expressed, I might say, in the features of the face extends further into the child's organism. And yesterday I pointed out that the most intense expression of what is happening through this plastic shaping of the human body by the soul and spirit is the change of teeth, the eruption of the second teeth that take the place of the milk teeth. The formation of these second teeth shows most strikingly how, in the first seven years of life, the human organism rapidly hardens. Then, when the child has grown teeth, the images take shape, they can become lasting memories; they take on contours. At that moment in human life, when the forces that have been working within the organism until the seventh year have in a certain way fulfilled their task for the organism, the change of teeth occurs. Then those forces that have been working in the organism until the change of teeth come into their freedom. They show themselves in their spiritual and soul form; they then work in human memory and in human thinking. The same thing with which we think, with which we form our memory, has worked in our organism as the human plastic artist until the age of seven; it has brought it about that the dental substance has separated out of the wholeness of the human organic substance, if I may suggest it so aphoristically; otherwise, in order to explain the matter fully, one would have to give many lectures on this change of teeth.