{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 4/l08/p010","lang":"en","edition":"AP1986","edition_basis":"Steiner 1918 revised edition","is_original":false,"is_default_edition":false,"text":"The difficulty in grasping thinking in its essential being by observing it lies in the fact that this essential being has all too easily slipped away already from the observing soul when the soul wants to bring this being into its line of vision. There then remains for the soul only the dead abstractness, the corpse of living thinking. If one looks only upon this abstractness, one can easily find oneself impelled, in the face of it, to enter into the “life-filled” element of the mysticism of feeling or else of metaphysics of the will. One can find it strange that someone should want to grasp, in “mere thought,” the essential being of reality. But whoever brings himself to the point of truly having *life in his thinking* will attain the insight that neither weaving in mere feelings nor looking upon the will element can even be compared to the inner wealth and to the peaceful, self-sustaining, yet inwardly moving *experience* within this life of thinking, let alone that these two could be ranked above it. It is precisely due to this wealth, to this inner fullness of experience, that thinking's counterpart in our usual state of soul appears dead, abstract. No other human soul activity is so easy to misapprehend as thinking. Willing, feeling: they warm the human soul, even in one's reliving of the original experiences. Thinking all too easily leaves one cold in this reliving; it seems to dry out one's soul life. But this is only the strongly manifesting shadow of thinking's reality—a reality which is woven through with light, and which delves down warmly into the phenomena of the world. This delving down occurs through a power that flows within the thinking activity itself, which is the power of love in spiritual form. One may not raise the objection that whoever, in this way, sees love within active thinking is transferring a feeling, love, into it. For this objection is in truth a confirmation of what is being maintained here. Whoever turns, namely *to* thinking in its *essential being*, will find in it both feeling and will, and these also in the depths of their reality; whoever turns away from thinking and toward “mere” feeling and willing only, will lose their true reality. Whoever wants to *experience intuitively* within thinking is also doing justice to experience of a feeling and will nature; the mysticism of feeling and the metaphysics of will, however, cannot do justice to the intuitive thinking penetration of existence. These last can all too easily come to the opinion that *they* stand within what is real, but that the intuitively thinking person, unfeeling and estranged from reality, forms with his “abstract thoughts” a shadowy, cold world picture.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"VIII. The Factors of Life","site_heading":null,"date":null,"location":null,"word_count":455,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/4/l08/p010?edition=AP1986","alignment_confidence":"medium","alignment_reason":"beads:structural_identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":null,"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["AP1986","GPP1916","RSP1964","RSPC1949","RSPI1963"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":"Steiner 1918 revised edition","is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/4/l08/p010"},{"lang":"en","edition":"RSP1964","edition_basis":"Steiner 1918 revised edition","is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/4/l08/p010","paragraph_aligned":true},{"lang":"en","edition":"AP1986","edition_basis":"Steiner 1918 revised edition","is_original":false,"is_default_edition":false,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/4/l08/p010?edition=AP1986","paragraph_aligned":true},{"lang":"en","edition":"GPP1916","edition_basis":"Steiner 1894 first edition","is_original":false,"is_default_edition":false,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/4/l08/p010?edition=GPP1916"},{"lang":"en","edition":"RSPC1949","edition_basis":"Steiner 1918 revised edition","is_original":false,"is_default_edition":false,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/4/l08/p010?edition=RSPC1949","paragraph_aligned":true},{"lang":"en","edition":"RSPI1963","edition_basis":"Steiner 1918 revised edition","is_original":false,"is_default_edition":false,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/4/l08/p010?edition=RSPI1963"}],"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"l08","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 4/l08/p010","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/4/l08/p010"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","length_check":{"de_words":385,"en_words":455,"ratio":1.18,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.16,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":2036,"original_word_count":1760,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"status":"unknown","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. An unattributed translation cannot be weighed as a witness: you cannot tell which hand made the choices in it. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 4/l08/p010"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"medium","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."}}