{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 55/1906-11-08_02/p020","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"People at all times and particularly in our own day have pondered much over the actual meaning of life and its origin. Modern natural science has been able to give few clues to the meaning and nature of life. One thing, however, the more recent natural science has accepted for some time, something which has been expounded again and again as a fact by spiritual science also. This is namely: Life within the physical world is fundamentally distinguished as to substance from the so-called lifeless only through the manifoldness and complexity of its formation. Life can be present only where a much more complicated structure is found than exists in the realm of the lifeless. You know, perhaps, that the basic substance of life is a kind of albuminous substance for which the expression “living albumen” would not be out of place. This living albumen differs essentially from dead lifeless albumen through one characteristic. Living albumen disintegrates directly it is forsaken by life. Dead albumen, that for instance of a dead hen's-egg, cannot be kept for any length of time in the same condition. It is the essential character of living substance that the moment when life has left it, it can no longer hold its parts together. Although we cannot go further into the nature of life today, yet one phenomenon can point to something that is deeply connected with life and characterises it. And what is this characteristic? It is just this peculiarity of living substance that it disintegrates when life has gone out of it. Think of a substance denuded of life—it decays, it has the peculiarity of dispersing. What then does life do? It sets itself again and again against disintegration; thus life preserves. That is the youth-giving element of life: it ever resists what would take place in its substance. Life in substance means: resistance to decay. Compare with life the external process of death and it will be clear that life does not show what characterises the process of death—the disintegration in itself. Far more does it ever and again rescue substance from decay, sets itself against decay. Thus, inasmuch as life ever renews the substance which is falling to pieces in itself, it is the foundation of physical existence and of consciousness.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"I. The Origin of Suffering","site_heading":null,"date":"1906-11-08","location":null,"word_count":379,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/55/1906-11-08_02/p020","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Mabel Cotterell and Violet E. Watkin","identified_edition":"SBC1980","book_title":"The Origin of Suffering the Origin of Evil Illness and Death","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/SBC1980/19061108p01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row"},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/55/1906-11-08_02/p020"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/55/1906-11-08_02/p020","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"other_renderings":{"loci":[{"locus":"GA 55/1906-11-08","ga":"55","lecture":"1906-11-08","kind":"renderings","relation":"another translation or transcription of the same lecture"}],"note":"The same lecture is also served at the loci listed, each with how it relates to this one. They are ONE witness, not independent attestations: quote the rendering you fetched, and do not cite another as corroborating it. Wording differs between translations, so a quotation found in one need not occur in the other."},"unit_kind":{"kind":"second_translation","base_unit":"GA 55/1906-11-08","note":"A second English translation of the same lecture as 1906-11-08. The German served under this id repeats the German of 1906-11-08: one German text, to be cited at 1906-11-08.","same_lecture_as":"GA 55/1906-11-08","german_repeats":"GA 55/1906-11-08"},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1906-11-08_02","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 55/1906-11-08_02/p021","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/55/1906-11-08_02/p021"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":419,"en_words":379,"ratio":0.9,"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."},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 55/1906-11-08_02/p021","passage_number":21,"text":"Seit jeher und auch besonders in unserer Zeit hat man viel darüber nachgedacht, was das Leben eigentlich bedeutet, was der Ursprung und der Sinn des Lebens sei. Wenige Anhaltspunkte hat die heutige Naturwissenschaft über die Bedeutung des Lebens und über sein Wesen erkunden können. Aber eines hat sich diese neue Naturwissenschaft schon seit längerer Zeit zu eigen gemacht, was auch die Geistesforschung immer wieder als ihre Überzeugung und ihre Erkenntnis ausgesprochen hat, nämlich: Leben innerhalb der physischen Welt unterscheidet sich stofflich von dem sogenannten Nichtleben, dem Leblosen, im Grunde nur durch die Mannigfaltigkeit und Kompliziertheit der Gestaltung. Nur da kann das Leben wohnen, wo eine viel kompliziertere Gestaltung der Stoffe eintritt, als sie im Gebiete des Leblosen vorhanden ist. Sie wissen vielleicht, daß das Leben zu seiner Grundsubstanz etwas hat, was man als eiweißartige Substanz bezeichnen könnte, für die der Ausdruck «lebendiges Eiweiß» nicht unangebracht wäre. Dieses lebendige Eiweiß unterscheidet sich vom toten leblosen Eiweiß ganz beträchtlich durch eine Eigenschaft. Lebendiges Eiweiß zerfällt nämlich sogleich, wenn es vom Leben verlassen ist. Totes Eiweiß, zum Beispiel das vom toten Hühnerei, können Sie nicht längere Zeit in dem Zustande erhalten, in dem es ist. Das ist überhaupt die Eigenart der lebendigen Substanz, daß in dem Augenblick, wo das Leben von ihr gewichen ist, sie ihre Teile nicht mehr zusammenhalten kann. Wenn wir uns auch heute nicht weiter auf das Wesen des Lebens einlassen können, so kann uns doch schon eine Erscheinung hinweisen auf etwas, was tief mit dem Leben zusammenhängt und es charakterisiert. Und was ist nun dieses Charakteristische? Es ist eben diese Eigenschaft der lebendigen Substanz, daß sie zerfällt, wenn das Leben aus ihr gewichen ist. Denken Sie sich eine Substanz vom Leben entblößt: sie zerfällt; denken Sie sich eine stoffliche Mannigfaltigkeit, die nicht von Leben durchdrungen ist: sie hat die Eigenschaft, zu zerfallen. Was tut nun das Leben? Es stellt sich immer und immer wieder dem Zerfall entgegen; also das Leben erhält. Das ist das Verjüngende des Lebens, daß es sich dem, was in seiner Materie vorgehen würde, immer wieder widersetzt. Leben in der Substanz heißt: Widerstand gegen den Zerfall. Vergleichen Sie den äußeren Vorgang des Todes mit dem Leben, und es wird Ihnen klar sein, daß das Leben alles das nicht zeigt, was den Vorgang des Todes, das In-sich-selbstZerfallen, charakterisiert, sondern daß es vielmehr die Substanz immer wieder vor dem Zerfall errettet, sich ihrem Zerfall entgegenstellt. So ist das Leben, indem es die in sich selbst zerfallende Substanz wieder erneuert, die Grundlage des physischen Daseins und des Bewußtseins.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":419,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/55/1906-11-08_02/p021"}],"english":["GA 55/1906-11-08_02/p020"],"method":"length","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":419,"en_words":379,"ratio":0.9,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":0.98,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":6799,"original_word_count":6967,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Mabel Cotterell and Violet E. Watkin","identified_edition":"SBC1980","book_title":"The Origin of Suffering the Origin of Evil Illness and Death","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA055/English/SBC1980/19061108p01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row"},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 55/1906-11-08_02/p021"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","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."}}