{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 57/1908-11-14/p021","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"Let us look back a little at the development of human consciousness. The word “development” is used very frequently today, but no other science takes the word “development” as seriously and intensively as Spiritual Science. Human consciousness as it is today has developed from other forms of consciousness. If we go far, far back in the origins of humankind, not in the sense of materialistic science, but as I explained the day before yesterday, we find that human consciousness appears to be more and more different the further back we go. This consciousness, which links the various concepts of the intellect and the external sensory perceptions in the familiar way, only came into being in the distant past, but it did come into being. We can find a state of consciousness in that time that was very different from today, because memory in particular was very different. What humans have today as memory is only a degraded remnant of an ancient soul power that existed in a completely different way. In ancient times, when humans did not yet have the combinatory power of their present intellect, when they were not yet able to calculate and count in the present sense, when they had not yet developed their intellectual logic, they had another power of the soul: they had developed a universal memory. This had to diminish, had to recede, so that our present intellect could develop at its expense. This is the course of development in general, that one power recedes into the background so that another can emerge. Memory is a diminishing power, intellect and reason are increasing soul powers.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"The Bible and Wisdom II","site_heading":null,"date":"1908-11-14","location":null,"word_count":271,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/57/1908-11-14/p021","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"eLib2014","book_title":"Where and How Does One Find the Spirit?","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/eLib2014/19081114p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"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/57/1908-11-14/p021"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/57/1908-11-14/p021","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},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 57/1908-11-14/p021","passage_number":21,"text":"Blicken wir ein wenig zurück in der Entwickelung des menschlichen Bewußtseins. Das Wort Entwickelung braucht man heute sehr häufig, aber so durchgreifend, so intensiv wie die Geisteswissenschaft Ernst macht mit dem Worte Entwickelung, so ist es bei keiner anderen Wissenschaft der Fall. Dieses menschliche Bewußtsein, wie es heute ist, hat sich aus anderen Bewußtseinsformen entwickelt. Wenn wir weit, weit zurückgehen in der Herkunft des Menschen, nicht im Sinne materialistischer Wissenschaft, sondern so, wie ich es vorgestern entwickelt habe, dann finden wir, daß das Menschen-Bewußtsein immer mehr als ein anderes erscheint, je weiter wir zurückgehen. Dieses Bewußtsein, welches die verschiedenen Verstandesbegriffe, die äußeren Sinneswahrnehmungen in der bekannten Art verknüpft, das ist erst entstanden, wenn auch in urferner Vergangenheit, aber es ist erst entstanden. Wir können in jener Zeit einen Zustand des Bewußtseins finden, der ganz anders war als heute, weil besonders das Gedächtnis ganz anders war. Das, was der Mensch heute als Gedächtnis hat, ist nur ein heruntergekommener Rest einer alten Seelenkraft, die in ganz anderer Weise vorhanden war. In alten Zeiten, als der Mensch noch nicht die kombinierende Kraft seines heutigen Verstandes hatte, als er noch nicht imstande war, zu rechnen und zu zählen im heutigen Sinne, als er noch nicht seine Verstandeslogik ausgebildet hatte, da hatte er dafür eine andere Kraft der Seele: er hatte ein universelles Gedächtnis ausgebildet. Dieses mußte abnehmen, mußte zurücktreten, damit auf seine Kosten unser heutiger Verstand zu seiner Entwickelung kommen konnte. So ist überhaupt der Gang der Entwickelung, daß eine Kraft in den Hintergrund tritt, damit die andere auftauchen kann. Das Gedächtnis ist eine abnehmende Kraft, der Verstand und die Vernunft sind zunehmende Seelenkräfte.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":270,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/57/1908-11-14/p021"}],"english":["GA 57/1908-11-14/p021"],"method":"identity","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":270,"en_words":271,"ratio":1.0,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","meaning","audit"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.02,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":8142,"original_word_count":8014,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"eLib2014","book_title":"Where and How Does One Find the Spirit?","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA057/English/eLib2014/19081114p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 57/1908-11-14/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."}}