{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 61/1912-03-21/p028","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"One of the blessings flowing from Spiritual Science is that it opens out a perspective which does not lead off into vagueness. We have no occasion to complain of looking ahead into empty time. All eternity lies before us. We can see how each link of the whole chain joins on to the next link and we can say to ourselves: You bear in you now the forces acquired in this present life, and with them you are building a future existence when there will be opportunity for you to develop these forces further. Thus, little by little, we experience how real the thought of eternity becomes, how it spreads out before the soul as a vast, everlasting perspective. One of our gains from Spiritual Science is that we no longer ask the abstract question: What is eternity?—nor do we receive a merely abstract answer, for by truly studying human life we see how eternity arises, how each link in the whole is formed, and all abstract considerations are thus driven from the field. The reality then shows—as reality always must—how everything is built up out of single parts, member by member. Thus Spiritual Science points to the nature of man's soul as throwing light upon the nature of eternity and on the way these two are connected.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"The Nature of Eternity","site_heading":null,"date":"1912-03-21","location":null,"word_count":218,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/61/1912-03-21/p028","alignment_confidence":"medium","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"not_established","translator":null,"identified_edition":"eLib2016","book_title":"Human History in the Light of Spiritual Investigation","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA061/English/eLib2016/19120321p01.html","evidence":null,"reason":"no_translator_named","note":"Neither the lecture's own page nor rsarchive's lecture list names a translator for it. No translator is established for this lecture: nothing at the level of the lecture names one. Do not attribute this English to a translator, and do not borrow a credit from another lecture of the volume. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"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/61/1912-03-21/p028"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/61/1912-03-21/p028","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},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1912-03-21","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 61/1912-03-21/p027","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/61/1912-03-21/p027"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":221,"en_words":218,"ratio":0.99,"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 61/1912-03-21/p027","passage_number":27,"text":"Das ist auch eine der Segnungen, welche aus der Geisteswissenschaft kommen, daß einem eine Perspektive gezeigt wird, die nicht irgendwie im Ungewissen endet. Wir brauchen nicht zu sagen: Wir blicken in die leere Zeit hinein, — sondern wir haben vor uns die Perspektive der ganzen Ewigkeit. Wir sehen, wie Kettenglied an Kettenglied sich reiht, und sagen uns: Du trägst in dem gegenwärtigen Leben die Kräfte, welche du dir in diesem Leben erworben hast, dadurch zimmerst du dir ein künftiges Dasein, welches dir Gelegenheit gibt, diese Kräfte wieder neu auszuleben. — Da erleben wir Stück für Stück, wie der Ewigkeitsgedanke Realität wird und sich als weite, ewige Perspektive vor der menschlichen Seele ausbreitet. Das ist die Errungenschaft der Geisteswissenschaft, daß wir nicht bloß in Gedanken fragen: Was ist Ewigkeit? und daß wir auch nicht bloß einen abstrakten Gedanken empfangen, sondern wir sehen durch eine wirkliche, reale Betrachtung des Menschenlebens, wie diese Ewigkeit entsteht, wie Glied für Glied sich aufbaut. Und damit ist jede abstrakte Betrachtung aus dem Felde geschlagen. Die Realität zeigt uns, was immer in der Realität gezeigt werden muß, wie alles sich aufbaut aus den einzelnen Stücken, aus den einzelnen Gliedern. So zeigt uns die Geisteswissenschaft, wie sich die Ewigkeit aus dem Wesen der menschlichen Seele erklären läßt, und wie der Zusammenhang ist der Menschenseele mit dem Wesen der Ewigkeit.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":221,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/61/1912-03-21/p027"}],"english":["GA 61/1912-03-21/p028"],"method":"length","confidence":"medium","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":221,"en_words":218,"ratio":0.99,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":0.9,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":8000,"original_word_count":8902,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"not_established","translator":null,"identified_edition":"eLib2016","book_title":"Human History in the Light of Spiritual Investigation","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA061/English/eLib2016/19120321p01.html","evidence":null,"reason":"no_translator_named","note":"Neither the lecture's own page nor rsarchive's lecture list names a translator for it. No translator is established for this lecture: nothing at the level of the lecture names one. Do not attribute this English to a translator, and do not borrow a credit from another lecture of the volume. Cite the German for anything load-bearing.","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 61/1912-03-21/p027"],"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."}}