9. Voltaire from the Perspective of Spiritual Science

In the sense of spiritual science, we actually distinguish three structures in the human soul as it has developed up to the present epoch. One might say: the most primitive part of this structure, in which blind passions still have a greater influence and instincts and emotions pulsate, but in which what the perceptions of the physical outer world convey to us also has an effect, is what we call, in the sense of spiritual science, the sentient soul. In contrast to this sentient soul, we then speak of another part of the soul that shows us the human being with greater inner life, showing him to us as he can be grasped once he turns his gaze away from his entire physical surroundings and rises above what reigns within him as more unconscious drives, emotions, and passions. We call this higher part of the human soul the intellectual or mind soul, in which the spiritual life of the human being is already more internalized. And as the highest member of the human soul, as the member in which, above all, self-reflective thinking, the full self-consciousness of the human being, the purest sense of self and self-awareness find expression, we call, in the sense of spiritual science, the consciousness soul. But we do not speak of these three members as abstractions or arbitrarily constructed concepts and ideas: the sentient soul, the intellectual or emotional soul, and the conscious soul; rather, we speak of them in such a way that we see at the same time how, in the course of the historical development of humanity, these three soul members gradually unfold.