42. Blood is a Very Special Fluid

GA 68b/1906-11-30/p017 ·1906-11-30 · English HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Da keine professionellen Stenogramme vorliegen, handelt es sich oftmals um notizenhaft festgehaltene Zusammenfassungen oder Berichte.» (Since no professional shorthand transcripts exist, these are often summaries or reports kept in the form of notes.). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 68b). The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.

Man has not had these seven members from the beginning; only gradually have they been developed with the physical body; in the original state, only the predispositions for this physical body are found. Man is an image of the whole cosmos. Cuvier, the important naturalist, says: For the one who studies animal anatomy, the smallest member is an image of the whole body. From the peculiar shape of a bone, he can deduce the shape of the whole body. In each individual there is an image of the whole universe. If a being who is able to see through this were to come to our world from another world and see only a rock crystal, it could deduce from it what the whole world should be like. Each one that can internalize the external becomes a mirror of the whole universe. The human physical body cannot be regarded as a mirror of the universe in itself; it is only through the etheric body that it is internalized, and internalization continues through the etheric body. In the animal, external life is reflected in inner consciousness. In the plant, we do not yet have consciousness. Consciousness does not depend on external stimuli, but is present where external stimuli are reflected internally: in the animal.

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Cite: GA 68b/1906-11-30/p017 · edition English