10. The Essence of the Human Being

GA 68d/1907-07-02/p015 ·1907-07-02 · English HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: mixed sources. This volume draws on more than one kind of record (transcripts, notes, documents). Check the volume's own front matter before weighing a single passage. Evidence: «Vorträge aus den Jahren 1905 bis 1909 in Form von ausführlichen Mitschriften, Zuhörernotizen und Zeitungsreferaten» (Lectures from the years 1905 to 1909 in the form of detailed transcripts, listeners' notes and newspaper reports). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 68d). The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.

A human being first appears to the external senses of human beings. We can touch them, see them, hear them, and understand what they say; they are perceptible to the external senses. The mind can combine all of this; the anatomist can explore the inside of a human being. From all this, we can form an idea of what a human being is. Basically, there is no great difference between what can be seen and felt in a person and what an anatomist or physiologist finds when they dissect a person. We understand all of this together as what we can know about a person. Some say: There is nothing else about a person but what the senses can perceive and what science can research. Others say: There is indeed much more, but we cannot explore it, we must limit ourselves to the sensual facts. But spiritual science does not say that; for her, all this is only a part of the human being. The physical human body is for her only a part of the very complicated human being.

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Cite: GA 68d/1907-07-02/p015 · edition English