10. The Essence of the Human Being
GA 68d/1907-07-02/p020
·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.
The physical body is the part of human nature that shares the same substances as the entire inanimate, mineral world. All substances in the environment, all metals in the earth contain the same substances as this body. Nevertheless, it differs from the so-called inanimate beings. It has the same substances in itself, but it would disintegrate into itself if it were not for a certain complication, another principle, another link that holds it together. A rock crystal exists in itself. The physical human body cannot do that.
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