{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 70b/1915-11-29/p012","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"There are two ways of exercising our soul life in our ordinary lives: one is more in line with the way we imagine and feel, with the way we imagine and feel as human beings; the other is more in line with the way we will as human beings. Feeling is, after all, something between thinking and willing. Today we will try to see how, on the one hand, the human being's imaginative nature can be developed and, on the other, the will, so that through this development the human being can come to a knowledge of the eternal powers of the human soul. The one fundamental power that first appears in its outer form in ordinary soul life is thinking. The way thinking reveals itself in this ordinary life of the soul leads only to a kind of overview of what is given to us through the senses. Spiritual science now seeks — and in doing so it acts entirely in the spirit of the real scientific world view — spiritual science now seeks, just as natural science tries to eavesdrop on nature's secrets through external experiments, to find the way into those spheres where the soul life can reveal its secrets through intimate soul experiments. Ordinary thinking, as it occurs in everyday life, is not sufficient for this; but this thinking is capable of development, is capable of becoming stronger - and this inner strengthening of thinking has also been referred to here several times. The technical term is used to describe what the soul has to do as “meditation” and by that is meant the inwardly evoked, particularly strong thought processes, which in ordinary life do not proceed in this sought-after way, but differently. In ordinary life, we use thinking to create images of our sensory environment and of what happens within human life that can be perceived from the outside, which we can take in as imagination. This is important for ordinary life. Now, by taking an intimate look at the inner life of the soul, by making it its business to pursue the soul life as the natural scientist pursues nature in the experiment, spiritual science discovers that thinking has a completely different side. Perhaps I can make this other side of the human mind more understandable by saying, by way of comparison, that when a person works with his hands, he does this or that; the result of the work of the hand is then there, can be seen externally. If a person works with his hand continually, he not only does this, which is visible externally, but we know that when he works in this way, he changes the inner strength of the hand itself; the hand becomes stronger and more skillful, is brought into a certain direction of its activity. Something is achieved by the hand itself. I would say that this runs parallel to the activity of what is externally visible: a perfection of the handling, in addition to the results achieved by the work! It is the same with human thinking. Human thinking, as it unfolds, gives rise to thoughts about what is in the surrounding environment or elsewhere in the course of the world. These thoughts are the main thing at first, just as the external results are for manual labor; but as it is carried out, it strengthens itself within, it is something that undergoes a certain development within itself. Of course, we look at the development in the hand; but we do not really look at the intimate inner development that thinking undergoes in thinking.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"4. The Eternal Forces of the Human Soul in the Light of Spiritual Science","site_heading":null,"date":"1915-11-29","location":null,"word_count":598,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/70b/1915-11-29/p012","alignment_confidence":"medium","alignment_reason":"beads:identity","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"Ways to a Knowledge of the Eternal Forces of the Human Soul","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA070b/English/SOL2024/19151129p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"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/70b/1915-11-29/p012"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/70b/1915-11-29/p012","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":"1915-11-29","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 70b/1915-11-29/p012","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/70b/1915-11-29/p012"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","meaning","audit"],"length_check":{"de_words":588,"en_words":598,"ratio":1.02,"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 70b/1915-11-29/p012","passage_number":12,"text":"Zweierlei sind nun die Betätigungen des Seelenlebens in unserem gewöhnlichen Leben: Die eine Art ist diejenige, die sich mehr nach dem Vorstellungsgemäßen und Empfindungsgemäßen, nach dem vorstellenden und fühlenden Wesen des Menschen hin zeigt; und die andere ist diejenige, die sich mehr nach der Willensnatur des Menschen hin zeigt. Das Fühlen steht ja zwischen drinnen zwischen dem Denken und Wollen. Wir werden heute versuchen zu betrachten, wie entwickelt werden kann auf der einen Seite das vorstellende Wesen des Menschen, auf der anderen das wollende, damit der Mensch durch diese Entwicklung zu einer Wissenschaft kommen kann von den ewigen Kräften der Menschenseele. Die eine Grundkraft, die zunächst in ihrer äußeren Form im gewöhnlichen Seelenleben auftritt, ist das Denken. So, wie das Denken in diesem gewöhnlichen Seelenleben sich offenbart, so führt es nur zu einer Art Überschau über das, was uns eben durch die Sinne gegeben ist. Geisteswissenschaft sucht nun —- und dadurch handelt sie ganz im Sinne der wirklichen naturwissenschaftlichen Weltanschauung -, Geisteswissenschaft sucht nun, gerade wie Naturwissenschaft durch das äußere Experiment der Natur ihre Geheimnisse abzulauschen versucht, durch intime seelische Experimente den Weg zu finden in diejenigen Sphären, wo das Seelenleben seine Geheimnisse zu enthüllen vermag. Das gewöhnliche Denken, so wie es im Alltag auftritt, reicht dazu nicht hin; aber dieses Denken ist einer Entwicklung fähig, ist einer Erkraftung fähig - und auch auf diese innere Erkraftung des Denkens ist hier schon öfter hingewiesen worden. Man bezeichnet mit dem - ich möchte sagen - technischen Ausdruck das, was da die Seele zu tun hat, als «Meditieren» oder «Meditation» und meint damit innerlich hervorgerufene besonders starke Denkvorgänge, die im gewöhnlichen Leben nicht in dieser also gesuchten Art ablaufen, sondern anders. In dem gewöhnlichen Leben verwenden wir das Denken dazu, um uns durch die Gedanken Bilder zu machen von unserer sinnlichen Umgebung und dem, was innerhalb des menschlichen Lebens als von außen wahrnehmbar abläuft, was wir hereinnehmen können als Vorstellen. Das ist für das gewöhnliche Leben wichtig. Nun entdeckt die Geisteswissenschaft, indem sie innerlich intim Umschau hält im Seelenleben, indem sie es sich zur Aufgabe macht das Seelenleben so zu verfolgen, wie der Naturforscher die Natur im Experiment, man findet, dass dieses Denken noch eine ganz andere Seite hat. Verständlich machen kann ich mich vielleicht über diese andere Seite des denkerischen Lebens des Menschen dadurch, dass ich vergleichsweise sage: Wenn der Mensch mit der Hand arbeitet, dann verrichtet er dieses oder jenes; das Ergebnis der Arbeit der Hand ist dann da, ist äußerlich zu sehen. Wenn der Mensch fortwährend mit seiner Hand arbeitet, so verrichtet er nicht nur dieses, was äußerlich abläuft, sondern wir wissen es: Wenn er so arbeitet, verändert er die innere Erkräftigung der Hand selber; die Hand wird stärker und geschicklicher, wird in eine gewisse Richtung ihrer Betätigung gebracht. Es wird an der Hand selber etwas geleistet. Das läuft - ich möchte sagen — in die Betätigung desjenigen, was da äußerlich sichtbar ist, nebenher: eine Vervollkommnung der Hantierung neben den Ergebnissen, die durch die Arbeit erreicht werden! So auch ist es mit dem menschlichen Denken. Das menschliche Denken, indem es verläuft, macht Gedanken über das, was in der Umgebung oder sonst im Weltenverlauf ist. Diese Gedanken sind zunächst die Hauptsache, so wie für die Handarbeit die äußeren Ergebnisse; aber indem es ausgeführt wird, erkraftet es sich im Innern, ist es etwas, was in sich eine gewisse Entwicklung durchmacht. Gewiss, bei der Hand sehen wir auf die Entwicklung; aber auf jene intime innere Entwicklung, welche das Denken erlebt in dem Denken, auf diese wird in Wirklichkeit nicht gesehen.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":588,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/70b/1915-11-29/p012"}],"english":["GA 70b/1915-11-29/p012"],"method":"identity","confidence":"medium","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":588,"en_words":598,"ratio":1.02,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","meaning","audit"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.03,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":10675,"original_word_count":10361,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"Ways to a Knowledge of the Eternal Forces of the Human Soul","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA070b/English/SOL2024/19151129p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 70b/1915-11-29/p012"],"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."}}