I. Free Will, Immortality

GA 71b/1918-04-24/p045 ·1918-04-24 · English LowLow alignmentMost translators re-paragraphed Steiner substantially. The locus identifies the same chapter or section, but paragraph-N to paragraph-N mapping is loose. For exact-quotation precision, compare with the German.
Record: unknown. 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.

Everything we experience outwardly concerning the human being is in the first instance, material. We come to know the real mysteries of this when we are in the position of being able to immerse ourselves in this material manifestation. Then in applying the idea of evolution as held by modern science we find that it only explains the middle of the three parts, the breast region. The human being considered from the aspect of his head organism cannot be explained by this idea of evolution. Why should this be?—Because the head of man not only undergoes a forward evolution, but within this forward evolution it also evolves in the opposite direction, a retrogressive evolution. The head, instead of building up, reduces, takes something away from the straightforward course of evolution, does not stop when the impetus of evolution comes to an end, but then ossifies more than the rest of the organism. We can see in this peculiar ossification of the head a trivial outer expression of the fact that anatomically the brain is strangely undifferentiated, a fact that the findings of modern science also point to—modern science and the science of spirit point to the same fact. Looking at the human being as a head organism, we are not concerned with one straight line of evolution, but with a development that at one time moves forward, then stops and becomes retrogressive.

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Cite: GA 71b/1918-04-24/p045 · edition English