15. Spiritual Science, Natural Science and Technology

When we observe a child as it grows up until the change of teeth around the seventh year, we notice that not only does the change of teeth take place, but that the configuration of the soul and spirit also undergoes a significant change. If you now think back over your own life, even if you are not yet conducting methodical research, you will find that the sharply contoured thoughts that then solidify into memories and reproduce themselves in the course of life, that these sharply can only be formed out of the power of thought at the time when the organism drives out what are called second teeth - it is something that comes from the whole organism, not just from the jaw. If one pursues this methodically, one comes to say to oneself: Just as, for example, in physical processes, some kind of force, such as mechanical force, can be transformed into heat and one then says: heat is released, heat appears, so in the human course of life one has to observe what is released in the organism – we have completely lost the expression for this – in the change of teeth, and what is then released when the change of teeth gradually takes place, what then passes from the latent state to the free state, what initially only worked internally. The second teeth have appeared; a certain connection of forces is at work, a system of forces within, until these second teeth emerge. Then this interrelatedness of forces is released, and in its release it appears as that spiritual-soul element which then gives the sharply contoured thoughts of memory.