{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 75/1922-05-11/p054","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"This is the second step. Through it, we first come to recognize our eternal as pre-existing. But with this we also have the possibility to penetrate into what now not only lives in the external world, but what lives and feels, what thus lives out in the living formation of the inner life in such a way that this inner life becomes present to itself in feeling. Only through this do we learn to recognize what lives around us as animalistic. We supplement our knowledge with what we can never attain through an ordinary view, as we have developed it in physics and chemistry. We come to look at what lives in the sentient being as a higher, supersensible reality. We now learn through observation, not through philosophical hypotheses in the modern sense, to actually follow a new, higher world: the world of the spiritual and soul in the sentient physical. But in doing so, we move a step further away from agnosticism. This must exist if we only follow the chemical processes in the sentient living. We must follow these, and it is the great merit of modern natural science that these can be followed, but with that, this natural science must become agnostic. This must find its completion in the fact that precisely now, in free spirituality, one experiences through inspiration that which must be added in order to arrive at the full reality of sentient life. But in this way one achieves something else, of which I would like to give you an example. In this way one comes to recognize that the process that takes place in the human being, for example - it is similar for the animal - that this process is not only an ascending one, but at the same time also a descending one. Only now are we really learning to look at ourselves properly from within; we learn, by ascending to this inspired realization, to know more precisely what is actually going on in our ordinary consciousness. Above all, one learns to recognize that it is not a process of building up, but of breaking down, that our nervous life is essentially a life of breakdown. If our nerves could not be broken down - and of course rebuilt from time to time - we could not develop ordinary thinking. Vital life, when it appears in abundance, is basically a numbing of thought, as it occurs in every sleep. The kind of life that is interspersed with feeling and thinking must, at the same time, carry within it a process of decomposition, I would say a differential dying process.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"6. Agnosticism in Science and Anthroposophy","site_heading":null,"date":"1922-05-11","location":null,"word_count":438,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/75/1922-05-11/p054","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"The Relationship between Anthroposophy and the Natural Sciences","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA075/English/SOL2024/19220511p01.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/75/1922-05-11/p054"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/75/1922-05-11/p054","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":"1922-05-11","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 75/1922-05-11/p053","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/75/1922-05-11/p053"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":421,"en_words":438,"ratio":1.04,"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 75/1922-05-11/p053","passage_number":53,"text":"Das ist also die zweite Stufe. Durch sie gelangen wir zunächst dazu, unser Ewiges als Präexistierendes zu erkennen. Damit aber haben wir auch die Möglichkeit, in das einzudringen, was nun in der Außenwelt nicht bloß lebt, sondern was lebt und empfindet, was also in der lebendigen Gestaltung des Innenlebens sich so auslebt, daß dieses Innenleben sich selbst in der Empfindung gegenwärtig wird. Dadurch lernen wir erst das, was als Tierisches in unserer Umgebung lebt, erkennen. Wir ergänzen unsere Erkenntnis durch das, was wir nimmermehr erreichen können durch eine gewöhnliche Anschauung, wie wir sie ausgebildet haben in der Physik, in der Chemie. Wir gelangen dazu, das anzuschauen, was in dem Empfindenden lebt als ein höheres Übersinnliches. Wir lernen nun durch Anschauung, nicht durch philosophische Hypothesen im heutigen Sinne, tatsächlich eine neue, höhere Welt verfolgen: die Welt des Geistig-Seelischen in dem empfindenden Physischen. Damit aber bewegen wir uns wiederum ein Stück weiter fort vom Agnostizismus. Dieser muß dasein, wenn wir nur die chemischen Prozesse verfolgen in dem empfindenden Lebendigen. Die müssen wir verfolgen, und es ist das große Verdienst der neueren Naturwissenschaft, daß diese verfolgt werden können, aber damit muß diese Naturwissenschaft zum Agnostizismus werden. Dieser muß seine Ergänzung finden, daß man gerade nun in freier Geistigkeit durch die Inspiration dasjenige erfährt, was ergänzt werden muß, um zur vollen Realität des empfindenden Lebens zu gelangen. Dadurch aber erreicht man noch etwas anderes, wovon ich Ihnen ein Beispiel geben möchte. So gelangt man dazu zu erkennen, daß der Prozeß, der sich zum Beispiel in dem Menschlichen abspielt - für das Tierische ist es ähnlich —, daß dieser Prozeß nicht bloß ein aufsteigender, sondern zugleich auch ein absteigender ist. Man lernt eigentlich erst jetzt, sich recht innerlich anzuschauen; man lernt, indem man zu dieser inspirierten Erkenntnis aufsteigt, genauer kennen, was da eigentlich im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein vor sich geht. Da lernt man vor allen Dingen erkennen, daß man es nicht, indem der Denkprozeß des gewöhnlichen - nicht des imaginativen - Bewußtseins vor sich geht, mit einem Aufbauprozeß zu tun hat, sondern mit einem Abbauprozeß, daß also im wesentlichen unser Nervenleben ein Leben im Abbau ist. Könnten nicht unsere Nerven abgebaut werden - und natürlich zwischendurch auch wieder aufgebaut werden -, so könnten wir nicht das gewöhnliche Denken entwikkeln. Das eigentliche, vitale Leben, wenn es im Übermaß erscheint, ist ja im Grunde ein Betäuben des Denkens, wie es bei jedem Schlaf auftritt. Dasjenige Leben, das durchsetzt ist von Empfinden und Denken, das muß zu gleicher Zeit einen Abbauprozeß, ich möchte sagen einen differentialen Sterbeprozeß in sich tragen.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":421,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/75/1922-05-11/p053"}],"english":["GA 75/1922-05-11/p054"],"method":"length","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":421,"en_words":438,"ratio":1.04,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.02,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":16789,"original_word_count":16506,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Steiner Online Library","identified_edition":"SOL2024","book_title":"The Relationship between Anthroposophy and the Natural Sciences","publisher":"Steiner Online Library","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA075/English/SOL2024/19220511p01.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 75/1922-05-11/p053"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","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. 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