5. Natural Death and Spiritual Life

When I look at a plant, I see a living thing, in which substances revolve and forces are at work. Within that which I have before my eyes in this living thing, the same forces and laws are at work that I explore in physics and chemistry; there is a physicality, a chemistry within it. This physicality, this chemistry, is present within the living thing in a different way than outside of it, but it is only within this living thing that it is inanimate. And it may be possible to see through the particular way in which this non-living manifests itself in the living, but one still remains only with the non-living. And one remains with the non-living even when one studies it up to the point of understanding the human being. The human being carries within himself the forces, the mode of action of dead matter. But precisely because he carries these forces of dead material within him, this means that he always has death and dying within him. Through higher knowledge, one gains insight into the fact that the human being thinks in the ordinary consciousness by carrying this inanimate, this inorganic, this continually equipping him with dying forces. It is significant to see through the fact that man must see that which he recognizes as his highest in physical life as being bound to that which is constantly detaching itself from life, that is, that man can think, that he is constantly detaching the forces of the dead from life.