XXXVIII. The Transient and the Eternal
GA 90b/1906-01-10/p010
·1906-01-10
·
English
HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Frühe Vortragsreihen und Einzelvorträge für Mitglieder in Berlin 1905–1906 nach ausführlichen und z.T. fragmentarischen Mitschriften.» (Early lecture series and single lectures for members in Berlin 1905-1906, from detailed and in part fragmentary listeners' transcripts.). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 90b); the description calls them "Hörermitschriften", and the served text carries the note-taker's gap marker "[Lücke in der Mitschrift]". The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.
The realization through the eternal core of our being is a different kind of knowledge than that gained through our senses and mind. We therefore distinguish different kinds of human nature, depending on whether the human being is eternal or perishable. Usually, man is perceived as a very unified being. You can see the human being with your eyes, he is perceptible to your senses like a mineral. But even if the anatomist cuts up the corpse, he only experiences what he can see with his eyes and touch with his hands. The human being he observes is no different from inanimate nature on the outside. Physical and chemical processes also take place in his body. This human being is the same as the minerals; somewhat more complicated, but the same as the rest of the physical world in itself.
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