The Shaping of the Human Form out of Cosmic and Earthly Forces
RUDOLF STEINER
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Lecture given at Dornach, 26 November 1920.
Translation revised by C. D. from a shorthand
report unrevised by the lecturer. The original German
text is included in the volume of the Complete Edition of
the works of Rudolf Steiner, entitled: Die
Brücke zwischen der Weltgeistigkeit and dem
Physischen des Menschen. (Bibl. No. 202).
This English translation of the following lecture is published
by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung,
Dornach, Switzerland.
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I have often spoken of how man's bodily
form is an expression of the course of his entire life.
Anyone who understands the human head in the right way can
recognise that the special moulding, the special formation of
the head is connected with former lives which have been
passed through by the human being before he descended to his
present life on Earth. And when we consider the
limb-organisation, extending it — naturally to cover
the organs associated with the limbs, then we have something
which, after certain metamorphoses, will underlie the
formation beyond death of the future human head. At the same
time, however, the human form points to man's connection with
the Cosmos. As the human being stands before us today, we can
certainly say that the particular formation of his head is a
metamorphosis of his previous limb-formation. But the fact of
his having any such formation of the head as the one he
carries around is the result of his cosmic experiences before
he set foot on the Earth. In essentials, the head-formation
is an outcome of the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions; whereas
the limb-man is a starting-point for the Jupiter, Venus and
Vulcan evolutions. It is only the breast-man, embracing all
that belongs to the present rhythmical system, who is the
real man of the Earth. Thus we can say: What we have before
us in the human head is formed out of the three preceding
planetary embodiments of the Earth; and the starting-point
for its subsequent embodiments is all that underlies man's
limbs today. As a man goes through life between death and
rebirth, he is repeating spiritually his experiences during
the ages of Saturn, Sun, Moon. He takes his organism back
from its earthly form to what it was as Saturn organism, Sun
organism, Moon organism. Similarly; his limb-organism, as
fashioned on Earth, will be further organised physically,
will go through reorganisation, during the embodiments of
Earth as Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan.
These things
have, therefore, a human earthly aspect and also a cosmic
one. Hence we can study the formation of the human head while
keeping in mind the relation of man's essential being to the
Cosmos. Now what came about during the Saturn-evolution and
the Sun-evolution is certainly rather remote from our study
of man; and so we are less able to form an opinion of it from
our earthly point of view. On the other hand we can form a
vivid idea of what took place during the old Moon-evolution,
for this is to a certain extent repeated in the interaction
between the Earth and the present Moon, and we can therefore
study the human head in relation to that. We then come to
certain secrets concerning the formation of the human
organism.
Let us imagine
— in the form of a diagram — a man standing on
the Earth; he is thus not in the centre of the Earth but
distant from it by the length of the Earth's radius. And if
we draw the human head diagrammatically we can say: As the
Moon moves round the Earth, it moves also round man's head.
Naturally this is expressed diagrammatically and not in the
correct proportions.
Now let us
assume the Moon, as full Moon, to be here; then the light it
is always said to reflect from the Sun will stream to the
man. In this way the light of the Sun has an effect upon the
man — and when I speak here of the ‘man’ I
am always referring to the human head. On the opposite side
we have the new Moon, and no light then reaches the man, who
on this side is, as it were, left to himself. Less demand is
made upon him by the stimulation of the light from outside;
hence he is left more to his own inner development. And if
you put the first quarter here and the last quarter there
— the waxing Moon and the waning Moon — then from
these two directions less stimulation is exercised by the
light upon the man than from the direction of the full Moon
and more than from that of the new Moon. Moreover in its
course round the Earth the Moon travels through the Zodiac.
Because of this the light is modified in a certain way
— I might perhaps say differentiated, for the moonlight
becomes different according to whether it comes from a
position behind which there is, for example, the Ram, or from
one behind which the Virgin stands. The moonlight is
therefore differentiated in accordance with the sign of the
Zodiac through which the Moon is passing.
Now imagine
the diagram in relation to a relevant point in human
development: imagine, that is, that through some course of
events there establishes itself in the mother's body the
spirit-germ of a human being, coming straight from his
development between death and rebirth. During this time the
Moon is working on the embryo. Then, you have, as a result of
the Moon working in from the Cosmos — in connection
naturally with other cosmic bodies — the configuration
of the human head in the body of the mother. The
configuration of the human head is altogether the work of
the Moon.
Perhaps you
will say, quite rightly : But surely we have not to assume
that it is always the full Moon which sheds its rays on eyes
or nose, and that the back of the head, which should depend
on inner development and not on the external world, is always
exposed to the influence of the new Moon? It is true that
this is not unconditionally so. In essentials, however, the
full Moon is active on some part of the face, whereas the
activity of the new Moon is concentrated on the back of the
head. In the body of the mother, too, the child has a special
position in relation to the Cosmos. According to how the Moon
sheds its rays more or less obliquely on that part of the
embryo destined to become the face, the human being will have
certain of those gifts bestowed upon him which depend upon
the head. He will have different gifts, physically, if the
bright moonlight sheds its beams on his mouth rather than
upon his eyes. This is connected with a person's talents, in
so far as they depend on the Cosmos. But the essential thing
to be borne in mind today is that during the embryonic
development of the human being the chief influences
proceeding from the Moon are those that give form to the
human ovum, starting with the formation of the head. For in
the human being the head is the first thing to take shape.
This is brought about by the Moon —that is, by the
movement and activity remaining over from the old Moon and
from the other previous embodiments of the Earth. You see
here how the head is cosmically connected with the external
world; how during the development of the embryo the human
being is caught up in that cosmic condition to which the tone
is given essentially by the Moon and its activity. This comes
about through the movement made by the Moon, through the
encirclement of the head by the Moon, which occurs ten times
during the human being's embryonic development. Thus the Moon
first passes by and works upon the formation of the human
face — leaving it then in peace to continue its
growing. During this period the Moon retires. When the
formation of the face has been in abeyance for some time, the
Moon re-appears and gives it a fresh impetus. It does this
ten times. And during these ten lunar months the human head
is formed rhythmically out of the Cosmos. Thus the human
being waits for ten times twenty-eight days in the mother's
body, under the influence of cosmic forces mediated through
the moon.
Now what really
happens here? As a being of soul and spirit a man descends to
the personality he has chosen out of the whole Cosmos to be
his mother. And from that time the Moon takes over the
formation of his head. Were he to remain within the mother's
body for twelve lunar months, a quite self-enclosed, circular
formation would result. But he remains there for only ten
lunar months. Hence something of his development is left
incomplete, and after birth all that works in out of the
Cosmos is occupied with this. Thus, before birth,
ten-twelfths of the cosmic forces work upon the forming of
the human head, the remaining two-twelfths being left over
for the formative work which continues outside the mother's
body — though it actually begins during the embryonic
period. In addition to the cosmic forces there are others,
and these come from the Earth itself: they do not work on the
head but on the limb-system.
If you imagine this, here, to be the Earth
(diagram) and this to be a diagram of man's limb-system, then
the forces which in the limbs continue their activity
inwardly are essentially earthly, telluric. Into arms and
hands, in legs and feet, there play forces of the Earth, and
this process, continued inwardly, becomes metabolism. But
this inward metabolism is outwardly an interchange of forces.
When you move your arm or your leg the movement is not
simple; it has to do with the forces of the Earth. When you
move your legs in walking you have always to overcome the
force of gravity, and what happens results from the interplay
between these forces of gravity and the forces working
inwardly.
Whereas in
metabolism these inward forces enter into interplay with the
chemical properties of the Earth-substance, there is an
interchange between the forces in arms and legs and the
forces of the Earth. These activities are connected with
temporal conditions different from those prevailing in the
mother's womb. In the mother's body we have ten times
twenty-eight days — that is, ten moons or 280 days.
Here we have
to do essentially with the course of the day. Where the
development of the limb-man is concerned we have to do with
the course of the year. We see also how in their earliest
stage the human limbs are developed with a continually
decreasing rapidity. A man needs actually twenty-eight years
for their full development, though this is certainly not so
evident during the final seven years as it is up to the age
of twenty-one. He needs twenty-eight years to develop his
limb-system outside his mother's body, though it is within
the mother's body that the development begins.
Just as the
man of head is connected with the past and is able to come
into being because the relation of the Moon to the Earth
recapitulates the past evolutions of Saturn, Sun, Moon, so is
the limb-man connected with the Earth, but actually with the
preparation for the transformations of Earth into Jupiter,
Venus, Vulcan. Hence a human being cannot form his head
directly on the Earth, for over this the Earth has no power.
It is only because he brings with him the forces from before
birth, before conception, and is then sheltered within the
mother's body from his earthly environment, with the Cosmos
working upon him by way of the Moon — only because of
all this can the head come into being as a higher
metamorphosis of the limb-man of the previous incarnation.
The man of the limb-system, arising as he does under the
influence of the Earth, cannot come to completion; he can do
nothing for the head. During Earth-evolution he is incapable
of what he will be able to do during the Venus-evolution.
Just as the stag casts his antlers, the human being will then
dispense with his head, and out of the rest of himself
develop a different one — certainly an enviable lot for
the Venus-man! But this is what actually appears to spiritual
vision as the future condition of the human being. Things
that are part of reality appear grotesque compared with those
having earthly limitations, but reality far outstrips what is
accessible to our narrow earthly understanding. We must face
the fact that our earthly power of observation gives us
merely part of reality, and that when we observe only earthly
conditions we really know nothing of the human being.
Thus in man we
have a cosmic being who, it is true, is formed for the main
part in the body of the mother; and we have an Earth-being
who is formed, configured, differentiated, under the
influence of earthly conditions, while the Sun apparently
takes its course round the Earth, passing the constellations
of the Zodiac on its way. Hence you will recognise in the
human being two contrasting conditions, one of a cosmic
nature, the other earthly. The cosmic nature works in such a
way that the human being would receive from the Cosmos a head
that was perfectly round. The face is formed by the sunlight
shining upon it by way of the Moon, and when the Sun turns
its light away, the basis for the back of the head is
created. The spherical form that would have been imparted by
the Cosmos is differentiated. Were the kindly Moon not there
to give shape to the human head, a human being would be born
as an undifferentiated sphere. On the other hand, because the
mother is on the Earth, the Earth itself has its effect. The
reason why the human being as embryo does not develop only a
head is that the Earth is already at work during the time
when the head is being given its form. Were he to be subject
to the working of the Earth alone, however, and the Cosmos
were to have no effect, he would be just a pillar. The human
being is at the mercy of these two tendencies — either
of being made a pillar, a radius, by the Earth, or of
receiving a spherical form from the Cosmos. Circle and radius
actually underlie the forming of a human being. The fact that
he is not a pillar, that he is not born with feet joined
together, with hands joined together, is due to the course of
the year being involved, due to winter and summer working in
spiritually, indicating the various cosmic relations between
the Earth and its surroundings. The difference between winter
and summer is like the difference between the new Moon and
the full. Just as new Moon and full Moon, in their different
ways, determine the nature of the face and of the back of the
head, so do those cosmic forces coming to expression in
winter and summer, spring and autumn, determine the
configuration of our limb-system, so that we have two legs
and are not just a pillar. In order that in our head we
should not be entirely cosmic, but cosmic toned down by the
earthly, and in order that our limb-system should not be
entirely of the Earth but something earthly moderated by the
cosmic, the yearly course of the Earth is cosmically
conditioned. We have therefore a cosmic nature influenced by
the earthly and an earthly nature cosmically influenced. Were
we not in our cosmic being influenced by the earthly, as man
we should be a round ball; were we not, as man of the
limb-system, as earthly man, influenced by the Cosmos, we
should be a pillar. This combined working of cosmic and
earthly is expressed in our human form. No-one understands
the human form who has no wish to take into consideration the
interplay of Earth and Cosmos. It is wonderful how the human
being is an expression of the whole world; an expression of
the world of the stars in his form, which is at the same time
an image of those forces that stream from the Earth and have
a conditioning effect upon him. Imagine man's earthly nature
without this cosmic influence: we do not carry this earthly
nature within us but it works in us. As a basic influence it
streams from the centre-point of the Earth, sending its
forces from there. That which makes its appearance in our
human strength, working there also as will, has from ancient
times been called by a word that might be rendered as
‘strength’ or ‘force’.
The formative
influence from the Cosmos, which we have to picture through
in the circle underlying especially the form of our head,
works in our head without coming to full expression because
of being toned down by the earthly element: and this from
olden days has been called ‘beauty’. So we see
that taken as a whole the influences at work in a human being
have a value transcending both the physical and the moral,
for they have a value which embraces both. The strength that
comes from the Earth and works in us as muscular force is
physical and moral at the same time. The beauty shining
around us, the beauty underlying our head, appears in our
head as the beauty of thoughts, and this, too, is related to
both the physical and the moral.
Between these
— between, that is, what we are as earthly beings toned
down by the Cosmos and what we are as cosmic beings toned
down by the earthly — there is the trunk-man. What is
this trunk- or torso-man? He is essentially the rhythmic man
who causes the cosmic to swing down continually towards the
earthly and the earthly to swing up towards the cosmic. We
have circling round in us a continuous stream from the
limb-system and this finds its way to the head through the
breathing, while a stream from the head makes its way through
the breathing to the limb system. So that there is always
this wave movement, this surging to and fro between
limb-system and head. It is brought about by our rhythmic
system, working through the heart and lungs and the
circulation of the blood. How then does the circulation
arise? It comes from the interplay between straight line and
circle, receiving its form from the Zodiac and the planets. A
force proceeding from the head tends to send the blood round
a circular path, while a force from the limb-system tends to
keep it in a straight line. From the interaction of these two
forces there arises in us, under the impetus of breathing,
the particular course followed by the blood. This rhythmical
system is the mediator between the cosmic and the earthly in
man, so that through it is woven a connecting link in him
between the cosmic, or the beautiful, and the strength that
is of the Earth. The link thus woven in the trunk-man,
understood in terms of soul and spirit, has from ancient
times been given the name of ‘wisdom’.
The beauty of
the Cosmos projected into the human being is the wisdom
living in his thoughts. But the moral force coming from the
strength of the Earth by way of heart and soul becomes moral
wisdom. In man's rhythmical system, earthly wisdom and cosmic
wisdom meet. Man is an expression of the whole Cosmos, and
where there is the will to understand this configuration, it
can be understood. In so far as man is formed out of cosmic
mysteries, he is able to see into them, and can even perceive
a certain connection with them in earthly life itself.
Consider the cosmic beauty that works into a man by way of
his head: there you have the feminine contribution; and you
have the male contribution in the force that appears in a
man's earthly strength. You are then able to say: In the act
of fructification a union is consummated between the cosmic
and the terrestrial. There can be no understanding of the
nature of man's task on Earth unless we perceive the
particular way in which he is formed. For then indeed we see
that the head has its form because the earthly forces are at
first unable to work on the human being; you see that he
brings his pre-natal being into the realm of Earth and that
in the mother's body an extra-terrestrial influence works
formatively upon him by way of the Moon. Strength or force
works from the Earth and forms the limb-system without being
able to bring it to completion, so that the limb-system has
to pass through death. For the forces in the limb-system have
to be spiritualised, imbued with soul. Beyond the Earth,
accordingly, between death and a new birth, they develop
further by taking on, in soul-spiritual terms, the form of
the head. It is only with the help of the Jupiter and Venus
forces the head can arise out of the limb-system in this way.
Earthly forces are not the determining factor in a man from
birth to death. Those that worked previously on Saturn, Sun,
Moon have by then become spiritual, and must be developed
spiritually between death and rebirth; and that which lies
beyond death has to be spiritualised also — then the
future can grow out of the past, then man's limb-organisation
can become head. We may therefore say : A man dies so that in
the spiritual world he can become able to bring to expression
the form which, partly toned down by the earthly, can be
expressed by virtue of having gone through the conditions of
Saturn, Sun and Moon. Here on Earth a man can experience as
his limb-system only the earthly nature developed through his
rhythmical system. But in his limb-system he is forming the
future. This cannot be completed; he has to die and become
head again, and the form of his head is prepared at first in
pre-earthly spheres. Thus the form of a human being is
connected with repeated earth-lives. Because physically he is
born as a being who has acquired his form during the
conditions on Saturn, Sun and Moon; because he receives from
the spiritual world his tendency to express in spherical form
his experiences on Saturn, Sun and Moon, his head on Earth
— since it is not of the Earth — is continually
giving him over to death.
These things
which find expression in a man's repeated lives on Earth are
intimately connected with cosmic evolution. It is not true
that the things we have touched upon today, and shall be
going into further tomorrow and the day after, are beyond
human understanding. Human beings can understand them, but
they have to be investigated through Spiritual Science.
Everyone who gives free play to the sound development of
thought can understand them. Yet one is always hearing that
there can be no immediate understanding of
spiritual-scientific matters. if anyone says: ‘These
things have been told to me by a spiritual investigator, but
I cannot look into them for myself’, it is just as if
it were complained that after matriculating a boy could not
cope with the differential calculus. — Everyone can
learn what Spiritual Science has to say, just as anyone can
learn in principle to apply the differential calculus
—though the latter is more difficult than the former.
It is not true that because we are not clairvoyant we cannot
understand these matters. Just as we have no need for
clairvoyance to use the differential calculus, we have no
need of it to see into the cosmic connection with the
external world. We have only to bring sound concepts to bear.
The matter is even the reverse of what is so often said.
Someone, for; example, may say: One man has a certain
conception of the world, another takes a different view : how
can one know which is right? — If you are consistent,
if you follow up everything, taking note of what has been
said, you will find that only one conception is possible. You
cannot argue about beauty, wisdom, strength, and what they
mean. For each has only one meaning. The fact that the
formation of our head has a peripheral character, and that in
the rest of us the element of strength is present in radial
form these things always have the same meaning. There is
nothing here to be discussed, the facts are quite clear. The
difficulty in spreading Spiritual Science lies in this
— that today here and there some society may organise
lectures on Anthroposophy, or perhaps on its social aspect,
the Threefold Commonwealth, and people go to hear the
lectures, afterwards attending others and still others —
without any desire to come to a definite inner decision. They
take the content of Spiritual Science as something on a par
with that of other movements. But with Spiritual Science this
cannot be done though it may be done with other
world-conceptions, one being rather better, another worse.
They all get a hearing; people, as it were, nibble at them.
But that won't do where Spiritual Science is concerned; there
one has to make up one's mind, for it goes to the root of
things. There is need for that strenuous exertion of the will
which leads to decisions; which avoids distractions and is
determined to get down to fundamentals. This will not be
accomplished by veering between one world-conception and
another, nibbling here, nibbling there. Spiritual Science
calls for energy and thoroughness and therefore has against
it the spirit of the times, all the slovenliness and weakness
of the times. It demands a strength and clarity of spirit for
which people today have no liking; they find it disturbing,
uncongenial. In primeval days men came to these things with
instinctive knowledge; and the old documents — which our
scholars study without understanding them — are full of
indications that their wisdom embraced something like these
relationships between man and the Cosmos. Then this faded
away. Humanity relapsed into chaos. But from this chaos man
must rescue himself through his own will-forces; out of this
chaos he must consciously re-discover his connection with the
Cosmos — and he can do it. At the beginning of this
lecture I told you how the head cannot be understood if its
cosmic origin is not taken into account; nor can the limb-man
be understood unless his earthly formation is considered.
Both find their balance in the breast-man, the rhythmical
organisation, which is continually trying to make the
straight circular and the circle into a straight line. When
you look at the bloodstream you have the straight, and the
tendency to make a straight line of the circle, too; how the
course of the blood arises depends on the movement of the
stars, and so on. The form is connected with the
constellations, the movement with the movement of the
planets. This has been referred to from other points of view.
Now what happens to the human heart and soul when knowledge
of this kind is absorbed? We are bound to say that for those
who take it in the right way it becomes as clearly evident as
the truths of mathematics. These are certainly evident though
the higher truths will not be evident to a fifteen-year old
boy; and it is the same with the things we have been
discussing.
On the other
hand these things can have a decisive influence on our
feeling and perceiving. Out of this wisdom there arises a
feeling for the divine. It is only a knowledge that keeps to
the surface of things which can be irreligious, not a
knowledge that goes into them deeply. If we look once more at
man's connection with the Cosmos, in the starry heavens above
all we see beauty as an expression of spiritual entity, and
then we become able to imprint the beauty of things on our
art. Then in art there will not be merely external nature as
seen by the senses, but with this deeply penetrating
knowledge we shall in fact reach what Spiritual Science is.
And we shall then appreciate something I said in the
introductory lecture to this course — how here at the
Goetheanum the unity of science, art and religion is sought.
What is said by the one from whom the Goetheanum has its
name?
He who has art and science too
Will never lack religion;
But he who does not have them both
Then let him have religion!
That means:
Let him have the religion that comes from without; but anyone
who possesses the essentials of science and art has religion
from within — that is Goethe's conviction.
He who has art and science too
Will never lack religion —
hence those who are striving, in the way
referred to, for the unity of religion, art and science, do
well to call their Building the ‘Goetheanum’. But to
comprehend what has arisen here on this foundation is
apparently no task for the superficiality of the age, which
looks condescendingly on everything and merely nibbles at one
thing after another. Spiritual Science calls for decisions
— for decisions that are necessary because the spirit
of this science has the will to penetrate into the depths of
the world. This must be grasped, too, out of the depths of
the human heart.
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