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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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Man: Hieroglyph of the Universe
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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Man: Hieroglyph of the Universe
Schmidt Number: S-4087
On-line since: 17th July, 2002
We have seen that we must search for a harmony between the processes
taking place in and with Man, and the processes that take place in the
outer Universe. Let us once again recall briefly the point whither our
study of yesterday led us. We said that Man had to be regarded, to
begin with, from four points of view. Firstly, from the standpoint of
the forces which are responsible for his form; secondly from that
which comprises all the forces expressing themselves in the
circulation of the blood, lymph, etc., in short the forces of internal
motion. (You already know that the formative forces are to a large
extent in a state of rest in the fully grown man, whereas the inner
motion is in a state of continual flow.) Thirdly, we have the organic
forces, and fourthly, the actual metabolism.
To begin with we must consider all that has connection with the
formative forces. These are the forces which work outward from within
until they reach the outermost periphery, the limits of man's
circumference. If we formed a silhouette of man, seen as it were from
all sides, we should comprehend and enclose the outermost extremities
of the activities resulting from these inner forces, which build from
within outwards.
Now it should not be difficult to understand that these forces of
formation must be connected with other forces, which, like them,
belong to the periphery of man, and are to be discovered there. These
latter are the forces having their activities in the senses. The
senses of man lie, as you know, upon the periphery. They are of course
distributed over it and differentiated, but in order to come into
contact with the forces acting in the senses you must look for them at
the periphery, and this justifies us in saying that the formative
forces must have a connection with the activity of the senses.
We shall perhaps understand this point better if we remember the words
that Goethe quotes as having been uttered by one of the old mystics.
“Were the eye not Sun-like in itself,
How could we see the Sun?”
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Now it cannot be the light-activity surrounding us all the time that
is meant when the eye is said to be sun-like or light-like, for this
light-activity can be perceived by the eye only when the eye is
completely formed. It cannot therefore be this that is meant, when we
are speaking of the building up of the eye. We must imagine this
light-activity as something intrinsically different. And it is a fact
that we arrive at a certain conception of what underlies this saying,
if we follow man during the time between death and a new birth. For
during this period his experiences consist in part — but of
course, only in part — in a perception of the gradual
transformation of the forces within him from the preceding physical
life to the new one; and he perceives how the limb-man is transformed
in the time between death and a new birth into the head-form. These
experiences are no less rich in content than are those experiences we
live through in this life, when we watch the gradual quickening of the
plants in Spring and their decay in Autumn, etc.
All this building up that goes on in man in the time between death and
re-birth is a great wealth of events, a wealth of real happenings
which are by no means so easy to grasp as the mere abstract idea of
them. All that takes place during this time to effect the
transformation of the forces of the limb-man into those of the head
for the new incarnation, is extraordinarily manifold. Man himself
partakes in the process. He experiences for instance, something akin
to the building up of the eye. But he does not experience it in
the same manner as he did during the long evolutionary period, when he
passed through the various evolutionary stages preceding our Earth,
namely, those of Moon, Sun and Saturn. The forces of the Stellar
Universe then acted upon him in a different way. This Stellar Universe
was also in a different form from what it is now.
It is of great importance to form clear ideas on these matters. If we
consider our present perceptions of what is around us, what are they?
They are really pictures. Behind these pictures, of course, lies the
real world; but it is the world that lies behind these pictures, which
actually built up man before he had evolved sufficiently to be able to
perceive these pictures. Today we perceive with our eyes the pictures
of the surrounding world. Behind these lies that which has built up
our eyes. This brings us to the truth: Had not the forces residing
behind the picture of the Sun constructed the eye, the eye could not
perceive the picture of the Sun.
The saying, you see, has to be modified, for while the perception of
light today gives pictures, yet what first built up the organs into
the periphery of man were not pictures, but realities. So that
when we look around us in this world, what we perceive are really the
forces that have built us up — our own formative forces. They
have now drawn into us; that which acted from without up to the Earth
period, now works from within.
We will retain this thought for our succeeding studies and will now
bring together the first and fourth of these forces.
- Forces of Form.
- Forces of Inner Movements.
- Organic Forces.
- Assimilative, or metabolic forces.
Let us, for the moment, consider the last named. The process of
metabolism has already become in some degree irregular; but there are
natural causes which still lead Man to hold to a certain regularity in
this respect; and you all know that he is inconvenienced if, for some
reason or other, he fails in the rhythmic process of assimilation. He
can deviate from it within limits, but he always endeavours to return
again to a certain rhythm; and you know that this rhythm is one of the
first essentials of physical health. It is a rhythm that embraces day
and night. Within 24 hours the rhythmic process of metabolism is
completed. Twenty-four hours after breakfast you again have an
appetite for breakfast. All that is connected with assimilation is
connected also with the day's course. I would now ask you to compare
the solidity, the firmness of the bodily periphery with the mobility
of the forces of assimilation. One can say that no alterations take
place in the former, while assimilation repeats itself every 24 hours.
A great deal takes place inside your organism, but your periphery
remains unchanged. Now try to discover, in the outer world, something
corresponding with this inner mobility in relation to firmness, that
you find in Man. Look at the Universe of Stars. Note how the
constellations move as little as do the particles on the surface of
the human periphery. You will find that the constellation of Aries is
always at a fixed distance from the constellation of Taurus, just as
your two eyes remain at the same distance from one another. But
apparently this whole stellar heaven moves; apparently it
revolves around the Earth. Well, in respect of this, men are today no
longer ignorant, they know that the movement is merely apparent, and
ascribe its appearance to a revolution of the Earth upon her own axis.
Many have been the attempts to find proof for this revolution of the
Earth on her axis. It was really only during the fifties of the last
century that man began to have the right to speak of such a
revolution, for it was only then that the pendulum experiments of
Foucault showed this turning of the Earth. I will not go into this
further today. We have however, in this way, valid proof of this
terrestrial process, which repeats itself every 24 hours. It
represents, in relation to the fixed constellations, the analogy of
the rhythmic course of metabolism in man as compared to the fixed
nature of his peripheric form; and here you can find, if you examine
thoroughly all the conditions and relationships, exact evidence for
the movement of the Earth in the processes of metabolism in man.
In these times we come across various so-called theories of relativity
which claim that we cannot really speak of absolute motion. If I look
out of the window of a railway carriage and think that the objects
outside are moving, in reality it is the train and myself that are
moving. Neither however can it be strictly proved that the world
outside is not also moving in an opposite direction! All this kind of
talk is, as a matter of fact, not of much value. For if one man walks
forward and another man stands still in the distance while he
approaches him it is, relatively speaking, immaterial whether
he says: “I approach him” or “he approaches me”.
Looked at in this way there seems to be no difference. Such
considerations as this form, as you know, the foundations of the
Einstein theories of relativity.
It is all very well — but there is a way whereby one can strictly
prove the motion, for the person who remains at rest will not
experience fatigue, whereas the one who walks will do so. By means of
inner processes the absolute reality of motion can thus be proved;
indeed there are no other proofs but the inner processes. Applying
this to the Earth, we can truly speak there too of absolute motion,
for through Spiritual Science we learn to realise that this motion is
the equivalent of the inner motion of metabolism as compared with the
fixed form of man. We should not lay so much stress upon the fact that
the Earth rotates round its axis and thereby brings about an apparent
Solar motion in space, but should instead relate this terrestrial
motion to the whole Starry Universe; we should not speak of Sun days,
but rather of Star days — which are not synonymous, for the
Stellar day is shorter than the Solar day. A correction is always
necessary in formulae dealing with the Solar day. Hence we can truly
speak of this movement of the Earth on her axis as of something
derivable from Man's nature; for as already pointed out, with the
revolution considered in its relation to the fixed starry heavens is
connected the inner motion of metabolism in Man. To sum up, the
relation of metabolism in Man to the forces responsible for the form
of Man is the relation of the Earth to the Heaven of Fixed Stars,
which latter is represented for us by the Zodiac.
When we look at the Zodiac, it forms for us the outer cosmic
representative of our own outer form. When we consider the Earth, we
have before us the representative of the assimilative forces within
us; and the relation of movement in each case corresponds.
Now it will be a little more difficult to find the relationship
between (2) and (3), between Inner Movements and Organic Forces. We
can however make the matter comprehensible in the following way. If
you consider the movements within the human organism, you will readily
conclude that they are something in Man that is in no way so fixed as
his outer periphery. They are in motion. But something further is
connected with this movement. The movements include that of the blood
as well as the nerve-fluid, lymph, etc. We need not give a detailed
list of them here, but there are seven of these inner movements.
Connected with these movements are the individual organs. The forces
of motion have produced, within their courses, these organs; in the
latter we must recognise the results of these motions. I have often
drawn attention recently to the real truth concerning the human heart.
The materialistic view of the world, as I have pointed out, is of
opinion that the heart is a kind of pump, forcing the blood through
the whole body. But this is not the case; on the contrary, the
pulsation of the heart is not the cause but the effect of
circulation. Into the living inner motions or movements is inserted
the functioning of the organs.
If we try to discover a cosmic equivalent for this, we will find it by
observing, on the one hand, the movements of the Planets, especially
if we consider their motions in relation to the movements of the moon.
You will know — having already had this explanation in previous
lectures — the connection between the lunar motion and the
phenomena of the tides; and much more besides is connected with this
lunar motion. Were we to study the phenomena of Nature more deeply, we
should find that not only does light appear as a result of the
sunrise, but other — and indeed more material — effects in
our Earth-environment are to be connected with the planetary motion.
When once this is made the basis of real, genuine study, we shall
realise the harmony existing between many phenomena on the Earth and
the motions of the planets. We shall study the effects of the
planetary influence upon air, water and earth, in the same way as we
have to study — in the human body — the influences upon
their respective organs of the forces of inner movement existing in
the circulation of the blood and in other circulations. In this way we
shall discover a certain reciprocal action between the organic
activities and the forces of inner movement. Just as we have already
observed a correspondence between Earth and the Fixed Stars, so now we
shall in fact have before us a similar correspondence between earth,
water, air, fire (heat) and the planets — among which we reckon,
of course, the Sun.
Thus we arrive at a certain relation between occurrences within the
human organism and those taking place outside in the Macrocosm. For
the present, however, we need concern ourselves only with the organic
forces. How are they built up in the human body? They are built up in
such a manner that as we follow the human life during the periods of
this building-up process of the organs, we may recognise with a fair
degree of accuracy that the process is related to the course of the
year as metabolism is related to the course of the day. Observe how
this building process takes place in the child, commencing at
conception and proceeding until he first ‘sees the light of the
world’ as it is beautifully expressed. After this, and especially
during the first months after birth, the building-up process proceeds
still further; so that, in very fact, we have here to do with a year's
course. Then we have another period of about one year to the
appearance of the first teeth. Thus, in the building process of the
organs we have a yearly course. But this course stands in a similar
relation to the forces of inner movement in Man as the varied
conditions of the year's activity — Spring, Summer, Autumn and
Winter — do to the planets. Here again we discover something in
Man that has correspondences in the Macrocosm. We cannot study these
matters in any other way than by comparing details with each other.
All I can do today is to draw your attention to certain facts that
bear upon this subject, for were we to examine the connections in
detail it would take us too long; but by studying certain
relationships in Man during the actual building process of the organs,
and seeing them in connection with the forces of inner movement, you
can find everywhere analogies of that which takes place in the
quarterly changes in the Seasons, as seen in their relationship to the
forces of planetary motion. But we must avoid commencing our
examination upon the basis of the heart being a pump; on the contrary,
the heart must be viewed as a creation of the circulation of the
blood. We must, so to speak, insert the heart into a living
blood-circulation. The movement of the Sun too must be thought of as
similarly inserted into the movements of the Planets. An unbiased
examination of the intra-human conditions compels us to speak of a
revolution of the Earth on her axis causing an apparent motion of the
starry heavens — for this constitutes the equivalent of the
movements connected with metabolism in their relations to the human
outer form. But we cannot speak of a movement of the Earth around the
Sun during the year. We cannot do this, if we understand the inner man
which lives in close connection with the Macrocosm; for we must not
conceive of that which moves towards the heart, in any other manner
than we would the other flows of movement within man. We must
therefore recognise that we are concerned not with an elliptical
movement of the Earth in the course of the year but rather with a
movement which corresponds to the Solar motion. That is, Earth and Sun
move together in the course of the year; the one does not
circle around the other. The latter opinion is the result of judging
appearances; in actuality we have here the motion of both these bodies
in space with a certain connection between the two. This is something
in the Copernican theory that will have to be substantially corrected.
But there is yet another way in which we must conceive the relation of
man with macrocosmic nature.
What really is the nature of the process which we observe in the daily
movement of metabolism? Only part of this process is carried on in
such a way as to be accompanied by the phenomena of our consciousness,
another part being accomplished while consciousness is shut off, while
the Ego and astral body are separated from the physical and etheric.
Now we must especially note the following. Man does not experience in
the same way what takes place between awaking and going to
sleep and what takes place between going to sleep and awaking. Just
consider the relation between the two moments of time — going to
sleep and awaking. If you do this with an unprejudiced mind, you will
arrive at an unequivocal view of this matter. When you go to sleep,
you are, as it were, at the zero of your being; the condition of sleep
is not merely one of rest, it is the antithetical condition of the
waking state. When you awake, you are, from the standpoint of your
life, really in the same relation to yourself and your environment as
you are at the moment of going to sleep. The one is the equivalent of
the other, the only difference being that of direction. Awaking
means passing from sleep to the waking state; falling asleep is the
reverse. Apart from direction they are absolutely alike. Therefore if
we could indicate the movements of metabolism by a line, then it
cannot be a straight line or a circle, for they would not contain the
points of awaking and of falling asleep. We must find a line which
actually depicts the movements of metabolism, so as to contain these
points, and the only one — search as long as you like — is
the lemniscate. Here you have the point of awaking in one direction
and the point of falling asleep in the other direction. The directions
alone are opposite, the two movements being equal as regards
life-condition. We can now distinguish in a real way the cycle of day
and the cycle of night.
Whither does all this lead? If we have grasped the fact that the
motion of the daily metabolism corresponds to the motion of the Earth,
we can no longer, with the Earth here (diagram) attribute to any one
point a circular motion. On the contrary, we must form the conception
that the Earth in actual fact proceeds along her path in such a way
as to produce a line like that of the lemniscate. The motion is not a
simple revolution, but a more complicated movement; each point of the
terrestrial surface describes a lemniscate, which is also the line
described by the metabolic process.
We cannot therefore imagine the Earth's movement to consist merely of
a turning round the axis, for in reality it is a complicated motion in
which every point upon which you stand, describes — actually in
order to form the foundation for the movement of your metabolic
processes — a lemniscate. It is absolutely necessary to seek in
the movements of the outer Universe the equivalent of movements taking
place within Man. For only by a study of the changes within physical
Man can we arrive at an understanding of the planetary motions
exterior to Man. When a man sets his limbs in motion and becomes
tired, we cannot go on arguing the point as to whether he is in
relative or actual motion! It is out of the question to say: Perhaps
the movement is only relative, perhaps the other man whom he is
approaching is after all really approaching him! Theories of
Relativity no longer hold water, when the inner motion proves
that man moves. And it is impossible also to prove the movements in
the interior of the Earth, except by means of the inner changes that
go on in Man. The movements of metabolism, for example, are the true
reflection of that which the Earth executes as motion in space. And
again, that which we have termed the organ-building forces, active in
the course of the year, are the equivalent of the annual motion of
Earth and Sun together. We shall have occasion to speak more
specifically of these things later; at the moment I should like to
draw your attention once more to our model, where I have pointed out
that the Earth moves behind the Sun in a screw-like line, the Earth
moving along always with the Sun. And then if we view the line from
above, we get a projection of the line and the projection shows a
lemniscate.
Now all this will make it clear that we can certainly speak of a daily
motion of the Earth around her axis, but by no means of a yearly
motion of the Earth around the Sun. For the Earth follows the Sun,
describing the same path.
Various other facts show that we have no right to speak of such a
revolution. To give one instance, the fact that it was found necessary
— I have spoken of this before — simply to suppress one
statement of Copernicus. Were the Earth revolving round the Sun, we
should of course expect her axis, which owing to its inertia remains
parallel, to point in the direction of different fixed stars during
this revolution. But it does not! If the Earth revolved round the Sun,
the axis could not indicate the direction of the Pole-star, for the
point indicated would itself have to revolve round the Polestar; it
does not however do this, the axis continually indicates the
Pole-star. That line which should be apparent to us and which would
correspond to the progressive motion of the Earth in her relation to
the Sun, is not to be found.
It is in a spiral, screw-like path that the Earth follows the Sun,
boring her way, as it were, into cosmic space.
I have already indicated however that there is another movement which
manifests in the phenomena of the precession of the equinoxes —
the movement of the point of sunrise at the Spring-equinox through the
Zodiac, once in 25,920 years. This also is the equivalent of a certain
motion in Man. What can we find within Man corresponding to it? You
may be able to come to a conclusion on this point from what I have
said above. We have to find a motion equivalent to the relation of the
Sun to the Fixed Stars, for the point of sunrise progresses through
the complete Zodiac — or fixed stars — once in 25,920 years.
The equivalent in Man is the relation between the forces of inner
movement and the forces of form; this must therefore also be of long
duration. The forces of inner movement in Man must change in some way,
so as to alter their position in relation to the periphery of Man.
You will remember what I said about something that has been observable
since the period of ancient Greece. I said that the Greeks used the
same word for ‘yellow’ and ‘green’, that they
really did not see blue in the same way as we do, but actually, as
reported by Roman writers, realised and used four colours only in
their art, namely yellow, red, black and white. They saw these four
living colours. To them the sky was not blue as we see it; it appeared
to them as a kind of darkness. Now this is an assertion that can be
made in all certainty, and Spiritual Science confirms it. This change
in Man has taken place since the time of ancient Greece. When you
ponder over the fact that the constitution of the human eye has
undergone such a degree of modification since the period of ancient
Greece, you can then also conceive of other alterations in the human
organism, taking place upon the periphery and occupying still longer
periods of time for their accomplishment. Such alterations upon the
periphery must of necessity bear a relation to the forces of inner
movement, for, of course, they cannot be produced by the digestion or
the organic functions. These peripheric modifications correspond, as a
matter of fact, to the course of the vernal equinox in the Zodiac, to
a period, that is, of 25,920 years. During this period the human race
undergoes complete change. We must not make the mistake of thinking
that previous to that time humanity appeared as we now see it.
Consideration of the circumstances connected with physical existence
makes it absurd to use the figures given us by modern geology for the
purpose of following human evolution in time, for we can comprise this
only in the period of 25,920 years, and part of that is still in the
future. When the vernal equinox has come back again to the same place,
the alterations that will have taken place in the whole human race are
such that the human form will be quite dissimilar to what it is now. I
have already told you something derived from other sources of
cognition about the future of the human race and about its age. And
here we see how the consideration of physical conditions compels a
recognition of the same knowledge.
As a result of the above we arrive at the realisation that what we
call the ‘movements of the heavenly bodies’ are not quite as
simple as present day astronomy would have us believe, but that we
enter here into extremely complicated conditions — conditions that can
be studied from the standpoint of Man's connection with the Macrocosm.
I have already been able to point out to you certain details of the
motions of the heavenly bodies, and we shall in course of time learn
more and more about them from other sources. You will be able already
to see one thing — that man is not wholly dependent upon the
Macrocosm. With what lies deep down in the subconscious, with the
processes namely of assimilation, he is still in a certain way —
but only in a certain way — bound to the Earth's daily revolution
around her axis. Nevertheless, he can lift himself out of this
connection. How is this? It is possible because man as he now is,
built up in accordance with the forces of the periphery and of inner
movement, with the forces too of the organs and of the metabolic
system, is complete and finished in his dependence on the forces from
without; and now he is able, with his complete and finished
organisation to sever himself from this connection. In the same sense
that we have in waking and sleeping a copy of day and night, having
thus in ourselves the inner rhythm of day and night, but not needing
to make this inner rhythm correspond with the outer rhythm of
day and night (i.e. we need not sleep at night, nor wake during the
day), so in a similar way does Man sever his connection with the
Macrocosm in other departments of his existence. Upon this is founded
the possibility of human free-will. It is not the
present formation of Man that is dependent upon the Macrocosm,
but his past formation. Man's present experiences are fundamentally a
picture or copy of his past adaptation to the Macrocosm, and in this
sense we live in the pictures of our past. Within these we are enabled
to evolve our freedom, and from them we receive our moral laws, which
are independent of the necessity ruling in our nature. It is when we
understand clearly how Man and Macrocosm are related to each other
that we recognise the possibility of free-will in Man.
Finally we must think over the following. It is clear that in Man the
metabolic forces are still, in a certain respect, connected with the
rhythm of his daily life. The forces of form have solidified. Now
consider the animal instead of Man. Here we shall find a much more
complete dependence upon the Macrocosm. Man has grown out of or beyond
this dependence. The ancient wisdom therefore spoke of the Zodiac
or Animal Circle, not of the Man Circle, as corresponding to the
forces of formation. The forces of form manifest themselves in the
animal kingdom in a great variety of forms, while in Man they manifest
essentially in one form covering the whole human race; but they
are the forces of the animal kingdom, and as we evolve beyond them and
become Man, we must go out beyond the Zodiac. Beyond the Zodiac
lies that upon which we, as human beings, are dependent in a higher
sense than we are upon all that exists within the Zodiac, that is,
within the circle of the fixed stars. Beyond the Zodiac is that which
corresponds to our Ego.
With the astral body — which the animal also possesses — we
are fettered to a dependence upon the Macrocosm, and the building up
of the astral vehicle takes place in accordance with the will of the
Stars. But with our ‘ I ’ or Ego we transcend this Zodiac.
Here we have the principle upon which we have gained our freedom.
Within the Zodiac we cannot sin, any more than can the animals; we
begin to sin as soon as we carry our action beyond the Zodiac. This
happens when we do that which makes us free from our connection with
the Universal forces of formation, when we enter into relationship
with regions exterior to the Zodiac or region of fixed stars. And this
is the essential content of the human Ego.
You see, we may measure the Universe in so far as it appears to us a
visible and temporal thing, we may measure its full extension through
space to the outermost fixed stars, and all that takes place by way of
movement in time in this starry heaven, and we may consider all this
in its relation to Man; but in Man is being fulfilled something that
goes on outside this space and outside this time,
outside all that takes place in the astral. There beyond, is no
‘necessity of Nature’, but only that has place which is
intimately connected with our moral nature and moral actions. Within
the Zodiac we are unable to evolve our moral nature; but in so far as
we evolve it, we record it into the Macrocosm beyond the Zodiac. All
that we do remains and works in the world. The processes taking place
within us from the forces of formation to the forces of metabolism,
are the result of the past. But the past does not prejudge the whole
of the future, it has no power over that future which eventuates
from Man himself in his moral actions.
I can only lead you forward in this study step by step. Keep well in
mind what I have said today and in my next lecture we will examine the
matter from yet another point of view.
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Last Modified: 02-Nov-2024
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