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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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Man as a Being of Sense and Perception
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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Man as a Being of Sense and Perception
Twelve Senses in Man
Schmidt Number: S-4547
On-line since: 27th June, 2002
We now have to continue our study of the relationship between man and
the world. And to link up what I have to say in the next few days with
what I have already said recently, I should like to begin by calling
attention to a theme which I treated some time ago I mean the
anthroposophical teaching about the senses. [Die Zwolf Sinne des
Menschen in ihrer Beziehung zu Imagination, Inspiration und
Intuition, 8th Aug., 1920. (Translation not yet published.)]
I said a long time ago, and I am always repeating it, that orthodox
science takes into consideration only those senses for which obvious
organs exist, such as the organs of sight, of hearing, and so on. This
way of looking at the matter is not satisfactory, because the province
of sight, for example, is strictly delimited within the total range of
our experiences, and so, equally, is, let us say, the perception of
the ego of another man, or the perception of the meaning of words.
To-day, when everything is in a way turned upside down, it has even
become customary to say that when we are face to face with another
ego, what we see first is the human form; we know that we ourselves
have such a form, that in us this form harbours an ego, and so we
conclude that there is also an ego in this other human form which
resembles our own. In drawing such a conclusion there is not the
slightest real consciousness of what lies behind the wholly direct
perception of the other ego. Such an inference is meaningless. For
just as we stand before the outer world and take in a certain part of
it directly with our sense of sight, so, in exactly the same way, the
other ego penetrates directly into the sphere of our experience. We
must ascribe to ourselves an ego-sense, just as we do a sense of
sight. At the same time we must be quite clear that this ego-sense is
something quite other than the development of consciousness of our own
ego. Becoming conscious of one's own ego is not actually a perception;
it is a completely different process from the process which takes
place when we perceive another ego.
In the same way, listening to words and becoming aware of a meaning in
them is something quite different from hearing mere tone, mere sound.
Although to begin with it is more difficult to point to an organ for
the word-sense than it is to relate the ear to the sense of sound,
nevertheless anyone who can really analyse the whole field of our
experience becomes aware that within this field we have to make a
distinction between the sense that has to do with musical and vocal
sound and the sense for words.
Further, it is again something quite different to perceive the thought
of another within his words, within the structure and relationship of
his words; and here again we have to distinguish between the
perception of his thought and our own thought. It is only because of
the superficial way in which soul-phenomena are studied to-day that no
distinction is made between the thought which we unfold as the inner
activity of our own soul-life, and the activity which we direct
outwards in perceiving another person's thought. Of course, when we
have perceived the thought of another, we ourselves must think in
order to understand his thought, in order to bring it into connection
with other thoughts which we ourselves have fostered. But our own
thinking is something quite other than the perception of the thought
of another person.
When we analyse the whole range of our experience into provinces which
are really quite distinct from one another and yet have a certain
relationship, so that we can call them all senses, we get the twelve
senses of man which I have often enumerated. The physiological or
psychological treatment of the senses is one of the weakest chapters
in modern science, for it really only generalises about them.
Within the range of the senses, the sense of hearing, for example, is
of course radically different from the sense of sight or the sense of
taste. And having come to a clear conception of the sense of hearing
or of the sense of sight, we then have to recognise a word-sense, a
sense of thought and an ego-sense. Most of the concepts current to-day
in scientific treatises on the senses are actually taken from the
sense of touch. And our philosophy has for some time been wont to base
a whole theory of knowledge on this, a theory which actually consists
of nothing but a transference of certain perceptions proper to the
sense of touch to the whole sphere of capacity for sense-perception.
Now when we really analyse the whole range of those external
experiences of which we become aware in the same way as we become
aware, let us say, of the experiences of sight or touch or warmth, we
get twelve senses, clearly distinguishable one from another. On
earlier occasions I have enumerated them as follows: First, the
ego-sense (see
diagram,
at end) which, as I have said, is to be distinguished from the
consciousness of our own ego. By the ego-sense we mean nothing more
than the capacity to perceive the ego of another man. The second sense
is the sense of thought, the third the word-sense, the fourth the
sense of hearing, the fifth the sense of warmth, the sixth the sense
of sight, the seventh the sense of taste, the eighth the sense of
smell, the ninth the sense of balance. Anyone who is able to make
distinctions in the realm of the senses knows that, just as there is a
clearly defined realm of sight, so there is a clearly defined realm
from which we receive simply a sensation of standing as man in a
certain state of balance. Without a sense to convey this state of
standing balanced, or of being poised, or of dancing in balance, we
should be entirely unable to develop full consciousness. Next comes
the sense of movement. This is the perception of whether we are at
rest or in movement. We must experience this within ourselves, just as
we experience the sense of sight. The eleventh sense is the sense of
life, and the twelfth the sense of touch.
The senses in this group here (see
diagram)
can be clearly distinguished one from another, and at the same time we
can discover what they have in common when we perceive through them.
It is our cognitive intercourse with the external world that this
group of senses conveys to us in very varying ways. First, we have
four senses which unite us with the outer world beyond any doubt. They
are the ego-sense, the sense of thought, the word-sense and the sense
of hearing. You will unhesitatingly recognise that when we perceive
the ego of another person, we are with our entire experience in the
outer world, as also when we perceive the thoughts or words of
another. As regards the sense of hearing it is not quite so obvious;
but that is only because people have taken an abstract view of the
matter, and have diffused over the whole of the senses the colouring
of a common concept, a concept of what sense-life is supposed to be,
and do not consider what is specific in each individual sense. Of
course, one cannot apply external experiment to one's ideas upon these
matters, but one has to be capable of an inner feeling for these
experiences.
Customary thinking overlooks the fact that hearing, since its physical
medium is the air in movement, takes us straight into the outer world.
And you have only to consider how very external our sense of hearing
actually is, compared with the whole of our organic experience, to
come to the conclusion that a distinction must be made between the
sense of hearing and the sense of sight. In the case of the sense of
sight we realise at once, simply by observing its organ, the eye, how
what is conveyed by this sense is to a great extent an inner process;
it is at least relatively an inner process. When we sleep we close our
eyes; we do not shut our ears. Such seemingly simple, trivial facts
point to something of deep significance for the whole of human life.
And though when we go to sleep we have to shut off our inner senses,
because during sleep we must not perceive through sight, yet we are
not obliged to close our ears, because the ear lives in the outer
world in a totally different way from the eye. The eye is much more a
component of our inner life; the sense of sight is directed much more
inwards than is the sense of hearing I am not talking about the
apprehension of what is heard; that is something quite different. The
apprehension which lies behind the experience of music is something
other than the actual process of hearing.
Now these senses, which in essentials form a link between the outer
and inner, are specifically outer senses (see
diagram).
The next four senses, the senses of warmth, sight, taste and smell,
are so to say on the border between outer and inner; they are both
outer and inner experiences. Just try to think of all the experiences
that are conveyed to you by any one of these senses, and you will see
how, whilst in them all there is an experience lived in common with
the outer world, there is at the same time an experience within
yourself. If you drink an acid, and thus call into play your sense of
taste, you have undoubtedly an inner experience with the acid, but you
have also, on the other hand, an experience that is directed outwards,
that can be compared with the experience of another man's ego or of
the word. But it would be very bad if in the same way a subjective,
inner experience were to be involved in listening to words. Just
think, you make a wry face when you drink vinegar; that shows quite
clearly that along with the outer experience you have an inner one;
the outer and inner experiences merge into one another. If the same
thing were to happen in the case of words, if, for example, someone
were to make a speech, and you had to experience it inwardly in the
way you do when you drink vinegar or wine or something of that sort,
then you would certainly never be objectively clear about the man's
words, about what he says to you. Just as in drinking vinegar you have
an unpleasant experience and in drinking wine a pleasant one, so in
the same way you would colour an external experience. You must not
colour the external experience when you perceive the words of another.
If you see things in the right light, that is just where morality
comes in. For there are men this is especially true as regards
the ego-sense, but it also applies to the sense of thought who
are so firmly fixed in their middle senses, in the senses of warmth,
sight, taste and smell, that they judge others, or the thoughts of
others, in accordance with these senses. Then they do not hear the
thoughts of the other men at all, but perceive them in the same way
that they perceive wine or vinegar or any other food or drink.
Here we see how something of a moral nature is the outcome of a quite
amoral manner of observation. Let us take a man in whom the sense of
hearing, and even more the word-sense, the sense of thought and the
ego-sense, are poorly developed. Such a man lives as it were without
head; he uses his head-senses in the same way as he uses those of a
more animal tendency. The animal is unable to perceive objectively in
the way that, through the senses of warmth, sight, taste and smell,
the man can perceive objective-subjectively. The animal smells; as you
may well imagine, it can only in the very slightest degree make
objective what it encounters in the sense of smell ... the experience
is in a high degree a subjective one. Now all men, of course, have in
addition the sense of hearing, the word-sense, the thought-sense and
the ego-sense; but those whose whole organisation tends more towards
the senses of warmth and sight, still more towards those of taste or
even of smell, change everything around them according to their
subjective experiences of taste and smell. Such things are to be seen
every day. If you want an example, you can see it in the latest
pamphlet by X. He is not in the least able to grasp the words or
thoughts of another. He seizes hold of everything as if he were
drinking wine or vinegar or eating some kind of food. Everything
becomes subjective experience. To reduce the higher senses to the
character of the lower ones is immoral. It is quite possible to bring
the moral into connection with our whole world-conception, whereas at
the present time the fact that men do not know how to build a bridge
between what they call natural law and what they call morality, acts
as a destructive influence undermining our entire civilisation.
When we come to the next four senses, to the sense of balance, the
sense of movement, the sense of life and the sense of touch, we come
to the specifically inner senses. For, you see, what the sense of
balance conveys to us is our own state of balance; what the sense of
movement conveys to us is the state of movement in which we ourselves
are. Our sense of life is that general perception of how our organs
are functioning, of whether they are promoting life or obstructing it.
In the case of the sense of touch, it is possible to be deceived;
nevertheless, when you touch something, the experience you have is an
inner experience. You do not feel this chalk; roughly speaking, what
you feel is the impact of the chalk on your skin ... the process can
of course be characterised more exactly. In the sense of touch, as in
the experience of no other sense in the same way, the experience lies
in the reaction of your own inner being to an external process.
But now this last group of senses is modified by something else. You
must recall something I said here a few weeks ago. [* Lecture V of
Irdische und kosmische Gesetzmassigkeiten, 3rd July, 1921.
(Translation not yet published.)] Let us consider the human being in
relation to what he perceives through these last four senses. Although
we perceive our own movement, our own balance, in a decidedly
subjective manner, this movement and this balance are nevertheless
quite objective processes, for physically speaking it is a matter of
indifference whether it is a block of wood that is moved, or a man;
whether it is a block of wood in balance or a man. In the external
physical world a man in movement is exactly the same thing to observe
as a block of wood; and similarly with regard to balance. And if you
take the sense of life the same thing applies. Our sense of
life conveys to us processes that are quite objective. Imagine a
process in a retort: it takes its course according to certain laws; it
can be described quite objectively. What the sense of life perceives
is such a process, a process which takes place inwardly. If this
process is in order, as a purely objective process, this is conveyed
to you by the sense of life; if it is not in order, the sense of life
conveys this to you also. Even though the process is confined within
your skin, the sense of life transmits it to you. To sum up, an
objective process is something which has absolutely no specific
connection with the content of your soul-life. And the same thing
applies to your sense of touch. When we touch something, there is
always a change in our whole organic structure. Our reaction is an
organic change within us. Thus we have actually something objective in
what is brought about through these four senses, something that so
places us as human beings in the world that we are like objective
beings who can also be seen in the external sense-world.
Thus we may say that these are pronounced inner senses; but what we
perceive through them in ourselves is exactly the same as what we
perceive in the world outside us. In short, whether we set in motion a
log of wood, or whether the human being is in external motion, it
makes no difference to the physical course of the process. The sense
of movement is only there in order that what is taking place in the
outer world may also come to our subjective consciousness.
Thus you see that the truly subjective senses are the senses which are
specifically external; it is they which have the task of assimilating
into our humanity what is perceived externally through them. The
middle group of senses shows an interplay between the outer and the
inner world. And through the last group a specific experience of what
we are as part of the world-not-ourselves is conveyed to us.
We could carry this study much further; we should then discover many
of the distinctive qualities of this sense or that. We only have to
become accustomed to the idea that the treatment of the senses must
not be limited to describing them according to their more obvious
organs, but that we must analyse them according to their field of
experience. It is by no means correct, for instance, that no specific
organ exists for the word-sense; only its field has not been
discovered by the materialistic physiology of to-day. Or take the
sense of thought that too is there, but has not been explored
as has, let us say, the sense of sight.
When we consider man in this way, it cannot fail to be borne in upon
us that what we usually call soul-life is bound up with what we may
call the higher senses. If we want to encompass the content of what we
call soul-life, we can scarcely go further than from the ego-sense to
the sense of sight. If you think of all that you have through the
ego-sense, the sense of thought, the word-sense, the sense of hearing,
the sense of warmth and the sense of sight, you have practically the
whole range of what we call soul-life. Something of the
characteristics of the specifically outer senses still enters a little
into the sense of warmth, upon which our soul-life is much more
dependent than we usually think. And of course the sense of sight has
a very wide significance for our whole soul-life. But with the senses
of taste and smell we are already entering into the animal realm, and
with the senses of balance, movement and life and so on, we plunge
completely into our bodily nature. These senses we perceive altogether
inwardly.
If we want to show this diagrammatically, we should have to show it
like this (see
diagram).
We draw a circle around the upper region; and there in this upper
sphere lies our true inner life. Without these external senses, this
inner life could not exist. What sort of men should we be if we had no
other egos near us, if we were never to perceive words and thoughts?
Just imagine! On the other hand, the senses from taste downwards (see
diagram B)
perceive in an inward direction, transmit primarily inward processes,
but processes which become progressively more obscure. Of course, a
man must have a clear perception of his own balance otherwise he would
become giddy and collapse. To fall into a faint is the same thing for
the sense of balance as blindness is for the eyes. But now what these
other senses mediate becomes vague and confused. The sense of taste
still develops to some extent on the surface. There we do have a clear
consciousness of it. But although our whole body tastes (with the
exception of the limb-system, but actually even that too), very few
men are able to detect the taste of foods in the stomach, because
civilisation, or culture, or refinement of taste has not developed so
far in that direction. Very few men indeed can still detect the taste
of the various foodstuffs in their stomachs. You do still taste them
in some of the other organs, but once the foodstuffs are in the
stomach, then for most men it is all one what they are although
unconsciously the sense of taste does very clearly continue throughout
the whole digestive tract. The entire man tastes what he eats, but the
sensation very quickly dies down when what has been eaten has been
given over to the body.
The entire man develops throughout his organism the sense of smell,
the passive relationship to aromatic bodies. This sense again is only
concentrated at the very surface, whereas actually the whole man is
taken hold of by the scent of a flower or by any other aromatic
substance. When we know that the senses of taste and smell permeate
the entire man, we know too what is involved in the experience of
tasting or smelling, how the experience is continued further inwards;
and when one knows what it is to taste, for instance, one abandons
altogether the materialistic conception. And if one is clear that this
process of tasting goes through the entire organism, one is no longer
inclined to describe the further process of digestion purely from the
chemical point of view, as is done by the materialistic science of
to-day.
On the other hand, it cannot be gainsaid that there is an immense
difference between what I have shown in the diagram as yellow and what
I have shown as red (It has not been practicable to produce the
diagram in colour.) There is an immense difference between the content
of what we have in our soul-life through the ego-sense, word-sense and
so on, and the experiences we have through taste, smell, movement,
life-sense and so on. And you will understand this difference best if
you make clear to yourselves how you receive what you experience in
yourselves when you listen, let us say, to the words of another man,
or to a musical sound. What you then experience in yourselves is of no
significance for the outer process. What difference does it make, to
the bell that you are listening to it? The only connection between
your inner experience and the process that takes place in the bell is
that you are listening to it.
You cannot say the same thing when you consider the objective process
in tasting or smelling, or even in touching. There you have to do with
a world-process. You cannot separate what goes on in your organism
from what takes place in your soul. You cannot say in this case, as in
the case of the ringing bell, What difference does it make to
the bell whether I listen to it? You cannot say, When I
drink vinegar, what has the process which takes place on my tongue to
do with what I experience? That you cannot say. There, an inner
connection does obtain; there the objective and the subjective
processes are one.
The sins committed by modern physiology in this sphere are well-nigh
incredible, when one considers that such a process as tasting is
placed in a similar relationship to the soul as that of seeing or
hearing. And there are philosophical treatises which speak in a purely
general way of sensible qualities and their relation to the soul.
Locke, and even Kant, speak generally of a relationship of the outer
sense-world to human subjectivity, whereas for all that is shown in
our diagram from the sense of sight upwards, we have to do with
something quite different from all that the diagram shows from the
sense of sight downwards. It is impossible to apply one single
doctrine to both these spheres. And it is because men have done so
that, from the time of Hume or Locke or even earlier, this great
confusion has arisen in the theory of knowledge which has rendered
modern conceptions barren right into the sphere of physiology. For one
cannot approach the real nature of processes if one thus pursues
preconceived ideas without an unprejudiced observation of things.
When we picture the human being in this way, we have to understand
that in the one direction we have obviously a life directed inwards, a
sphere in which we live for ourselves, related to the outer world
merely in perceiving it; in the other direction, of course, we also
perceive but we enter into the world by what we perceive. In
short, we may say: What takes place on my tongue when I taste is an
entirely objective process in me; when this process goes on in me, it
is a world-process that is taking place. But I cannot say that what
arises in me as a picture through the sense of sight is a
world-process. Were it not to happen, the whole world would remain as
it is. The difference between the upper and the lower man must always
be borne in mind. Unless we bear this difference in mind we cannot get
any further in certain directions.
Now let us consider mathematical truths, the truths of geometry. A
superficial observer would say: Oh yes, of course man gets his
mathematics out of his head, or from somewhere or other (ideas on the
subject are not very precise). But it is not so. Mathematics derives
from an altogether different sphere. And if you study the human being,
you will get to know the sphere from which mathematics comes. It is
from the sense of movement and the sense of balance. It is from such
depths that mathematical thought comes, depths to which we no longer
penetrate with our ordinary soul-life. What enables us to develop
mathematics lives at a deeper level than our ordinary soul-life. And
thus we see that mathematics is really rooted in that part of us which
is at the same time cosmic. In fact, we are only really subjective in
what lies here (see
diagram)
from the sense of sight upwards. In respect of what lies down there we
are like logs, as much so as the rest of the outer world. Hence we can
never say that geometry, for instance, has anything of a subjective
nature in it, for it originates from that in us wherein we ourselves
are objective. It is concerned with the very same space which we
measure when we walk, and which our movements communicate to us
the very same space which, when we have elicited it from ourselves in
pictorial form, we then proceed to apply to what we see. Nor can there
be any question of describing space as in any way subjective, for it
does not come from the sphere whence the subjective arises.
Such a way of looking at things as I am now putting before you is
poles apart from Kantianism, because Kantianism does not recognise the
radical distinction between these two spheres of human life. Followers
of Kant do not know that space cannot be subjective, because it arises
from that sphere in man which is in itself objective, from that sphere
to which we relate ourselves as objects. We are connected with this
sphere in a different way from the way in which we are related to the
world outside us; but it is nevertheless genuine outer world,
especially each night, for while we are asleep we withdraw from it
with our subjectivity, our ego and our astral body.
It is essential to understand that to assemble an immense number of
external facts for what purports to be science and is intended to
promote culture is useless if its thought is full of confused ideas,
if this science lacks clear concepts about the most important things.
And if the forces of decadence are to be checked and the forces of
renewal, of progress, furthered, the essential task which confronts us
is to understand the absolute necessity of reaching clear ideas, ideas
that are not hazy but clear-cut. We must be absolutely clear that it
is useless to proceed from concepts and definitions, but that what is
needed is the unprejudiced observation of the field in which the facts
lie.
For example, no one is entitled to delimit the sphere of sight as a
sense-sphere, if he does not at the same time distinguish the sphere
of word-perception as a similar sphere. Only try to organise the
sphere of total experience as I have often done, and you will see that
it is not permissible to say: We have eyes, therefore we have a sense
of sight and we are studying it. But you will have to say: Of course
there must be a reason for the fact that sight has a physical-sensible
organ of so specific a nature, but this does not justify us in
restricting the range of the senses to those which have clearly
perceptible physical organs. If we do that it will be a very long time
before we shall reach any higher conception; we shall meet only what
happens in everyday life. The important thing is really to distinguish
between what is subjective in man, what is his inner soul-life, and
the sphere wherein he is actually asleep. There, man is a cosmic being
in relation to all that is conveyed by his senses. In that sphere he
is a cosmic being. In your ordinary soul-life you know nothing of what
happens when you move your arm not at least without a faculty
of higher vision. That movement is a will-activity. It is a process
which lies as much outside you as any other external process,
notwithstanding the fact that it is so intimately connected with you.
On the other hand, there can be no idea, no mental image, in which we
are not ourselves present with our consciousness. Thus when you
distinguish these three spheres, you find something else as well. In
all that your ego-sense, your thought-sense, your word-sense, your
sense of hearing convey to you, thereby constituting your soul-life,
you receive what is predominantly associated with the idea.
In the same way, everything connected with the senses of warmth,
sight, taste and smell has to do with feeling. That is not
quite obvious with regard to one of these senses, the sense of sight.
It is quite obvious with regard to taste, smell and warmth, but if you
look into the matter closely you will find that it is also true of
sight.
In contrast with this, all that has to do with the senses of balance,
movement, life, and even with the sense of touch (although that is not
so easy to see, because the sense of touch retires within us) is
connected with the will. In human life, everything is
connected, and yet everything is metamorphosed. I have tried to-day to
summarise for you what I have treated at length on various occasions.
And to-morrow and the day after we will carry our study to a
conclusion.
Last Modified: 02-Nov-2024
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