Lecture Two by Rudolf Steiner given in Berlin, 6 March 1922
“The Human and the Animal Organisation.”
Welcome, all who are present here! In this second lecture I
would like you to consider that I had assumed last night, to
hearing Dr Kolisko's lecture today, and not present it myself.
Due to this it wasn't possible in this short time to quite sort
out what I would say and I can only hope, as a whole, to
roughly cover the details which Dr Kolisko wanted to convey to
you.
When from the anthroposophical viewpoint the relationship of
the animal world to the human world is spoken about, then it
must be pointed out in particular how the present
anthroposophical ideas relate historically to the Goethean
world view — I have mentioned this twice here at least. The
theme in question today, specifically the very first of
Goethe's accomplishments in the natural scientific area, will
come under scrutiny, namely in his treatise entitled:
“Human beings, like the animals, are attributed with an
intermaxillary jawbone in the upper jaw.” One needs to
keep all the relationships in view when considering how Goethe
came to this treatise on the basis of some anatomical and
physiological studies and on which grounds of his approach to
embryological studies he attributed this to.
During the time when Goethe, already as a young student and
later as a friend who to a certain extent had made the Jena
University Institute dependent on him, lived with these
problems to which he was exposed, namely the problem of what
the actual difference could be between human beings and
animals. He noticed how people all around him were focused on
discovering the difference within the form, within the human
and animal morphology, of the differentiation between people,
who should be, to some degree, the crown of creation, and the
animal world. Also regarding the circumstances where the
intermaxillary, which is clearly detached in all animals from
any other jaw bone but which is not found in the human being as
a separated bone, made people believe that this part of the
head's development gave the decisive difference between humans
and animals. Goethe didn't agree. He was of the opinion that
man and animal were created according to their entire
organisation in the same way, therefore such a detail could not
indicate a differentiation. In addition, the intermaxillary
bone in mature people grow together, so Goethe tried to show
how this phenomenon relied only on later development because in
the embryonic stage, human beings displayed the same
relationship in their upper intermaxillary bone as in
animals.
You
only have to follow the enthusiasm with which Goethe pointed
out to how lucky he was, that the human being actually has the
intermaxillary jaw bone in common with the animals, and how out
of the whole big picture of the morphology, no decisive
difference between the human being and the animal could be
found in a single detail. From the kind of limitation of man
and animal as you find everywhere in the 18th
Century, it could not be stated in this way — also for
Anthroposophy it could not be stated in this way. What Goethe
accepted was this: By the animal organisation developing up
into the human organisation, details already in the animal
organ formation were transformed and then gradually through its
evolution created the possibility to make space for what is
within man, and in such a way reveal the transformed
animalistic organisation in the totality of man. Goethe thought
only about the metamorphosed animal organisation within the
human and not of an autonomously separated human
morphology.
This, I might add, needs to be established as the foundation in
the search for the differentiation, in the anthroposophical
sense, between animal and human organisms. If an organisation
itself, in its forms, only depends on the animal and the human
metamorphosis, then one has to, if you are looking for
differentiation, primarily watch the course of life of a person
and of an animal, and gradually observe how the human being
unfolds out of the functioning of his organs, and how an animal
takes on form through his organs. In brief, one needs to search
more from biological than from morphological regions.
Now, one can prepare, in a specific way, how to discover the
understanding through biological differences, by finding a
foundation in which the animal functions originate and which
appears in both man and animal, and this relates to the sense
organs. The sense organs, or better said, the functions of the
sense organs are more or less vital in everything which takes
place in the animal and human organisms. We may assume that in
the simple nutritional processes in the lower animals, in the
purely digestive processes, a function of a primitive sense
happens, which, we say, is where taste experiences for instance
happen more or less as a purely chemical function of
metabolism. These things become increasingly differentiated the
further one ascends the animal row, right up to the human
being. We won't get anywhere if we go straight to the animal
organisation to find something which does not have a sensory
life. Certainly one could say: what for instance do the senses
have to do with the development of the lymph and blood?
Today already there is talk from the non-anthroposophical
scientists about subconscious processes in the human psyche,
and as a result we will for the sake of brevity only hint at
it, and not let it appear as something completely unauthorised
when I say: What takes place in the mouth and palate as a taste
experience, what takes place in the process and function with
for instance the ptyalin, pepsin and so on, how can it not also
take part in the subconscious? Why should — I say this as a
kind of postulation — the experience of taste not continue
through the entire organism and why should the subconscious
experience of taste not happen parallel to the lymph and blood
development in all organ processes? Through this we can follow
the biological side of the human and animal organisations by
looking at their sensory life.
The
sense life unfolds — as I have indicated years ago how it is
partially a fact of outer science — not only in the usually
claimed five senses, but in a clear discernible number of
twelve human senses. Now, we are only talking about human
beings. For those who want to understand if one could speak
about twelve senses in the same way as for five or six — from
seeing, hearing smelling, tasting, feeling or touch — for those
it is valid that one can speak for instance about the sense of
balance, which we recognise inwardly whether we stand on two
feet or only one, whether we move our arms in one way or the
other, and so on. By our position as humans in the world, we
are in equilibrium. This equilibrium we accept, although from a
much duller position than that of our perceiving through the
senses about what takes place in the process of seeing; so that
we may speak about the sense of equilibrium as we speak about a
sense of seeing. Let us be clear about this. When we speak
about the sense of equilibrium we turn ourselves more towards
our own organisation, we perceive inwardly, while with our eyes
we look outwardly. However, this experience of equilibrium
fosters its basis as a sense perceptible function. In the same
way we can expand the number of senses on the other side. When
we merely hear something, the function of the human organism is
really different to when we, as it were, hear directly through
the ear, and then explore what becomes indirectly perceptible
to us, through speech. When we follow the words of others with
inner understanding it doesn't involve mere judgement, but a
process of judgement comes out of a perceptive process, a sense
process; so we need to speak about it as having a sense of
speech — or a sense of language, a sense of the word — just as
we have a sense of hearing. In other words, we must, if we
consider the words more anatomically-physiologically,
presuppose there is within the human organization a special
(sensory) organization which corresponds to the hearing of what
had been spoken as well as hearing inarticulate sounds. We must
assume a special organisation for the sense of speech, which is
quite similar to a sensory organisation, for example the
organisation of sight or of hearing.
We
may also, when we go to work without prejudice, not say: we get
to know that a person is standing in front of us, when we see
there is something in the external space shaped like a nose,
like two eyes and so on, and through an analogy conclude that a
person is stuck in there, because we see that in us there is
also a person, revealed outwardly through a nose, eyes and so
on. Such an unconscious conclusion in reality doesn't form the
basis; it is rather the direct entry into others which
corresponds to something special within them which can be
compared to a sensory organisation, so that we can speak about
a sense of Self (Ichsinn). When we look through the functioning
of people in this unprejudiced way, then we need to, with the
same authorization with which we spoke about the sense of
hearing, of taste and so on, speak about the organisation of
perception for words, about an organisation of perception for
thoughts, for an organisation of the Self — not for one's own
self, because for one own Self it is dependent on something
quite different. Further, we must speak about a sense of
movement, because it is something quite different, whether we
call it movement or rest. Likewise, we must speak about a sense
of life — ordinary science already speaks partly about
that.
When we determine the number of sense organisations, we arrive
at twelve human senses. Of these, several are inner senses,
because we involve the inner organism — how we feel and
experience the sense or equilibrium, sense of movement and so
on — while observing it. However, qualitatively the experience
with observation of the inner organization remains the same for
the seeing, hearing or taste processes. It is important to see
things only in the right context.
If
the starting point is from a human angle of a complete
physiology of the senses then certain biological phenomena from
the human realm, on the one side, and the animal realm on the
other, reveal a particular meaning. This meaning can exist even
if you admit to everything which has been presented by recent
research, even from Haeckel, regarding the morphological and
also physiological human organisation in relationship to that
of the animal. Here the most impossible misunderstandings come
about. It is believed, for instance, that Anthroposophy must
oppose Haeckel, simply on the grounds that it rises from mere
observation through the senses to the empirical observations of
the spiritual; it is believed that Anthroposophy must from this
basis change Haeckelism. No! — What needs to be changed in
Haeckelism must be changed out of natural scientific
methodology, so Anthroposophy doesn't need to argue here
because one can have discussions, as scientific researchers,
with Haeckel.
What Anthroposophy has to offer refers to quite other areas. It
is correct to emphasize that by counting the bones of the
higher animals, there's no differentiation to the number in
humans. The same goes for the muscles. This gives no
differentiation between human and animal organisations. If,
however, we proceed biologically, we discover real
differentiation. We find that we can attribute a special value
to the essential way the human organism is placed differently
in the cosmos to the animals. When we observe the higher
animals, we have to admit that their essential aspect is that
the axis of their backbone is parallel to the earth's surface
while by contrast, humans in the course of their life make
their horizontal spinal axis vertical, which means an important
function in the life of humans are to stand upright. — I know
objections can be raised: there are some animals which have
more or less of a vertical spinal axis. This is not the salient
point as to how it is excluded through outer morphology, but
how the entire organisation is adjusted. We will also see how
with certain animal, bird types or even mammals, where the
spine can be brought into more or less of a vertical position,
a kind of degenerative effect appears in their total
predisposition, while with people there is already a
predisposition for the spine to be vertical.
When I mentioned this some years ago in a lecture in Munich, a
man educated in natural science approached me, who I could
naturally understand quite well, and said: ‘When we sleep, we
do have a horizontal spine.’ — This does not matter, I replied,
but what matters is in the relationship to the situation, let's
say, of the bone in the leg or foot to the rest of the bodily
structure and to the whole cosmic relationship of mankind, and
how this is processed by the human or by the animal. Indeed,
the human's spine is horizontal during sleep, but this position
is outward; inwardly the human is so dynamically organized that
he can bring himself into a condition of equilibrium where the
spine is vertical. When animals come to such a state of
equilibrium, they are degenerating in a certain sense, or they
tend towards developing some human-like functions and as a
result prove, what I want to present now.
We
can say that by the human being purely functionally, out of the
total dynamic of his being in the course of his first year of
life, forming his spinal axis vertically, he has brought
himself into another relationship of equilibrium cosmically
than the animal. However, every being is created out of the
cosmic totality, and one can say, and adapt — I don't want to
enter further into this.
When we track the formation of single bones, for example the
ribs or head bones further, then we also gain the morphological
possibility of how the formation of ribs or head bones in a man
or dog adapt to the vertical or horizontal spine. Because the
human being finds himself in a vertical position he lives in
contrast to the animal, who stands on four legs, in quite a
different state of equilibrium, in quite a different cosmic
relationship.
Now
we must try to clarify the problem from the other side, what
actually happens in the sense's processes in a person and what
happens to him with reference to the sensory process. Due to
our limited time I wish to speak only with indications, but
this can also be translated into a completely precise
biological-physiological terminology.
Let's take the process of seeing. We could create divisions
into what the specific function of the organ of sight is, and
into what happens further as a continuation within the
physical; one could call it an analogy of the optical nerve of
the eye which loses itself in the inner nervous system. Thus,
we could differentiate, on the one side, the process of sight
itself, and then everything connected to it in the totality of
experience. In the direct present process of vision there is
also the imminence of the image perceptibility; when we look at
something then we don't separate the imagery from the vision.
Turning our eyes away from what we looked at, we then retain a
kind or imaginative remnant which clearly shows a relationship
with the vision's observation. Whoever can really analyse this
will see the differences between the imagined remnant obtained
through the organ of vision as opposed to what happens with the
hearing process. We have within us an experience of the process
of sight, one could call it, in a dualistic way. First being
more turned to what actually is observed through the senses and
then turning again to the remnant within imagination which
remains more or less as a manifested memory.
Let's take everything that lives in the inner image
perceptibility of human beings, which depends on the five
senses. The one which is the most dependable is of course the
process of sight. Only a ninth of what is found through vision,
is found through the hearing process. When we consider soul
life, there is even less found in it than the seeing and
hearing processes, and so on. We know, that in addition to the
image perceptibility which leads to lasting memory, it also
plays a role but in reality, less than with the seeing and
hearing processes.
Now
we can pose the question: Is there also for the more hidden
senses, like the sense of equilibrium or sense of movement,
this duality which is found in the observation perceptibility
and image perceptibility? With a truly unbiased physiology and
psychology the duality is there for instance in the sense of
equilibrium, but the connection is seldom noticed. In the
lectures I've just given, I spoke about the mathematical
geometric relation of finding oneself upright in relationship
to space. We construct relationships to space. What is it
actually, that we are doing here? It is connected to the entire
person just as it is when with the process of sight, the
observed element is clearly separated from the image
perceptibility, because we keep the imagination inside. We
don't observe the colour outwardly but we experience the
qualitative aspect of the colour, of colour tones, and what
lives as a feeling, a feeling I have towards warm or cold
colours strongly within myself.
We
can now say the following: ‘I want to instantly see a show of
all the soul images which I've acquired through my life, which
I can see through my eyes.’ We would then enter into a visual
system of the soul. We would, without having outer sight, rise
inwardly into a kind of reconstruction of the visual process.
If you apply this same kind of consideration to the sense of
equilibrium, you obtain everything which you have experienced
through the sense of equilibrium in your own organism, rising
within, which corresponds to the geometry in outer life.
[In the next few sentences some word-gaps
followed in the stenographic text. The omissions were filled in
with the help of the lectures of Dr Steiner on the 16th March
1921, 29 September, 1 and 3 October 1920 in GA 322]
Mathematic and mechanistic laws
have not been discovered by outer experience. Mathematic and
mechanistic laws have been acquired though inward construction.
If you want to recall mechanistic laws you have to access them
through the image perceptibility of your sense of equilibrium.
The entire human being becomes a sense organ and thus inwardly
creates the other pole of what had been observed. For instance,
we create mathematics and we believe we have a purely a-priori
science. However, mathematics is no pure a-priori science. We
don't notice that what we are experiencing as a sense of
balance is what we translate into mathematical geometric
imagination, like the observation through sight is translated
into the imagination of the observed sight. Without noticing
the bridge, we have created the sense of balance through maths
or through mechanics.
When you think about this, you would understand the innermost
relationship of the human organism with its position of
equilibrium in the cosmos. Then you could say to yourself: With
the animal, which stands on its four legs and which has been
given its equilibrium position and sense of equilibrium, the
animal must experience equilibrium in quite a different way
within itself than a person does mathematically. We find the
mathematical simply as a result of us being placed in the
cosmos.
We
talk about three dimensions because we are positioned in three
dimensions in the cosmos. However, the vertical dimension we
have only achieved in the course of life. We have placed
ourselves into the vertical position. What we have experienced
in our earliest childhood reflects later in us as mathematics;
it only doesn't develop as quickly as the seeing process. The
reflection of the experience of equilibrium goes on in the
course of life. In childhood we have a very strong experience
of the sense of equilibrium, when we go over from crawling to
walking and standing. This reflects in later life and becomes
visible as mathematics and mechanics. We often take mathematics
as something woven out of ourselves. This is not so. It comes
out of the observation of our organism. Why then are there
certain thoughts which can be related to the cosmos, which then
can create an entire construction in thought, a
‘thought-edifice?’ That is merely a result of human beings
standing within the cosmos. When we now compare the position of
equilibrium between the animal, in his relation to the cosmos,
with that of the human being, then we could say: We have with
the animal the bondage with the earth organisation and we have
with the human being the uprightness, being ‘lifted-out’ of the
earth organisation. What we express as individualized thoughts
result from our human organisation having an individual
position of equilibrium.
Thus, this actual act of placing oneself in the cosmos is not
something which emerges from the organism itself as is found
with the animals, but it is something formed within the human
organism which is only achieved in the course of the first
seven years of life, and goes right into the organs. As a
result, we have this polarity between animals and humans that
on the one hand humans stand upright and walk vertically. This
is quite a cosmic position which lives in the human being, to
which everything now has to adapt, and which distinguishes it
from the animal. On the other hand, thoughts appear in the
soul, thoughts which go beyond the sensual perception, beyond
what is sensed with the five senses, extricating themselves
from that. Just as the human being frees itself in its cosmic
position from the earth, so the human thoughts extricate
themselves from the bondage of the sense world, they become
free in a certain way.
We
must — for anthroposophy it is a definite but here I want to
present it more as a hypothesis — we must see in the human
being, through his upright spinal axis, a certain position of
equilibrium which separates him from animals, and on the other
hand we must regard thoughts of a particular imaginative form,
as specifically human. Whoever examines such things from an
Anthroposophic viewpoint — it could still become more or less
relevant — will see how the human being's particular
development of his sense of equilibrium and sense of movement
achieve more towards a free system of thought than the case is
through the eyes and ears, and we also gain insight of the
human being requiring an inner organisation for this. The human
being simply has an organisation within itself which is not yet
found in the animal — this can also be proven materially —
which simply supports ideas which are torn free from the
earth's bondage to which the animal is bound, but which is
limited by the special equilibrium position in humans.
Therefore we can say: by the human standing upright, he has
created an organ for abstract thinking.
So
we have with the upright related organisation of human organs a
different situation to those in the animals, which have organs
too. Through the upright position the nerves and blood
organisation work in a different way under the influence of the
equilibrium position so that in the human something appears
which can't be brought about in the animal. We discover this
relationship really in the physical organization of humans and
not as mere dynamism. This is of fundamental importance. Just
imagine what happens in the evolution of an organization as a
result of a change in their position of equilibrium, how it
appears in the animal, how it is in the human being, what
changes there for instance with reference to the upper and
lower leg, hands and so on. Just imagine what it means that the
human being is a two-hander and not a four-footer. The human
being is fitted out with the same forms as the animal but they
are in different positions and as a result are changed,
metamorphosed forms. This can also simply be anatomically
demonstrated if the necessary tools and experimental methods
qualify. We are looking for such tools and experimental methods
in our institute in Stuttgart. In any case before these methods
can be empirically found externally, the differences need to be
arrived at firstly through imaginative observation. Therefore,
Anthroposophy is not useless with reference to research into
the finer areas of the human, animal and plant forms, because
science can't discover these things through imagination. Once
they are discovered they can be verified by science.
When one looks at how another position of equilibrium
reorganises the organs, one also finds that certain organs are
changed in such a way that they become the human organ of
speech and the organism becomes capable of creating speech.
Through this you have gained an insight into the extraordinary
organisation of mankind, which has simply come about because of
it being an upright being, having repercussions right into
matter. Also in relation to the physiological organ of speech
it has contributed — where an outer morphological distinction
between man and animal can be determined — which after all
shows the difference between man and animal biologically.
Here you have a few suggestions which can indicate the way how,
in an outer lay method, research may be done which can also be
actually researched scientifically. What I wanted to bring I
could only briefly sketch here. However, continue to think
about these ideas and the results will actually be a way for
science to research the differentiations between the animal and
human organisations in a biological relationship.
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