Donate books to help fund our work. Learn more→

The Rudolf Steiner Archive

a project of Steiner Online Library, a public charity

DONATE

Theosophy
GA 9

Translated by Steiner Online Library

The Nature of Human Beings

[ 1 ] The following words by Goethe beautifully describe the starting point of one of the ways in which the nature of human beings can be understood: "As soon as man becomes aware of the objects around him, he considers them in relation to himself; and rightly so, for his entire destiny depends on whether they please or displease him, whether they attract or repel him, whether they benefit or harm him. This entirely natural way of looking at and judging things seems as easy as it is necessary, and yet it exposes man to a thousand errors that often embarrass him and embitter his life. — Those whose lively thirst for knowledge strives to observe the objects of nature in themselves and in their relationships with one another take on a far more difficult daily task: for they soon miss the yardstick that came to their aid when, as human beings, they regarded things in relation to themselves. They lack the yardstick of pleasure and displeasure, attraction and repulsion, benefit and harm. They must renounce this entirely; as indifferent and, as it were, divine beings, they must seek and investigate what is, and not what is pleasing. Thus, the true botanist should be moved neither by the beauty nor the usefulness of plants; he should examine their formation, their relationship to the rest of the plant kingdom; and just as they are all drawn out and illuminated by the sun, so should he look at them all with the same calm gaze and overlook them, taking the standard for this knowledge, the data for judgment, not from himself but from the circle of things he observes."

[ 2 ] This idea expressed by Goethe draws human attention to three things. The first are the objects from which information constantly flows to him through the gates of his senses, which he touches, smells, tastes, hears, and sees. The second are the impressions they make on him, which are characterized as his liking or disliking, his desire or aversion, in that he finds one thing agreeable and another disagreeable, one useful and another harmful. And the third are the insights he acquires as a “divine being, as it were” about the objects; these are the secrets of the workings and existence of these objects that are revealed to him.

[ 3 ] These three areas are clearly distinct in human life. And so man becomes aware that he is interwoven with the world in three ways. — The first way is something he finds, which he accepts as a given fact. Through the second way, he makes the world his own affair, something that has meaning for him. He regards the third way as a goal toward which he should strive unceasingly.

[ 4 ] Why does the world appear to humans in this threefold way? A simple observation can teach us this: I walk across a meadow covered with flowers. The flowers reveal their colors to me through my eyes. That is the fact that I accept as given. — I rejoice in the splendor of colors. In this way, I make the fact my own. Through my feelings, I connect the flowers with my own existence. A year later, I walk across the same meadow again. There are different flowers there. They give me new joy. My joy from the previous year will emerge as a memory. It is within me; the object that sparked it has passed. But the flowers I see now are of the same kind as last year's; they have grown according to the same laws as those. Once I have understood this kind, these laws, I find them in this year's flowers just as I recognized them in last year's. And so I may reflect: Last year's flowers are gone; my joy in them remains only in my memory. It is linked only to my existence. But what I recognized in the flowers last year and recognize again this year will remain as long as such flowers grow. This is something that has been revealed to me, but which is not dependent on my existence in the same way as my joy. My feelings of joy remain within me; the laws, the essence of the flowers remain outside of me in the world.

[ 5 ] Thus, human beings are eternally connected to the things of the world in this threefold way. Let us not read anything into this fact at first, but take it as it is presented. It follows from this that human beings have three sides to their nature. This and nothing else is meant here by the three words body, soul, and spirit. Anyone who associates any preconceived opinions or even hypotheses with these three words will necessarily misunderstand the following discussions. Body here means that through which the things of his environment reveal themselves to man, as in the above example of the flowers in the meadow. The word soul refers to that through which he connects things with his own existence, through which he feels pleasure and displeasure, desire and aversion, joy and pain in relation to them. Spirit refers to that which becomes apparent in him when, in Goethe's words, he regards things as “divine beings, as it were.” In this sense, human beings consist of body, soul, and spirit.

[ 6 ] Through his body, man is able to connect with things for a moment. Through his soul, he preserves within himself the impressions they make on him; and through his spirit, what things preserve within themselves is revealed to him. Only by considering humans from these three perspectives can we hope to gain insight into their essence. For these three perspectives show them to be related to the rest of the world in three different ways.

[ 7 ] Through their body, they are related to the things that present themselves to their senses from outside. The substances of the outside world make up their body; the forces of the outside world also work within them. And just as they observe the things of the outside world with their senses, they can also observe their own physical existence. But it is impossible to observe the soul's existence in the same way. Everything that is physical in me can also be perceived with the physical senses. Neither I nor anyone else can perceive my likes and dislikes, my joy and my pain with the physical senses. The soul is a realm that is inaccessible to physical perception. The physical existence of human beings is visible to all; they carry their spiritual existence within themselves as their own world. But through the spirit, the outside world is revealed to them in a higher way. The secrets of the outside world are revealed within them, but they step outside themselves in spirit and let things speak for themselves, about what is significant not for them but for themselves. Human beings look up at the starry sky: the delight that their souls experience belongs to them; the eternal laws of the stars, which they grasp in thought, in spirit, do not belong to them, but to the stars themselves.

[ 8 ] Thus, man is a citizen of three worlds. Through his body, he belongs to the world that he also perceives with his body; through his soul, he builds his own world; through his spirit, a world is revealed to him that is superior to the other two.

[ 9 ] It seems obvious that, because of the essential differences between these three worlds, it is only through three different modes of observation that one can gain clarity about them and man's share in them.

I. The Physical Essence of the Human Being

[ 10 ] Through the physical senses, one learns about the human body. And the way of looking at it can be no other than that by which one learns about other things that can be perceived by the senses. Just as one looks at minerals, plants, and animals, so one can also look at human beings. They are related to these three forms of existence. Like minerals, they build their bodies from the substances of nature; like plants, they grow and reproduce; like animals, they perceive the objects around them and form inner experiences based on their impressions. One can therefore attribute a mineral, a plant, and an animal existence to human beings.

[ 11 ] The differences in the structure of minerals, plants, and animals correspond to the three forms of their existence. And it is this structure — the form — that is perceived by the senses and that alone can be called the body. Now, however, the human body differs from the animal body. Everyone must acknowledge this difference, regardless of what they may otherwise think about the relationship between humans and animals. Even the most radical materialist, who denies everything spiritual, will not be able to avoid endorsing the following statement, which Carus expresses in his “Organon of the Knowledge of Nature and the Spirit”: " The finer, innermost structure of the nervous system, and especially of the brain, still remains an unsolved mystery to physiologists and anatomists; but it is a well-established fact that this concentration of structures increases more and more in the animal kingdom and reaches a degree in humans that is found in no other being; it is of the utmost importance for the development of the human mind; indeed, we may say that it is actually the sufficient explanation. Where the structure of the brain has not developed properly, where its smallness and inadequacy are evident, as in the case of microcephalics and idiots, it goes without saying that there can be just as little talk of the emergence of original ideas and of cognition as there can be of the advancement of the species in humans with completely malformed reproductive organs. A strong and beautifully developed structure of the whole human being, on the other hand, and of the brain in particular, will not in itself create genius, but it will certainly provide the first and most indispensable condition for higher knowledge."

[ 12 ] Just as the human body is said to have three forms of existence, mineral, plant, and animal, so must it be said to have a fourth, the specifically human form. Through its mineral form of existence, man is related to everything visible; through its plant form, to all beings that grow and reproduce; through its animal form, to all beings that perceive their surroundings and have inner experiences based on external impressions; through its human form, it already constitutes a realm unto itself in physical terms.

II. The Soulish Essence of the Human Being

[ 13 ] As its own inner world, the spiritual essence of the human being is distinct from its physicality. The self immediately comes to the fore when one directs one's attention to the simplest sensory perception. No one can know at first whether another person experiences such a simple sensory perception in exactly the same way as they do. It is known that there are people who are color blind. Such people see things only in different shades of gray. Others are partially color blind. They are therefore unable to perceive certain color nuances. The worldview that their eyes give them is different from that of so-called normal people. And the same applies more or less to the other senses. It follows from this that even simple sensory perception belongs to the inner world. With my physical senses, I can perceive the red table that the other person also perceives, but I cannot perceive the other person's perception of red. — Sensory perception must therefore be described as something spiritual. Once we have made this fact clear to ourselves, we will soon cease to regard inner experiences as mere brain processes or the like. Sensory perception is immediately followed by feeling. One sensation makes a person feel pleasure, the other displeasure. These are stirrings of their inner, spiritual life. In their feelings, people create a second world in addition to the one that affects them from outside. And a third thing is added: the will. Through it, people act back on the outside world. And in this way, they impress their inner being on the outside world. The soul of the human being flows outward, as it were, in his acts of will. This distinguishes the deeds of human beings from the events of external nature in that the former bear the stamp of his inner life. Thus, the soul presents itself as the essence of the human being to the external world. He receives stimuli from the external world, but he forms his own world in accordance with these stimuli. The physical body becomes the foundation of the soul.

III. The Spiritual Essence of the Human Being

[ 14 ] The soul of the human being is not determined by the body alone. Human beings do not wander aimlessly and directionlessly from one sensory impression to another; nor do they act under the influence of every random stimulus exerted on them from outside or through the processes of their bodies. They reflect on their perceptions and their actions. By reflecting on their perceptions, they acquire knowledge about things; by reflecting on their actions, they bring a rational connection into their lives. And they know that they can only fulfill their task as human beings in a dignified manner if they allow themselves to be guided by correct thoughts in both their cognition and their actions. The soul therefore faces a twofold necessity. It is determined by the laws of the body through natural necessity; it allows itself to be determined by the laws that lead it to correct thinking because it freely recognizes their necessity. Man is subject to the laws of metabolism by nature; he subjects himself to the laws of thinking. — In this way, humans make themselves members of a higher order than that to which they belong through their bodies. And this order is the spiritual one. As different as the physical is from the soul, so different is the soul from the spiritual. As long as one speaks only of the carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen particles that move in the body, one does not have the soul in mind. Spiritual life only begins when, within such movement, the sensation arises: I taste sweetness or I feel pleasure. Nor does one have the spirit in mind as long as one merely looks at the spiritual experiences that pass through human beings when they surrender themselves completely to the outside world and their physical life. Rather, the soul is the foundation for the spirit, just as the body is the foundation for the soul. — The natural scientist deals with the body, the soul researcher (psychologist) with the soul, and the spirit researcher with the spirit. Reflecting on one's own self in order to understand the difference between body, soul, and spirit is a requirement that must be imposed on those who want to enlighten themselves about the nature of human beings through thought.

IV. Body, Soul, and Spirit

[ 15 ] Human beings can only truly understand themselves if they understand the significance of thinking within their being. The brain is the physical tool of thinking. Just as human beings can only see colors with a well-formed eye, so too does a properly constructed brain serve them for thinking. The entire human body is formed in such a way that it finds its crowning glory in the spiritual organ, the brain. The structure of the human brain can only be understood when viewed in relation to its function. This function is to be the physical basis of the thinking spirit. A comparative overview of the animal world illustrates this. In amphibians, the brain is still small compared to the spinal cord; in mammals, it becomes relatively larger. In humans, it is largest in relation to the rest of the body.

[ 16 ] There are many prejudices against remarks about thinking such as those made here. Some people are inclined to underestimate thinking and to place greater value on “intense emotional life” and “sensation.” Indeed, it is often said that it is not through “sober thinking” but through the warmth of emotion, through the immediate power of sensation, that we rise to higher knowledge. People who speak in this way fear that clear thinking will dull the emotions. In everyday thinking, which relates only to things of utility, this is certainly the case. But in thoughts that lead to higher regions of existence, the opposite occurs. There is no feeling and no enthusiasm that can compare with the sensations of warmth, beauty, and elevation that are kindled by pure, crystal-clear thoughts that relate to higher worlds. The highest feelings are not those that arise “by themselves,” but those that are achieved through energetic thought work.

[ 17 ] The human body has a structure that corresponds to thinking. The same substances and forces that are also present in the mineral kingdom are found in the human body in such a way that thinking can manifest itself through this combination. This mineral structure, formed in accordance with its task, will be referred to as the physical body of the human being in the following consideration.

[ 18 ] The mineral structure, centered on the brain, is created through reproduction and takes its developed form through growth. Humans share reproduction and growth with plants and animals. Reproduction and growth distinguish living beings from inanimate minerals. Living beings arise from living beings through the seed. The descendant joins the ancestor in the chain of living beings. The forces that create a mineral are directed at the substances that compose it. A rock crystal is formed by the forces inherent in silicon and oxygen, which are united in it. The forces that shape an oak tree must be sought indirectly through the seed in the mother and father plants. And the form of the oak is preserved in reproduction from ancestors to descendants. There are inner conditions inherent in living beings. It was a crude view of nature that believed that lower animals, even fish, could form from mud. The form of living beings is perpetuated through heredity. How a living being develops depends on which father or mother it originated from, or in other words, to which species it belongs. The substances of which it is composed are constantly changing; the species remains the same throughout life and is inherited by the offspring. The species is thus that which determines the combination of substances. This species-forming force is to be called the life force. Just as the mineral forces are expressed in crystals, so the formative life force is expressed in the species or forms of plant and animal life. 1See Comments and Additions to Page 35

[ 19 ] Humans perceive mineral forces through their physical senses. And they can only perceive what they have senses for. Without the eye, there is no perception of light; without the ear, no perception of sound. The lowest organisms have only one type of sense among those possessed by humans: the sense of touch. For them, the only mineral forces that exist in the human mode of perception are those that reveal themselves to the sense of touch.2See Comments and additions to page 36 To the extent that the other senses are developed in higher animals, the environment that humans also perceive is richer and more diverse for them. It therefore depends on the organs of a being whether what is present in the outside world is also present for the being itself as perception, as sensation. What is present in the air as a certain movement becomes a sound sensation in humans. Humans do not perceive the manifestations of the life force through the ordinary senses. They see the colors of plants and smell their fragrance, but the life force remains hidden from this observation. However, just as a person born blind does not rightly deny the existence of colors, so too should the ordinary senses not deny the existence of the life force. Colors are available to the blind person as soon as they have undergone surgery; similarly, the manifold species of plants and animals created by the life force, not just the individuals, are also available to humans as perceptions when the organ for this opens up to them. — A whole new world opens up to humans through the opening up of this organ. They now perceive not only the colors, smells, and so on of living beings, but also the life of these living beings themselves. In every plant, in every animal, they perceive not only the physical form but also the life-filled spiritual form. To express this, let us call this spiritual form the etheric body or life body. 3Long after writing this book (cf. the magazine “Das Reich,” fourth book of the first volume [January 1917]), the author also referred to what is called here the etheric or life body as the “image-force body.” He felt compelled to use this name because he believes that one cannot do enough to prevent the misunderstanding of confusing what is meant here by etheric body with the “life force” of older natural science. When it comes to rejecting this older mental image of a life force in the sense of modern natural science, the author takes the position of those who oppose such a force. For it was intended to explain the special mode of action of inorganic forces in the organism. But what acts inorganically in the organism acts no differently there than in the realm of the inorganic world. The laws of inorganic nature are no different in the organism than in crystals, etc. But in the organism there is something that is not inorganic: the formative life. This is based on the etheric or formative force body. Accepting this does not interfere with the legitimate task of natural science: to pursue what it observes about the effects of forces in inorganic nature into the world of organisms. And true Spiritual Science also considers it justified to reject the idea that this effect is modified within the organism by a special life force. The spiritual researcher speaks of the etheric body insofar as something else is revealed in the organism than in the inanimate. — Despite all this, the author of this book does not feel compelled to replace the name “etheric body” with the other “formative forces body,” since within the whole context found here, misunderstanding is impossible for anyone who wants to see. Such a misunderstanding can only arise if the name is used in a context that cannot reveal this connection. (Compare this with what is said at the end of this book under “Individual remarks and additions.”) — For the researcher of spiritual life, this matter presents itself in the following way. For him, the etheric body is not merely a result of the substances and forces of the physical body, but an independent, real entity that first calls the aforementioned physical substances and forces to life. In the sense of Spiritual Science, one says: a mere physical body has its form — for example, a crystal — through the physical formative forces inherent in the inanimate; a living body does not have its form through these forces, because the moment life has left it and it is left to the physical forces alone, it decays. The life body is an entity through which the physical body is preserved from decay at every moment during life. — In order to see this life body, to perceive it in another being, one needs the awakened spiritual eye. Without this, one can assume its existence for logical reasons; but one can see it with the spiritual eye, just as one sees color with the physical eye. — One should not be put off by the expression “etheric body.” “Ether” here refers to something other than the hypothetical ether of physics. Simply accept the term as a designation for what is described here. And just as the physical human body is a reflection of its task in its structure, so is the human etheric body. One can only understand this if one considers it in relation to the thinking spirit. Through its orientation toward the thinking spirit, the etheric body of the human being differs from that of plants and animals. — Just as the human being belongs to the mineral world through his physical body, so he belongs to the living world through his etheric body. After death, the physical body dissolves into the mineral world, and the etheric body into the living world. The term “body” refers to that which gives a being of any kind its “form” or “appearance.” The term ‘body’ should not be confused with the physical form of the body. In the sense used in this writing, the term “body” can also be used to refer to that which is formed as soul and spirit.

[ 20 ] The life body is still something external to the human being. With the first rain of sensation, the inner self responds to the stimuli of the outside world. No matter how far one pursues what can rightly be called the outside world, one will not be able to find sensation. — The rays of light penetrate the eye; they propagate within it to the retina. There they cause chemical processes (in the so-called purple of vision); the effect of these stimuli continues through the optic nerve to the brain, where further physical processes take place. If one could observe these, one would see physical processes just as elsewhere in the outside world. If I am able to observe the life body, I will perceive how the physical brain process is at the same time a life process. But I cannot find the sensation of the blue color that the receiver of the light rays has anywhere in this way. It arises only within the soul of this receiver. If the essence of this receiver were exhausted by the physical body and the etheric body, the sensation could not exist. The activity through which the sensation becomes a fact differs very significantly from the working of the life-image force. An inner experience is elicited from this activity by that activity. Without this activity, there would be a mere life process, as can also be observed in plants. Imagine a human being receiving impressions from all sides. One must think of him at the same time as the source of the activity described in all directions from which he receives these impressions. On all sides, the sensations respond to the impressions. This source of activity is called the sentient soul. This sentient soul is just as real as the physical body. When a person stands before me and I disregard their sentient soul by creating a mental image of them as merely a physical body, it is just as if I were to imagine a painting as merely a canvas. Something similar must be said about the perception of the feeling soul as was said earlier about the etheric body. The physical organs are “blind” to it. And so is the organ through which life can be perceived as life. But just as the etheric body is seen through this organ, so the inner world of feelings can become a special kind of supersensible perception through an even higher organ. The human being then not only feels the impressions of the physical and living world, but also sees the feelings. Before a person with such an organ, the world of feelings of another being lies there like an external reality. One must distinguish between experiencing one's own world of feelings and seeing the world of feelings of another being. Of course, everyone can look into their own world of sensations; only the seer with an open “spiritual eye” can see the world of sensations of another being . Without being a seer, a person knows the world of sensations only as “inner,” only as the hidden experiences of their own soul; with the “spiritual eye” open, what otherwise lives only “inside” the other being shines forth before the outer spiritual gaze.

[ 21 ] To avoid misunderstandings, it should be explicitly stated here that the seer does not experience within himself the same thing that the other being has within himself as the content of his world of feeling. The latter experiences the feelings from the point of view of his inner being; the seer perceives a revelation, an expression of the world of feeling.

[ 22 ] The sentient soul depends on the etheric body for its effect. For it is from the etheric body that it draws forth what it is to let shine forth as sensation. And since the etheric body is the life within the physical body, the sentient soul is also indirectly dependent on it. Only with a properly functioning, well-constructed eye are corresponding color sensations possible. In this way, physicality affects the sentient soul. Its effectiveness is thus determined and limited by the body. It lives within the boundaries set for it by physicality. — The body is thus built up from mineral substances, animated by the etheric body, and it itself limits the sentient soul. Anyone who has the above-mentioned organ for “seeing” the sentient soul recognizes that it is limited by the body. — But the limits of the sentient soul do not coincide with those of the physical body. This soul extends beyond the physical body. From this we can see that it proves to be more powerful than the physical body. But the force that sets its limits emanates from the physical body. This means that there is a special link between the physical body and the etheric body on the one hand, and the sentient soul on the other. This is the soul body or sentient body. One could also say that one part of the etheric body is finer than the rest, and this finer part of the etheric body forms a unity with the sentient soul, while the coarser part forms a kind of unity with the physical body. But, as already mentioned, the sentient soul transcends the soul body.

[ 23 ] What is called feeling here is only part of the soul being. (The term feeling soul is chosen for the sake of simplicity.) Feelings are accompanied by the emotions of pleasure and displeasure, drives, instincts, and passions. All of these have the same character of independent life as sensations and, like them, are dependent on the physical body.

[ 24 ] Just as with the body, the sentient soul also interacts with thinking, with the spirit. First of all, thinking serves it. Human beings form thoughts about their sensations. In this way, they learn about the outside world. The child who has burned itself thinks and comes to the conclusion: “Fire burns.” Nor do human beings blindly follow their drives, instincts, and passions; their thinking brings about the opportunity to satisfy them. What we call material culture moves entirely in this direction. It consists of the services that thinking provides to the feeling soul. Immense sums of thinking power are directed toward this goal. It is thinking power that has built ships, railroads, telegraphs, and telephones; and all of these serve, for the most part, to satisfy the needs of the feeling souls. In a similar way to how the life image force permeates the physical body, the thinking force permeates the sentient soul. The life image force connects the physical body to ancestors and descendants, thereby placing it within a lawfulness that has nothing to do with the purely mineral. In the same way, the power of thought places the soul within a lawfulness to which it does not belong as a mere sentient soul. Through the sentient soul, human beings are related to animals. In animals, too, we observe the presence of sensations, drives, instincts, and passions. But animals follow these immediately. They are not interwoven with independent thoughts that go beyond immediate experience.4See Comments and additions to page 43 This is also the case to a certain extent with undeveloped humans. The mere feeling soul is therefore different from the developed higher soul member, which puts thinking at its service. This soul, which is served by thinking, can be called the intellectual soul. It could also be called the emotional soul or the mind.

[ 25 ] The intellectual soul permeates the sentient soul. Those who have the organ for “seeing” the soul therefore regard the intellectual soul as a special entity in contrast to the mere feeling soul.

[ 26 ] Through thinking, human beings are led beyond their own lives. They acquire something that extends beyond their soul. It is a self-evident conviction for them that the laws of thought are in accordance with the world order. They therefore regard themselves as natives of the world because this correspondence exists. This correspondence is one of the important facts through which human beings come to know their own nature. In their soul, humans search for truth; and through this truth, not only the soul expresses itself, but the things of the world also express themselves. What is recognized as truth through thinking has an independent meaning that relates to the things of the world, not just to one's own soul. With my delight in the starry sky, I live within myself; the thoughts I form about the orbits of the heavenly bodies have the same meaning for everyone else's thinking as they do for my own. It would be pointless to speak of my delight if I myself did not exist; but it is not pointless in the same way to speak of my thoughts even without reference to myself. For the truth that I think today was also true yesterday and will be true tomorrow, even though I am only concerned with it today. If a realization gives me joy, this joy is significant as long as it lives within me; the truth of the realization has its significance quite independently of this joy. In grasping the truth, the soul connects with something that carries its value within itself. And this value does not disappear with the soul's feeling, just as it did not arise with it. What is truly truth does not arise and does not pass away: it has a meaning that cannot be destroyed. This does not contradict the fact that individual human “truths” have only a temporary value, because they are recognized as partial or complete errors at a certain point in time. For man must tell himself that truth exists in itself, even if his thoughts are only transitory manifestations of eternal truths. Even those who, like Lessing, say that they are content with the eternal pursuit of truth, since the full, pure truth can only exist for a god, do not deny the eternal value of truth, but rather confirm it with such a statement. For only that which has eternal meaning in itself can inspire an eternal pursuit. If truth were not independent in itself, if it derived its value and meaning from human soul perception, then it could not be a single goal for all people. By striving for it, one acknowledges its independent essence.

[ 27 ] And as with the true, so it is with the truly good. Moral goodness is independent of inclinations and passions, insofar as it does not allow itself to be ruled by them, but rather rules them. Pleasure and displeasure, desire and aversion belong to the human soul itself; duty stands above pleasure and displeasure. Duty can be so important to man that he sacrifices his life for it. And the more man has ennobled his inclinations, his pleasures and displeasures, so that they follow the recognized duty without compulsion, without submission, the higher he stands. Moral goodness, like truth, has its eternal value within itself and does not receive it through the sentient soul.

[ 28 ] By allowing the independent true and good to live within themselves, human beings rise above the mere sentient soul. The eternal spirit shines into it. A light dawns within it that is imperishable. Insofar as the soul lives in this light, it participates in the eternal. It connects its own existence with it. What the soul carries within itself as truth and goodness is immortal in it. — That which shines forth in the soul as eternal may be called the consciousness soul. — One can also speak of consciousness in relation to the lower soul movements. The most everyday sensation is the object of consciousness. In this respect, animals also have consciousness. The core of human consciousness, that is, the soul within the soul, is referred to here as the consciousness soul. The consciousness soul is distinguished here from the intellectual soul as a special member of the soul. The latter is still entangled in sensations, instincts, emotions, and so on. Every human being knows how what he prefers in his sensations and so on is initially considered true. But only that truth is lasting which has detached itself from all the aftertaste of such sympathies and antipathies of sensations and so on. Truth is true even if all personal feelings rebel against it. The part of the soul in which this truth lives should be called the conscious soul.

[ 29 ] Thus, as in the body, three members should be distinguished in the soul: the sentient soul, the intellectual soul, and the conscious soul. And just as physicality limits the soul from below, so spirituality expands it from above. For the more the soul is filled with truth and goodness, the wider and more comprehensive the eternal becomes in it. — For those who are able to “see” the soul, the radiance that emanates from human beings as their eternal nature expands is just as real as the light that radiates from a flame is to the physical eye. For the “seer,” the physical human being is only a part of the whole human being. The body is the coarsest structure in the midst of others that interpenetrate it and each other. The etheric body fills the physical body as a form of life; protruding beyond it on all sides, one recognizes the soul body (astral form). And rising above this again is the sentient soul, then the intellectual soul, which becomes greater the more it absorbs the true and the good within itself. For this true and good causes the expansion of the intellectual soul. A person who lived solely according to their inclinations, their likes and dislikes, would have a intellectual soul whose boundaries coincided with those of their emotional soul. This structure, in the midst of which the physical body appears as if in a cloud, can be called the human aura. It is that which enriches the “essence of the human being” when viewed in the way this writing attempts to portray it.

[ 30 ] In the course of childhood development, there comes a moment in a person's life when they feel themselves to be an independent being in relation to the rest of the world for the first time. For sensitive people, this is a significant experience. The poet Jean Paul recounts in his autobiography: "I will never forget the phenomenon within me, which I have never told anyone about, when I stood at the birth of my self-awareness, the place and time of which I can specify. One morning, as a very young child, I was standing under the front door and looking to the left at the woodpile when suddenly the inner face, I am an I, struck me like a bolt of lightning from the sky and has remained shining ever since: there, my I had seen itself for the first time and for eternity. Deceptions of memory are hardly conceivable here, since no foreign narrative could add to an event that took place in the most sacred of human sanctuaries, whose novelty alone gave permanence to such everyday circumstances. — It is well known that small children say of themselves: “Karl is good,” “Marie wants that.” It is considered appropriate that they speak of themselves in the same way as they speak of others, because they are not yet aware of their independent existence, because the consciousness of the self has not yet been born in them.5See Comments and additions to page 48 Through self-consciousness, human beings designate themselves as independent beings, separate from everything else, as “I.” In the “I,” humans summarize everything they experience as physical and spiritual beings. Body and soul are the carriers of the ‘I’; it works within them. Just as the physical body has its center in the brain, so the soul has its center in the “I.” Humans are stimulated to sensations from outside; feelings assert themselves as effects of the outside world; the will relates to the outside world, for it is realized in external actions. The “I” remains completely invisible as the actual essence of the human being. Jean Paul therefore aptly calls the awareness of the ‘I’ an “event that has occurred only in the veiled inner sanctum of the human being.” For with his “I,” the human being is completely alone. — And this “I” is the human being himself. This entitles him to regard this “I” as his true essence. He may therefore describe his body and soul as the ‘shells’ within which he lives; and he may describe them as physical conditions through which he acts. In the course of his development, he learns to use these tools more and more as servants of his “I.” The little word “I,” as it is used in the German language, for example, is a name that differs from all other names. Anyone who thinks accurately about the nature of this name will at the same time gain access to a deeper understanding of human nature. All people can apply every other name in the same way to the thing it corresponds to. Everyone can call a table “table” and a chair “chair.” This is not the case with the name “I.” No one can use it to refer to another; only each person can call themselves “I.” The name ‘I’ can never reach my ear from outside if it is the name for me. Only from within, only through itself, can the soul call itself “I.” So when a person says “I” to themselves, something begins to speak within them that has nothing to do with any of the worlds from which the ‘shells’ mentioned so far are taken. The “I” increasingly becomes the ruler of body and soul. — This, too, is expressed in the aura. The more the I rules over body and soul, the more structured, diverse, and colorful the aura becomes. The effect of the I on the aura can be seen by the “seer.” The ‘I’ itself is also invisible to him: it is truly in the “veiled holy of holies of the human being.” But the ego absorbs the rays of light that shine as eternal light within the human being. Just as the human being summarizes the experiences of the body and soul in the “ego,” so too does he allow the thoughts of truth and goodness to flow into the “ego.” Sensory phenomena reveal themselves to the “ego” from one side, the spirit from the other. Body and soul surrender themselves to the “I” in order to serve it; but the “I” surrenders itself to the spirit so that it may fill it. The ‘I’ lives in body and soul; but the spirit lives in the “I.” And what is of the spirit in the I is eternal. For the I derives its essence and meaning from that with which it is connected. Insofar as it lives in the physical body, it is subject to the laws of minerals; through the etheric body, it is subject to the laws of reproduction and growth; through the soul of feeling and understanding, it is subject to the laws of the soul world; insofar as it takes in the spiritual, it is subject to the laws of the spirit. What constitutes the mineral and life laws arises and passes away; but the spirit has nothing to do with arising and passing away.

[ 31 ] The I lives in the soul. Even though the highest expression of the “I” belongs to the consciousness soul, it must be said that this “I” radiates from there, filling the whole soul and expressing its effect on the body through the soul. And in the I, the spirit is alive. The spirit radiates into the I and lives in it as in its “shell,” just as the I lives in the body and soul as its “shells.” The spirit forms the I from the inside out, the mineral world from the outside in. The spirit that forms the “I” and lives as the “I” is called the “spirit self” because it appears as the ‘I’ or “self” of the human being. The difference between the “spirit self” and the “consciousness soul” can be clarified in the following way. The consciousness soul touches the truth that is independent of any antipathy or sympathy, existing through itself; the spirit self carries the same truth within itself, but absorbed and enclosed by the “I”; individualized by the latter and taken into the independent entity of the human being. By becoming independent in this way and being connected with the “I” to form a single entity, the eternal truth enables the “I” itself to attain eternity.

[ 32 ] The spirit self is a revelation of the spiritual world within the I, just as, on the other hand, sensory perception is a revelation of the physical world within the I. In what is red, green, light, dark, hard, soft, warm, cold, one recognizes the revelations of the physical world; in what is true and good, the revelations of the spiritual world. In the same sense that the revelation of the physical is called sensation, the revelation of the spiritual is called intuition. The simplest thought already contains intuition, for one cannot touch it with one's hands or see it with one's eyes: one must receive its revelation from the spirit through the I. When an undeveloped and a developed person look at a plant, something completely different lives in the ego of one than in that of the other. And yet the sensations of both are evoked by the same object. The difference lies in the fact that one can form far more complete thoughts about the object than the other. If objects were revealed solely through sensation, there could be no progress in spiritual development. The savage also perceives nature; the laws of nature reveal themselves only to the thoughts of the more highly developed human being, which are fertilized by intuition. The child also perceives the stimuli of the outside world as an impulse of the will, but the commandments of moral goodness only become clear to it in the course of its development, as it learns to live in the spirit and to understand its revelation.

[ 33 ] Just as there would be no perception of color without the eye, so there would be no intuition without the higher thinking of the spirit itself.6See Comments and additions to pages 52 and 53 And just as the plant on which the color appears does not create the sensation, so intuition does not create the spiritual, but rather only gives knowledge of it.

[ 34 ] Through intuition, the human ego, which lives in the soul, receives messages from above, from the spiritual world, just as it receives messages from the physical world through the senses. And in this way, it makes the spiritual world as much a part of the soul's own life as the physical world is through the senses. The soul, or the I that shines within it, opens its gates in two directions: toward the physical and toward the spiritual.

[ 35 ] Just as the physical world can only make itself known to the I by building a body out of its substances and forces, in which the conscious soul can live and within which it possesses organs to perceive the physical world outside itself, so too does the spiritual world build a spiritual body out of its spiritual substances and forces, in which the I can live and perceive the spiritual world through intuition. (It is obvious that the terms spiritual substance and spiritual body contain a contradiction in terms. They are only used to direct the thought to that which corresponds in the spiritual world to the physical body of the human being.)

[ 36 ] And just as within the physical world the individual human body is built up as a separate entity, so within the spiritual world the spiritual body is built up. In the spiritual world, there is an inside and an outside for human beings just as there is in the physical world. Just as human beings absorb substances from their physical environment and process them in their physical bodies, so they absorb the spiritual from their spiritual environment and make it their own. The spiritual is the eternal nourishment of human beings. And just as human beings are born from the physical world, so too are they born from the spirit through the eternal laws of truth and goodness. They are separated from the spiritual world outside themselves, just as they are separated from the entire physical world as independent beings. This independent spiritual being may be called the “spirit-human.”

[ 37 ] When we examine the physical human body, we find in it the same substances and forces that exist outside it in the rest of the physical world. The same is true of the spirit-human. The elements of the outer spiritual world pulsate within it, and the forces of the rest of the spiritual world are active in it. Just as the physical skin encloses a living, sentient being, so too does the spiritual world. The spiritual skin that separates the spiritual human being from the unified spiritual world, making him an independent spiritual being within it, who lives within himself and intuitively perceives the spiritual content of the world, this “spiritual skin” is called the spiritual shell (auric shell). It must be noted, however, that this “spiritual skin” continuously expands with the progress of human development, so that the spiritual individuality of the human being (his auric shell) is capable of unlimited enlargement.

[ 38 ] The spiritual human being lives within this spiritual shell. It is built up by the spiritual life force in the same way as the physical body is built up by the physical life force. In a similar way to how one speaks of an etheric body, one must therefore speak of an etheric spirit in relation to the spiritual human being. This etheric spirit may be called the life spirit. The spiritual essence of the human being is thus divided into three parts: the spiritual human being, the life spirit, and the spiritual self.

[ 39 ] For those who “see” in the spiritual realms, this spiritual essence of the human being is a perceptible reality as the higher — actually spiritual — part of the aura. They “see” the spiritual human being as the life spirit within the spiritual shell; and they “see” how this “life spirit” continually enlarges itself by absorbing spiritual nourishment from the spiritual world outside. And furthermore, they see how this absorption causes the spiritual shell to expand continuously, how the spiritual human being becomes greater and greater. Insofar as this “becoming greater” is “seen” spatially, it is of course only an image of reality. Nevertheless, in the mental image, the human soul is directed toward the corresponding spiritual reality. The difference between the spiritual essence of the human being and his physical essence is that the latter has a limited size, while the former can grow indefinitely. What is absorbed as spiritual nourishment has eternal value. The human aura is therefore composed of two interpenetrating parts. One is colored and shaped by the physical existence of the human being, the other by his spiritual existence. The ego provides the separation between the two, in such a way that the physical surrenders its own nature and builds a body that allows a soul to live within it; and the ego surrenders itself and allows the spirit to live within it, which in turn permeates the soul and gives it its goal in the spiritual world. Through the body, the soul is enclosed in the physical; through the spiritual human being, it grows wings to move in the spiritual world.

[ 40 ] If one wants to understand the whole human being, one must think of them as composed of the aforementioned components. The body is built up from the physical world of matter, so that this structure is oriented toward the thinking self. It is permeated by life force and thus becomes the etheric body or life body. As such, it opens outward in the sense organs and becomes the soul body. The feeling soul permeates this and becomes one with it. The sentient soul does not merely receive impressions from the outside world as sensations; it has its own life, which is fertilized by thinking on the one hand and by sensations on the other. In this way it becomes the intellectual soul. It can do this by opening itself upward to intuitions and downward to sensations. This makes it the conscious soul. This is possible because the spiritual world forms the organ of intuition within it, just as the physical body forms the sense organs. Just as the senses receive sensations through the soul body, so the spirit conveys intuitions to it through the organ of intuition. The spirit-human is thus connected with the consciousness soul in a unity, just as the physical body is connected with the feeling soul in the soul body. The consciousness soul and the spirit self form a unity. In this unity, the spirit-human lives as a life spirit, just as the etheric body forms the physical basis of life for the soul body. And just as the physical body is enclosed in the physical skin, so the spirit-human is enclosed in the spirit shell. The structure of the whole human being is as follows:

  1. Physical body
  2. Etheric body or life body
  3. Soul body
  4. Sentimental soul
  5. Intellectual soul
  6. Conscious soul
  7. Spiritual self
  8. Life spirit
  9. Spiritual human being

The soul body (C) and feeling soul (D) are one entity in the earthly human being, as are the consciousness soul (F) and spirit self (G). This results in seven parts of the earthly human being:

  1. The physical body
  2. The etheric or life body
  3. The sentient soul body
  4. The intellectual soul
  5. The spirit-filled consciousness soul
  6. The life spirit
  7. The spirit man

[ 41 ] The “I” flashes up in the soul, receives the impact from the spirit, and thereby becomes the bearer of the spirit man. In this way, the human being participates in the “three worlds” (the physical, the soul, and the spiritual). He is rooted in the physical world through his physical body, etheric body, and soul body, and blossoms upward into the spiritual world through his spirit self, life spirit, and spirit man. But the trunk that is rooted on one side and blossoms on the other is the soul itself.

[ 42 ] In accordance with this structure of the human being, it is possible to give a simplified form of it. Although the human “I” shines forth in the consciousness soul, it permeates the entire soul being. The parts of this soul being are not as sharply separated as the limbs of the body; they interpenetrate each other in a higher sense. If we then consider the intellectual soul and the consciousness soul as the two related shells of the I, and the I as the core of these, then we can divide the human being into: physical body, life body, astral body, and I. The term astral body refers here to what the soul body and the sentient soul together constitute. The term is found in older literature and is used here freely to refer to that part of the human being which lies beyond the realm of the senses. . Although the feeling soul is in a certain sense also permeated by the I, it is so closely connected with the soul body that a single term is justified for both when considered together. When the ego permeates the spirit self, the spirit self appears in such a way that the astral body is transformed from within by the soul. The astral body is initially influenced by human instincts, desires, and passions, insofar as these are felt; and it is also influenced by sensory perceptions. Sensory perceptions arise through the soul body as a member of the human being that comes to him from the outer world. The instincts, desires, passions, and so on arise in the sentient soul, insofar as it is permeated from within before this inner being has surrendered itself to the spirit self. When the “I” permeates itself with the spirit self, the soul again permeates the astral body with this spirit self. This is expressed in such a way that the instincts, desires, and passions are then illuminated by what the I has received from the spirit. The ego then becomes master in the world of instincts, desires, and so on, by virtue of its share in the spiritual world. To the extent that this happens, the spirit self appears in the astral body. And the astral body itself is transformed by this. The astral body then appears as a two-part entity, partly unchanged and partly transformed. Therefore, the spirit self in its manifestation in the human being can be described as the transformed astral body. Something similar happens in the human being when he takes the life spirit into his ego. Then the life body is transformed. It is permeated by the life spirit. This manifests itself in such a way that the life body becomes different. Therefore, one can also say that the life spirit is the transformed life body. And when the ego takes in the spirit-human being, it thereby receives the strong power to permeate the physical body with it. It is natural that what is thus transformed by the physical body cannot be perceived with the physical senses. It is precisely that which has become spirit-human in the physical body that is spiritualized. It is then available to sensory perception as something sensory; and insofar as this sensory aspect is spiritualized, it must be perceived by spiritual cognitive faculties. To the outer senses, even that which is permeated by the spiritual appears only as sensory. Based on all this, the following structure of the human being can also be given:

  1. Physical body
  2. Life body
  3. Astral body
  4. I as the core of the soul
  5. Spirit self as the transformed astral body
  6. Life spirit as the transformed life body
  7. Spiritual human being as the transformed physical body. 7See Comments and Additions to Pages 36-60

© 2021-2026 Steiner Online Library dba Rudolf Steiner Archive, a nonprofit research and education service. Not affiliated with the Anthroposophical Society or the Rudolf Steiner Archiv in Dornach.

This material is made available through the Rudolf Steiner Archive, rsarchive.org, a project of the community-funded nonprofit, Steiner Online Library. Please consider making a tax deductible donation to support this work. This service is not affiliated with the Anthroposophical Society or the Rudolf Steiner Archiv in Dornach.

Terms of Service | Privacy Policy