Fundamentals of Therapy
GA 27
III. The Manifestations Of Life
[ 1 ] We cannot come to understand the human organism, in health or in illness, if we conceive that the working effects of any substance, taken in with the food from external nature, simply continue into the inner parts of the organism. Within the human organism it is not a question of continuing, but, on the contrary, of overcoming the reactions observable in the substance while outside the organism.
[ 2 ] The illusion that the substances of the outer world simply continue to work of their own nature in the organism, is due to the fact that to the ordinary chemical conception of today it appears to be so. This, according to its researchers, is dedicated to the belief that hydrogen, for example, is present in the body in the same form as in external nature, since it occurs first in the substances consumed as food and drink, and then in the products of excretion: air, sweat, urine, faeces, or in secretions such as bile.
[ 3 ] One feels no necessity to ask what happens within the living body to that which appears as hydrogen before its entry into and after its exit from the organism.
[ 4 ] One does not ask: What does that which appears as hydrogen experience inside the organism?
[ 5 ] When, however, one raises this question, one is at once impelled to turn one's attention to the contrast between the waking and sleeping organism. When the organism is asleep, its physical nature provides no basis for the unfolding of conscious or self-conscious experience, but it still provides a basis for the unfolding of life. In this respect the sleeping organism is distinguished from the dead. For the substantial basis of the latter is no longer one of life. And so long as one only sees this contrast in the differing composition of substances in the dead and living organism, one will not progress in one's understanding.
[ 6 ] Half a century ago the eminent physiologist Du Bois Reymond pointed out that consciousness can never be explained by the reactions of material substance. Never, he declared, shall we understand why it should not be a matter of indifference to so many atoms of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, what their relative position is, or was, or will become. or why, by these their changes of position, they should bring forth in man the sensations: I see red, I smell the scent of roses. Such being the case, Du Bois Reymond contended, natural-scientific thought can never explain the waking human being, filled as he is with sensations; it can only explain the sleeping man.
[ 7 ] Yet in this view he fell subject to an illusion. He believed that the phenomena of life, though not of consciousness, would be intelligible as an outcome of the reactions of material substance. But in reality, we must say of the phenomena of life, as he said of those of consciousness: Why should it occur to so many atoms of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen to bring forth, by the manner of their present, past, or future relative positions, the phenomenon of life?
Observation shows, after all, that the phenomena of life have an altogether different orientation from those that run their course within the lifeless realm. Of the latter we shall be able to say: They reveal that they are subject to forces radiating outward from the essence of material substance. These forces radiate from the relative centre of the earth to the periphery. But the manifestations of life show the material substance appears subject to forces working from without inward—toward the relative centre. Passing on into the sphere of life, the substance must withdraw itself from the forces radiating outward and subject itself to those that radiate inward.
[ 8 ] Now it is to the earth that every earthly substance, or earthly process, owes its forces of the kind that radiate outward; it has these forces in common with the earth. It is, indeed, only as a constituent of the earth-body that any substance has the nature which chemistry discovers in it. When it comes to life, then it must stop being simply a piece of earth, it leaves its community with the earth. It is gathered up into the forces that radiate inward to the earth from all sides, from beyond the earthly realm. Whenever we see a substance or process unfold in forms of life, we must conceive it to be withdrawing from the forces that work upon it as from the centre of the earth, and entering the domain of others, which have, not a centre, but a periphery.
[ 9 ] From all sides they work, these forces, as if striving towards the central point of the earth. They would tear asunder the material nature of the earthly realm, dissolve it into complete formlessness, were it not for the heavenly bodies beyond the earth which mingle their influences in the field of these forces and modify the dissolving process. In the plant we can observe what happens. In plants, the substances of the earth are lifted out of the domain of earthly influences. They strive towards the formless. But this transition to the formless is modified by the influences of the sun and similar effects from the cosmos. When these are no longer working, or when they are working differently, as in the night, then, in the substances in question, the forces which they have from their community with earth begin to stir once more. From the cooperation of earthly forces and cosmic, the plant nature arises. If we comprise in the term physical the domain of all those forces and reactions which the substances unfold under the earth's influence we shall have to designate the entirely different forces which do not radiate outward from the earth, but in toward it, by a name in which this different character must find expression. Here we come from a new aspect to that element in the organization of man which was indicated from another in the former chapter. In harmony with an older usage, which has fallen into confusion under the modern purely physical way of thinking, we have agreed to denote this part of the human organism as the etheric. Thus, we shall have to say: in the plant-like nature, inasmuch as it appears alive, the etheric is holding sway.
[ 10 ] In man too, inasmuch as he is a living being, the same etheric principle holds sway. Nevertheless, even with respect to the mere phenomena of life, an important difference is apparent in his nature as against the plant's. For the plant lets the physical hold sway within it when the etheric from the cosmic spaces is no longer unfolding its influence, as is the case when at night-time the sun-ether ceases to work. The human being, on the other hand, only lets the physical hold sway within his body when death ensues. In sleep, though the phenomena of consciousness and self-consciousness vanish away; the phenomena of life remain, even when the sun-ether is no longer working in the cosmic spaces. Perpetually, throughout its life the plant is receiving into itself the ether-forces as they ray in towards the earth. Man, however, carries them within him in an individualized way, from the embryonic period of his existence. During his life, he takes out of himself what the plant receives continually from the universe because he received it for his further development already in the mother's womb. A force whose proper nature is originally cosmic, destined to pour its influences in towards the earth, works out of the lung or liver. It has accomplished a metamorphosis of its direction.
[ 11 ] Thus we shall have to say, man bears the etheric within him in an individualized form. As he carries the physical in the individualized form of his physical body and its organs, so too with the etheric. He has his own special etheric body, as he has his physical. In sleep, the etheric body of man remains united with the physical and gives it life; it only separates from it in death.
III. Die Erscheinungen des Lebens
[ 1 ] Man kommt nicht zum Verständnis des gesunden und kranken menschlichen Organismus, wenn man sich vorstellt, daß sich die Wirkungsart irgendeines mit der Nahrung aufgenommenen Stoffes aus der äußeren Natur in das Innere des Organismus einfach fortsetzt. Nicht um eine solche Fortsetzung der Wirkung, die man an dem Stoffe außerhalb des menschlichen Organismus beobachtet, handelt es sich, sondern um deren Überwindung.
[ 2 ] Die Täuschung, als ob im Organismus die Stoffe der Außenwelt in ihrer Eigenart fortwirkten, entsteht dadurch, daß vor der gewöhnlichen chemischen Denkungsart das so erscheint. Diese gibt sich nach ihren Untersuchungen dem Glauben hin, der Wasserstoff z.B. sei im Organismus so vorhanden wie in der äußeren Natur, weil er sich in den als Nahrungsmittel eingenommenen Speisen und Getränken, und dann wieder in den Ausscheidungsprodukten: Luft, Schweiß, Urin, Faeces und in den Absonderungen, z.B. Galle, findet.
[ 3 ] Man empfindet heute keine Notwendigkeit zu fragen, was mit dem als Wasserstoff vor dem Eintritt in den Organismus und nach dem Austritt Erscheinenden, im Organismus vorgegangen ist.
[ 4 ] Man fragt nicht: was macht das als Wasserstoff Erscheinende im Organismus durch?
[ 5 ] Man wird sogleich gedrängt, wenn man diese Frage aufwirft, die Aufmerksamkeit auf den Unterschied zwischen dem schlafenden und dem wachenden Organismus zu lenken. Im schlafenden Organismus bildet dessen stoffliche Wesenheit keine Grundlage zur Entfaltung der bewußten und selbstbewußten Erlebnisse. Aber sie bildet doch eine Grundlage zur Entfaltung des Lebens. In dieser Beziehung unterscheidet sich der schlafende von dem toten Organismus. In diesem ist die stoffliche Grundlage nicht mehr eine solche des Lebens. So lange man diesen Unterschied nur in der verschiedenen Zusammensetzung der Stoffe beim toten und lebenden Organismus sieht, wird man mit dem Verständnis nicht weiterkommen.
[ 6 ] Es hat vor fast einem halben Jahrhundert der bedeutende Physiologe Du Bois-Reymond darauf hingewiesen, daß man aus den Stoffwirkungen nie das Bewußtsein erklären könne. Er hat gesagt, nie und nimmer werde man einsehen, warum es einer bestimmten Anzahl von Kohlenstoff-, Sauerstoff-, Stickstoff- und Wasserstoffatomen nicht sollte gleichgültig sein, wie sie liegen, wie sie lagen und liegen werden, und warum sie durch diese ihre Lageveränderung in dem Menschen die Empfindung hervorbringen: ich sehe rot; ich rieche Rosenduft. Weil das so ist, meinte Du Bois-Reymond, könne die naturwissenschaftliche Denkart den wachenden, von Empfindungen erfüllten Menschen nie erklären, sondern nur den schlafenden.
[ 7 ] Er gab sich mit dieser Ansicht einer Illusion hin. Er glaubte aus der Wirkungsart der Stoffe ergäben sich zwar nicht die Bewußtseins-Erscheinungen, wohl aber die des Lebens. In Wirklichkeit muß man aber ebenso wie Du Bois-Reymond für die Bewußtseins-Erscheinungen für die des Lebens sagen: Warum sollte es einer Anzahl von Kohlenstoff-, Sauerstoff-, Wasserstoff- und Stickstoffatomen beikommen, durch die Art, wie sie lagen, wie sie liegen, wie sie liegen werden, die Erscheinung des Lebens hervorzubringen. Die Beobachtung zeigt doch, daß die Lebenserscheinungen eine ganz andere Orientierung haben als die im Leblosen verlaufenden. Für die letzteren wird man sagen können: sie zeigen sich von Kräften beherrscht, die vom Wesen des Stoffes ausstrahlen, vom - relativen - Mittelpunkt nach der Peripherie hin. Die Lebenserscheinungen zeigen den Stoff von Kräften beherrscht, die von außen nach innen wirken, gegen den - relativen - Mittelpunkt zu. Beim Übergange ins Leben muß sich der Stoff den ausstrahlenden Kräften entziehen und sich den einstrahlenden fügen.
[ 8 ] Nun hat ein jeglicher Erdenstoff und auch Erdenvorgang seine ausstrahlenden Kräfte von der Erde und in Gemeinschaft mit ihr. Er ist ein solcher Stoff, wie ihn die Chemie betrachtet, nur als ein Bestandteil des Erdenkörpers. Kommt er zum Leben, so muß er aufhören, ein bloßer Erdenteil zu sein. Er tritt aus der Gemeinschaft mit der Erde heraus. Er wird einbezogen in die Kräfte, die vom Außerirdischen nach der Erde von allen Seiten einstrahlen. Sieht man einen Stoff oder Vorgang als Leben sich entfalten, so muß man sich vorstellen, er entziehe sich den Kräften, die wie vom Mittelpunkt der Erde auf ihn wirken, und er komme in den Bereich von anderen, die keinen Mittelpunkt, sondern einen Umkreis haben.
[ 9 ] Von allen Seiten wirken sie heran, diese Kräfte, wie nach dem Mittelpunkte der Erde hin strebend. Sie müßten das Stoffliche des Erdenbereichs völlig gestaltlos auflösen, zerreißen, wenn sich nicht in diesen Kräfteraum die Wirkungen der außerirdischen Himmelskörper mischten, die die Auflösung modifizieren. An der Pflanze kann man beobachten, was in Betracht kommt. Die Stoffe der Erde werden in den Pflanzen aus dem Bereich der Erdenwirkungen herausgehoben. Sie streben in das Formlose. Diesen Übergang in das Formlose modifizieren die Sonnenwirkungen und Ähnliches aus dem Weltenraume. Wirkt das nicht, oder anders z. B. in der Nacht, dann regen sich in den Stoffen wieder die Kräfte, die sie aus der Erdengemeinschaft haben. Und aus dem Zusammenwirken der irdischen und kosmischen Kräfte entsteht das Pflanzenwesen. Faßt man den Bereich alles dessen, was die Stoffe an Kräftewirkungen unter Erdeneinfluß entfalten, als das Physische zusammen, so wird man die ganz anders gearteten Kräfte, die nicht von der Erde ausstrahlend, sondern in sie einstrahlend sind, mit einem das Andersartige ausdrückenden Namen bezeichnen müssen. Wir finden dasjenige in der menschlichen Organisation hier von einer andern Seite, auf das wir von der einen Seite schon im vorigen Kapitel hingewiesen haben. Im Einklange mit einem älteren Gebrauch, der unter dem Einfluß der neueren, physikalisch orientierten Denkungsart in Verwirrung gekommen ist, haben wir bereits diesen Teil des menschlichen Organismus als das Ätherische bezeichnet. Man wird sagen müssen: im Pflanzlichen, das heißt in dem als lebend Erscheinenden, waltet das Ätherische.
[ 10 ] Insofern der Mensch ein lebendes Wesen ist, waltet dieses Ätherische auch in ihm. Aber es tritt doch auch in Bezug auf die bloßen Lebenserscheinungen ein bedeutsamer Unterschied gegenüber dem Pflanzlichen auf. Die Pflanze läßt in sich das Physische walten, wenn das Ätherische aus dem Weltenraum seine Wirksamkeit nicht mehr entfaltet, wie das in der Nacht der Fall ist, wo der Sonnenäther aufhört zu wirken. Das Menschenwesen läßt in seinem Körper das Physische erst im Tode walten. Im Schlafe entschwinden die Bewußtseins- und Selbstbewußtseins-Erscheinungen; die Lebenserscheinungen aber bleiben bestehen, auch wenn der Sonnenäther im Weltenraum nicht wirkt. Die Pflanze nimmt fortdauernd während ihres Lebens die auf die Erde einstrahlenden Ätherkräfte in sich auf. Der Mensch trägt sie aber schon von seiner Embryonalzeit an individualisiert in sich. Was so die Pflanze aus der Welt erhält, entnimmt der Mensch während seines Lebens aus sich, weil er es schon im Leibe der Mutter zur Fortentwicklung erhalten hat. Eine Kraft, die eigentlich ursprünglich kosmisch ist, zur auf die Erde einstrahlenden Wirkung bestimmt, wirkt aus der Lunge oder Leber heraus. Sie hat eine Metamorphose ihrer Richtung vollzogen.
[ 11 ] Man wird deshalb sagen müssen, der Mensch trägt das Ätherische in einer individualisierten Art in sich. So wie er das Physische in der individualisierten Gestalt seines physischen Leibes und seiner Leibesorgane an sich trägt, ebenso das Ätherische. Er hat seinen besonderen Ätherleib wie seinen besonderen physischen Leib. Im Schlafe bleibt dieser Ätherleib mit dem physischen Leibe verbunden und gibt diesem das Leben; nur im Tode löst er sich von ihm.
III The phenomena of life
[ 1 ] One does not arrive at an understanding of the healthy and diseased human organism if one imagines that the mode of action of some substance ingested with food is simply continued from external nature into the interior of the organism. It is not a question of such a continuation of the effect observed in the substance outside the human organism, but of overcoming it.
[ 2 ] The illusion that the substances of the outside world continue to work in the organism in their own way arises from the fact that this is how it appears to the ordinary chemical way of thinking. The latter, after its investigations, gives itself up to the belief that hydrogen, for example, is present in the organism as it is in external nature, because it is found in the food and drink consumed as nourishment, and then again in the products of excretion: Air, sweat, urine, feces and in the secretions, e.g. bile.
[ 3 ] Today we feel no need to ask what has happened to the hydrogen that appears as hydrogen before it enters the organism and after it leaves it.
[ 4 ] We do not ask: what does that which appears as hydrogen go through in the organism?
[ 5 ] When this question is raised, one is immediately urged to draw attention to the difference between the sleeping and the waking organism. In the sleeping organism, its material essence does not form a basis for the unfolding of conscious and self-conscious experiences. But it does form a basis for the unfolding of life. In this respect the sleeping organism differs from the dead organism. In the latter, the material basis is no longer a basis for life. As long as one sees this difference only in the different composition of the substances in the dead and living organism, one will not make any progress in understanding it.
[ 6 ] Almost half a century ago, the eminent physiologist Du Bois-Reymond pointed out that consciousness could never be explained by the effects of substances. He said that it would never be possible to understand why a certain number of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen atoms should not be indifferent to how they lie, how they lay and will lie, and why they produce the sensation in man through their change of position: I see red; I smell the scent of roses. Because this is so, said Du Bois-Reymond, scientific thinking can never explain the awake person filled with sensations, but only the sleeping person.
[ 7 ] He was under an illusion with this view. He believed that the phenomena of consciousness did not result from the mode of action of substances, but those of life did. In reality, however, one must say, as Du Bois-Reymond did for the phenomena of consciousness, for those of life: Why should it be possible for a number of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen atoms to produce the phenomenon of life by the way they lie, the way they lie, the way they will lie? Observation shows that the phenomena of life have a quite different orientation from those which take place in the inanimate. For the latter we can say that they are dominated by forces that radiate from the essence of matter, from the - relative - center to the periphery. The phenomena of life show the substance to be dominated by forces which act from the outside inwards, towards the - relative - center. In the transition to life, the substance must withdraw from the radiating forces and submit to the incoming ones.
[ 8 ] Now every earthly substance and also earthly process has its radiating forces from the earth and in communion with it. It is such a substance, as chemistry regards it, only as a component of the earth's body. When it comes to life, it must cease to be a mere part of the earth. It steps out of communion with the earth. It is included in the forces that radiate from the extraterrestrial to the earth from all sides. If one sees a substance or process unfolding as life, one must imagine that it withdraws from the forces that act upon it as if from the center of the earth, and that it enters the realm of others who have no center but a circumference.
[ 9 ] These forces, as if striving towards the center of the earth, act from all sides. They would have to dissolve the material of the earthly realm completely without form, tear it apart, if the effects of the extraterrestrial celestial bodies, which modify the dissolution, were not mixed into this force space. We can observe this in the plant. In plants, the substances of the earth are lifted out of the realm of earthly effects. They strive towards the formless. This transition into the formless is modified by the effects of the sun and the like from world space. If this does not work, or works differently, e.g. at night, then the forces that they have from the earth community are stirred up again in the substances. And from the interaction of the earthly and cosmic forces the plant being arises. If one summarizes the area of all that which the substances unfold in the effects of forces under the influence of the earth as the physical, then one will have to designate the forces of a completely different nature, which do not radiate from the earth but radiate into it, with a name that expresses the different nature. Here we find that in the human organization from another side to which we have already referred in the previous chapter. In accordance with an older usage, which has become confused under the influence of the newer, physically oriented way of thinking, we have already designated this part of the human organism as the etheric. We will have to say: the etheric reigns in the vegetable, that is, in that which appears to be alive.
[ 10 ] Inasmuch as the human being is a living being, this etheric also exists in him. But there is also a significant difference in relation to the mere phenomena of life compared to the plant. The plant allows the physical to rule in it when the etheric from the world-space no longer unfolds its effectiveness, as is the case at night when the solar ether ceases to work. The human being only allows the physical to reign in his body in death. In sleep the phenomena of consciousness and self-consciousness disappear; but the phenomena of life remain, even when the solar ether is not at work in the world-space. The plant continually absorbs the etheric forces radiating onto the earth during its life. The human being, however, already carries them within him in an individualized form from his embryonic period. What the plant thus receives from the world, the human being takes from himself during his life, because he has already received it in the womb of the mother for further development. A force that is actually originally cosmic, destined to radiate onto the earth, works out of the lungs or liver. It has undergone a metamorphosis of its direction.
[ 11 ] We will therefore have to say that man carries the etheric within himself in an individualized way. Just as he carries the physical in the individualized form of his physical body and his bodily organs, he also carries the etheric. He has his special etheric body as well as his special physical body. In sleep, this etheric body remains connected to the physical body and gives it life; only in death does it detach itself from it.