The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. On the Nature of the Sentient Organism

[ 1 ] The plant form and plant organization is an exclusive result of the two spheres of forces: that which radiates out of the earth and that which radiates into it; the animal and human are not an exclusive result. A plant leaf is under the exclusive influence of these two spheres of forces; the animal lung is also under their influence, but not exclusively. For the leaf, all formative forces lie within these realms; for the lung, there are those outside them. This applies both to those formative forces that give the outer form and to those that regulate the inner movement of the substantial, give it a certain direction and connect or separate it.

[ 2 ] It can be said that the substances absorbed by the plant are not indifferent to whether they are living or non-living because they enter the realm of the forces radiating onto the earth. They are lifeless within the plant if the forces of the environment do not affect them; they come to life when they come under the influence of these forces.

[ 3 ] But even as a living substance, the plant is indifferent to how its limbs lie, lie and will lie in relation to its own activity. They leave themselves to the activity of the external forces radiating in and out. The animal substance comes into action independently of these forces. It moves within the organism, or it moves as a whole organism in such a way that these movements do not follow from the out- and in-radiating forces alone. In this way, the animal form arises independently of the areas of the forces radiating from and into the earth.

[ 4 ] In the case of the plant, the marked interplay of forces results in an alternation between being switched on to the radiating forces of the environment and being switched off. The plant being is thus divided into two parts One is directed towards life, it is entirely in the sphere of the environment; these are the sprouting, growing and flower-bearing organs. The other is directed towards the inanimate, it remains in the area of the radiating forces, it includes everything that hardens growth, gives support to life, etc. Between these two limbs, life is ignited and extinguished; and the death of the plant is only the predominance of the effects of the emanating forces over the radiating forces.

[ 5] In the animal, something of the substantial is completely withdrawn from the realm of the two forces. This results in a different structure than in the plant. Organ formations arise that remain in the area of the two spheres of force and those that emerge from them. There are interactions between the two organ formations. And in these interactions lies the cause that the animal substance can be the carrier of sensation. One consequence of this is the difference in appearance, in the nature of the animal substance compared to the plant substance.

[ 6 ] In the animal organism there is a realm of forces that is independent of the forces radiating from and radiating into the earth. In addition to the physical and etheric, there is also the astral realm of forces, which has already been mentioned from another point of view. There is no need to take offense at the term "astral". The radiating forces are the earthly ones, the radiating ones those of the world-circle of the earth; in the "astral" there is something present which is superior to both kinds of forces. This is what makes the earth itself a world body, a "star" (astrum). Through the physical forces it separates itself from the universe, through the etheric forces it allows the universe to affect it; through the "astral" forces it becomes an independent individuality in the universe.

[ 7 ] The "astral" in the animal organism is an independent, self-contained division like the etheric and the physical organism. One can therefore speak of this division as the "astral body".

[ 8 ] The animal organization can only be understood if one considers the interrelationships between the physical, etheric and astral bodies. For all three are present independently as members of the animal organization; and all three are also different from what is present apart from them in inanimate (mineral) bodies and in plant-animated organisms.

[ 9 ] The animal physical organism can indeed be addressed as inanimate; but it differs from the mineral inanimate. It is first alienated from the mineral by the etheric and astral organism, and then, by withdrawing the etheric and astral forces, it is returned to the inanimate. It is an entity on which the forces active in the mineral, in the mere earthly realm, can only act destructively. It can only serve the animal organism as a whole as long as the etheric and astral forces have the upper hand over the destructive intervention of the mineral forces.

[ 10 ] The animal etheric organism lives like the plant organism, but not in the same way. Life is brought into a state alien to itself by the astral forces; it has been torn out of the forces radiating onto the earth and then placed back into their sphere. The etheric organism is an entity in which the purely vegetable forces have an existence that is too dull for the animal organization. It can only serve the animal organism as a whole if the astral forces brighten its mode of action. If it gains the upper hand in its activity, sleep sets in; if the astral organism gains the upper hand, waking is present.

[ 11 ] Both sleeping and waking must not go beyond a certain limit of effectiveness. If this were to happen with sleeping, then in the organism as a whole the vegetable would tend towards the mineral; the result would be an overgrowth of the vegetable as a pathological condition. If it happened with waking, the vegetable would have to become completely alienated from the mineral; the latter would assume forms in the organism which would not be its own, but those of the extra-organic inanimate. A pathological condition would develop through the overgrowth of the mineral.

[ 12 ] The physical substance penetrates from outside into all three organisms, the physical, etheric and astral. All three must overcome the nature of the physical in their own way. This creates a trinity of organ organization. The physical organization forms organs that have passed through the etheric and astral organization, but which are on their way back to their realm. They cannot have completely arrived in their realm, for that would result in the death of the organism.

[ 13 ] The etheric organism forms organs which have passed through the astral organization, but which again and again strive to withdraw from it; they have within them the power of the dullness of sleep; they tend to develop the merely vegetative life.

[ 14 ] The astral organism forms organs that alienate the vegetative life. They can only exist if this vegetative life itself repeatedly takes hold of them. For since they have no relationship either with the forces radiating from the earth or radiating into it, they would have to fall completely out of the realm of the earthly if they were not seized by it again and again. There must be a rhythmic interaction of the animal and vegetable in these organs This causes the alternating states of sleeping and waking During sleep the organs of the astral forces are also in the dullness of vegetable life They have no effect on the etheric and physical realm. They are then left entirely to the forces radiating from and into the earth.