The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] Today, in order to gain a precise understanding of what will confront us as our actual goal in the next lectures, we will again take a look at the great worlds and then look down again at the narrower circle of our immediate earthly existence. In this way, we will gain the opportunity to form a precise idea of what is actually meant in the spiritual scientific or occult sense by the three terms we have brought together as world, earth, and human being. For from many things that have already been said in these lectures, you will have gathered that in the secret science sense, one cannot speak of a world as a merely material content. We have seen that the various world beings — we do not want to say world bodies — that we have encountered, such as the various embodiments of our Earth as Saturn, Sun, and Moon, and finally that which we call the opposition between the Earth as a planet and the Sun as a fixed star, that all of this is something completely different from mere matter: Each of these world beings is, as we have seen, the scene of a sum of spiritual entities, which means that it is essentially only materially constituted in such a way as these spiritual entities, who dwell on the world bodies, require. Then we saw that the sun separated itself from the earth because it had to be the scene for certain exalted beings who could only use the finer substances for their development, while man on earth had to retain the other substances. And if we were to explore the whole vast space of the universe, we would find everywhere that we could discover nothing material in itself, that everything is connected with something spiritual. Furthermore, we saw how the various earthly beings are connected with spiritual beings. The stones, the minerals of our earth, have their “I” in the circumference of our world, in the universe; the plants have their “I” located in the center of our earth, and then we saw that the plants have an astral entity that, so to speak, circles them from outside and brings about the completion of the flower. Thus we found everything permeated by spirit, and this broadens our concept or idea of a world body. We look up at any world body and know that it is only the expression of spiritual beings that are materially connected to it. Now, through the development of the dormant abilities within them, human beings are indeed able to acquire a certain knowledge of such world bodies that are spread out in space, and today we will have to bring human beings before our souls in connection with the various world bodies.

[ 2 ] We on our Earth are surrounded by minerals, plants, animals, and fellow human beings! We know that, in addition, the affairs of our Earth are taken care of by higher beings, beings whom we have called angels, archangels, and primordial forces in the Christian sense; we also know that other beings, even though they send their forces from the Sun or the Moon, have something to do with the Earth. Today, something else is to be added. The question may arise in our minds: To what extent can one of the planets in our solar system be compared to another in terms of its nature? And for the sake of simplicity, let us look at those beings that can, so to speak, appear visibly to us in the present cycle of human evolution. We ask: What is the relationship between the beings that surround us as minerals, plants, animals, and human beings, and other beings in other worlds?

[ 3 ] Of course, we are approaching this question from the spiritual scientific standpoint that arises from the development of those forces that are open to clairvoyant consciousness, and we will speak more about this development later, about what clairvoyant consciousness can know. We first ask ourselves: Are there beings like those who develop on our Earth also on other planets, as perceived by clairvoyant consciousness? And clairvoyant consciousness answers us: We do not find beings like those on Earth in exactly the same form on other planets. And we find confirmation that every planner, every heavenly body, has its own special task, its own special mission. Nothing repeats itself in the universe; other world stages also have other missions. Our Earth arose from three previous incarnations. You know that the stage of human existence we are now going through, human existence, has already been gone through by certain beings, for example, the angels on the moon. Other beings, the fire spirits, went through this stage on the sun, and still others, the spirits of personality, on Saturn. This could easily lead to the mistake of thinking that there were humans on the previous planets! But you must bear in mind that there was no solid rock or minerals on the moon, and that the beings who went through their human stage there did so under completely different conditions. We therefore speak of the stage of humanity, but we know that humanity has been through this under completely different conditions. For example, the fire spirits also went through their humanity under different conditions on the old Sun, because the Sun consisted only of air and gas. Naturally, only beings that did not need a body like ours with solid substance, muscles, and so on could go through such a process of becoming human. Nothing repeats itself in the process of becoming on Earth, and every single point has its own special mission in the great economy of cosmic existence.

[ 4 ] Let us now consider the becoming of our Earth. When we view it occultly, we see it as a body that humans inhabit and on which humans develop. This development was only made possible by the separation of the sun and the moon from the earth and by the forces between the sun and the moon being kept in balance. At that time, when the earth was, so to speak, still a sun itself, it underwent its development with the sun united with the earth. The sun itself was thus still at the stage of planetary existence and was inhabited by fire spirits. But now, through progressive development, it became possible for a part of what was incorporated into the earth to ascend to a higher existence at the expense of what separated from the earth as the earth's moon. Thus we see that in the great universe, development proceeds in such a way that something that is united with something else for a while separates, and one part rises up into higher regions, while the other descends into a lower region. In order for certain higher beings to develop high enough, the sun had to become a body capable of being the scene of higher beings. The sun has thus, as it were, advanced, ascended from planetary existence to fixed-star existence, let us say. We must therefore regard a world being such as our sun as having come into being, having emerged from a planet; occultly, we therefore see in a sun an ascended planet. But yesterday we pointed out how, after everything had united and the sun had separated again at a certain point in time, human beings also lived on earth for a time without the spiritual forces of the sun, and how, through the coming of Christ, the spiritual force of the sun took hold on our earth. When Christ now becomes incorporated into our Earth, human beings become more and more mature through the reception of the Christ principle, and the material form that a planet takes on depends on what this planet develops for beings. Just as the sun became what it is by extracting the finest substances, because the beings needed these substances, so will the Earth do, so will the substances of the Earth transform themselves so that they will be appropriate to what will have become of human beings in the distant future and of the Earth beings that human beings draw with them; for once human beings have become powerful, they will also draw the other Earth beings after them. What will happen then? When human beings become increasingly imbued with the Christ principle, when they increasingly absorb the high solar forces that descended to earth with Christ, they themselves will become more and more Christ-like. Then they themselves will radiate the Christ principle throughout the whole earth.

[ 5 ] What is this Christ principle? Let us clarify this for ourselves as clearly as we need to. To do this, we must know what the mission of our earthly existence is, so that we can describe this mission in a certain way, with a certain word. What, then, is the mission of our earthly existence? What, for example, was the mission of the moon that preceded the earth? If we cast our spiritual gaze back to our old moon, we will find something very remarkable in the beings that are the precursors of our earthly beings at the beginning of its existence. These beings have many things, but one thing is still missing at the very beginning of the old lunar development: they lack what we see everywhere around us today in earthly existence. The forces of the moon, the predecessor of our Earth, worked together unwisely; at the beginning of the moon's existence, everything is still such that nowhere can one perceive a harmonious interaction in wisdom. If one follows the development of the old moon clairvoyantly, one sees how the beings who lived on the moon were imbued with wisdom from the cosmos by those beings who worked in the moon's orbit. That is why we call the old moon the planet of wisdom. So when the moon's existence came to an end, wisdom was in all things. And when the moon's existence passed through an intermediate state, like a world sleep, and emerged again as the earth's existence, and when the beings came out of pralaya, they also brought with them the wisdom that had been incorporated into them on the moon. And the result of this is that wisdom is within all beings on earth; that wisdom is implanted at the foundation of all things. We look at the beings around us, which are the results of the moon's development and still have another mission, and we find wisdom everywhere. Look at whatever you want; take any flower, for example. The more closely you look at it, the more wonderful it will seem to you how the individual parts are arranged in the sense of a higher wisdom. Take a piece of bone from the human thigh: you will see how, with the highest wisdom, the beams are arranged into a framework so that the upper body is supported. And no engineering skill today is capable of imitating the high wisdom of this framework in bridge building. Thus we see wisdom at the root of all things in all other human organs, indeed in the whole world around us. Man should first take up this wisdom within himself, as it were, like a novice; microcosmic wisdom is something that man first learns here from things. But at the bottom of things and at the bottom of everything in man, in which man is not involved internally, wisdom is already formed. When one studies history, one often praises human wisdom. How wonderful it seems when we learn in school that man made this or that invention or discovery at a certain time. For example, how was it instilled in us that, in more recent times, humans discovered the art of making paper: human intelligence brought it about. Well, wasps have been able to do this for a long time; they learned it much earlier than humans. Not the individual wasp, of course, but the group soul of the wasps builds something in the wasp nest that is made of exactly the same material as our paper! These group souls have long since reached the level of human wisdom. This wisdom, which is at the core of all beings on our Earth, also had to be incorporated gradually, and we will see how this wisdom has been incorporated in the course of the Moon's existence, how wisdom fought against ignorance, and how the old Moon then handed over the seeds of being to the Earth, into which wisdom had been instilled.

[ 6 ] What should be instilled in the same way in the beings on our Earth? Just as wisdom was instilled in our predecessor, the moon, so love should be instilled in our planet. Our planet is the planet of love. That is why the development, so to speak, the instillation of love in its lowest form, has begun. Since everything had come out in the time of Lemuria, when the human ego took shape, the development of love in its lowest form began through the division of the sexes. And all further development consists in an increasing refinement until the spiritualization of this principle of love. And just as wisdom was instilled in beings on the moon, so, when our Earth has reached its goal, love will be at the foundation of all beings.

[ 7 ] Und jetzt lassen Sie uns kurz den Blick richten auf das nächste Planetendasein, das unsere Erde ablösen wird, auf den Planeten Jupiter. Wenn da wieder erscheinen werden die ihn bewohnenden Wesenheiten, dann werden sie in ihren Umkreis blicken auf die Wesenheiten mit ihren eigenen geistigen Kräften. Und wie wir mit dem Intellekt bewundern im Stein, in der Pflanze, im Tier, in allen Wesenheiten um uns herum die Weisheit, die da waltet in allem, wie wir die Weisheit heraussaugen, daß wir sie auch in derselben Weise haben können: so wird es bei den Wesenheiten des Jupiters sein, daß sie ihre Kräfte richten auf die Umwesen, und es wird ihnen entgegenduften die Liebe, die während der Erdentwickelung in sie eingeimpft worden ist. Wie wir analysieren ein Wesen und uns erbauen an der Weisheit, so werden sich die Jupiterwesen erbauen an den aus den Wesen herauskommenden Liebesströmungen. Diese Liebe, die auf der Erde sich entwickeln soll, kann nur dadurch sich entwickeln, daß die Erden-Iche so einander gegenübertreten, wie wir es gesehen haben; nur dadurch konnte die Entwickelung beginnen, daß die Wesen in ihrer Gruppenseelenhaftigkeit auseinandergerissen wurden und Wesen dem Wesen gegenübertrat, nur so konnte die wahre Liebe sich entwickeln. Wo die Iche in der Gruppenseele miteinander verbunden sind, da ist nicht die richtige Liebe. Getrennt muß das Wesen vom Wesen sein und die Liebe darbieten als freie Gabe. Erst durch die Spaltung der Wesen, wie sie im Menschenreiche eingetreten ist, wo Ich dem Ich als selbständige Einzelheit gegenübertritt, erst da ist die Liebe als freie Gabe von Ich zu Ich möglich geworden. So mußte auf Erden ein immer mehr zunehmender Individualismus eintreten und ein Zusammenführen der einzelnen Wesenheiten. Denken wir uns die einzelnen Wesenheiten, die in einer Gruppenseele miteinander verbunden sind; die Gruppenseele dirigiert sie, wie sie sich verhalten sollen. Kann irgend jemand sagen, daß das Herz den Magen liebt? Nein, das Herz ist mit dem Magen verbunden durch die innere Wesenheit, die sie zusammenhält. So sind auch die Tiergruppen miteinander verbunden in der Gruppenseelenhaftigkeit, und was sie zu tun haben, wird ihnen angeordnet von der weisheitsvollen Gruppenseele. Erst wenn diese Gruppenhaftigkeit überwunden wird, wenn das einzelne Ich dem einzelnen Ich gegenübertritt, da kann die Sympathie der Liebe als freie Gabe von Wesen zu Wesen dargeboten werden.

[ 8 ] Human beings could only be prepared for this mission gradually. That is why we see them going through a kind of preschool for this love before they become completely individualized. Before they have their ego completely as their own, we see them being united by guiding entities into groups that are related by blood and love each other insofar as they are related by blood. This is the great preparatory period of humanity. We have already indicated how love is not yet a free gift, but is guided by a remnant of wisdom; we have seen how the spirits of the Luciferic beings work in this, counteracting the interaction of human beings in tribes and peoples with their powerful liberating force through the power of blood: everything that works to make human beings independent works through the Luciferic spirits. And so human beings mature to gradually receive the highest potency of love, the Christ principle, that principle which was allowed to express its essence in the words: Whoever does not leave father, mother, son, daughter, whoever does not take up his cross and follow me, is not worthy of me. This is not to be understood in a trivial way, but rather in such a way that the old blood relationship, through the acceptance of the Christ principle, is to develop new forms of togetherness that go from soul to soul, from person to person, regardless of material foundations. The Christ principle has given the impulse for human beings to love one another. And so, through Christianization, humanity will become increasingly spiritualized in love. Love will become ever more soulful and spiritual, and in this way human beings will also carry along the lower beings of the earth, thereby transforming the whole earth. In a distant future, they will transform all the material of the earth and make this earthly body ripe again for union with the sun. Thus, Christ, as the spiritual sun, gave the impulse that the earth and the sun will one day unite again into one body.

[ 9 ] Thus we see the course of world evolution: how the Sun first separates physically from the Earth, how the powerful impulse of the Christ principle is then sent down, and how this gives the impetus for a reunification of the Earth and the Sun in order to ascend to higher stages of existence. And we have recognized that our Earth can only harbor such human beings with such a mission. So when we look around the human kingdom and want to get to know the people of Earth, we can only find them on Earth, because it is here that the conditions were created for people to become what they are today.

[ 10 ] But now we ask ourselves: What about the other kingdoms? Let us first consider the plant kingdom. When the clairvoyant gaze wanders around our world and examines the other planets belonging to the solar system, we find a plant kingdom entirely in keeping with our plant kingdom everywhere among the planets belonging to our sun, so that we have something in our plant kingdom that has, so to speak, a systemic existence, that belongs to our system. We therefore see our solar system populated by plant beings, and if we were to look at the matter from an occult point of view, we would also see each planet populated by human beings with their own characteristics. However, you will very soon be able to see a close relationship between plants and the sun, and then you will also be able to believe that plant existence is closely connected with solar existence. But if this is so, then it must also be connected with all the planets that belong to this solar system. Let us cast our gaze back to the state when the earth was still a solar planet. We know that at that time, human beings consisted of a physical and etheric body, that is, they were at the stage of plant existence. At that time, human beings had the value of a plant; they were, so to speak, in the same position as the plant world is today. The plant world around us consists of beings that are made up of physical and etheric bodies. These beings appear to us in such a way that we can say: they have remained faithful to the sun; even today, they clearly show us their relationship to the sun. Let us consider such a plant being in the sense of Rosicrucian wisdom. We see how the plant clings to the ground with its roots. This is the organ that directs it toward the center of the earth, that is, toward its ego; and its organs of fertilization direct it toward the sun. There it absorbs the chaste rays of the sun. Now let us imagine the human being: it is not difficult to imagine the human being as an inverted plant; think of the plant in exactly the opposite position, and you have the human being: he has his fertilizing organs turned toward the center of the earth, and his roots extend out into the world space. The animal stands in the middle. That is why, in a spiritual sense, it is said that when the soul passed through the various realms, it passed through plant, animal, and human existence. Plato expresses this magnificently: The world soul is crucified on the cross of the world body.

[ 11 ] Human beings have passed through plant existence, facing the center of the earth; animals have the corresponding direction horizontally in their spine; human beings are completely opposite to plants: this is how the cross comes into being. The world soul is crucified; this is the deepest esoteric meaning of the cross. So that in today's plants we have before us a being that strives toward the sun, that has remained connected to the sun, so to speak, and therefore has the opposite direction to humans. Animal forms are partly the same, partly different in the various planetary forms of existence; here too, animals stand in the middle between humans and plants.

[ 12 ] If we now turn to the mineral kingdom, we find that in the crystal forms we have something that leads us beyond our solar system into outer space; we can find forces in the formative forces of the mineral kingdom that reach far beyond our solar system. When we turn our gaze to the forms of the mineral kingdom, especially those forms that are transparent, we are led out so that we can gain an inkling of what is going on in the world far beyond our solar system. The most abstract, that which has the least definite existence, that which is now the basis of our existence, the mineral, has a universal existence, and the higher the beings stand, the more they are adapted to our solar and terrestrial system.

[ 13 ] But now let us raise the same question in relation to human beings! If human beings were adapted only to the forces that prevail on Earth, they would be condemned to exist only on Earth, to eke out their existence only on Earth; they could never become citizens of the world, they could not speak of anything that goes beyond Earth. So even though he is adapted to earthly conditions in his outer form, he nevertheless participates through his higher forces in what the higher beings are that are connected with our Earth. What limits man to the Earth relates only to his physicality; what is inherent in him in terms of spiritual forces leads him beyond the Earth. Here, too, we must distinguish between the most diverse forces. To begin with, let us stick to the forces that we can easily classify, so that we understand each other. First, we have the force that we saw, as it were, arise before our spiritual eyes in pre-Atlantean times. We have seen that human beings entered the world with an image consciousness, and only in the course of their earthly existence were they able to grasp external objects in their object consciousness. And this object consciousness, which today presents the sensory world to us in such a way that we can see colors with our eyes, hear sounds, smell, and taste, has, as we have seen, first differentiated itself from the perception of warmth out of that organ which was there like a kind of lantern, out of the pineal gland. And this object consciousness is purely earthly. This sensory perception is only at home on Earth. Strange as it may seem, all our perceptions, such as the way humans see colors drawn over things, the way they hear sounds, all of this has only an earthly existence, and if you were to observe beings from other planets, you would see that you cannot communicate with them directly. If you tell these beings something about red, they know nothing about it; they have a different way of perceiving objects and beings on their planet. What we call sensory perception is useful for our particular planet.

[ 14 ] Now we have also seen how sensory perception, before it became differentiated, was intimately connected with fertilization. Just as the form of our sensory perception is earthly, so too is the form of fertilization, as it is today in the human realm, earthly and appropriate to this planetary existence; it is there to form the first foundation for the Earth mission, for love. For love is developing on our Earth. So in relation to their outer abilities, we have something in human beings that is unique to the Earth.

[ 15 ] Now we come to another force. Consider an object of the senses. As long as you focus your gaze on it, you know that you are in correspondence with the object: it has an effect on you. Now turn around and keep the image of the object in your mind. The object is gone, but the image remains with you. If human beings did not have the ability to retain such images, they would be completely different beings. For as soon as you turned your gaze away, the images would disappear; you would therefore also be incapable of connecting the properties of beings with your own being. What enables modern humans to retain an image even when the object is gone, to imagine things again, is a faculty of consciousness that humans already possessed on the old moon, for it is the same faculty that enabled them at that time to see the external world in images. At that time, they could not see external objects as we do today, but when they approached an object, an astral image would arise, like a vivid dream image, but one that was in a certain relationship to the object. Humans had not an object consciousness, but an image consciousness. Today, humans place themselves in correspondence with objects; they have spread the image over the objects. A last remnant of this ability remains in the memory image. But this memory image is also something that has a further validity than the mere observation of the external object. When you look at several identical external objects, you bring them under a common concept. There are many pieces of chalk, and you group them all under the common concept of chalk. In this way, humans arrive at general concepts for which no external beings exist. They can work internally with their ideas; and if you were to relate this internal work, this imagining, without referring to objects, to beings outside our planetary existence, you would find it easier to communicate. The image consciousness that humans had before they could perceive external objects, which was a dimly clairvoyant consciousness, and also the imaginative consciousness that will develop later, are both already more comprehensive. When humans acquire image consciousness through occult development, so that they are no longer dependent on perceiving external objects, but can, for example, see the aura emanating from a human being, see the soul and spirit around them in images, and see what lives in the world in pictorial symbols, then they have risen to the level of being able to use this consciousness to connect with other beings inhabiting the planetary world.

[ 16 ] Then there is a higher degree of consciousness. Humans possessed it in a dull form during the Sun era, and they still possess it in a dull form today while they sleep. This is dreamless sleep consciousness. Humans are not without consciousness when they sleep, and neither are plants; they have the same consciousness during the day as humans have when they sleep. And it is only a lower degree of consciousness; things slip away from his attention, he cannot grasp them. But by developing certain powers within himself, he can raise himself to the ability to perceive what is around him during the state of dreamless sleep. This is a higher state of consciousness than image consciousness; it is a consciousness that plants also have, but in a dormant form. If you ascend to the consciousness of the plant, but penetrate it with your ego in clear daytime consciousness, then you have reached the stage of inspiration, of inspired consciousness, in occult development. This inspired consciousness does not merely work in images. When what flows out of things enters into another being, this consciousness cannot be compared with image consciousness; it is a sounding consciousness. The human being enters a spiritual world of sound. It is the consciousness of which Pythagoras spoke as the harmony of the spheres. The whole world resounds with its essence, and when the human being falls asleep in the evening, when his astral body leaves his physical and etheric bodies with the I, then the harmonies and melodies of the music of the worlds penetrate through this astral body; then he is embedded in his actual spiritual existence, and there he gains the ability to replace his worn-out forces from the music of the spheres. Man plunges into the music of the spheres during the night, and because the tones resound through him, he feels renewed and strengthened in the morning. And when human beings bring this to consciousness, they are inspired and become capable of perceiving everything that is within their solar system. While human beings perceive only the things of the earth through their ordinary imagination, they are enabled by imagination to enter into correspondence with the beings of the individual planets; they come into contact with the solar system when they attain inspiration. This has always been known in certain circles. Goethe, who was an unconscious initiate, knew this. That is why, in the prologue to Faust, which takes place in the spiritual world, in heaven, he has the angels say:

The sun resounds in ancient fashion
in brotherly spheres in competitive song.

[ 17 ] Here we see how conscious he is that everything that constitutes the secrets of a solar system is expressed in sounds, and that those who rise to inspiration come to know the secrets of the solar system. That Goethe does not express himself in this way by chance is evident from the fact that he remains in character. For when Goethe leads Faust up into the spiritual world in the second part, he says the same thing again:

Resounding to spiritual ears
The new day is already born.

[ 18 ] Spiritual ears are the ears of the clairvoyant who perceives the harmony of the spheres of a solar system. And if you could perceive those solar forces that stream down onto the bodies of plants as they grow out of the earth, these plant bodies with their roots and leaves, which end above in the flower, where the astral body surrounds them and into which the spiritual forces of the sun work, if you could perceive these forces spiritually, which mysteriously enter through the flower, you would perceive them as spiritual sphere music, which, however, only spiritual ears can hear. Spiritual tones mysteriously enter the plant flower. This is the secret of plant growth, that in each individual flower there is an expression of the tones that shape this flower and give the fruit its character. The sun's sounds are captured by the plant and reign within it as spirit. Perhaps you know how sound can give form in the material world. Think of Chladni's experiment with sound figures, how dust on a plate is arranged into figures by the influence of sound; in these figures you find the expression of the sound that arranged them. And just as the physical sound is captured in this dust, so the spiritual sound of the sun is captured and absorbed by the flower and the fruit. It is hidden in the seed, mysterious, and when the plant grows out of the seed, it is the captured, absorbed sound of the sun that conjures up the form of the plant. The clairvoyant consciousness looks at the plant world around us, and in the flowers that form the carpet of our earth's surface, it sees everywhere the reflection of the sun's tones, and so it is true what Goethe said: “The sun sounds in the old way.” But it is also true that these sun tones flow down, are absorbed by the plants, and reappear when the new plant emerges from the seed; for in the forms of plants, the sun tones, the reflection of the music of the spheres, resound out into space. Thus we see how the world and the earth, how fixed stars and planets, are inwardly connected. We learn not only to see what is in our surroundings in the physical world; we gain an inkling of how those who are part of inspiration ascend to the sun.

[ 19 ] And then there is a higher level of consciousness, which we call intuition in the true sense of the word, where human beings can, so to speak, crawl into things. This is not just inspired consciousness. Here, human beings dive into the essences, identifying with them. This takes them even further. Where can inspired consciousness lead him? It leads him to feel at one with his earthly planet, for the I-beings of the plants are at the center of the earth. If he grasps the sun tone, he becomes one with the planetary being embodied at the center of the earth: he becomes one with his planet. But he can become one with any being. Then, however, he has experiences that go beyond our solar system. His view expands from system consciousness to world consciousness. Intuition leads beyond the individual solar systems.

[ 20 ] Thus we see that in the mineral kingdom we have something that, in its unified form, provides us with a foundation that reaches far beyond our ordinary existence. We see that the present human form is a physical, earthly form, but that human beings will rise again from ordinary earthly consciousness to planetary consciousness in imagination, to system consciousness in inspiration, and to world consciousness in intuition.

[ 21 ] This is the course of humanity, insofar as this course is linked to the entire evolution of our world. And in the next lecture, we will now descend from this observation, which has led us upward, to what has taken place in the last periods of our earthly existence through the Egyptian, Greek, and present times. And we will see how, in the individual human being, in their worldview and in their life, how the microcosm reflects what we have gained an inkling of today: how the great world existence is reflected there.