The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. The Human Soul and the Animal Soul

[ 1 ] You may have noticed that, following today’s lecture, a lecture is to be given here in eight days on “The Human Spirit and the Animal Spirit,” whereas the topic we intend to discuss today is “The Human Soul and the Animal Soul.” Why it has come to pass that spirit and soul are to be discussed in two separate lectures, however, will only become fully clear in the next lecture. For now, I can only point out the following: when one considers life and existence from the perspective of spiritual science, it is, in a certain sense, not as straightforward as in the other scientific approach that is common today, where concepts and ideas—which must be kept distinct for a true understanding of things—are simply lumped together. And we shall see that we could not come to terms with the mysteries pertaining to the soul and spirit in animals and humans if we were unable to make the distinction between soul and spirit clearly and definitively.

[ 2 ] When we speak of the soul from a spiritual-scientific perspective, as we shall do here, the concept of the soul is always linked to the related concept of inner life, of inner experience. And when we speak of the spirit in relation to the world around us, we are aware that in everything that merely appears to us—that is, in everything that can confront us—we have something like a revelation of the spirit. It has also been mentioned frequently that human beings would find themselves in a peculiar self-contradiction if they did not presuppose the spirit in all the manifestations of existence that surround them. Only the person who admits that what he ultimately finds in his mind regarding the external world—what he acquires through cognition in the form of concepts and ideas in order to grasp the external world—has something to do with the things themselves can actually approach the external world with understanding without falling into a self-destructive contradiction. Anyone who refuses to admit—and in doing so proceeds from the things themselves when he believes he has recognized something in any way, when he has formed concepts of the things— who would not admit that there is something alive in these concepts that is found in the things themselves—such a person, if he lives in harmony with himself and wishes to conceive of his cognitive life logically, should not proceed to cognition at all. Only those who say to themselves: “What I can ultimately find, retain, and bring to mind in my mind through cognition must first be contained in things” can regard cognition as something real. To the extent that I take something of things into my mind, regardless of the realm to which they belong, I presuppose the spirit in all realms.

[ 3 ] Certainly, this acknowledgment, which has now been expressed, is not made everywhere. But it is not extended only when one has placed oneself in the self-contradiction described above. That is why we speak of Spirit, being clear that it reveals itself in all worlds, and we seek to understand how it pours itself into the worlds and manifests itself within them. We speak differently when we speak of the soul. We speak of the soul only when the spiritual—of which we have just spoken, and which we as human beings appropriate through our intellect, our reason, and other means, through which we penetrate things in order to understand them—lives and is experienced inwardly within a being itself. We attribute a soul to a being that not only takes in the spirit but also experiences the spirit within itself and is creative within itself out of the spirit. Thus, we speak of a soul only when the spirit is inwardly present in a being that stands before us. But in this way—as an inwardly creative force—we find the spirit in both humans and animals.

[ 4 ] Just as it becomes, so to speak, easy to refute certain other things—what was said and demonstrated in the first lecture of this series — when one adheres to common notions; likewise, it is child’s play to set about refuting what are, so to speak, fundamental findings of spiritual research, which are expressed in the fact that, on the basis of spiritual science, one must distinguish within human nature not merely a single-membered being, but a multi-membered entity. Certainly, there are still vast, vast circles today who—and one can understand this quite well and put oneself in such people’s shoes, empathize with them, and appreciate what they actually want—burst into, so to speak, a hellish cackle of derision, quite rightly from their standpoint, when the following is stated from the perspective of spiritual science: Human beings must be conceived as composed not only of the physical body—which is seen in the external world through sensory perception, recognized in the external sciences, and also studied—but a higher body, the so-called etheric or life body, must also be attributed to them, though this is not to be confused with the hypothetical ether of physics. Likewise, when speaking from the perspective of spiritual science, a third component of the human being must be recognized—the astral body—as well as a fourth component of the human being: the “I.” If these aspects are recognized as something real, then from the standpoint of current research it is extraordinarily easy to refute what spiritual science asserts—and it is easy precisely because, as can be seen from this very series of lectures, one must first gain an insight into the entire nature of spiritual scientific research in order to recognize the validity of these things.

[ 5 ] From the perspective of the spiritual researcher himself, these four aspects of the human being—the physical body, the etheric body or life body, the astral body, and the I—that is, one visible and three invisible, supersensible aspects of the human being — are realities, because the spiritual researcher has developed his soul—with regard to the powers slumbering within it—in such a way that he can perceive the higher bodies of the human being just as the ordinary eyes perceive the physical body. These higher components are therefore realities and, insofar as they are invisible components, lie precisely at the foundation of the visible component, the physical body. But even if they are perceptible realities only to the spiritual researcher, one can still say that the mind can grasp what is meant when these higher aspects of human nature are discussed. In the etheric body, the spiritual researcher first recognizes a reality—the vehicle of all human life phenomena. And the spiritual researcher shows that death occurs when the physical body is abandoned by its etheric or life body. Therefore, the spiritual researcher sees in the etheric or life body that which prevents the physical body from succumbing to the physical and chemical forces that are at work within the human physical body. At the moment death occurs, the physical body is no longer a viable combination of chemical and physical processes. The fact that the human body is, throughout life, shielded from these physical and chemical processes—which immediately take hold of it upon death—is due to the etheric or life body. With this, we have provided something that tears the chemical and physical substances and forces away from their active influence and only returns them to this physical influence at the moment of death.

[ 6 ] We have often said that the objections that can be raised against this are very easy to put forward. But these objections are also the kind that fall away when one gains a deeper understanding of the matter. Quite apart from the fact that the etheric body is a reality for the spiritual researcher, true logic also shows that it is impossible to conceive of a living organism without such an etheric or life body. We therefore also attribute such an etheric body to plants in the spiritual-scientific sense and say: While the human being has even higher members of a supersensible nature—the astral body and the “I”—the plant is a being that has only a physical and an etheric body, whereas a mineral consists solely of a physical body, insofar as it appears to us in the external world. When we turn to the animal, we speak only of the astral body being integrated into the animal’s physical and etheric bodies—understanding this term to mean nothing other than what has just been stated.

[ 7 ] Now we attribute to the astral body the ability for that which, for example, gives rise to the form of a crystal—that is, the spiritual—to become organ-forming within the being itself. And when we see that in an animal being, the sense organs and the functions of the animal soul develop out of its inner organization, we say: While in the mineral the spirit is limited to the shaping of form, it is inwardly alive in the animal. We describe this inner liveliness, this presence of the spirit within the animal’s own organization, as an activity of the astral body. In the case of human beings, however, we speak of this astral body as being further permeated by an “I-body,” and we will see shortly what significance this “I-body” has for human life.

[ 8 ] What, then, do we actually attribute to the spirit when we speak of the spirit? We attribute to it, as a reality, as an external reality, that which we experience, so to speak, within ourselves in our intelligence. Through our intelligence, we carry out this or that; through our intelligence, we bring the forces of the beings into interaction. This creative intelligence of ours has a certain character. As it enters, as it were, into a temporal existence within us and manifests itself creatively, we form a concept of intelligence, of rational experience, of rational creation, and look out at the universe around us. We would be very short-sighted if we were to attribute intelligence—everything we call spirit—only to ourselves. This is precisely the basis for the impossibility of penetrating the mysteries of existence: that human beings are easily inclined to attribute the essence of intelligence only to themselves, and cannot even answer the question: How am I justified in applying intelligence to existence? But when we look out and see that the things of space and time manifest themselves in such a way that our intelligence can grasp their laws, then we say: What lives within us as intelligence is spread out in space and time and acts there in space and time. When we look around at the vast, lifeless realm of nature, we speak of the spirit in this vast, lifeless realm of nature as being, as it were, frozen in matter, and that we can take in and receive within our intelligence that which is expressed in the forms and in the lawful activity of matter, and thereby have in our intelligence a kind of reflection of the spirit that interweaves and permeates the world.

[ 9 ] When we thus trace the spirit throughout the entire universe and now compare how it is, as it were, frozen in the lifeless beings of existence with the way it appears to us in the animal kingdom, we say to ourselves: When we look at a single animal being, we perceive in it a self-contained existence that creates in the same way as the spirit that is spread out in space and time. For the time being, we can gain a sense of why those who understood the reasons for this called this spirit active in animals the “astral body.” They turned their gaze to the vast world of existence through which the stars move in their orbits—a world that human beings comprehend through their intelligence—and said to themselves: The spirit lives within the laws governing the entire world, and we see a certain self-contained entity in an individual animal organism, enclosed within the space bounded by the animal’s skin. — What thus acts within the animal and is similar to that which otherwise extends throughout space and time—they designated this within the individual animal organism as the astral body.

[ 10 ] Whether it is a vague feeling, merely a hunch that senses a kinship between what is expressed in the animal and what is spread out in space and time, or whether rigorous research based on spiritual science recognizes this—there is a long way between these two. But this feeling is a sure guide, and it shows many people—even before they can penetrate the essence of spiritual research—that what the spiritual researcher says is true.

[ 11 ] When we now consider this spirit—which we can admire as it unfolds in space and time—and observe how it works within the animal, we may say: We see in the animal, wherever we observe it, how spiritual activity springs forth from its very organization—an activity we would otherwise have to extract from all the laws of existence in space and time. To do this, we need not examine unusual phenomena; the most obvious phenomena suffice. The discerning person need not go far, and will see spiritual activity spring forth from animal activity—the very activity he would otherwise have to seek in the vastness of existence. When he sees the wasp building its nest, he can say to himself: Here I see, as it were, intelligence springing forth from the animal’s organization. The intelligence that I find out there in the universe—when I apply my own intelligence to the laws of existence—I see in the spirit at work within the animal organism. When a person observes this spirit at work in the animal organism—no matter where it appears—then he can truly say to himself: At times, this spirit at work in the animal organism, this internalization of the spirit in the animal, truly goes far beyond what human beings are capable of creating in terms of intelligence! We have already mentioned an obvious example on several occasions. How long did humankind have to wait in the course of its historical existence until its own intelligence enabled it to make paper! Let us examine the powers of intelligence that humankind had to expend and incorporate into its own soul life in order to be able to make paper. You can read in any school history textbook what a momentous event it was when humans mastered the art of papermaking. Well—the wasp has been able to do this for millennia! For what we encounter in a wasp nest is exactly the same as what humans produce as paper.

[ 12 ] Thus we can literally see what human beings, in the struggle for existence, draw from their intelligence—sprouting with all its vitality from the animal organism. Since people usually approach things from the wrong end, they have long indulged in the peculiar debate over whether animals are intelligent or not—without realizing that they were missing the point that really matters. For the question cannot be whether the animal is intelligent or not, but whether, in everything it accomplishes, the animal unfolds what human beings can achieve only through their intelligence. Then one will answer that within the animal there is an inwardly creative and governing intelligence that acts directly out of animal life itself. One will then gain a sense of what the spiritual researcher perceives in the astral body and what he sees at work both internally and externally in the animal, in that the intelligence within the organism itself is creative and works from within it. For the spiritual researcher speaks of the astral body when such organs are endowed with the capacity to bring about, through their activity, something that humans can accomplish only through their intelligence. And we see this inner spiritual activity distributed, so to speak, among the various animals; we see it manifesting in the skills of the individual species. One animal species can do this, another that—which we then regard as a diversity of the astral body among the various animal species. Thus, we are, so to speak, in the process of observing the individual activity of the spirit within the animal organism. This inner activity of the spirit within an organism, this self-experience of the spirit in its activity—that is what we call a soul experience. When we observe this psychological experience without prejudice, we find that it is developed in a very different way in humans and in animals. Much has been said—and is still said today—about what constitutes instincts in animals and what constitutes conscious activity in humans. We would do well in this regard to rely less on words and focus more on the matter at hand, to delve more deeply into understanding the nature of instincts. Above all, the consideration we have just undertaken shows that instincts can be something that far surpasses human intelligence, and that we must by no means apply the term “instinct” to the quality that is brought forth. Humans are so quick to ask—one might say out of their universal arrogance—“What advantage do I have over animals?” Perhaps, if he were so inclined, he might also ask: “In what ways have I fallen behind the animals?” He might then discover that, above all, he has fallen behind the animals in many, many tasks and skills that we simply find in animals, but which humans, if they wish to develop them for themselves, must first acquire and learn.

[ 13 ] It has often been said that human beings come into existence helpless at birth. An animal comes into the world in such a way that nature bursts forth from within it, and it brings with it, as inherited capital, what enables it to live the life it is meant to live. Certainly, we must not overlook the fact that an animal, too, must first learn many things—that a chick may peck right away, but cannot immediately distinguish between what is edible and what is not, or what is digestible and what is not. But this is only for a short time. What matters, however, is that certain animal abilities emerge in such a way that we can clearly see they are embedded in the entire genetic lineage, are truly innate, and emerge in due course. The fact that a particular ability does not appear until a certain time is no proof that it is an acquired one and had to be learned. The entire animal and plant organism demonstrates that something inherent in the genetic lineage can only emerge long after the organism in question has already come into being. Just as humans do not first acquire the ability to grow their permanent teeth—they possess it, even if the permanent teeth do not appear until later—so, too, certain skills and abilities in animals do not appear until later, yet they are still part of the genetic makeup. Let us consider the hermit crab as an example. It exhibits the peculiarity that, after living for a while, it is driven to seek out a snail shell because its abdomen is too soft and cannot support itself. This search for a snail shell to provide protection for its abdomen occurs at a specific point in time as a result of the instinct for self-preservation, but it occurs with certainty—that is, it is innate to its organism. Thus, we must say that we see the scope of animal life outlined to the greatest extent at the very moment the animal comes into existence, and that the way in which the animal develops is given at the moment of its birth and then unfolds. In this unfolding, we recognize the activity of the spirit, and in the animal’s participation in this unfolding, we recognize the animal’s soul life,

[ 14 ] If one were so inclined—and provided one did not misunderstand the term—one could describe the animal’s mental life as a “enjoyment of the spirit within the organism.” One will get by quite well by adhering to this concept to characterize the animal’s inner life. But then one will see—and let us stick to the higher animals for the time being—that this experience of spiritual activity, this inner experience of the animal, is to a large extent internally self-contained; that it, so to speak, plays itself out internally. Indeed, the animal’s soul life lies in the possession of its organs, in the desires of its organs, and specifically in the activity of these organs, which is directed toward its inner life. One can gain a glimpse of what will, however, only become fully apparent through spiritual research—namely, how the animal, so to speak, enjoys the work of the spirit within itself—by observing an animal in the process of digestion. An animal that is digesting—that is, experiencing the inner activity of the spirit within itself—feels a special sense of well-being in this process. This is a spiritual experience of inner physicality, in which the spirit acts directly. And in this way, spiritual experience is, in a certain sense, bound to physicality throughout the animal kingdom. It is even captivating, one might say, to observe a herd of cattle immediately after they have grazed and are now lying down and digesting, and to be able to observe the soul life taking place within each animal. This is even more pronounced in those animals that sink into a kind of digestive sleep. Then they experience the activity of the spirit within their organs.

[ 15 ] But in animals, the activity of the spirit is still closely bound to the organism. Since the spirit has built up a certain set of organs, the animal must express this spirit—how it has acted within the organs, how it manifests itself in the organs; it has no way of going beyond the limits of this spirit as it manifests itself in the organs. If one observes the external mental functions, the external life processes of the animal in this or that species, one will see how closely the mental expressions are bound to the animal’s organization—that is, to what the spirit has made of the animal. If one observes the circumstances under which an animal displays fear, one can say: Where it displays fear, it does so precisely because of its particular organization. And likewise, when an animal displays a tendency to steal, one can say: it displays this tendency because of its organization.

[ 16 ] What is presented here from a spiritual-scientific perspective is beautifully compiled in the short work by Zell, a writer who has made significant contributions to the study of the animal soul: “Is the Animal Irrational?” Although this short work is written from a different perspective, it is nevertheless useful for providing examples of how the animal’s spiritual experience is bound to its physical organization, and it can serve as evidence for what spiritual research must approach from an entirely different angle. That is why the soul life of animals appears to us to be graded in the most varied ways among different species, because the spirit has created its organs in their specific forms. But we see that spiritual creation—that is, what we find anchored in the astral body—is exhausted in the formation of organs, in what the animals bring directly into the world. It has been exhausted within the bounds of their species. The animal brings into the world what it is capable of and what its existence allows it to experience. It can go little beyond that. In this way, it also shows that the spirit is exhausted in the animal’s organ formation; it has poured itself out. Yet the nature of the animal is present in the formation of its organs. Therefore, we can answer the question, “What does the animal experience and enjoy on a soul level?” as follows: From birth to death, it experiences its own nature. It experiences on a soul level, through its own organism, what the spirit has given it as part of its existence.

[ 17 ] Someone who has thought long and hard about the lives of animals and humans, and who spoke from a place of deep awareness—namely, Goethe—coined this beautiful phrase: “Animals are governed by their organs, said the ancients; I would add: humans as well; yet they have the advantage of being able to teach their organs otherwise.”

[ 18 ] Here, a profoundly deep truth has been spoken to me. What can an animal do in life? An animal can do whatever its organs make possible for it. And so an animal is fearful, brave, or cowardly, predatory or gentle, depending on how the spirit has poured itself into its organism. The work of the spirit in the organs is reflected in the animal’s psychological experience. Consequently, the animal’s psychological experience is also bound within its genus; it cannot step outside the genus or the species; it experiences itself as a genus, as a species.

[ 19 ] Let us contrast this with the human soul life. This spiritual life—or, we might better say, this spiritual experience of the human being, as it manifests itself in human volition, feeling, and thought, as it manifests itself in human desires, interests, and intelligence—is something that, at the very moment the human being enters into existence through birth, is not given through what he inherits; it is something that a human being cannot pass on to their offspring through heredity either. Far too little attention is actually paid to this latter fact. But it is an infinitely important fact that should actually underlie all contemplation of life, and which can be expressed roughly as follows. At the moment when an animal or human being has acquired the ability to produce offspring, what we previously called the etheric body is, to a certain extent, complete within that being. This etheric body carries within it the ability to pass on to its offspring what it possesses. If, however, a human being develops beyond this point—if they grow beyond it—they cannot pass on the capacities that remain to be developed beyond this point. This goes without saying. At the moment a person reaches sexual maturity, they must possess all the capacities that determine heritability. Thus, they cannot possess as such—in a way that is incorporated into the etheric body and is heritable—those capacities that remain to be developed beyond the point of sexual maturity. This is a fundamental truth that must be taken fully into account.

[ 20 ] This is precisely what is significant when considering human life: that from birth to death, humans are capable of learning new languages; and that it is also something so significant—as has already been mentioned here—that if a human were to grow up on a distant, lonely island, they would be unable to develop at all. The same is true of the ability to form concepts and the development of the sense of self. These are things that have nothing to do with heredity, yet which human beings cannot attribute to heredity either, because they do not belong to the species or genus. What does not belong to the hereditary—what remains as developmental capacities beyond heredity—is something that human beings possess that is not determined by their species or genus, but rather belongs to their individuality. And it is precisely in the capacity for language, in the ability to form concepts, and in the experience of the sense of self that lies what human beings bring into the world in such a way that—conversely—they must use this to instruct and prepare their organs, teaching them what they have not yet grasped but what they are meant to possess.

[ 21 ] This is a human engagement with the spirit that lies beyond the realm of heredity. It is an engagement of such a nature that the results of this engagement are not inheritable; they cannot be incorporated into the characteristics that lie within the hereditary line. Human beings develop something that cannot be incorporated into the species-specific, something that is removed from the species-specific. Insofar as human beings are members of the human species, they have inherited all the abilities that pertain to them as such, just as animals have inherited theirs. However, they do not inherit as much dexterity or as much spirit as animals do; rather, something is left over that they can acquire as individuals. And the life of the spirit, in relation to the non-hereditary qualities, is the human psychological experience that transcends the animal realm. By enjoying the products of his labor and activity—insofar as they are acquired through non-hereditary qualities in life—human beings develop a psychological life that transcends animal life.

[ 22 ] Thus, human beings enter existence in a more unskilled manner than animals. Human beings are less skilled because animals have already undergone and completed the process of coming to terms with the spirit—a process that human beings must engage in only after birth. Thus, in its soul life, the animal enjoys what can be inherited by it; that is to say, the animal’s soul life points to the past. And at the very moment when we see the animal’s soul life sink into death, we see what the animal can experience of itself as a species also sink into death. Everything that is individual in the animal, insofar as it experiences the soul, is experienced as something it has inherited, something that has come to it from the past. It exhausts its soul life during its lifetime. And there is no indication of immortality. In contrast, we see what the animal experiences soul-wise continuing to live on, again and again, in the life of the species. Therefore, when speaking from the perspective of spiritual science, we speak of a species soul in the animal, one that is constantly reborn within the species and continues to live on within it. And no one who wishes to think in clear terms can fail to recognize the validity of this statement. What the spirit creates in the animal species and genus, we see experienced in the individual animal. But we also see that this experience points to the past and that, at the moment when the past is exhausted—when the soul’s experience draws toward death—it must come to an end, and that the twilight begins with it.

[ 23 ] The situation is different when we observe human spiritual life with an open mind. There we see, in the sense described earlier, that when a human being enters into existence at birth, they receive something that is not yet exhausted in their physical organs. We see how they continue to work on their organs, how they truly train their organs. In this, however, we see that human beings interact with the spirit in a direct way within their individual lives. Psychologically, a human being experiences not only what has been handed down to them, so to speak, from the past, but also what they encounter in life, what approaches them from the outside, what presents itself to them directly as spirit.

[ 24 ] Thus, a person’s spiritual life breaks down into two distinct components: first, what they experience as a spiritual being, just like an animal. What they have absorbed from their species—the human species—they live out as a being of the past, one who is moving toward death, where the spirit withdraws from the organs, where the organs begin to harden and wither. But what constitutes their own engagement with the spirit does not belong to the organs; it is something that human beings have taken up into their etheric body independently of the organs. This is therefore something that does not refer the human being back to the inherited past, but rather serves as the immediate seed for continued life. To the extent that we see the human being’s inner life breaking away from the organs—that is, becoming individual—to that extent we can logically speak of seeing the immortal aspect of the human being crystallize out of physical life on a soul level. Thus we learn to sense that this is growing within the human being precisely as he or she experiences the past in a soulful way in relation to what has been inherited. Thus something grows within the human being toward the future, of which we must say that it cannot be incorporated into the line of inheritance. But this also becomes evident when we observe the soul life of humans and animals with an open mind. Let us just consider how closely the animal’s soul experience is bound to its physical organization, how closely an animal’s dexterity—and indeed its entire experience—is bound to its organs and to its inherited characteristics. We can truly observe the animal’s soul life only when we listen in on it as it takes pleasure in its own physicality. That is the essential point. We perceive very little of what is essential in an animal when we observe how it takes pleasure in the external world, but we do perceive it when we observe how it experiences its own digestion. One must remain within the limits of its organs if one wishes to grasp the highest form of spiritual experience in an animal. The animal’s spiritual experience is virtually entirely contained within its own organism, and whatever remains for the outside world is significant to the animal only insofar as it can be lived out within the animal’s inner spiritual life. Certainly, it must be assumed, stated, and documented through spiritual research that the eagle has a spiritual experience at the height at which it lives. But it has this experience in its activity, in what lives within its organs, in what finds expression within its organs. In humans, the soul experience becomes detached from inner enjoyment, from the inner experience of the self. For this, if one may say so, the human being must also atone. In animals, there is a certain instinctive certainty; the animal knows which foods harm it and which benefit it. Animals corrupt themselves far less than they are corrupted by humans. They are corrupted, at most, when humans keep them confined in cages. But in the wild, when an animal follows what is innate to its constitution, it displays a great instinctive certainty because it remains connected to its organs. Humans, on the other hand, detach themselves from their organs. The consequence of this is that humans can no longer directly follow what is good or bad for them. They become uncertain. And while animals exhibit passions that correspond to their organs, humans exhibit passions that are perhaps far more destructive and do not correspond to their organs at all. While the spider builds its web with certainty—and it would be nonsensical to speak to it of logic—human beings must think very carefully when they are to construct their own structures. In doing so, they can err greatly. The human soul has become detached; it has emancipated itself from the physical body. But human beings must also pay the price for this.

[ 25 ] On the other hand, however, human beings can also connect with the Spirit from the other side and take into their soul what the Spirit conveys to them. They are capable of receiving the Spirit without it first having to flow through the organs or through the physical body, whereas animals are dependent on the Spirit flowing into their organs. The animal experiences the Spirit within itself as it flows into the organs. Human beings, on the other hand, detach their organs from the soul and experience the Spirit’s inflow into their soul directly. Once one has truly grasped the meaning of the Spirit and the way in which the Spirit manifests itself in the soul, these things take on infinite significance. Complete clarity will only become apparent to us today, eight days from now, during the lecture “The Human Spirit and the Animal Spirit.” But it is precisely when we consider the soul, the inner world, that we gain a sense of the difference between human and animal—when we contrast the physical inwardness of the animal soul with the physical outwardness of the human soul. In return, the human soul can become more inward in a spiritual sense. The fact that it can take joy in the things of the external world, that it can penetrate to what appears externally—what speaks to the soul as spirit—is something humanity owes, of course, to the fact that its soul has emancipated itself from physicality, has separated itself from the inner experience of the spirit — and has paid for the certainty of experiencing the spirit itself with a sense of uncertainty and clumsiness, indeed, with an incompleteness in the instincts.

[ 26 ] It is quite easy to say: How can one even speak of an animal soul, since “soul” implies the concept of inner life, and since, strictly speaking, a human being cannot initially look into the inner life of another being? It is precisely this flippant objection that is invoked by those who wish to prohibit any discussion of spiritual experience at all, because spiritual experience can only be experienced within ourselves and can therefore, in essence, only be inferred in other beings by analogy. But if one does not address such matters in a wholly abstract manner, but rather takes things as they are, then one must say: The way a being conducts its life reveals what it directly experiences inwardly. And anyone who refuses to believe that a being conducts its life directly in accordance with what it experiences inwardly will be utterly deaf to any worldview. We certainly have no real guarantee in direct observation unless we demonstrate—which is still to be done, to show how such matters should be documented from a spiritual-scientific perspective—that the animal truly experiences something inner and spiritual when it is comfortably going about its business during digestion. But anyone who compares things in the world—rather than considering just one thing—will see that there are quite a few reasons to speak of the inner life in this way. And once one has gained a sense of the difference between the soul experiences of animals and humans, one will also be able to extend one’s feelings and perceptions regarding the animal’s soul life in a proper way. Above all, one will then increasingly gain a sense of how, in human beings, the soul emancipates itself from what is the spirit experienced as an inner-physical reality. It is the spirit that creates the organs, that works within the organism and builds it up as it is. And we speak of the spirit working in the etheric body when we speak of the formation of the organs. This spirit, which is experienced inwardly, can now—when the astral body interposes itself within the organism—be experienced in a very special way under certain conditions. If we can take seriously what was said earlier about the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body, then we can say to ourselves: In humans and animals, the physical body is, first and foremost, the lowest link in their being. The etheric body is the one that shapes the chemical and physical substances in such a way that they become life processes. Through this, the etheric body lives within the physical body, encompassing and embracing the chemical and physical processes. Within all of this, the astral body lives and experiences everything that takes place in the etheric body as a soul experience. Thus, the etheric body is the active, creative force within the physical body, and the astral body is the part of an animal or human being that experiences the actions of the etheric body as a soul experience. Thus, the physical body is connected to the etheric body in the formation of the organs—and the etheric body is connected to the astral body in the inner experience of this formation and the activity of the organs. Thus, we must place everything that manifests in the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body in relation to one another.

[ 27 ] What, then, gives rise to a very special psychological experience? It is that which permeates the entire inner organization of both humans and animals. We can best grasp this special psychological experience when we observe it in a certain state. Who is not familiar with that peculiar kind of spiritual experience that exists only as long as the animal is growing and its organs are enlarging, and that ceases when growth is complete? What is expressed in that experience as bursting energy is connected to a certain activity of the etheric body on the physical body, and it is an expression of the fact that this activity is proceeding as it should. What we can, however, highlight in this state is always present as a certain sense of well-being in the soul, as a sense of vitality, as comfort or discomfort, and this stems from whether the etheric body dominates or is dominated, is powerful or powerless in relation to the physical organization. If it is unable to truly assert itself in the physical organs, this is expressed in the astral body as a sense of discomfort. But when the etheric body can access the physical organs in all its activities, when everything that is to become activity can truly be carried out with the help of the physical organs, this evokes the deepest sense of well-being in the human being. One can sense this on both the finer and coarser levels. If the stomach is upset, what does that mean other than that the etheric body is unable to perform an activity it is otherwise supposed to carry out? This then manifests itself in the associated discomfort. Or let us suppose that someone has strained their thinking to such an extent that the brain can no longer keep up. The etheric body may still be able to think, but the brain can no longer keep up. That is when thinking begins to cause headaches. And this is the source of the discomfort in one’s general sense of well-being. This reaches a particular peak when the part composed of the etheric body experiences a complete disruption. Then we say: It feels as if the skin, which is composed of the etheric body, cannot stretch when it wants to expand due to external heat, or: It feels to me as if I were holding a burning stake against it. Then the etheric body simply encounters resistance. The etheric body, which is not consumed or affected by the external impression, then encounters a physical body to which it does not fit. This is expressed in the astral body as a sensation of pain.

[ 28 ] Thus we have come to understand pain in the astral body by recognizing it as an expression of the etheric body’s powerlessness in relation to the physical body. An etheric body that is in harmony with its physical body exerts a reciprocal effect on its astral body such that a healthy inner experience arises within it. An etheric body, on the other hand, that is not in harmony with its physical body exerts a reciprocal effect on the astral body such that pain and discomfort must arise within it. Now we will be able to see how, particularly in the case of higher animals—we will discuss lower animals next time, since in their case the soul experience is so intimately bound to physicality—this soul experience will penetrate much more deeply into disturbed physicality than it can in the case of human beings. Because human psychological life is so emancipated from inner physical experience, the pain caused by mere physical conditions is certainly not as agonizing or as soul-consuming in humans as it is in higher animals. We can still observe this in children, where physical pain is still a much greater psychological pain than in later years, because as human beings become independent of their physical constitution, they find within the qualities of their soul—which must arise directly from the soul itself—the means to cope with physical pain, whereas the higher animal, which is so closely bound to its physicality, is also connected to everything that constitutes pain to an infinitely greater degree than humans are. All of these are baseless clichés that suggest that pain in humans could be greater than in animals. Pain in animals is much deeper and much more soul-pervading than purely physical pain can ever be for humans.

[ 29 ] Thus we see that, in rising above the physical, human beings draw something from their very innermost being—from the depths of their essence—through their inner life. What the human being draws out in this way we designate as his true “I.” What he does not pass on through heredity, what can be preserved beyond the course of the generic, what he must develop more and more through his individuality—we call this “bound to his I.” This is what must enter human existence—since it cannot be provided through heredity—as originating from human individuality; it is what enters into existence at birth from the spiritual realms and is returned to the spiritual realm after death. We therefore speak of a human core that passes from life to life through ever-recurring existence, because we can grasp it in immediate experience if we merely observe life without prejudice.

[ 30 ] Today I have attempted, in a way, to draw on my immediate experience to offer a small hint as to what justifies speaking of a being within the human being that is not inherited, but rather enters human life from an entirely different source, and which, when a person sees what is inherited within them dissolve at death, can enter into a different, spiritual existence after death. I have illustrated this today in a way that, once further premises of spiritual science have been established, will essentially no longer need to be demonstrated, because spiritual research is based on direct perception and can provide evidence and proof from an entirely different perspective for what was intended to be illustrated today through the direct experience of everyday life. Spiritual science, however, also offers the possibility of grouping and relating everyday experiences in such a way that they show us what within the human being can give rise to a hope—grounded in the observation of facts—for a lasting life of the soul that extends beyond physical existence. Thus we see how an observation of existence everywhere confirms the aforementioned words of Goethe. Animal soul experience is one that we see confined within the sphere of the animal organs. Everywhere we see the organs as the masters that the spirit has fashioned so that the animal can experience itself soulfully in accordance with the organs and make use of them. And we see human beings entering existence helplessly in regard to that aspect for which their organs provide no guidance—that which they must imprint upon their soul experience from life itself. But it is precisely in the latter that we find what constitutes humanity’s claim to immortality—that which is eternal because it cannot be attributed to heredity. This is what Goethe meant by the statement: “The animal is instructed by its organs; but the human being has the advantage of being able to instruct his organs in return.” And whoever correctly understands this last statement—that in the course of his existence, a human being is capable of teaching his organs in return—will say to himself: Within the sphere of spiritual life, where it is revealed how a human being teaches his organs, the connection that a human being enters into with the spirit becomes apparent, and which must be indissoluble, because it is not exhausted and does not come from the past, but points toward the future and is the seed through which human beings can truly attain what will be formed inwardly in their soul experience—the power by which they can overcome the old death in ever-new lives.