The Rudolf Steiner Archive

6. The Relationship of the Mental and Spiritual to the Physical World of the Pythagoreans

[Ladies and gentlemen!]

[ 1 ] It remains for me today to speak about the relationship between the soul and the spirit on the one hand and the physical world on the other, as understood by the Pythagoreans. So far, I have spoken primarily about the Pythagoreans’ conception of the organization of the universe, and today I would like to add what we can learn from the Pythagoreans about their conceptions of the soul, the spirit, and the relationships between the spiritual and the soul and the physical world.

[ 2 ] Historically, our knowledge of Pythagoreanism in this area comes not only from the sparse reports we have from the Pythagoreans themselves, but we also know much more precise details from Plato’s dialogues! A large part of what Plato drew upon originated in Pythagoreanism. Plato was educated by the Pythagoreans and derived a large part of his teachings from Pythagoreanism.

[ 3 ] However, one can truly understand the teachings of Pythagoreanism only if one starts from certain ideas—which can, of course, be arrived at at any time—and from certain relationships between the spiritual and the physical, and then asks: How do the Pythagoreans’ views relate to these, and how do they measure up against them? The Pythagoreans had the deepest insight into the human self! They imparted to their students a view that encompassed the human self to the extent necessary for it to extend into the material world.

[ 4 ] At a certain level, the material ceases to have any significance; space and time, too, cease to exist. Images are imbued with all the characteristics of the sensory realm. As we ascend further and imagine these images as increasingly spiritual, we come ever closer to the spiritual—not insofar as it is spatial or temporal, but only insofar as it is eternal. The Pythagoreans held this view that things are grounded in an essence that remains the same at all times, regardless of whether we consider this or that thing. They rose to this level of perception—not merely to the perception of the conceptual, but in fact all the way to the perception of the One. Precisely through the way they structured their theory of numbers, they demonstrated that they saw in the great harmony nothing other than the incarnations of a deity in the universe.

[ 5 ] The Pythagoreans were influenced by Egyptian beliefs. These Egyptian symbols symbolically illustrate the belief that the “Nous” lives in all things. Among the Egyptians, symbols appear in their understanding that we also find among the Pythagoreans. It is simply impossible to misunderstand these symbols in Egyptian thought. If one believes one can view them only superficially, one will find that they cannot be understood. They can only be understood when interpreted in a deeper way. We will examine this in greater detail when considering the Platonic world of ideas.

[ 6 ] I must point this out so that, based on it, I can make my explanation of Pythagoreanism and its doctrine of the soul easier to understand.

[ 7 ] I have already touched on the doctrine of Osiris. In this myth, we encounter Osiris, who is dismembered by a hostile force called Typhon and scattered throughout the cosmos; and Isis, a female deity, reassembles the fragments of Osiris. These fragments then become the human being.

[ 8 ] Furthermore, this is followed by a second Egyptian legend, according to which the younger god Horus is born to Isis after the death of Osiris. According to the accounts, legends, and stories, these views indicate that the Egyptians symbolically expressed in this legend the idea that the universe has flowed out into the world of phenomena—the world that confronts us. And the dismembered god is the Universal Spirit, who, for the Egyptians, dissolved into the four elements—water, fire, air, and earth—reuniting and binding them together, and bringing about the various numerical ratios in the mixture of substances.

[ 9 ] This concept was then incorporated into Greek thought. We encounter it in the idea that love and hate hold the world together. These are the powers of thought embodied by Osiris, Isis, and Typhon. Osiris lives on only in the four elements, which are conceived as “Osiris.” It is hatred that compels the elements to coexist as a multitude, and love that seeks to restore this fragmentation to unity.

[ 10 ] In this way, we have also illustrated the Greek concept of the gods. We can also find this symbol when we look at an Egyptian obelisk. It has four sides and tapers to a point. This represents the four elements that constitute the harmonious unity of the world. The obelisk is adorned with the image of a scarab rolling a sphere, or with the image of a ram carrying a sphere [on its head]. We know that the Egyptians conceived of that universal unity beneath the sphere.

[ 11 ] However, one point must be noted regarding this concept: Pythagoreanism—insofar as it is a worldview—can only be fully understood if it is based on the idea that Osiris has indeed dissolved into the four elements, that he no longer exists as a separate entity. Through the separation of the forces, Osiris has been split into the elements—the elements that exist in the external world.

[ 12 ] The Pythagorean was thus fully aware that, in his search for Osiris—on the path to recognizing God—he did not have to seek this God outside the world in a “thing-in-itself,” but rather where He could be found exclusively: in the world as such. He was well aware that God is in the world. Therefore, the Pythagorean did not regard the world as God’s creation, but as God’s very being. Whoever lives in the world lives in God! The Pythagoreans sought God only within the world. Therefore, Pythagoreanism is a doctrine that deals with the world and its relationships. It is interesting how they assigned the names of Greek gods to certain numerical ratios.

[ 13 ] We can see from this, then, that what the Greeks depicted as images of the gods, the Pythagoreans depicted in the numbers that, for [them], held the world together.

[ 14 ] Pythagoreanism appears to be the highest expression of what existed in the world. Just as the Pythagoreans conceived of the world as the convergence of the four elements, so too did they conceive of human beings. For the Pythagoreans, human beings were nothing other than the most harmonious combination of the four elements. By “elements,” they did not mean coarse matter, but rather powers! It was not a material interaction, but something similar to what they understood as “harmony in music.” Thus, what appears in the human soul was best expressed in the harmony produced by the lyre. The soul therefore always emerges in the form of the symbol of the lyre, which is, as it were, composed of the elements.

[ 15 ] They distinguished three aspects of human nature. They were fully aware that human beings have a longing to return to that from which they originally came. They were fully aware that human beings were nothing other than an incarnation of Osiris, an incarnation of the divinity that had flowed out into the world. This was what emerged from their view of the world, and they were convinced that it was the same in every human being—indeed, that it was the same in every being.

[ 16 ] Whoever was able to develop this perception in his consciousness saw the world as a whole—by seeing himself. The universe expanded within the “I” into selfhood, and the “I” became the universe! But human beings could only undergo this as individual beings. Human beings are human only insofar as they possess this urge, this inclination toward Osiris, and they possess this power only to the extent that they are connected to the entire material world through a bond of power. Therefore, the Pythagoreans first distinguished the actual Osiris-nature in human beings and in the cosmos—the Cosmic Self, which existed as a single entity in the universe—and, secondly, a part of diversity: the physical human being, a part of the purely sensory-physical human being, which arises and passes away and which can be observed through the senses. Humanity presents itself as a sensory being, perceptible to itself and to others, and furthermore as a being that is perceived purely from within, which is nothing other than a reflection of the light that has flowed down from the Divinity.

[ 17 ] Now the Pythagorean had to come to the conclusion that these two opposing things behave like all other dualities among the Pythagoreans—that is, that everything breaks down into a duality. They discern a duality in everything, including human beings. I could list the most diverse dualities that the Pythagoreans identified in the world. They sought them out everywhere; everywhere they sought a kind of polarity: the “finite” and the “infinite,” the “even” and the “odd,” the “good” and the “evil,” the “quadrav” and the “cube,” the “rectangle” and the “column,” and so on. Thus, they distinguished a duality everywhere, in every spiritual and physical entity. Now, in the case of human beings, it is not a matter of the spiritual and the physical, but rather as I have described it. Let us stick to the description I have given. This duality requires a connection, and this connection is the third element from which the Pythagoreans composed the human being. This third element is what is called the “soul” in the Greek worldview and in all subsequent worldviews. This third element is a connection between spiritual wholeness—universal unity—on the one hand, and diversity—materiality—on the other, so that we have three parts: spirituality, materiality, and, as the third, the soul. On the one hand is the material, and on the other is the highest spirituality. This, together with the other—the third—aspect, constitutes the unique human personality.

[ 18 ] For the Pythagoreans, therefore, the human personality exists only insofar as the unified spirit, with the aid of the soul, is connected to the diversity of materiality. Human beings discover the soul within themselves and have a right to spirituality when they turn their gaze toward the sphere of spirituality—that is, when they belong to the material world on the one hand and, on the other, are inhabitants of the spiritual world with which they are meant to connect. Thus, for the Pythagoreans, human beings are divided into three aspects:

1. in what makes him a particular being;
2. in what he devotes himself to;
3. in what liberates him from particularity.

[ 19 ] They distinguish between that which belongs to the individual human being—which shines upward toward the spiritual, yet at the same time also shines downward toward the physical. Thus, that which the Pythagoreans recognize as the Third mediates between the divine and the material principle.

[ 20 ] So it is not only Osiris who is incarnated, but also something that is closer to the particular than Osiris as such. What is reincarnated, then, is something that lies between the personality—to which sensuality belongs—and spirituality—to which sensuality no longer belongs—something that participates in the world and is at the same time both individual and universal!

[ 21 ] This [something incarnated] in human beings constitutes that which is the unified Osiris nature—the individuality that is individualized here below into the personality (which is not the same thing for the Pythagoreans)—and which, through the personality’s mediation with Osiris, forms a unity. This individuality does not fully manifest itself in the personality, so that the personality will find something within itself when it looks inward and surveys its consciousness, at which point it must say to itself: “This does not belong to the part in which I am incarnated; this individualized part is what constitutes the individual.”

Therefore, three elements are intertwined in human nature:
1. personal individuality;
2. spiritual substance that transcends the personality;
3. the light of Osiris, the unity that lives in the universe and can only exist because individuality stands between the other elements.

[ 22 ] This individuality is not only linked to the specific manifestation of personality, but also signifies more than the individual personality itself. What can be found in individuality does not coincide with what can be found in the individual personality.

[ 23 ] When the follower of Pythagoreanism looks around to explain this, he must not limit his awareness to his own personality, but must extend it to other individualities. He will not be able to find within his own individual personality everything that lives as essence within the personality. He will find that human beings cannot be explained from within themselves alone. Only when he assumes, with regard to the individual—the personality, however it may be conceived metaphysically—that the individuality can endure and incarnate in other individuals, so that a series of developmental stages and a series of such personalities come into consideration for the individuality, will he find the explanation. And here, too, you have the form that the [idea of reincarnation] took among the Pythagoreans.

[ 24 ] To a greater extent, the Pythagoreans recognized the soul as a single personality that transcends the individual, and they realized that there is more to it than the individual vessel—the individual personality—so that we may therefore speak of a pre-existence of that which manifests itself as individuality within the individual personality.

[ 25 ] Plato also expounded this teaching in his dialogues. In them, he made Socrates the teacher, and we may imagine that Plato presented his teachings in dialogue form and made Socrates the teacher precisely to show how a student can be gradually guided, step by step, toward the highest truth.

[ 26 ] If we wish to imagine the journey of a Pythagorean, we can turn to the dialogue on the journey of the soul, Phaedo. The “Phaedo” is not to be understood as an exoteric dialogue, but rather as a symbol of Pythagorean teaching. This is clearly demonstrated by a passage at the beginning.

[ 27 ] We know very little about the historical Socrates, and we can reasonably disregard whatever is false in an external, tangible sense. Therefore, when Plato places particular emphasis on external facts and reports them—as is precisely the case in the Phaedo, where he tells us that the presentation of the cup of hemlock is delayed because a certain ship is sailing to Delos—we must regard this account as significant. We can see from history that Greece was compelled for a time to send seven youths and seven maidens to King Minos. Theseus freed the people from this scourge by slaying the Minotaur. In gratitude, the Greeks sent a ship to Delos at certain times to offer sacrifices [to Apollo]. During this period, no one was to be executed. Socrates’s sentencing fell precisely during this period, and therefore it was necessary to wait. This fact was recounted to us at the beginning of the Phaedo. It is no coincidence that it appears at the beginning; it has a specific meaning. It is just as with the Egyptians. When we see a sphinx standing there, it means that we must not limit ourselves to being satisfied with a simple description, but that we should seek deeper truths behind it.

[ 28 ] This story at the beginning of Plato’s Phaedo is also such a hint. It consistently points to the fact that there is something to be sought within it. The legend of Theseus symbolizes that, after Theseus had been freed from certain passions and certain ties to materiality—that is, after he had undergone a certain development—he no longer needed to make the sacrifices that others had to offer to sensuality. Only after he no longer needed to make these sacrifices did he reach a certain stage of development. This is expressed in his victory over the Minotaur. This is symbolic.

[ 29 ] We are thus dealing here with a depiction of Pythagorean instruction. The fact that Socrates overcame death in accordance with the facts is meant to be a symbol of what and how the Pythagorean must overcome in the progressive stages of his instruction. Thus we also see that the Pythagorean conceives of the soul as something that transcends the particular, and that through this he leads his students to a spiritual understanding of the world.

[ 30 ] The Phaedo depicts the ascent to spiritual individuality. This is introduced by the legend of Theseus, who found his way out of the labyrinth. The labyrinth represents the path that the individual personality must traverse in order to find its way back to the light of Osiris. Here, then, we encounter the Pythagorean doctrine of the soul. We may assume that we have presented the Pythagorean doctrine of the soul here in a form that [Plato] believed he could already communicate to certain initiated students.

[ 31 ] The nature of the soul is developed and initially demonstrated through various considerations showing that it is something that transcends the material realm and has nothing to do with the material realm as such.

[ 32 ] This problem of the soul is resolved in a variety of ways in the Phaedo. First, the discussion begins with the sensory world, which is in a state of eternal becoming. Every being develops from that which it is not. Thus, death arises from life and life from death, so that we are dealing with the alternation of death and life. But this is only the lowest level.

[ 33 ] Now a Pythagorean enters the conversation and presents his image of the lyre with its strings. [...]. Socrates believes that we cannot compare [it] to harmony. The strings are there first. But harmony does not lie in the strings themselves, but in the sound they make together—in something that emerges from the strings. And now Socrates rises to a level of spirituality that is no longer bound to the physical. Socrates continues: I have looked into all the sciences and consulted all the philosophers. When I say, “I have seen,” or “I am walking,” people everywhere ask, “Why?” And in response, I hear: “I have seen because …,” “I am walking because …” Everywhere, I am told only the causes. That has never satisfied me. The thing is far from explained even if we know this cause.

[ 34 ] Now Socrates uses a clever analogy to make it clear that simply stating the cause does not yet explain a thing. He says: I am sitting here in prison. The Athenians have condemned me to this. I am awaiting death because I did not want to escape.

[ 35 ] So what would the natural scientist say? He would list all the causes. But what if Socrates had fled? Then [the natural philosopher] would be able to find causes there as well; causes can be identified and gathered everywhere. They are true, but they explain nothing. If he had fled, there would still be causes there. If I am sitting here, the causes are here as well. So there must be something that transcends purely natural existence. This is that which is not identical with what can be grasped through natural causes, has nothing in common with the natural, but rather with the world that stands above natural facts; that which does indeed manifest itself in the world of causes, but which stands above the world of causes.

[ 36 ] Thus, he seeks to express in words what is embodied for him in the world of causality and manifests itself within that world.

[ 37 ] Now we must ask: How was this way of looking at the world—in which causality links together the natural world, in which the spiritual does not find its place—justified in the natural science of the Greeks? It seems important to me to consider whether such a view can stand up to our present-day understanding. We must point out that natural science strives toward a spiritual dimension in order to give birth to a worldview from within itself. The fact that the spiritual cannot be exhausted within the world of causes can already be demonstrated by natural science itself. It can be proven that the physicality in which we now live is confined within very [specific limits], that it is a limited thing, and that this in itself has a certain significance.

[ 38 ] I want to show you how natural science can already demonstrate today that physicality has its limits, that the spiritual must transcend this physicality, that it is merely incarnated within this physicality—so that physicality is something that cannot encompass the spirit. This seems to me to be something that must certainly be emphasized. The modern worldview has led us to no longer view the world as if it were a random constellation of things; it has led us to see the individual forces of the world as transformations of the primal force. We no longer say: “Mechanical work is present in electricity, heat, magnetism, pressure, and so on”; rather, we understand all of this as forms of a single primal force. Today we tell ourselves that when we apply a mechanical force—for example, exerting pressure on a table—the spot on the table is heated. This heat was produced by pressure. We now hold the view that the force propelling a locomotive forward is nothing other than the force of steam, and that in turn is nothing other than the force of coal, and so on. So we have a continuous transformation here. When we heat a room, we are heating it with what was stored as chemical forces countless years ago. Plants transformed into denser matter, then into the chemical forces of coal. These, in turn, are transformed back into heat. What we use to heat our room today is therefore what came from the sun millions of years ago. So even in physics, we are dealing with a continuous transformation of forces. What is precisely true is the relationship between heat and mechanical work. Heat is converted into mechanical work to move something forward. What happens in the steam boiler is exactly the same as what propels the train forward. Heat is converted into mechanical work. This occurs because the heat is lost—it is no longer present. This heat, which has been converted, has disappeared; it has been transformed into something else. We see this process everywhere in the universe.

[ 39 ] Fifty years ago, people still said: The sun’s heat is transformed into chemical energy, chemical energy into mechanical work, and so on. In this way, we can imagine that one thing is transformed into another, that a cycle of forces is formed. This gives rise to the eternity of the material world. The forces transform into an eternal cycle. Today we must admit that this material world does not allow for such a cycle of matter, but is limited. We must admit that what exists explains itself. When we transform the heat of steam into what propels the train forward—since heat is always lost, and it is impossible to transform all the heat into mechanical energy—the heat suffers a loss. This is not because the machines are imperfect; complete transformation cannot occur; a certain residual amount of heat would always remain. Wherever something occurs through the conversion of heat into mechanical energy, a mechanical residue remains.

[ 40 ] If we were to continue this line of thought and imagine that all work were thereby performed, something would always remain. The consequence of this would be that eventually all possible heat [would] be converted, so that ultimately a state [would] arise where it would no longer be possible [to] extract any amount of heat from objects. The available heat [would] tend toward a minimum. [If] this state were reached, then it [would] no longer be possible for anything to [happen] in this world. It [would] no longer be possible for any work to [arise] from any heat source. Life [would] have ceased to exist. This entire incarnation of the Earth [would] be self-contained.

[ 41 ] We see, then, that the spiritual is not limited to reincarnation, but that the spiritual extends into the [associated material] world; that the spiritual is that which must seek a new form of expression or must return to itself.

[ 42 ] However, this material world can only exist because it is permeated by the spirit. The moment this material world is exhausted, the spirit is no longer that which can rule the world. It has then lost its meaning; it has then passed from being into non-being. The spirit has then purified itself of all this.

[ 43 ] This is not the result of philosophical reflection, nor is it the result of metaphysical reflection, but simply what every physicist must also admit. It is the same thing the Greeks say: that the One manifests itself in the world, lives through it, and that the world as such comes to an end and will then, as we have seen, become the Infinite once more, standing purified within itself as the All-One. This is the great world process that unfolds in what the Pythagoreans see as the “overlapping.” They saw this overlapping at the lower level in individuality.

[ 44 ] This is the method by which the Pythagorean says: If I find something in the personality that extends into the spiritual realm, then I must assume that individuality is no more exhausted in the individual personality than the Osiris-unity is exhausted in the individual world. - In the Pythagorean world, unity is not exhausted; rather, it unfolds within worlds that are limited and self-contained. In the Pythagorean view, individuality unfolds in such a way that it seeks its incarnation only within the continuous course of individual existence.

[ 45 ] Thus, in the Pythagorean worldview, we have a strictly coherent chain of ideas that leads us upward from the earthly plane to the highest spiritual unity. But in Pythagoreanism, we have strictly upheld the doctrine of individuality, which extends beyond the individual personality. From this arose the Pythagoreans’ view that the individual personality, when it rises to the perception of individuality, can no longer feel responsible merely for what it does as an individual personality, for what occurs within it, insofar as it is an individual being within sensory diversity, but that it must also feel responsible insofar as it must participate and contribute to that which extends beyond the individual personality into individuality. The ordinary person does not feel responsible for what extends beyond the personality.

[ 46 ] That is roughly what can be said about the Pythagorean doctrine of the soul. We may therefore say that the Pythagoreans had advanced to the view that they imposed a much higher responsibility on human beings—namely, the responsibility that one bears as an individual, and which is not limited to the individual personality. This is the concept of reincarnation viewed from within.

Q&A:

Question: Did the Pythagoreans' beliefs originate in Atlantis?

[ 47 ] Rudolf Steiner’s response: The idea is very plausible. A purely external fact can demonstrate this, for there is no other way to explain why the Chinese hold exactly the same views on the mysteries of numbers as the Pythagoreans. Since we have here such geographically separate spheres of worldview—between which no external mediation has taken place from one people to another—these views must have originated from a common source. This correspondence is striking. Many felt themselves to be part of the great harmony of the world, as the manifestation of unity, duality, and multiplicity. We find all of this in Pythagorean and Chinese teachings; that is the proof.

[ 48 ] And now the strange thing is that in between we have a vast realm that acts as a dividing line—the realm of “Parsism®,” which does not hold these views. It does, admittedly, recognize the great world cycles, a kind of “twilight of the gods.” But Zoroastrianism is completely unaware of the nature of individuality within this grand process of development. This is something very curious.

[ 49 ] This teaching also appears among the Druze, but from a different source.

[ 50 ] Pythagoreanism has never died out in the Western world: In twenty-five years, all of physics will be Pythagorean. This will happen of its own accord. Just as [the matter] took shape among the Pythagoreans, so it will take shape again.

[ 51 ] The ancient cultures of Peru and Mexico have been rediscovered. The downfall of Atlantis is a scientific fact. This is nothing theosophical or mystical. What remains of it is the floating sea of seaweed. Pithecanthropus also appears to be a genuine remnant of this civilization. It is a creature that stands somewhere between man and ape—a solitary, stray individual who made his way to Java.

[ 52 ] The origin of the human race can only be located there because that was the only place where it was possible to live under certain primitive cultural conditions. Under different conditions, fragile humanity would not have been able to wage war against nature. After all, our region had a tropical climate not so long ago.

[ 53 ] The Pythagoreans viewed Pythagoras as a divine incarnation of Osiris. Pythagoras was absorbed into the Pythagorean spirit; Pythagoras is always among us. To demonstrate this outwardly, his name was not even allowed to be spoken. The original founder was Apollo himself. Apollo was the “first Pythagoras,” and Pythagoras was the “second Apollo.”

[ 54 ] When one became a Pythagorean, one first learned history through dramas and symbols. The orgies were just that; they are the means by which a person is prepared to gradually understand the spiritual as such, through its symbolic representation in the external world. That was the external service of Bacchus, the service of Dionysus. This was then transformed into the inner service, transformed into the service of Apollo. Apollo is the inner Bacchus; Bacchus is the outer Apollo. A superficial manifestation of this has persisted. It is said that the entire Greek worldview is composed of the “Dionysian” and the “Apollonian” principles.

[ 55 ] You’ll find this reference in Richard Wagner’s school of thought and also in Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music. The Greeks derive all culture from it. Nowadays, this has become a journalistic catchphrase. Nietzsche was unable to grasp the Greek worldview; he lacked the capacity for it.

[ 56 ] “Diversity is a Pythagorean concept and is in harmony with the elements of the Egyptians. That is precisely why physical diversity exists—because it is a shattered, destroyed unity. The soul is the sum of the rays that lead from the whole to the particulars. You might perhaps say: [it] is nothing real. But [it] is nevertheless spiritually real, because [it] must extend beyond. [It] must also participate in both. It is manifold on the side of multiplicity, one on the side of unity.

[ 57 ] The myth makes this very clear: The life that strives to return is the soul; it is the longing that is essential. It is a process of returning to unity. Every individuality is nothing other than such a return. If we could grasp the world in its entirety through our outer consciousness, then everything would be resolved. It would then be one in space and time. Thus, we live downward and upward and in both directions. The development of individuality is expressed in the continual overcoming of spatiality and temporality. The entire universe is in this process of development. Individuality is the All-One, because only the All-One exists. But it has not yet realized this within itself. It has not yet brought it forth.

[ 58 ] You can think of it like a seed: the seed is the plant. And so the whole world belongs to every individual. The whole world is part of everything that happens. If the seed lacks rain and light, then it is simply missing something that belongs to it. Within every plant lies an infinite series of plants, stretching both forward and backward.

Question about “Oneness.”

[ 59 ] Answer: The plant within the All-One is a self-contained individuality. Imagine if the world’s temperature were fifty degrees higher—there would be no more plants. Plants and seeds are individual beings, but in addition to the multitude of individual beings, we also have individuality and the individual streams of individuality.

Question: Is individuality what influences society as a whole?

[ 60 ] Answer: An individual personality is confined between birth and death. Yet there is much in an individual’s life that we cannot explain at all. We can, of course, educate people. But something is already there. We are not dealing here with the general essence of the world, but with a fully formed being when a person is born. The Pythagoreans attribute this to a previous life that must have existed at some point. I am reluctant to say that this is the Indian doctrine of the transmigration or metamorphosis of the soul. Goethe calls individuality ‘Entelechio’.