The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] Today, too, in order to gain a precise understanding of what will be presented to us as our true goal in the coming lectures, we will take a look at the great worlds and then look back down at the narrower sphere of our immediate earthly existence. In this way, we will be able to form a precise conception of what is actually meant—in the spiritual-scientific or occult sense—by the three terms we have grouped together: world, Earth, and human being. For from many things that have already been discussed in these lectures, you will have gathered that, in the esoteric sense, one cannot speak of a world as merely a material entity at all. We have seen that the various world beings—we would not even want to call them “world bodies”—that we have encountered, such as the various incarnations of our Earth as Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon, as well as, finally, what we describe as the contrast between the Earth as a planet and the Sun as a fixed star—that all of this is something entirely different from something merely material: Each of these cosmic entities is, as we have seen, the setting for a multitude of spiritual beings; that is to say, its material nature is, in essence, shaped only to the extent required by these spiritual beings who dwell on the celestial bodies. We have also seen that the Sun separated itself from the Earth because it had to serve as the setting for certain exalted entities that required only the finer substances for their development, whereas human beings on Earth had to retain the other substances. And if we were to explore the entire vast expanse of the cosmos, we would find everywhere that we could not discover anything material in and of itself, that everything is linked to the spiritual. Furthermore, we saw to what extent the various earthly beings are linked to spiritual beings. The stones and minerals of our Earth have their “I” within the sphere of our world, in the universe; the plants have their “I” located at the center of our Earth, and then we saw that the plants have an astral entity that, so to speak, circles them from the outside and brings about the completion of the flower. Thus we have found everything to be imbued with spirit, and this broadens our concept or conception of a celestial body. We look up at any celestial body and know that it is merely the expression of spiritual beings who are materially linked to it. Now, through the development of the dormant abilities within him, human beings are indeed capable of gaining a certain knowledge of such celestial bodies that are spread out in space, and today we will have to lead people’s minds to contemplate the various celestial bodies.

[ 2 ] We here on Earth are, after all, surrounded by minerals, plants, animals, and fellow human beings! We know, however, that in addition to this, the affairs of our Earth are managed by higher beings—beings whom we have referred to, in the Christian sense, as angels, archangels, and primal forces; we also know that other beings, even if they send their powers from the Sun or the Moon, are connected to the Earth. Today, however, we shall add something else to this. The question may first arise in our hearts: To what extent can one planet in our solar system be compared to another in terms of its nature? And for the sake of simplicity, let us consider those beings that, so to speak, can appear visibly to us in the current cycle of humanity. We ask: How do the beings that surround us—minerals, plants, animals, and human beings—relate to beings from other worlds?

[ 3 ] Of course, we approach this question from the perspective of spiritual science, which arises from the development of those powers that are accessible to clairvoyant consciousness—a development we will discuss later—and thus from what clairvoyant consciousness is capable of knowing. So we ask ourselves first: Are there people like those who develop on our Earth—for clairvoyant consciousness—on other planets as well? — And clairvoyant consciousness answers us: We do not find people like those on Earth, in exactly the same form, on other planets. — And we find confirmed that every planet, every celestial body, has its own special task, its own special mission. Nothing repeats itself in the universe; other cosmic arenas also have different missions. Our Earth arose from three previous incarnations. You know that the stage of human existence we are now undergoing—humanhood—has indeed already been experienced by certain beings, for example, the angels on the Moon. Other beings, the fire spirits, experienced this state on the Sun, and still others, the spirits of personality, on Saturn. This could easily lead to the misconception: “But then there were humans on the preceding planets after all!”—You must bear in mind, however, that there was no solid rock or mineral on the Moon, and that therefore the beings who passed through their human stage there did so under entirely different conditions. We therefore speak of the stage of humanity, but we know that humanity was experienced under entirely different conditions. Under different conditions, for example, the spirits of fire also experienced their humanity on the ancient Sun, for the Sun consisted only of air and gas. Naturally, only beings who did not require a body like ours—with solid substance, muscles, and so on—could undergo such a process of becoming human. Even in the process of becoming on Earth, nothing repeats itself, and every single point has its own special mission in the great order of cosmic existence.

[ 4 ] Let us now consider the formation of our Earth. From an occult perspective, we see it as a body inhabited by human beings, upon which human beings develop. This evolution was made possible only because the Sun and the Moon separated from the Earth, and because its forces are kept in balance between the Sun and the Moon. Back then, when the Earth—if we may put it that way—was itself still a Sun, it underwent its evolution with the Sun united to the Earth. The Sun itself was thus still at the stage of planetary existence and was inhabited by the 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 itself from the Earth to become the Earth’s moon. Thus we see that in the vast universe, evolution proceeds in such a way that something which has been united with something else for a time separates; one then ascends to higher regions, while the other descends to a lower region. In order for certain higher beings to develop sufficiently, the Sun had to become a body capable of serving as a dwelling place for higher beings. The Sun has thus, as it were, advanced, ascending from planetary existence to fixed-star existence, so to speak. In general, we must regard a celestial body like our Sun as having emerged from a planet; from an occult perspective, we therefore see the Sun as 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, even within our more immediate earthly existence, human beings 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 root on our Earth. When Christ becomes incarnated on our Earth, human beings become ever more mature through the assimilation of the Christ principle, and the material form that a planet assumes depends on the kinds of beings that planet develops. Just as the Sun became what it is by drawing out the finest substances—because the beings needed these substances—so too will the Earth do; the substances of the Earth will also transform so that they will be appropriate for what humanity and the earthly beings that humanity draws along with it will have become in the distant future; for once humanity has become powerful, it will also draw the other earthly beings along with it. What will happen then? As humanity becomes increasingly imbued with the Christ principle, as it absorbs more and more of the high solar forces that descended to Earth with the Christ, it will itself become ever more Christ-like. Then it will itself radiate the Christ principle throughout the entire Earth.

[ 5 ] What is this Christ principle? Let us try to understand it as clearly as we need to. To do so, we must know what the mission of our earthly existence is, so that we can describe this mission in a specific way, using a specific term. What, then, is the mission of our earthly existence? What, for example, was the mission of the Moon that preceded the Earth? If we let our spiritual gaze wander back to our ancient Moon, we will find something very remarkable at the beginning of its existence within those beings who are the precursors of our earthly beings. These beings possess many qualities, yet one thing is still entirely lacking at the very beginning of the ancient Moon’s development: they lack that which we see everywhere around us today in earthly existence. The forces of the Moon, the predecessor of our Earth, acted together unwisely; everything at the beginning of the Moon’s existence is still such that nowhere can one perceive a harmonious interplay of wisdom. If one traces the evolution of the ancient Moon through clairvoyance, one sees how wisdom was instilled from the cosmos into the beings who lived on the Moon by those beings who act within the Moon’s sphere. That is why we call the ancient Moon the planet of wisdom. Thus, when the Moon’s existence came to an end, wisdom was present in all things. And when the lunar existence then passed through an intermediate state—like a world sleep—and reemerged as earthly existence, and when the beings emerged once more from Pralaya, they brought with them the wisdom that had been imbued in them on the Moon. And the consequence of this is that wisdom is present within all beings on Earth; wisdom is instilled at the very foundation of all things. We observe the beings around us, who are the results of the Moon’s evolution and still have a further mission, and we find wisdom everywhere. Consider whatever you like; take, for example, any plant flower—the more closely you examine it, the more wondrous it will seem to you how the individual parts are arranged in accordance with a higher wisdom. Take a piece of bone from the human thigh: you will see how, with the utmost wisdom, the beams are arranged into a framework so that the upper body is supported. And no engineering art today is capable of imitating the profound wisdom of this framework in bridge construction. Thus we see wisdom at the root of all things in all other human organs, indeed in the entire world around us. On Earth, human beings first absorb this wisdom—one might say, like amateurs—from within themselves; microcosmic wisdom is something that human beings learn only here from the things around them. But at the core of all things, and at the core of everything within the human being in which the human being is not personally involved, wisdom is already formed. When recounting history, human wisdom is often extolled. How wonderful it seems when we learn in school that humans made this or that invention or discovery at a certain time. For example, we were taught that, relatively recently, humans discovered the art of making paper: human intelligence brought it to that point. Well, wasps have been able to do this for a long time; they mastered 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 stage that human wisdom is only gradually approaching. This wisdom, which lies at the very foundation of all beings on our Earth, also had to be gradually assimilated, and we shall see how this wisdom was assimilated in the course of the Moon’s existence, how wisdom fought against ignorance there, and how the old Moon then handed over to the Earth the seeds of being into which wisdom had been instilled.

[ 6 ] What, in the same way, is to be instilled in the beings on our Earth? Just as wisdom was instilled on our predecessor, the Moon, so love is to be instilled on our planet. Our planet is the planet of love. That is why the evolution—the instillation, so to speak, of love in its lowest form—has begun. Since everything had emerged during the time of Lemuria, when the human “I” took on form, the evolution of love in its lowest form began through the division of the sexes. And all further evolution consists of an increasing refinement leading up to the spiritualization of this principle of love. And just as wisdom was instilled into beings on the Moon, so too, when our Earth has one day reached its goal, love will be at the core of all beings.

[ 7 ] And now let us briefly turn our gaze to the next planetary existence that will succeed our Earth—the planet Jupiter. When the beings inhabiting it reappear there, they will look out upon the beings in their vicinity using their own spiritual powers. And just as we use our intellect to admire the wisdom that reigns in everything—in stone, in plants, in animals, in all beings around us—and draw that wisdom out so that we, too, may possess it in the same way: so it will be with the beings of Jupiter that they will direct their powers toward the surrounding beings, and the love that was instilled in them during Earth’s evolution will flow back toward them. Just as we analyze a being and are uplifted by its wisdom, so will the beings of Jupiter be uplifted by the currents of love emanating from the beings. This love, which is to develop on Earth, can develop only when the Earth “I’s” face one another as we have seen; development could begin only when the beings were torn apart in their group-soul bond and one being stood face to face with another; only in this way could true love develop. Where the “I”s are connected within the group soul, true love does not exist. The being must be separated from the being and offer love as a free gift. Only through the division of beings, as it has occurred in the human realm, where the “I” stands face to face with the “I” as an independent individual—only then has love as a free gift from “I” to “I” become possible. Thus, an ever-increasing individualism had to emerge on Earth, along with a unification of the individual beings. Let us imagine the individual beings connected to one another within a group soul; the group soul directs them in how they should behave. Can anyone say that the heart loves the stomach? No, the heart is connected to the stomach through the inner essence that holds them together. In the same way, animal groups are also connected to one another through group soul unity, and what they are to do is dictated to them by the wise group soul. Only when this group unity is overcome—when the individual “I” stands face to face with another individual “I”—can the sympathy of love be offered as a free gift from being to being.

[ 8 ] Human beings could only be gradually prepared for this mission. Therefore, we see how humanity undergoes a kind of “preschool” for this love before human beings become fully individualized. Before they fully possess their “I” as their own, we see how they are united by the guiding beings into groups that are related by blood and who love one another insofar as they are related by blood. This is humanity’s great period of preparation. 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 intervene here, countering the cooperation of human beings in tribes and peoples through the power of blood with their strongly liberating force: Everything that works to make human beings independent works through the Luciferic spirits. And so the human being matures, gradually receiving the highest power of love, the Christ principle—that principle which was allowed to express its essence in the words: “Whoever does not leave father, mother, son, and 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 sense, but rather in such a way that, through the acceptance of the Christ principle, the old blood ties are to give rise to new forms of togetherness that extend from soul to soul, from human being to human being, regardless of material foundations. The Christ principle has provided the impetus 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 through this, human beings will also inspire the lower beings of the Earth; they will thereby transform the entire Earth. In a distant future, humanity will transform all the matter of the Earth and once again make this earthly body ripe for union with the Sun. Thus, Christ, as the spiritual Sun, has provided the impulse for the Earth and the Sun to one day reunite as one body.

[ 9 ] This is how we view the course of world evolution: how the Sun first physically separates from the Earth, how the powerful impulse of the Christ Principle is then sent down, and how this provides the impetus for a reunification of the Earth and the Sun in order to ascend to higher levels of existence. And we have recognized that our Earth can sustain only such people with such a mission. So when we look around the human realm and wish to get to know earthly human beings, we can find them only on Earth, for it is here that the conditions were created for such people as exist here today.

[ 10 ] But now let us ask ourselves: What about the other kingdoms? Let us first consider the plant kingdom. When the clairvoyant gaze sweeps across our world and examines the other planets belonging to the solar system, we find a plant kingdom very much like our own everywhere among the planets that belong to our Sun; thus, in our plant kingdom, we have something that, so to speak, has a systemic existence, something that belongs to our system. We thus see our solar system populated by plant beings, and if we were to view the matter from an occult perspective, we would also see each planet populated by human beings with their own distinctive characteristics. However, you will very soon be able to recognize an intimate kinship between the plant and the sun, and then you will also be able to believe that plant existence is intimately connected with solar existence. But if this is the case, then it must also be connected to all the planets that belong to this solar system. If we let our gaze wander back to the time when the Earth was still the Sun-planet, we know that back then human beings consisted of a physical and an etheric body—that is, they were at the stage of plant existence. At that time, human beings had the status 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 made up of a physical and an etheric body. These beings present themselves to us in such a way that we can say: they have remained faithful to the Sun; even today they clearly show us their connection to the Sun. Let us consider such a plant being in the light of Rosicrucian wisdom. There we see how the plant is anchored in the ground by its root. This is the organ that directs it toward the center of the Earth—that is, toward its “I”—while its reproductive organs are directed toward the sun. There it receives the chaste ray of the sun. Now let us imagine the human being: It is not difficult to picture the human being as an inverted plant; imagine the plant in exactly the opposite position, and you have the human being: The human being has its reproductive organs turned toward the center of the Earth, and its root extending out into outer space. The animal stands right in the middle. That is why, in a spiritual sense, it is said: As the soulfulness of the world passed through the various kingdoms, it passed through plant, animal, and human existence. Plato expresses this in a magnificent way: The world soul is crucified on the cross of the world body.

[ 11 ] Human beings have gone through the plant stage, oriented toward the center of the Earth; in animals, the spine points horizontally in that direction; human beings are completely reversed in relation to the plant: this is how the cross comes into being. The world soul is crucified; that is the deepest esoteric meaning of the cross. Thus, in today’s plant we have before us a being that strives toward the sun, that has, so to speak, remained connected to the sun; hence, it has the opposite orientation to that of the human being. Animal forms are partly the same and partly different across the various planetary forms of existence; here, too, the animal stands in the middle between the human being and the plant.

[ 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 within the formative powers of the mineral kingdom that extend far beyond our solar system. When we direct our gaze toward the forms of the mineral kingdom—especially those forms that are translucent—we are thus led beyond our solar system, enabling us to gain a glimpse of what is taking place in the world far beyond it. The most abstract—that which has the least definite existence, which is now the foundation of our existence, the mineral realm—has a universal existence, and the higher the beings are, the more they are adapted to our solar and terrestrial systems.

[ 13 ] But now let us raise the same question with regard to human beings! If human beings were adapted only to the forces that prevail on Earth, then they would be condemned to exist only on Earth, to eke out their existence only on Earth; he could never become a citizen of the world; he could not even speak of anything that goes beyond the Earth. So even though he is adapted to earthly conditions in his outward form, he nevertheless participates, through his higher powers, in what the higher beings connected to our Earth are. What confines the human being to Earth relates only to his physical nature; the spiritual powers inherent in him, on the other hand, lead him beyond Earth. Here, too, we must distinguish between the most diverse forces. To ensure we understand one another, let us first focus on the forces that we can easily classify. First, we have the force that we have, so to speak, seen emerge before our spiritual eyes in the pre-Atlantean epochs. 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 perceive external objects through 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—this, as we have seen, first differentiated itself from the perception of warmth through that organ which was there like a kind of lantern: the pineal gland. And this object consciousness is purely earthly. This sensory perception is native only to Earth. As strange as it may seem: all our sensations—how human beings see colors cast over objects, how they hear sounds ringing out—all of this has only an earthly existence; and if you were to observe the beings of other planets, you would see that you cannot communicate with them directly. If you were to tell these beings something about the color red, they would know nothing of it; on their planet, they have a different way of perceiving objects and entities. What we call sensory perception serves 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 exists today in the human realm, earthly and characteristic of this planetary existence; it serves to lay the first foundation for the earthly mission—for love. For love develops here on Earth. So, in regard to the human being’s outer capacity, we have something here that applies only to the Earth.

[ 15 ] Now we come to another force. Consider an object of the senses. As long as you focus your eyes on it, you know that you are in correspondence with the object: it has an effect on you. Now turn away and keep the mental image of the object in your memory. 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 entirely different beings. For the images would vanish as soon as you looked away; thus, you would also lack the ability to connect the qualities of other beings with your own being. What enables modern humans to retain an image even when the object is gone—to recall things in their minds—is a capacity for consciousness that humans already possessed on the ancient Moon; for it is the same capacity that enabled them back then to perceive the external world in images. At that time, human beings could not see external objects as they do today, but if they had approached an object, an astral image would have arisen within them, like a vivid dream image, which, however, stood in a specific relationship to the object. Human beings possessed not an object-consciousness but an image-consciousness. Today, human beings relate to objects; they have extended the image to encompass the objects. A final remnant of this ability remains in the image of memory. Yet this image of memory is also something that already has a broader significance than the mere observation of the external object. When you observe several identical external objects, you group them under a common concept. There are many pieces of chalk; you group them all under the common concept of “chalk.” In this way, human beings ascend to general concepts for which no external entities exist. They can work inwardly with their mental images; and if, through this inner work—through this act of imagining—without referring to objects, you were to enter into a relationship with beings outside our planetary existence, you would already be able to communicate more easily. The pictorial consciousness that human beings had before they could perceive external objects—which was a twilight-clairvoyant consciousness—and also the imaginative consciousness that will develop later on, are both already more comprehensive. When human beings acquire pictorial consciousness through occult development, so that they are no longer dependent solely on perceiving external objects, but when, for example, he sees the aura of a person radiating, when he sees the soul-spiritual around him in images, when what lives in the world appears before his eyes in pictorial symbols—then he has risen to the ability, with this consciousness, to connect with other beings who inhabit the planetary world.

[ 16 ] There is also a higher level of consciousness. Human beings possessed it in a dim form during the Sun Age, and they still possess it in a dim form today while they sleep. This is the dreamless sleep consciousness. A person is not without consciousness when sleeping, nor is a plant; it possesses the same consciousness—even during the day—as a person has while sleeping. And it is merely a lower level of consciousness; things slip past one’s attention, and one cannot grasp them. But by developing certain powers within themselves, they can rise to the ability to perceive what is around them during the state of dreamless sleep. This is a higher state of consciousness than image consciousness; it is a consciousness that plants also possess, but in a dormant form. If you ascend to the consciousness of the plant but permeate it with your “I” in clear waking consciousness, then you have reached, in occult development, the stage of inspiration, of inspired consciousness. This inspired consciousness does not operate merely in images. When what flows from things enters into another being: this consciousness cannot be compared to visual consciousness; it is a resonant consciousness. Here the human being enters a spiritual world of sound; it is that consciousness of which Pythagoras already spoke as the harmony of the spheres. The entire world resounds with its essence, and when the human being falls asleep in the evening, when his astral body, together with the “I,” leaves his physical and etheric bodies, then the harmonies and melodies of the music of the worlds penetrate this astral body; then he is immersed in his true spiritual existence, and there, through the music of the spheres, he gains the ability to replenish his depleted forces. At night, a person immerses himself in the music of the spheres, and because the tones resonate through him, he feels refreshed and strengthened in the morning. And when a person brings this to consciousness, then they are in a state of inspiration; then they become capable of perceiving everything that exists within their solar system. While a person perceives only earthly things through ordinary imagination, imagination enables them to enter into correspondence with the beings of the individual planets; they will enter into connection with the solar system when they reach a state of 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 the ancient way
in a contest of song among brotherly spheres.

[ 17 ] Here we see how he is aware that all the mysteries of a solar system are expressed in sounds, and that whoever rises to a state of inspiration comes to know the mysteries of the solar system. We can see that Goethe does not express himself this way by chance, for he remains consistent in his approach. For when, in the second part of *Faust*, Goethe leads the protagonist up into the spiritual world, he reiterates the same idea:

With a sound that resonates in the ears of the spirit
A new day is already dawning.

[ 18 ] Spiritual ears are the ears of the clairvoyant who perceives the spherical harmony of a solar system. And if you could perceive those solar forces that stream down upon the plant bodies as they grow out of the earth—these plant bodies with their roots and leaves, culminating above in the flower, where the astral body surrounds them, and into which the spiritual forces of the sun work—if you could spiritually perceive these forces that mysteriously flow into the flower, you would perceive them as the spiritual music of the spheres—which, of course, only spiritual ears can hear. Spiritual tones mysteriously flow into the plant’s flower. This is the mystery of plant life: that in every single flower there is an expression of the tones that shape that flower and give the fruit its character. The solar tones are captured by the plant and reign within it as spirit. Perhaps you know how sound can give form in the material world. Consider, for example, the experiment with Chladni’s sound figures, in which dust on a plate is arranged into patterns under the influence of sound; in these patterns you will find the expression of the sound that arranged them. And just as the physical sound is, as it were, captured in this dust, so too is the spiritual sound of the sun captured and absorbed by the flower and the fruit. It lies hidden, mysteriously, within the seed, and when the plant grows from the seed, it is the captured, absorbed sound of the sun that conjures forth the plant’s form. Clairvoyant consciousness looks out upon the plant world all 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 resounds in the old way.” But it is also true that these tones of the sun stream down, are absorbed by the plants, and reappear when the new plant emerges from the seed; for in the forms of the plants, the tones of the sun—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 in a spiritual sense. We learn not only to observe what is in our surroundings in the physical world; we gain a sense of how the one who partakes of inspiration ascends toward the sun.

[ 19 ] And then there is a higher level of consciousness, which we call intuition in the true sense of the word, where a person can, so to speak, delve into things. This is not merely inspired consciousness. There, a person immerses himself, as it were, into the beings; he identifies with them. This leads him even further. Where can inspired consciousness lead him? It leads a person to feel at one with his Earth, for the “I”s of the plants are at the center of the Earth. If they grasp the solar tone, they become one with the planetary being embodied at the center of the Earth: they become one with their planet. But they can become one with any being whatsoever. Then, of course, they have experiences that extend beyond our solar system. Then their perspective expands from systemic consciousness to cosmic consciousness. Intuition leads beyond the individual solar systems.

[ 20 ] Thus we see that in the mineral kingdom we have something whose unified form provides us with a foundation that extends far beyond our ordinary existence. We see that the human form of today is a physical, earthly form, but that humanity will once again rise from ordinary earthly consciousness to planetary consciousness through imagination, to systemic consciousness through inspiration, and to cosmic consciousness through 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 contemplation, which has led us upward, to what has unfolded in the latter periods of our earthly existence—through the Egyptian and Greek eras and into the present day. And we will see how, in the individual human being—in their worldview and in their life—how that which we have gained a glimpse of today is reflected in the microcosm: how the great existence of the world is reflected there.