We know that the presence of waking consciousness within the nerves-and-senses organism rests upon the fact that the connexion between physical body and etheric body is there the most external of all. But precisely because this is so, the etheric body is dominated very strongly by the forces to which the physical head owes its formation. This, too, is not fundamentally new to us. What can now be added is that, in consequence, the physical brain and the part of the etheric body belonging to it - the etheric brain - assume a function comparable with that of a mirror, the physical organ representing the reflecting mass and the etheric organ its metallic gloss. When, within the head, the etheric body reflects back the impressions received from the astral body, the I becomes aware of them in the form of mental images (the 'ideas' of the onlooker-philosopher). It is also by way of such reflexion that the I first grows aware of itself - but as nothing more than an image among images. Here, therefore, it is itself least active.

If, once again, we compare the three happenings of learning to walk, to speak and to think, we find ourselves faced with the remarkable fact that the progressive lighting up of consciousness from one stage to the next, goes hand in hand with a retrogression in the activity of the I itself. At the first stage, where the I knows least of itself, it is alive in the most direct sense out of its own being; at the second stage, where it is in the dreaming state, it receives the impetus of action through the astral body; at the third stage, where the I wakens to clear self-consciousness, it assumes merely the role of onlooker at the pictures moving within the etheric body.

Compare with this the paths to higher faculties of knowledge, Imagination and Inspiration, as we learnt to know them in our previous studies. The comparison shows that exactly the same forces come into play at the beginning of life, when the I endeavours to descend from its pre-earthly, cosmic environment to its earthly existence, as have to be made use of for the ascending of the I from earthly to cosmic consciousness. Only, as is natural, the sequence of steps is reversed. For on the upward way the first deed of the I is that which leads to a wakening in the etheric world: it is a learning to set in motion the etheric forces in the region of the head in such a way that the usual isolation of this part of the etheric body is overcome. Regarded thus, the activity of the I at this stage reveals a striking similarity to the activity applied in the earliest period of childhood at the opposite pole of the organism. To be capable of imaginative sight actually means to be able to move about in etheric space by means of the etheric limbs of the eyes just as one moves about in physical space by means of the physical limbs.

Similarly, the acquisition of Inspiration is a resuming on a higher level of the activity exercised by the I with the help of the astral body when learning to speak. And here, too, the functions are reversed. For while the child is stimulated by the spoken sounds he hears to bring his own organ of speech into corresponding movements, and so gradually learns to produce speech, the acquisition of Inspiration, as we have seen, depends on learning to bring the supersensible forces of the speech-organ into movement in such a way that these forces become the organ for hearing the supersensible language of the universe.

Our knowledge of the threefold structure of man's organism leads us to seek, besides the stages of Imagination and Inspiration, a third stage which is as much germinally present in the body's region of movement, as the two others are in the regions of thought and speech. After what we have learnt in regard to these three, we may assume that the path leading to this third stage consists in producing a condition of wide-awake, tranquil contemplation in the very region where the I is wont to unfold its highest degree of initiative on the lowest level of consciousness.

In an elementary manner this attitude of soul was practised by us when, in our earlier studies, we endeavoured to become inner observers of the activity of our own limbs, with the aim of discovering the origin of our concept of mass. It was in this way that a line of observation opened up to us which led to the recognition of the physical substances of the earth as congealed spiritual functions or, we may say, congealed utterances of cosmic will.

Cosmic Will, however, does not work into our existence only in such a way that, in the form of old and therefore rigid Will, it puts up resistance against the young will-power of the I, so that in overcoming this resistance the I may waken to self-activity. Cosmic Will is also present in us in an active form. We point here to the penetration by the higher powers of the universe into the forming of the destiny of humanity and of individual man. And here Rudolf Steiner has shown that to a man who succeeds in becoming a completely objective observer of his own existence while actively functioning within it (as in an elementary way we endeavoured to become observers of our limb actions while engaged in performing them) the world begins to reveal itself as an arena of the activities of divine-spiritual Beings, whose reality and acts he is now able to apprehend through inner awareness. Herewith a third stage of man's faculty of cognition is added to the stages of Imagination and Inspiration. When Rudolf Steiner chose for it the word Intuition he applied this word, also, in its truest meaning.

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While through Imagination man comes to know of his ether-body as part of his make-up, and correspondingly through Inspiration of his astral body, and thereby recognizes himself as participant in the supersensible forces of the universe, it is through Intuition that he grows into full awareness of his I as a spirit-being among spirit-beings -

 

God-begotten, God-companioned,
for ever God-ward striving.

When we follow Goethe in this way he comes before us in characteristic contrast to Robert Hooke. We remember Hooke's microscopic 'proof of the unrelatedness of human thought to outer reality (Chapter III). There can be no doubt how Goethe, if the occasion had arisen, would have commented on Hooke's procedure. He would have pointed out that there would be no such thing as a knife with its line-like edge unless man were able to think the concept 'line', nor a needle with its point-like end unless he were able to think the concept 'point'. In fact, knife and needle are products of a human action which is guided by these two concepts respectively. As such they are embodiments, though more or less imperfect ones, of these concepts. Here too, therefore, just as Goethe had discovered it through his way of observing the plant, we see Ideas with our very eyes. What distinguishes objects of this kind from organic entities, such as the plant, is the different relationship between Object and Idea. Whereas in the case of an organism the Idea actively indwells the object, its relationship to a man-made thing (and similarly to nature's mineral entities) is a purely external one.