It will be our task to analyse the Kepler-Newton case on the very lines of our treatment of the two parallelogram theorems. This analysis will give us insight into a truth which we have to regard as one of the basic maxims of the new science. It says that whether a given formula, derived mathematically from one that was first read from nature, still expresses some fact of nature, cannot be decided by pure mathematical logic, but only by testing it against truly observable phenomena.

Through Kepler's third law a certain relation is expressed between the spatial dimensions of the different planetary spheres and the time needed by the relevant planet to circle once round the circumference of its own sphere. It says: 'The squares of the periodic times of the planets are always in the same proportion as the cubes of their mean distances from the sun.' In mathematical symbols this reads: t12 / t22 = r13 / r23 We shall see later how Kepler arrived at this law. The point is that there is nothing in it which is not accessible to pure observation. Spatial distances and lengths of time are measured and the results compared. Nothing, for instance, is said about the dynamic cause of the movements. The assertion is restricted - and this is true also of the first and second law - to a purely kinematic content, and so precisely to what the earthly onlooker can apprehend. Now it is said that Kepler's third law is a necessary consequence of Newton's law of gravitation, and that - since it is based on pure observation - it therefore establishes the truth of Newton's conception. In this assertion we encounter a misconception exactly like the one in the statement that the theorem of the parallelogram of forces follows by logical necessity from the theorem of the parallelogram of velocities. For:

(a) The law of gravitation itself derives from Newton's formula for the centripetal force acting at a point which moves along a circle, this formula being itself the result of an amplification of the formula for centripetal acceleration by the factor 'mass' (as if the latter were a pure number):

Centripetal acceleration: a = 4(^2)r / t2

Centripetal force: P = am = 4(^2)mr / t2

(b) The formula for centripetal acceleration - and the concept of such acceleration itself - is the result of splitting circular movement into two rectilinear movements, one in the direction of the tangent, the other in the direction of the radius, and of regarding it - by a mode of reasoning typical of spectator-thinking - as composed of the two. This procedure, however, useful as it may be for the purpose of calculation, is contrary to observation. For, as we have pointed out earlier, observation tells us that all original movement - and what can be more original than the movements of the planetary bodies - is curvilinear. No insight into the dynamic reality of cosmic movement, therefore, can ever be gained by handling it mathematically in this way.

(c) The transformation of Kepler's formula which is necessary in order to give it a form representing the nucleus of Newton's formula, is one which, though mathematically justified, deprives Kepler's formula of any significance as expression of an observed fact. The following analysis will show this.

Kepler's formula- r1^3 / r2^3 = t1^2 / t2^2 may be written also r1^3 / t1^2 = r2^3 / t2^2 and this again in the generalized form: r3 / t2 = c. Obviously, by each of these steps we diminish the reality-value of the formula. In its original form, we find spatial extension compared with spatial extension, and temporal extension with temporal extension. Each of the two comparisons is a fully concrete one, because we compare entities of like nature, and only then test the ratios of the two - that is, two pure numbers against each other - to find that they are identical. To compare a spatial and a temporal magnitude, as is done by the formula in its second form, requires already a certain degree of abstraction. Still, it is all spectator's work, and for the spectator time is conceivable and measurable only as a rate of spatial displacement. Hence the constant number c, by representing the ratio between the spatial extension of the realm inside a planet's orbit and the time needed by it to perform one round on this orbit - a ratio which is the same for all planets - represents a definite structural element of our cosmic system.

By this last operation our equation has now achieved a form which requires only one more transformation to bring it into line with Newton's formula. Instead of writing: r3 / t2 = c we write: r / t2 = c (1 / r2) All that now remains to be done amounts to an amplification of this equation by the factor 4(^2)m, and a gathering of the constant product 4(^2)c under a new symbol, for which we choose the letter f. In this way we arrive at: 4(^2)mr / t2 = 4(^2)cm / r2 and finally: P = ... = fm / r2 which is the expression of the gravitational pull believed to be exerted by the sun on the various planetary bodies. Nothing can be said against this procedure from the point of view

of mathematical logic. For the latter the equation r / t2 = c (1 / r2) is still an expression of Kepler's observation. Not so for a logic which tries to keep in touch with concrete reality. For what meaning, relevant to the phenomenal universe as it manifests in space and time to physical perception, is there in stating - as the equation in this form does - that: the ratio between a planet's distance from the sun and the square of its period is always proportional to the reciprocal value of the area lying inside its orbit?

*

Once we have rid ourselves of the false conception that Kepler's law implies Newton's interpretation of the physical universe as a dynamic entity ruled by gravity, and gravity alone, we are free to ask what this law can tell us about the nature of the universe if in examining it we try to remain true to Kepler's own approach.

To behave in a Keplerian (and thus in a Goethean) fashion regarding a mathematical formula which expresses an observed fact of nature, does not mean that to submit such a formula to algebraic transformation is altogether impermissible. All we have to make sure of is that the transformation is required by the observed facts themselves: for instance, by the need for an even clearer manifestation of their ideal content. Such is indeed the case with the equation which embodies Kepler's third law. We said that in its original form this equation contains a concrete statement because it expresses comparisons between spatial extensions, on the one hand, and between temporal extensions, on the other. Now, in the form in which the spatial magnitudes occur, they express something which is directly conceivable. The third power of a spatial distance (r^3) represents the measure of a volume in three-dimensional space. The same cannot be said of the temporal magnitudes on the other side of the equation (t^2). For our conception of time forbids us to connect any concrete idea with 'squared time'. We are therefore called upon to find out what form we can give this side of the equation so as to express the time-factor in a manner which is in accord with our conception of time, that is, in linear form.13 This form readily suggests itself if we consider that we have here to do with a ratio of squares. For such a ratio may be resolved into a ratio of two simple ratios.

In this way the equation - r1^3 / r2^3 = t1^2 / t2^2 assumes the form- r1^3 / r2^3 = (t1 / t2) / (t2 / t1) The right-hand side of the equation is now constituted by the double ratio of the linear values of the periods of two planets, and this is something with which we can connect a quite concrete idea.

To see this, let us choose the periods of two definite planets - say, Earth and Jupiter. For these the equation assumes the following form ('J' and 'E' indicating 'Jupiter' and 'Earth' respectively): rJ^3 / rE^3 = (tJ / tE) / (tE / tJ) Let us now see what meaning we can attach to the two expressions tJ / tE and tE / tJ.

During one rotation of Jupiter round the sun the earth circles 12 times round it. This we are wont to express by saying that Jupiter needs 12 earth-years for one rotation; in symbols: tJ / tE = 12 / 1 To find the analogous expression for the reciprocal ratio: tE / tJ = 1 / 12 we must obviously form the concept 'Jupiter-year', which covers one rotation of Jupiter, just as the concept 'earth-year' covers one rotation of the earth (always round the sun). Measured in this time-scale, the earth needs for one of her rotations 1 / 12 of a Jupiter-year.

With the help of these concepts we are now able to express the double ratio of the planetary periods in the following simplified way. If we suppose the measuring of the two planetary periods to be carried out not by the same time-scale, but each by the time-scale of the other, the formula becomes: rJ3 / rE3 = (tJ / tE) / (tE / tJ) = period of Jupiter measured in Earth-years / period of Earth measured in Jupiter-years. Interpreted in this manner, Kepler's third law discloses an intimate interrelatedness of each planet to all the others as co-members of the same cosmic whole. For the equation now tells us that the solar times of the various planets are regulated in such a way that for any two of them the ratio of these times, measured in their mutual time-units, is the same as the ratio of the spaces swept out by their (solar) orbits.

Further, by having the various times of its members thus tuned to one another, our cosmic system shows itself to be ordered on a principle which is essentially musical. To see this, we need only recall that the musical value of a given tone is determined by its relation to other tones, whether they sound together in a chord, or in succession as melody. A 'C' alone is musically undefined. It receives its character from its interval-relation to some other tone, say, 'G', together with which it forms a Fifth. As the lower tone of this interval, 'C' bears a definite character; and so does 'G' as the upper tone.

Now we know that each interval represents a definite ratio between the periodicities of its two tones. In the case of the Fifth the ratio is 2:3 (in the natural scale). This means that the lower tone receives its character from being related to the upper tone by the ratio 2:3. Similarly, the upper tone receives its character from the ratio 3:2. The specific character of an interval arising out of the merging of its two tones, therefore, is determined by the ratio of their ratios. In the case of the Fifth this is 4:9. It is this ratio, therefore, which underlies our experience of a Fifth.

The cosmic factor corresponding to the periodicity of the single tone in music is the orbital period of the single planet. To the musical interval formed by two tones corresponds the double ratio of the periods of any two planets. Regarded thus, Kepler's law can be expressed as follows: The spatial ordering of our planetary system is determined by the interval-relation in which the different planets stand to each other.

By thus unlocking the ideal content hidden in Kepler's third law, we are at the same time enabled to do justice to the way in which he himself announced his discovery. In textbooks and encyclopaedias it is usually said that the discovery of the third law was the surprising result of Kepler's fantastic attempt to prove by external observation what was once taught in the school of Pythagoras, namely, that (in Wordsworth's language):

'By one pervading spirit Of tones and numbers all things are controlled.'

Actually, Kepler's great work, Harmonices Mundi, in the last part of which he announces his third law, is entirely devoted to proving the truth of the Pythagorean doctrine that the universe is ordered according to the laws of music. This doctrine sprang from the gift of spiritual hearing still possessed by Pythagoras, by which he could perceive the harmonies of the spheres. It was the aim of his school to keep this faculty alive as long as possible, and with its aid to establish a communicable world-conception. The Pythagorean teaching became the foundation of all later cosmological thinking, right up to the age which was destined to bring to birth the spectator-relationship of man's consciousness with the world. Thus it was left to Copernicus to give mankind the first truly non-Pythagorean picture of the universe.

When Kepler declared himself in favour of the heliocentric aspect, as indicated by Copernicus, he acknowledged that the universe had grown dumb for man's inner ear. Yet, besides his strong impulse to meet the true needs of his time, there were inner voices telling him of secrets that were hidden behind the veil woven by man's physical perceptions. One of these secrets was the musical order of the world. Such knowledge, however, could not induce him to turn to older world-conceptions in his search for truth. He had no need of them, because there was yet another voice in him which told him that the spiritual order of the world must somehow manifest itself in the body of the world as it lay open to physical perception. Just as a musical instrument, if it is to be a perfect means of bringing forth music, must bear in its build the very laws of music, so must the body of the universe, as the instrument on which the harmonies of the spheres play their spiritual music, bear in its proportions a reflexion of these harmonies. Kepler was sure that investigation of the world's body, provided it was carried out by means of pure observation, must needs lead to a re-establishment of the ancient truth in a form appropriate to the modern mind. Thus Kepler, guided by an ancient spiritual conception of the world, could devote himself to confirming its truth by the most up-to-date methods of research. That his search was not in vain, our examination of the third law has shown.

One thing, however, remains surprising - that Kepler announced his discovery in the form in which it has henceforth engraved itself in the modern mind, while refraining from that analysis of it which we have applied to it here. Yet, in this respect also Kepler proves to have remained true to himself. There is, on the one hand, the form in which Kepler pronounced his discovery; there is, on the other, the context in which he made this pronouncement. We have already pointed out that the third law forms part of Kepler's comprehensive work, Harmonices Mundi. To the modern critic's understanding it appears there like an erratic block. For Kepler this was different. While publishing his discovery in precisely the form in which it is conceived by a mind bent on pure observation, he gave it a setting by which he left no doubt as to his own conception of its ideal content. And as a warning to the future reader not to overlook the message conveyed by this arrangement, he introduced the section of his book which contains the announcement of the law, with the mysterious words about himself: 'I have stolen the golden vessels of the Egyptians from which to furnish for my God a holy shrine far from Egypt's confines.'

1 We must here distinguish sensation from feeling proper, in which sensation and motion merge in mercurial balance.

2 Note how for Ruskin the gulf which for the onlooker-consciousness lies between subject and object is bridged here - as it was for Goethe in his representation of the physico-moral effect of colour.

3 De motu animalium and Theoria mediceorum planetarum ex causis physicis deducta.

4 Knowledge of this biological rhythm is still preserved among native peoples to-day and leads them to take account of the phases of the moon in their treatment of plants. A cosmic nature-wisdom of this kind has been reopened for us in modern form by Rudolf Steiner, and has since found widespread practical application in agriculture. See L. Kolisko, The Moon and Plant Growth.

5 In the order of names given above we follow the ancient usage for the two planets nearest to the sun, not the reversed order in which they are used to-day. This is necessary in a cosmology which aspires at a qualitative understanding of the universe, in view of the qualities represented by these names. Note also the absence of the three most distant planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. They are not to be considered as parts of the indigenous astral structure of our cosmic system - any more than radioactivity is an original feature of the earth.

6 Note the 'Venus' character of Ruskin's description of the plant's state of florescence quoted above (p. 336).

7 As to the time-scale of the processes brought about by Mercury and Venus respectively, experience shows that they reveal the cosmic rhythms less clearly than those for which the Moon-activity is responsible. The same is found at the opposite pole. There it is the Saturn - generated processes which show the cosmic rhythm more conspicuously than those engendered by Jupiter and Mars. To learn to recognize rhythmic events in nature and man as reflexions of corresponding planetary rhythms is one of the tasks which future scientific research has to tackle. A practical example of this kind will appear in the further course of this chapter.

8 See L. Kolisko: Working of the Stars in Earthly Substances, and other publications by the same author.

9 The close connexion between the ear and the motor system of the body is shown in another way by the fact that part of the ear serves as an organ for the sense of balance.

10 The muscle-tone can be made audible by the following means. In a room guarded against noise, press the thumbs lightly upon the ears and tense the muscles of the hands and arms - say by pressure of the fingers against the palms or by contracting the muscle of the upper arms. If this is done repeatedly, the muscle-tone will be heard after some practice with increasing distinctness. It is easily distinguished from the sound of the circulating blood as it is much higher. (As an example: the author's muscular pitch, not a particularly high one, has a frequency of approx. 630 per sec., which puts it between Treble D sharp and E.)

11 Compare also the beginning of Traherne's poem Wonder, quoted in Chapter VI (p. 110), where he says that everything he saw 'did with me talk'.

12 For the particular reasons by which Goethe justifies his assertion, see his essay Leben und Verdienste des Doktor Joachim Jungius.

13 The natural question why Kepler himself did not take this step, will be answered later on.

CHAPTER XXI

Know Thyself

Our inquiries have led us to a picture of man as a sensible-supersensible organism composed of three dynamic aggregates - physical, etheric, astral. As three rungs of a spiritual ladder they point to a fourth, which represents that particular power in man by which he distinguishes himself from all other beings in nature. For what makes man differ from all these is that he is not only fitted, as they are, with a once-for-all given mode of spiritual-physical existence peculiar to himself, but that he is endowed with the possibility of transforming his existence by dint of his free will - that indeed his manhood is based on this capacity for self-willed Becoming.

To this fourth principle in man we can give no better name than that which every human being can apply to himself alone and to no other, and which no other can apply to him. This is the name, I. In truth, we describe man in his entirety only if we ascribe to him, in addition to a physical, etheric and astral body, the possession of an I (Ego).

Naturally, our previous studies have afforded many opportunities for observing the nature and mode of activity of the I. Still, at the conclusion of these studies it is not redundant to form a concise picture of this part of man's being, with particular regard to how it works within the three other principles as its sheaths. For in modern psychology, not excluding the branch of it where efforts are made to penetrate into deeper regions of man's being, nothing is less well understood than the true nature of man's egoity.

*

In order to recognize the peculiar function of the I in man, we must first be clear as to how he differs from the other kingdoms of nature, and how they differ from one another with respect to the mode of action of the physical, etheric and astral forces.

The beings of all the kingdoms of nature are endowed with an aggregate of physical forces in the form of a material body subject to gravity. The same cannot be said of the etheric forces. Only where life is present as an inherent principle - that is, in plant, animal and man - is ether at work in the form of an individual etheric organization, while the mineral is formed by the universal ether from outside. Where life prevails, we are met by the phenomena of birth and death. When a living organism comes to birth, an individual ether-body is formed out of the general etheric substance of the universe.1 The death of such an organism consists in the separation of the etheric from the physical body and the dissolution of both in their respective mother-realms. So long as an organism is alive, its form is maintained by the ether-body present in it.

Our studies have shown that the plant is not devoid of the operation of astral forces. In the plant's life-cycle this comes to clearest expression in its florescence. But it is a working of the astral forces from outside, very much as the ether works on the mineral. As a symptom of this fact we may recall the dependence of the plant on the various outer astronomical rhythms.

It is only in animal and man that we find the astral forces working in the form of separate astral bodies. This accounts for their capacity for sensation and volition. Besides the alternation of birth and death, they experience the rhythm of sleeping and waking. Sleep occurs when the astral body leaves the physical and etheric bodies in order to expand into its planetary mother-sphere, whence it gathers new energy. During this time its action on the physical-etheric aggregate remaining upon earth is similar to that of the astral cosmos upon the plant.

Again, in the animal kingdom the ego-principle works as an external force in the form of various group-soul activities which control and regulate the life of the different animal species. It is in the group-ego of the species that we have to look for the source of the wisdom-filled instincts which we meet in the single animals.

Only in man does the ego-principle enter as an individual entity into the single physico-etheric-astral organism. Here, however, the succession of stages we have outlined comes to a conclusion. For with the appearance of the I as an individual principle, the preceding evolutionary process - or, more correctly, the involutionary process - begins to be reversed. In moving up from one kingdom to the next, we find always one more dynamic principle appearing in a state of separation from its mother-sphere; this continues to the point where the I, through uniting itself with a thus emancipated physico-etheric-astral organism, arrives at the stage of self-consciousness. Once this stage has been reached, however, it falls to the I to reverse the process of isolation, temporarily sanctioned by the cosmos for the sake of man.

That it is not in the nature of the I to leave its sheaths in the condition in which it finds them when entering them at the beginning of life, can be seen from the activities it performs in them during the first period after birth. Indeed, in man's early childhood we meet a number of events in which we can perceive something like ur-deeds of the I. They are the acquisition of the faculties of walking, speaking and thinking. What we shall here say about them has, in essentials, already been touched upon in earlier pages. Here, however, we are putting it forward in a new light.

Once again we find our attention directed to the threefold structure of man's physical organism. For the faculty of upright walking is a result of the I's activity in the limb-system of the body; the acquisition of speech takes place in the rhythmic system; and thinking is a faculty based on the nerve-system. Consequently, each of the three achievements comes to pass at a different level of consciousness-sleeping, dreaming, waking. All through the struggle of erecting the body against the pull of gravity, the child is entirely unaware of the activities of his own I. In the course of acquiring speech he gains a dim awareness, as though in dream, of his efforts. Some capacity of thinking has to unfold before the first glimmer of true self-consciousness is kindled. (Note that the word 'I' is the only one that is not added to the child's vocabulary by way of imitation. Otherwise he would, as some mentally inhibited children do, call all other people 'I' and himself 'you'.)

This picture of the three ur-deeds of the I can now be amplified in the following way. We know that the region of the bodily limbs is that in which physical, etheric and astral forces interpenetrate most deeply. Consequently, the I can here press forward most powerfully into the physical body and on into the dynamic sphere to which the body is subject. Here the I is active in a way that is 'magic' in the highest degree. Moreover, there is no other action for which the I receives so little stimulus from outside. For, in comparison, the activity that leads to the acquisition of speech is much more of the nature of a reaction to stimuli coming from outside - the sounds reaching the child from his environment. And it is also with the first words of the language that the first thoughts enter the child's mind. Nothing of the kind happens at the first stage. On the contrary: everything that confronts the I here is of the nature of an obstacle that is to be overcome.

There is no learning to speak without the hearing of uttered sounds. As these sounds approach the human being they set the astral body in movement, as we have seen. The movements of the astral body flow towards the larynx, where they are seized by the I; through their help the I imbues the larynx with the faculty of producing these sounds itself. Here, therefore, the I is active essentially within the astral body which has received its stimulus from outside. In order to understand what impels the I to such action, we must remember the role played by speech in human life: without speech there would be no community among human individuals on earth.

An illustration of what the I accomplishes as it enters upon the third stage is provided by the following episode, actually observed. Whilst all the members of a family were sitting at table taking their soup, the youngest member suddenly cried out: 'Daddy spoon ... mummy spoon. ... ' (everyone in turn spoon) ' ... all spoon!' At this moment, from merely designating single objects by names learnt through imitation, the child's consciousness had awakened to connective thinking. That this achievement was a cause of inner satisfaction could be heard in the joyful crescendo with which these ejaculations were made.

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.

*

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.

1 The word 'body' is here used in a sense no different from our earlier use of it, when in connexion with our study of combustion (Chapter XI) we referred to the 'warmth-body' as a characteristic of the higher animals and man. Such a warmth-body is nothing else but the warmth-ether part of an ether-body. To use the word body for aggregations of etheric or astral forces is legitimate if one considers the fact that the physical body also is really a purely dynamic entity, that is, a certain aggregate of forces more or less self-contained.

THE END