Man or Matter: Introduction to a Spiritual Understanding of Nature on the Basis of Goethe's Method of Training Observation and ThoughtLehrs, Ernst
Religion
Man or Matter: Introduction to a Spiritual Understanding of Nature on the Basis of Goethe's Method of Training Observation and Thought
Lehrs, Ernst
Anthroposophy; Cosmology; Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832
Crystallization, seen thus in its cosmic aspect, shows a dynamic
orientation which is polarically opposite to that of the earth's
seismic activities. Just as in the latter we observe levity taking hold
of ponderable matter and moving it in a direction opposite to the pull
of gravity, so in crystallization we see imponderable matter passing
over from levity into gravity. And just as we found in volcanism and
related processes a field of activity of 'functional sulphur', so we
found in snow-formation and related processes a field of activity of
'functional phosphorus'. Both fields are characterized by an
interaction between gravity and levity, this interaction being of
opposite nature in each of them.
Here, again, sulphur and phosphorus appear as bearers of a polarity of
the second order which springs from the two polarically opposite ways
of interaction between the poles of the polarity of the first order:
levity-gravity.
*
As in man there is a third system, mediating between the two polar
systems of his organism, so between sulphur and phosphorus there is a
third element which in all its characteristics holds a middle place
between them and is the bearer of a corresponding function. This
element is carbon.
To see this we need only take into consideration carbon's relationship
to oxidation and reduction respectively. As it is natural for sulphur
to be in the reduced state, and for phosphorus to be in the oxidized
state, so it is in the nature of carbon to be related to both states
and therefore to oscillate between them. By its readiness to change
over from the oxidized to the reduced state, it can serve the plant in
the assimilation of light, while by its readiness to make the reverse
change it serves man and animal in the breathing process. We breathe in
oxygen from the air; the oxygen circulates through the blood-stream and
passes out again in conjunction with carbon, as carbon dioxide, when we
exhale. In the process whereby the plants reduce the carbon dioxide
exhaled by man and animal, while the latter again absorb with their
food the carbon produced in the form of organic matter by the plant, we
see carbon moving to and fro between the oxidized and the reduced
conditions.
Within the plant itself, too, carbon acts as functionary of the
alternation between oxidation and reduction. During the first half of
the year, when vegetation is unfolding, there is a great reduction
process of oxidized carbon, while in the second half of the year, when
the withering process prevails, a great deal of the previously reduced
carbon passes into the oxidized condition. As this is connected with
exhaling and inhaling of oxygen through carbon, carbon can be regarded
as having the function of the lung-organ of the earth. Logically
enough, we find carbon playing the same role in the middle part of the
threefold human organism.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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