One can also discern how differently the various mediums of civilisation affect the individual principles of the human being. The common factors of civilisation influence the astral body. They bring to it other kinds of pleasure, displeasure, impulse, etc., than it originally had. Absorption in a work of art influences the etheric body, for a man obtains through a work of art, the presentiment of something higher and nobler than that which is offered by the environment of the senses, and thus transforms his vital body. A powerful means for the purification and ennoblement of the etheric body is religion. Religious impulses have, in this way, their sublime mission in the evolution of humanity. That which is called conscience is nothing but the result of the work of the ego on the vital body, through a succession of incarnations. When a man perceives that he must not do certain things, and when through this perception, an impression is made on him, deep enough to communicate itself to his etheric body, the conscience begins to be formed. Now this work of the ego on the subordinate principles can either be one that belongs rather to the whole human race, or it can be quite individually a work of the single ego upon itself. In the first change of man, to a certain extent, the whole human race takes part; the latter must depend on the inner activity of the ego. When the ego grows strong enough entirely to remodel the astral body through its own strength, then that which the ego makes of this astral body or body of feeling is called the “Spirit-Self” (Geistesselbst)[5] or as they say in the East, Manas. This transformation consists essentially in an imbuing, in an enriching of the inner being with higher ideas and perceptions. But the ego can arrive at yet higher and more intimate work with regard to the special entity of man. This occurs when not merely the astral body is enriched, but when the etheric or vital body becomes transformed. Man learns a certain amount in the course of life, and when he looks back on his life from any point, he is able to say to himself: “I have learnt much,” but how much less is he able to speak of a change of temperament and character, of an improvement or deterioration of the memory, during life. Learning affects the astral body, whilst the latter transformations affect the ethic or vital body. It would therefore be no inapt simile to compare the change of the astral body in life to the movement of the minute-hand of the clock, the change of the vital body to that of the hour-hand.