In what follows we shall try, so far as is possible within the scope of this book, to throw light on the nature of this force. Since the direct experience of the dynamic realm constituted by it is based on faculties of the mind other than those needed for the Imaginative perception of the etheric realm, we shall have to examine also the nature and origin of these faculties. This will lead us again to the study of one of man's higher senses, this time his sense of hearing, with the aim of finding the spiritual function that is hidden in it. But our order of procedure will have to differ from the one followed in the last chapter, because it will be necessary first to make ourselves acquainted with the nature of the new force and then to turn to an examination of the sense-activity concerned.
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Let our first object of observation be man himself in so far as he illustrates a polarity of the second order.
When studying man's nature with the idea of understanding the genesis of his onlooker-consciousness, it will be remembered, we had to examine the ordering of his consciousness into waking, dreaming and sleeping in the different members of his organism. We recognized three different organic systems, the sensory-nerve system, the rhythmic system and the metabolic-limb system, as the bodily foundation of three different soul activities. These are the thought-forming activity which belongs to waking consciousness; the feeling activity which belongs to dream consciousness; and the willing activity which belongs to sleep consciousness. We then saw in these three systems representatives of the three alchemical functions - 'sulphurous' in the metabolic, 'saline' in the nervous, 'mercurial' in the mediating rhythmic system.
Regarded thus, man's nature reveals itself as being endowed with a physical organization, and an etheric organization, which are brought into different relationships by being acted upon by a third organization consisting of forces of the kind here to be studied. At his lower pole these forces co-ordinate the ether and physical organizations in a manner corresponding to the function of the 'sulphur'-pole of the alchemical triad. Here, therefore, the warmth-ether takes the lead and acts in such a way that the higher kinds of ether are able to come to expression in material processes of the body. At the upper pole corresponding forces co-ordinate the physical and ether organizations in a way characteristic of the 'salt'-pole. This gives the lead to the life-ether, so that the physical organism provides the foundation for the activity of the ether-forces without, however, being actually penetrated by them (at least after completion of the embryonic and first post-embryonic development). As a result, consciousness lights up in this part of the body. The rhythmic sphere, being the 'mercurial' middle, is distinguished by an alternation of the two conditions described. With each diastole it becomes more akin to the pole below, and with each systole more akin to the pole above. Here, therefore, the lighting up of consciousness is only partial.
By means of these observations we realize that the third type of force, in so far as it is active in man, has the capacity, by co-ordinating the physical and etheric parts of the organism in one way or another, to promote happenings either of a more corporeal or a more psychical nature - namely, motion at one pole, sensation at the other, and feeling in the middle between them.1 Remembering Goethe's formula, 'colours are deeds and sufferings of light', we realize how deeply true the concepts were to which he was led by his way of developing observation and thought.
What we have now brought to our awareness by studying man, holds good in some sense also for the animal. The animal, too, is polarized into motion and sensation. (What makes the animal differ from man need not concern us here, for it belongs to a dynamic realm other than the one we are now studying. This other realm will come under consideration in the next chapter.) Quite a different picture arises when we turn to the plant. The plant, too, is characterized by a threefold structure, root, stem with leaves, and florescence, which in their way represent the three alchemical functions. Consequently, there is also motion in the plant, although this is confined to internal movements leading to growth and formation. And at the opposite pole there is sensation, though again very different from the sensation experienced by higher living beings. What we mean here by 'sensation' can be best expressed by quoting the following passage from Ruskin's The Queen of the Air, in which the dual activity of the dynamic which we seek to understand is brought out particularly clearly.
In describing the forming of blossom in the plant as the climax of the 'spirit' active in it, Ruskin says: 'Its (the plant's) form becomes invested with aspects that are chiefly delightful to our own human passions; namely, first, with the loveliest outlines of shape and, secondly, with the most brilliant phases of the primary colours, blue, yellow, red or white, the unison of all; and to make it more strange, this time of peculiar and perfect glory is associated with relations of the plants or blossoms to each other, correspondent to the joy of love in human creatures and having the same object in the continuance of the race.'2
If we wish to understand why the same dynamic action working on the physical and etheric organisms of the plant, on the one hand, and of man and the animal, on the other, brings about effects so different, we must turn to the realm whence this action originates in both cases. For the animal and for man this realm is situated within their organisms because in addition to their individual physical and etheric organizations they are endowed also with an individual organization of the higher kind. Not so with the plant. For the rhythms of its growth, the successive formation of its various organs, the production of its colours, etc., the plant depends on outer conditions.
What strikes us first in this respect is the plant's dependence on the succession of the seasons. These in turn are an outcome of the changing mutual positions of earth and sun. That which forms part of the individual organism in higher living beings is located in the cosmic surroundings of the plant. In fact, it is our planetary system which provides the forces that stir the etheric and physical forces of the earth to their various interactions, thus bringing about all the manifold secondary polarities.