The Education of Children from the Standpoint of Theosophy

by Rudolf Steiner

So the lower principles, under the influence of the “ego,” have become more or less changed within a man who has surmounted the conditions in which the outer world has placed him. Take the case of the man who is just raising himself above the level of the animal—when his “ego” flashes out he still resembles the animal with regard to his lower principles. His etheric or vital body is solely the medium of the living constructive forces of growth and propagation. His astral body only gives expression to such impulses, desires and passions as are stimulated by his outer nature. All the time that the man is struggling on through successive lives, or incarnations, from this degree of culture to an ever higher evolution, his ego is remodelling the other principles. In this way the astral body becomes the medium of purified pleasurable and unpleasurable sensations, refined desires and longings. And the etheric, or vital body, also transforms itself. It becomes the vehicle of habits, of permanent inclinations of temperament and of memory. A man whose ego has not yet influenced his vital body has no remembrance of the experiences he undergoes. He lives just as he has been brought up by Nature.

The whole development of civilisation expresses itself for man in this working of the ego upon the subordinate principles. This working penetrates even to the physical body. Under the influence of the ego, the physiognomy, the gestures and movements, the whole appearance of the physical body, change.

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.

When a man enters upon the higher, or so-called occult training, the chief thing to bear in mind is that he at once begins this latter transformation by the innermost might of the ego. He must work quite consciously and individually at the changing of habits, temperament, character, memory, etc. As much of this vital body as he works upon in this way becomes transformed into the “Life-Spirit” (Lebensgeist), or as the Eastern expression has it, into Buddhi.

On a yet higher stage of evolution man attains to powers by which he can effect a transformation of his physical body (as for example, changing the pulse and the circulation of the blood). As much of the physical body as is transformed in this way, is called “Spirit-Man” (Geistesmensch)—Atma.

The changes which are effected in the lower principles by man, not as an individual, but rather as a whole group of the human race, or a part of it, such as a nation, a tribe, or a family—have in Theosophy, the following names. The astral body, or body of feeling, when transformed by the ego is called the emotional soul; the transformed etheric body becomes the rational soul, and the transformed physical body, the self-conscious soul. But it is not to be supposed that the transformation of these three principles takes place successively. It takes place in all three bodies simultaneously, from the moment when the ego flashes out. Indeed the work of the ego is not generally speaking perceptible until a part of the self-conscious soul is formed.

It is seen from the foregoing paragraph that there are four principles in the Being of Man: the physical body, the etheric or vital body, the astral or body of feeling and the ego-body;—the emotional soul, the rational soul, the self-conscious soul—and indeed the yet higher principles of human nature also,—the Spirit-Self (Manas), the Life-Spirit (Buddhi), the Spirit-Man (Atma) appear as the products of the transformation of these four principles. In speaking about the sources of our human capacities, only these four principles can be taken into account.

As a teacher works upon these four principles of the human constitution, one must, in order to work in the right way, penetrate into the nature of these divisions of man. Now it must by no means be imagined that these parts develop themselves in man in such a way that at any one moment of his life—say at his birth—they are all equally advanced. On the contrary their development takes place at the various life-periods in a different way. And the right foundations for education and instruction depend on the knowledge of this law of the evolution of human nature.