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An Outline of Occult Science by Rudolf Steiner

III. SLEEP AND DEATH

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Inaccurate thinking may create much confusion in this domain. It is still worse when those who hold the second view are set down by the supporters of the first as opponents of what is, after all, borne out by "ascertained facts." But it may well be that the latter have not the slightest intention of denying the truth or value of those facts. For instance, they see that a definite mental aptitude or predisposition is "inherited" in a family, and that certain gifts accumulated and combined in one descendant result in a remarkable personality. They are perfectly willing to acquiesce when it is said that the most celebrated name seldom stands at the beginning but at the end of a line of descent. But it should not be taken amiss if they are compelled to form very different opinions on the subject from those of people who are determined to accept nothing but material evidence. To the latter it may be said that it is true a man shows the characteristics of his ancestors, because the "spirit-soul", which enters upon physical existence at birth, draws its bodily substance from that which heredity bestows on it. But this says nothing more than that a being shows the peculiarities of the body into which it has descended.

It is no doubt a singular--a trivial--comparison, but the unprejudiced person will not deny its justification, when one says that a human being, who shows the qualities of his forefathers, proves the origin of the personal qualities of that human being as little as the fact that man is wet because he has fallen into the water, proves something regarding his inner nature. And it may further be said that if the most celebrated name stands at the end of a line of family descent, it shows that the bearer of that name needed that particular ancestry to build the body necessary for the expression of his whole personality. But it is no proof that his actual personal qualities were transmitted to him: such a statement is, on the contrary, opposed to sound logic. If personal gifts were inherited, they would be found at the beginning of a line of descent,(7) and starting from that point be transmitted to the descendants. As, however, they stand at the end, it is evident that they are _not_ transmitted.

Now it is not to be denied that those who speak of a spiritual causality in life have contributed no less to bringing about confusion of thought. Far too much generalizing and vague discussion comes from this quarter. To say that a man's personality is a combination of inherited characteristics may certainly be compared with the assertion that the metal parts of a watch have fitted themselves together. It must also be admitted that, with regard to many assertions about a spiritual world, it is as though some one said that the metal parts of a watch cannot put themselves together in such a way as to enable the hands to move forward; some intelligence must therefore be present to effect this forward movement. In face of such an assertion, _he_ certainly builds on a far better foundation who says: "Oh! I care nothing for your 'mystical' beings who move the hands forward. What I want to know is the mechanical construction by means of which the forward movement of the hands is achieved." It is by no means a question of merely knowing that behind a mechanism, a watch for instance, there is an intelligence (the watchmaker); it can only be of importance to know the ideas in the watchmaker's mind which preceded the construction of the watch. These thoughts may be rediscovered in the mechanism.