spiritualization. And the Earth contains within itself the germs of
man's ancestors belonging to the earlier planet. These were first
developed up to the level they had previously reached. The attainment of
this level marks the end of the first period. But now, owing to its own
higher stage of evolution, the Earth is able to carry the germs still
higher, that is, to qualify them for receiving the ego. The second period
of the Earth's evolution is that of the development of the ego in the
physical, etheric, and astral bodies.

In the same way that man had been thus carried a stage farther by the
evolution of the Earth, so also had this been the case during the earlier
planetary incarnations. For man had in some measure existed as early as
the first of these. Light is therefore thrown on the present constitution
of man if his evolution is followed back to the far-remote past of the
first of the planetary incarnations mentioned above.

In occult science the first of these is called _Saturn_; the second is
termed _Sun_; the third, _Moon_; and the fourth is the _Earth_. It must be
distinctly understood that these occult terms are not to be in any way
associated with the names used to designate the members of the present
solar system.(8) In occult science Saturn, Sun, and Moon are merely names
for bygone forms of evolution through which the Earth has passed. In the
course of the following account it will be shown what relation these
worlds of remote antiquity bear to the celestial bodies composing the
present solar system.

The relationship of the four planetary incarnations previously mentioned,
can here be only briefly sketched; for the events, the beings and their
destiny on Saturn, Sun and Moon were in truth, just as varied as they are
on the Earth itself. Therefore only a few characteristics of these
conditions can be chosen to illustrate just how these earth conditions
have evolved out of earlier ones. In this connection, one should bear in
mind that the further back we go the more dissimilar to the present ones
do these conditions become. And yet they can only be described by making
use of ideas borrowed from existing conditions of the earth. If, for
instance, light, heat, etc., are mentioned in connection with these
earlier conditions, it must not be overlooked that they are not exactly
the same as that which we now term light and heat. And yet such
terminology is accurate, for the clairvoyant observer of earlier st