s given to man by nature at the outset
without his co-operation, must be transformed into higher ones. In this
way man is able to make himself into an instrument for the investigation
of the unseen world.

CHAPTER II. THE NATURE OF MAN

With the consideration of man in the light of occult science, what this
signifies in general, immediately becomes evident. It rests upon the
recognition of something hidden behind that which is revealed to the outer
senses and to the intellect acquired through perception. These senses and
this intellect can apprehend only a part of all that which occult science
unveils as the total human entity, and this part is the _physical body_.
In order to throw light upon its conception of this physical body, occult
science at first directs attention to a phenomenon which confronts all
observers of life like a great riddle,--the phenomenon of death,--and in
connection with it, points to so-called inanimate nature, the mineral
kingdom. We are thus referred to facts, which it devolves on occult
science to explain, and to which an important part of this work must be
devoted. But to begin with, only a few points will be touched upon, by way
of orientation.

Within manifested nature the physical body, according to occult science,
is that part of man which is of the same nature as the mineral kingdom. On
the other hand, that which distinguishes man from minerals is considered
as not being part of the physical body. From the occult point of view,
what is of supreme importance is the fact that death separates the human
being from that which, during life, is of like nature with the mineral
world. Occult science points to the dead body as that part of man which is
to be found existing in the same way in the mineral kingdom. It lays
strong emphasis upon the fact that in this principle of the human being,
which it looks upon as the physical body, and which death reduces to a
corpse, the same materials and forces are at work as in the mineral realm;
but no less emphasis is laid upon the fact that at death disintegration of
the physical body sets in. Occult science therefore says: "It is true that
the same materials and forces are at work in the physical body as in the
mineral, but during life their activity is placed at the disposal of
something higher. They are left to themselves only when death occurs. Then
they act, as they must in conformity with their own nature, as decomposers
of the physical