Within the animal kingdom there is thus an area where the individual begins to come into possession of certainty or real knowledge instead of vague notions. This area is made up mainly of terrestrial human beings. By the appropriation of certainty instead of vague notions the individual becomes enriched with an exceptionally great new element of consciousness or manifestation. But the individual at first does not have the ability to use this element in harmony with life's eternal laws of existence. This he must learn from experience. But as this element, like all the other great elements in life, can give rise only to harmony, happiness or an ultimate well-being by being used in contact with the law of existence or in tune with the general order of the universe (which means to the advantage of the welfare of people in general), and as individuals at first cannot have such experiences, he must of necessity to a great extent use this, his new element of consciousness or intelligence, wrongly. He uses it primarily for his own self-interest and so becomes to a corresponding degree troublesome to the existence or maintenance of life of his fellow-beings. And with this we have arrived at the basic cause of the present collective dark fate of terrestrial mankind. Most of the above-mentioned individuals find themselves precisely at the stage in evolution where they have still not learned to use intelligence for the benefit of the whole of humanity. And as the same humanity consists of single individuals, the whole cannot possibly be an expression of harmony and interplay, perfection and true happiness until the majority of the people on earth have evolved so far that their use of intelligence for the benefit of people in general, instead of to their own advantage, is just as great as what is today an expression of these beings' use of their faculty of intelligence for their egoistic interests.