186. Just as the plant in its sleeping state is working on evolving the conditions which will make it conscious on the physical plane, so does the animal in its sleep work on the conditions which will make it conscious in the real human kingdom, that is to say the beginning of a spiritual world. While the plant's day-consciousness consists of the body of instinct and its subconscious of the embryo of the body of gravity and the germ of the embryonic body of feeling, so the animal's day-consciousness consists of the bodies of instinct and gravity and its subconscious of the embryonic bodies of feeling and intelligence together with the germ of the embryonic body of intuition. Thus with the entry of the plant being into the animal kingdom there begins to take place a very complicated evolution based on many other great and powerful factors which, of course, we cannot go into here but we just refer the reader to the special chapters on that subject which appear later in Livets Bog. We touch on these facts here only to point out that just as the instinct being's subconscious borders on the physical plane, and little by little develops enough to make that being conscious on that plane, so does terrestrial man's subconscious border closely on the next plane of existence after the physical one in order to develop to such a standard as will make him awake or conscious also on that plane of existence. This means that from being able to experience physical facts he is now on the way, through his subconscious, to develop organs or bodies with which he can experience mental or "non-physical" facts. And gradually, as this faculty grows in him as an animal, he approaches closer and closer to the stage of the real human being. It is this dawning faculty which distinguishes terrestrial man from the primitive animal in that he can already begin to experience and manifest mental realities or facts, while the primitive animal, apart from its instinctive sensing, can only experience purely physical realities and happenings. By pure physical happenings we should understand here intrusions on the creature's physical body. Thus the primitive animal can only experience life in the form of an intrusion on its organism from outside physical forces. If these forces are in harmony with that organism they will act as pleasurable for that creature. If, on the other hand, they are in disharmony with that organism they are felt as unpleasantness or pain. And from these realistic impressions of pleasantness and unpleasantness there develops in the consciousness an urge to stimulate experiences of pleasure and oppose experiences of pain; furthermore, this urge originates in that reality we call the "instinct of self-preservation". It is through the pleasant or unpleasant effects from outside forces on the animal's organism that the ability to "perceive" or to "feel" is practised. By the help of this faculty the animal begins to be able to distinguish between various coarse shades and details in the experiences of the pleasant and the unpleasant. Slowly, as the faculty of feeling becomes more and more developed, the experiences of those details take shape more and more firmly. By virtue of a body of bliss still existing from a previous evolutionary spiral which is (again according to later analyses) the basis for that reality which on the material plane is known as the "faculty of memory", then those experiences just mentioned become memories and images. And with the emergence of these images the human being commences to be conscious in a different world, namely that which we call the "world of thought", for these images are the first weak or elementary forms of "thoughts" or "thought pictures". But these "thought pictures" are as yet very blurred and indistinct, for they are mere reflections or "mirror images" of primitive and coarse physical experiences. The individual is as yet able to define only by means of feeling and instinct, but not by intelligence because the body of intelligence still remains latent. But by the power of the body of memory it can grasp and hold impressions and effects from its primitive physical life in the form of recollections. So these recollections give rise in the individual to a certain "faculty of recognition", which means an ability to know in advance the nature of the intrusion directed towards its organism from outside forces as either pleasant or unpleasant. When the creature notices symptoms from one or other of the outer forces beginning to contact or intervene in its organism, it knows already through the faculty of memory if this contact will promote something pleasant or unpleasant according to whether there are recollections from an earlier contact of the same or similar kind, and thereby necessary precautions can be taken. If there is no previous experience of such a contact or one of a similar kind, there are, of course, no recollections; consequently there can be no faculty of memory with regard to that contact, and because of this the creature is quite at the mercy of that contact, regardless of whether it causes the pleasant or the unpleasant. But in this very way a new recollection is created which enlarges the faculty of memory concerning symptoms of a possible new contact of the same kind. And it is here that we are confronted with the first faint form of "recognized experience". This recognized experience becomes by slow degrees the regulator of the instinct of self-preservation and determines the reactions to outer forces - in other words how the creature behaves. Thus it becomes the deciding factor for habits and inclinations, and thereby brings about new senses, faculties and aptitudes. And with the new senses, faculties and aptitudes there arise new recognized experiences. These give new memory images which cause an expansion of the faculty of recognition. And so the creature gradually reaches the level of a terrestrial human being.