450. But, as mentioned above, terrestrial man is not an "animal" as such. He has actually, to a certain degree, begun to discover himself. It is this discovery which he himself defines by the term "I". This definition is the first expression for the being's recognition of himself as separate from the outside world. In the wake of this concept there come all the other terms for the being's independence or discovery of his own being. He says: "my organism", "my head", "my hands", "my eyes", "my heart", "my lungs" and so forth. Thus, he has gradually acquired an awareness of the nature of his own being. This knowledge is now so old for the whole of terrestrial mankind that to a certain degree it constitutes "C knowledge", that is, an automatic function. But the range of this knowledge is not yet very extensive. In reality it relates only to the physical organism itself. All the invisible or so-called "immaterial" phenomena actuating this organism, are still quite beyond ordinary terrestrial man's conscious horizon, in the same way as the "I", or the being's recognition of self, lies beyond the conscious horizon of those beings we generally call "animals". And it is also this lack of higher knowledge – the recognition of self – and the resulting tendencies still active in those beings, that forms the basis of their identity and appearance as belonging to the animal kingdom.
      Thus there is this difference between terrestrial man and the beings usually considered to be "animals", that the former being has an "I consciousness" while such consciousness is entirely lacking in the latter.
      Therefore terrestrial man is a being whose "I consciousness" is at its first weak beginnings. Its knowledge about itself reaches only to its physical organism. But that it is itself a created thing, of which itself is the originator and so must have existed before the said creation and hence will also be able to exist in the time after the body has ceased to be and has dissolved, of all this the being is still unable to be conscious. That immortal "something" or "I" in the organism which constitutes the being's true "self", he has not yet personally experienced.
      Thus, terrestrial man has an advantage over the ordinary animal, for the latter has only discovered a world existing outwardly which surrounds its organism, while terrestrial man has discovered not only the outside world, but also his organism.