663. But it is precisely the same nuisance that every mistake in the manifestation of consciousness causes in all the other inhabitants of the universe. If a terrestrial human being experiences too strong a manifestation of gravity in his mental expression, that is to say a "fit of temper", and, for example, comes to blows with someone, there is a risk that it will result in bodily injury, in addition to the mental dark moods that such an experience always causes. Its fate may also of course lead it into other forms of injury or accidents. It is obvious that in the first place these experiences do not serve to create bright and happy experiences for such a being's micro-individuals. And it cannot be denied that whenever they cause a chronic or acute disability, the capacity of such an organism to provide a dwelling place or living space for its normal microbeings will be correspondingly reduced. It goes without saying that these circumstances cannot but influence the fate of the microbeings in question. These beings are forced to try to adapt by artificial means to the abnormal conditions brought about by the disability. And it is just such a situation that terrestrial human beings to a certain extent find themselves in, and whose effects they to a large extent have acquired the ability to overcome. But this ability has been brought about precisely on account of the Earth's disability. And as this ability is a great expansion of the beings' creative capacity, or a greatly superior mental competence, which would not have developed so quickly if the angle of the Earth's axis had not been displaced, we can see how a disability leads to an accelerated development; in other words, it gives beings the possibility of reaching a certain level of development of their consciousness in a much shorter period of time than might otherwise have been the case.
      As mentioned before, the struggle of terrestrial human beings against climatic conditions has been an exceptionally great benefit to their purely technical development. The invention of artificial lighting and the ability to build houses would otherwise have been an unknown phenomenon on Earth. But one can of course maintain that without the Earth's disability neither would there be any need for such phenomena. And that is quite correct. But the discovery of artificial lighting led to the development of knowledge about electricity, just as the work of building houses led to the development of an ability to erect or construct large complex technical projects, which now makes us increasingly able to fulfil the divine edict to subdue the Earth.
      In a world in which human beings do not need artificial lighting or artificial heating and do not need to build houses etc., they would lack a great deal of the incentive towards development that is now so evident among terrestrial mankind. The individual members of this mankind would be like the inhabitant of some South Sea Island paradise compared to the technically advanced, civilised human being. The fact that this civilised human being, largely on account of its technical development, has become an even greater tool in the service of the killing principle than the inhabitant of a South Sea Island paradise, just demonstrates that the former being has provisionally gained a lead in evolution. On account of the Earth's disability it has progressed further towards the killing principle's culmination in the spiral cycle than the inhabitant of the South Sea Islands.