666. We have now had the opportunity of gaining a little insight into the laws governing the principle of the cycle. We have seen not only how terrestrial human beings' living conditions are largely regulated by means of the contrasts of the year cycle, but we also arrived at the realisation that, in its final analysis, a disability creates a blessing. We saw how the Earth, as a result of the dislocated state of its axis in relation to its orbit in the system, created a certain abnormal state for its human microbeings, but that they gradually overcame this disorder to such an extent that with their houses, artificial lighting and heating they gradually became independent of the climatic difficulties caused by the tilt in the Earth's axis. This situation gave them the possibility of exercising their brain and developing their consciousness, and this will gradually give them access to an intellectual knowledge and capability that would otherwise have been out of the question on the continents of the Earth. The paradisiacal state that the terrestrial human being would otherwise have been subject to does not particularly promote development. Since the form of experience that this represents is less rich in contrasts, it is certainly the mildest or most pleasant for the beings, but if it were not from time to time superseded by a more strongly contrasted form of experience – an "accelerated" development or what we call suffering, pain or misfortune – life would in reality be merely a kind of dormant state compared with the tremendous activity that now, as an alternating form of work and rest, exists everywhere as identical to life.