671. Since all the answers or results of a material science can be expressed only in terms of numbers, this will mean that this science can in itself exist as identical to only a collection or accumulation of information about "degrees" of effects. But the absolute cause of these effects is a mystery to every researcher who is exclusively materialistically orientated. Indeed, he will possibly even deny the very existence of such a cause, thereby in reality proclaiming that every object creates itself. He certainly categorises and expresses all the results of his research as "causes", but as these also show themselves to be "effects", for which he has to find new "causes" that will also reveal themselves as "effects", he is back where he started. His science constitutes merely a knowledge of an ocean of effects for which he can never find a cause, since the causes that are accessible to his set of physical senses will always reveal themselves exclusively as identical to new effects. And his "numerical science" will therefore always be identical to a proclamation of lifeless effects. Indeed, he even specifies "causes" of the appearance of his own identity and that of his fellow beings, "causes" that are in themselves equally lifeless effects. The consequences of this are that the entire universe is in reality an immense mental desert, a lifeless sphere, an all-embracing kingdom of death.
      Admittedly he calls himself and his fellow beings "living beings", but as long as he considers himself and these fellow beings to be only temporal effects of temporal causes, his knowledge and behaviour will in reality be an indirect proclamation of death instead of life. It is no wonder that life or existence still manifests itself as a mystery to the human being as long as it is in this sphere of thought. An idea that is in such diametrical opposition to all manifest facts can never be complete or totally dominant. The living being that cannot exist without thinking and creating, in other words without releasing movement – existence thereby becoming an ocean of movement in which this being must live, move and have its being – cannot in the long run continue to see this movement as an expression of "death", even more so since it has to acknowledge its own I's thinking and will as the cause of its own manifestation. Day after day, year after year, it unavoidably witnesses that it is the will and ability of its own I that is the most profound cause of the shaping of its own creation of movement or manifestation. This shaping of movement or creation is what constitutes life. But since this shaping can exist only as a result of an I's will and ability, absolutely no manifestation and shaping of movement can exist without disclosing the presence of such an I in the shaping of every creation or movement. This I therefore becomes the true cause behind things. But this cause cannot be expressed using "numerical results". This I is not something temporal. It is not identical to the effects of a preceding cause. It cannot have been created. It can therefore be expressed only as "something that is". Through its will and ability, the shaping of the movement, or what we call creation, is brought forth. But as a result, something that constitutes more than answers in terms of weights and measures comes into the creation or the movements. Something therefore arrives that turns them into expressions of a particular will and ability. But movement or creation that expresses will and ability can have as its cause only "something" that can apply will and ability. Such a cause cannot be merely temporal effects since, as is well known, it is not possible for these to think, and they are as a result prevented from applying either will or ability. An effect is movement, but movement cannot think. It can therefore neither wish, act nor experience. But if we nevertheless find that all movements in Nature show themselves to be expressions of will, since they express logical or purposeful creation – this applies not only to human organisms or animals' bodies but we can see logic also in the creation of both plants and minerals – there is no doubt that the causes of things or movements cannot simply be other movements; they must be something superior to the movements. They must be something that is able to "think" and "experience" and consequently apply "will" and "ability". This something is the originator of the things. It is what is "alive" in existence. This "aliveness" is the absolute primary cause of the things. And it is this cause that constitutes our own self, and which we express using the term "I". And it is therefore to this I that we owe our appearance as a "living being".