History of the Devil, Vol. I

First Section: Religious Dualism.

...whose immediate task is indeed also fulfilled in the act of being alive, yet he does not stand on the same level as the animal, because he carries within himself the potential for further development that is denied to the animal. The striking proof of this is provided by the child when it begins to speak, through which the spirit, becoming self-conscious, expresses itself, and the opposition between interiority and exteriority finds its balancing center.

The highest peak to which animal life can reach is the process of the species process of the species: Gattungsprocess – the biological cycle of reproduction and the survival of the collective species rather than the individual; the human, however, achieves consciousness and self-consciousness, and as a result of this, language, labor, history, religion, conceptual thinking, and science.

It is an inadequate definition that presents the human as merely an evolved animal, since he is specifically different from the animal and therefore has a different vocation vocation: Bestimmung – often translated as 'destiny' or 'purpose,' referring to the unique goal of human existence. The seed from which the human emerges is essentially different from that of a product of nature. Points of comparison are only possible because in the system of organic human life, all other systems are contained and nested within one another to serve the fulfillment of the human vocation; therefore, the physiologist finds a "vegetable" and "animal" life represented within the human, just as substances of inorganic nature must necessarily be present in the human organism.

Through attention, by which the activity of the soul activity of the soul: Seelenthätigkeit – the active engagement of the mind or psyche with the world is directed toward the impressions produced by the external world, the human makes perceptions. He unites the details of these into a whole to form a representation representation: Vorstellung – a mental image or conceptual idea of an object, in that he transforms the material gained from the outside into a spiritual fact by means of sensory and brain life, imprinting the external upon the internal. Everything of which he has become aware is preserved through memory, continuing to work internally; thus, he gathers a series of perceptions, gained at different places and times, into a unified whole within experience.

The same law according to which animal, unconscious life—sensation—is expressed in muscle movement, urges the conscious spirit to express itself through