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And here, out of the wealth of knowledge conveyed by Rudolf Steiner from the realm of supersensible Imagination, it is his characterization of the four modifications of levity which will now give the guidance necessary for our own observation. Accordingly, we shall refer to its fourfold differentiation as to the four kinds of ether: Warmth-Ether, Light-Ether, Chemical Ether and Life-Ether.
Apart from the fact already indicated, that for the formation of such entities the co-operation also of life-ether is necessary, we can judge the activity of sound-ether correctly only if we conceive it as a much more inward activity, compared with the formation in external space of Chladni's figures.
As already mentioned, the three kinds of ether, warmth, light and sound, are not sufficient in themselves to bring into existence what in its proper sense we call 'life' in nature, i.e. the formation of single living organisms. This requires the action of a fourth kind of ether, the life-ether, ranged above the other three.
The emergence of the sense-bearing word from the merely ringing sound is an exact counterpart to what takes place in nature when the play of organic liquids, regulated by the chemical ether, is caused by the life-ether to solidify into outwardly perceptible form.
Through its power to bind flowing action into solid form, the life-ether is related to the sound-ether in the same way as the articulated word formed by human speaking is related to the mere musical tone. The latter by itself is as it were fluid. In human speech this fluidity is represented by the vowels.
By reading in this way the special function of the life-ether among the other three, we are led to the term Word-ether' as an appropriate second name for it, corresponding to the term sound-ether for the chemical ether.
Only when the power of the life-ether is added to the three others can etheric action reach as far as the sphere of solid matter. To mention an instance from our previous studies: in the same way as volcanic phenomena manifest the warmth-ether's gravity-overcoming power on a macrotelluric scale, so snow-formation illustrates the life-ether's matter-shaping might.
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