705. Since we have come so far that we have seen our I as the deepest source, or eternal cause, of our existence or appearance, it thereby becomes a fact that this I must always be ahead of absolutely any of its creations or experiences. It cannot be these that are ahead of the I. For if the I did not exist ahead of its experiences, there would be nothing that would experience and produce. But if it proves to be a fact that the I is ahead of its experiences and manifestations, it thereby also emerges as a fact that it must in fact have been ahead of its present organism and physical existence. The I exists as the "causeless cause" of this. It is true that materialistic science still considers our parents to be the most fundamental source of our existence, but this is due only to the fact that this form of science is able to think in answers in terms of only weights and measures. This in turn means that it is able to analyse only created things. But analyses of created things can never in any case whatsoever be anything other than "degrees of effect", which in turn means results such as age, degrees of density, degrees of movement, degrees of hot and cold, degrees of volume and so on, all of these being results that express only a certain combined relationship between energy or matter. Present-day, modern scientists are veritable experts in finding such results. Indeed, this ability is such an all-dominating "knowledge C" in their consciousness that they take it absolutely for granted that only such results can exist. On account of their dogmatic attitude they are still bound in the endless chain of cause and effect, from which no researcher whatsoever can ever become free, until he discovers over and over again that mentally he is merely marching on the spot, and with his whole heart he hungers and thirsts for another kind of answer that truly can offer a solution to the fact that the other results leave eternally untouched, namely, life itself.