1219. We can now once again dwell a little on the "cause" of the degeneration of marriage or of sexual transformation. We have already mentioned that the "faculty of imagination" and that which develops this faculty were the cause of the "zone of unhappy marriages". What then develops this faculty? Is it not precisely our daily experiences?. "Adam" (the animal being) must of course work and struggle in "the sweat of his brow" in order to earn his bread, and "Eve" must experience "great sorrow in connection with conception and bring forth her children in sorrow". After the being's "expulsion from paradise" (in this case, the plant kingdom), when it, as an "animal", had to struggle in order to live and to protect and keep its mate, which is of course the most supreme light or the being's "fixed point" in the animal kingdom, as well as also having to struggle in order to protect and keep its offspring – thereby ensuring the continuation of the species – the being's faculty of imagination is so small that it has not yet become the prominent "faculty of imagination" that the terrestrial human being of today possesses. This in turn means that the being at its previous animal stages could not, to any particular extent, form very detailed thoughts or mental images of the outer surroundings that it encountered. To the extent that it lacks this faculty, it will still live solely on inklings of pleasure or displeasure, on instinctive consciousness or plant consciousness. The first animal beings are therefore superior to the plant or the "being of instinct" only in that they, by and large, can begin to form a "mental image" of an outer influence. To the extent that the being has not yet developed its physical senses, it will lack a detailed mental life on the physical plane. Since the "faculty to feel" is the root faculty for all the senses (every form of sensory perception is fundamentally feeling), it is this faculty that lies deepest in the being's mental life. It is its "alpha and omega". The various forms of sensory perception, such as sight, hearing, smell, taste and so on, are thus merely specific forms of "feeling", that is to say, sensation. The "plant being", which does not possess any of these forms of physical sensory perception and therefore has merely a very undetailed sense of touch, cannot therefore have mental processes associated with the physical world, which, in the case of the more advanced animal being, constitute detailed images of the physical plane. It can have neither visual nor sound images, neither smell nor taste images. Such a being is unable to accumulate in its mentality as very detailed mental images any outer influence that it encounters on the physical plane, whether it be the mutilation or the care of its organism. It can experience this only as an undetailed sensation of pleasure or displeasure, which in principle are of course the same as joy and loathing. The only mental combination of images from its outer, physical influences that such a being can experience is thus the attraction of its weak, embryonic mental forces towards pleasure and a repulsion from displeasure. What this pleasure and displeasure consist of is wholly beyond its comprehension; indeed, it is incapable of even formulating such a question. The attraction towards the feeling of pleasure and the repulsion towards the feeling of displeasure are the only two details that enrich its mental processes associated with the physical world. And this attraction is the very first initial weak form of the emergence of "will". We see this weak "exercise of will" in the "carnivorous plant", when it suddenly wraps its tentacles around the insects captured in its "trap" or "pitcher" or in the flower's sticky sap that helps to prevent the insects from escaping. This function of the "carnivorous plant" is the first incipient visible expression of the living being's mental life on the physical plane. This "function of will" is, it is true, essentially a kind of automatic function triggered by the reaction brought about by the contact of the "trap", "pitcher" or flower with the insects, but is nonetheless the phenomenon from which the awake day-conscious will of the being will gradually emerge. The mental life behind the "carnivorous plant" is, however, still merely an "inkling".