The being begins to exercise its will in an awake day-conscious way; it begins to get a feeling of hunger and satiation and thereby stops being a "plant being"; it has become an "animal"
1223. At the beginning of the animal kingdom when the being begins to wake up to the physical world's particular kind of life, it finds itself at first separated from the Father and experiences a subsequent feeling of total solitude, which makes a meeting with another being a supernatural experience. Here – where the being has as yet no senses for sight and hearing, and the world is therefore still nothing but a silent night of darkness – this meeting cannot give it any visual or auditory sense of its "beloved". In this dark and silent world there is no sight with which two beings mutually and lovingly can look into one another's souls, and no sound with which they can whisper the gentlest and softest words into one another's ears. The awakening "Adam" and "Eve" have not yet arrived at such a perfectly detailed mental life. But this does not prevent their experience of one another from being of a supernatural or heavenly nature. At this point its entire sensory structure still consists of physical sensory reactions to contact with outer material surroundings. Of these reactions the "pleasurable reactions" become of course the central focus of the being's consciousness and exercise of will. Through continuous contact with its outer surroundings and the sensory reactions arising from this, the being gains more and more experience in distinguishing between "pleasurable reactions" and "displeasurable reactions". And its mental life becomes an increasingly greater and greater juggling with degrees of "feeling", which here means, "sensation". Its mental images are degrees of undetailed feeling. In accordance with the mental structure that the being now represents, these degrees of undetailed feeling or sensation enter the being's sensory sphere in the form of three specific main degrees. It now has of course a physical organism that, by means of its own incipient exercise of will, it must help to keep alive. This organism makes its demands. It requires nutrition. If this demand is not satisfied, the being feels "displeasure". This "displeasure" is the beginning of the sensation of physical "hunger". But at the same time as this demand begins to develop, the being discovers to a corresponding extent which reactions from its outer surroundings make this "displeasure" disappear. It has become conscious of "seeking food". But this ability has not come about suddenly or through any abrupt transition. Originally the plant being received its nutrition entirely automatically through its root system. But it gradually developed so as to be able to catch insects with its flower or flower trap. Here it began to be able to take part, in an awake day-conscious way, in providing its own nourishment. The three main degrees of sensation are thus exercise of will, hunger and satiation. As these "degrees of feeling" or "sensation" became such an awake day-conscious function that the being could provide its nutrition entirely in this way, the root system of the plant degenerated and finally disappeared completely. And the plant was thereby no longer a "plant", but had become an "animal".
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