1 14 G The Secret Lqe of Nature
loose and divisive, discrete, erratic, separate.When rain falls into the sea,
each drop is incorporated into the whole, tending to the spherical; the
same applies to honey, mercury, magma. Chemical-ether tends to sep-
arate, create distances, form nodes, make buoyant rather than cohesive.
Music, chemistry, and number are all products of Steiner's chemical-
ether, a force that keeps units apart while maintaining a relation be-
tween the separate parts. Through the laws of number, substances
become chemically related. A tree under the influence of chemical-
ether separates into branches, twigs, leaves, none touching the other,
making a whole of separate parts. Water, by contrast, goes from pond
to lake to ocean, amalgamating, keeping its sphericity from dewdrop to
Pacific Ocean.
The last element, earth, is also described by Steiner as working in
opposition to its companion, life-ether. Whereas earth expresses itself
in solidity, rigidity-a solid body requires its own space-life-ether
creates inner mobility, is the force of "self," generating form from
within. Pouring down from the cosmos, life-ether enlivens and indi-
vidualizes the fixed and solid earth, developing independent organ-
isms, creating skin or separate sheaths as an expression of individuality.
And whereas the earth element produces lifeless bodies, life-ether cre-
ates living bodies. Earth and life-ether, in conjunction, are the basis for
our three-dimensional world.
Together, and in various subtle mixtures, the four ethers and the
four elements make up all the spirits of nature. Gnomes, says Steiner,
exist just as do electricity and magnetism; they are beings in earthly
solids imperceptible to our outer senses, active throughout the world,
just like human beings, but with an intellect that is much smarter, slyer,
and cleverer than ours. "They consist entirely of active cleverness, ac-
tive intellect, active craftiness, active logic... .With their steel gray
figures, quite small compared to humans, almost entirely head, bent
forward, they bind together all the existii~g gravity, and form their bod-
ies out of this fleeting, invisible force, bodies that are continually in
danger of falling apart, or losing substance."
For Steiner's gnomes the entire earth globe is like a permeable hol-
low space in which they can go where they please; rocks and metals in