LECTURE VIII.
Delivered 16th July, 1924.
In
this last lecture, I shall try as far as possible to complete
what I have already said, and to bring forward certain
practical considerations. In the ensuing discussion, I shall
make such additions as may prove necessary.
The
practical hints I propose to deal with to-day are not such as
can be embodied in general formulae, but need to be greatly
modified according to the particular situation and the
persons applying them. For this very reason, it is necessary
that we should gain Spiritual-Scientific insight into this
sphere, which will enable you intelligently to adapt to
the individual case the various steps to be taken. I would ask
you to consider how little insight there is into that
most important matter, the feeding of our farm animals.
Merely to indicate new methods of feeding is not
sufficient.
How, then, ought our farm animals to be fed? In my opinion,
improvement will certainly come if, in the teaching of
agriculture, an insight is gained into the essential
meaning of feeding as such. This is what I shall try to do
today. Completely wrong ideas prevail as to what nutrition
signifies both for man and beast. It is not merely the crude
process of taking in foodstuffs and after certain changes, of
storing these up in the organism, excreting what is not needed.
This view carries with it the idea, for instance, that the
animal should not be overfed, that its food should be as
nourishing as possible and thus the bulk of it be utilised. And
if we are of a materialistic turn of mind, we like to
distinguish between actual food-stuffs and such
substances as promote what is called combustion in the
organism. We then build up all sorts of theories and put them
into practice, finding, as always, that some work and some do
not? or that they only work for a time, having to be
modified in one way or another.
What else indeed could we expect? We speak of processes
of combustion in the organism. But no such thing takes place
there. The combination of any substance whatever with oxygen in
the organism means something quite different from a process of
combustion. Combustion is a process which takes place in
mineral, inanimate nature, and gust as a living organism is
something different from a quartz crystal, so what is
called “combustion” in a living organism is
not the same as the “dead” process of burning, but
something which is living and even sentient. The mere fact of
using words in this way has directed our thoughts along certain
channels and has done great mischief. To speak of
“combustion” in the organism is to speak in a
slipshod way. This does not matter if, by instinct or
tradition, we still retain a right view of the facts. But if
these slip-shod expressions are subjected to an attack of
“psychopathia Professoralis,” then clever theories
begin to be built upon them. If we depend upon these theories,
what we do will be hopelessly wide of the mark, for such
theories no longer cover the facts of the case. This is
characteristic of our times. We are always doing
something which does not fit in with what is going on in
Nature. In this matter of nourishment, therefore, it is
important to learn with what we are really dealing.
Let
us recall what I said yesterday about the plant as having a
physical and etheric body and being more or less surrounded
from above by the astral element. The plant does not reach the
astral element but is surrounded by it. If the plant enters
into a special relation with the astral element, as in the case
or the formation of edible fruits, a kind of food is produced
which will strengthen the astral element in the animal and
human organism. If one can look into this process, the very
“habitus” of a plant and so on reveals whether or
not it is capable of promoting some process in the animal
organism. But we must also consider the opposite pole.
Here something of great importance takes place. I have
touched on this before, but now that the general
principles of nutrition are being established, I must emphasise
it still more definitely.
Since we are dealing with feeding, let us start from the
animal. In the animal, the threefold organism is not so sharply
defined as it is in man. The animal has a system of nerve and
senses and a metabolic and limb system. These are clearly
divided, the one from the other. But in many animals the limits
of intermediate rhythmic system are indefinite; both nerves and
senses system and metabolic system trespass upon the limits of
the rhythmic system. We should therefore choose other terms
when we speak of animals. In man one is quite right in speaking
of a three-fold organism: but in the case of animals one ought
to speak of the nerve and senses system as being
localised primarily in the head, and of the metabolic and limb
system as being in the hind quarters and limbs but at the same
time diffused throughout the whole body. In the middle of the
body the metabolism becomes more rhythmical as does also the
nervous system, and there both flow into one another. The
rhythmic system has a less independent existence in the animal.
Rather the opposite poles become indistinct as they merge into
one another.
(Drawing 15.)
We should therefore speak of the
animal organism as being twofold, the extremes
interpenetrating at the middle. In this way, the animal
organization arises.
Diagrams
for Lecture VIII
Mow
all the substances contained in the head system — I
am speaking of animals, but the same is true of man — are
of earthly matter. Even in the embryo, earthly matter is led
into the head system. The embryo must be so organised that its
head receives its matter from the earth. In the head,
therefore, we have earthly matter. But the substances which we
bear in the metabolic and limb, organisation, those which
permeate our intestines, our limbs, our muscles and bones,
etc., these substances do not come from the earth, but from
what has been absorbed from the air and warmth above the earth.
It is cosmic substantiality. This is important. “When you
see an animal's claw, you must not think of it as having been
formed by the food which the animal has eaten and which has
gone to the claw and been deposited there. This is not the
case. It is cosmic matter taken up through the senses and the
breathing. What the animal eats serves only to stimulate its
powers of movement so that the cosmic matter can be
driven into the metabolic and limb organisation, can be
driven into the claw and similarly distributed, throughout the
whole organism.
With forces (as opposed to substances) it is the other way
around. Because the senses are centred in the head and take in
impressions from the cosmos, the forces in the head are cosmic
in nature. To understand what happens in the metabolic and limb
organisation, you need only think of walking, which means that
the limbs are permeated with earthly gravity: the forces are
earthly ones. Thus, the limb system contains cosmic substances
permeated by earthly forces.
It
is extremely important that the cow or the ox, if used for
working, should be fed so as to absorb the greatest possible
amount of cosmic substance and that the rood which enters its
stomach should produce the necessary strength to lead this
cosmic substance into its limbs, muscles and “bones. It
is equally important to realise that the (earthly) substances
in the head have to be drawn from the food which has been
worked upon in the stomach and is led into the head. In this
sense, the head relies upon the stomach in a way in which the
big toe does not, and we must realise quite clearly that the
head can only work upon this nourishment which comes to it from
the metabolism, if it can at the same time draw in sufficient
cosmic forces. If, therefore, animals instead of being
left in stuffy stables where no cosmic forces can reach them,
are led into meadows and given every opportunity of entering
into relation with their environment through the perceptions of
their senses, then we may see results such as appear in the
following examples.
Imagine an animal standing in a dark and stuffy stable before
its manger, the contents of which have been measured out by
human “wisdom”„ Unless its diet is varied, as
it only can be out-of-doors, this animal will
show a very great contrast to one which seeks out its food with
its sense of smell, guided by this organ in its search for
cosmic forces, seeking and finding its nourishment by itself
and developing its whole activity in doing so. An animal that
is red from a manger will not show immediately how devoid it is
of cosmic forces, for it has inherited a certain amount of
them. But it will breed descendants to whom these cosmic forces
are no longer transmitted. Such an animal will become weak,
beginning from the head, i.e. it will not be able to nourish
its body because it cannot take in the necessary cosmic
substances which should come in. This will show you that it is
not enough simply to say: “This kind of fodder for one
case, that for another.” Bather one must have a clear
idea of the value for the animal's whole organisation that such
and such methods of feeding have.
But
we must go a step further. What is actually contained in the
head? Earthly substance. If you take out the brain, the noblest
part of an animal, you will have before you a piece of earthly
substance. The human brain also contains earthly substance. But
in both the forces are cosmic. What is the human brain for? It
serves as a support for the ego. The animal, let it be
remembered, has as yet no ego; its brain is only on the way to
ego-formation. In man, it goes on and on to the complete
forming of the ego. How then did the animal's brain come into
existence? Let us look at the whole organic process. All that
which eventually manifests in the brain as earthly matter has
simply been “excreted,” (deposited), from tne
organic process. Earthly matter has been excreted in order to
serve as a base for the ego. Now the process of the working-up
of the food in the digestive tract and metabolic and limb
system produces a certain quantity of earthly matter which is
able to enter into the head and to be finally deposited as
earthly-matter in the brain. But a portion of the food stuff is
eliminated in the intestine before it reaches the brain. This
part cannot be further transformed and is deposited in the
intestine for ultimate excretion.
We
come here upon a parallel which will strike you as being very
paradoxical but which must not be overlooked if we wish
to understand the animal and human organisations. What is brain
matter? It is simply the contents of the intestines brought to
the last stage of completion. Incomplete (premature)
brain-excretion passes out through the intestines. The contents
of the intestines are in their processes closely akin to the
contents of the brain. One could put it somewhat
grotesquely by saying that that which spreads itself out
in the brain is a highly-advanced dung-heap. And yet the
statement is essentially correct. By a peculiar organic
process, dung is transformed into the noble matter of the
brain, there to become the foundation for the development of
the ego. in man the greatest possible quantity of intestinal
dung is transformed into cerebral excrement because man bears
his ego on the earth. In animals, the quantity is less. Hence
there remain more forces in the intestinal excrement of an
animal which we can use for manuring. In animal manure, there
is therefore more of the potential ego element, since the
animal itself does not reach ego-hood. For this reason, animal
dung and human dung are completely different. Animal dung still
contains ego-potentiality. In manuring a plant, we bring this
ego-potentiality into contact with the plant's root. Let us
draw the plant in its entirety
(Diagram 16).
Down here you have
the root? up there the unfolding leaves and blossoms. And just
as above, in the leaves and blossoms, the astral element is
acquired from contact with the air, so the ego-potentiality
develops below in the root through contact with the manure.
The
farm is truly an organism. The astral element is developed
above, and the presence of orchard and forest assists in
collecting it. If animals feed in the right way on the things
that grow above the earth, then they will develop the right
ego-potentiality in the manure they produce, and this
ego-potentiality, working on the plant from the root, will
cause it to grow upwards from the root in the right way
according to the forces of gravity. It is a wonderful
interplay, but in order to understand it one must proceed step
by step.
From this you can see that a farm is a kind of
individuality, and that both animals and plants should be
retained within this mutual interplay. If, therefore,
instead of using the manure supplied by the animals
belonging to the farm, we sell off these animals and
obtain manure from Chili, we are in a sense doing harm to
Nature. In doing this we trespass the bounds of that which is a
closed circuit, of that which should be self-sufficient. Of
course, things must be ordered in such a way that the circuit
really is self-contained. One need only have on the farm as
many animals and of such kinds as will supply sufficient and
appropriate manures. And one must also see to it that the
animals have such plants to eat as they like and seek
instinctively.
At
this point experiments tend to become complicated because every
case is different. But the main thing is to know the directions
which the experiments should take. Practical rules will be
found, but they should all proceed from the principle that a
farm should be, as far as possible, self-contained. I say as
far as possible because Spiritual Science takes a practical not
a fanatical view of things. Under our present economic
order this cannot be fully attained; but the ideal is one which
we should make every effort to reach.
On
this basis, then, we can find concrete instances of the
relation between the organism formed by the livestock and
the plant or “fodder organism.” Let us first
consider this relation on broad general lines.
To
begin with the root. The root generally develops in the soil
and through the manure it becomes permeated with
ego-potentiality which it absorbs. This absorption is
determined and aided if the root can find in the right
quantities salts in the soil around it. Let us assume that we
are considering the nature of these roots merely from the point
of view of the foregoing reflections. Then we shall
suggest that roots are the food which, when it is absorbed into
the human organism, will find its way most easily to the head
by way of the digestive process. We shall therefore
provide a diet of roots where we require to give the head
material substances to enable the cosmic forces which
work through the head to exercise their plastic activity. Mow
imagine someone saying to himself: “I must give roots to
this animal which requires earthly substance in its head in
order to stimulate its sense-connections with its
environment, i.e. with the cosmic environment.”
Does not this immediately suggest the calf and the carrot? A
calf eating carrots portrays this whole process. The
moment something like this is put forward and you know how
things really are and their true connections, you will know
immediately what is to be done. It is simply a matter of
realising how this mutual process arises.
But
let us proceed to the next stage. Once the calf has eaten the
carrot, once the substance really has been introduced into the
head, the converse process must be able to begin, i.e. the
head, on its part? must begin to work with forces of
volition, thus begetting within the organism forces which can
be worked into it. It is not enough for the “carrot
dung” to be deposited in the head; from what is deposited
and in the course of disintegration, streams of force
must come which will enter the rest of the organism. In short,
there must be a second food substance which will enable one
part of the body which has already been fed (in this case the
head) to work in the right way on the rest of the organism.
Well, I have given the animal the carrot fodder. And now I want
the animal's body to be permeated with the forces which are
developed from the head. For this, as a second fodder, we need
a plant with a spindly structure, the seed of which will have
gathered into itself these “spindly” forces.
We immediately think of flaxseed (linseed) or something
similar. If you feed young cattle on carrots and linseed
— or carrots and fresh hay (which is equally suitable)
— this will bring into full operation the forces already
latent in the animals. We should therefore try to give young
cattle food which promotes, on the one hand, the forces of
ego-potentiality, and, on the other, the complementary streams
of astral force working from above downwards. For the latter
purpose, those plants are especially suitable which have
long, spindly stems and as such have been turned into hay.
(Diagram 17.)
Just as we have looked into this concrete
case? so we must approach Agriculture as a whole: of
every single thing, we must know what happens to it when it
passes either from the animal into the soil, or from the plant
into the animal.
Let
us pursue the subject yet further. Let us take the case of an
animal' which should become particularly strong in the middle
region (where the head or nervous organisation tends to develop
in the direction of breathing and the metabolic
organisation tends to have a rhythmic character). Which animals
have to be strong in this particular region? They are the milch
animals. The secretion of milk shows that the animal in
question is strong in this region. The point to observe here is
that the right co-operation should take place between the
current going from the head backwards (mainly a streaming of
forces) and the current going from the animal's
hindquarters forward (mainly a streaming of substance).
If these two currents co-operate and intermingle in the right
way, the result will be an abundant supply of rich milk. For
good milk contains substances prepared in the metabolic system
and which, without having entered into the sexual system, have
become akin to it. It.is a sexual process within the metabolic
system. Milk is simply a sexual secretion on another level. It
is a substance, which, on its way to becoming sexual
secretion, is penetrated and transformed by the forces working
from the head. The whole process can be seen quite clearly.
Now
for processes which should arise in this way, we must choose a
diet which will work less powerfully towards the head
than do roots which contain ego-potentiality; neither may
the diet, since it is to be connected with the sexual system,
contain too much of the astral element, i.e. of that which goes
towards the blossom and fruit of the plant. In short, if we
wish to find a diet that will produce milk, we must choose the
part of the plant which lies between blossom and root, i.e. the
green and leafy part.
(Diagram 18.)
If we wish to bring about an
increase in the milk supply of. an animal whose milk production
we have reason to believe could be increased we shall certainly
reach the desired end if we proceed as follows:
Suppose I have a cow and feed it with green fodder. I take
plants in which the process of fruit-formation has been
developed within the process of leaf-formation. Such, for
example, are the pod-bearing or leguminous plants and
especially the clovers. In clover, the would-be fruit develops
as leaf and foliage. A cow that is fed in this way will perhaps
not show much result of it; but when the cow comes to calve,
the calf will grow into a cow that yields good milk. The
effects of reformed foddering usually need a generation in
which to show themselves.
There is however one point to be borne in mind. As we know,
modern doctors go on using certain traditional remedies without
knowing why they do so, except that the remedies have continued
to prove effectual. The same thing happens in farming. People
go on using traditional methods without knowing why they do so,
and m addition to this they make experiments and tests, try to
ascertain exactly the quantity of food that should be given for
fattening cattle, milch cows, etc. But here again we have what
always arises in haphazard experimenting. You know what happens
when you have a sore throat and go and see your friends. They
will all offer you some cure or other and in half-an-hour you
will have collected a whole chemist's shop. If you were to take
all these remedies, they would cancel each other out, and
certainly ruin your stomach, and your sore throat would not be
any better. Because of the circumstances, something which ought
to be quite simple has been made extremely complicated.
Something similar to this happens when one experiments
with fodder for cattle. For it means, does it not, that one is
using a food which suits the case 'in one particular but is
ineffective in another direction. Then a second food is added
to the first and finally one has a mixture of foods, each of
which has a special significance for young cattle perhaps or
for fattening stock. But the whole thing has become so
complicated that one loses one's grasp of it all, because one
loses sight of the interplay of forces involved. Or perhaps the
different ingredients cancel each other in their effects. This
is what often happens and especially with the modern
college-trained student-farmer. Such a person looks things up
in a book or tries to remember what he may have learned
somewhere; “Young cattle must be fed in this way, and
cattle for fattening in that.” But this does not help,
because the fodder recommended by the book may well conflict
with the fodder one i-s already giving.
The
proper way to proceed is to start from the basis of thought
which I have mentioned and which simplifies
cattle-feeding so that it may be taken in at a glance. I really
mean at a glance, as we saw in the case of the carrots and
linseed. We can easily survey this. Think how one can then
stand livingly in the midst of the farm, acting consciously and
with deliberation. This knowledge leads not to a
complication but to a simplification of methods of feeding.
Much that has been discovered by experiment is right, but it is
unsystematic and inexact. Or rather it has the sort of
exactness which is really inexact because things are muddled up
and cannot be seen through. Whereas what I have recommended is
simple and its effects can be followed up into the animal
organism.
Suppose now that we wish to consider the flowering and fruiting
part of the plant. And we must go further, and observe what is
fruit-like in the rest of the plant. This recalls a feature of
plant-life that always delighted Goethe, namely the fact
that the plant has throughout its whole body the tendency
towards what is normally specialised at certain parts. With
most plants, we take the seed which has formed from the blossom
and place it in the earth in order to produce more plants. But
we do not do this in the case of the potato. Here we use the
eyes of the tubers. This is the fruiting part of the potato
plant, but like many processes in Nature, it is not carried out
to the end. We can, however, heighten its activity by a
procedure which bears an external resemblance to combustion.
For instance, if you “cossette” (chop up into thin
straws) roots or tubers and dry the “cossettes” for
fodder, the stuff will be enormously strengthened in its
activity and brought a stage nearer to the fruit stage if you
spread it out in the sun and allow it to steam a little.
Practices like this are based upon a deep and wonderful
instinct. We can ask: how did men first come to cook their
food? Men began to cook their food because they gradually
discovered that what develops during fruit formation is mainly
due to processes akin to cooking, viz. burning, warming, drying
and evaporating. All these processes tend to make the fruit and
seed and indirectly the other parts of the plant,
especially the higher parts, more fitted to develop the forces
that are necessary to the metabolic and limb system in the
animal. Even uncooked the blossom and fruit of a plant work on
the animal's metabolic and digestive system and primarily
through the forces they develop, not through their
substance«, For it is the forces of the earth which are
needed by the metabolic and limb system, and in the
measure in which it needs them, it must receive them.
Take the case of the animals which pasture on steep mountain
sides. Unlike those in the plains, they climb about under
difficult conditions owing to the fact that the ground is not
level. There is all the difference for those animals between
level and slanting ground. They require food that will develop
those forces in limb and muscle which are energised by the
will. Otherwise they would not be good for either labour,
milking or fattening. It is therefore important that they
should eat plenty of those aromatic mountain plants in which
blossom and fruit have undergone an additional treatment
by the sun, resembling a process of natural cooking.
But
similar results can be achieved and strength given to muscle
and limb by artificial methods — roasting and
boiling, etc. Flower and fruit are most suitable for
this, especially of those plants which from the beginning
develop towards fruiting and do not waste their time, as it
were, in growing foliage. People should take careful note of
these things, especially those who are on the dangerous slope
that leads to laziness and inertia. An instance of this is the
man who wants to be a mystic-. “But how,” he asks,
“can I become a mystic if I am working with my
hands all day? I ought to be completely at rest and not be
constantly stirred to activity by something outside or
inside me. If I no longer waste my forces by fussing about all
day, I shall become a real mystic. I must therefore order my
diet in such a way as to become a mystic.” And he goes in
for a diet of raw food and ceases to cook for himself. But the
matter is not so easy as all this. For a man of weak physical
constitution who takes to a diet of raw food when he is
already on the downward path that leads to mysticism, will
naturally accelerate the process; he will become more and more
“mystical” — that is more and more inert',
(and what happens here to a man can be applied to the animal
and can teach us how to stir it to greater) activity). But the
opposite may also occur. We may have the case of a man of
strong constitution who nevertheless has developed the queer
idea of becoming a mystic. In this case his own inherent forces
and those absorbed through the raw food will continue to
develop and to work in him, and the diet may not do him much
harm. And if, by this means, he stirs up the forces which
generally remain below and produce gout and rheumatism
t if” he
stirs these up, and transforms them, then his raw diet will
make mm stronger. There are two sides to every question. No
general rule can be laid down, but we must know how these
principles work in individual cases. The advantage of
vegetarianism is that it calls forth out of the organism forces
which were lying fallow and which produce gout, rheumatism,
diabetes, etc. where only vegetable food is taken, these
forces serve to make it ripe for human assimilation* But where
animal food is consumed, these same forces are deposited
in the organism and remain unused, or rather they begin to work
from out of, themselves, depositing the products of
metabolism in various parts of the body, or, as in diabetes,
they lay claim for their own use to substances which
should remain spread out over all the organs. We only
understand these matters when we look more deeply.
This brings us to the question of the fattening of animals.
Here we must say we should regard the animal as a kind of sack
to be filled as full as possible with cosmic substance. A
fat pig is really a most heavenly animal'. Its fat body,
apart from its system of nerves-and-senses, is made up entirely
of cosmic, not of earthly substance. The pig needs the food
which it enjoys so much in order to fill itself with cosmic
substance, which it absorbs on all sides and then distributes
throughout its body. It must take in this substance which has
to be drawn from the cosmos, and distribute it. And the same is
true of all fattened animals. lou will find that animals will
fatten best on the part of the plant which tends towards
fruit-formation, and has been heightened in its activity by
cooking or steaming. Or, if you give them something which has
in it an enhanced fruit-process, for instance turnip, which
belongs to a species in which this process has been enhanced
and which has become larger through long cultivation. In
general, the best kind of food for fattening cattle is that
which will at least help to distribute the cosmic substance,
i.e. the part of the plant which tends to fruit-formation
— and which has in addition received the proper
treatment. These conditions are in the main fulfilled by
certain kinds of oil cakes and the like. But we must also see
to it that the animal's head is not entirely neglected and that
in this fattening treatment a certain amount of earthly
substance is introduced there. The fodder just mentioned needs
to be complemented by something for the head, though a
smaller quantity, as the head does not require so much.
In fattening an animal, we should therefore add a small
quantity of roots.
Now
there is a substance which as substance has no particular
function in the organism. In general, one can say that roots
have a function in connection with the head, blossoms in
connection with the metabolic and limb system, and leaf and
stem in connection with the rhythmic system within the human
organism. There is, now, a substance that can aid the whole
animal organism, because it is related to all its members. This
substance is salt. And as of all the ingredients in the food of
both man and animals, salt is the least in quantity, we can see
it is not how much we take which matters, but what we take.
Even small quantities of substance will fulfil their purpose if
they are of the right kind.
This brings us to a very important point and one on which I
should like to see very accurate experiments made. These could
be extended to the observation of human beings who use
the article of food I am now going to deal with. As you know,
the introduction of the tomato as a food is of comparatively
recent date. It is very popular as a food and also extremely
valuable as an object of study. One can learn a very great deal
both from growing tomatoes and from eating them. Those who give
the matter some thought — and there are some such
nowadays — are of the opinion and rightly so, that the
consumption of the tomato by man is of great
significance. And it can well be extended to the animal;
it would be quite possible to accustom animals to tomatoes. It
is, in fact, of great significance for all that in the body
which — while in the organism. — tends to fall out
of the organism and to form an organisation of its own« We
have the statement made by an American that in some
circumstances the use of tomatoes can act as a dietetic means
of correcting an unhealthy tendency of the liver. The liver is
the most independent organ in the human organism, and diseases
of the liver (and especially those of the animal liver) can in
general be combated by a diet of tomatoes. Once again, we are
gaining insight into the connection between plant and
animal. Anyone suffering from cancer, I say this in
parenthesis, i.e. from a disease which tends to make one organ
in the body independent from the rest, ought at once to be
forbidden tomatoes.
Why
does the tomato have a special effect upon the parts of the
organism which tend to be independent and specialised in their
function? This is connected with the conditions which the
tomato requires for its own growth. During its growth, the
tomato feels happiest in the vicinity of manure which retains
the form it had when it separated from the animal. Manure
composed of a haphazard collection of all kinds of refuse, not
worked upon in any way, will ensure the growing of very fine
tomatoes. And if compost heaps could be made of tomato stalks
and leaves i.e. of the tomato's own refuse, the result would be
quite brilliant. The tomato does not wish to go beyond its own
boundaries. It would rather remain within its own strong
vitality, it is the most unsocial being in the plant kingdom.
It does not wish to admit anything strange to its own nature
and especially anything which has already been through the
rotting process. And this is connected with the fact that
this plant has a special effect on any independent
organisation within the animal and human bodies.
In
this respect, the tomato bears a certain resemblance to
the potato, also a very independent plant in its effects
— so much so indeed that after passing very easily
through the digestive system, it penetrates into the brain and
makes that organ independent even of the workings of the rest
of the organs'. And among the factors which have led men
and animals to become more materialistic in Europe, we must
certainly reckon the excessive consumption of potatoes. The
consumption of potatoes should serve only to stimulate the
brain and head-system. But it should not go beyond this. These
are the things that show in an objective way the intimate
connection between agriculture and social life. It is
infinitely important that agriculture should be so related to
the social life.
I
have only indicated these matters on general lines and, for
some time to come, these should serve as the foundation for the
most varied experiments, such as should lead to most striking
results. From this you will be able to understand how the
contents of these lectures should be treated. I am thoroughly
in agreement with the decision which has been come to by the
agriculturalists who have attended this course, namely,
that what has been said at these lectures should for the
present remain within this circle and be developed by actual
experiment and research. This same circle should decide when in
their opinion these experiments have been carried
sufficiently far for the matter to be made public. A
number of persons not directly connected with farming, but
whose presence has been permitted through the organisers'
tolerance because of their interest in the subject, nave also
attended this course. They will, like the character in the
well-known opera, be required to put a padlock on their mouths
and not; fall into the common Anthroposophical mistake of
spreading things as far and wide as possible. For what has so
often done us harm is the talk of the individual, dictated not
by a desire to convey real information but simply by a desire
to repeat what has been heard. It makes all the difference
whether these things are said by a farmer or by a layman.
Suppose these things are repeated by laymen as an interesting
new chapter of Anthroposophical teaching. What will happen?
Exactly the same as has happened in the case of other Lecture
Cycles. People on all sides, including farmers, will hear it
... But there are different ways of hearing. A farmer hearing
these things from another farmer will think at first:
“What a pity. The poor fellow has gone crazy.” He
will say this the first and even the second time. But when
finally a farmer sees something with his own eyes, then it is
hardly wise for him to dismiss it as nonsense. But if he has
only heard of a new method from people who are not
professionally concerned with it but only interested in the
subject, then naturally it all comes to nothing and the whole
thing will lose its effect: it will be discredited from the
start. Therefore, those friends who have been present and are
not members of the Agricultural Circle must exercise restraint
and not repeat what' they have heard wherever they go, as
is so often done in Anthroposophy. This course has been decided
on by the Agricultural Circle and the decision announced by our
esteemed Count Keyserlingk, and I entirely agree with it.
And
now that we have come to the end of this Course, I should like
to express my pleasure at your having come to hear what was
said, and at the prospect of your taking part in all the
developments which will take place in the future. I think you
will agree with me when I say that what we have been doing is
useful work, and as such possesses a deep inner value.
There are, however, two things to which I would draw your
attention. The first is the trouble that has been taken by
Count and Countess Keyserlingk and all their household to make
this course the success it has been.
This required energy, self-sacrifice, consciousness of the end
in view, a sense of Anthroposophical values, a real
identification with the cause of Anthroposophy. And this is why
the work we have all been engaged upon, a work which will
undoubtedly be of service to the whole of humanity, has seemed
to take the form of a wonderful festival, for which we give our
heartfelt thanks to Count and Countess Keyserlingk.
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