We shall spend the first lectures gathering various items
of knowledge, so as to recognise the conditions on which
the prosperity of Agriculture depends. Thereafter we
shall draw the practical conclusions, which can only be
realised in the immediate application and are only
significant when put into practice. In these first
lectures you must observe how all agricultural products
arise; how Agriculture lives in the totality of the
Universe.
A farm is true to its essential nature, in the best sense
of the word, if it is conceived as a kind of individual
entity in itself — a self-contained individuality.
Every farm should approximate to this condition. This
ideal cannot be absolutely attained, but it should be
observed as far as possible. Whatever you need for
agricultural production, you should try to posses it
within the farm itself (including in the “farm,”
needless to say, the due amount of cattle). Properly
speaking, any manures or the like which you bring into
the farm from outside should be regarded rather as a
remedy for a sick farm. That is the ideal. A thoroughly
healthy farm should be able to produce within itself all
that it needs.
We shall see presently why this is the natural thing. So
long as one does not regard things in their true essence
but only in their outer material aspect, the question may
justifiably arise: Is it not a matter of indifference
whether we get our cow-dung from the neighbourhood or
from our own farm? But it is not so. Although these
things may not be able to be strictly carried out,
nevertheless, if we wish to do things in a proper and
natural way, we need to have this ideal concept of the
necessary self-containedness of any farm.
You will recognise the justice of this statement if you
consider the Earth on the one hand, from which our farm
springs forth, and on the other hand, that which works
down into our Earth from the Universe beyond. Nowadays,
people are wont to speak very abstractly of the
influences which work on to the Earth from the
surrounding Universe. They are aware, no doubt, that the
Sun's light and warmth, and all the meteorological
processes connected with it, are in a way related to the
form and development of the vegetation that covers the
soil. But present-day ideas can give no real information
as to the exact relationships, because they do not
penetrate to the realities involved. We shall have to
consider the matter from various standpoints. Let us
to-day choose this one: let us consider, to begin with,
the soil of the Earth which is the foundation of all
Agriculture.
I will indicate the surface of the Earth diagramatically
by this line. The surface of the Earth is generally regarded as
mere mineral matter — including some organic
elements, at most, inasmuch as there is formation of
humus, or manure is added. In reality, however, the
earthly soil as such not only contains a certain
life — a vegetative nature of its own — but
an effective astral principle as well; a fact
which is not only not taken into account to-day but is
not even admitted nowadays. But we can go still further.
We must observe that this inner life of the earthly soil
(I am speaking of fine and intimate effects) is different
in summer and in winter. Here we are coming to a realm of
knowledge, immensely significant for practical life,
which is not even thought of in our time.
Taking our start from a study of the earthly soil, we
must indeed observe that the surface of the Earth is a
kind of organ in that organism which reveals itself
throughout the growth of Nature. The Earth's surface is a
real organ, which — if you will — you may
compare to the human diaphragm. (Though it is not quite
exact, it will suffice us for purposes of illustration).
We gain a right idea of these facts if we say to
ourselves: Above the human diaphragm there are certain
organs — notably the head and the processes of
breathing and circulation which work up into the head.
Beneath it there are other organs.
If from this point of view we now compare the Earth's
surface with the human diaphragm, then we must say: In
the individuality with which we are here concerned, the
head is beneath the surface of the Earth, while
we, with all the animals, are living in the creature's
belly! Whatever is above the Earth, belongs in
truth to the intestines of the “agricultural
individuality,” if we may coin the phrase. We, in
our farm, are going about in the belly of the farm, and
the plants themselves grow upward in the belly of the
farm. Indeed, we have to do with an individuality
standing on its head. We only regard it rightly if we
imagine it, compared to man, as standing on its head.
With respect to the animal, as we shall presently see, it
is a little different.
Why do I say that the agricultural individuality is
standing on its head? For the following reason. Take
everything there is in the immediate neighbourhood of the
Earth by way of air and water vapours and even warmth.
Consider, once more, all that element in the
neighbourhood of the Earth in which we ourselves are
living and breathing and from which the plants, along
with us, receive their outer warmth and air, and even
water. All this actually corresponds to that which would
represent, in man, the abdominal organs. On the other
hand, that which takes place in the interior of the Earth
beneath the Earth's surface — works upon
plant-growth in the same way in which our head works upon
the rest of our organism, notably in childhood, but also
throughout our life. There is a constant and living
mutual interplay of the above-the-Earth and the
below-the-Earth.
And now, to localise these influences, I beg you to
observe the following. The activities above the Earth are
immediately dependent on Moon, Mercury and Venus
supplementing and modifying the influences of the Sun.
The so-called “planets near the Earth” extend
their influences to all that is above the Earth's
surface. On the other hand, the distant planets —
those that revolve outside the circuit of the Sun —
work upon all that is beneath the Earth's surface,
assisting those influences which the Sun exercises from
below the Earth. Thus, so far as plant-growth is
concerned, we must look for the influences of the distant
Heavens beneath, and of the Earth's immediate
cosmic environment above the Earth's surface.
Once more: all that works inward from the far spaces of
the Cosmos to influence the growth of plants, works not
directly — not by direct radiation — but in
this way: It is first received by the Earth, and the
Earth then rays it upward again. Thus, the influences
that rise upward from the earthly soil — beneficial
or harmful for the growth of plants — are in
reality cosmic influences rayed back again and working
directly in the air and water over the Earth. The direct
radiation from the Cosmos is stored up beneath the
Earth's surface and works back from thence. Now these
relationships determine how the earthly soil, according
to its constitution, works upon the growth of plants. (We
shall take plant-growth to begin with, and afterwards
extend it to the animals).
Consider the earthly soil. To begin with, we have those
influences that depend on the farthest distances of the
Cosmos — the farthest that come into account for
earthly processes. These effects are found in what is
commonly called sand and rock and stone. Sand and rock —
substances impermeable to water, which, in the common
phrase, “contain no foodstuffs” — are
in reality no less important than any other factors. They
are most important for the unfolding of the
growth-processes, and they depend throughout on the
influences of the most distant cosmic forces. And above
all — improbable as it appears at first sight —
it is through the sand, with its silicious
content, that there comes into the Earth what we may call
the life-ethereal and the chemically
influential elements of the soil. These influences then
take effect as they ray upward again from the Earth.
The way the soil itself grows inwardly alive and develops
its own chemical processes, depends above all on the
composition of the sandy portion of the soil. What the
plant-roots experience in the soil depends in no small
measure on the extent to which the cosmic life and cosmic
chemistry are seized and held by means of the stones and
the rock, which may well be at a considerable depth
beneath the surface. Therefore, wherever we are studying
plant growth, we should be clear in the first place as to
the geological foundation out of which it arises. For
those plants in which the root-nature as such is
important, we should never forget that a silicious ground
— even if it be only present in the depths below —
is indispensable. I would say, thanks be to God that
silica is very widespread on the Earth — in the
form of silicic acid, for instance, and in other
compounds. It constitutes 47-48% of the surface of the
Earth, and for the quantities we need we can reckon
practically everywhere on the presence of the silicic
activity.
But that is not all. All that is thus connected, by way
of silicon, with the root-nature, must also be able to be
led upward through the plant. It must flow upward. There
must be constant interaction between what is drawn in
from the Cosmos by the silicon, and what takes place —
forgive me! —in the “belly” up above;
for by the latter process the “head” beneath
must be supplied with what it needs. The “head”
is supplied out of the Cosmos, but it must also be in
mutual interaction with what is going on in the “belly,”
above the Earth's surface. In a word, that which pours
down from the Cosmos and is caught up beneath the surface
must be able to pour upward again. And for this purpose
is the clayey substance in the soil. Everything in the
nature of clay is in reality a means of transport,
for the influences of cosmic entities within the soil, to
carry them upward again from below.
When we pass on to practical matters, this knowledge will
give us the necessary indications as to how we must deal
with a clayey soil, or with a silicious soil, according
as we have to plant it with one form of vegetation or
another. First we must know what is really happening.
However else clay may be described, however, else we may
have to treat it so as to make it fertile — all
that, no doubt, is most important in the second place,
but the fast thing is to know that clay is the carrier of
the cosmic upward stream.
But this up-streaming of the cosmic influences is not
all. There is also the other process which I may call the
terrestrial or earthly — that process which is
going on in the “belly” and which depends on
a kind of external “digestion.” For
plant-growth, in effect, all that goes on through summer
and winter in the air above the Earth is essentially a
kind of digestion. All that is thus taking place through
a kind of digestive process, must in its turn be drawn
downward into the soil. Thus a true mutual interaction
will arise with all the forces and fine homeopathic
substances which are engendered by the water and air
above the Earth. All this is drawn down into the soil by
the greater or lesser limestone content of the
soil. The limestone content of the soil itself, and the
distribution of limestone substances in homeopathic
dilution immediately above the soil — all this is
there to carry into the soil the immediate terrestrial
process.
In due time there will be a science of these things —
not the mere scientific jargon of to-day — and it
will then be possible to give exact indications. It will
be known, for instance, that there is a very great
difference between the warmth that is above the Earth's
surface that is to say, the warmth that is in the domain
of Sun, Venus, Mercury and Moon — and that warmth
which makes itself felt within the Earth; which is under
the influence of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. For the plant,
we may describe the one kind as leaf-and-flower warmth,
and the other as root warmth. These two warmths are
essentially different, and in this sense, we may well
call the warmth above the Earth dead, and that
beneath the Earth's surface living.
The warmth beneath the Earth decidedly contains some
inner principle of life. It is alive; moreover in winter
it is most of all alive. If we human beings had to
experience the warmth which works within the Earth, we
should all grow dreadfully stupid, for to be clever we
need to have dead warmth brought to our body. But
the moment the warmth is drawn into the Earth by the
limestone-content of the soil, or by other
substantialities within the Earth — the moment any
outer warmth passes over into inner warmth — it is
changed into a certain condition of vitality, however
delicate.
People to-day are well aware that there is a difference
between the air above the soil and the air within, but
they do not observe that there is also this difference
between the warmth above and within. They know that the
air beneath the surface contains more carbonic acid, and
the air above, more oxygen, but again they do not know
the reason. The reason is that the air too is permeated
by a delicate vitality the moment it is absorbed and
drawn into the Earth.
So it is both with the warmth and with the air; they take
on a slightly living quality when they are received into
the Earth. The opposite is true of the water and of the
solid earthy element itself. They become still more dead
inside the Earth than they are outside it. They lose
something of their external life. Yet in this very
process they become open to receive the most distant
cosmic forces.
The mineral substances must emancipate themselves from
what is working immediately above the surface of the
Earth, if they wish to be exposed to the most distant
cosmic forces. And in our cosmic age they can most easily
do so — they can most easily emancipate themselves
from the Earth's immediate neighbourhood and come under
the influence of the most distant cosmic forces down
inside the Earth —in the time between the 15th
January and the 15th February; in this winter season. The
time will come when such things are recognised as exact
indications. This is the season when the strongest
formative-forces of crystallisation, the strongest forces
of form, can be developed for the mineral substances
within the Earth. It is in the middle of the winter. The
interior of the Earth then has the property of being
least dependent on itself — on its own mineral
masses; it comes under the influence of the
crystal-forming forces that are there in the wide spaces
of the Cosmos.
This then is the situation. Towards the end of January
the mineral substances of the Earth have the greatest
longing to become crystalline, and the deeper we go into
the Earth, the more they have this longing to become
purely crystalline within the “household of
Nature.” In relation to plant growth, what happens
in the minerals at this time is most of all indifferent,
or neutral. That is to say, the plants at this time are
most left to themselves within the Earth; they are least
exposed to the mineral substances. On the other hand, for
a certain time before and after this period — and
notably before it, when the minerals are, so to
speak, just on the point of passing over into the
crystalline element of form and shape — then they
are of the greatest importance; they ray out the forces
that are particularly important for plant-growth.
Thus we may say, approximately in the month of
November-December, there is a point of time when that
which is under the surface of the Earth becomes
especially effective for plant-growth. The practical
question is: “How can we really make use of this
for the growth of plants?” The time will come when
it is recognised, how very important it is to make use of
these facts, so as to be able to direct the growth of
plants. I will observe at once, if we are dealing with a
soil which does not readily or of its own accord carry
upward the influences which should be working upward in
this winter season, then it is well to add a dose of clay
to the soil. (I shall indicate the proper dose later on).
We thereby prepare the soil to carry upward what, to
begin with, is inside the Earth and make it effective for
the growth of plants. I mean, the crystalline forces
which we observe already when we look out over the
crystallising snow. (The force of crystallisation,
however, grows stronger and more intense the farther we
go into the interior of the Earth). This crystallising
force must therefore be carried upward at a time when it
has not yet reached its culminating point — which
it will only attain in January or February.
Thus we derive the most positive hints from knowledge
which at first sight seems remote. We get indications
that will really help us, where we should otherwise be
experimenting in the dark.
Altogether, we should be clear that the whole domain of
Agriculture — including what is beneath the surface
of the Earth — represents an individuality, a
living organism, living even in time. The life of the
Earth is especially strong during the winter season,
whereas in summer-time it tends in a certain sense to
die.
Now for the tilling of the soil one important thing
should above all be understood. I have often mentioned it
among anthroposophists. It is this. We must know the
conditions under which the cosmic spaces are able to pour
their forces down into the earthly realm. To recognise
these conditions, let us take our start from the
seed-forming process. The seed, out of which the embryo
develops, is usually regarded as a very complicated
molecular structure, and scientists are especially
anxious to understand it in its complex molecular
structure. In simple molecules, they imagine, there is a
simple structure; then it grows ever more complicated,
till at last we get to the infinitely complex structure
of the protein molecule.
With wonder and astonishment they stand before what they
imagine as the complicated structure of the protein in
the seed. For they conceive it as follows. They think the
protein molecule must be extremely complicated; for after
all, out of its complexity, the whole new organism will
grow. The new organism, infinitely complex as it is, was
already pre-figured in the embryonic condition of the
seed. Therefore this microscopic or ultra-microscopic
substance must also be infinitely complex in its
structure.
To begin with, to a certain extent this is quite true.
When the earthly protein is built up, the molecular
structure is indeed raised to the highest complexity. But
a new organism could never arise out of this complexity.
The organism does not arise out of the seed in that way
at all. That which develops as the seed, out of the
mother-plant or mother-animal, does not by any means
simply continue its existence in that which afterwards
arises as the descendant plant or animal. That is not
true. The truth is rather this:—
When the complexity of structure has been enhanced to the
highest degree, it all disintegrates again, and
eventually, where we first had the highest complexity
attained within the Earth-domain, we now have a tiny
realm of chaos. It all disintegrates, as we might
say, into cosmic dust. Then, when the seed — having
been raised to the highest complexity — has fallen
asunder into cosmic dust and the tiny realm of chaos is
there, then the entire surrounding Universe begins to
work and stamps itself upon the seed, thus building up
out of the tiny chaos that which can only be built in it
by forces pouring in from the great Universe from all
sides. So in the seed we get an image of the
Universe.
In every seed-formation, the earthly process of
organisation is carried to the very end — to the
point of chaos. Time and again, in the chaos of the seed
the new organism is built up again out of the whole
Universe. The parent organism has to play this part:
through its affinity to a particular cosmic situation, it
tends to bring the seed into that situation whereby the
forces work from the right cosmic directions, so that a
dandelion brings forth, not a barberry, but a dandelion
in its turn.
That which is imaged in the single plant, is always the
image of some cosmic constellation. Ever and again, it is
built out of the Cosmos. Therefore, if ever we want to
make the forces of the Cosmos effective in our earthly
realm, we must drive the earthly as far as possible into
a state of chaos. For plant-growth, Nature herself will
see to it to some extent, that this is done. However,
since every new organism is built out of the Cosmos, it
is also necessary for us to preserve the cosmic process
in the organism long enough — that is, until the
seed-forming process occurs once more.
Say we plant the seed of some plant in the Earth. Here in
this seed we have the stamp or impress of the whole
Cosmos — from one cosmic aspect or another. The
constellation takes effect in the seed; thereby it
receives its special form. Now, the moment it is planted
in the Earth-realm, the external forces of the Earth
influence it very strongly, and it is permeated every
moment with a longing to deny the cosmic process —
that is to say, to grow hypertrophied, to grow out in all
manner of directions. For that which is working above the
Earth does not really want to preserve this form.
The seed must be driven to the state of chaos. On the
other hand, when the first beginnings of the plant are
unfolding out of the seed, and at the later stages also —
over against the cosmic form which is living as the
plant-form in the seed we need to bring the earthly
element into the plant. We must bring the plant nearer to
the Earth in its growth. And this we can only do by
bringing into the life of the plant such life as is
already present on the Earth. That is to say, we must
bring into it life that has not yet reached the utterly
chaotic state — life that has not yet gone forward
to the stage of seed-formation — life, that is to
say, which came to an end in the organisation of some
plant before it reached the point of seed-formation.
In effect, we must bring into it such life as is already
present on the Earth. In this respect, in districts which
are well-favoured by fortune, a rich humus-formation
comes very largely to man's assistance in “Nature's
household.” For in the last resort man can but
sparingly replace by artificial means the fertility the
Earth itself is able to achieve by natural
humus-formation. To what is this transformation due? It
is due to the fact that that which comes from the
plant-life is absorbed by the whole Nature-process. To
some extent, all life that has not yet reached the state
of chaos rejects the cosmic influences. If such life is
also made use of in the plant's growth, the effect is to
hold fast in the plant what is essentially earthly. The
cosmic process works only in the stream which passes
upward once more to the seed-formation; while on the
other hand the earthly process works in the unfolding of
leaf, blossom and so on, and the cosmic only radiates its
influences into all this.
We can trace the process quite exactly. Assume you have a
plant growing upward from the root. At the end of the
stem the little grain of seed is formed. The leaves and
flowers spread themselves out. Now the earthly element in
leaf and flower is the shape and form and the filling of
earthly matter. The reason why a leaf or grain develops
thick and strong — absorbs inner substantialities,
and so on — the reason for this lies in all that
which we bring to the plant by way of earthly life
that has not yet reached the state of chaos. On the other
hand, the seed which evolves its force right up the steam
(in a vertical direction, not in the circling round) —
the seed irradiates the leaf and blossom of the plant
with the force of the Cosmos.
We can see this directly. Look at the green plant-leaves.
No. 3). The green leaves, in their form and thickness
and in their greeness too, carry an earthly element, but
they would not be green unless the cosmic force of the
Sun were also living in them. And even more so when you
come to the coloured flower; therein are living
not only the cosmic forces of the Sun, but also the
supplementary forces which the Sun-forces receive from
the distant planets — Mars, Jupiter and
Saturn. In this way we must look at all plant growth.
Then, when we contemplate the rose, in its red colour we
shall see the forces of Mars. Or when we look at the
yellow sunflower — it is not quite rightly so
called, it is called so on account of its form; as to its
yellowness it should really be named the Jupiter-flower.
For the force of Jupiter, supplementing the cosmic force
of the Sun, brings forth the white or yellow colour in
the flowers. And when we approach the chicory (Cichoriuns
Intybus), we shall divine in the bluish colour the
influence of Saturn, supplementing that of the Sun. Thus
we can recognise Mars in the red flower, Jupiter in the
yellow or white, Saturn in the blue, while in the green
leaf we see essentially the Sun itself. But that which
thus shines out in the colouring of the flower works as a
force most strongly in the root. For the forces that live
and abound in the distant planets are working, as we have
seen, down there below within the earthly soil.
It is so indeed. We must say to ourselves: Suppose we
pull a plant out of the Earth. Down below we have the
root. In the root there is the cosmic nature, whereas in
the flower most of all there is the earthly, the cosmic
being only present in the delicate quality of the
colouring and shading. If on the other hand the earthly
nature is to live strongly in the root, then it must
shoot into form. For the plant always has its form from
that which can arise within the earthly realm. That which
expands the form is earthly. Thus if the root is ramified
and much-divided, then, as in the flower's colouring the
cosmic nature is working upward, so here the earthly
nature is working downward. Therefore the cosmic roots
are those that are more or less single in form, whereas
in highly ramified roots we have a working of the earthly
nature downward into the soil, just as in colour we have
a working-upward of the cosmic nature into the flower.
The Sun-quality is in the midst between the two. The
Sun-nature lives most of all in the green leaf, in the
mutual interplay between the flower and the root and all
that is between them. The Sun-quality is really that
which is related, as a “diaphragm” (for so we
called it in this picture) with the surface of the earth.
The cosmic is associated with the interior of the Earth
and works upward into the upper parts of the plant. The
earthly, which is localised above the surface of the
earth, works downward, being carried down into the plant
with the help of the limestone element.
Observe those plants in which the limestone strongly
draws the earthly nature downward into the roots. These
are the plants whose roots shoot out in all directions
with many ramifications, such, for instance, as the food
fodder plants — I do not mean turnips or the like,
but plants like sainfoin. Such things must be recognised
in the form of the plant. To understand the plant, we
must recognise the form of the plant and from the colour
of the flower, the extent to which the cosmic and the
earthly are working there.
Assume that by some means we cause the cosmic to be
strongly retained — held up within the plant
itself. Then it will not reveal itself to any great
extent. It will not shoot out into blossom but will
express itself in a stalk-like nature. Where, now,
according to the indications we have given, does the
cosmic nature live in the plant? It lives in the
silicious element.
Look at the equisetum plant. It has this peculiarity: it
draws the cosmic nature to itself; it permeates itself
with the silicious nature. It contains no less than 90%
of silicic acid. In equisetum the cosmic is present, so
to speak, in very great excess, yet in such a way that it
does not go upward and reveal itself in the flower but
betrays its presence in the growth of the lower parts.
Or let us take another case. Suppose that we wish to hold
back in the root-nature of a plant that which would
otherwise tend upward through the stem and leaf. No doubt
this is not so important in our present earthly epoch,
for through various conditions we have already largely
fixed the different species of plants. In former epochs —
notably in primeval epochs — it was different. At
that time it was still possible quite easily to transform
one plant into another; hence it was very important to
know these things. To-day too, it is important if we wish
to find what conditions are favourable to one plant or
another.
What do we then need to consider? How must we look at a
plant when we desire the cosmic forces not to shoot
upward into the blossoming and fruiting process but to
remain below? Suppose we want the stem and leaf-formation
to be held back in the root. What must we then do? We
must put such a plant into a sandy soil, for in silicious
soil the cosmic is held back; it is actually “caught:”
Take the potato, for example. With the potato this end
must be attained. The blossoming process must be kept
below. For the potato is a stem and leaf-formation down
in the region of the root. The leaf and stem-forming
process is held back, retained in the potato itself. The
potato is not a root, it is a stem-formation held back.
We must therefore bring it into a sandy soil. Otherwise
we shall not succeed in having the cosmic force retained
in the potato.
This, therefore, is the ABC for our judgment of
plant-growth. We must always be able to say, what in the
plant is cosmic, and what is terrestrial or earthly. How
can we adapt the soil of the earth, by its special
consistency, as it were to densify the cosmic and thereby
hold it back more in the root and leaf? Or again, how can
we thin it out so that it is drawn upward in a dilute
condition, right up into the flowers, giving them colour
— or into the fruit-forming process, permeating the
fruit with a fine and delicate taste? For if you have
apricots or plums with a fine taste — this taste,
just like the colour of the flowers, is the cosmic
quality which has been carried upward, right into the
fruit. In the apple you are eating Jupiter, in the plum
you are actually eating Saturn.
If mankind with their present state of knowledge were
suddenly obliged to create, from the comparatively few
plants of the primeval epoch of the Earth, the manifold
variety of our present fruits and fruit-trees, they would
not get very far. We should not get far if it were not
for the fact that the forms of our different fruits are
inherited. They were produced at a time when humanity had
knowledge, out of primeval and instinctive wisdom, how to
create the different kinds of fruits from the primitive
varieties that then existed. If we did not already
possess the different kinds of fruit, handing them down
by heredity —if we had to do it all over again with
our present cleverness — we should not be very
successful in creating the different kinds of fruit.
Nowadays it is all done by blind experiment, there is no
rational penetration into the process.
This must be re-discovered if we wish to go on working on
the Earth at all. Extremely apt was the remark of our
friend Stegemann to the effect that a decrease in the
value of the products is observable. This decrease is
indeed connected —like the transformation in the
human soul itself — with the ending of Kali Yuga in
the Universe during the last decades and in the decades
that are now about to come. You may take my remark amiss
or not, as you will. We stand face to face with a great
change, even in the inner being of Nature. What has come
down to us from ancient times — whatever it may be
that we have handed down: natural talents, knowledge
derived from Nature, and the like, even the traditional
medicaments we still possess — all this is losing
its value.
We must gain new knowledge in order to enter again into
the whole Nature-relationship of these things. Mankind
has no other choice. Either we must learn once more, in
all domains of life learn — from the whole nexus of
Nature and the Universe — or else we must see
Nature and withal the life of Man himself degenerate and
die. As in ancient times it was necessary for men to have
knowledge entering into the inwardness of Nature, so do
we now stand in need of such knowledge once again.
As I said just now, the man of to-day may know —
though this knowledge too is very scanty — he may
know how the air behaves in the interior of the Earth.
But he knows practically nothing of how the light
behaves in the interior of the Earth. He does not know
that the silicious — that is, the cosmic —
stone or rock or sand receives the light into the Earth
and makes it effective there. Whereas that which stands
nearer to the earthly-living nature, namely the humus,
does not receive it; it does not make the light effective
in the Earth. It therefore gives rise to a “light-less”
working. Such things must be penetrated once more with
clear understanding.
Now the plant-growth of the Earth is not all. To any
given district of the Earth a specific animal life also
belongs. For reasons which will presently be evident, we
may for the moment leave man out, but we cannot neglect
animal life. For this is the peculiar fact; the best —
if I may call it so — cosmic qualitative analysis
takes place of its own accord, in the life of a certain
district of the Earth, overgrown as it is with plants,
along with the animals in the same region. This is the
peculiar fact — and I should be glad if my
statements were tested, for if you subsequently test them
you will certainly find them confirmed. This is the
peculiar relation. If in any farm you have the right
amount of horses, cows and other animals, these animals
taken together will give just the amount of manure which
you need for the farm itself, in order, as I said, to add
something more to what has already turned into chaos.
Nay more, if you have the right number of cows, horses,
pigs, etc., severally, the proportion of admixture
in the manure will also be correct. This is due to the
fact that the animals will eat the right measure of what
is provided for them by the growth of plants. They eat
the right quantity of what the Earth is able to provide.
Hence in the course of their organic processes they bring
forth just the amount of manure which needs to be given
back again to the Earth.
This therefore is the case. We cannot carry it out
absolutely, but in the ideal sense it is correct. If we
are obliged to import any manure from outside the farm,
properly speaking we should only use it as a remedy —
as a medicament for a farm that has already grown ill.
The farm is only healthy inasmuch as it provides its own
manure from its own stock. Naturally, this will
necessitate our developing a proper science of the number
of animals of a given sort which we need for a given kind
of farm. This need not cause any alarm. Such a science
will arise in good time, as soon as we begin to have any
knowledge again of the inner forces concerned.
In effect, what was said at the beginning of this lecture
— describing that which is above the Earth's
surface as a kind of belly, and that which is beneath as
a kind of head-existence — is not complete unless
we also understand the animal organism in this way. The
animal organism lives in the whole complex of Nature's
household. In form and colour and configuration, and in
the structure and consistency of its substance from the
front to the hinder parts, it is related to these
influences. From the snout towards the heart, the Saturn,
Jupiter and Mars influences are at work; in the heart
itself the Sun, and behind the heart, towards the tail,
the Venus, Mercury and Moon influences. In this respect, those who are interested in
these matters should develop their knowledge above all by
learning to read the form. To be able to do this
is of very great importance.
Go to a museum and look at the skeleton of any mammal,
and go there with the consciousness that in the form and
configuration of the head there is working above all the
radiation of the Sun, the direct radiant influence of the
Sun as it pours into the mouth. For reasons we shall yet
discuss, the animal exposes itself to the Sun in a
specific way. A lion exposes itself to the Sun
differently from a horse. The forming of the head and
that which immediately follows the head, depends on the
way the animal is exposed to the Sun. Thus in the fore
part of the animal we have the direct Sun-radiation, and
as a consequence the forming and development of the head.
Now you will remember, the sunlight enters the sphere of
the Earth in another way also. It is thrown back by the
Moon. We have not only to do with the direct sunlight; we
have also to do with the sunlight thrown back by the
Moon. This sunlight thrown back by the Moon is quite
ineffective when it shines on to the head of an animal.
There it has no influence. (What I am now saying applies
especially, however, to the embryo life). The light that
is rayed back from the Moon develops its highest
influence when it falls on the hinder parts of the
animal. Look at the skeleton-formation of the hinder
parts; observe its peculiar relation to the
head-formation. Cultivate a sense of form to perceive
this contrast — the attachment of the thighs, the
forming of the outgoing parts of the digestive tract, in
contrast to that which is formed as the opposite pole,
from the head inward. There, in the fore and hinder parts
of the animal, you have the true contrast of Sun and
Moon.
Moreover you will find that the Sun-influence goes as far
as the heart and stops short just before the heart. For
the head and the blood-forming process, Mars, Jupiter and
Saturn are at work. Then, from the heart backward, the
Moon influence is supported by the Mercury and Venus
forces. If therefore you turn the animal in this way and
stand it on its head, with the head stuck into the Earth
and the hinder parts upward — you have the position
which the “agricultural individuality” has
invisibly.
This will enable you to discover, from the form and
figure of the animal, a definite relation between the
manure, for example, which this animal provides, and the
needs of the particular portion of the Earth, the plants
of which the animal is eating. For you must know these
things. You must know, for instance, that the cosmic
influences which are effective in a plant rise upward
from the interior of the Earth. They are led upward.
Suppose a plant is especially rich in such cosmic
influences. The animal which eats the plant will in its
turn provide manure, out of its whole organism, on the
basis of this fodder. Thereby it will provide the very
manure which is most suited for the soil on which the
plant is growing. Thus if you can read Nature's language
of forms, you will perceive all that is needed by the
“self-contained individuality” which a true
farm or agricultural unit should be. Only the animal
stock must also be included in it.