This is our last lecture, though we may still be able to
supplement it a little in the discussions, according to
your needs. As far as possible in the short time, I want
to add a few more explanations to complete what I have
said, and to give a few more practical hints. These
practical matters are, however, extremely difficult to
clothe in general formulae or the like. They, most of
all, are subject to individualisation — to a kind
of personal treatment. To-day especially, we shall
therefore have to acquire the necessary
spiritual-scientific insight to begin with, for this
alone will enable you to act with individual intelligence
in the several measures you have to take.
Think how little insight there is nowadays in this most
important question: the feeding of farm animals. Such a
state of affairs cannot be much improved by however many
detailed instructions for feeding. But I am convinced it
will be much improved when our agricultural training
tends more to the development of true insight on the
fundamental question: What is the essence of the feeding
process? To-day I would like to contribute a little to
this end.
As I have already told you, the significance of nutrition
for the animal, and for man too, is to this day
thoroughly misunderstood. The coarse idea that the
foodstuffs are received from outside and then deposited
in the organism, is altogether wrong. That is what they
imagine nowadays, more or less. True, they conceive all
kinds of transformations in the process, and yet,
fundamentally speaking, that is how they think. In a
crude way they imagine, somewhere inside there are the
foodstuffs. The animal absorbs the food — deposits
inside it whatever it can use, and excretes what it has
no use for. Accordingly, they argue, we provide for such
and such essential constituents. We must see to it that
the creature is not over-burdened with stuff. We must see
to it that the food it gets is as nutritive as possible,
so that it can use a relatively large proportion of what
is contained therein.
True, they also distinguish between substances nutritive
in the narrower sense of the term, and those which —
as they say — assist the combustion-process in the
Body. (The materialists are fond of making such
distinctions also). On this distinction they found all
manner of theories which they then apply in practice,
though as you know, the upshot always is that some of it
works and some of it decidedly does not — or it
only seems to work for a limited time, and is then
modified by this or that ...
And how should we expect it to be otherwise? They talk of
combustion-processes inside the body. In reality there is
not a single combustion-process in the body. The
combination of any substance with oxygen inside the
body has quite another significance than that of a
combustion-process. Combustion is a process in mineral or
lifeless Nature. Quite apart from the fact that a living
organism is essentially different from a crystal of
quartz, what is commonly called combustion in the body is
not the dead combustion-process which takes place in the
outer world, but is something altogether living, nay,
sentient.
Precisely by expressing themselves in this way, and thus
leading people's thought in a fixed direction, scientists
bring about widespread confusion in practical life. The
man who first speaks of “combustion inside the
body” is only speaking loosely — in a
slipshod way, if you will. If he has the true facts in
mind, his speaking loosely will do no harm, provided he
still acts correctly, out of true instincts or tradition.
After a time, however, the same loosely worded phrase
gets taken hold of by the disease of “Psychopathia
professoralis,” as I have often called it. They —
the professors — transform, what at first was only
a slight slipshod way of talking into a brilliant theory
— I really mean it, brilliant. And when people
begin to act according to these theories, they no longer
hit off the reality in the very least. The things they
then talk of are altogether different from what actually
occurs when you have animals to look after. It is a
characteristic phenomenon of to-day. They set to work and
do something utterly different — something that
does not fit in at all with what is actually taking place
in Nature. In this domain especially, we should take
pains to observe what the point is.
Let us remember the outcome of our last lecture. The
plant, as we saw, has a physical body and an ether-body,
while up above it is hovered-around, more or less, by a
kind of astral cloud. The plant itself does not reach up
to the astral, but the astral — so to speak —
hovers around it. Wherever it enters into definite
connection with the astral (as happens in the
fruit-formation), something available as foodstuff is
produced — that is to say, something which will
support the astral in the animal and human body.
If you see into the process, you will readily observe in
any plant or other entity, whether or no it is fit to
support some process in the animal organism. But we
should also understand the opposite pole. This is a most
important point; I have already touched upon it, but now
that we wish to create the foundations for an
understanding of the feeding-process, we must bring it
out once more with special emphasis. As we are now
concerned with the feeding problem, let us begin with the
animal.
In the animal there is no such sharply outlined
three-folding of the organism as there is in man. True,
in the animal also, the nerves-and-senses organism and
the organism of metabolism, and the limbs are well marked
— sharply divided one from the other; but the
middle, rhythmic organism more or less melts away —
at least, in many animals it does so. Something that
still comes from the sense-organism passes into the
rhythmic; likewise, something that comes from the
metabolic organism.
We should describe the animal rather differently from
man. For man, we speak quite exactly when we describe
this threefold nature of the body; for the animal,
however, we should rather speak as follows: There is the
nerves-and-senses organisation, mainly localised in the
head. There is the organisation of metabolism and the
limbs — organised in the posterior parts and in the
limbs generally, yet also permeating the whole Body. And
in the middle of the creature the metabolism becomes
rhythmic — more rhythmic than in man; while on the
other hand the nerves-and-senses system also becomes more
rhythmic, and the two melt into one another. In other
words, the rhythmic pars of the animal does not come into
being so independently as in man; it is a more indistinct
sounding-into-one-another of the two outermost poles
(Diagram 18). Hence, for the animal we should really
speak of a two-foldness of the organism — such,
however, that the two members meet and mingle in the
middle. That is how the animal organisation arises.
Now all that is present as substances in the
head-organisation, is composed of earthly matter. (So it
is in man, too, but let us confine ourselves to the
animal for the moment). Whatever matter there is in the
head is earthly matter. Already in the embryo-life,
earthly matter is guided into the head-organisation. The
whole embryonic organisation is so arranged that the head
receives its materials from the Earth. There, then, we
have earthly substance.
On the other hand, all that we have as substantiality in
the organisation of metabolism and the limbs —
permeating our intestines, limbs, muscles, bones, etc. —
comes not from the Earth at all. It is cosmic
substantiality. It comes from that which is absorbed out
of the air and warmth above the Earth. This is important.
You must not regard a claw or a hoof as though it were
formed by the physical matter which the animal eats
somehow finding its way into the hoof and being there
deposited. That is not true at all. In actual fact,
cosmic matter is absorbed through the senses and the
breathing. What the animal eats is merely for the purpose
of developing its inner forces of movement, so that the
cosmic principles may be driven right down into the
metabolic and limb system— into the claw or hoof,
for instance. Throughout these parts, it is cosmic
substantiality.
Precisely the opposite is true of the forces. In
the head — inasmuch as the senses are chiefly
stationed there, and the senses perceive out of the
Cosmos — in the head we have cosmic forces; while
in the system of metabolism and limbs we have to do with
earthly forces — cosmic substances and earthly
forces. (As to the latter, you need only remember how we
walk; we are constantly placing ourselves into the field
of earthly gravity, and in like manner, all that we do
with our limbs is bound up with the earthly).
This is by no means a matter of indifference, in
practice. Suppose you are using the cow as a beast of
labour. It needs its limbs for the work. Or if you use an
ox as a labouring beast — it is important to feed
the animal so that it gets as much as possible of cosmic
substantiality. Moreover, the food which will pass
through the stomach must be suitably chosen and arranged,
so as to develop copious forces — forces sufficient
to guide the cosmic substantiality into the limbs and
bones and muscles, everywhere.
Likewise we need to be aware: whatever substances are
required for the head itself — these must be got
from the actual fodder. The foodstuffs —
assimilated, passed through the stomach — must be
guided into the head. It is the head, not the big toe,
which depends on the stomach in this respect! Moreover,
the head can only assimilate this nourishment which it
received from the body, if it is able at the same time to
get the necessary forces from the Cosmos. Therefore we
should not merely shut our animals in dark stables, where
the cosmic forces cannot flow towards them. We should
lead them out over the pastures. Altogether, we should
give them the opportunity to come into relation with the
surrounding world by sense-perception too.
Think of an animal standing in the dark, dull stable, and
receiving — measured out into its manger —
what the wisdom of man provides. Such an animal, getting
no change in this respect, and it can only get the
proper change in the open air — how different it
will be from one that is able to make use of its senses,
its organ of smell, for instance, seeking its food for
itself in the open air; following its sense of smell,
following the cosmic forces through its sense of smell,
going after the food, choosing for itself, unfolding all
its activity in this finding and taking of the food.
Such things are inherited. The animal you merely place at
the manger will not reveal at once that it has no cosmic
forces; for it still inherits them. But it will presently
beget descendants which have the cosmic forces in them no
longer. In such a case, it is from the head that the
animal first becomes weak. It can no longer feed the body
because it is unable to absorb the cosmic substances,
which, once again, are needed in the body as a whole.
These things will show you how futile it is merely to
give general instructions: “Feed thus and thus, in
this case and in that” We must first gain an idea:
what is the value of such and such methods of feeding for
the whole essence of the anima's organisation?
Now we can go further. What is contained in the head?
Earthly substantiality. Cut out this noblest organ of the
animal — the brain — there you have so much
earthly substance. In man, too, in the brain you have
earthly substance. Only the forces are cosmic; the
substance is earthly. What then is the function of the
brain? It serves as an underlying basis for the Ego. The
animal has not yet the Ego. Let us hold fast to this
idea: The brain serves as an underlying basis for the
Ego, but the animal has not yet an Ego. Therefore the
animal's brain is only on the way to Ego-formation. In
man it goes on and on — to the full forming of the
Ego.
How then has the brain of the animal come into being?
Take the whole organic process — all that is going
on in there. That which eventually emerges as earthly
matter in the brain has actually been excreted; it is
excretion — excretion from the organic process.
Earthly matter is here excreted to nerve as a basis for
the Ego. Now on the basis of this process in the
metabolic and limbs system — beginning with the
consumption of the food and going on through the whole
distributive activity of the digestion — a certain
quantity of earthly matter is capable of being led into
the head and brain. A certain quantity of earthly
substance goes through the whole path, and is at last
literally deposited — excreted, separated out —
in the brain. But it is not only in the brain that the
substance of the foodstuffs is deposited. Whatever is no
longer capable of assimilation is deposited already on
the way, in the intestines.
Here you encounter a relationship which you will think
most paradoxical, even absurd at first sight, and yet you
cannot overlook it if you wish to understand the animal
organisation — and the human too, for that matter.
What is this brainy mass? It is simply an intestinal
mass, carried to the very end. The premature brain
deposit passes out through the intestines. As to its
processes, the content of the intestines is decidedly
akin to the brain-content. To speak grotesquely, I would
say: That which spreads out through the brain is a highly
advanced heap of manure! Grotesque as it may be,
objectively speaking this is the truth. It is none other
than the dung, which is transmuted — through its
peculiar organic process into the noble matter of the
brain, there to become the basis for Ego-development.
In man, as much as possible of the belly-manure is
transformed into brain-manure, for man as you know
carries his Ego down on to the Earth; in the animal,
less. Therefore, in the animal, more remains behind in
the belly-manure — and this is what we use for
manuring. In animal manure, more Ego potentially
remains. Just because the animal itself does not
reach up to the Ego, more Ego remains there potentially.
Hence, animal and human manure are altogether different
things. Animal manure still contains the
Ego-potentiality.
Picture to yourselves how we manure the plant. We bring
the manure from outside to the plant root. That is to
say, we bring Ego to the root of the plant. Let us
draw the plant in its entirety (Diagram 19). Down here
you have the root; up there, the unfolding leaves and
blossoms. There, through the intercourse with air,
astrality unfolds —the astral principle is added —
whereas down here, through intercourse with the manure,
the Ego-potentiality of the plant develops.
Truly, the farm is a living organism. Above, in the air,
it evolves its astrality. Fruit-tree and forest by their
very presence develop this astrality. And now when the
animals feed on what is there above the Earth, they in
their turn develop the real Ego-forces. These they give
off in the dung, and the Same Ego-forces will cause the
plant in its turn to grow forth from the root in the
direction of the force of gravity. Truly a wonderful
interplay, but we must understand it stage by stage,
progressively, increasingly.
Inasmuch as these things are so, your farm is in truth a
kind of individuality, and you will gain the insight that
you ought to keep your animals as much as possible within
this mutual interplay and your plants too. Thus, in a
Sense, you mar the working of Nature when you take your
manure not from your own farm animals, but get rid of the
animals and order the manure-content from Chile. Then you
are playing fast and loose with things — neglecting
the fact that this is a perfect and self-contained cycle,
which ought to be maintained, complete in itself.
Needless to say, we must arrange things so; we
must have enough and the right kind of animals, so as to
get enough manure and the right kind for our farm. Or
again, we must take care to plant what the animals which
we desire to have will like to eat instinctively —
what they will seek out for themselves. Naturally, here
our experiments grow complicated — they become
individual, in fact.
Hence, as I said, we must first indicate general guiding
lines for individual treatment. Much will remain to be
tried out. Then useful rules of conduct will emerge; but
all of these will proceed from the one guiding live: to
make the farm, as far as possible, so self-contained that
it is able to sustain itself. As far as possible —
not quite! Why not? The concrete study of Spiritual
Science will never make you a fanatic. In outer life,
within our present economic order, it cannot be fully
attained. Nevertheless, you should try to attain it as
far as possible.
We can now find the concrete, specific relations of the
animal organism to the plant — that is, to the
organism of the fodder. Let us first see it as a whole.
Observe the root, which develops as a rule inside the
earth. There the manure permeates it, as we have Seen,
with a nascent Ego-force — an Ego-force in process
of becoming. Through the whole way it lives in the Earth,
the root absorbs this nascent Ego-force. The root is
assisted in absorbing this Ego-force if it can find the
proper quantity of salt in the Earth. Here then we have
the root. Simply on the basis of the thoughts we have
already placed before us, we can now recognise it as that
foodstuff which, if it comes into the human organism,
will most easily find its way, in the digestive process,
to the head.
We shall therefore provide root-nourishment if we must
assume that substance — material substance —
is needed for the head, so that the cosmic forces working
plastically through the head may find the proper stuff to
work upon. What will it remind you of when this is said:
“I must give roots as fodder to an animal which
needs to carry material substance into its head, so that
it may have a live and mobile sense-relationship, i.e. a
cosmic relationship, to its cosmic environment.”
Will you not immediately think of the calf and the
carrot? When the calf eats the carrot, this process is
fulfilled.
You see, the moment you express such a piece of knowledge
— if you are actually aware what a farm looks like,
what it is like in practice, your thoughts will turn at
once to what is actually done. You need only know that
this is the real mutual process.
Let us proceed. Now that the material substance has been
conveyed into the head — now that we have served
the calf with the carrot — the reverse process must
be able to take place. The head must be able to work with
will-activity, creating forces in the organism, so that
these forces in their turn can work right down into the
body. The carrot-dung must not be merely deposited in the
head. From what is there deposited — from
what is there in process of disintegration —
Force-radiations must pass into the body. Therefore you
need a second foodstuff. Having now served this member of
the body, you need a second foodstuff which in its turn
will enable the head to fulfil its proper function by the
remainder of the body.
Suppose, then, I have given carrot-fodder. Now I want the
body to be properly permeated by the forces that are able
to evolve out of the head. Now I need something in Nature
that has a ray-like, radiating form, or that gathers up
the ray-like nature in a concentrated “tabloid”
form, so to speak. What shall I use, then, as a second
foodstuff? Once more, I shall add to the carrot something
that tends to ray out in the plant, and afterwards
gathers-in its ray-like force in concentration. So my
attention is directed to linseed or the like. Such is the
fodder you should give young cattle. Carrots and linseed,
or something that will go together on the same principle
say, for instance, carrots and fresh hay. These will work
through and through the animal — mastering its
inner processes — setting it well on the way of its
development.
Thus, for young cattle, we shall always try to provide
fodder such as will stimulate the Ego-forces on the one
hand, and on the other hand assist what passes downward
from above — the astral radiations which are needed
to fill the body through. Assistance of the latter kind
is rendered especially by long and thin-stalked plants,
left simply to their own development — that is to
say, long grass, etc., that has grown into hay —
whatever is long and thin-stalked and goes to hay
(Diagram 20). In agriculture we must always learn to look
at the things themselves, and of each thing we must learn
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 matter further. Suppose you wish the
animal to become strong precisely in the middle region,
where the head organisation — that of
nerves-and-senses — develops more towards the
breathing, and on the other hand the metabolic
organisation also tends towards the rhythmic life, and
the two poles interpenetrate. What animals do you wish to
become strong in this region? The milk-giving creatures —
they must grow strong in this middle part. For in the
production of milk precisely this requirement is
fulfilled.
What must you care for in this case? You must see that
the right co-operation is there between the stream that
passes backwards from the head — which is mainly a
streaming of forces — and the stream that
passes forward from behind, which is mainly a streaming
of substance. If this co-operation is taking
place, so that the streaming from behind is thoroughly
worked through by the forces that flow from the
fore-parts backward, good and copious milk will be the
outcome. For the good milk contains what has been
specially developed in the metabolic process. It is a
metabolic preparation, which, though it has not yet
passed through the sexual System, has become as nearly as
possible akin — in the digestive process itself —
to the sexual digestive process. Milk is a transformed
sexual gland secretion. A substance which is on the way
to become sexual secretion is met by the head-forces
working into it and so transforming it. You can see right
into this process.
If now we wish the processes to form themselves in this
way, we must look around for foodstuffs working less
towards the head than the roots, which latter have
absorbed the Ego-force. At the Same time, since it has to
remain akin to the sexual force, we must not have too
much of the astral in it — not too much of what
tends towards blossom and fruit. For a good
milk-production we must therefore look to what is there
between the flower and the root that is, to the green
foliage: all that unfolds in leaf and vegetable foliage
(Diagram 21).
If we want to stimulate the development of milk, in an
animal whose milk-production we have reason to believe
could be increased, we shall certainly attain the desired
end if we proceed as follows. Assume I am feeding a milk
cow — according to the prevailing conditions —
with vegetable leaves or foliage or the like. Now I want
to increase the milk production. I say to myself, it
surely can be increased. What shall I do? I shall use
plants which draw the fruiting process — the
process that takes place in flower and fertilisation —
down into the foliage, into the leafing process. This
applies for instance to the pod-bearing or leguminous
plants notably the various kinds of clover. In the
clover-substance, manifold elements of a fruit-like
quality develop just life leaf and foliage.
Treat the cow in this way and you will not see much
result in the cow herself, but when she calves (for the
fodder-reforms you introduce along these lines generally
take a generation to work themselves out), when the cow
calves, the calf will become a good milk-cow.
One thing especially you must observe in all these
matters. As a rule, when the traditions of old
instinctive wisdom vanished from this sphere, a few
things were maintained just as our doctors have
maintained a few of the old remedies. Though they no
longer know why, they have kept them on, simply because
they always find them helpful. Likewise in farming,
certain things are known out of old tradition. People do
not know why, but they continue to use them, and for the
rest, they make experiments and tests. Thus they try to
indicate the quantities that should be given for
fattening cattle, milk cattle and the like. But the whole
thing turns out as it usually does when men begin to
experiment at random — especially when their
experimenting is left to mere chance.
Think what happens, for example, if ever you have a sore
throat at a place where you are among many people.
Everyone who is fond of you will offer you some remedy.
Within half an hour you have a whole chemist's shop! If
you really took all these remedies the one would cancel
the other out, and the only sure thing is that you would
suffer indigestion, while your sore throat would be no
better. The simple measures that ought to be taken are
thus transformed into great complication.
So it is when you begin experimenting with all kinds of
fodder. You begin to use something. In a certain
direction it goes well, in another it does not. Now you
add a second fodder to it, and so you go on, and the
result is a whole number of standard fodders, each of
which has its significance for young cattle or fattening
cattle as the case may be, but it all he comes very
complicated, and to-day no one can see the wood for the
trees. They have no longer any comprehensive vision of
the relationships of forces which are involved. Or again,
the effect of the one thing is such as to cancel the
other out.
This is happening very widely, especially among those who
have acquired a little learning by their academic
studies, and thereupon go out and try to farm. Then they
look up their text-books, or they remember what they
learned: “Young cattle should be fed so and so,
cattle you wish to fatten should be fed in that way,”
and so on. So they will look it all up. But the results
will not be very great, for it may easily happen that
what you look up in the text-book will clash with what
you are already giving of your own accord.
You can only proceed rationally by taking your start from
a way of thought such as I have now indicated, for this
will very largely simplify the animal's food, and you
will gain a comprehensive view of what you are doing. For
instance, you can see quite clearly and straightforwardly
that carrots and linseed together will work in this way.
You do not make a general confusion. You have a clear and
comprehensive view of the effects of what you give. Think
how you will stand in your farming work if you do things
in this way quite consciously and deliberately. Thus you
will gain a knowledge, not for the complication but for
the simplification of the fodder problem.
Much — indeed, very much — of what has
gradually been discovered by experiment is quite correct.
It is only unsystematic, lacking in precision. Precisely
this kind of “exact science” is not exact at
all in reality, for many things get muddled up together
and no one can see through them clearly; whereas the
things I have here exemplified can be traced right down
into the animal organism in their comparative simplicity,
in their comparatively simple mutual effects.
Now take another case. Let us look more towards the
flowering nature and the fruiting process that arises in
the flower. But we must not stop short at this. We must
also observe the fruiting process in the remainder of the
plant. Plants have a property which endeared them
especially to Goethe. The plant always has throughout its
body the inherent potentiality of its specialised parts.
For most plants, we put into the earth that which appears
as potential fruit in the flower. We plant it in the
earth so as to get new plants. With the potato, however,
we do not do so. We use the “eyes” of the
potato. And so it is in many plants: the fruiting
tendency is not only there in the flower. Nature does not
carry all her processes to the final stage.
The fruiting process, where Nature has not yet carried it
to the final stage, can always be enhanced in its effect
by processes which are outwardly similar, in one way or
another, to the external process of combustion. For
instance, if you chop up and dry the plant for fodder,
the stuff you get will be more effective if you let it
steam a little — spread it out in the sunlight. The
process that is there as an inner tendency is thus led a
little farther towards fructification.
There is a wonderful instinct in these matters. Look at
the world with intelligence and you will ask: Why,did it
ever occur to human beings to cook their food? It is a
very real question, only as a rule we are not prone to
question the everyday things with which we are so
familiar. Why did men come to cook their food at all?
Because they by and by discovered that a considerable
part is played, in all that tends towards the fruiting
process, by all such processes as cooking, burning,
heating, drying, steaming.
These processes will all of them incline the flower and
the seed (yet not only these; indirectly the other parts
of the plant also, notably those that lie towards the
upper region) to develop more strongly the forces that
have to be developed in the metabolic and limb-system of
the animal. Even if you take the simple flower or seed —
the flower and seed of the plant work on the metabolic or
digestive system of the animal. And they work there
chiefly by virtue of the forces they unfold, not by their
substance. For the metabolic and limb-system requires
earthly forces, and in the measure in which it needs them
it must receive them.
Think of the animals that pasture on the alpine meadows,
for example. They are not like the animals of the plains,
for they must walk about under difficult conditions. The
conditions are different, simply through the fact that
the earth's surface is not level. It is a different thing
for animals to walk about on level ground or on a slope.
Such animals, therefore, must receive what will develop
the forces in the region of their limbs, i.e. the forces
that have to be exerted by the will. Otherwise they will
not become good labouring animals, nor milk-, nor
fattening animals.
We must see to it that they get sufficient nourishment
from the aromatic alpine herbs, where through the cooking
process of the Sun, working towards the flowers, Nature
herself has enhanced the fruiting, flowering activity by
further treatment. But the necessary force can also be
brought into the limbs by artificial treatment, notably
if it is anything like cooking, boiling, simmering or the
like. Here it is best to take what comes from the
fruiting, flowering parts of the plant, and in this way
it is especially good to treat such plants as tend from
the outset to the fruiting and the flowering —
plants, that is to say, which develop little leaf and
foliage but tend at once to develop flower and fruit. All
that in the plant-world, which does not care to become
leaf and foliage, but rather grows rampant in the
flowering and fruit-bearing process— that is what
we ought to cook.
For themselves, too, men would do well to observe these
things. If they did so, we should have less of those
movements which take their start from people who find
themselves — all unawares — upon the downward
slope, the inclined plane of laziness. They say to
themselves, no doubt, “If I spend the whole day
with petty manipulations, I can never become a true
mystic. I can only become a true mystic if I am restful
and quiet. I must not always be compelled — by my
own needs or by the needs of those around me — to
be up and doing. I must be able to say to my surrounding
world: I have not the energy to spare for all this outer
work. Then I shall be able to become a true mystic.
Therefore I will endeavour to arrange my food so that I
may become a thorough-going mystic.” Well, if you
say that to yourself, you will become a raw-food crank.
You will have no more cooking. You go in for raw food
only.
These things are easily masked; they do not always emerge
in this way. If someone who is well on the inclined plane
to mysticism of this kind becomes an uncooked-food crank
— and if from the outset he has a weak physical
constitution — he will make good progress, he will
become more and more indolent, i.e. mystical.
What happens to man in this respect, we can also apply to
the animal. Thus we shall know how to make our animals
quick and active. For the human being, however, other
things too can occur. He may be physically strong and
only afterwards become so “cranky” as to want
to be a mystic. He may have strong physical forces in
him. Then the processes he has within him — and,
moreover, the forces which the raw food itself calls
forth in him — will develop strongly, and it cannot
do him much harm. For as he eats the raw food he will
summon the forces which would otherwise remain latent and
create rheumatism and gout. He will summon them to
activity, he will develop them and work them and thus
grow all the stronger.
Thus there are two sides to every question, and we must
realise how all these things are individualised. We
cannot give hard and fast principles. This is the real
advantage of the vegetarian mode of life. It makes us
stronger because we draw forth from the organism forces
which would otherwise be lying fallow there. These are,
in fact, the very forces that create gout and rheumatism,
diabetes and the like.
If we only eat plant food, these forces are called into
activity to lift the plant up to human nature. If, on the
other hand, we eat animal food from the outset, these
forces are left latent in the organism. They remain
unused and as a result they will begin to use themselves,
depositing metabolic products in various parts of the
organism, or driving out of the organs and claiming for
themselves things that the human being himself should
possess, as in the case of diabetes, etc. We only
understand these matters when we look more deeply.
Now let us come to the question, how should we fatten
animals? Here we must say to ourselves: As much as
possible of cosmic substance must be carried, as it were,
into a sack. Oh, the pigs, the fat pigs and sows —
what heavenly creatures they are! In their fat body —
insofar as it is not nerves-and-senses system —
they have nothing but cosmic substance. It is not
earthly, it is cosmic substance. The pigs only need the
material food they eat, to distribute throughout their
body this infinite fulness of cosmic substance which they
must absorb from all quarters. The pig must feed, so as
to be able to distribute the substance which it draws in
from the Cosmos. It must have the necessary forces for
the distribution of this cosmic substance.
And so it is with other fattened animals. So you will
see: Your fatstock will thrive if you give them fruiting
substance (further treated, if possible, by cooking,
steaming or the like) and if you give them food which
already has the fruiting process in it in a rather
enhanced and intensive degree — for instance,
turnips or beet, enlarged already in Nature by a process
going beyond what they had in them originally —
turnips or beet, that is to say, which by enhanced
cultivation have grown bigger than they were in the wild.
Once more, then, we can ask ourselves: What must we give
to the animal we wish to fatten? Something which will
help, at least, to distribute the cosmic substance. It
must therefore be something that tends already of its own
accord towards the fruiting nature, and that has received
the proper treatment in addition. This condition is on
the whole fulfilled in certain oil-cakes and the like.
But we must not leave the head of such an animal quite
unprovided for. Some earthly substance must still be able
to pass upward through this “fattening cure”
into the head. We therefore need something else in
addition — albeit in smaller quantities, for the
head in this instance will not need so much. But in small
quantities we do need it. For our fattening animals we
should therefore add something of a rooty-nature to the
food, however small a dose.
Now there is a kind of substance — indeed, it is
pure substance which has no special function. Generally
speaking, we can say, the root-nature has its special
functions in relation to the head; the flower in relation
to the metabolic and limb-system, and leaf or foliage in
relation to the rhythmic system with the substantial
nature that belongs to it in the human organism. But
there is one more thing whose help we need because it is
related to all the members of the animal organisation,
and that is the salt-nature. Very little of the food —
whether of man or beast — consists of salt!. From
this salt-condiment you can tell that it is not
always quantity that matters, but quality. This is
important. Even the smallest quantities fulfil their
purpose if the quality is right.
Now there is one thing of importance I should like to
paint out, and I beg you to make exact experiments on
this — experiments which could well be extended to
an observation of human beings, at any rate of those who
incline towards the food question. You know that in
modern time (relatively speaking, it is only a short time
since) the tomato has been introduced as a kind of
staple food. Many people are fond of it. Now the tomato
is one of the most interesting subjects of study. Much
can be learned from the production and consumption of
tomatoes. Those who concern themselves a little with
these things — and there are such men to-day —
rightly consider 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 within the organism — tends to fall out of
the organism, i.e. for that which assumes —
once more, within the organism — an organisation of
its own.
Two things follow from this. First, it confirms the
statement of an American to the effect that a diet of
tomatoes will, under given conditions, have a most
beneficial effect on a morbid inclination of the liver.
In effect, the liver of all Organs works with the
greatest relative independence in the human body.
Therefore, quite generally speaking, liver diseases —
those that are rather diseases of the animal liver —
can be combated by means of the tomato.
At this point we can begin to look right into the
connection between plant and animal. I may say, in
parenthesis, suppose a person is suffering from
carcinoma. Carcinoma, from the very outset, makes a
certain region independent within the human or animal
organism. Hence a carcinoma patient should at once be
forbidden to eat tomatoes. Now let us ask ourselves: What
is it due to? Why does the tomato work especially on that
which is independent within the organism — that
which specialises itself out of the organic totality?
This is connected with what the tomato needs for its own
origin and growth.
The tomato feels happiest if it receives manure as far as
possible in the original form in which it was excreted or
otherwise separated out of the animal or other organism —
manure which has not had much time to get assimilated in
Nature — wild manure, so to speak. Take any kind of
refuse and throw it together as a disorderly manure- or
compost-heap, containing as much as possible in the form
in which it just arose — nohow prepared or worked
upon. Plant them there, and you will soon see that you
get the finest tomatoes. Nay, more, if you use a heap of
compost made of the tomato-plant itself — stem,
foliage and all — if you let the tomato grow on its
own dung, so to speak, it will develop splendidly.
The tomato does not want to go out of itself; it does not
want to depart from the realm of strong vitality. It
wants to remain therein. It is the most uncompanionable
creature in the whole plant-kingdom. It does not want to
get anything from outside. Above all, it rejects any
manure that has already undergone an inner process. It
will not have it. The tomato's power to influence any
independent organisation within the human or animal
organism is connected with this, its property.
To some extent, in this respect, the potato is
akin to the tomato. The potato, too, works in a highly
independent way, and in this sense: it passes easily
right through the digestive process, penetrates into the
brain, and makes the brain independent —
independent even of the influence of the remaining Organs
of the body. Indeed, the exaggerated use of potatoes is
one of the factors that have made men and animals
materialistic since the introduction of potato
cultivation into Europe. We should only eat just enough
potatoes to stimulate our brain and head-nature. The
eating of potatoes, above all, should not be overdone.
The knowledge of such things will relate agriculture in a
most intimate way — and in a thoroughly objective
way — to the social life as a whole. It is
infinitely important that agriculture should be so
related to the social life.
I could go on, giving many individual guiding lines.
These guiding lines are only the foundation for manifold
experiments, which will extend, no doubt, over a long
period of time. Splendid results will emerge if you work
out in thorough-going tests and experiments what I have
given here. I say this also as a guiding line for your
treatment of what has been given in this lecture course.
I am in entire agreement with the strict resolve which
has been made by our farmer friends here present, namely,
that what has been given here to all those partaking in
the Course shall remain for the present within the
farmers' circle. They will enhance it and develop it by
actual experiments and tests. The farmers' society —
the “Experimental Circle” that has been
formed — will fix the point of time when in its
judgment the tests and experiments are far enough
advanced to allow these things to be published.
Full recognition is due to the tolerance which has been
shown, which has allowed a number of interested persons,
not actually farmers, to share in this Course. They must
now recall the well-known opera and fix a padlock on
their mouths. Do not fall into the prevalent
anthroposophical mistake and straightway proclaim it all
from the housetops. We have often been harmed in this
way. Person who have nothing to say out of a real or
well-founded impulse, but only repeat what they have
heard, go passing things an from mouth to mouth. It has
done us much harm. It makes a great difference, for
example, whether a farmer speaks of these things, or one
who stands remote from farming life. It makes a
difference, which you will quickly recognise.
What would result if our non-farmer friends now began to
pass these things on, as a fresh and interesting chapter
of anthroposophical teaching? The result would be what
has occurred with many of our lecture-cycles. Others —
including farmers — would begin to hear of these
things from this and that quarter. As to the farmers —
well, if they hear of these things from a fellow-farmer,
they will say, “What a pity he has suddenly gone
crazy!” Yes, they may say it the first time and the
second time. But eventually — when the farmer sees
a really good result, he will not feel a very easy
conscience in rejecting it outright.
If, on the other hand, the farmers hear of these things
from unauthorised persons — from persons who are
merely interested — then indeed “the game is
up.” If that were to happen, the whole thing would
be discredited, its influence would be undermined.
Therefore it is most necessary: those of our friends who
have only been allowed to take part owing to their
general interest and who are not in the Agricultural
Circle, must exercise the necessary self-restraint. They
must keep it to themselves and not go carrying it in all
directions as people are so fond of doing with
anthroposophical things.
This principle, as our honoured friend, Count
Keyserlingk, to-day announced, has been resolved upon by
the Agricultural Circle, and I can only say that I
approve it in the very fullest sense. For the rest —
except for our final discussion hour — we are now
at the end of these lectures. Therefore perhaps I may
first express my own satisfaction that you were ready to
come here, to take your share in what has been able to be
said and in what is now to become of it by further work.
On the other hand, I am sure you will all agree with me
in this:
What has here taken place is intended as real, useful
work, and as such it has the deepest inner value. But you
will bear in mind two things. Let us now think of all the
energy and work that was needed on the part of Count and
Countess Keyserlingk and all the members of their House
to bring to pass all that has come about in this Course.
Energy, clear, conscious purpose, anthroposophical good
sense, purity and singleness of heart in the cause of
Spiritual Science, self-sacrifice and many another thing
was necessary to this end. And so it has also come about
— I imagine it is so for you all: what we have here
been doing as a piece of real hard work, work which is
tending to great and fruitful results for all humanity,
has been given a truly festive setting by our presence
here. We owe it to the way our host and hostess have
arranged it all. In five minutes' time you will have
another example of their festive hospitality.
All
that has been done in this way — last but not
least, the cordial kindness of all the people, working in
the house — has placed our work in the warm and
welcome setting of a truly beautiful festival. Thus, with
our Agriculture Conference we have also enjoyed a real
farm festival. Therefore we offer Countess and Count
Keyserlingk and all their House our heartiest and inmost
thanks for all that they have done for us in these ten
days — for all that they have done in the service
of our cause, and for their kind and loving welcome to us
all, which has made our sojourn here so pleasant.