The Rudolf Steiner Archive

First Lecture

Questions are asked regarding colors and rocks.

[ 1 ] I will first address the question regarding the rock, since this can be discussed quite well in the context of the topics we have considered so far.

[ 2 ] As you know, when you build something on Earth, you have to take the laws of gravity, the laws of weight, and a number of other factors—for example, what are known as the laws of elasticity, which we’ll discuss in a moment—very much into account. Imagine you’re building a tower—let’s say, a tower like the one at Cologne Cathedral, or something like the Eiffel Tower. Of course, you always have to be clear that you must build it in such a way that the structure doesn’t fall over. Now, if you know the laws of gravity in Table 1* precisely, you can build it so that the structure doesn’t fall over. But the tallest towers on Earth are built in no other way than by having a base area; and if you scale that base area up about ten times—that is, at a ratio of one to ten—you can build the tallest towers. So one to ten is the ratio at which the tallest towers can be built; otherwise, the towers would topple over due to the vibrations that inevitably occur from the Earth’s movement, gusts of wind, and so on.

[ 3 ] But one must also take into account that such towers are somewhat elastic in nature. The top always wobbles a little. What is known as elastic force must be taken into account. It always wobbles, but not too much; as soon as it wobbles too much, it would break. The Eiffel Tower wobbles quite significantly at its top. But one must always bear in mind that it will not fall off its base.

[ 4 ] Well, you’ll immediately notice that these laws aren’t followed at all when you look at, say, a stalk of wheat. A stalk of wheat has a small base area. In reality, it’s really nothing more than a tower. And such a stalk of wheat, which has a small base area, rises high up, and if you calculate this ratio, it is by no means what we must always adhere to in mechanical structures—one to ten or something like that—but rather, for example, one to four hundred, and for some stalks, one to five hundred. So according to the laws we apply as engineers on Earth, such a tower must inevitably fall over! For when the wind shakes it, its elastic forces are by no means such that you can comprehend them according to the laws an engineer must observe. And if you wanted to place something particularly heavy on top of the Eiffel Tower up there, you would see that you couldn’t do it at all. But this tower, which is a blade of grass, has an ear of grain placed on top that sways in the wind. You see, this contradicts all the laws of architecture.

[ 5 ] Well, if you examine the materials it’s made of, first you get wood—that is, what you extract during the analysis is wood pulp; then what else you extract is something you’re already familiar with: bast. You can see that on trees. And what else is inside is a true building material: silica, quartz, pure silicic acid. But this is hard quartz, like the kind found in the Alps and present, for example, in granite or gneiss. So this quartz forms an entire framework. And in addition, there is a fourth component: water. So this mortar, made of wood, bast, water, and silica—this mortar defies all earthly laws. A blade of grass is thus also a tower, built entirely of these materials; it can sway in the wind, does not break, and, when the wind stops or the weather is favorable, quietly rights itself again. You know that, of course. But the kind of forces needed to build something like that from the earth do not exist on earth. And if you ask, “Well, where do these forces come from?”—the answer must once again be: The Eiffel Tower is dead; the blade of wheat is alive. — But it does not draw its life from the earth; rather, it draws its life from the entire surrounding world. Just as gravity pulls the Eiffel Tower downward, the blade of wheat does not grow by supporting itself on what lies below it. When we build the Eiffel Tower, we must lay one layer of material on top of another, and in that way, the lower layers will indeed always support the upper ones. That is not the case with the blade of wheat. The blade of grass is, in fact, drawn out into the cosmos. So if you have a mental image of the earth with the blades of grass on it, they are all drawn out into the cosmos, because the entire space is filled with a finer substance called the ether, which lives within the plant. But this life does not come from the earth; it comes from the cosmos. So we can say: Life comes from the cosmos. And this is also the basis for what I have already told you: when the egg forms in the womb, the womb merely provides the substance. What acts upon the egg is the entire universe. It animates the egg. You see, the entire universe is at work within everything that lives.

[ 6 ] If you look at a plant, it first grows underground. That would be the soil (it is drawn); the plant grows inside it. But this soil is not just an indifferent mass—it is actually something quite wonderful. There are all kinds of substances in this soil. But in ancient times, three substances were particularly important in this soil. One of them is a substance called mica. Today, only a small amount of it is found in the plant; but even though so little of it is found in the plant, it is extraordinarily important. You may recall, if you’ve ever seen mica flakes, that mica is flake-shaped—small flakes that sometimes appear translucent. And the Earth was once permeated by such mica flakes. They ran in this direction (see drawing). When the Earth was still soft, such forces were simply at work. And counteracting these were other forces; they ran like this (see drawing), so that there was a true lattice (Plate 2) within the Earth. And these other forces are contained today in quartz and silica. And in between there is another substance, primarily clay. And this clay, which binds the two together, fills out the lattice, as it were. It is called feldspar as a rock. So that the Earth once consisted primarily of these three types of rock. But it was all soft and mushy. There was mica, which actually worked to make the Earth flaky, so that the Earth would have been flaky in the horizontal direction. Then there was the flint inside, which shone so brightly. And then there was the feldspar, which cemented the two together.

[ 7 ] We find these primary components today when we take the clay that is found everywhere in the fields. These three substances were once mixed together in the earth. Today, these three substances can be found out in the mountains. If we take a piece of granite, it is quite granular. It’s full of little fragments; these fragments are shattered mica flakes. Then there are very hard grains; that is quartz. And then there are binding grains; that is feldspar. These three substances have been ground down and turned into grains, and today they can be found out in the mountains. They form the bedrock of the hardest mountains. So, ever since the Earth was soft, they have been crushed and pounded by all kinds of forces at work within the Earth, have been mixed together, and today they lie ground down out in the mountains. But remnants of these ancient substances—namely, remnants of the forces of these ancient substances—can still be found everywhere within the Earth. And from these remnants, plants are built up through the cosmos.

[ 8 ] So we can say: Yes, when these cosmic forces are at work today out in the mountains, they can no longer do anything there. The rocks there have been worn down, crumbled, and broken into grains, and they are too hard to become plants. But with what is inside the earth, this is still possible—namely because the earth still imparts its most essential substances and forces to the seed—and can be used to build up the plant from the cosmic realm.

[ 9 ] You see, gentlemen, such a perspective—one that takes into account how the entire cosmos contributes to life—simply does not exist in modern science. Recently, as you may have read, a lecture was given in Basel; there, the question of how life actually came to be on Earth was discussed, and the speaker in question said: Yes, it is difficult to imagine that life could arise merely through the mixing or chemical compounds of substances on Earth; therefore, it must come from outer space. But how?—Well, it’s interesting how a modern scholar has in his mental image that life could come from outer space. He tells himself: “Well, if it isn’t on Earth, then it must come from other stars.” Well, the nearest star that might once have shed matter that would then have flown toward Earth is so far away from Earth that this matter, once shed, would have taken forty thousand years to travel here. So one would have to create a mental image—as people used to say—of Earth as once fiery and molten, a fiery body. No life could have existed on it then; otherwise, it would naturally have been burned up. But the Earth cooled down. Once it had cooled, it was in a state where it could now sustain life, assuming that life had flown here from the nearest star—the one thought to be the source—from which it would have taken forty thousand years to reach us.

[ 10 ] “Well,” said the person in question, “it’s hard to create a mental image of a seed of life—a tiny seed of life—that could have traveled through outer space for forty thousand years, especially in a cold environment—not a warm one, but one with a temperature of minus 273 degrees Celsius.” Then it would arrive on Earth, and when it arrived on Earth, life would arise on Earth. Before that, so many other seeds of life could have flown in, but they would have been incinerated. And once the Earth had cooled sufficiently, they would have flourished. But that simply couldn’t be the case, said the person in question. So we don’t know where life comes from.

[ 11 ] But you can see that it comes from outer space. You can truly see that in living things, it is not only the forces of the Earth that are at work. After all, we use the forces of the Earth for the Eiffel Tower, for example. And in a tower like this one (in the wheat stalk), it is not merely the forces of the Earth that are at work, but the forces of the entire cosmos. And when the Earth was still soft—when mica, feldspar, and quartz were floating together in a liquid state within it—the entire Earth was under the influence of the cosmos, and it was a gigantic plant. So when you go out into the mountains today and find granite there, or gneiss—which differs from granite only in that its mica is more abundant and more prominent—when you go out into the mountains today and look at the granite or the gneiss, these are the remains of those ancient plant formations. The entire Earth was a plant. And just as, when a plant dies today, it yields its mineral components to the Earth, so the entire Earth’s body, when it was still a plant, later yielded its mineral components to the Earth. And that is where the mountains come from today. So one can say: The hardest mountains that have formed—these hardest mountains—arose from the plant realm, and the entire Earth was a kind of plant.

[ 12 ] I’ve already told you what the Earth looked like when this rock had just stopped being a plant, but everything was still soft. It wasn’t the animals and humans we know today that lived there, but the Megatherium and all those animals I’ve told you about. But before all that happened, the Earth was a giant plant in outer space. And if you look at a plant today in such a way that you magnify it, you’ll still find that what’s inside it looks very much like the mountain formations out there, because the life that comes from outer space now acts only on the plant as a whole; the small parts are already rock mass. — So the Earth was once alive, and what we find today in the hardest mountain rocks is the remnant of how the Earth once lived.

[ 13 ] But there is another way in which the Earth’s hard, rocky material is formed. If you go out into the ocean, you will find islands there. So this is the ocean (it is drawn). At a certain depth beneath the ocean, there are tiny creatures that live in colonies: corals. These coral animals have the peculiarity of continuously secreting calcium carbonate. The calcium carbonate then remains there, so that the island becomes covered by this deposited calcium carbonate, which comes from the corals. And sometimes the seabed here subsides, sinking down, so that a lake even forms. Then there is a ring of calcium carbonate left behind by the corals. In general, the earth is constantly sinking precisely in those areas where the corals secrete their calcium carbonate, so that the calcium carbonate from the corals—which can live only in the sea itself—goes deeper and deeper. So one can say: Even today, one finds calcium carbonate deposits in the sea that originate from animals, namely from corals. In the past, wherever there was Jurassic limestone, there were animals. They deposited the limestone.

[ 14 ] If you go to the Central Alps, where the hard rocks are, you’ll find there what the plants have deposited. If you go here to the Jura Mountains, you’ll find what has been deposited by animals. The entire Earth was once alive. Originally, it was a plant, then an animal. What we have today as rock material are the remains of life.

[ 15 ] It is simply nonsense to say that life arises from chemical compounds of inanimate matter. Life comes from outer space, which is filled with the ether. It is nonsense to say that inanimate matter could mix together and come to life—what is called “spontaneous generation.” No, it is precisely the inanimate substances that originate from the living and are separated from it. Just as our bones are formed separately—we do not have them at first in the womb—so everything, such as the skeletal structure and so on, is formed from the living. The living comes first, and only afterward does the dead follow. The fact is that the ether surrounds us, and the ether draws everything upward just as Earth’s gravity pulls everything downward. But it draws upward without, unlike gravity, causing death. The more you inhale gravity, the more you become prone to gout or diabetes or something similar; the more we become dead. And the more the forces that move upward assert themselves within us, the more alive we become.

[ 16 ] You see, now I’m getting to part of the question Mr. Burle asked. So imagine I have a person in front of me who is ill in some way, and I can say to myself: What this person lacks is that he has too few forces acting out into outer space. He has too many gravitational forces. All sorts of things are accumulating within him. Now I remember: ‘Good heavens,’ I say to myself, ‘that pebble was once the very thing that radiated forces out into the cosmos.’ If I prepare the pebble in such a way that the old forces come alive within it again—that is, if I make a remedy from the pebble, mix it with other substances so that the pebble regains its former etheric force—and then administer it, I can heal with it. And with this pebble remedy, one can achieve great success. So in medicine, one can once again make use of these forces that were once present in the living form of the flint; indeed, medicine can achieve great results when one reflects on what the Earth was like when it was still fully alive, when the flint was still influenced by outer space. So when there is too little life within a person and they need a connection to outer space, one administers to them substances that lie hardened in the external world and that can be used very effectively as medicines.

[ 17 ] The head extends the farthest into outer space, so it can be healed most easily with quartz; the abdomen extends the farthest toward the earth, so it can be healed most easily with mica. And the parts that lie more toward the center—the lungs and so on—can be healed very well with feldspar, provided it is prepared in the proper manner.

[ 18 ] Well, as you can see: If one understands nature, one actually also understands what the healing powers in human nature are. But one must have a sense that the cosmos is working in harmony with our Earth.

[ 19 ] You see, certain things can only be explained in certain contexts. So I can explain bird migration to you from a different perspective than we did some time ago—because we weren’t quite ready for it back then. Yes, modern science takes a very abstract view of bird migration in the fall and spring. In the spring, the birds leave their warmer wintering grounds, and in the fall, when it gets colder, they leave the more northern regions. But there are also birds that fly across the ocean. And it’s very peculiar: these birds fly very fast and don’t stop to rest along the way. This can be proven because there are no islands at all along the routes that such birds sometimes take. People can’t figure out what guides these birds. Some have said: Well, it’s an inherited trait; the young always inherit it from the older birds, and the older birds then teach the young, and so it works out quite well that the young are able to do it too. So when fall comes, the older swallows set up a “school”—the young are taught, the older ones fly ahead, the young follow behind and imitate them. That’s the mental image people had. But not all migratory birds do this. It’s quite peculiar. It’s often the case with migratory birds—for example, in Africa—that when spring arrives here, the older migratory birds fly away first and return to us. The young ones can endure it there longer because they’re still strong. The older ones take off earlier and leave the young ones behind; they don’t teach them at all, nor do they lead the way; the young ones have to find their own way all by themselves.

[ 20 ] Some people said: “Well, birds can see very far, after all.” — “So they must be able to see what’s going on over there in Africa; they’d even have to see right through the Earth!” You won’t get very far with that kind of reasoning. But let me give you an example that will show you how things really are. There’s actually something else that can amaze you when it comes to how things work: namely, a ship. What does a ship rely on when it’s sailing from Europe to America? It relies on the compass. Before compasses existed, ships fared poorly anyway; they had to navigate by the stars. So they navigate by the compass—that is, by the forces that are invisible and present in the ether. These are also the forces by which birds navigate. Only we humans no longer have a sense for these invisible forces. Birds, however, do have a sense for them; they possess an inner compass. What we can only learn with great effort—by observing the forces of the ether with a compass and a magnetic needle—a bird already possesses within itself. It flies guided by the ether, by that which acts in the universe.

[ 21 ] And so we can say: The Earth is surrounded by ether everywhere. The ether contains the life forces. These come from outer space, take the substances of the Earth, and use them to create life.

[ 22 ] But a little bit always remains inside as a remnant of life. If you take coral limestone, for example, there is still something in it at first that is somewhat reminiscent of life—something that has branched off from the living. That is why you can still discover all sorts of things in it that, when added to life, can become a good remedy. And if, as I said, you take the pebble—which has already become extremely hard—and add it to human life, then you can effectively cure mental illnesses in particular.

[ 23 ] So there is still life in them. The whole thing was once alive. We cannot say that the rocks are still alive today, but they were once alive. They were once components of life. And a remnant of that remains within them, which we can extract through various means, and through which they serve well as remedies.

[ 24 ] This answers the question of whether there is life within the stones. If someone today were to calculate based solely on the forces at work on Earth, they would come to the conclusion that millions of years ago, the Earth looked very different. Yes, but in doing so, they do not take outer space into account. As I told you recently: If one takes into account what comes from outer space, one does not arrive at such vast time spans at all; rather, one comes to realize that here in our regions everything was still frozen, covered in ice, while over in Asia there was already a very advanced civilization, and great wisdom existed among the people. But one comes to realize that, in a certain way, our earthly life depends on life out there in outer space. And one can say: Even if you go back six, seven, or eight thousand years, the Earth, with its rock formations, was quite different from what it is today—not so much on the outside, but on the inside. And then you go further and further back, to the Earth’s molten state.

[ 25 ] If we want to orient ourselves according to outer space, then we must also observe outer space in the correct way. Now, one can observe outer space by watching the sunrise in spring. Today, on the morning of March 21, the sun rises where the constellation Pisces lies behind it. But if we go further back in history—for example, to the time of Christ’s birth—the sun did not rise with Pisces behind it; rather, it rose with the constellation Aries behind it. 26 Thus, the vernal equinox has shifted. If we chart this, it looks like this: While today the sun rises in Pisces in the spring, on March 21, about 2,160 years ago it rose in Aries, even earlier in Taurus, and even earlier in Gemini. There are twelve such constellations. The Sun’s rising point is constantly shifting; it moves all the way around in a circle; thus, the vernal equinox moves all the way around the world. It is moving steadily from west to east.

[ 26 ] You see, this leads us to conclude that in the past the sun rose in Aries, before that in Taurus, before that in Gemini; then in Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and today in Pisces. So if we go back 2,160 years, it rose in Aries; if we go back another 2,160 years, it rose in Taurus; another 2,160 years back: in Gemini; another 2,160 years back: in Cancer. Then we come full circle, and at one point it had already risen in Pisces. We go all the way around (it is drawn). The Sun completes a cycle. In 25,920 years, it completes a cycle around the entire world.

[ 27 ] That’s very interesting. And from such celestial movements, one can see exactly how everything on Earth changes. You see, gentlemen, under the conditions under which the sun rises today, we have our high mountains with their lifeless granite masses, which contain feldspar, quartz, and mica. Everything there is parched and desolate. That’s how it was 25,920 years ago as well. Conditions on Earth were similar then. But not in between. In between, for example, the Sun was once in Libra in the spring, between Virgo and Scorpio. At that time, the whole world was alive; everything was soft, and the Earth was a kind of plant. We need look no further back than 15,000 years at most; at that time, due to the sun’s entirely different position, the entire Earth was in a plant-like state, and even later, in an animal-like state. And from this influence originating in outer space—which we can observe in the sun—we can indeed see how the Earth has changed.

[ 28 ] So when you go back, you have to think: The rocks that are completely solid in the Ural Alps today begin to flow, much like iron flows in iron foundries—though, of course, it’s not quite like that; rather, when we go back in time, the flow is initially reversed—it is a process of solidification. But if we now look to the future, the Sun will once again be in Libra; for now it rises in Pisces, then after 2,160 years in Aquarius, then in Capricorn, Sagittarius, Scorpio, and once again in Libra. And when the Sun rises in Libra again in the spring of the future, the entire Ural Alps will have dissolved. The dense quartz will have become watery once more, the Earth will become a plant again, and humans and animals will return to the states in which they once were. Only they will have absorbed, in the meantime, everything they could absorb on Earth.

[ 29 ] Everything actually follows a cycle. So we look back to an earlier time when the Earth, even in its hardest form, was liquid. At that time, the conditions above it were such that they gave rise to the animals I once described to you, which came into being and died as a result of the influence of the celestial forces. Then everything cooled down. Then the solid formations arose, and gradually, life as we know it today. But this, in turn, is receding. The granular quartz, granite, and so on will be dissolved, and such a state of life will arise again, only at a higher stage of development.

[ 30 ] If you pick up a piece of granite today that contains quartz, you can say to yourself: In this piece of granite, which contains quartz, there is also something to be seen that will come to life again in the future. It was once alive. Today it is dead. It formed solid ground so that we could walk on it. When we did not yet need to walk, that solid ground did not exist. But it will come to life again.

[ 31 ] Actually, one could say: The Earth sleeps only in relation to outer space; but this sleep is long—at least 15,000 years. Once, it was alive. Back then it was awake; back then it was connected to the entire universe. Back then, the universe, through its life forces, placed the great animals upon it. Later, when the solid earth came into being, it placed human beings upon it. Now human beings have it good on Earth—that is, of course, in relation to the universe, not on Earth itself. They can walk about on solid ground. But this solid ground will awaken again—actually, it is merely sleeping—will awaken again and will be living life. If we take a piece of limestone today, just a very ordinary piece of limestone from the Jurassic period, we must say that it is the remnant of a piece of life. It has been deposited from life, but will live again someday; it exists between life and life, and is actually only sleeping.

[ 32 ] Now we can make very good use of lime by turning it into a remedy—for example, when we notice that, let’s say, children are no longer able to eat properly. This is particularly noticeable in Germany right now. The situation in Germany is terrible at the moment. The other day, when I came to Stuttgart and inspected the Waldorf School again, I visited the first-grade class, for example—we have 27 children there, but only 9 were present; the others were all sick. In another class, 15 were sick. And when you look into it, you find horrifying things. For example, they brought a little boy from one of the classes into the conference room and said to me, “What are we supposed to do with him? The doctor has already given up on him. He can’t eat at all anymore.” — Of course, due to malnutrition, the digestive organs gradually get used to not digesting anything at all; they reject everything. People can no longer eat, no matter how much you give them. You can try Quaker meals and all sorts of things—but they won’t help this child at first, because his organs aren’t functioning anymore. He looked rather plump. — What can be done? First, you have to restore the organs’ ability to absorb anything.

[ 33 ] The small amount of life contained within the lime is very beneficial here. For when the lime is used properly as a remedy, it can reawaken these dormant digestive powers so that the child can live. And then one must give the child a certain amount of this lime, but in combination with other substances, because it has no effect on its own; just as one must cook food together with other ingredients, it must be prepared in such a way that it is truly absorbed into the organism. The lime is then absorbed when it is administered to the child in, say, a five percent solution.

[ 34 ] But what is used when the lime is administered at a five-percent concentration? In that case, one uses the forces that were once life forces within the lime in earlier times. They are still contained within it. You use them to invigorate the substance. But if you make the lime very fine—as they say, in a homeopathic dose—that is, not a 5 percent solution, but, for example, five ten-thousandths—not even one per mille, but five ten-thousandths—so that the lime is mixed in very dilute form with the other substances, homeopathically, then the lime acts on the head and suddenly becomes a remedy for the head. If you administer the lime allopathically, it affects the digestive organs; in a very fine dilution, it affects the head, and you can adjust treatment accordingly. But you can also ask: What part of the lime do you actually use when you administer it in a very fine dilution? Then you use the future forces that are still present within it, the ones that will re-emerge in the future.

[ 35 ] You see, one must understand nature; only then can one derive remedies from it, because life has always existed and will exist again, and death lies only between two lives. One can harness the life forces of the past and the future from the rock in the proper way.

[ 36 ] But you can also see from this: When you look out into the world today, you find allopaths and homeopaths. Allopaths treat patients allopathically, and homeopaths treat them homeopathically. Yes, gentlemen, not all diseases can be cured homeopathically; some simply must be treated allopathically. In such cases, one simply has to mix the remedies differently. This means one must not become a fanatic who swears by labels, but rather must prescribe remedies based on comprehensive knowledge—sometimes one way, sometimes another. This is the case with anthroposophy, because it does not get caught up in buzzwords like “allopathic” or “homeopathic,” but gets to the heart of the matter and says: The allopath focuses primarily on the stomach, intestines, and kidneys; that is where he finds success. The homeopath is effective when the disease originates in the head, as is the case with the flu. Many diseases have their origin in the head. So one must know how things actually work in nature. People today, because they no longer understand anything, resort to catchphrases. People always resort to catchphrases when they no longer understand the matter at hand. — Of course, the truth is hard to uncover then, because the allopath says, “I’ve cured so-and-so many times,” and the homeopath says, “I’ve cured so-and-so many times.” Naturally, they always leave out the cases they haven’t cured.

[ 37 ] But look, even a doctor and professor who could not possibly be accused of not being fully versed in modern medicine—that was Professor Virchow in Berlin, who was even called a true liberal by the Liberal Party—had to admit the following regarding healing: If a doctor today can still claim, within the framework of modern medicine, that he has cured a hundred people, one must actually say that of those hundred, fifty would have recovered even without him, and twenty percent would have recovered even if he had used entirely different methods. So seventy percent are not due to modern medicine, but at most thirty percent. This is how Virchow, who was thoroughly versed in modern medicine, calculated it.

[ 38 ] Yes, gentlemen, one simply has to say: The right remedy, when applied correctly, works. Anyone can see for themselves what I have said about syphilis. The mercury treatment, even if it has aftereffects—harmful aftereffects—still works. And so one simply has to find the right approach. Sometimes it is terribly complicated. Sometimes the organism has become so fragile that it can no longer withstand the treatment. But in a certain sense, it is precisely through a genuine understanding of what exists in nature that one can see how individual substances—since, as dead substances, they actually stand only in the middle between two forms of life—affect human beings. But to do that, one must understand the life of these substances.

[ 39 ] Well, gentlemen, that is precisely the peculiar thing: one must always start from life itself if one wants to understand anything. And so, even when it comes to colors, one must start from life itself.

[ 40 ] You see, when you look at paintings today, they are, of course, painted; but you get the feeling that there is no flesh behind them, only wood that has been painted. Today’s painters cannot achieve the flesh tone—the incarnate—at all, precisely because they lack that feeling within themselves. The flesh tone is generated from within the human being. It does not occur anywhere else in any other substance. But one must understand the flesh tone—the incarnate—and only then can one understand the other colors. I will therefore speak more about this next time.

[ 41 ] The child who was brought to me—the one being treated with a lime cure—hopefully we’ll manage to prevent people from saying: “They didn’t use the right remedy...” (gap in the text) —had completely lost its natural skin color; it had turned yellow from the inside out. Vital activity is an integral part of color. And that is why we also tried to use materials that are less “dead” for the color. That is why, when we painted the Goetheanum, we used plant-based pigments, because they come more directly from the living world. So you see, when it comes to color, one must also turn to the living.

[ 42 ] Next Wednesday, I'll go into more detail about that.

[ 43 ] As you can see, the question—whether stones also have life—wasn’t so silly after all; in fact, it was quite clever, because it allowed us to discuss how stones live, die, and so on throughout the Earth’s life cycle, and how life relates to this process.