{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 177/1917-10-13/p029","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"One can make a strong point of saying these things to people today, but whether they will also take it as a strong point is another question. Something that was just as intelligent as the politicians' idea of the potential duration of the war—again I am not being ironical—were the reasons given by an enlightened group of medical men when the first railways were being built in Central Europe. Speaking on the basis of medical knowledge at the time, not just a single eccentric but a whole group of medical men—I have spoken of this before—said that the railways should not be built because the human nervous system would not be able to cope with them. This is on historical record; it happened in 1838. Not so long ago, therefore, the professional opinion was that railways should not be built. If, however, people were to build railways after all—so the document says—high board fences should be put on either side of the tracks, so that the farmers would not see the trains passing by and suffer concussion as a result. Yes, it is easy to laugh afterwards, when reality has ignored such arguments. People laugh about it afterwards, but there are some elemental spirits who laugh about human folly when it is being committed, or indeed even before scientists come up with such foolish notions.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"8. Abstraction and Reality","site_heading":null,"date":"1917-10-13","location":null,"word_count":225,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/177/1917-10-13/p029","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Anna R. Meuss","identified_edition":"RSP1993","book_title":"The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA177/English/RSP1993/19171013p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/177/1917-10-13/p029"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/177/1917-10-13/p029","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1917-10-13","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 177/1917-10-13/p026","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/177/1917-10-13/p026"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":236,"en_words":225,"ratio":0.95,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 177/1917-10-13/p026","passage_number":26,"text":"Man kann, was ich jetzt sage, heute zu den Menschen ganz gewiß eindringlich sagen. Ob es eindringlich aufgenommen wird, das ist aber eine andere Frage. Denn geradeso geistreich wie das war, was die Nationalpolitiker vorgebracht haben für die mögliche Dauer des Krieges von vier bis sechs Monaten, ebenso geistreich, wirklich geistreich — ich meine es jetzt wieder nicht ironisch — waren die Gründe, welche jenes aufgeklärte Medizinalkollegium beim Bau der ersten Eisenbahn in Mitteleuropa geltend machte, aus der damaligen medizinischen Wissenschaft heraus. Sie haben damals gesagt, nicht ein einzelner Querkopf, sondern ein erleuchtetes Kollegium - ich habe es öfter angeführt —, man solle keine Eisenbahnen bauen, denn das menschliche Nervensystem könne Eisenbahnen nicht aushalten. Das ist ein aufgeschriebenes Dokument aus dem Jahre 1838. Also nicht lange hinter uns liegt die Zeit, die das Urteil fällte, man solle nur ja keine Eisenbahnen bauen; wenn aber schon solche Menschen sich finden sollten - das steht in diesem Dokument -, die Eisenbahnen bauen lassen wollen, so müsse man wenigstens zu beiden Seiten hohe Bretterwände aufführen, damit die Bauern die Züge, welche vorbeifahren, nicht sehen und etwa Gehirnerschütterung dadurch kriegen. — Ja, über solche Dinge lachen die Menschen, wenn es sich hinterher herausstellt, wie die Wirklichkeit über solche angebliche Gründe hinweggeht. Nachher lachen die Menschen. Aber gewisse Elementargeister, die lachen auch gleichzeitig, ja sie lachten sogar schon in der Zeit, bevor solche wissenschaftlichen Dinge gemacht wurden, über die menschlichen Torheiten.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":236,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/177/1917-10-13/p026"}],"english":["GA 177/1917-10-13/p029"],"method":"length","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":236,"en_words":225,"ratio":0.95,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.04,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":6747,"original_word_count":6463,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Anna R. Meuss","identified_edition":"RSP1993","book_title":"The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness","publisher":"Rudolf Steiner Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA177/English/RSP1993/19171013p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 177/1917-10-13/p026"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}