VII. Spiritual-Scientific Foundations for a True Physiology

On account of our sense of smell we would always like to be flying. The bird can fly but we cannot; at best we have these solid shoulder blades. Why can the bird fly? Gentlemen, the bird has something peculiar that enables it to fly; it has hollow bones. Air is inside them and the air that the bird absorbs through its organ of smell comes into contact with the air that it has in its bones. Indeed, the bird is primarily a being of air. Its most important aspect consists of air; the rest is merely grown on to it. The many feathers a bird may have are actually all dried up. The most significant thing, even in the ostrich, is that a bit of air is still contained in each downy feather and all this air is connected with the air outside. The ostrich walks because it is too heavy to fly but, of course, the other birds do.