Lord Northbourne - Weekend quote, 23.12.2011

Mechanical efficiency is the ideal of materialism, but unless it is subservient to and disciplined by the spirit, it can take charge and destroy the spirit. In life, though not in mechanics, the things of the spirit are more real than material things. They include religion, poetry, and all the arts. They are the mainspring of culture which can make life worth while. Farming is concerned primarily with life, so if ever in farming the material aspect conflicts with the spiritual or cultural, the later must prevail, or all that which matters most in life will be lost... Farming must be on the side of religion, poetry and the arts rather than on the side of business, if ever the two sides conflict. Lord Northbourne