The great fact of intelligence, as against material apparatus of any kind and even as against rigid instinct, is its limitless applicability. With this one instrument man achieves what without it could be achieved only by a creature who combined in his own person every kind of material apparatus, offensive and defensive, locomotor or what not, which animal life, and vegetable life too, have invented in the past—and not even by such a creature. Man is a poor pedestrian, but his mind makes locomotives which rival or surpass the fish of the sea, the antelope on land, if not yet the bird of the air; his teeth are of poor quality, but his mind supplies him with artificial ones and enables him to cook and otherwise to prepare his food. All the physical methods are self-limited, but the method of mind has no limits; it is even more than cumulative, and multiplies its capacities by geometrical progression.
The cult of muscle.—A word must really be said here, in accordance with all the foregoing argument, against the recent revival of what may be called the Cult of Muscle. This cult of muscle, or belief in physical culture, so called, as the true means of race-culture, undoubtedly requires to have its absurd pretensions censured. We now have many flourishing schools of physical culture which desire to persuade us to a belief in the monstrous anachronism that, even in man, muscle and bone are still pre-eminent. They want as many people as possible to believe that the only thing really worth aiming at is what they understand by physical culture. They pride themselves upon knowing the names and positions of all the muscles in the body, and on being able to provide us with instruments to develop all these muscles: they are there and they ought to be developed, and you are a mere parody of what a man ought to be unless they are developed—none of them must be neglected. Many people have been persuaded of these doctrines, and there is no doubt that the physical culture schools do thus develop a large number of muscles which have no present service for man and would otherwise have been allowed to rest in a decent obscurity.
In order to prove this point, let us instance a few muscles which it is utterly absurd to regard as still possessing any survival-value for man. In the sole of the foot there are four distinct layers of muscles, by means of which it is theoretically possible to turn each individual toe to the left or the right, independently of its neighbours, and to move the various parts of each toe upon themselves, just as in the case of the fingers. All this muscular apparatus is a mere survival, worth nothing at all for the special purposes of the human foot. In point of fact the human foot is now decadent, and probably not more than two or three specimens of feet in a hundred contain the complete normal equipment of muscles, bones and joints—as Sir William Turner showed many years ago. Thus many feet are possessed of muscles designed to act upon joints which have not been developed at all in the feet in question and which, if they were there, would not be of the smallest use. To take another instance, we do not now use our external ears for the purpose of catching sound, though we still possess muscles which, if thrown into action, would move the external ear in various directions. Again, there is a flat, thin stratum of muscle on the front of the neck, corresponding to a muscle which in the dog and the horse is quite important, but which is of no use to us. All would be agreed as to the absurdity of devoting continued conscious effort to the development of these particular muscles; but in point of fact we have a whole host of muscles which are in a similar case, and which are nevertheless objects of the most tender solicitude on the part of the physical culturist. In general, this modern craze, whilst highly profitable to those who foster it, is most misguided and reactionary. Modern knowledge of heredity teaches us that our descendants will not profit muscularly in the slightest degree because of our devotion to these relics: the blacksmith's baby has promise of no bigger biceps than any one else's. Further, the over-doing of muscular culture is responsible for the consumption of a large amount of energy. A muscle is a highly vital and active organ, requiring a large amount of nourishment, which its possessor has to obtain, consume, digest and distribute. The more time and energy spent in sustaining useless muscles, the less is available for immeasurably more important concerns. Man does not live by brawn alone: he does live by brain alone.
Strength versus skill.—So far as true race-culture is concerned, we should regard our muscles merely as servants or instruments of the will. Since we have learnt to employ external forces for our purposes, the mere bulk of a muscle is now a matter of little importance. Of the utmost importance, on the other hand, is the power to co-ordinate and graduate the activity of our muscles, so that they may become highly trained servants. This is a matter, however, not of muscle at all but of nervous education. Its foundation cannot be laid by mechanical things like dumb-bells and exercises, but by games, in which will and purpose and co-ordination are incessantly employed. In other words, the only physical culture worth talking about is nervous culture.
The principles here laid down are daily defied in very large measure in our nurseries, our schools, and our barrack yards. The play of a child, spontaneous and purposeful, is supremely human and characteristic. Although, when considered from the outside, it is simply a means of muscular development, properly considered it is really the means of nervous development. Here we see muscles used as human muscles should alone be used—as instruments of mind. In schools the same principles should be recognised. From the biological and psychological point of view the playing-field is immeasurably superior to the gymnasium. But it is in the barrack yard that the pitiable confusion between the survival-value of mind and muscle respectively in man is most ludicrously and disastrously exemplified.
The glorious truth upon which we appear to act is that man is an animated machine; that the business of the soldier is not to think, not to be an individual, but to be an assemblage of muscles. We see the marks of this idea even in a fine poem: “Their's not to reason why, their's but to do or die”—which, of course, might just as well be said of a stud of horses or motor-cars. Further, our worship of the machine is, consistently enough, an unintelligent worship. We do not even recognise the best conditions for its action. Every year hundreds of young soldiers, originally healthy, have their hearts and lungs and other vital organs permanently injured by the imbecile attitude of chest—that of abnormal expansion—which they are required to adopt during hard work. Army doctors are now protesting against this, but it is in accordance with the fitness of things that the cult of muscle as against intelligence should be unintelligent.
I repeat that whilst in the study of race-culture the physical cannot be ignored, since the psychical is so largely dependent upon it, yet the physical is of worth to us only in so far as it serves the psychical. The race the culture of which we propose to undertake has long ago determined to abandon the physical in itself as an instrument of success. We are not attempting the culture of the cretaceous reptiles, which staked their all upon muscle, and finally, having become as large as houses—and as agile—suffered extinction. We are attempting the culture of a species which, so far as the physical is concerned, has long ago crossed the Rubicon or burnt its boats. Even if Mr. Sandow and the drill-sergeant had their way to the utmost, and, having finally eliminated all traces of mind, succeeded in producing the strongest and most perfect physical machine that could be made from the human body, the species so produced would go down in a generation before the elements or before any living species that may be named. Man has staked his all upon mind. The only physical development that is really worth anything to such a race is that which educates intelligence and morality, on the one hand, and serves for their expression, on the other.
If there is any salient and irresistible