Ancien Régime

“ For, in France at least, the Ancien Régime was no tyranny. The middle and upper classes had individual liberty—it may be, only too much; the liberty of disobeying a Government which they did not respect. “However submissive the French may have been before the Revolution to the will of the king, one sort of obedience was altogether unknown to them. They knew not what it was to bow before an illegitimate and contested power—a power but little honoured, frequently despised, but willingly endured because it may be serviceable, or because it may hurt. ”

“ The aristocracies of the Old World claim that their only labor should be that of the brain; and they keep their physical system in order by violent exercise, which is made genteel from the fact only that it is not useful or productive. ”

“ And if this be true of the physical constitution of man, in how much higher degree is it true of his mental constitution? All our physical parts we bring with us into the world; but the mind develops afterwards. ”

“ True it is that there are two modes of ruling: the one imperious and violent, like that of masters toward their slaves, and in this way the soul commands the body; the other more mild and gentle, like that of good princes by means of laws over their subjects, and in this way the reason commands the appetite; and both of these modes are useful, for the body is by nature created apt for obedience to the soul, and so is appetite for obedience to reason. ”

“ And then there are the respective mental traits produced by daily exercise of power, and by daily submission to power. The ideas, and sentiments, and modes of behavior, perpetually repeated, generate on one side an inherited fitness for command, and on the other side an inherited fitness for obedience; with the result that, in course of time, there arises on both sides the belief that the established relations of classes are the natural ones. ”

“ This vast power of endurance, of forbearance, of patience, and of performance, is only acquired by continual exercise of all the functions, like the healthful physical human vigor, like the individual moral vigor. ”

“ What a condition of man would that be, in which human passions were controlled by no authority, divine or human, in which there was no shame or decency, no higher affection overcoming or sanctifying the natural instincts, but simply a rule of health! Is it for this that we are asked to throw away the civilization which is the growth of ages?
For strength and health are not the only qualities to be desired; there are the more important considerations of mind and character and soul. ”

“ Aiding or thwarting it, coloring and changing it, were a thousand influences,—side-currents from other religions and philosophies, social changes, Roman law and tradition, the new life of the barbarians; old ingrained habits of blood and brain; the constant push of primal instincts—hunger and sex; tides of war and trade and industry; slavery and serfdom; strong human personalities, swaying a little the tide that bore them; all the myriad forces that are always at work in history. ”

“ For instance, when you find some indulgence of the flesh concerning which you say "I can't help it," there your body has vanquished you. It is absorbing your personality, robbing you of your divine birthright, in which you say, "I will," "I will not."
And now to go a step further—the disciplining of the body, care in regard to eating, drinking, amusements, and the like; strictness as to luxuries and things which, though lawful, may not be expedient, not only tend to bodily strength and mere physical well-being, but brace up the will power, because they entail the constant exercise of it. ”

“ The structure of the still primitive mind of the people was never imagined, the paucity and tenacity of their ideas, the narrowness of their mechanical, routine existence, devoted to manual labor, absorbed with the anxieties for daily bread, confined to the bounds of a visible horizon ”

“ Let us, then, look at obedience and its consequents, and turn the eye from this downward path of mental and physical degradation, pain, misery, want, slavery, and death, to the bright prospect of a more elevated state of progressive improvement, secured to us as a consequent, a reward of obedience; the physical powers improving, the mental elevating, and all our faculties becoming instruments of greater truthfulness, until our condition shall be so elevated that the Creator shall say, “Come ye and sit at my right hand!” ”

“ For as the mind is said to govern the body, and also to govern lust, still it governs the body as a king governs his subjects, or a parent his children; but it governs lust as a master governs his slaves, because it restrains and breaks it. The authority of kings, of generals, of magistrates, of fathers, and of nations, rules their subjects and allies as the mind rules bodies; but masters control their slaves, as the best part of the mind—that is to say, wisdom—controls the vicious and weak parts of itself, such as lust, passion, and the other perturbations. ”

“ In truth, our natural constitution is an admirably arranged affair! You inspire us with a strong and incessant yearning for pleasure, deprived of which our life is imperfect; and on the other hand you ordain that nothing should be more opposed to physical health and strength, more calamitous in its effects, and more incompatible with the duration of life itself, than this same pleasure. But although I indulged in no pleasures, numerous diseases attacked me, some of which endangered my life, and others the use of my limbs, thus threatening me with even an access of misery. ”

“ The great principles for which the earliest reformers contended,—and which, now that they are clearly developed, seem as natural to man’s mental constitution as the air which he breathes is to his physical existence,—are in this volume elaborately expounded, and the causes which called them into being, and aided their development, carefully and impartially traced. ”

“ Unless civilization embraces heathenism, why should man, in the nineteenth century, bow down to flesh-brush, flannel, bath, diet, exercise, air, etc., when matter is not capable of doing for him what he can do for himself? ”

“ Have we nothing which is under our own exclusive control, or is everything in that state; or are some things under our control and others under the control of others?—How do you mean?—When you want your body to be whole, is the matter under your control, or not?—It is not.—And when you want it to be well?—Nor that, either.—And to live or to die?—Nor that, either.—Therefore, your body is not your own possession, it is subject to everyone who is stronger than you are.—Granted.—And your farm, is it under your control to have it when you want, and as long as you want ”

“ With the consciousness of power came the increase of pomp and the desire for prohibited enjoyments and indulgence in carnal pleasures wholly inconsistent with the observance of the vows of poverty and chastity as well as contrary to the rules of ecclesiastical discipline. ”

“ Little by little, and especially in modern times, I have brought into disuse and discredit those exertions and exercises which promote bodily health; and have substituted numberless others which enfeeble the body in a thousand ways, and shorten life. Besides, I have introduced customs and manners, which render existence a thing more dead than alive, whether regarded from a physical or mental point of view; so that this century may be aptly termed the century of death. ”

“ Let us consider life at the outset, the animal at the lowest degree on the scale, the human being as soon as it is born. The first thing we find is perception, agreeable or disagreeable, and next a want, propensity or desire, and therefore at last, by means of a physiological mechanism, voluntary or involuntary movements, more or less accurate and more or less appropriate and coordinated. ”

“ If we make the injunction positive and general instead of negative and partial, we arrive at the “law of liberty,” the duty of subordinating the flesh to the spirit, in respect of eating and drinking, as well as of the sexual passions; and the necessity of self-discipline or fasting as a means to that end (see above, pp. 120 f.) ”

“ It appears from this statement that, so far as we are concerned, our moral intuitions are the results of "nervous modifications," if not in ourselves, at least in our ancestors, so that the controlling influence which rules, and which ought to rule, our conduct is a nervous, and therefore a physical, condition which we have inherited. It follows, therefore, that every man's conscience or inherited moral sense is bound by a necessity of his physical constitution. ”

“ And all that we have been saying, and indeed any glance at the world around us, shows that with us, with the most respectable and strongest part of us, the ruling force is now, and long has been, a Puritan force,—the care for fire and strength, strictness of conscience, Hebraism, rather than the care for sweetness and light, spontaneity of consciousness, Hellenism. ”

“ We must accordingly begin with ourselves, and how we ought to regulate ourselves. We have therefore, preserving a due regard to the symmetry of this work, to say how each of us ought to conduct himself in respect to his body, or rather how to regulate the body itself. ”

“ It disciplines the body for the sake of the soul; it disciplines the soul for the sake of the body. Now it tightens, now it relaxes, the human bow. For example, in the Table of Feasts and Fasts, it lays down one principle which underlies all bodily and spiritual discipline—the need of training to obtain self-control. ”

“ Granting for the present that what you urge against us is not untrue, what is there, I would ask, among the affairs of men that is either done by bodily exertion and manual labour, or attained by the mind’s learning and knowledge, which did not begin at some time, and pass into general use and practice since then? ”

“ For organic endurance, which is really what we mean by health, does not consist in muscular development or in the bloom of an exuberant constitution, but rather in an indwelling power, in dynamically persistent and tenacious struggle and adaptation, in the capacity of self-preservation, of self-affirmation, which is the specific essence of spiritual being. ”

“ The strength of the muscle, the cunning of hand or eye or ear, mental acuteness, and even liability to temptation in any direction, or, on the other hand, moral strength, all are coincident with exercise within the bounds set by the normal of the organ,—that is, within its ability to repair its waste in labor, an ability defined by the food-supply and its power of assimilation ”

“ Jay, whose authority we quote with pleasure, "To support extreme misfortunes, and what is worthy of remark, to bear great fatigues, moral energy is much more necessary than corporeal strength, nay, than the habit of privations and hard labour. ”

“ By your active life you achieved perfect health; your temperance was the result of obedience to the laws; you enjoy a body of unusual strength by reason of your self-control, and a soul of unusual rectitude because of your physical powers of endurance. You left nothing undone to improve your natural talents, but ever acquired new talents by new studies. ”

“ Unlike the psychical phenomena already referred to,—and belonging to the positive and initiative, rather than the negative and subjective side of the psychical equation,—these seers have been fewer in number, and are always individuals showing a high degree of self-control, and of intellectual and moral evolution.
Admitting the general propositions involved, it can readily be seen that this must be so from the very nature of the case. The Masters of mankind, in any and all directions have been few. The slaves, through ignorance, superstition and fear, have been legions. ”

“ At the first aspect, we only see in this custom a privilege and a monstrous employment of physical force. But without this employment of physical force, the world was perhaps likely to become the prey of perjured, faithless men. ”

“ The fourth division of power or influence is doing, or being done by, well or ill; thus we can become ill or be educated, be restored to health and the like. Power, then, is either in the mind, or the body, or in armies and resources, or in acting and being acted upon. ”

“ It is a well-established fact that the powers of endurance of the physical system are growing less, generation after generation, while the mental power is increasing in about the same ratio; the legitimate deduction from this fact is in perfect harmony with the general progressive tendency of all things leading from the purely physical to the spiritual, from which we may safely prophecy that the time will come when all labor will be performed by the mind, and when it shall have acquired perfect dominion over the material. ”

“ You were of course bound to have the princely nurture that should train your body to be strong, muscular, healthy, and handsome, and at the same time duly equip your soul with courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. But this cannot result from that loose indulgence which naturally pampers body and soul, weakening men's wills for facing danger and their bodies for work. ”

“ There ever will, in the best disposed and most disciplined minds, be occasional discrepancies between the amount of temptation and the power summoned for regulation or resistance, or between the stimulus and the mobility of the faculty ”

“ When the spirit-eye shall have fully pierced its barriers of flesh, when the body shall have become subservient to the spirit, instead of the spirit being dependent upon the body, when we “shall see as we are seen, and know as we are known,” how radical the changes, and how rapid the strides of advancement will then be! ”