Physiocracy

“ What may be termed the balance of power or just distribution of force in the various parts of our physical and mental nature—according to each individual type—is essential to the perfection of the organization—it is, indeed, the measure of health. It is attained and preserved by the due exercise of all the functions of our nature. ”

“ Hence, if the analogy of the body politic with the body physiological counts for any thing, it seems to me to be in favor of a much larger amount of governmental interference than exists at present, or that I, for one, at all desire to see. ”

“ Born vigorous and rugged, he can help to clear the forest roadway or lead the advancing columns. Fundamentally man is a muscular machine for producing the ideas that shape conduct and character. All fine thinking stands with one [18] foot on fine brain fiber. Given large physical organs, lungs with capacity sufficient to oxygenate the life-currents as they pass upward; large arteries through which the blood may have full course, run, and be glorified; a brain healthy and balanced with a compact nervous system, and you have the basis for computing what will be a man's value to society. ”

“ Nothing is more common than to hear the study of physiognomy condemned as being calculated to mislead men in their judgments of each other, and the impossibility of its being reduced to a science; yet, nothing is more universally prevalent, in all classes of society, than forming judgments from the appearances of the face. ”

“ The great organic needs and sensations repeat themselves and with the periodic world of outer experience must be dealt with according to a more or less settled policy. It is the organizing energy that works out the policy, that learns, inhibits, chooses and acts,—and it is the essential character-developing principle. For like our bodily organs which are whipped into line by the nervous system, our impulses, instincts, and reflexes [1] have their own policy of action and therefore need, for the good of the entire organism, discipline and coordination. ”

“ We must persist in the invasion we have made, in the revolution we have brought about in physiology. We have to determine the laws which preside in the nervous system of man, and discover the nature of the principle that animates it. ”

“ It is not, also, to be forgotten, that the absorption of all the principal ability of the country into the governing body is fatal, sooner or later, to the mental activity and progressiveness of the body itself. ”

“ In the present case, as I have already observed, from the days of Aristotle down through two and twenty centuries, men had been experimenting in all, to them, conceivable ways, on the government of the body politic, exactly as they experimented on the disorders of the physical body. ”

“ The tendency of all true education is to unfold the infinite resources of being, but to measure our capacities by the size or weight of our brains, and limit our strength to the use of a muscle, holds Life at the mercy of organization, and makes matter the status of man.
Physiology is like fiction in which debauchery is toned down to fascinate, and mankind are in danger of catching its sentiment. ”

“ By induction we have discovered two of the principal laws by which living bodies are governed; the first is, that when the ordinary powers which support life have been suspended, or their action lessened for a time, the excitability, or vital principle accumulates, or becomes more fit to receive their actions; and secondly, when these powers have been acted upon violently, or for a considerable time, the excitability is exhausted, or becomes less fit to receive their actions. ”

“ Now, without running into technical, physiological language, it is evident, as regards us human beings, that there is a power by which we live and move and have our being,—by which the brain thinks and wills, the stomach digests, the blood circulates, and all the different provinces of the little man-kingdom do their work. ”

“ The capacity for independence increases with every rise [Pg 272] in the hierarchical scale of vertebrates, until it culminates in man—able to think and talk over his dinner; to manufacture heat in his limbs while drawing blood to his cerebral hemispheres; to sustain in complete unconsciousness innumerable delicate and complicated chemical metamorphoses in all the tissues of his body, while concentrating every conscious effort of his mind upon equally delicate processes of thought and will. ”

“ It is through exercise that the muscles of the human body are strengthened; it is through the seven liberal arts and sciences that the human mind receives certain impulses which, in turn, stimulate internal centers of consciousness. These centers of consciousness, through still greater development, will later give fuller expression to these inner powers ”

“ A skillful physiologist, looking only into that eye, would have recognized rare stamina of constitution—a nature so rich that, while easily disturbed, it would require all the effects of time, or all the fell combinations of passion and grief, to exhaust it. ”

“ Persuaded, then, that the principle of physiology is confessedly discovered to be encumbered with difficulties for all these philosophers, we ourselves also shall fearlessly declare concerning the examples of the truth, as to how they are, and as we have felt confident that they are. ”

“ But the most skillful physiognomists, those divers into the soul, on fixing their looks upon it, if it had been possible for a subject to sustain the glance of the king,—the most skillful physiognomists, we say, would never have been able to fathom the depths of that abyss of mildness. ”

“ The voluntary muscles indicate their participation in this energy, and, indeed, the whole organism is exalted by the influence of the mental faculties. They oppose the tendencies of Feebleness, Relaxation, and Derangement, and modify their proclivities to Disease. The will is the servant of the intellect, emotions, and propensities, and the executive agent of all the faculties. When the volitive faculties are in excess, they may overdo the other functions, prematurely break down the bodily organs, and, by overtaxing the system, subject it to pain and disorder. ”

“ Is it not deserving of notice, as an especial subject of meditation, that our limbs, in all they do, or can accomplish, implicitly obey the dictation of the mind? that this operating power, whatever its name, under certain limitations, exercises a sovereign dominion, not only over our limbs, but over all our intellectual pursuits? The mind of every man is evidently the moving force, which alike regulates all his limbs and actions ”

“ It is, then, physical force alone which is capable of securing respect. Now this force ultimately resides in the masses, where it is associated with ignorance, stupidity and injustice. Accordingly the main aim of statesmanship in these difficult circumstances is to put physical force in subjection to mental force—to intellectual superiority, and thus to make it serviceable. ”

“ The two likewise agree in being accompanied by tensions in the muscles of the head. Our feeling of freedom in volition depends upon our consciousness that the effect perceived to be accomplished coincides with the ideal anticipation that preceded it. A voluntary act may thus be described as the perception, often accompanied by feelings of muscular tension, of an accomplished effect which was previously anticipated in idea. ”

“ If we could have that, we should ask no more, for we believe in the nation. I heard a doctor say, the other day, that a man's chief lesson was to pull his brain down into his spinal cord; that is to say, to make his activities not so much the result of conscious thought and volition, as of unconscious, reflex action; to stop thinking and willing, and simply do what one has to do. ”

“ The educational and ethical value to be gained from the progress already attained in physiological research, particularly with relation to the nervous system, is highly important to civilization, since it affects the individual and, therefore, the people as a whole. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The body is animated in two fashions from the spinal nerves: by the messages that pass through the brain—I speak as a layman—and by those which serve that mysterious but autocratic regent of our habits, the ‘subconsciousness.’ Under the latter are grouped all our automatic actions, and the more actions we can qualify for admission to its extremely select group of well-ordered subjects, the fewer sequences of orders will the dictator-brain have to promulgate on their account, and the less congested will be the nerve-lines of communications. ”

“ Thus, step by step, the plan rises to the highest functions of human nature—those which concern the race—which, above all others, are under the dominion of reason, and not subject to that law of constant action which controls the lower functions.
Equally interesting is that law of our nature which determines growth by exercise. It is a fact clearly demonstrated by modern science that the governing organ of the human body, the brain, has distinct portions of its structure devoted to the service of distinct faculties of the mind. ”

“ VOLUNTARY DE-ELECTRISATION.
Every motion of the limbs being effected by pressure, to promote the local change minus-pressure matter has to be displaced. That the assent of will is indispensable is evident, inasmuch as there is no ordinary limb motion, if not previously assented to by the will. ”

“ The nervous system, at the head of which stands the brain, is undoubtedly the regent of the monarchy of the body, whose sovereign is the thinking spirit; and all the organs in a well-regulated body should be worked in the interest of the organ of thought, as servants for a wise and watchful master. ”

“ In walking, in speaking, in eating, in breathing, our muscular exertions are directed by our sensations and perceptions: yet in such processes, how dimly are we conscious of perceptive and directive power! How the mind should be able to exercise such a power, and yet should be scarcely or not at all conscious of its exercise, is a very curious problem. But in all or in most of the instances just mentioned, the solution of this problem appears to depend upon psychological rather than biological principles, and therefore does not belong to this place. ”

“ There is still around us the realm of the unknown; yet not only are daily aggressions made upon it, but science has advanced so far as to render it certain that there is no department or object in the universe, which is not comprehended in this system of mutual fitnesses, harmonies, and uses.
Now consider the relation of organized being to this system. What is an organ? It is the capacity of perceiving, choosing, and utilizing a fitness. ”

“ But what then is force and strength which is merely such, if not corporeal force and strength? Dost thou know any power which stands at thy command, in distinction from the power of kindness and reason, besides muscular power? If thou canst effect nothing through kindness and the arguments of reason, force is what thou must take refuge in. ”

“ Instructed as to the control which the nervous system exercises over man's moral and intellectual nature, we shall be better prepared, not only to mend their manifold defects, but also to strengthen and purify both. ”

“ Under the free and enlightened government of the integrating nervous system liberty to express itself to an almost unlimited extent, in accordance with progress, is thus open to the hypothetical adventurers. ”

“ A still stronger argument against ascribing an objective existence to force or power, on the strength of our supposed direct intuition of power in voluntary acts, may be urged from the unquestionable fact, that we do not know, and cannot know, that volition does cause corporeal motion ”

“ Physiologists have proved that the physical strength of modern man [Pg 84] is inferior to that of his ancestors, but that his nervous system is more developed, so that strength is more and more concentrated in the intellect. ”

“ We know that courage, assurance, and conscious power are necessary for the fulfillment of purpose, because intention precedes action. Will-power is an indication of HEALTH, and the constant exercise of these mental faculties exerts a steady, regular, and strengthening influence over the bodily functions. We translate mental energies into physiological industry. These faculties impart tone to the system, sustain the processes of nutrition, circulation, assimilation, secretion and excretion, and their distinguishing characteristics are vigor, tension, and elasticity. ”

“ We have located that power in the tips of our fingers, from a reason which will soon appear. It is there because we so willed it. We might have given to each part of our body the same delicate touch, if we had so willed it. This is proven by those men who write and sew with their toes, who speak with their bellies, etc. ”

“ Yet the contrary, I believe, will appear to be the fact; for, on diligent inquiry, I find that strength of mind has, in most cases, been accompanied by superior strength of body,—natural soundness of constitution,—not that robust tone of nerves and vigour of muscles, which arise from bodily labour, when the mind is quiescent, or only directs the hands. ”

“ Determination and persistence may, indeed, use a frail physique for splendid service; such names as Darwin, Spencer, Prescott, remind us of the strength of human will that can override physical obstacles and by long effort produce a great achievement. But for one victor in this struggle of will against body there are a hundred vanquished; and even these men of genius and grit could have accomplished far more if they had had normally serviceable bodies.
(3) Health makes morality easier and likelier. ”