ety which the perverted ingenuity of a clever
people has devised, it seems never to have come to any one's mind that
this strain in all things, small and great, is something that can be
and should be studiously abandoned, with as regular a process of
training, from the first simple steps to those more complex, as is
required in the work for the development of muscular strength. When a
perversion of Nature's laws has continued from generation to
generation, we, of the ninth or tenth generation, can by no possibility
jump back into the place where the laws can work normally through us,
even though our eyes have been opened to a full recognition of such
perversion. We must climb back to an orderly life, step by step, and
the compensation is large in the constantly growing realization of the
greatness of the laws we have been disobeying. The appreciation of the
power of a natural law, as it works through us, is one of the keenest
pleasures that can come to man in this life.

The general impression seems to be that common-sense should lead us to
a better use of our machines at once. Whereas, common-sense will not
bring a true power of guiding the muscles, any more than it will cause
the muscles' development, unless having the common-sense to see the
need, we realize with it the necessity for cutting a path and walking
in it. For the muscles' development, several paths have been cut, and
many who are in need are walking in them, but, to the average man, the
road to the best kind of muscular development still remains closed. The
only training now in use is followed by sleight-of-hand performers,
acrobats, or other jugglers, and that is limited to the professional
needs of its followers.

Again, as the muscles are guided by means of the nerves, a training for
the guidance of the muscles means, so far as the physique is concerned,
first, a training for the better use of the nervous force. The nervous
system is so wonderful in its present power for good or ill, so
wonderful in its possible power either way, and so much more wonderful
as we realize what we do not know about it, that it is not surprising
that it is looked upon with awe. Neither is it strange that it seems to
many, especially the ignorant, a subject to be shunned. It is not
uncommon for a mother, whose daughter is suffering, and may be on the
verge of nervous prostration because of her misused nerves, to say, "I
do not want my daughter to know that she has nerves."