r hand, that the encouraged and morbid
feeling may weaken or bias the understanding, or that the over shrewd
and keen understanding may shorten the imagination, or that the
understanding and imagination together may take place of, or undermine,
the resolution, as in Hamlet. So in the mere bodily frame there is a
delightful perfection of the senses, consistent with the utmost health
of the muscular system, as in the quick sight and hearing of an active
savage: another false delicacy of the senses, in the Sybarite,
consequent on their over indulgence, until the doubled rose-leaf is
painful; and this inconsistent with muscular perfection. Again; there is
a perfection of muscular action consistent with exquisite sense, as in
that of the fingers of a musician or of a painter, in which the muscles
are guided by the slightest feeling of the strings, or of the pencil:
another perfection of muscular action inconsistent with acuteness of
sense, as in the effort of battle, in which a soldier does not perceive
his wounds. So that it is never so much the question, what is the
solitary perfection of a given part of the man, as what is its balanced
perfection in relation to the whole of him: and again, the perfection of
any single power is not merely to be valued by the mere rank of the
power itself, but by the harmony which it indicates among the other
powers. Thus, for instance, in an archer's glance along his arrow, or a
hunter's raising of his rifle, there is a certain perfection of sense
and finger which is the result of mere practice, of a simple bodily
perfection; but there is a farther value in the habit which results from
the resolution and intellect necessary to the forming of it: in the
hunter's raising of his rifle there is a quietness implying far more
than mere practice,--implying courage, and habitual meeting of danger,
and presence of mind, and many other such noble characters. So also in a
musician's way of laying finger on his instrument, or a painter's
handling of his pencil, there are many qualities expressive of the
special sensibilities of each, operating on the production of the habit,
besides the sensibility operating at the moment of action. So that there
are three distinct stages of merit in what is commonly called mere
bodily dexterity: the first, the dexterity given by practice, called
command of tools or of weapons; the second stage, the dexterity or
grace given by character, as the gentleness of hand procee