he debility, not the feat, which is
discreditable? Setting aside the substantial advantages of strength
and activity, there is a melancholy loss of self-respect in buying
cultivation for the brain by resigning the proper vigor of the body. Let
men say what they please, they all demand a life which shall be whole
and sound throughout, and there is a drawback upon all gifts that are
paid for in infirmities. There is no thorough satisfaction in art or
intellect, if we yet feel ashamed before the Indian because we cannot
run, and before the South-Sea Islander because we cannot swim. Give us a
total culture, and a success without any discount of shame. After all,
one feels a certain justice in Warburton's story of the Guinea trader,
in Spence's Anecdotes. Mr. Pope was with Sir Godfrey Kneller one day,
when his nephew, a Guinea trader, came in. "Nephew," said Sir Godfrey,
"you have the honor of seeing the two greatest men in the world." "I
don't know how great you may be," said the Guinea-man, "but I don't like
your looks; I have often bought a man, much better than both of you
together, all muscles and bones, for ten guineas."

Fortunately for the hopes of man, the alarm is unfounded. The advance
of accurate knowledge dispels it. Civilization is cultivation, whole
cultivation; and even in its present imperfect state, it not only
permits physical training, but promotes it. The traditional glory of
the savage body is yielding before medical statistics: it is becoming
evident that the average barbarian, observed from the cradle to the
grave, does not know enough and is not rich enough to keep his body in
its highest condition, but, on the contrary, is small and sickly and
short-lived and weak, compared with the man of civilization. The great
athletes of the world have been civilized; the long-lived men have been
civilized; the powerful armies have been civilized; and the average of
life, health, size, and strength is highest to-day among those races
where knowledge and wealth and comfort are most widely spread. And yet,
by the common lamentation, one would suppose that all civilization is a
slow suicide of the race, and that refinement and culture are to leave
man at last in a condition like that of the little cherubs on old
tomb-stones, all head and wings.

It must be owned that the delusion has all the superstitions of history
in its favor, and only the facts against it. If we may trust tradition,
the race has undoubtedly be