The
moment we disjoin them from the idea of a perfect spiritual condition,
and pursue them, as we do pursue them, for their own sake and as ends in
themselves, our worship of them becomes as mere worship of machinery, as
our worship of wealth or population, and as unintelligent and
vulgarizing a worship as that is. Every one with anything like an
adequate idea of human perfection has distinctly marked this
subordination to higher and spiritual ends of the cultivation of bodily
vigor and activity. "Bodily exercise profiteth little; but godliness is
profitable unto all things,"[398] says the author of the Epistle to
Timothy. And the utilitarian Franklin says just as explicitly:--"Eat and
drink such an exact quantity as suits the constitution of thy body, _in
reference to the services of the mind_."[399] But the point of view of
culture, keeping the mark of human perfection simply and broadly in
view, and not assigning to this perfection, as religion or
utilitarianism assigns to it, a special and limited character, this
point of view, I say, of culture is best given by these words of
Epictetus: "It is a sign of[Greek: aphuia]," says he,--that is, of a
nature not finely tempered,--"to give yourselves up to things which
relate to the body; to make, for instance, a great fuss about exercise,
a great fuss about eating, a great fuss about drinking, a great fuss
about walking, a great fuss about riding.
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