Page:Logic Taught by Love.djvu/134

130 apply to physical education, Philosophers knew that it was the principle of healthy mental action. Laws of Thought are discovered far earlier in the world's history than Laws of things; for the reason given in Chapter XI., viz., that every man who is capable of thinking can, if he will, state the Laws of Thought with absolute exactness and certainty; whereas Laws of things are only arrived at after centuries of observation of phenomena; and even then, as Mr. Boole explains, the statement is, to the last, a hypothetical and probable one (until we have succeeded in Algebraizing the Law of the becoming of the things). It was known that the principle of contradiction (or free pulsation) is the life of the mind, many centuries before medical men had discovered that in it consists the life of the muscles. Logic should be to the mind what gymnastic is to the body; a practice in reversal of attitude. Yet, for some singular reason not yet explained, the mass of teachers and statesmen, while they encourage the application to the physical life of the principle of rhythmic alternation, either deny, or more frequently ignore, that it has any place in the moral life.

The reason appears to be this:—Parents, teachers, and governments wish that children should develop the power to assume at will any physical position. Teachers and governments are content with such control of the physical as enables them to secure the public safety and order. But few teachers or governors are content with safety and order in moral affairs; they wish to retain in their own hands a far greater control of mental and moral action than this. The more healthily developed the frame is, the easier it is to preserve a statuesque