§ 53. The art of living rightly is based upon a comprehension of the
process of Life. Life is the restless dialectic which ceaselessly
transforms the inorganic into the organic, but at the same time creates
out of itself another inorganic, in which it separates from itself
whatever part of the inorganic has not been assimilated, which it took
up as a stimulant, and that which has become dead and burned out. The
organism is healthy when its reality corresponds to this idea of the
dialectic, of a life which moves up and down, to and fro; of formation
and re-formation, of organizing and disorganizing. All the rules for
Physical Education, or of Hygiene, are derived from this conception.
§ 54. It follows from this that the change of the inorganic to the
organic is going on not only in the organism as a whole, but also in its
every organ and in every part of every organ; and that the organic as
soon as it has attained its highest point of energy, is again degraded
to the inorganic and thrown out. Every cell has its history. Activity
is, therefore, not contradictory to the organism, but favors in it the
natural progressive and regressive metamorphosis. This process can go on
harmoniously; that is, the organism can be in health only when not only
the whole organism, but each special organ, is allowed, after its
productive activity, the corresponding rest and recreation necessary for
its self-renewal. We have this periodicity exemplified in waking and
sleeping, also in exhalation and inhalation, excretion and taking in of
material. When we have discovered the relative antagonism of the organs
and their periodicity, we have found the secret of the perennial renewal
of life.
§ 55. Fatigue makes its appearance when any organ, or the organism in
general, is denied time for the return movement into itself and for
renovation. It is possible for some one organ, as if isolated, to
exercise a great and long-continued activity, even to the point of
fatigue, while the other organs rest; as e.g. the lungs, in speaking,
while the other parts are quiet; on the other hand, it is not well to
speak and run at the same time. The idea that one can keep the organism
in better condition by inactivity, is an error which rests upon a
mechanical apprehension of life. Equally false is the idea that health
depends upon the quantity and excellence of the food; without the force
to assimilate it, it acts fatally rather than stimulatingly. _True
strength arises only from activity._
--The later physiologists will gradually destroy, in the system of
culture of modern people, the preconceived notion which recommended for
the indolent and lovers of pleasure powerful stimulants, very fat food,
&c. Excellent works exist on this question.--
§ 56. Physical Education, as it concerns the repairing, the motor, or
the nervous, activities, is divided into (1) Dietetics, (2) Gymnastics,
(3) Sexual Education. In real life these activities are scarcely
separable, but for the sake of exposition we must consider them apart.
In the regular development of the human being, moreover, the repairing
system has a relative precedence to the motor system, and the latter to
the sexual maturity. But Pedagogics can treat of these ideas only with
reference to the infant, the child, and the youth.