and an intimate structure which betray to the experienced eye the habits of work of the possessor.

If it has been demonstrated that "function makes structure," if work changes the apparatus by the aid of which it is performed, muscular exercise must necessarily produce changes in the brain, an instrument indispensable in the performance of voluntary movement. The nervous working which goes on in the grey matter of the brain for the purpose of throwing a muscle into action, must influence the nutrition of this portion of the brain just as much as contraction influences the nutrition of muscle.

The changes in the motor cerebral cell, under the influence of muscular work, have not yet been apparent to the eye, and observation has not hitherto given direct confirmation of these ideas which seem so legitimate on analogical grounds. But one observation has at least been recorded which may serve as an indirect proof of this hypothesis. This is the observation recorded by Dr. Luys in his work on The Brain, proving that after loss of the function of a limb certain parts of the grey matter of the brain undergo atrophy, due to defective action of the motor cells. If defective action can cause atrophy of the cells which preside over certain movements, we cannot refuse to admit that their frequent activity should promote their increased development.

It is then probable that certain portions of the brain which preside over voluntary movement are developed by muscular exercise, just as certain other parts of this organ, concerned in intellectual operations, may be developed by mental work. Certain portions of the nervous system form a part of the organs of movement, and we cannot believe that the law "function makes structure" should not be as true for the nervous elements as for the other elements associated in work.

The material changes undergone by the brain as a consequence of work, extend in all probability to the spinal cord and the motor nerves.

The motor nerve conducts to a muscle the order of the will, but we have seen that the stimuli which pass

along the nerve-filament are strengthened in transit in the manner shown by Pflüger in formulating his avalanche theory. A nerve is a reinforcing apparatus as well as a conducting organ. We may well believe that a still unknown molecular change increases its amplifying power and thus allows a more moderate voluntary effort to produce a stronger muscular contraction. In any case the man accustomed to use his muscles seems to obtain from them without effort a much more considerable amount of work, and this without an increase in the muscular fibres sufficient to account for the greater ease with which they contract. The nerve seems to transform a moderate stimulus which passes along it, into an energetic one, and a man accustomed to work performs, without effort of will, movements which would formerly have caused him excessive voluntary strain.

As for the spinal cord, it acquires by work, powers which cannot be understood unless we suppose there is concomitant organic change: it remembers often repeated movements, and we may see, in an animal deprived of its brain, the automatic performance of complicated muscular actions, such as walking, without the intervention of conscious will.

The power of automatism acquired by daily practice comes to our aid constantly in the performance of difficult and rapid movements. In fencing for instance, many actions often performed have become automatic, and are performed so quickly that there could not be time for the successive co-ordination of all the movements. How can the spinal cord have the power of reproducing automatically without the conscious help of the brain, a very complicated movement, if the repeated performance of this movement had not impressed on the nervous tissues which call it forth, persistent modifications?

Does it seem strange to speak of a movement leaving a material imprint on the nervous tissue? But would it not have seemed strange, twenty years ago, to hear it said that a word spoken aloud should leave on a metallic

plate an imprint capable of reproducing it? But the phonograph has shown that this was no chimæra.

Thus it is difficult to prove by direct arguments that the nervous system participates in the organic changes produced in the human body by the influence of work. It will doubtless be still more difficult to demonstrate scientifically that the psychical faculties are influenced by muscular exercise, and are modified, by the very fact of work, in a sense favourable to the performance of an exercise which is daily practised. Still it is incontestable that certain faculties of the soul come into play in bodily exercise to excite the contraction of muscles and to co-ordinate movements; it is also incontestable that these faculties are improved and developed by exercise.

The faculties which preside over the co-ordination of movements are developed by the performance of difficult exercises, and their improvement endows a man with the quality we call skill.

The faculty which orders a muscle to act and which gives it the stimulus necessary for its contraction, is called the Will: it also is developed and improved by the repeated use made of it. It shows its acquired superiority, in the sphere of movement, by a greater persistence of effort, by a greater tenacity in muscular action. The person who, every day, in spite of the different pains of fatigue, sustains energetic and prolonged muscular efforts, acquires a greater power of Willing, and from this acquisition result certain very striking changes in his moral disposition. The habituation to work gives to a man greater energy of will considered as a motor force, and from this change of a moral order, as much as from that of a material order, results a particular form of courage which we may call Physical Courage.

Physical courage is manifestly increased by the practice of muscular exercises. It is almost exclusively in men whose daily work is laborious, or who are given to violent exercises, that we see bold and energetic actions. If we see in the street a passer-by seize the

head of a runaway horse or try to stop a dangerous. malefactor, we may at once be almost sure that the man is a labourer used to hard work, or a sportsman fond of physical exercises. The practice of muscular work and the habituation to bodily exercise dispose a man to brave all forms of material danger.

The most remarkable proof of the development of physical courage by the habituation to work is furnished by the spectacle frequent enough in England, of a prizefight. The preparation of prize-fighters is, of all forms of training, that which demands the most complete habituation of the body to all kinds of muscular activity pushed to extreme limits. But at the same time that he acquires the power of resisting fatigue, and increase of strength, the ordinary results of habituation to work, the prize-fighter gains also an energy of will, a tenacity in fighting which is almost beyond belief.

"In a celebrated fight between Maffey and Macarthy, which lasted four hours forty-five minutes, one of them was knocked down one hundred and ninety-six times before allowing that he was beaten."* In another fight one of the champions received in the first round a blow which broke his left arm. He put the fractured limb in a sling and went on fighting for an hour and a quarter, till a blow, which made him lose consciousness for some minutes, compelled him to allow that he was beaten.

This incredible strength of will, which enables the prize-fighter to remain firm before such terrible blows, is not derived from anger. It is an axiom in prize-fighting that "a boxer who no longer smiles is a boxer beaten."† When the open mouth of anger replaces the smile on the lips of one of the champions, betters abandon him and his opponent becomes the favourite. It is only training, that is, habituation to violent and prolonged muscular exercise, which gives such a surprising energy to these men, whom Royer-Collard declared to be "so different from other men."

• Royer-Collard. loc. cit.

+ Leboucher. Manuel de Boxe.

CHAPTER IV.

TRAINING.

Various meanings of the word Training-Training, as we understand it here, is the Adaptation of the Organism to Work— Natural Training and Methodical Training. Methods of Training; rarely put in force in France; very widely Practised in England-Training of Boxers-Training of Oarsmen. A Specimen of Method-Physiological explanation of the Phenomena-The Loss of Weight; Diet; Care of the Skin-Capital Importance of Muscular Work in Training-Temperament of the Trained Man. Advantages and Disadvantages of his Condition.

I.

WE call training a series of practices the object of which is to render a man or an animal, as completely and quickly as possible, fit for the performance of a given work.

The word training is often used in a wider sense. It is used as synonymous with "preparation," and is applied to methods in which muscular work plays no part. Thus divers are trained in order that they may be able to hold their breath longer; jockeys are trained to make them lighter, and to facilitate the work of the horse which carries them; the word is even used in an intellectual sense, and we say that cerebral training improves a man's understanding.

In reality all the varieties of training may be reduced to one: adaptation of the organism to certain particular conditions of activity. To be trained implies that the organs have undergone modification; we may believe that the brain of a man of science differs from that of a porter; we are certain that the conformation of a