violent movements; their play is sober: they watch more than they act. But they are much more tired by their attentive immobility than novices who gesticulate and jump about, performing all kinds of fantastic

movements.

In fencing, the expenditure of force consists less in the performance of muscular actions than in their preparation.

Fencing is therefore the type of the exercises which fatigue the nerves more than the muscles.

If beginners say that they at first experienced pains all over the body, this is because stiffness is inevitable after any unusual exercise. But an experienced fencer never feels the bruising of the muscles which always follows exercises of strength. On the other hand, he cannot escape, after a difficult bout, a kind of temporary collapse, a characteristic prostration which we may call nervous fatigue.

The sensation of nervous fatigue is very different from that experienced after great labours which merely need an expenditure of material force, and after exercises which make the muscles work rather than the nerves. This sensation, which when once experienced is not forgotten, is difficult to describe, as are all fine sensations. If we try to give an idea of it by comparing it to a wellknown sensation, we may say that it resembles the psychical prostration which follows any sustained effort of the will, as when, for instance, we have long striven against submitting to the will of another, or when we have energetically directed our attention to the solution of a difficult problem.

Nervous fatigue shows variations under different circumstances and in different constitutions. It is usually characterised by a kind of prostration and temporary depression, but it may also show itself by a transient excitability similar to that which is observed in certain enfeebled persons, and which doctors call a condition of irritable weakness.

This peculiar form of fatigue which follows exercises demanding much nervous work, is due to the disturbances

undergone by the nerve-cells which preside over voluntary motion, just as intellectual fatigue is due to increased activity of the cells which are concerned in mental work.

Now, these two classes of cells are situated in the grey matter of the brain. It is then in reality the brain which supports the fatigue following exercises needing a great expenditure of nervous energy.

For this reason, fencing is unsuitable to men who study, and equally so to children who work their brains. to excess, and it is the last exercise we should advise for very excitable temperaments, unless we have to provide food for unoccupied brains, for unquiet spirits whose activity consumes themselves, failing better occupation. In such cases fencing may become a precious derivative, by absorbing, as would mental work, the excessive nervous force which was tormenting the inactive mind.

Fencing, like all exercises which produce disturbances in the nervous system, is a most valuable exercise to persons who wish to get thinner. Among the most important functions of the nervous system is that of regulating nutrition; so we see all fatigue borne by the nerves, all excessive expenditure of nerve-force lead to diminished energy of the process of nutrition and favour the opposite process, thereby causing loss of weight.

Psychical disturbances, sustained emotions, through the waste of nervous energy which they occasion, hinder the nutritive functions, and lead to loss of weight. It is by an identical mechanism that the same result is produced after exercises needing a great expenditure of nervous energy. It is curious to see how animals whose mode of life necessitates movements similar to those of fencing have the privilege of escaping obesity.

Have you ever enquired how it is that cats can combine with their proverbial idleness such great agility? Muscular inaction leads just as much in other kinds of animals as in the human species to obesity; the dog which does not hunt, the horse kept in the stable, become fat and sluggish. Wild animals even, if kept in

a cage, where they are forced into the repose of domestic life, very rapidly lose their slenderness of figure and their ease of movement.

Why does the cat escape the ordinary law, and why, in spite of the fact that it rarely moves, does it seldom become fat as does a dog or horse under similar circumstances? It is because its immobility is not that of inaction, and its nerves are working while its muscles seem at rest. Like a fencer waiting the moment to attack, the cat is constantly ready to spring. It is always watching something; a rat, a fly, or a joint of meat. A drawing-room cat only makes three or four springs in the course of a day, but each of them has been preceded by two or three hours of latent work. When we believe that the animal is engaged in a happy dream, it is meditating a capture, calculating the distance of its spring, and holding its muscles in readiness for anything that may happen. Hence it is never taken by surprise. If a little bird escapes from its cage, it is caught and eaten in three seconds. The cat has been watching it for a week; when it seemed asleep, it was lying-in-wait.

CHAPTER V.

THE WORK OF CO-ORDINATION IN EXERCISE.

Difficult Exercises-Skill in Exercises-Circling the TrapezeApprenticeship of Movements-Precision in Muscular ActionsOffice of the Brain and of the Psychical Faculties in the Co-ordination of Movements-A Dancing-lesson Muscular Education-Economy of Muscular Force and of Nervous Expenditure with equal Mechanical Work-Improvement of the Muscular Sense-St. Vitus's Dance-Hygienic Use and Importance of Difficult Exercises-Persons who should Refrain from them Error usually Committed in the Choice of an Exercise.

THE will is not the only faculty of a psychical order which is concerned in the performance of movements; its office is limited to determining the muscular action and stimulating the muscle; but other factors must come into play to regulate, direct, and measure muscular actions.

Every movement needs the intervention of a great number of muscles, and each muscle must contract with a definite force in order that the whole work may lead to a precise movement. We call work of co-ordination the operation whose object it is to choose the muscles which must participate in the movement, to regulate the respective efforts of each of them, by distributing exactly that quantity of nervous energy which is necessary to produce a contraction neither too weak nor too strong. This work is performed by the brain.

We call those exercises difficult which need rather a clever co-ordination of movements than a great quantity of work. Riding, fencing, gymnastics with apparatus,

are difficult exercises and need strength.

more skill than

I.

Seeing with what ease the most complicated actions of ordinary life are performed, we should be inclined to believe that each muscle had its function fixed in advance, and was so connected with the will, that it would be enough to wish to displace a part of the body in a certain direction, in order immediately to find the muscular group on which the duty would devolve. We forget that the most ordinary actions, those which are performed with the greatest ease, have been laboriously learned, and were at first awkward and difficult, before becoming as it were, natural and automatic, through long practice.

Difficult exercises generally need attitudes to which a man is unaccustomed, new movements which his limbs have never before practised. A new apprenticeship is necessary to learn the new muscular combinations. Certain muscular groups which have long been used to act together must be disunited in certain gymnastic movements, whilst in the same effort other groups must be united which have never before been associated. A man who tries to walk on his hands is obliged to seek attitudes which are entirely new to him, and to make in his exercise combinations of movements and balances to which his body has never before been adapted. Whatever a man's strength, he will not succeed at first. All the energy he throws into his muscular efforts cannot make up for his want of practice, for, in the case given, skill is more needed than strength.

In every new movement, in every unknown attitude needed in difficult exercises, the nerve-centres have to exercise a kind of selection of the muscles, bringing into action those which favour the movement and suppressing those which oppose it. The bones on which the muscles act must also be displaced in a direction perfectly adapted to the performance of the required action, for a