TRAINING FOR CHARACTER. 757 



of their psychological significance, which is immense, especially 

 when it is considered in connection with their intimate relation 

 to voluntary energy. We shall consider, first, in general, the 

 psychological value of the movements. It has already been 

 thought worthy of remark that movements, or muscular con- 

 tractions, translate the interior life and give it outward radiance. 

 The obscurity of the fact is relieved if we suppose, with contem- 

 porary physiology, that thoughts and feelings, as facts of con- 

 sciousness, while not undoubtedly reducible to simple movements, 

 are nevertheless based on incipient or asserted movements. On 

 the other hand, M. Fere" has shown that all sensation is accom- 

 panied by an augmentation or disengagement of muscular force. 

 The force and quality of motive manifestations are undeniably 

 signs of psychical dispositions, either permanent or accidental. 

 We all know that a weak and indecisive step, halting speech, 

 slowness in eating, the physical tendency to dawdle and take 

 twice as long as it needs to do anything, betray in children a gen- 

 eral mental, corresponding with the organic inertness. The 

 quality of the habitual motions, as revealed by the attitude, the 

 walk, the play of the features, and the writing are certain signs 

 of the character. While we may be mistaken through inexperi- 

 ence or want of attention, or of method in the interpretation of 

 them, their value to a skilled observer can not be disputed. 



Motion, strong, various, fruitful, which delights in itself and 

 enjoys the effort it calls out, is agreeable when there is a super- 

 abundance of life, when it sets to work reserves of energy which 

 it has not exhausted. The diversities of our tastes come in a 

 large degree from this. What is beyond the capacity of some, 

 and seems impossible or insupportable to them, charms others, 

 and seems like play to them. There is a profound analogy be- 

 tween being fond of action and the physical, and having move- 

 ment in the mind and force in the character ; but it does not 

 extend to identity. 



Besides interpreting the moral condition, motions act upon it 

 in return. This reciprocal influence of movements on states of 

 consciousness is another law of general psychology, of which 

 education should not lose sight for an instant. Not only do what 

 we feel, think, and wish determine our motions and acts, but, in- 

 versely, the motions and acts which become habitual, even those 

 which were involuntary in the beginning, determine, to a greater 

 or less extent, in time our ways of feeling, thinking, and wishing. 

 The recurrent action of attitudes, gestures, and acts on the moral 

 condition was pointed out long since by physiognomy. The fact, 

 now trite, that, by giving a certain position to the limbs of a 

 hypnotized person, we put him into a corresponding psychical 

 state, is only an extreme case of this law. 



TOL. XXXVIII. 53 



