The Atlantic Monthly

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96,?by Various

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96,
October 1865, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865
Author: Various
Release Date: December 2, 2006 [EBook #19996]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE
ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics.
VOL. XVI.--OCTOBER, 1865.--NO. XCVI.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by TICKNOR AND FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved to the end of the article.

SAINTS WHO HAVE HAD BODIES.
All doubtless remember the story which is told of the witty Charles II. and the Royal Society: How one day the King brought to the attention of its members a most curious and inexplicable phenomenon, which he stated thus: "When you put a trout into a pail full of water, why does not the water overflow?" The savans, naturally enough, were surprised, and suggested many wise, but fruitless explanations; until at last one of their number, having no proper reverence for royalty in his heart, demanded that the experiment should actually be tried. Then, of course, it was proved that there was no phenomenon to be explained. The water overflowed fast enough. Indeed, it is chronicled that the evolutions of this lively member of the piscatory tribe were so brisk, that the difficulty was the exact opposite of what was anticipated, namely, how to keep the water in.
This story may be a pure fable, but the lesson it teaches is true and important. It illustrates forcibly the facility with which even wise men accept doubtful propositions, and then apply the whole power of their minds to explain them, and perhaps to defend them. Latterly one hears constantly of the physical decay which threatens the American people, because of their unwise and disproportioned stimulation of the brain. It is assumed, almost as an axiom, that there is "a deficiency of physical health in America." Especially is it assumed that great mental progress, either of races or of individuals, has been generally purchased at the expense of the physical frame. Indeed, it is one of the questions of the day, how the saints, that is, those devoted to literary and professional pursuits, shall obtain good and serviceable bodies; or, to widen the query, how the finest intellectual culture can exist side by side with the noblest physical development; or, to bring this question into a form that shall touch us most sharply, how our boys and girls can obtain all needful knowledge and mental discipline, and yet keep full of graceful and buoyant vitality.
What do we say to the theories and convictions which are underneath this language? What answer shall we make to these questions? What answer ought we to make? Our first reply would be, We doubt the proposition. We ask for the broad and firm basis of undoubted facts upon which it rests. And we enter an opposite plea. We affirm that the saints have as good bodies as other people, and that they always did have. We deny that they need to be patched up or watched over any more than their neighbors. They live as long and enjoy as much as the rest of mankind. They can endure as many hard buffets, and come out as tough and strong, as the veriest dolt whose intellectual bark foundered in the unsounded depths of his primer. The world's history through, the races which are best taught have the best endowment of health. Nay, in our own New England, with just such influences, physical, mental, and moral, as actually exist, there is no deterioration in real vitality to weep over.
We hold, then, on this subject very different opinions from those which prevail in many quarters. We believe in the essential healthfulness of literary culture, and in the invigorating power of sound knowledge. Emphatically do we believe that our common schools have been in the aggregate a positive physical benefit. We are confident, that, just to the degree that the unseen force within a man receives its rightful development, does vigorous life flow in every current that beats from heart to extremities. With entire respect for the opinions of others, even while we cannot concur with them, with a readiness to admit that the assertion