Exercise and live Longer

On account of the many misconceptions of the nature of

human development, will it not be well, before
beginning
our program to consider seriously—What is training?
What are some of its principles? What can we do with
ourselves by obeying nature's laws? Or, if these
questions are too serious, too difficult for a short
answer,
should we not, at least, try to realize what is an
exercise?
To many persons, any kind of movement, any jerk or
chaotic action, is an exercise. They think that the more
effort put forth, the better. Thus some teachers of voice
contend that, to be an exercise, there must be muscular
effort in producing tone. On the contrary, many
movements are injurious; unnecessary effort will defeat
some of the most important exercises.
The exercise must obey the laws of nature. It must
fulfill
nature's intentions, stimulate nature's processes, awaken
normal, though slumbering activity.

An exercise is of fundamental importance to all human

beings. Man comes into the world the feeblest of all
animals. He has the least power to do anything for
himself, but he comes with possibilities of higher love
and union with his fellow-men. He comes into the world
with a greater possibility of unfolding than any other
created being.
Accordingly an exercise is a means of progress, a
simple
action which a man must use for his own unfoldment.
An exercise is a conscious step toward an ideal.
Man is given the prophetic power to realize his own
possibilities. We can hardly imagine an exercise
independent of the conscious sense of the highest and
best attainments, of thereby making ourselves stronger
and in some way better.
This ideal is instinctive, even on the part of animals, in
fact, the animal instinctively regards its own
preservation, its own unfoldment and the reaching of its
ideal type.
A tree will cover up its wound and reach out its
branches
freely, spontaneously in the direction of the light and

toward the attainment of its own type.

With man the ideal is a matter of higher realization. We
have the lower instincts in common with the animals but
we have also something higher. There is inborn in us a
conception that man transcends all present conditions.
An exercise is a step towards the attainment of a chosen
end.
Accordingly we have high exercises and low exercises;
exercises on a mental and on a physical plane; exercises
that may train men down to an abnormal type; exercises
also that are intellectual, imaginative and spiritual.
Everywhere in nature there is a low and a high. In
animals of a high order of unfoldment there is specific
functioning of every part but in those of a low order the
functions are confused. The organs are not so well
differentiated.
Even in human beings, in the process of degeneracy a
man loses a greater variety of his powers, and his very
voice and body lose some of those characteristics which
belong to the ideal member of the race.