Sir Andrew Clark delivered last Saturday evening, at Bir- mingham,
the first of a series of lectures at the Athletic Institution, at which Sir Walter Foster, M.P., the Parlia- mentary Secretary of the Local Government Board, presided, He called his lecture one on "The Religion of the Body," and he treated the body as a talent which we are to put to use, and to put out to interest. He spoke of the duty of religions obedience to the laws of the body, and said that that duty was nowhere better seen than in the penalties which nature enforced for violating those laws. But surely the word " duty" can hardly be properly applied to any mere counsel of prudence, which it may be a much higher duty for sufficient reason to ignore. Supposing Sir Andrew Clark himself were quite sure that his constitution would suffer, and suffer even seriously, from one of the many strains which, in the interest of pure benevolence, he puts upon it, world he regard himself as committing a sin, if he, nevertheless, put that strain on his constitution ? Surely not. There are not a few cases when he and every other disinterested man would not hesitate to violate what he calls the laws of " physical righteousness." If so, we think the words " duty " and " righteousness " should hardly be used as if the duty of religions obedience to the laws of the body were universal and absolute.
Previous page
