Perfection of
the Body
The last set of Sri Aurobindo’s prose writings appeared
in the Bulletin d' Education Physique (Bulletin of Physical Education)
beginning with 21 February 1949. The second issue of the Bulletin dated 24
April 1949 carried the article entitled Perfection
of the Body which is reproduced in the following. If perfection of culture
is the true aim in life then it must also include the perfection of the body.
As an instrument of manifestation of the powers of the spirit it is necessary
that the body opens to its possibilities of expression and it is that which
will constitute its perfection. Indeed, it ought to become a revealing vessel
of spiritual beauty and bliss in all their fullness. It is for that kind of
work the physical must prepare itself by
doing yoga-sadhana at such a fundamental level.
The perfection of the body, as great a perfection as we
can bring about by the means at our disposal, must be the ultimate aim of
physical culture. Perfection is the true aim of all culture, the spiritual and
psychic, the mental, the vital and it must be the aim of our physical culture
also. If our seeking is for a total perfection of the being, the physical part
of it cannot be left aside; for the body is the material basis, the body is the
instrument which we have to use. śariram
khalu dharma-sādhanam, says the old Sanskrit adage,—the body is the means
of fulfilment of dharma, and dharma means every ideal which we can propose to
ourselves and the law of its working out and its action. A total perfection is
the ultimate aim which we set before us, for our ideal is the Divine Life which
we wish to create here, the life of the Spirit fulfilled on earth, life
accomplishing its own spiritual transformation even here on earth in the
conditions of the material universe. That cannot be unless the body too
undergoes a transformation, unless its action and functioning attain to a
supreme capacity and the perfection which is possible to it or which can be
made possible.
I have already indicated in a previous message a
relative perfection of the physical consciousness in the body and of the mind,
the life, the character which it houses as, no less than an awakening and
development of the body's own native capacities, a desirable outcome of the
exercises and practices of the physical culture to which we have commenced to
give in this Ashram a special attention and scope. A development of the
physical consciousness must always be a considerable part of our aim, but for
that the right development of the body itself is an essential element; health,
strength, fitness are the first needs, but the physical frame itself must be
the best possible. A divine life in a material world implies necessarily a
union of the two ends of existence, the spiritual summit and the material base.
The soul with the basis of its life established in Matter ascends to the heights
of the Spirit but does not cast away its base, it joins the heights and the
depths together. The Spirit descends into Matter and the material world with
all its lights and glories and powers and with them fills and transforms life
in the material world so that it becomes more and more divine. The
transformation is not a change into something purely subtle and spiritual to
which Matter is in its nature repugnant and by which it is felt as an obstacle
or as a shackle binding the Spirit; it takes up Matter as a form of the Spirit
though now a form which conceals and turns it into a revealing instrument, it
does not cast away the energies of Matter, its capacities, its methods; it
brings out their hidden possibilities, uplifts, sublimates, discloses their
innate divinity. The divine life will reject nothing that is capable of
divinisation; all is to be seized, exalted, made utterly perfect. The mind now
still ignorant, though struggling towards knowledge, has to rise towards and
into the supramental light and truth and bring it down so that it shall suffuse
our thinking and perception and insight and all our means of knowing till they
become radiant with the highest truth in their inmost and outermost movements.
Our life, still full of obscurity and confusion and occupied with so many dull
and lower aims, must feel all its urges and instincts exalted and irradiated
and become a glorious counterpart of the supramental superlife above. The
physical consciousness and physical being, the body itself must reach a
perfection in all that it is and does which now we can hardly conceive. It may
even in the end be suffused with a light and beauty and bliss from the Beyond
and the life divine assume a body divine.
But first the evolution of the nature must have reached
a point at which it can meet the Spirit direct, feel the aspiration towards the
spiritual change and open itself to the workings of the Power which shall
transform it. A supreme perfection, a total perfection is possible only by a
transformation of our lower or human nature, a transformation of the mind into
a thing of light, our life into a thing of power, an instrument of right
action, right use for all its forces, of a happy elevation of its being lifting
it beyond its present comparatively narrow potentiality for a self-fulfilling
force of action and joy of life. There must be equally a transforming change of
the body by a conversion of its action, its functioning, its capacities as an
instrument beyond .the limitations by which it is clogged and hampered even in
its greatest present human attainment. In the totality of the change we have to
achieve, human means and forces too have to be taken up, not dropped but used
and magnified to their utmost possibility as part of the new life. Such a
sublimation of our present human powers of mind and life into elements of a
divine life on earth can be conceived without much difficulty; but in what
figure shall we conceive the perfection of the body?
In the past the body has been regarded by spiritual
seekers rather as an obstacle, as something to be overcome and discarded than
as an instrument of spiritual perfection and a field of the spiritual change.
It has been condemned as a grossness of Matter, as an insuperable impediment
and the limitations of the body as something unchangeable making transformation
impossible. This is because the human body even at its best seems only to be
driven by an energy of life which has its own limits and is debased in its smaller
physical activities by much that is petty or coarse or evil, the body in itself
is burdened with the inertia and inconscience of Matter, only partly awake and,
although quickened and animated by a nervous activity, subconscient in the
fundamental action of its constituent cells and tissues and their secret
workings. Even in its fullest strength and force and greatest glory of beauty,
it is still a flower of the material Inconscience; the inconscient is the soil
from which it has grown and at every point opposes a narrow boundary to the
extension of its powers and to any effort of radical self-exceeding. But if a
divine life is possible on earth, then this self-exceeding must also be
possible.
In the pursuit of perfection we can start at either end
of our range of being and we have then to use, initially at least, the means
and processes proper to our choice. In Yoga the process is spiritual and
psychic; even its vital and physical processes are given a spiritual or psychic
turn and raised to a higher motion than belongs properly to the ordinary life
and Matter, as for instance in the Hathayogic and Rajayogic use of the
breathing or the use of Asana. Ordinarily a previous preparation of the mind
and life and body is necessary to make them fit for the reception of the
spiritual energy and the organisation of, psychic forces and methods, but this
too is given a special turn proper to the Yoga. On the other hand, if we start
in any field at the lower end we have to employ the means and processes which
Life and Matter offer to us and respect the conditions and what we may call the
technique imposed by the vital and the material energy. We may extend the
activity, the achievement, the perfection attained beyond the initial, even
beyond the normal possibilities but still we have to stand on the same base
with which we started and within the boundaries it gives to us. It is not that
the action from the two ends cannot meet and the higher take into itself and
uplift the lower perfection; but this can usually be done only by a transition
from the lower to a higher outlook, aspiration and motive: this we shall have
to do if our aim is to transform the human into the divine life. But here there
comes in the necessity of taking up the activities of human life and sublimating
them by the power of the spirit. Here the lower perfection will not disappear;
it will remain but will be enlarged and transformed by the higher perfection
which only the power of the spirit can give. This will be evident if we
consider poetry and art, philosophic thought, the perfection of the written
word or the perfect organisation of earthly life: these have to be taken up and
the possibilities already achieved or whatever perfection has already been
attained included in a new and greater perfection but with the larger vision
and inspiration of a spiritual consciousness and with new forms and powers. It
must be the same with the perfection of the body.
The taking up of life and Matter into what is
essentially a spiritual seeking, instead of the rejection and ultimate
exclusion of them which was the attitude of a spirituality that shunned or
turned away from life in the world, involves certain developments which a
spiritual institution of the older kind could regard as foreign to its purpose.
A divine life in the world or an institution having that for its aim and
purpose cannot be or cannot remain something outside or entirely shut away from
the life of ordinary men in the world or unconcerned with the mundane
existence; it has to do the work of the Divine in the world and not. a work
outside or separate from it. The life of the ancient Rishis in their Ashramas
had such a connection; they were creators, educators, guides of men and the
life of the Indian people in ancient times was largely developed and directed
by their shaping influence. The life and activities involved in the new
endeavour are not identical but they too must be an action upon the world and a
new creation in it. It must have contacts and connections with it and
activities which take their place in the general life and whose initial or
primary objects may not seem to differ from those of the same activities in the
outside world. In our Ashram here we have found it necessary, to establish a
school for the education of the children of the resident sadhaks teaching upon
familiar lines though with certain modifications and taking as part and an
important part of their development an intensive physical training which has
given form to the sports and athletics practised by the <i>Jeunesse Sportive</i> of
the Ashram and of which this <i>Bulletin</i> is the expression. It has been questioned
by some what place sports can have in an Ashram created for spiritual seekers
and what connection there can be between spirituality and sports. The first
answer lies in what I have already written about the connections of an
institution of this kind with the activities of the general life of men and
what I have indicated in the previous number as to the utility such a training
can have for the life of a nation and its benefit for the international life.
Another answer can occur to us if we look beyond first objects and turn to the
aspiration for a total perfection including the perfection of the body.
In the admission of an activity such as sports and
physical exercises into the life of the Ashram it is evident that the methods
and the first objects to be attained must belong to what we have called the
lower end of the being. Originally they have been introduced for the physical
education and bodily development of the children of the Ashram School and these
are too young for a strictly spiritual aim or practice to enter into their
activities and it is not certain that any great number of them will enter the
spiritual life when they are of an age to choose what shall be the direction of
their future. The object must be the training of the body and the development
of certain parts of mind and character so far as this can be done by or in
connection with this training and I have already indicated in a previous number
how and in what directions this can be done. It is a relative and human
perfection that can be attained within these limits; anything greater can be
reached only by the intervention of higher powers, psychic powers, the power of
the spirit. Yet what can be attained within the human boundaries can be
something very considerable and sometimes immense: what we call genius is part
of the development of the human range of being and its achievements, especially
in things of the mind and will, can carry us halfway to the divine. Even what
the mind and will can do with the body in the field proper to the body and its
life, in the way of physical achievement, bodily endurance, feats of prowess of
all kind, a lasting activity refusing fatigue or col1apse and continuing beyond
what seems at first to be possible, courage and refusal to succumb under an
endless and murderous physical suffering, these and other victories of many
kinds sometimes approaching or reaching the miraculous are seen in the human
field and must be reckoned as a part of our concept of a total perfection. The
un-flinching and persistent reply that can be made by the body as well as the
mind of man and by his life-energy to whatever call can be imposed on it in the
most difficult and discouraging circumstances by the necessities of war and
travel and adventure is of the same kind and their endurance can reach
astounding proportions and even the inconscient in the body seems to be able to
return a surprising response.
The body, we have said, is a creation of the Inconscient
and itself inconscient or at least subconscient in parts of itself and much of
its hidden action; but what we call the Inconscient is an appearance, a
dwelling place, an instrument of a secret Consciousness or a Superconscient
which has created the miracle we call the universe. Matter is the field and the
creation of the Inconscient and the perfection of the operations of inconscient
Matter, their perfect adaptation of means to an aim and end, the wonders they
perform and the marvels of beauty they create, testify, in "spite of all
the ignorant denial we can oppose, to the presence and power of consciousness
of this Superconscience in every part and movement of the material universe. It
is there in the body, has made it and its emergence in our consciousness is the
secret aim of evolution and the key to the mystery of our existence.
In the use of such activities as sports and physical
exercises for the education of the individual in childhood and first youth,
which should mean the bringing out of his actual and latent possibilities to
their fullest development, the means and methods we must use are limited by the
nature of the body and its aim must be such relative human perfection of the
body's powers and capacities and those of the powers of mind, will, character,
action of which it is at once the residence and the instrument so far as these
methods can help to develop them. I have written sufficiently about the mental
and moral parts of perfection to which these pursuits can contribute and this I
need not repeat here. For the body itself the perfections that can be developed
by these means are those of its natural qualities and capacities and, secondly,
the training of its general fitness, as an instrument for all the activities
which may be demanded from it by the mind and the will, by the life-energy or
by the dynamic perceptions, impulses and instincts of our subtle physical being
which is an unrecognised but very important element and agent in our nature.
Health and strength are the first conditions for the natural perfection of the
body, not only muscular strength and the solid strength of the limbs and
physical stamina, but the finer, alert and plastic and adaptable force which
our nervous and subtle physical parts can put into the activities of the frame.
There is also the still more dynamic force which a call upon the life-energies
can bring into the body and stir it to greater activities, even feats of the
most extraordinary character of which in its normal state it would not be
capable. There is also the strength which the mind and will by their demands
and stimulus and by their secret powers which we use or by which we are used
without knowing clearly the source of their action can impart to the body or
impose upon it as masters and inspirers. Among the natural qualities and powers
of the body which can be thus awakened, stimulated and trained to a normal
activity we must reckon dexterity and stability in all kinds of physical action
such as swiftness in the race, dexterity in combat, skill and endurance of the
mountaineer, the constant and often extraordinary response to all that can be
demanded from the body of the soldier, sailor, traveller or explorer, to which
I have already made reference, or in adventure of, all kinds and all the wide
range of physical attainment to which man has accustomed himself or to which he
is exceptionally pushed by his own will or by the compulsion of circumstance.
It is a general fitness of the body for all that can be asked from it which is
the common formula of all this action, a fitness attained by a few or by many,
that could be generalised by an extended and many-sided physical education and
discipline. Some of these activities can be included under the name of sports;
there are others for which sport and physical exercises can be an effective
preparation. In some of them a training for common action, combined movement,
discipline are needed and for that our physical exercises can make one ready;
in others a developed individual will, skill of mind and quick perception,
forcefulness of life-energy and subtle physical impulsion are more prominently
needed and may even be the one sufficient trainer. All must be included in our
conception of the natural powers of the body and its capacity and instrumental
fitness in the service of the human mind and will and therefore in our concept
of the total perfection of the body.
There are two conditions for this perfection, an
awakening in as great an entirety as possible of the body consciousness and an
education, an evocation of its potentialities, also as entire and fully
developed and, it may be, as many-sided as possible. The form or body is, no
doubt, in its origin a creation of the Inconscient and limited by it on all
sides, but still of the Inconscient developing the secret consciousness
concealed within it and growing in light of knowledge, power and Ananda. We
have to take it at the point it has reached in its human evolution in these
things, make as full a use of them as may be and, as much as we can, further this
evolution to as high a degree as is permitted by the force of the individual
temperament and nature. In all forms in the world there is a force at work,
unconsciously active or oppressed by inertia in its lower formulations, but in
the human being conscious from the first, with its potentialities partly awake,
partly asleep or latent: what is awake in it we have to make fully conscious;
what is asleep we have to arouse and set to its work; what is latent we have to
evoke and educate. Here there are two aspects of the body consciousness, one
which seems to be a kind of automatism carrying on its work in the physical
plane without any intervention of the mind and in parts even beyond any
possibility of direct observation by the mind or, if conscious or observable,
still proceeding or capable of continuing, when once started, by an apparently
mechanical action not needing direction by the mind and continuing so long as
the mind does not intervene.
There are other movements taught and trained by the
mind which can yet go on operating automatically but faultlessly even when not
attended to by the thought or will; there are others which can operate in sleep
and produce results of value to the waking intelligence. But more important is
what may be described as a trained and developed automatism, a perfected skill
and capacity of eye and ear and the hands and all the members prompt to respond
to any call made on them, a developed spontaneous operation as an instrument, a
complete fitness for any demand that the mind and life-energy can make upon it.
This is ordinarily the best we can achieve at the lower end, when we start from
that end and limit ourselves to the means and methods which are proper to it.
For more we have to turn to the mind and life-energy themselves or to the
energy of the spirit and to what they can do for a greater perfection of the
body. The most we can do in the physical field by physical means is necessarily
insecure as well as bound by limits; even what seems a perfect health and
strength of the body is pre-carious and can be broken down at any moment by
fluctuations from within or by a strong attack or shock from outside: only by
the breaking of our limitations can a higher and more en- during perfection
come. One direction in which our consciousness must grow is an increasing hold
from within or from above on the body and its powers and its more conscious
response to the higher parts of our being. The mind pre-eminently is man; he is
a mental being and his human perfection grows the more he fulfils the
description of the Upanishad, a mental being, Purusha, leader of the life and
the body. If the mind can take up and control the instincts and automatisms of
the life-energy and the subtle physical consciousness and the body, if it can
enter into them, consciously use and, as we may say, fully mentalise their
instinctive or spontaneous action, the perfection of these energies, their
action too becomes more conscious and more aware of itself and more perfect.
But it is necessary for the mind too to grow in perfection and this it can do
best when it depends less on the fallible intellect of physical mind, when it
is not limited even by the more orderly and accurate working of the reason and
can grow in intuition and acquire a wider, deeper and closer seeing and the
more luminous drive of energy of a higher intuitive will. Even within the
limits of its present evolution it is difficult to measure the degree to which
the mind is able to extend its control or its use of the body's powers and
capacities and when the mind rises to higher powers still and pushes back its
human boundaries, it becomes impossible to fix any limits: even, in certain
realisations, an intervention by the will in the automatic working of the
bodily organs seems to become possible. Wherever limitations recede and in pro-
portion as they recede, the body becomes a more plastic and responsive and in
that measure a more fit and perfect instrument of the action of the spirit. In
all effective and expressive activities here in the material world the
cooperation of the two ends of our being is indispensable. If the body is
unable whether by fatigue or by natural incapacity or any other cause to second
the thought or will or is in any way irresponsive or insufficiently responsive,
to that extent the action fails or falls short or becomes in some degree
unsatisfying or incomplete. In what seems to be an exploit of the spirit so
purely mental as the outpouring of poetic inspiration, there must be a
responsive vibration of the brain and its openness as a channel for the power
of the thought and vision and the light of the word that is making or breaking
its way through or seeking for its perfect expression. If the brain is fatigued
or dulled by any clog, either the inspiration cannot come and nothing is
written or it fails and something inferior is all that can come out; or else a
lower inspiration takes the place of the more luminous formulation that was
striving to shape itself or the brain finds it more easy to lend itself to a
less radiant stimulus or else it labours and constructs or responds to poetic
artifice. Even in the most purely mental activities the fitness, readiness or
perfect training of the bodily instrument is a condition indispensable. That
readiness, that response too is part of the total perfection of the body.
The essential purpose and sign of the growing evolution
here is the emergence of consciousness in an apparently inconscient universe,
the growth of the consciousness and with it growth of the light and power of
the being; the development of the form and its functioning or its fitness to
survive, athough indispensable, is not the whole meaning or the central motive.
The greater and greater awakening of consciousness and its climb to a higher
and higher level and a wider extent of its vision and action is the condition
of our progress towards that supreme and total perfection which is the aim of
our existence. It is the condition also of the total perfection of the body.
There are higher levels of the mind than any we now conceive and to these we
must one day reach and rise beyond them to the heights of a greater, a
spiritual existence. As we rise we have to open to them our lower members and
fill these with those superior and supreme dynamisms of light and power; the
body we have to make a more and more and even entirely conscious frame and
instrument, a conscious sign and seal and power of the spirit. As it grows in
this perfection, the force and extent of its dynamic action and its response
and service to the spirit must increase, the control of the spirit over it also
must grow and the plasticity of its functioning both in its developed and
acquired parts of power and in its automatic responses down to those that are
now purely organic and seem to be the movements of a mechanic inconscience.
This cannot happen without a veritable transformation and a transformation of
the mind and life and very body is indeed the change to which our evolution is
secretly moving and without this transformation the entire fullness of a divine
life on earth cannot emerge. In this transformation the body itself can become
an agent and a partner. It might indeed be possible for the spirit to achieve a
considerable manifestation with only a passive and imperfectly conscious body
as its last or bottommost means of material functioning, but this could not be
anything perfect or complete. A fully conscious body might even discover and
work out the right material method and process of a material transformation.
For this, no doubt, the spirit's supreme light and power and creative joy must
have manifested on the summit of the individual consciousness and sent down
their fiat into the body, but still the body may take in the working out its
spontaneous part of self-discovery and achievement. It would be thus a
participator and agent in its own transformation and the integral
transformation of the whole being; this too would be a part and a sign and
evidence of the total perfection of the body.
If the emergence and growth of consciousness is the
central motive of the evolution and the key to its secret purpose, then by the
very nature of that evolution this growth must involve not only a wider and
wider extent of its capacities but also an ascent to a higher and higher level
till it reaches the highest possible. For it starts from a nethermost level of
involution in the Inconscience which we see at work in Matter creating the
material universe; it proceeds by an Ignorance which is yet ever developing
knowledge and reaching out to an ever greater light and ever greater
organisation and efficacy of the will and harmonisation of all its own inherent
and emerging powers; it must at last reach a point where it develops or
acquires the complete fullness of its capacity and that must be a state or
action in which there is no longer an ignorance seeking for knowledge but
Knowledge self-possessed, inherent in the being, master of its own truths and
working them out with a natural vision and force that is not afflicted by
limitation or error. Or if there is a limitation, it must be a self-imposed
veil behind which it would keep truth back for a manifestation in Time but draw
it out at will and without any need of search or acquisition in the order of a
right perception of things or in the just succession of that which has to be
manifested in obedience to the call of Time. This would mean an entry or
approach into what might be called a truth-consciousness self-existent in which
the being would be aware of its own realities and would have the inherent power
to manifest them in a Time-creation in which all would be Truth following out
its own unerring steps and combining its own harmonies; every thought and will
and feeling and act would be spontaneously right, inspired or intuitive, moving
by the light of Truth and therefore perfect. All would express inherent
realities of the spirit; some fullness of the power of the spirit would be
there. One would have overpassed the present limitations of mind: mind would
become a seeing of the light of Truth, will a force and power of the Truth,
Life a progressive fulfilment of the Truth, the body itself a conscious vessel
of the Truth and part of the means of its self-effectuation and a form of its
self-aware existence. It would be at least some initiation of this
Truth-Consciousness, some first figure and action of it that must be reached
and enter into a first operation if there is to be a divine life or any full
manifestation of a spiritualised consciousness in the world of Matter. Or, at
the very least, such a Truth-Consciousness must be in communication with our
own mind and life and body, descend into touch with it, control its seeing and
action, impel its motives, take hold of its forces and shape their direction
and purpose. All touched by it might not be able to embody it fully, but each
would give some form to it according to his spiritual temperament, inner
capacity, the line of his evolution in Nature: he would reach securely the
perfection of which he was immediately capable and he would be on the road to
the full possession of the truth of the Spirit and of the truth of Nature.
In the workings of such a Truth-consciousness there
would be a certain conscious seeing and willing automatism of the steps of its
truth which would replace the infallible automatism of the inconscient or
seemingly inconscient Force that has brought out of an apparent Void the
miracle of an ordered universe and this could create a new order of the
manifestation of the Being in which a perfect perfection would become possible,
even a supreme and total perfection would appear in the vistas of an ultimate
possibility. If we could draw down this power into the material world, our
agelong dreams of human perfectibility, individual perfection, the
perfectibility of the race, of society, inner mastery over self and a complete
mastery, governance and utilisation of the forces of Nature could see at long
last a prospect of total achievement. This complete human self- fulfilment
might well pass beyond limitations and be transformed into the character of a
divine life. Matter after taking into itself and manifesting the power of life
and the light of mind would draw down into .it the superior or supreme power
and light of the spirit and in an earthly body shed its parts of inconscience
and become a perfectly conscious frame of the spirit. A secure completeness and
stability of the health and strength of its physical tenement could be
maintained by the will and force of this inhabitant; all the natural capacities
of the physical frame, all powers of the physical consciousness would reach
their utmost extension and be there at command and sure of their flawless
action. As an instrument the body would acquire a fullness of capacity, a
totality of fitness for all uses which the inhabitant would demand of it far
beyond anything. now possible. Even it could become a revealing vessel of a
supreme beauty and bliss,—casting the beauty of the light of the spirit
suffusing and radiating from it as a lamp reflects and diffuses the luminosity
of its indwelling flame, carrying in itself the beatitude of the spirit, its
joy of the, seeing mind, its joy of life and spiritual happiness, the joy of
Matter released into a spiritual consciousness and thrilled with a constant
ecstasy. This would be the total perfection of the spiritualised body.
All this might not come all at once, though such a
sudden illumination might be possible if a divine Power and Light and Ananda
could take their stand on the summit of our being and send down their force
into the mind and life and body illumining and remoulding the cells, awaking
consciousness in all the frame. But the way would be open and the consummation
of all that is possible in the individual could progressively take place. The
physical also would have its share in that consummation of the whole.
There would always remain vistas beyond as the infinite
Spirit took up towards higher heights and larger breadths the evolving Nature,
in the movement or the liberated, being towards the possession of the supreme
Reality, the supreme existence, consciousness, beatitude. But of this it would
be premature to speak: what has been written is perhaps as much as the human
mind as it is now constituted can venture to look forward to and the
enlightened thought understand in some measure. These consequences of the
Truth-Consciousness descending and laying its hold upon Matter would be a
sufficient justification of the evolutionary labour. In this upward
all-uplifting sweep of the Spirit there could be a simultaneous or consecutive
downward sweep of the triumph of a spiritualised Nature all-including,
all-transmuting and in it there could occur a glorifying change of Matter and
the physical consciousness and physical form and functioning of which we could
speak as not only the total but the supreme perfection of the body.
23 March 1949