Manhattan Athletic Club Dinner
After-dinner speech.

by Robert G. Ingersoll
(1890)

From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition, 1900–1902), Volume 12.
Source: https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/manhattan-athletic-club-dinner/
Public domain. CC0 / Public Domain Mark 1.0.

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Manhattan Athletic Club Dinner

New York, December 27, 1890.

TOAST: ATHLETICS AMONG THE ANCIENTS.

THE first record of public games is found in the twentythird Book of the
Iliad. These games were performed at the funeral of Patroclus, and there
were:

First. A chariot race, and the first prize was:

"A woman fair, well skilled in household care."

Second. There was a pugilistic encounter, and the first prize,
appropriately enough, was a mule.

It gave me great pleasure to find that Homer did not hold in high esteem
the victor. I have reached this conclusion, because the poet put these
words in the mouth of Eppius, the great boxer winding up with the
following refined declaration concerning his opponent:

"I mean to pound his flesh and smash his bones."

After the battle, the defeated was helped from the field. He spit
forth clotted gore. His head rolled from side to side, until he fell
unconscious.

Third, wrestling; fourth, foot-race; fifth, fencing; sixth, throwing the
iron mass or bar; seventh, archery, and last, throwing the javelin.

All of these games were in honor of Patroclus. This is the same
Patroclus who, according to Shakespeare, addressed Achilles in these
words:
    "In the battle-field I claim no special praise;
    'Tis not for man in all things to excel—"
    "Rouse yourself, and the weak wanton Cupid
    Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,
    And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,
    Be shook to air."

These games were all born of the instinct of self-defence. The chariot
was used in war. Man should know the use of his hands, to the end that
he may repel assault. He should know the use of the sword, to the end
that he may strike down his enemy. He should be skillful with the arrow,
to the same end. If overpowered, he seeks safety in flight—he should
therefore know how to run. So, too, he could preserve himself by the
skillful throwing of the javelin, and in the close encounter a knowledge
of wrestling might save his life.

Man has always been a fighting animal, and the art of self-defence is
nearly as important now as ever—and will be, until man rises to that
supreme height from which he will be able to see that no one can commit
a crime against another without injuring himself.

The Greeks knew that the body bears a certain relation to the soul—that
the better the body—other things being equal—the greater the
mind. They also knew that the body could be developed, and that such
development would give or add to the health, the courage, the endurance,
the self-confidence, the independence and the morality of the human
race. They knew, too, that health was the foundation, the corner-stone,
of happiness.

They knew that human beings should know something about themselves,
something of the capacities of body and mind, to the end that they might
ascertain the relation between conduct and happiness, between temperance
and health.

It is needless to say that the Greeks were the most intellectual of all
races, and that they were in love with beauty, with proportion, with the
splendor of the body and of mind; and so great was their admiration
for the harmoniously developed, that Sophocles had the honor of walking
naked at the head of a great procession.

The Greeks, through their love of physical and mental development, gave
us the statues—the most precious of all inanimate things—of far more
worth than all the diamonds and rubies and pearls that ever glittered in
crowns and tiaras, on altars or thrones, or, flashing, rose and fell on
woman's billowed breast. In these marbles we find the highest types of
life, of superb endeavor and supreme repose. In looking at them we feel
that blood flows, that hearts throb and souls aspire. These miracles of
art are the richest legacies the ancient world has left our race.

The nations in love with life, have games. To them existence is
exultation. They are fond of nature. They, seek the woods and streams.
They love the winds and waves of the sea. They enjoy the poem of the
day, the drama of the year.

Our Puritan fathers were oppressed with a sense of infinite
responsibility. They were disconsolate and sad, and no more thought
of sport, except the flogging of; Quakers, than shipwrecked wretches
huddled on a raft would turn their attention to amateur theatricals.

For many centuries the body was regarded as a decaying; casket, in
which had been placed the gem called the soul, and the nearer rotten the
casket the more brilliant the jewel.

In those blessed days, the diseased were sainted and insanity born
of fasting and self-denial and abuse of the body, was looked upon as
evidence of inspiration. Cleanliness was not next to godliness—it
was the opposite; and in those days, what was known as "the odor of
sanctity" had a substantial foundation. Diseased bodies produced all
kinds of mental maladies. There is a direct relation between sickness
and superstition. Everybody knows that Calvinism was the child of
indigestion.

Spooks and phantoms hover about the undeveloped and diseased, as
vultures sail above the dead.

Our ancestors had the idea that they ought to be spiritual, and that
good health was inconsistent with the highest forms of piety. This
heresy crept into the minds even of secular writers, and the novelists
described their heroines as weak and languishing, pale as lilies, and in
the place of health's brave flag they put the hectic flush.

Weakness was interesting, and fainting captured the hearts of all.
Nothing was so attractive as a society belle with a drug-store
attachment.

People became ashamed of labor, and consequently, of the evidences
of labor. They avoided "sun-burnt mirth"—were proud of pallor, and
regarded small, white hands as proof that they had noble blood within
their veins. It was a joy to be too weak to work, too languishing to
labor.

The tide has turned. People are becoming sensible enough to desire
health, to admire physical development, symmetry of form, and we now
know that a race with little feet and hands has passed the climax and is
traveling toward the eternal night.

When the central force is strong, men and women are full of life to
the finger tips. When the fires burn low, they begin to shrivel at the
extremities—the hands and feet grow small, and the mental flame wavers
and wanes.

To be self-respecting we must be self-supporting.

Nobility is a question of character, not of birth.

Honor cannot be received as alms—it must be earned.

It is the brow that makes the wreath of glory green.

All exercise should be for the sake of development—that is to say, for
the sake of health, and for the sake of the mind—all to the end that
the person may become better, greater, more useful. The gymnast or the
athelete should seek for health as the student should seek for truth;
but when athletics degenerate into mere personal contests, they become
dangerous, because the contestants lose sight of health, as in the
excitement of debate the students prefer personal victory to the
ascertainment of truth.

There is another thing to be avoided by all athletic clubs, and that is,
anything that tends to brutalize, destroy or dull the finer feelings.
Nothing is more disgusting, more disgraceful, than pugilism—nothing
more demoralizing than an exhibition of strength united with ferocity,
and where the very body developed by exercise is mutilated and
disfigured.

Sports that can by no possibility give pleasure, except to the
unfeeling, the hardened and the really brainless, should be avoided.
No gentleman should countenance rabbit-coursing, fighting of dogs, the
shooting of pigeons, simply as an exhibition of skill.

All these things are calculated to demoralize and brutalize not only
the actors, but the lookers on. Such sports are savage, fit only to be
participated in and enjoyed by the cannibals of Central Africa or the
anthropoid apes.

Find what a man enjoys—what he laughs at—what he calls diversion—and
you know what he is. Think of a man calling himself civilized, who is in
raptures at a bull fight—who smiles when he sees the hounds pursue and
catch and tear in pieces the timid hare, and who roars with laughter
when he watches the pugilists pound each other's faces, closing each
other's eyes, breaking jaws and smashing noses. Such men are beneath
the animals they torture—on a level with the pugilists they applaud.
Gentlemen should hold such sports in unspeakable contempt. No man finds
pleasure in inflicting pain.

In every public school there should be a gymnasium.

It is useless to cram minds and deform bodies. Hands should be educated
as well as heads. All should be taught the sports and games that require
mind, muscle, nerve and judgment.

Even those who labor should take exercise, to the end that the whole
body may be developed. Those who work at one employment become deformed.
Proportion is lost. But where harmony is preserved by the proper
exercise, even old age is beautiful.

To the well developed, to the strong, life seems rich, obstacles small,
and success easy. They laugh at cold and storm. Whatever the season may
be their hearts are filled with summer.

Millions go from the cradle to the coffin without knowing what it is
to live. They simply succeed in postponing death. Without appetites,
without passions, without struggle, they slowly rot in a waveless pool.
They never know the glory of success, the rapture of the fight.

To become effeminate is to invite misery. In the most delicate bodies
may be found the most degraded souls. It was the Duchess Josiane whose
pampered flesh became so sensitive that she thought of hell as a place
where people were compelled to sleep between coarse sheets.

We need the open air—we need the experience of heat and cold. We need
not only the rewards and caresses, but the discipline of our mother
Nature. Life is not all sunshine, neither is it all storm, but man
should be enabled to enjoy the one and to withstand the other.

I believe in the religion of the body—of physical development—in
devotional exercise—in the beatitudes of cheerfulness, good health,
good food, good clothes, comradeship, generosity, and above all, in
happiness. I believe in salvation here and now. Salvation from deformity
and disease—from weakness and pain—from ennui and insanity. I believe
in heaven here and now—the heaven of health and good digestion—of
strength and long life—of usefulness and joy. I believe in the builders
and defenders of homes.

The gentlemen whom we honor to-night have done a great work. To their
energy we are indebted for the nearest perfect, for the grandest
athletic clubhouse in the world. Let these clubs multiply. Let the
example be followed, until our country is filled with physical and
intellectual athletes—superb fathers, perfect mothers, and every child
an heir to health and joy.
