(12) For athletic, I take the subject of it largely, that is to say,
for any point of ability whereunto the body of man may be brought,
whether it be of activity, or of patience; whereof activity hath two
parts, strength and swiftness; and patience likewise hath two parts,
hardness against wants and extremities, and endurance of pain or
torment; whereof we see the practices in tumblers, in savages, and
in those that suffer punishment. Nay, if there be any other faculty
which falls not within any of the former divisions, as in those that
dive, that obtain a strange power of containing respiration, and the
like, I refer it to this part. Of these things the practices are
known, but the philosophy that concerneth them is not much inquired;
the rather, I think, because they are supposed to be obtained,
either by an aptness of nature, which cannot be taught, or only by
continual custom, which is soon prescribed which though it be not
true, yet I forbear to note any deficiences; for the Olympian games
are down long since, and the mediocrity of these things is for use;
as for the excellency of them it serveth for the most part but for
mercenary ostentation.
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