MOVING IN HARMONY WITH NATURES LAWS - SPORT LEISURE, AND HEALTH IN VICTORIAN NORTH-AMERICA

In Victorian North America there was a general acceptance of the impor tance of a harmonious balance between the mental, moral, and physical faculties. Health reformers claimed that this state was not only natur al, but that health could only be attained and maintained through adhe rence to Nature's laws. They extended that argument and claimed that t he human body was a metaphor for the body politic, and both were in di re need of Nature's therapeutic help for the restoration of the natura l equilibrium. This paper will establish the importance of that tri-pa rtite harmony within the body and the role of exercise and athletics i n its maintenance. It will examine the forces behind such a prevalent and persistent theory. And finally, it will explore the extension of t his concept from the human body to the social body.