The Memory Palace of Bones:

Exploring Embodiment through the

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The Memory Palace of Bones
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 THE MEMORY
PALACE OF BONES
Exploring embodiment through
the skeletal system

David Lauterstein, LMT,

and Dr. Jeff Rockwell
Foreword by Gil Hedley
Illustrated by Christy Krames
 First published in Great Britain in 2023 by Handspring Publishing,
an imprint of Jessica Kingsley Publishers
An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
An Hachette UK Company
The right of David Lauterstein and Jeff Rockwell to be identified as the Authors of the Work
has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Copyright © David Lauterstein and Jeff Rockwell 2023
Illustration copyright © Christy Krames 2023
Foreword copyright © Gil Hedley 2023
Permissions to reprint passages from the following books have been granted by the following publishers:
“On a Degas Bronze of a Dancer” from Collected Poems by John Berger,
copyright © 2014 John Berger. Reprinted by permission of Smokestack Books.
“Single form” from MARKINGS by Dag Hammarskjöld, translated by Leif Sjöberg and W. H.
Auden, translation copyright © 1964, copyright renewed 1992 by Penguin Random House
LLC and Faber & Faber Ltd. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf
Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from THE SOUL’S CODE: IN SEARCH OF CHARACTER AND CALLING by
James Hillman, copyright © 1996 James Hillman. Used by permission of Random House,
an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from “Kabir: Ecstatic Poems” by Robert Bly. Copyright © 2004 by
Robert Bly. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston.
2 lines from pg. 143 from Times Alone: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado © 1983 by
Antonio Machado. Published by Wesleyan University Press. Used by permission.
“Ode to Ironing.” By Pablo Neruda, from Full Woman. Fleshly Apple. Hot Moon, translated by Stephen
Mitchell. Copyright © 1998 Stephen Mitchell. Reprinted by permission of Stephen Mitchell, translator.
“The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me.” By Delmore Schwartz, from SELECTED POEMS, copyright
© 1959 by Delmore Schwartz. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the
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This book is intended to convey inspiration and information to the reader. It is not
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 Contents

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Foreword by Gil Hedley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Important Note to Readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Introduction: Welcome to the Memory Palace! . . . . . . . . . 15

Chapter 1: In the Beginning Are the Feet . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Chapter 2: The Song of the Brother and Sister in Your Leg:

Tibia and Fibula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Chapter 3: A Life in the Groove: Being Patella . . . . . . . . . . 41

Chapter 4: The Alpha and Omega of the Femur . . . . . . . . . 49

Chapter 5: The Pelvis and Its Wings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Chapter 6: The Sacrum and Coccyx: Portal to the Lower and

Higher Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Chapter 7: The Karma of the Lumbar Vertebrae . . . . . . . . . 79

Chapter 8: Thoracic Visions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Chapter 9: The Sternum: Blade and Flower . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Chapter 10: The Trimtab of the Xiphoid Process . . . . . . . . 105

Chapter 11: The Ribs: 24 Ways to Say the Heart Is
My Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Chapter 12: The Scapula: Wisdom in the Wings . . . . . . . . . 121

Chapter 13: The Clavicles: Keys to the Shoulder Girdles . . . . 131

Chapter 14: The Humerus and Social Engagement . . . . . . . 141

Chapter 15: Forearms with a River Flowing Between Two

Bones: Radius and Ulna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Chapter 16: The Light in the Hands and the Carpal Tunnel . . 157

Chapter 17: The Seven Beauties of the Neck: Lower

Cervicals, Axis, and Atlas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Chapter 18: Mandible and Maxilla: What These Bones

Tell Us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Chapter 19: Yoga and the Zygomatic Bone . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Chapter 20: Visions of the Cranium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Chapter 21: The Frontal Bone—Doorway to the Inner and

Outer Worlds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Chapter 22: The Sphenoid: Wasp or Butterfly? . . . . . . . . . . 205

Chapter 23: Blessed Are the Soundmakers . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Chapter 24: Occipital Dreams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

 I am always trying to convey something that can’t be
conveyed, to explain something which is inexplicable,
to talk about something I have in my bones, something
which can be expressed only in the bones.

—Franz Kafka
 Acknowledgments

To the memory of my father and mother, with deep appreciation.

To my greatest mentors, Drs. Janet Travell, Henri Gillet, Raymond
Nimmo, and Robert Fulford, with unlimited gratitude. To David
Lauterstein and Peter Ehlers, whose wisdom and work are continu-
ous sources of inspiration. And to Dr. Brigitte Essl, who generously
blesses me with her knowledge, helpfulness, and loving presence.

—Jeff Rockwell

I dedicate this book: to my co-author, Jeff Rockwell, who inspired

this project; to John Berger, brilliant writer and humanitarian; to past
teachers Bob King and Dr. Fritz Smith; to John Conway and faculty,
staff, and students at The Lauterstein-Conway Massage School;
to my son, Jake Lauterstein, and my wife, Julie Lauterstein; and in
memory of her mother, Cherry Thomas Harper.

—David Lauterstein

9
 Foreword

In order to remember, one has to have a thought, an experience, a

connection upon which to base the recollection. David Lauterstein
and Dr. Jeff Rockwell each have accrued decades of such conscious
connection, derived from their professional and personal journeys
exploring their own bodies and working in service of their clients,
patients, and students. Here we have a pair of fellow travelers ideally
prepared to build a “memory palace” of bones.
A “memory palace,” as they share with us, is an inner world,
an inner sanctum, created to bring back to mind a set of ideas, or
meanings, or objects with which one wishes to remain in touch in
the present. Setting their minds upon the bones, they have created a
“memory palace” for us with which to connect, not with something
from our past that is otherwise forgotten, but rather with something
native to us all in this very moment which we might otherwise not
have considered so deeply or felt for so intently.
This collection of connected and continuous crystalline struc-
tures most deep within our bodies affords us a strength, a resilience,
and a certain sense of place and inner knowing that is completely
native to us, an inner expression of life unfolded within us. Yet how
can we come to appreciate these gifts without taking some time
to enter into relationship with them a bit more deeply? Consider
The Memory Palace of Bones a chance to contemplate, explore, and
experience the gifts of your bones for the sheer joy of it, or to deepen
your ability to serve others better for having done so.
Our authors use art, poetry, story, science, personal reflections,

11
 The Memory Palace of Bones

and embodiment exercises together to treat the great gathering of

bones within us with respect, appreciation, and a sense of wonder.
“Every bone bears us a message,” we are told, and these two angels
of the bones have set out to help us hear those messages from them
all. This is not a book to be simply gobbled like so much information
candy. Lauterstein and Rockwell have, rather, created an opportunity
for the reader to savor their encounter with their bones, to drop in,
and to build a lasting relationship with this “memory palace” within
us. Taking time to listen to the messages borne to us, we step into a
connection with ourselves that we might otherwise take for granted
or miss altogether. Stop and feel your bones, and let their voices
ring out.
“Bones are as alive as your heart,” we are asked to consider. And
what blood would there be spinning through the 60,000 miles of
vessels of our whole hearts if not that which is brought to life from
deep within our bones? This is not a book about the skeleton. Skeletos
means “dried.” The dry bones are quite removed from the experience
of bones and bodies. A skeleton, over there, is a rattling thing, an
abstraction apart from us. If that is the mirror we look into to enter
into relationship with our bones, that relationship will be deeply
short-changed. Lauterstein and Rockwell invite us into relationship
but not with something dead and over there. The relationship to
which they call us is with our own life within us, pulsing, watery,
green, resilient, musical, and true.
This book is also full of intellectual curiosity and satisfaction
for the mind. The authors have soaked in the wealth of offerings
from a host of brilliant teachers. They carry forward the intellectual
and clinical legacies of a Who’s Who of luminaries from the fields
of manual therapies, including Ida Rolf, Bucky Fuller, Fritz Smith,
Emily Conrad, Andrew Taylor Still, Daniel David Palmer, and Wil-
liam Sutherland, to name a few. Their “memory palace” is built not
only from their own experiences but from their lifelong engagement
with several lineages of thought and practice. These traditions of
practice, each with its own sophisticated engagement with the bones,
afford an even greater leverage with which to dig into one’s own
relationship with these marvels living within us all. We don’t have

12
 Foreword

to wait for a bone to break before we get to know it. We can take our
authors’ lead and benefit from their rich experience with their own
teachers. We can enter into relationship not only with our living
bones but also with the traditions that love them still. Welcome to
your tour of The Memory Palace of Bones: in this hall of mirrors, you
will only see yourself more clearly. Enjoy!
Warmly,

Gil Hedley, Ph.D.

13
 Important Note to Readers

The Memory Palace is a place to marvel at the life within and around
us. One naturally pauses with wonder when contemplating a moun-
tain, a heart, a beautiful poem, a remarkable person. Accordingly,
please read this book itself as a Memory Palace. Read each section
slowly once or twice and pause between the exploration and embodi-
ment of each bone. We’d recommend reading perhaps just one or two
chapters at a time. This book is not meant to be read as if walking
quickly through a museum, temple, or palace without pausing. Please
slow down, savor, and feel the resonances in your own body, mind,
and spirit though your and our reflections upon each bone.

14
 INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the
Memory Palace!

Why The Memory Palace of Bones? How can understanding the title
of this book help you make the best use of what you read? Here’s
the story of how and why we came up with, and were inspired by,
this title.
David’s first book was on the anatomy, kinesiology, and roles of
muscles in our lives. Putting the Soul Back in the Body: A Manual of
Imagination Anatomy for Massage Therapists was published in 1984.
In early 2020 Jeff told David he wanted to co-write a similar book,
but focused on the bones.
As we began collaborating in our writing, the notion of “memory
palaces” became more and more intriguing and persistent.
The practice of creating memory palaces was first recorded around
the time of Cicero. Before printing, learning was transmitted through
the oral tradition, which required considerable skill in remembering
important conversations, events, stories, songs, and sacred texts. So,
naturally, methods to enhance memory were invented.
One of the fundamental techniques was to create an imaginary
structure, called a “memory palace,” in one’s mind. This could be
based on a palace one had actually visited or that one simply imag-
ined. The interior of this palace would be constructed with many
rooms, called “loci,” each decorated with scenes and objects, designed
to trigger certain memories. It could be a dramatic scene in an ante-
chamber to recall the details of a case going before a high court.
 The Memory Palace of Bones

The more dramatic and detailed the scene, the more memorable
would be the memories triggered. “The classical sources seem to be
describing inner techniques which depend on visual impressions of
almost incredible intensity” (Yates 1966, p.4). Remarkable feats of
memory were recorded using this method. “The art of memory is like
an inner writing…depending on inner gymnastics, invisible labors of
concentration…” (Yates 1966, p.16).
Over time, the concept of the memory palace evolved. St. Augus-
tine explicitly wrote about his challenges searching for and not quite
finding God everywhere within his memory. In medieval times,
churches began incorporating paintings and frescoes designed to
evoke memories, worship, and righteous behavior—the “corporeal
similitudes of subtle and spiritual intentions” (Yates 1966, p.76). In
the 14th century, Dante created one of the greatest memory palaces
in literature through his Divine Comedy, depicting travels through the
various levels of hell, purgatory, and heaven. In the 16th century, we
find the first explicit attempts to create an actual memory palace. Giu-
lio Camillo, an Italian philosopher of that time, claimed to have made a
small building that a person would enter and be instantly flooded with
memories and knowledge of all times. The theory and practice of the
art of memory then played a role in the writings of the 16th-century
Italian philosopher and astronomer Giordano Bruno, who wrote of
memory as the art “by which we may become joined to the soul of the
world” (quoted in Yates 1966, p.259). All this and more is explored in
great detail in Frances Yates’s masterpiece of alternative intellectual
history, The Art of Memory.
In the 20th century, the idea of constructed places triggering
memory and inner knowing was embodied in the writings and
architecture of Charles Moore. Moore was deeply affected by the
idea that all structures, whether natural or human-made, had the
capacity to evoke memory and knowledge. His books Body, Mem-
ory and Architecture (Bloomer and Moore 1977) and Chambers for a
Memory Palace (Lyndon and Moore 1994) elaborate on this notion.
Jeff and I were intrigued and inspired by this notion of memory
palaces. As we explored our own bodies, our memories, and our clinical
experiences, we wondered: Could the body itself be a memory palace?

16
 Welcome to the Memory Palace!

After all, within us live all our memories, all our learning, all our lives.
Don’t we walk through this memory palace every time we lay our
hands on the human body? And if so, what memories—ancient or
recent—are carried within and reflected in our bones? When we say
“I just know it in my bones,” is that merely a figure of speech? What
might our bones tell us—of ancient lives on the plain, of the evolution
from walking on all fours to two-legged locomotion, about the role
bones play in the balancing of human structure and energy?
So welcome to the memory palace! We hope you enjoy the explo-
ration, and that the messages and memories of the bones will speak
to you and deeply support your wisdom, your memories, your lives,
and your health.

—DL

When I was a child, my family moved to farm country and I spent

days roaming through the woods and open fields. I often found rab-
bit or squirrel skulls, the ribcage of a deer, even the occasional bird
skeleton. Fascinated, I took them home to study, later burying them
at the side of our house to give them a “proper” funeral. I never found
bones or skulls sinister; they were, instead, remarkable pieces of art.
In addition to these sojourns in woods and fields, I attended
Catholic school, where I was taught that our bodies were the temples
of God. At the same time, however, I was taught that the body was
sinful. These contradictory teachings tormented and disembodied
me for years and eventually drew me to bodywork and the human
potential movement of the 1970s.
Throughout 2019, I recall wishing and hoping that 2020 was
going to be better, kinder, gentler on our nervous systems than
recent years; 20/20, perfect vision, I told my friends.
And then, just like that, it wasn’t. COVID-19 arrived in the United
States.
In California’s Bay Area, where I reside, March 17 marked the first
day of a state-wide shelter-in-place shutdown. Along with everything
else, work came to a screeching halt.
Fortunately, being a chiropractic physician and osteopath, I

17
 The Memory Palace of Bones

was considered an “essential” worker. But for two weeks, patients

understandably were afraid to leave their homes, let alone come
for a hands-on treatment. I wondered what my work might look
like—if anything—in a year. I heard about people offering remote or
energetic bodywork. I was skeptical but signed up for an eight-week
course on long-distance osteopathy. If the shutdown lasted as long as
some were afraid it would, perhaps I could offer my services in this
manner. The course was well presented by a credible instructor, but
I never felt inspired or confident enough to try it on a paying client.
However, I received a gift: the assessments and techniques focused
on the visualization of bones and skeletal anatomy in extreme detail.
Lo and behold, I fell in love, once again, with bones.
My love for bones, along with a budding interest in spiritual prac-
tices and nature mysticism, led me to pursue careers in chiropractic
and later in osteopathy. Somewhere along the line, I read a wonderful
article that David wrote on the principles of manual therapy. This
inspired me to read his book, Putting the Soul Back into the Body. It
was equal parts poetry and science; it was aspirational philosophy
plus origins and insertions. I liked his poetic and phenomenological
approach to muscular anatomy and included it in the chiropractic
courses I was teaching at the time. And I took some of his classes with
him. We became friends, bonding over our mutual love for manual
therapy, music, poetry, and, of course, bones.
After my online course ended, I knew I wanted to write a book
on bones—not a scholarly textbook, but something akin to a poem.
And I knew I wanted to write it with David. Remember when MTV
first appeared in the early 1980s, and then MTV-Unplugged? They
played stripped-down versions of Nirvana, 10,000 Maniacs, Eric
Clapton—back to the bones of the music. Consider this book “Bones
Unplugged,” written by two body-philosophers in love with science,
poetry, and the deep sanctity of the human body. Go deep, friends;
your bones are ready to welcome you.

—JR

18
 CHAPTER 1

In the Beginning
Are the Feet

19
 The Memory Palace of Bones

To plant a foot firmly on earth—that is the ultimate achievement,

and a far later stage of growth than anything begun in your head.
We grow down, and we need a long life to get on our feet.

—James Hillman (2017, pp.42–43)

One of the great mysteries of the body is how the feet, though con-
stituting only 3 percent of the body’s weight, support 97 percent of
that weight. Not only do they balance our weight in standing but,
through the complex and dynamic living interactions of the bones,
ligaments, tendons, and muscles, they allow us to walk, to run, to
jump, and to dance.
To connect with the feet, to our souls and soles, let’s start by
dancing. The joy that we embody as our feet rhythmically strike
the body of the earth is the essence of our earliest celebrations, our
ceremonies, even our communications.
Various kinds of foot re-soundings upon the earth play a role in
all cultures—Native American stomp dance, flamenco dance from
Spain, Bharatanatyam from Asia, and Masai jumping from Africa, to
mention a very few.
Of course, many animals use their feet in mating and in commu-
nication. Elephants use foot-stomping and vocal rumblings as part
of seismic communication, sending vibrations underground to other
elephants far below our level of audible sound; distant elephants
“hear” those signals with their highly sensitive feet. It is, therefore,
no exaggeration to think of the foot as a kind of eardrum and the
body of the earth as a transmitting medium.
The foot is first of all a sense organ, later acquiring a motor func-
tion. In “civilization,” constantly shoed, we have limited our ability
to dance and certainly to listen with our feet! It is time to hear what
our soles and souls have to tell us.
As we explore the feet, let’s always remember that bones are
alive—nourished by blood, connected through nerves, and floating,
as do all the body’s parts, in the 60 percent ocean water that we are.
They shrink or grow according to the vicissitudes of movement, age,

20
 Feet

or physiological state. The bones “listen” to how we use or misuse

them, and they talk back!
The variety of the communications and celebrations issuing from
and through the feet depends on their miraculous ability to support
the entire body’s weight through arches. In architecture, an arch
is a curved opening in a structure designed to distribute weight.
Arches are used in large buildings because they can support a very
large mass.
Arches are essentially domes—adorning the tops of churches,
mosques, and synagogues. We can imagine these living domes
as adorning each of the diaphragmatic structures of the human
body—pelvic, respiratory, thoracic, palate, and skull. This organic
arrangement of anatomical domes begins with the feet.
The foot has three arches: medial longitudinal, lateral longitu-
dinal, and transverse. The arches provide the foot with the stiffness
it needs to act as a lever, transmitting the forces generated by the
leg muscles as they push against the ground. At the same time, the
arches allow for sufficient flexibility to function like springs, storing
and then releasing mechanical energy.
The keystones of the foot’s transverse arch are three bones known
as the medial, intermediate, and lateral cuneiforms. Cuneiform
comes from the Latin for wedge. The earliest form of written com-
munications, traced back to the Sumerians in the fourth millennium
bce, utilized cuneiform, or wedge-shaped characters.
So, what the feet, and the cuneiforms especially, have to tell us
is “written,” is shared, in the same shapes as the first written script.
Imagine the bones of our feet pressing into the ground, into the clay
from which we arise, just as the cuneiform characters were initially
pressed into moist clay tablets in the first forms of writing.
Each cuneiform is like a little upside-down pyramid with its
tip pointing downward. With their bottoms narrower than the
tops, they form an archway—a portal in the midfoot—giving us
the skeletal archetype for the foot’s architecture, especially the
transverse arch.
The cuneiforms are preceded, almost like passengers on a ship,
by the aptly named navicular, from the Latin navis, or boat. The

21
 The Memory Palace of Bones

navicular, with its strongly concave proximal surface, articulates

with and distributes force through the talus, through the cunei-
forms, to the first through third metatarsals and phalanges. Together
these comprise the medial longitudinal arch, vital for its role in
support, movement, flexibility, and springiness. Laterally, we have
the l­ateral longitudinal arch, created by the calcaneus, the cuboid,
and the fourth and fifth metatarsals. The longitudinal arches act as
pillars for the transverse arch that runs diagonally across the tarso-­
metatarsal joints.
The metatarsals are shaped like little femurs—mighty little
twigs—and are considered “long bones.”
The small bones of the toes are phalanges, derived from the
Latin phalanx, meaning “a number of
persons banded together in a common
Fulcrum is defined as (1) the
point on which a lever rests cause.” The toes are at our frontier, the
or is supported, and on which most anterior bones in the body, cen-
it pivots; (2) a thing that plays turions at the forefront of our lives. We
a pivotal or essential role in an
can also see each phalange as a precious
activity, event, or situation.
In this book we use the term jewel, often adorned with a toe ring or a
“fulcrum” in both senses of the beautifully painted nail, reminding us of
word. When we touch with their transcendence beyond mere utility.
fulcrums in bodywork, we are
As John Berger writes, “Jewels are by defi-
creating a resting point, a piv-
ot, a calm experience around nition small but in them is a luminosity
which the client responds. This which offers a message about the infinite”
is a structural and energetic (Berger and Christie 1999, p.70).
input that gives the client the
The feet themselves are fulcrums
opportunity to re-orient. They
can orient to that physical part which contribute vastly to the balance
of themselves and possibly to and health of our body, mind, and spirit.
emotions, thoughts, or beliefs The bones of the foot are further
to which that part is connect-
buoyed by the ligaments and muscles
ed. The fulcrum implies we are
not using a technique from surrounding them. These act like bow-
“outside-in”; the fulcrum gives strings, enhancing the natural arches
us a balancing point, an op- formed by the bones. The whole foot is
portunity, unconsciously and/
a “tensegrity” structure in which the soft
or consciously, to let go from
“inside-out.” members (muscles and connective tissue)
are in communication with the nervous

22
 Feet

system and together create a geodesic dome that underlies and sup-
ports our every move.
So let’s honor and acknowledge the complex and profound roles
of the feet in our lives. Then let’s go about celebrating our miraculous
feet, adding more appreciation, joyful steps, and dances to our lives.

—DL

The feet, like all parts of the body, speak for themselves, if we have
“ears” with which to listen. Some folks in our field teach that we need
to be more embodied in our belly or in our pelvis, with which I agree.
But try our approach: start with the feet, our faithful servants that
keep us planted on Earth.
D. H. Lawrence loved the body, especially the feet. He wrote:

Give me the moon at my feet

Put my feet upon the crescent, like a Lord!
O let my ankles be bathed in moonlight,
That I may go sun and moon-shod,
Cool and bright-footed
Towards my goal.

(Lawrence 1930, p.56)

It is sad that feet are so ignored—and often maligned—in our society.

Even from a purely anatomical view, the feet are a universe unto
themselves: the hindfoot, the midfoot, and the forefoot, a micro-
cosm of the shaman’s upper, middle, and lower worlds. According
to tradition, there is a world of help and healing above us, a world
of unconditional love and guidance below us, and a world of ancient
wisdom within us. These three worlds are part of one universal
energy, just as the three parts of the feet make up one structure
that is part of the larger structure of the human body. As I walk,
rolling from heel-strike to foot plant to toe-off, I acknowledge the
three energetic worlds of the ancestors, remembering that it is only
through the feet that I can have this experience.

23
 The Memory Palace of Bones

My grandmother used to say, “When your feet hurt, your whole

body hurts.” Of course—they support everything above them. She
also told me that in Italy, men found a woman’s feet particularly
attractive and would whistle at her feet as she walked by.
Perhaps one of the reasons we disparage the feet is because
they represent our contact with Mother Earth, which our culture
dishonors. In non-Global North regions, where people are more in
touch—literally and figuratively—with the Earth, they commonly go
barefoot in order to feel her energy. The feet show our awareness of
being incarnated on this planet.
In India, the feet are considered conduits of divine grace, and
to touch them confers blessings. At the temple of Bodhgaya, the
large stone footprints of the Buddha greet pilgrims as they arrive.
The story is told of how Buddha, after his birth, took seven steps
in each direction, leaving footprints that later were identified by a
wandering saint as belonging to a future world teacher. Today, we
speak of student–mentor relationships as ones in which we seek “to
follow or walk in their footsteps.”
But it is not just the feet of the holy or the wise that are sig-
nificant. Think of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, thereby
announcing a transformation of values for a new age. It is a typical
custom of hospitality in countries where roads are dusty, and travel-
ers wear sandals or no shoes at all, to offer water for the washing of
one’s own feet, but special guests may have this cleansing performed
for them, historically by women. In performing his own version of
such a “womanly” task, Jesus reversed the “manly” expectations of
the Roman empire. His religion of love was the exact psychological
counterpart to the Roman worship of power. It’s sad to see how
enthralled today’s leaders are by heartless dominion over others. It’s
almost as if Jesus never lived, as if the Sermon on the Mount was
never delivered.
I appreciate the practical artistry of all the foot bones, but I have
a particular fondness for the talus. Because it articulates with so
many other bones, it is largely covered by sparkling hyaline cartilage,
a beautiful crystal anchoring the temple of the body.
The talus is remarkable in other ways as well. In my chiropractic

24
 Feet

training, the talus is considered the keystone of the ankle: as goes the
talus, so go the ankle and foot. We were also taught that the ankle,
influenced by the talus, accounts for 80 percent of knee pain and a
significant amount of low back pain.
Unlike most bones, the talus has no muscle attachments. Its
position, atop the calcaneus and nestled between the distal ends of
the tibia and fibula, is quite a “biotensegral” feat.
I love to walk barefoot. When I was in high school and a compet-
itive long-distance runner, I even enjoyed running barefoot (inspired
by the late Ethiopian Olympic marathoner Abebe Bikila, who won
the 1960 Olympic marathon by racing down the streets of Rome
without running shoes).
I feel a greater sense of freedom when moving about without
shoes, the independence that is the soulmate of support or stability.
Going barefoot wakes up the small intrinsic muscles of the feet, those
same muscles that suffer from the confines of the caskets—I mean
shoes—that we seem to live in.
I wonder how many podiatrists collaborate with manual thera-
pists. There are certain groups of muscles that go virtually ignored,
yet beg for acknowledgment: the muscles of the tongue or the pelvic
floor; and the intrinsic muscles of the feet, including the small but
mighty muscles of our metatarsals and phalanges.
The iconoclastic jazz master Sun Ra recorded an album entitled
Space is the Place. Nowhere is that more apparent in my own body
than in the feet, especially the metatarsals and toes. Sometimes when
I walk, I explore shifting my weight from medial to lateral arch and
back again, until I find the weight of my body pleasantly distributed
over both arches. Other times, I will stop and wiggle my toes, trying
to feel the origin of the movement at the base of the metatarsals. In
both cases, I like to finish these explorations by feeling energy flow
from my feet up through the top of my head. In doing so, I connect
with my core self, from bottom to top.
Scientist James Oschman considers the Earth to be “one gigantic
anti-inflammatory, sleep booster, and energizer, all wrapped up in
one” (Oschman 2016, p.301). I propose that by freeing up our toes
and taking them to the earth, we activate an important electrical

25
 The Memory Palace of Bones

exchange between the energy of the ground and our bodies. The
toes are more like ten antennas than ten little piggies going to the
market, and they draw the Earth’s energy into the larger connective
tissue system, which can move it to wherever it’s needed.
The late podiatrist Dr. William Rossi wrote in 1993, “The sole of
the foot and toes is richly covered with approximately 1,300 sensory
nerve endings per square inch” (Rossi 1993, p.39). Through manual
and movement therapy, along with interoceptive awareness exercises,
we can take full advantage of our connection with our world—with
Life—and know what it means to be alive like never before.
To explore this, let’s visit two bones in the feet: the navicular
and the cuboid. The navicular bone is like a little boat that allows
us to float elegantly on land; it also, as a central part of the foot’s
inner arch, lifts us skyward. And the cuboid, the sturdy cube on the
outside of the foot, helps us ground ourselves, keeping us and our
lives from toppling over, all the while allowing us to reach heaven
on Earth with each step.
The cuboid is cube-like: hence its name. It is a symbol of stabil-
ity and permanence. Its counterpart, the navicular, is a symbol of
that which glides on water. It even remains fluid-like longer than
any other bone in the foot, being the last to ossify. The navicular
is hidden in the cave of the medial arch and helps to give spring to
our steps. The cuboid, along with the base of its neighboring fifth
metatarsal, sticks out from the outside of the foot, almost like a
training wheel on a bike.
These bones, these faithful servants, inspired me to write this
poem:

Try explaining to a Martian

How we walk
Or how we swallow.
Do you think
We really don’t need to know?

How we walk
Is not a riddle

26
 Feet

But our great love,

Or lack of it,
For our
Lives.

—JR

Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with
me. I knew this body was not mine but a living continuation of my
mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents.
Of all my ancestors.
Those feet that I saw as “my” feet were actually “our” feet.
Together, my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.
…the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had
to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or
the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with
me, available at any time.

(Hanh 2003, p.5)

EMBODIMENT—FEET

The Chinese poet/philosopher Lao Tse wrote, “The journey of a

thousand miles begins with a single step.” Actually, that’s not quite
true. The journey begins by standing there at the starting point, like
a fulcrum on the earth.
First, stand up and feel the way the weight of your whole body is
being balanced subtly and constantly by your feet. Then bring your
awareness into the bony living members of the feet. They all work
so well together that you may not feel all the separate bones—just
visualize them as best you can and remember that bones are as alive
as your heart!
Next, bring your awareness into the talus under the lower leg
and the calcaneus/heel bone below that. Moving forward from the
talus, visualize/feel in turn the navicular and the three cuneiforms,

27
 The Memory Palace of Bones

leading to the inner three metatarsals and then to the big toe, and
the second and the third toes. Shifting your awareness laterally, feel
the calcaneus, leading to the fourth and fifth metatarsals, the fourth
toe, and the little toe.
Once you have extended appreciation and a deeper awareness to
these essential parts of yourself, slowly take a few steps forward and
back. Feel that you have 26 bones in each foot that cascade down
to the earth as you step. The “foot” is an abstraction. Just as all our
words in the English language are made from 26 letters, so our every
step is made with 26 bones.

EMBODIMENT—FEET AND ANKLES

The joint between the tibia and talus is called the ankle or mortice
joint. Although typically considered a
The feet are the body’s foun-
hinge joint, it is more accurately a gliding
dation, and they are also distin- joint, where the tibia glides forward and
guished by having within them back on the talus.
what we term in Zero Balancing The joint between the talus and cal-
“foundation joints.” Unlike free-
ly movable joints, such as the
caneus is called the subtalar joint and is a
shoulder, elbow, and hip, foun- hinge joint, allowing for flexion and exten-
dation joints have a very limited sion. What many do not realize is that there
range of motion; but because is an extra, posterior semi-foundation joint
of that very stability, they are
better at transmitting force. A
here, permitting only a small amount of
small misalignment in the foot, opening and closing. This motion, as is
which has foundation joints true with all foundation joints, is critical.
between all the tarsal bones, Joints that favor stability over movement
can throw the entire body off
balance. The good news is that
must have that movement present, or
even small re-balancings in the large muscles that span the joint (in this
foot can introduce healthier case, the Achilles tendon and hamstrings)
energy flow and greater ease will contract in an often-futile attempt to
through the whole person.
mobilize it.
Do you have a tight Achilles tendon or
tight hamstrings? This exercise might be just what you need.
Stand and slowly bend forward at the waist to touch your toes.

28
 Feet

Notice where tightness on either side stops your movement. Sit down
and, crossing one leg over the other, grasp the calcaneus in one hand
and the bone directly above it—the talus—in the other. Hold the
talus still while pulling the calcaneus downward to encourage a small
amount of movement between the two bones. Take out the slack and
hold for five seconds. Pause for a few seconds, allowing the nervous
system to “catch up” with what you just did. Repeat two more times.
Note that you are doing this on one side only. Stand up and try to
touch your toes again. Often, it will now be considerably easier to
reach your toes. Walk around for a minute or so; notice the difference
in the two feet and the changes that are now present in the legs and
pelvis. You can then repeat this process on the other foot.

29
 CHAPTER 2

The Song of the Brother

and Sister in Your Leg
TIBIA AND FIBULA

31
 The Memory Palace of Bones

Brian Doyle, in his book Credo, wrote, “I grow utterly absorbed, as I

age, by two things: love, thorough or insufficient, and grace under
duress. Only those two” (Doyle 1997, p.57).
That seems to me about right. As we face what scientists call a
“meta-systems crisis”—common folks building survival shelters and
rich folks planning to colonize Mars, and all of them excited at the
prospect of extinction—the only thing that makes any sense to me,
or appeals to me, is love: love for each other and audacious love for
the body of Mother Earth. And that leads me to “grace under duress.”
I have just returned from a hiking trip in the Escalante-Grand
Staircase National Monument in southern Utah. Out of shape, I nev-
ertheless dedicated two weeks of my time to do this. Why? Because
I am in love with this place on Earth.
The first hike was not pleasant; my muscles fatigued and cramped
early on. But as my muscles failed me, I tapped into something
deeper, more reliable: my bones. I tried to meet the trail not with
quivering calf muscles but with the long and noble bones of the lower
legs—ground meeting ground.
The tibias—the second-largest bones in the body—helped me
most but the more delicate fibulae were particularly helpful as I nav-
igated the sometimes sandy, sometimes rocky terrain. Anatomists
believe the fibula does not carry any significant weight of the body.
However, positioned on the outside of the lower leg, the fibulae are
analogous to training wheels on a bicycle—similar to the cuboids and
fifth metatarsals of the feet—steadying the novice rider.
Subsequent hikes were easier, and I have my bones to thank.
Unlike most of us, they are completely forgiving: even when we break
them, they heal stronger than ever. On that trip, they were my grace
under duress.
The tibia is connected to the fibula by the interosseous membrane,
forming a fibrous joint called a syndesmosis. It allows little movement
but helps both bones to absorb ground forces and mechanical stresses.
The word fibula in Latin means “clasp” or “brooch” and is used
for the bone in question because it resembles a clasp, much like a
modern safety pin. The adjective “peroneal” is Greek for the same
thing. Without this safety pin, the fibula would be hard pressed to

32
 Tibia and Fibula

hold things together well enough to allow even the easiest stroll. I
find working with this membrane—the bone that is not a bone—to
be very helpful in relieving leg pain, lymphatic congestion, and some-
times even restless legs.
I also enjoy paying attention to the head of the fibula. It has a
highly irregular surface, with a pointed eminence or styloid process
that gives rise to the tendon of the biceps femoris, as well as to the
fibular collateral ligament of the knee joint.
The tibia is named for the Latin word for flute. While the flute
is not exactly the boldest of musical instruments, the tibia itself is
strong enough to support the weight of the entire body.
While you might think of bones as flat or gently rounded, they are
populated with ridges and tubercles, fossae and foramina. The tibia is
no different. At its top, the tibia’s superior articular surface presents
two facets—like the faces or facets of a diamond. The oval medial
facet is concave from side to side. The lateral facet, nearly circular, is
concave from side to side, and slightly convex posteriorly. They are
soulmates with the condyles of the femur and support the menisci of
the knee. While we may not all “wear diamonds on the soles of our
shoes,” we are richly endowed with diamonds on the bones above
our feet; we are jewels adorned with jewels!
The tibia is a goldmine of muscle attachments, and any manual
therapist worth their salt has learned to spend a lot of time there.
Here is a partial menu of the muscles that attach on this bone: the
quadriceps, sartorius, gracilis, the medial hamstrings, popliteus,
soleus, and, of course, the tibialis muscles.
In Judaism, the tibia (or shank bone) of a goat is used in the Pass­
over Seder plate. Each of the six items arranged on the plate has special
significance to the retelling of the story of Passover—the exodus from
Egypt—which is the focus of this ritual meal. It is special, as it is the
only meat on the Seder plate, symbolizing the Passover sacrifice, or
Pascal lamb. It represents the sacrifice of a lamb whose blood was
painted on the doorway of enslaved Israelites’ houses so that the grace
of God would pass over that house during any plague.
There is another type of grace that my hiking trip reminded me
of. G.R.A.C.E. is a process developed by Zen roshi Joan Halifax to

33
 The Memory Palace of Bones

help healthcare providers working in stressful situations (Halifax

2012, p.4). It is also a mnemonic that can serve us all with our own
challenges. I’ll demonstrate here:

• G—gathering attention (lying down after that long hike, “My

legs hurt like hell”)
• R—recalling intention (“May I help relieve suffering on this
planet”)
• A—attunement to self and other (when I bring my attention
deeper than the pain, I “touch” bone medicine, a steady peace
that can’t easily be disturbed; from here I can be with my pain
in solidarity with all who suffer. “May all beings be free from
suffering”)
• C—consider what will serve (prayer, meditation, helping
someone else, offering bodywork sessions to prisoners and
the homeless in the Bay Area)
• E—engagement (when I get back to California, I will undertake
three projects to help my community, including endangered
land in my county).

As fate would have it, I came across the skeletal remains of a deer
on that hike. Among the enormous red rocks, pictographs, and a
waterfall, I became possessed by the strength and beauty of those
bones—their unadorned and shameless presence. While I stood
silent as other hikers rushed by, the bones seemed to ask, “Is anybody
but me really here?”

—JR

The story is told in many cultures of the singing bone. One variation
is the Brothers Grimm tale of two brothers who set out to kill a wild
boar. The first who did would earn the reward offered by the King—to
marry his daughter. The younger brother found and killed the boar,
but the jealous older brother struck and killed him on a bridge they
were crossing on their way home. The older brother then went to
the King with the boar and received the daughter’s hand in marriage.

34
 Tibia and Fibula

Many years thereafter, a shepherd was walking over the bridge

and saw a little snow-white bone lying in the sand below. Thinking
that it would make a good mouthpiece, he picked it up and carved
out of it a mouthpiece for his horn. When he blew into it for the
first time, to his great astonishment the bone began to sing by itself:

Oh, my dear shepherd,

You are blowing on my little bone.
My brother killed me,
And buried me beneath the bridge.

“What a wonderful horn,” said the shepherd. “It sings by itself. I

must take it to the King.” When he brought it before the King, the
horn again began to sing its song. The King understood it well and
had the earth beneath the bridge dug up. The whole skeleton of the
murdered man came to light and the wicked brother could not deny
the deed. He was sewn into a sack and drowned alive. The murdered
man’s bones were laid to rest in a beautiful grave in the churchyard.
Many of the bones in human and animal bodies have been used
in music. The ribcage was no doubt the first xylophone. The use of
bones to strike skins constituted the first drums. The hollowed-out
long bones of animals and humans, as in the Grimms’ legend, could
be used as wind instruments. So every bone in us has, in its own way,
its own song, its music. The composer Gustav Mahler based an early
work, Das klagende Lied, on the legend of the singing bone.
This brings us to the discussion of the tibia and the fibula, the
sister and brother of the lower leg.
The tibia is the second-strongest and largest bone in the body,
next to the femur. In its center is the medullary cavity that produces
and stores marrow. After death, the marrow decomposes and a hol-
low triangular tube remains, like a pyramidal tower, that can act as
a wind instrument.
The etymological origin of the word “tibia” points us to this use.
The tibia was an ancient Greek wind instrument. Archaeological finds
and surviving iconography indicate it was double-reeded, like the
modern oboe, but with a larger mouthpiece, like the Armenian duduk.

35
 The Memory Palace of Bones

In traditional Western music, the “tibia” would correspond most

closely to the beautifully named “oboe d’amore,” the oboe of love!
The oboe d’amore was invented in the 18th century and Bach, Tele-
mann, and others employed it in their concertos.
The other lower leg bone is the more delicate fibula. Too narrow to
be a wind instrument, it looks very much like a violin bow! It is com-
monly harvested to reconstruct the mandible, itself integral to speech
and song, bringing a kind of musical connection of these two bones.
The fibula’s proximal head acts as the insertion for the biceps femo-
ris, the lateral-most hamstring. It is the origin for the fibularis longus
muscle (also known as peroneus) that travels to the bottom of the foot
and forms the deepest tendon in the sole, ultimately inserting into the
medial cuneiform and first metatarsal. Also attaching to the fibula are
muscles that extend the toes, as well as muscles from the lower leg’s
deep posterior compartment that insert into the sole of the foot.
The fibula and tibia, like the arm’s radius and ulna, are connected
through an extensive interosseous membrane that stabilizes their
association while allowing a bit of flexibility between them. At its
distal end, the fibula, tibia, and talus form the ankle joint.
The tibia owes some of its shape and strength to its role in sup-
porting the weight of the whole upper body and absorbing from
below many of the stresses of the foot striking the ground when
we walk. More than we think, our bodymind shapes our bones in
response to the uses for which we need them.
I read about a boy who was born with
Like clouds, every bone has a only a fibula, and no tibia. Since the fibula
silver lining. This is the trans-
is not a weight-bearing bone, his parents
lucent, silvery, dense, irregular
connective tissue called perios- were told that he would never walk. How-
teum. Basically the skin of your ever, in few years, the boy was walking and
bones, the periosteum envelops running about freely. The parents took
them completely, except at the
him back to the doctor, who, astonished,
joint surfaces.
The periosteum is really X-rayed the lower leg. The boy now had a
two living layers inside you. The tibia, but no fibula; the body had thickened
outer fibrous layer is connective and reshaped the fibula because the stress
tissue, or fascia. Like fascia else-
of walking required a thicker, stronger
where in the body, it contains
bone. What an extraordinary example of

36
 Tibia and Fibula
function determining form. Life, even of
the bones, is what we make it!
Because we wear shoes, we lack the
versatility and shock absorption that
nature has bestowed with 26 bones
in each foot. As below, so above: the
non-flexible foot will convey its stresses
to the next bone up. Thus, the tibia too
often absorbs and reflects more than its
share of stress, as if there is too much
pressure within it.
Each bone, with its unique position
and role in our lives, has its own story
to tell. From the tibia and fibula we gain
valuable information on how a person
relates to their life and the earth they
walk upon with body, emotion, mind, and
spirit—how they walk their talk.
This beautiful brother and sister, the
tibia and the fibula, the singing bone and
the bow, together give us both strength
and delicacy and set a tone for our lives.
They do so, usually, without calling much
attention to themselves.
May these words, thoughts, and
feelings help us regard and touch the
tibia and fibula with a greater sense of
respect, reverence, and compassion. Walt
Whitman wrote, “I sing the body electric”
(Whitman 2007, p.72). May we sing the
tibia and fibula. May the melodies and
harmonies, the duet arising as songs of
tibia and fibula, be ones which inspire us
deeply along our journey.
—DL
37
living cells—fibroblasts—that
produce fibrous tissue, irregu-
larly woven strands of collagen
that give strength and flexibility
to this outer covering of every
bone. Yet deeper, we discover
the cambium layer, from the
Latin cambiare, which means
“to change.” This cambium is
osteogenic: it helps our bones
grow and repair through cells
called osteoblasts.
The periosteum also con-
veys blood to the bones. The
medullary cavity inside bones
is so alive with circulation that
people receiving transfusions
can, if necessary, be fed directly
through the inside of the bone.
Periosteum contains ex-
tremely sensitive nerve endings,
so when we bruise it (a “contu-
sion”), the pain is distinct and
easily located. Bones themselves
do not usually contain pain-sen-
sitive nerves, so it is the perios-
teum’s job to provide us with
this valuable intelligence.
In Zero Balancing we use
the term “bone gold” to de-
scribe a place where we feel an
unusual thickness in bone and
its periosteum. Just as releasing
tension from the neuromuscu-
lar system gives us more energy
for life, so the release of bone
gold awakens the incredible in-
ner resource that is our skeletal
system and its miraculous skin,
the periosteum.
Even gold, it turns out, has a
silver lining—your periosteum,
this deep, living treasure inside
of you!
 The Memory Palace of Bones

EMBODIMENT—LOWER LEG

The tibia and fibula are encircled by the crural fascia. Whereas the
foot has 26 bones through which to distribute the weight of the
whole body, the lower leg has just the tibia, since the fibula is barely
weight-bearing. So the tibia absorbs way more than its fair share of
pressure, compression, and stress, and limits the energy flow through
the bone. That radiates out into the surrounding fascia and other
structures—the fibula, the interosseous membrane, the lower leg
muscles, and the nerves and vessels associated with them.
One of the best ways to relieve this pressure is to loosen the crural
fascia, especially on the broad, flat surface of the medial border of
the tibial shaft. The crural fascia here is very close to the surface of
the bone, so when the lower leg holds too much tension, that fascia
becomes like a tight binding. The tibia becomes like a flute swathed
in plastic wrap with no holes, no breathing room!
To begin this exercise, take a few steps forward and back, noting
how your lower legs feel. Now place one leg up on a stool or chair.
Take your opposite hand and help the crural fascia slide more freely
over the bony surface of the tibia, its periosteum, the crural fascia,
and the skin. Use your thumb, fingers, or heel of your hand to press
into the flat surface and engage the fascia. Make little semi-circles
and side-to-side movements, or whatever your intuition suggests or
what feels good to shift that fascia. Do this in a series, starting just
below the knee; then disengage and re-engage an inch or two lower,
again coaxing the fascia to glide more freely over the tibial surface.
Work to free the crural fascia in five to seven places, ending just
above the ankle.
Before you do the other leg, take a short walk. Notice how dif-
ferent the two legs now feel. Perhaps you feel one can breathe, or
has more energy flowing through it, or is more alive. Then repeat the
work to the crural fascia of the second leg. Take another walk and
savor the experience. Now the “flute” of your lower leg has more
room for air, more room for breath, more room for joyful support as
you move through your life. The flute of the tibia can play a beautiful
melody in our lives!

38
 Tibia and Fibula

If you are working on someone else, the advantage is that with

the receiver lying down, they may feel the release of tension in the
legs spreading even more globally throughout their whole bodymind.
Use both hands simultaneously on both lower legs, with the sides of
your thumbs or the heels of your hands.

39
 CHAPTER 3

A Life in the Groove

BEING PATELLA

41
 The Memory Palace of Bones

Throw yourself like seed as you walk, and into your own field.

—Miguel de Unamuno (1993, p.234)

Every bone bears us a message, like a message or a boat in a bot-

tle. These messages, the boats, and the surrounding seas are both
individual and ancient. The patella is no exception. Floating in the
quadriceps tendon, engaged by every movement of thigh and hip, it
is the largest of the sesamoid bones in the body—or second-largest,
depending on whether one considers the scapula to be a sesamoid
bone. Sesamoid comes from sesamun, Arabic for sesame seed. So here
we have a message, a boat, and a seed.
The precise message of the patella depends on the individual, but
in general it speaks to us of protection—a deeper stability within and
around the knee, the largest and most complex joint of the body.
The knee is a synovial joint with components of fluid, cartilage,
bone, tendon, and ligament. Think of it as at least two joints—the
patellofemoral and the tibiofemoral. Within the knee, floating in
synovial fluid, are the shock-absorbing menisci (similar to the discs
between our vertebrae) and the cruciate ligaments. These make an
“X,” sharing the word origin for cross and crux, as in the crux of the
matter. Bordered by the lateral and medial collateral ligaments, and
posteriorly by the popliteus muscle, it is a miraculous architecture
that gives the knee both its strength and its potential for injury.
The large movements here are primarily flexion and extension,
although with the knee flexed, a small degree of lateral and medial
rotation can occur.
In knee extension and flexion the patella’s role is to slide in the
trochlear groove of the lower anterior femur. At our birth, the patella
is entirely cartilage, which may make crawling easier for the infant. It
takes quite some time to ossify completely, becoming entirely bone
around age five.
The patella has above it the suprapatellar bursa, which reduces
the friction when the kneecap slides. Associated with it is a lit-
tle muscle, the articularis genus, which cleverly coordinates the
up-and-down glide of the patella with the bursa’s similar movement

42
 Patella

to prevent catching the synovial membrane between the patella

and femur.
The patella is enveloped by the quadriceps tendon that inserts
into the tibial tuberosity. This lowest portion of the quadriceps ten-
don is often called a ligament, since it runs from one bone to another.
Underlying the metaphor of a boat-in-a-bottle is the very word
“patella,” which comes from the Latin meaning “a shallow dish or
vessel.” Among its messages, then, is conveyed the knowledge that all
bones are floating bones, vessels with water inside and around them.
(Bones themselves are one-third water.) The patella floats in front
of the knee, further bathed and cushioned inside by synovial fluid.

Thinkers, listen, tell me what you know of that is not inside the
soul?
Take a pitcher full of water and set it down in the water—
Now it has water inside and water outside.
We mustn’t give it a name,
Lest silly people start talking again about the body and the soul.

(Kabir 2004, p.5)

Seed bone, sesamoid—like a seed “syllable.”

We can see each bone of the body as a seed of movement, life, and
consciousness. Just as parts of our speech give us an understandable
grammar, bones and joints are parts of our anatomy that give us
movement, or a kinesthetic grammar.
In Asian languages there are seed syllables, known as bija. These
are considered to be sound vibrations, said to give rise to all things
including our karma. The best known is the sacred incantation om.
What if we considered each bone as a kind of seed contributing
ultimately to the living garland, the field, of the skeletal system? In
fact, our living bones do grow and blossom into their adult shape
over time. An infant is born with 300 bones (many still cartilaginous),
whereas an adult with cartilages ossified will have 206.
Consider that each bone is a seed syllable, a mantra, in the non-ver-
bal communication among our bones, contributing ultimately to

43
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preservation of their temples. When a temple had for some
thousands of years been standing on the same site, the surrounding
city necessarily rose very much above it. This rise would be more
rapid in Upper Egypt than in the Delta from merely natural causes,
for the yearly deposit of soil is far greater in that part of the valley
which first receives the then heavily mud-charged waters of the
inundation. When, therefore, these cities were overthrown or
deserted, the deep depressions, in which the temples stood, were
soon filled from the rubbish of the closely surrounding mounds; and
the temples, thus buried, were preserved. Both at Dendera and Esné
the very roofs are below the level of the mounds, and nothing can be
seen till excavations have been made, in which the temples are
found complete. It was almost the same at Edfou also.
Wherever, too, the temples were constructed not of limestone, but
of sandstone, there was, in the comparative uselessness of their
material, another cause at work in favour of their preservation.
Probably, however, that which most effectually of all contributed to
this result was the circumstance that from the time when these
temples were built, that is to say, throughout the Greek, Roman, and
Saracenic periods, the upper country has never been prosperous, or
made the seat of government. That has always established itself in
the Delta. It has been a consequence of this that in Upper Egypt,
that is in the district to which our attention has been just directed,
there has been little or no occasion for building: it was not, therefore,
worth while to pull down these temples at the time they were
standing clear, or to disinter them after they had been buried in the
rubbish heaps of the cities in which they had stood, for the sake of
the building materials they might have supplied.
 CHAPTER XXX.
THE RATIONALE OF THE MONUMENTS.

Jamque opus exegi, quod non Jovis ira, nec ignes,

Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas;
... nomenque erit indelebile nostrum.—Ovid.

It was for us a piece of great good fortune that the mighty

Pharaohs of old Egypt felt to an heroic, almost sublime, degree the
narrow, selfish, oriental desire to perpetuate their names, and the
memory of their greatness. Of course, this was connected very
closely with the traditional, primitive idea that great kings were not as
other men. They were of the materials of which gods had been
made. Were they not, indeed, already objects of worship to their
subjects? Were they not already received into the family of the
gods? It is to these feelings that we are indebted for the possession
of one of the earliest—and not least interesting—chapters in the
records of our race. We have at this day precisely what, four or five
thousand years ago, they deliberately contrived means for our
having; and we have it all written in a fashion which indicates,
through the very characters used, much of the artistic peculiarities,
and even of the moral condition, and of the daily life, of those who
inscribed it. There is nothing in the history of mankind which
combines such magnitude, such far-reaching design, and such wise
provision of means for the purpose in view, crowned, as time has
shown, with such complete success. Some circumstances and
accidents, such as the climate of the country, the materials with
which they had to work, and the point the arts they had to employ
had then reached, happily conspired to aid them; but this does not
deprive them of the credit of having turned everything they used to
the best account with the utmost skill, and the most long-sighted
sagacity.
 The question they proposed to themselves was—How the memory
of their greatness, and of their achievements, might be preserved
eternally. There was the method we know was practised by the
Assyrians, the Persians, and the Hebrews. They might have caused
to be recorded what they pleased in chronicles of their reigns, written
in whatever was the ordinary character, and on whatever were the
ordinary materials. There can be little doubt but that this was done.
Such records, however, did not give sufficient promise of the eternity
they desired. All materials for writing were perishable. Great national
overthrows might occur, and all written documents might be
destroyed. The language in which they were written might change,
and even the memory of it die out. Written documents, too, in order
that the record might be preserved, must be transcribed. Here were
opportunities for omissions and alterations. These objections were
conclusive against trusting exclusively to written documents. We can
now see that if the old Pharaohs had relied only on such records as
these, very little would at this day be known about them, or ancient
Egypt. What we now know would have occurred, fully justifies their
prescience: just as well as we know now, after the event, what would
have been, they knew, before the event, what would be.
They, therefore, devised another method—that both of inscribing,
and of sculpturing, on stone what they had to record. This was a
material which might be so used as to be practically imperishable.
What was written on this would not require to be rewritten from time
to time. The work might be so done as to bid fair to survive national
overthrows. It might be read by any man’s eyes, although the
language of Egypt might be lost. The sculptures, at all events, would
be partially understood.
But in order to secure the advantages which might be found in the
adoption of this method, certain conditions were necessary, a want
of foresight, or neglect of which would render the attempt futile. The
building on which the records were to be engraved, and sculptured,
must be of such a size as to supply sufficient wall-space for the
whole of the chronicles of the king’s reign, and for all the scenes,
religious or secular, he might wish, from their connexion with himself,
to depict and perpetuate. This, it is obvious, would necessitate very
large buildings. They must, also, be so constructed as to be able to
withstand all the accidents, and adverse circumstances, to which
they might, in the course of ages, be exposed. No buildings that men
had hitherto considered most solid and magnificent would fulfil these
conditions. They all in time, from one cause or another, had become
dilapidated. A double problem was thus presented to them: first, how
to get sufficient wall-space, and then to get this sufficiency on
buildings exempt from all the ordinary, and even most of the
extraordinary, chances of destruction. The first was easily answered.
The building—or if it be a tomb, the excavation—must be enlarged to
the required dimensions. The second was more difficult. They
answered it by the character they gave to the architecture. The
smaller the stones of which a building is constructed, the smaller its
chances of longevity: the larger its stones, the greater its chances.
The stones, for instance, might be so small, that any one who, in
times when the building might be deprived of all natural guardians,
happened to want such pieces, might carry them off on his donkey,
or, if larger, on his camel, to burn for lime, or to use for the walls of a
house or enclosure. Stones, even of considerable size, might easily
be thrown down, and cut up, to serve the purposes of those who
could command the amount of labour always at the disposal of any
well-to-do person; but it was possible to imagine stones used of so
great a size that it would require such expensive tackle, and so many
hands, to throw them down, that it would be as cheap, in most
instances, to go directly to the quarry, and cut out for one’s self what
was wanted. It was, too, hoped that there would be some
indisposition to destroy such grand structures, for massiveness
appeals to the thought of even the most uninstructed. Now, this was
just what the Pharaohs of old Egypt foresaw, and acted on. They
built with stones, which could not be removed, except by those who
could command something like the amount of labour, machinery, and
funds they themselves employed in raising them, and who might find
it profitable to employ their resources in this way. The wisdom of the
prevision was proved when the Persians were in complete
possession of the land, and in their iconoclastic zeal, and hatred of
the religion of Egypt, would, if they could have readily managed it,
not have left one stone upon another in any temple throughout the
Valley of the Nile.
This method of building also reduced to a minimum the number of
joints. This was, in more ways than one, a great gain. Many joints
would have interfered very materially with the sculptures and wall-
writing; and to have these in as perfect a form as possible was the
great object. That the masonry had many joints would also, sooner
or later, have led to the displacement of stones, which would have
mutilated the record; and eventually have brought about the ruin
both of it, and of the building itself. When we see how careful
Egyptian architects were in making the joints as fine as possible, so
that the stones of a building are often found to be as accurately fitted
together as if it were jewellers’ work, and not masonry; and when we
observe that the further precaution is sometimes taken of covering
the joints of the roof with stone splines, in order to minimize the
corroding effects of air and wet, we may be sure that they would be
predisposed to adopt a style of building, which would very much
reduce the number of joints.
The thoughts and motives I have been attributing to these old
builders will account for another fact, that needs explanation. The
ancient Egyptians were familiar with the principle, and use of the
arch. We find in the temple-palace of the great Rameses a crude
brick arch, every brick of which contains his name. On the same
grounds we must assign another brick arch in this neighbourhood to
Amunoph, one of the great builders of the preceding dynasty. There
are, too, frequent instances of it in tombs of a still earlier date; but we
do not find it in their grand structures. There is no difficulty in divining
the reason. It was unsuitable to the purpose they had in view. For the
reasons I have given they had decided on using enormous blocks of
stone. Arches thus heavily loaded would have been subject to
unequal subsidence, which would have been derangement—
probably, destruction—to them; and they knew that the arch, in
consequence of the lateral thrust, is a form of construction that never
sleeps. Hence their conception and formation of a style—for they did
not borrow it—which was confined to horizontal and perpendicular
lines.
 That it was their intention to use their walls for historical and
descriptive sculptures and writing, precisely in the same way in
which we use a canvas for a picture, or a sheet of paper for writing,
or printing, is undoubted, because every square foot of space of this
kind they had created, in the great buildings they erected, is
invariably used in this way. And that this, and the other motives I
have assigned, decided them in employing such enormous blocks of
stone, is equally undoubted, because they are obvious reasons, and
no other reason can be imagined for inducing them to go to so much
expense. The size of the building was decided by the amount of wall-
space they required for the records they wished to place upon it; and
the size of the stones by their estimate of what would be sufficient to
ensure their record against the destroying hand, both of time and of
man. Had the arts of printing, and of making cheap durable materials
to print upon, been known in those days, these monuments would
never have been constructed: the motive would have been wanting.
Two methods were used for presenting the record to the eye,
hieroglyphical writing and sculpture. Here, again, the idea that
originated the monument is manifested. Those who could not
understand the writing would be able to understand, at all events, the
sculptures. The time might come when none would understand the
writing, then the sculptures might still be depended on confidently for
supplying the desired record. If the object was any other than that of
securing an eternal record, why adopt these two methods? If it had
been merely decoration that was in their thoughts, the sculptures
would have been enough.
The question has often been asked—Why the rock tombs of the
kings, and of others, were excavated to such a surprising extent?
Their extent presents so much difficulty to some minds, that one of
our best known engineers, who is also quite familiar with them, tells
me that he cannot believe but that they were originally merely stone
quarries; and that the kings, and sometimes wealthy subjects, finding
them ready made, converted them into tombs. We may, however, be
quite sure that the Egyptians never would have gone up into the
mountains to the valley of the kings, to quarry limestone in
descending galleries, two or three hundred feet long, when every
step that they had taken for the previous two or three miles had been
over limestone equally good. Nor would they have made such
multitudes of quarries subterranean, and of precisely the dimensions
and character that fitted them for tombs. What, indeed, was the
fashion in which they worked their quarries, we see at Silsiléh, and
elsewhere. The true answer is that they made these sepulchral
excavations of such enormous extent for just the same reason that
they constructed their temples and palaces of such vast dimensions.
They would not have answered the purpose for which they were
wanted had they been less. Wall-space was required for recording all
that an active prince in a long and eventful, or prosperous, reign had
done; and all that he wished to be known about himself, his pursuits,
his amusements, and his relations to the gods. And just as, if it had
been possible to put it all in print, a great deal of paper would have
been needed, so, when put in hieroglyphics and sculptures, there
was required a proportionate amount of wall-space. So also with
private individuals. If Petamenap could have written memoirs of
himself, and had a thousand copies struck off, and sent one to be
deposited in each of several great public libraries, he would have
been content with less than three-quarters of a mile of wall-space in
his tomb. Under the circumstances, then, what we find is just what
we might have expected. There is nothing wonderful, considering the
motive, in the extent of these excavations. The excavated tombs of
Jews, Edomites, Greeks, Etruscans, and many other people were
not larger than was necessary for the becoming interment of the
corpse. If the Egyptians had had only the same object, and no other,
their excavations would have been of the same size.
Of course the idea of suggesting the greatness of the gods by the
greatness of the houses that had been built for them, and of
regarding the temple as an offering, which became worthy of its
object in proportion to its vastness and costliness, could not have
been wanting in Egypt. Nor could there have been wanting among
the priest class the additional idea that the greatness of the temple is
reflected on those who minister in, and direct its services. All this
may be readily acknowledged; still such ideas will not justify, or
account for the unusual dimensions of these temples, or for the still
more unusual dimensions of the stones of which they are
constructed. Everything has a reason. And in an especial degree
must particulars of this kind, which involved so great an expenditure
of time and labour, have had a distinct and sufficient reason; and that
could have been no other than the one I have assigned for them. Of
course, the vast dimensions of the rock-tombs must be considered in
conjunction with the vast dimensions of the temples. What made the
rock-tombs of Egypt larger than other rock-tombs made the temples
of Egypt larger than other temples: and that was the desire of their
excavators and builders to secure a vast expanse of wall-space fit
for such mural sculptures, paintings, and inscriptions as we now find
upon them.
The obelisks, also, come under the same category. They were
books, on which were inscribed the particulars those who set them
up wished them to record. Herodotus mentions that stelæ and
figures, both with inscriptions, were set up by Sesostris (Sethos and
Rameses in one) in Syria, Asia Minor, and elsewhere. The object in
view here also was, of course, mainly to have something to write
upon. Where the commander-in-chief of a modern army would use a
gazette, or posters, for his manifestoes, Sesostris inscribed what he
had to say to the people of the country on the face of a rock, or upon
a statue of himself he had set for that purpose.
 CHAPTER XXXI.
THE WISDOM OF EGYPT, AND ITS FALL.

So work the honey-bees,

Creatures that by a rule of nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.—Shakspeare.

As day after day we wander about on the historic sites of old

Egypt, among the temples and tombs, and endeavour to
comprehend their magnitude and costliness, the thought and labour
bestowed on their construction, and the ideas and sentiments
embodied and expressed in the structures themselves, and in the
sculptures placed upon them, we are brought to understand that
never in any country has religion been so magnificently maintained.
Israel had but its single temple; here, however, every city of the land
—and no land had a greater number of great cities—had erected a
temple, and often more than one, which was intended not so much
for time as for eternity. One third of the land of Egypt was devoted to
the support of the priesthood. The payments also made by the
people for the services of religion must have amounted to large
yearly aggregates. The spoils of Asia and Africa were, as well as the
royal revenues, appropriated, in a large proportion, to religious
purposes. Pharaoh was himself a priest, and his palace was a
temple. Both law, as then understood, and commerce, as then
carried on, were outworks and supports of religion. The sacred
books, in which everything that was established and taught was
contained, had the sanction of heaven. And the religion the people
professed was not around them and before them only: it was also in
their hearts. Their motives were drawn from it, their actions had
reference to it, and their whole life was framed upon it. It had
inspired literature, created art, organized and legislated for society,
made commerce possible, and built up an empire; and no form of
religion had or, we may add, has ever, for so long a period of time,
made men what they were; for, from the time of Menes, at least, to
that of Decius, it had been doing this work.
At last a day came when life suddenly left the organism—for
religion is an organism of thought. It was dissolved into its primal
elements; and a new organism having been constructed out of them
in combination with some other elements recently accrued, the new
took the place of the old. That so much had been said and done on
its behalf and in its name; that it had borne so much good fruit; that it
had had so grand an history; that it had been believed in, and been
the source of the higher life to a great people for so many thousand
years, were all powerless to save it.
But here the Muse of History whispers to us that it is not enough
that we have seen in the monuments the evidence of the existence,
of the greatness, and of the overthrow of this religion, but that we
must also endeavour to make out what it was that had maintained it,
and what it was that overthrew it; and then what are the lessons its
maintenance and its overthrow contain for ourselves.
It is useless to turn to the history of Egypt, or of any other country,
merely to satisfy an empty curiosity or to feed a barren—and often a
mischievous—love of the marvellous. The legitimate aim, and—if it
be reached—the precious fruit of such studies, is to enable
ourselves to make out the path along which some portion of mankind
travelled to the point it reached, and to see how it fared with them by
the way; what hindered, and what promoted, their advance; to
ascertain what they did, how they did it, and what effects the doing of
it had: and all this in order that haply thereby some serviceable light
may be thrown on our own path and position. This is the only way in
which we can properly either form opinions, or review the grounds of
opinions already formed, on many subjects in which we are most
concerned: for these are subjects with respect to which the roots of
opinion are for us laid in history.
First then—What was the cause of this long life, this stability of the
religion of Egypt? The primary cause was that, as we have seen, it
was thoroughly in harmony with the circumstances and conditions of
the Egypt of its time. It had thoroughly and comprehensively grasped
those circumstances and conditions. It had, with a wise simplicity,
interpreted them, and adapted itself to them. But that was not all. In
a manner possible at that time it had made itself the polity and the
social life, as well as the religion, of the nation; and having done this
—that is, having absorbed and taken up into itself every element of
power—it gave to itself a fixed and immutable form. The physical
characteristics, too, of the country, while, as we have seen, they
made despotism inevitable in the political order, could not have been
favourable to any kind of intellectual liberty. Thenceforth, all
fermentation, or disposition to change, in political and social matters,
and too in manners and customs, and even in art and thought,
became impossible: for all these things go together. The natural
condition, therefore, of Egypt became one of fixity and equilibrium:
there was no tendency to move from the status quo, or even to do
anything in a way different from that, in which men had done it, or to
feel in a manner different from that, in which men had felt for, at
least, four thousand years. What were now the instincts of the
people were all in the opposite direction. It appeared as if Egypt had
never been young, and could never become old; as if it had never
had a beginning, and could never have an end. Time could not touch
it. Society worked with the regularity of the sun and of the river.
This will show us, too, why it did not spread. This religion, and this
system, which were so admirably adapted to the existing conditions
and natural circumstances of Egypt, were not adapted to the
conditions and circumstances of other countries. If the world had
been composed, physically and morally, only of so many possible
Egypts, so that the discovery of new regions might have issued only
in the addition of new Egypts to those already known, then the
temples of Abydos, Memphis, Heliopolis, and Karnak would still be
crowded with the devout worshippers of the gods of old Egypt, and
so would the temples of thousands of other cities. The ideas in the
minds of these worshippers would still be the ideas which had
existed in the minds of Sethos and Rameses, and the Egyptians of
their day—neither better nor worse—and they would have been
propagated, and would continue to be propagated, to the other
Egypts of the world. But, fortunately, the world is not a repetition of
Egypts, nor of anything else; and so an insuperable barrier existed,
in the very nature of things, to prevent the outflow of Egyptianism
into other lands.
But what was it that overthrew it in its own home, where it was so
strong? We may infer that it will probably be something, not that was
spontaneously generated within, but that came from without. And so
it was. But what was that something? It was not force. That the
Persians had tried, and it had been powerless. Nor could the
dominion of foreign laws and customs at the summit of society
overthrow it: that has, elsewhere, sapped and undermined domestic
institutions; but in Egypt it, too, was powerless, as was demonstrated
by ages of Greek and Roman rule.
Nor did the religion of old Egypt fall because it had aimed in a
wrong direction. By their religion I mean their philosophy of the
whole, their purposed organization of the entire domain of
experience, and observation, and thought, including in its range the
invisible as well as the visible world. Its object had been the moral
improvement of man. Though, of course, from this statement some
very damaging deductions must be made; for it had not aimed
equally at the moral improvement of all, that is to say, of every man
because he was a man. It had failed here because it had had
another co-ordinate aim, necessary for those times: the maintenance
of the social, intellectual, and material advantages of a part of the
community at the expense of the rest. This was, though necessary,
immoral or, at all events, demoralizing. Still, however, it made the
present only a preparation for the higher and the better life. The
things that are now seen it regarded as the ladder, by which man
mounts to the things that are not yet seen, which alone are eternal
realities. Of these aims and doctrines of the religion every man’s
understanding and conscience approved. Without this approval the
religion could not have maintained itself.
Neither did it fall because the civilization of Egypt had at last, after
so many thousands of years, worn itself out. There were no
symptoms of the life within it having become enfeebled through time,
or from anything time had brought. The propylons, the enclosing
wall, the monolithic granite shrine, the mighty roof-stones, the
sculptures of the Ptolemaic Temple of Edfou, and the massive
monolithic granite shaft of the pillar raised at Alexandria to the
honour of Diocletian, prove that, down to the last days of this long
period, they could handle, as deftly as ever their forefathers had
done, masses of stone so ponderous that to look at them shortens
our breathing; and which they sculptured and polished in the same
way as of old. The priests who explained the sculptures of Thebes to
Germanicus were lineally the descendants of those who had formed
the aristocracy, and had supplied the magistracy, and the governing
body of Thebes, and of Egypt, under Rameses the Great, under
Cheops, under Menes. Nor can we suppose that any such amount of
moral, or intellectual degeneration had been brought about, as might
not easily have been recovered by the restitution of the old
conditions of the country. The Egyptian system, which left so little to
the individual, seemed to provide, just as they had taken care that
their great buildings should, against whatever contingencies might
arise. It still had in itself the capacity for rising, Phœnix-like, into new
life.
So would it have been had Egypt been able to maintain its old
insulation. The day, however, for that had gone by. It now formed a
part of the general system of the civilized world; and, looking at it in
its relations to other people, we discover in it elements of weakness,
immorality, and effeteness; and these precisely it was that, under the
then existing circumstances, caused its fall. The state of things that
had arisen could have had no existence during the four thousand
years, or more, it had passed through. What that state of things was,
and how it acted, is what we have now to make out distinctly to our
thoughts.
If the mind of man had been incapable of advancing to other
ideas, and the heart of man incapable of higher moral sentiments,
than the ideas and sentiments that had been in the minds and hearts
of Sethos and Rameses, and the Egyptians of their day, then all
things would have continued as they had been. But such has not
been, is not, and, we may suppose, will never be, the condition of
man on this earth. Ideas and sentiments are powers—the greatest
powers among men. And there were ideas and sentiments yet to
come which were higher generalizations than those of old Egypt, and
which, therefore, were instinct with greater power. Knowledge, and
corresponding moral sentiments, had been the power of old Egypt,
but now they were to be confronted by profounder knowledge, and
more potent moral sentiments. The Egyptians, however, had put
themselves into such a position that they could not add the new light
to the old, or graft the scion of the improved vine upon the old stock.
The only result, then, that was possible was that that which was
stronger and better must sweep away that which was not so strong
or so good, and take its place. It must be a case, not of
amalgamation, but of substitution.
The old Egyptians, in order to perpetuate, and render available
their knowledge, and to bring out immediately, and fully, its working
power, had swathed both it, and society, in bands of iron. In doing
this they had seen clearly what they wanted, and how to produce it.
They knew that morality only could make and maintain a nation; and
that within certain limits morality could be created, and shaped, and
made instinctive. They knew precisely what morality they wanted for
their particular purpose, and how they were to create this, and shape
it, and how they were to make it instinctive. In this supreme matter
they did everything they wanted to do. This, this precisely, and
nothing else, was the wisdom of Egypt.[8] It was the greatest wisdom
any nation has ever yet shown. It took in hand every individual in the
whole community, and made him what it was wished and needed
that he should be. If we do not understand these statements the
wisdom of Egypt is to us a mere empty phrase. If we do understand
them, the phrase conveys to us the profoundest lesson history can
teach; and at the present juncture, when the foundations of social
order are being shifted, a transference of political power taking
place, new principles being introduced, and old ones being applied in
a new fashion, and in larger measures, it is, of all the lessons that
can be found in the pages of history, the one that would be of most
service to ourselves.
They knew that they could make the morality they required
instinctive. If they could not have done this the whole business would
have been with them, as it proved with so many other people, a
more or less well-meant, but still only a melancholy fiasco. They did,
however, thoroughly succeed in their great attempt, and this is what
we have now to look into.
First we must get hold of the fact that morality is instinctive. The
moral sentiments are instincts engendered in our suitably prepared
physical and mental organization by the circumstances and
conditions of the life of the community; this is the spontaneous self-
acting cause; and then, secondarily,—this, however, has ultimately
the same source and origination—by the deliberate and purposed
arrangements established by governing mind, that is, by laws and
religion, the formal embodiments of that mind. They are instincts
precisely in the sense in which we apply the word to certain physio-
psychal phenomena of the lower animals. They are formed among
mankind in the same way, with, as we have just said, the additional
cause of the foreseen and intended action of those regulations,
which are suggested by the working of human societies, and which
are devised, and designedly introduced, by an exercise of the
reasoning faculties. They are transmitted in the same way, act in the
same way, and are modified, extinguished, and reversed in the same
way. Whatever, for instance, may be predicated of the maternal
instinct in a hen may be predicated of the maternal sentiment in the
human mother, and vice versâ, due allowance having been made for
modifying conditions, for there are other instincts in the human
mother, (for instance, that of shame at the dread of the discovery of
a lapse from virtue,) which may enable her to overpower and
extinguish the maternal sentiment—a state to which the hen, through
the absence of other counteracting instincts, and from defects of
reason, can never be brought. This is true of all the moral sentiments
from the bottom to the top of the scale. The necessities of human
life, and chiefly the working of human society, have originated every
one of them. This accounts for every phenomenon belonging to them
that men have observed and commented on, and endeavoured to
explain; as, for instance, for their endless diversity, and yet for their
substantial identity; for their universality; for their apparent
foundation in utility; for their apparent origination in the will of the
Creator; for their apparent innateness; and for their apparent non-
innateness. They are diverse, they are identical, they are universal,
they are founded on utility, they originate in the will of the Creator,
they are innate, they are non-innate, in the sense in which instincts
generated by the necessities of human life, and the working of
human societies (everywhere endlessly modified by times and
circumstances, yet substantially the same), must possess every one
of these qualities. A volume might be written on the enlargement and
proof of this statement. The foregoing paragraph will, however, I
trust, make my meaning sufficiently clear.
By an instinct I mean an impulse, apparently spontaneous and
involuntary, and not the result of a process of reasoning at the time,
disposing one to feel and act in a certain regular manner.
Observation and experience have taught us that dispositions of this
kind in any individual may have been either created in himself, or
received transmissively from his parents, having in the latter case
been congenital. On the ground of this distinction instincts may be
divided into the two classes of those which have been acquired,
which are generally called habits, and of those that have been
inherited, which are generally called instincts. This division, however,
has respect only to that which is unessential and accidental,
because that which brings any feeling, or act, into either class is that
it originated in an impulse that arises, on every occasion that
properly requires its aid, regularly, and without any apparent
process, or effort, of reason. It is founded on an apparent difference
in origination, but primarily the origination in both members of the
division must have been the same. In this particular these moral
conditions may be illustrated by an incident, or accident, of the
property men have in things; an estate is not the less property
because its possessor acquired it, nor is another the more so
because he inherited it from his predecessors. And just as we
distinguish between the unessential circumstances that a property
has been acquired by a self-made man, or that it has been inherited,
so do we between these two divisions of instinct. It is, however, clear
that a habit is merely an acquired instinct, and an instinct an
inherited habit. That the thing spoken of should be habitual, that it
originated in a certain regular impulse, and not in a conscious
exercise of the reasoning faculties at the time; and that the impulse
to which it is attributable arises regularly whenever required, and
produces, on like occasions, like acts and feelings, are the essential
points.
How the dispositions were acquired in cases where they are not
hereditary, though a most interesting and important inquiry, and one
upon which the old Egyptians would have had a great deal to tell us,
is not material to the point now before us. In whatever way the
dispositions may have been acquired, the feelings and acts resulting
from them are instinctive. As a matter of fact, instincts may be
acquired in many ways, as, for instance, through the action of fear,
hope, law, religion, training, and even of imitation. A generalization
which would include far the greater part of these causes is one I
have already frequently used—that of the working of society.
Perhaps still more of them may be summed up in the one word
knowledge. What a man knows is always present to him, and always
putting constraint upon him, disposing him to act in one definite way,
conformably to itself, and regularly, instead of in any one of ten
thousand other possible ways. This, sooner or later, issues in the
habit which is inchoate instinct, and at last in the instinct which is
hereditary habit. The hereditary habit, however, is still reversible.
It was just because the Egyptians observed a multitude of these
social, family, and self-regarding instincts in the lower animals, who
possessed each those necessary for itself, without the aid of speech
or law, or other human manifestations of reason, that they made
them the symbols of the attributes of divinity.
That they had designedly studied the whole of this subject of
instinct carefully and profoundly, and that their study of it had been
most successful and fruitful, are as evident to us at this day as that
they built the Pyramids and Karnak. We see the attractiveness the
study had for them in the fact that they had trained cats to retrieve
wounded water-fowl, and lions to accompany their kings in war, and
assist them in the chase; and that they recorded in their sculptures
and paintings that they had thus triumphed over nature, obliterating
her strongest instincts, and implanting in their place what they
pleased. This tells us, as distinctly as words could, the interest they
took in the subject, and the importance they attached to it; and that
they had formulated the two ideas, first that instincts can be created
and reversed, and then that everything depends upon them. All this
had been consciously thought out, and worked out by them; and was
as clear to their minds as the axioms of political economy are to our
modern economists.
The Egyptians then deliberately undertook to make instinctive a
sense of social order, and of submission to what was established,
and a disposition to comply with all the ordinary duties of morality as
then understood, and which were set forth in the forty-two denials of
sin the mummy would have to make at the day of judgment. All this
they effected chiefly by their system of castes; and by the logical and
practical manner in which they had worked out, and constructed,
their doctrine of the future life; and had brought it to bear on the
conduct, the thoughts, and the sentiments of every member of the
community: and they effected it most thoroughly and successfully.
And now we must advance a step further, and note some of the
incidents that belonged to, and consequences that ensued on, what
they did. We must bear in mind that their times were not as our
times. The means they had to work with, the materials they had to
work upon, and the manner in which they were obliged to deal with
their means and their materials, necessitated the construction of an
inelastic and iron system. This was necessary then and there. Like
all the oriental systems, it altered not, and could not alter; and being
thus inexpansive and unaccommodating, it besides, in its institution
of castes, involved injustice at home; and, in its being for Egyptians
alone, exclusiveness towards the rest of the world, which was, in a
sense, the denial of the humanity of all who were not Egyptians.
Being settled once for all, it abrogated human freedom. It rejected
and excluded all additional light and knowledge; it denied all truth,
excepting that to which it had itself already attained: that is to say,
however good it may have been for its own time, it eventually, when
brought into contact with a differently circumstanced, and advancing
world, made immorality, injustice, falsehood, thraldom of every kind,
and ignorance, essential parts of religion. This it was that caused its
overthrow.
Let us separate from the list just given of the elements of its
eventual weakness, one which was peculiar to those early times,
and the history of which is very distinct and interesting: it is that of
national exclusiveness. We can see clearly enough how this instinct
of repulsion arose. Those were times when the difficulties in the way
of forming a nation were great. Tribes and cities that had always
been hostile to one another, and populations composed of
conquerors and the conquered, were the materials that had to be
compacted in a homogeneous body, animated by one soul. Not
cementing, but the most violently dissevering, traditions alone exist.
No community of interests is felt. The instincts of submission to law
have not been formed; every man is for doing what is right in his own
eyes, or at most in the eyes of the few, who feel and think as he
does. Communications are difficult. A common literature does not
exist to inspire common sentiments. It seems almost impossible,
under such circumstances, out of such elements, to form a nation:
but unless this be done, all good perishes. On no other condition can
anything good be maintained. This is the one indispensable
condition. Here, then, is a case in which the feeling of exclusiveness,
if it can be created, will go very far towards bringing about what is
needed. It can bind together; it is the sentiment of sundering
difference from others, the corollary to which is the sentiment of
closest unity among themselves. It is then good and desirable: it
must by all means be engendered and cherished. The governing and
organizing mind of the community sees this. Efforts therefore are
made to establish it as a national instinct.
In Egypt these efforts were made with complete success. At first
Egypt had been a region of independent cities: the instincts that had
arisen out of that state of things had to be obliterated. A feeling also
of intense dislike to their Hyksos neighbours had to be created. All
this was done. They were brought to feel that they were a peculiar
people, separate from the rest of the world. That they were not as
other people. They had no fellow-feeling towards them. They shrank
from them. They hated them. It was quite agreeable to their feelings
to ravage, to spoil, to oppress, to put to the sword, to degrade, to
insult, to inflict the most cruel sufferings on, to make slaves of, to
sacrifice to their gods, those who were not Egyptians. This moral
sentiment—in us it would be destructive of morality—had originated
in, and been fed by, their circumstances; and had been shaped and
strengthened by their institutions deliberately designed for this
purpose. It had become habitual. It was, taking the word literally, an
Egyptian instinct. We can imagine a very different condition of the
moral atmosphere of the world: such, indeed, as it is about ourselves
in the Europe of the present day. The sentiment of nationality has
everywhere been formed. It can maintain itself without any
assistance. What is needed is not something that will separate
peoples, but something that will bring them to act together. The
instinct of exclusiveness, of repulsion, will lead only to troubles, to
hostile tariffs, to wars. No good, but only evil, can come of it.
Whatever will promote friendliness and intercourse, and prevent their
interruption, must be cherished. The old instinct of exclusiveness has
now become a mistake, an anachronism, a nuisance, a sin.
Everybody sees that what is wanted is the sentiment of universal
brotherhood. This, therefore, in its turn, comes to be generally
understood, and to some extent to be acted on. That is to say, a
moral instinct has been reversed: the old one, which did good
service in its day, is dying out; and that which has come to be
needed, and so is superseding it, is its direct opposite.
And now we must follow this sentiment of national exclusiveness
and repulsion into the neighbouring country of Israel. There we find
that it had been quite as necessary, probably even more necessary
than in Egypt. It had been engendered by the same process, and for
the same purpose. Between these two peoples the feeling was
reciprocated with more than its normal intensity. Their history
accounts for this. But now it was to be abrogated in both, and its
abrogation in Egypt was to come from Israel. And what we have to
do here is to note the steps by which this great moral revolution was
brought about.
Fifteen hundred years had passed since the night when the
Hebrew bondman had fled out of Egypt, or, as the Egyptian annals
described the event, had, at the command of the gods of Egypt,
been ignominiously cast out of the land. They had ordered his
expulsion, so ran the record, because he was the incurable victim,
and the prolific source, of a foul leprosy. This was the evil disease of
Egypt that bondman never forgot. Those fifteen hundred years, from