Liber Aleph

THE BOOK OF WISDOM OR FOLLY 37 Ak De Vi per Disciplinam Colenda (Of Cultivating Power through Discipline) ONSIDER the Bond of a cold Climate, how it maketh Man a Slave; he must have Shelter and Food with fierce Toil. Yet thereby he becometh strong against the Elements, and his moral Force waxeth, so that he is Master of such Men as live in Lands of Sun where bodily Needs are satisfied without Struggle. Consider also him that willeth to exceed in Speed or in Battle, how he denieth himself the Food he craveth, and all Pleasures natural to him, putting himself under the harsh Order of a Trainer. So by this Bondage he hath, at the last, his Will. Now then the one by natural, and the other by voluntary, Restriction have come each to greater Liberty. This is also a general Law of Biology, for all Development is Structural- ization; that is, a Limitation and Specialization of an originally indeterminate Protoplasm, which latter may therefore be called free, in the Definition of a Pedant. c