Was Shakespeare F.M. Alexander's Muse?.. The Use of the Self.

[sraj]

    The idea of the wonderful potentialities of man had been a source of inspiration to me ever since I had come to know Shakespeare's great word-picture :

" What a piece of work is a man ! how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable ! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god ! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals ! "

But these words seemed to me now to be contradicted by what I had discovered in myself and others. For what could be less " noble in reason," less " infinite in faculties " than that man, despite his potentialities, should have fallen into such error in the use of himself, and in this way brought about such a lowering in his standard of functioning that in everything he attempts to accomplish, these harmful conditions tend to become more and more exaggerated? In consequence, how many people are there to-day of whom it may be said, as regards their use of themselves, " in form and moving, how express and admirable " ? Can we any longer consider man in this regard " the paragon of animals " ?

  

I can remember at this period discussing with my father the errors in use which I had noticed both in myself and in others, and contending that in this respect there was no difference between us and the dog or cat. When he asked me why, I replied, " Because we do not know how we use ourselves any more than the dog or cat knows." By this I meant that man's direction of his use, through being based upon feeling, was as unreasoned and instinctive as that of the animal. I refer to this conversation as showing that I had already realized that in our present state of civilization, which calls for continuous and rapid adaptation to a quickly changing environment, the unreasoned, instinctive direction of use such as meets the needs of the cat or dog was no longer sufficient to meet human needs.