Its balance is
equal. Exterior human symmetry is surely a curious physiological fact
where there is no symmetry interiorly. For the centres of life and
movement within the body are placed with Oriental inequality. Man is
Greek without and Japanese within. But the absolute symmetry of the
skeleton and of the beauty and life that cover it is accurately a
principle. It controls, but not tyrannously, all the life of human
action. Attitude and motion disturb perpetually, with infinite
incidents--inequalities of work, war, and pastime, inequalities of
sleep--the symmetry of man. Only in death and "at attention" is that
symmetry complete in attitude. Nevertheless, it rules the dance and the
battle, and its rhythm is not to be destroyed. All the more because this
hand holds the goad and that the harrow, this the shield and that the
sword, because this hand rocks the cradle and that caresses the unequal
heads of children, is this rhythm the law; and grace and strength are
inflections thereof. All human movement is a variation upon symmetry,
and without symmetry it would not be variation; it would be lawless,
fortuitous, and as dull and broadcast as lawless art.
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