In track-running on the contrary, only one sort of movement is necessary and the exercise is unequal, not affecting all parts of the legs alike. ‘And as with the legs so also with the arms, the exercise is very fairly apportioned, for the players are accustomed to catch the ball in every kind of attitude. This variety of attitude inevitably exercises different muscles at different times in different degrees of intensity. Every muscle has its turn of work and an equal share of rest: they are now active, now quiescent; none remains altogether idle, none is overcome with weariness by working alone. As for the training that the eye receives you may realize this by remembering that unless a man anticipates exactly the flight of the ball and its direction, he must inevitably fail to make his catch. Moreover, the wits are sharpened by the game: you have to think carefully how best to stop your opponent, and not drop the ball yourself. Thought by itself makes a man thin; but when it is combined with exercise and the pleasant rivalry of a sport it is of the very greatest benefit. The body improves in health, the mind is turned to practical knowledge. When exercise can render service both to body and mind, each in its own special form of excellence, it is a blessing indeed. [Illustration: A HOCKEY MATCH (Statue base discovered at Athens, 1922)] ‘It is easy too to see that ball games can give men practice in two most important forms of training, those two which the royal ordinance of law bids our generals most sedulously to pursue. The functions of a good general are these: to attack at the proper time and to seize quickly each opportunity for action: to secure the property of the enemy either by force or by an unexpected assault, and to keep safe any possessions already acquired. In short, a general should be an expert guardian and an expert thief: that is the sum of his trade. ‘Now, can any exercise but ball games train a man so well how to keep what he has got, to recover what he has lost, and to anticipate his opponent’s plans? I should be surprised, if you could tell me of one. Most forms of exercise have the opposite effect: they make men lazy, slow-witted and fond of sleep. The competitions of the wrestling school tend to make people corpulent rather than to train them in virtue. Many wrestlers become so fat that they have difficulty in breathing, and such folk could never be good generals in time of war or good administrators either in a royal or a republican state: you might sooner trust pigs than them.