Wrestling is a form of personal encounter which in antiquity reached a high development, and which, although now more known and practised as athletics of the body than of the soul, has certain special disciplinary capacities in its various forms. It represents the most primitive type of the struggle of unarmed and unprotected man with man. Purged of its barbarities, and in its Greco-Roman form and properly subject to rules, it cultivates more kinds of movements than any other form--for limbs, trunk, neck, hand, foot, and all in the upright and in every prone position. It, too, has its manual of feints, holds, tricks, and specialties, and calls out wariness, quickness, strength, and shiftiness. Victory need involve no cruelty or even pain to the vanquished. The very closeness of body to body, emphasizing flexor rather than extensor arm muscles, imparts to it a peculiar tone, gives it a vast variety of possible activities, developing many alternatives at every stage, and tempts to many undiscovered forms of permanent mayhem. Its struggle is usually longer and less interrupted by pauses than pugilism, and its situations and conclusions often develop slowly, so that all in all, its character among contests is unique. As a school of posture for art, its varieties are extremely manifold and by no means developed, for it contains every kind of emphasis of every part and calls out every muscle group and attitude of the human body; hence its training is most generic and least specialized, and victories have been won by very many kinds of excellence.