MAN'S SUPREME INHERITANCE. Conscious Guidance and Control in Relation to Human Evolution in Civilization. With an Introductory word by Professor John Dewey. With Appreciations received...

London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1918. Second Edition, Revised 8vo, publisher's original light blue cloth, the spine and upper cover lettered in black. xxviii, 239, [1], 8 publisher's catalogue pp. A fine copy, the text-block is clean, the binding very well preserved, hinges strong, some minor evidence of age or use. RARE ISSUE OF F. MATTHIAS ALEXANDER'S FIRST BOOK. John Dewey wrote of the author's work that "Mr. Alexander's book is not concerned with setting forth instrumental, pragmatic, or evolutionary philosophy, with which is wrapped a personal intuition of quasi-magical personal knack. His critical contention is that the remediable ills from wihch humanity suffers on the physical side (with the intellectual and moral ills that result) are due to disassociation of the 'higher' nervous structures and functions--those which are the basis of our conscious life--from the 'lower'--those which are involved in the execution of bodily postures and movements. Roughly speaking, the latter represent our animal inheritance, 'instincts,' which have been changed into our habitual attitudes and acts (the 'subconscious') without conscious perception and control....Mr. Alexander contends that our education, which covers, of course infinitely more than our schooling, has proceeded as if the centres of conscious activity had been merely superimposed upon the neuro-muscular structures which represent our heredity from the lower animals. As a result we get evils which are unknown to the animals and to the savage whose achievements have not become sufficiently complex to override the animal functions"
This important work is key to Alexander's teaching that through the technique which teaches proper awareness and physical training, that conscious control of the self is possible.