Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 June 1884 — How We Walk. [ARTICLE]

How We Walk.

One of the oddest things about our walk is, that we alternate motion, and that we are as automatic as an old eightday clock in the corner of the kitchen. You may imagine that you walk as you please; nothing of the sort. Nature settled the way ages ago, and ages after you are gone people will “bowl round” in exactly the same way. Start and see. With the movement of the leg you swing the left arm, with that of the left leg the right arm. Now, if the motion be even carelassly observed, it will be found that the right arm swings forward at the same time as the left leg; and when the right leg is. advancing, it is the left arm which accompanies it, 'this is the natural gait, and. to convince one’s self that it is so, it is only requisite to get a friend to walk across the room in the opposite fashion—that is, to swing the right arm forward when stepping out with the right leg, and then, in the same manner, when bringing forwa - . d the left leg to accompany it with the left arm. Such a gait is both unnatural and uncomfortable to the person who tries it, and also ludicrous to the observer who watches the first attempt of the kind. The diagonal movement of the limbs is, therefore, the natural method adopted by man when walking, and it is the first and most apparent fact that one ascertains in studying human locomotion. Similarity in the length of the stride is ffis settled, by the length of the leg, as are the laws of gravitation. Such and such a leg is predestined to step over, in its normal advance, so much ground and no more. We may all imagine we are free agents, physically, but many more things are “ordered from the beginning,” from the color of our hair or the shape of our nose.