“I come to my chief contention about the origins of muscle-consciousness: the rise of the preoccupation with muscles, I suggest, is inextricably intertwined with the emergence of a particular conception of personhood. Specifically, in tracing the crystallization of the concept of muscle, we are also, and not coincidentally, tracing the crystallization of the sense of an autonomous will. Interest in the muscularity of the body was inseparable from a preoccupation with the agency of the self. […]

Consider again the theme of articulation. Language, requires a certain anatomy; but beyond that, self-mastery too is essential. Which is why very young infants can’t speak. […] Articulation is thus a matter of function, as well as of structure, a relationship between the person and the body.”

(Kuriyama, Shigehisa. The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine. 1999. New York: Zone Books. pp.144 – 147).