Hearing, and Sight, which may therefore be called the Intellectual Senses by pre-eminence; they are not, however, thereby prevented from serving the other function also, or from entering into the pleasures and pains of our emotional life.

SENSATIONS OF ORGANIC LIFE.

1. The classification of these is best made to proceed according to the parts where they have their seat. We have already adverted to the organic feelings connected with one tissue, the muscular; we shall now have to describe them in full. We must also notice the other tissues entering into the moving apparatus, namely, the Bones and Ligaments. The Nerves and Nerve Centres are subject to feelings dependent on their stimulation, growth, and waste, and on the changes that they go through in health and disease. The Circulation of the Blood, with the accompanying processes of secretion, assimilation, and absorption, may be presumed to have a distinct range of sensibility. The feelings connected with Respiration are of a less ambiguous character than the foregoing. The sensations of Digestion are numerous and prominent.

I. Of Organic Muscular Feelings.

2. In a quotation given from Dr. Sharpey, it is remarked that muscular sensibility 'is manifested by the pain which is felt when a muscle is cut, lacerated, or otherwise violently injured, or when it is seized with spasm.' These forms of pain are so many states of consciousness, having their seat or origin in the muscular tissue; the integrity of the nerves and nerve centres being likewise essential to this, as to every other kind of sensibility.

In describing the states of feeling arising through the Senses, named Sensations, we shall have to assign in each case the external agent that causes the Sensation (light, sound, &c.); to follow this up with an account of the action or change affected on the sensitive surface, (as the skin, the tongue, &c.); and then to proceed with a delineation of the feeling itself, according to the plan already laid down.

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In the case of the proper muscular sensibilities described in the foregoing chapter, an external agent could not be assigned in the same sense as light is to the eye, or hard surfaces to the skin. But with reference to the first class in Dr. Sharpey's enumeration, 'cuts, lacerations, and violent injuries,' we discern both an external agent and an assignable change in the substance of the muscle. There is, in those circumstances, a sudden break in the continuity of the fibre, which is an effect productive of pains in almost any tissue of the body. This is manifestly one of the effects calculated to give an intense shock to the nerves, originating an energetic and pungent stimulus, which is transmitted to the centres, and there wakens up both consciousness and activity in violent forms.

Such being the bodily Origin, let us complete the consideration of the PHYSICAL side, by attending to the outward effects, or embodiments, constituting the Expression of the feeling. And the remarks on this point, as well as the further delineation of the conscious state, will serve to typify acute physical pains generally.

It is well known that a characteristic expression attends Acute Pains. The features are violently contorted, the voice is excited to sharp utterances, the whole body is agitated. Sometimes the ordinary movements are quickened; at other times contortions and unusual gestures are displayed. It would appear that the agency causing the pain is such as to stimulate to an intense degree the whole moving system. Indeed, the infliction of pain (within limits) is one of the customary modes of rousing an animal or a human being from lethargy to activity. There is also a well known form of the countenance that marks the condition of pain, being produced by certain movements of the mouth, the nostrils, and the eyes, to be afterwards analyzed; but whatever be the direction given to these movements, they are marked by the characteristic of violence or intensity.

The accompaniment of sobbing shows that the involuntary muscles and glands are also affected.

But we should give a most inadequate account of the embodiment of pain, if we failed to note the successive stages of the manifestation. While the first shock may have all the characters of violence and exalted energy now mentioned, there follows, after a time, a state of prostration and exhaustion, showing that these lively manifestations are no proof of an increase of vital energy on the whole. On the contrary, it is demonstrable that of vital energy on the whole there is a great decrease. Violent exercises of any kind soon wear out the strength; but the depression of vital power in all parts of the system-organic functions as well as muscles—after an attack of pain, is much beyond what would follow from the same discharge of muscular energy in the absence of pain. This is a most material consideration, which is not to be disguised by the show of increased energy in the early stages. The director of the medical staff of the British Army in the Crimea was gravely in error when he discouraged the use of chloroform in surgical operations, on the ground that pain is a stimulant. If the termination is taken into account as well as the beginning, pain in every form, so far from being a stimulant, destroys the vital energies. Not only does muscular exhaustion follow, but the organic processes-the circulation, respiration, and digestion -are greatly enfeebled, an effect that does not usually result from mere violence of bodily movement.

These bodily manifestations, which are the natural accompaniment of acute pain (arising as an effect of the same cause), by being freely indulged in, operate as a diversion and a relief to the mental system. There is probably a physical sequence in this fact also. Great muscular exertion draws off the circulation from the brain to the muscles; and the effusion of tears also in some way reduces the congestion. We are not, however, rashly to conclude that, under great pain, a free vent to all the manifestations is preferable to forced quiescence or suppression; there is a great expenditure of power under both modes.

3. To pass now to the MENTAL side, or the character of

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the states in question, viewed as Feelings. We know, each one by our own consciousness, what they are; and they are generalized, pointed out, and understood, by such names as pain, suffering, agony, torture.

The quality of the feeling is pain. The degree is intense or acute. The measure is obtained in a twofold manner by comparing the pain with other pains, and by the amount of pleasure that it can neutralize. Taken in both ways, we consider the sufferings of wounds, lacerations, and acute derangements of our sensitive tissues, to rank among our greatest sufferings, our worst miseries. As respects specialities of character, we find language employed to discriminate the nature of different pains. A cut or a scald is different from a fit of rheumatism or gout. Neuralgia is different from the electric shock. We describe the varieties by such epithets as burning, gnawing, shooting, racking; and there is a pathological interest in noting these distinctions.

Pain is apt to rouse some special emotion, in accordance with the general temperament of the individual. Grief, terror, or rage, may prevail according to the circumstances, there being a natural connexion between the shock of acute suffering and all these passions.

Our plan of description requires us next to advert to the Volitional characteristics of acute pain. The general principle of volition, as applied to pains, holds in this instance. Such pains, in proportion to their intensity, stimulate us to efforts for mitigating and putting an end to them when present, and for avoiding them when there is danger of their recurrence. The peculiarity of the case that most deserves notice is, that since, for a time, they are stimulants of activity, the disposition to work for their abatement is very powerful at first, but fails at last with the prostration of the energies. The effective force of our volitions depends upon the active power of the system at the moment; and a state that increases this power, even by a wasteful stimulation, reaps the benefit of that increase, while anything that depresses and destroys the vital functions, as severe pain

does on the whole, to that extent paralyzes the action of the will. Hence, although a passing smart may waken up the activity, an intense and continuing pain will fail in the effect.

The movements that constitute the proper emotional manifestations, are apt to be mixed up and complicated with movements directed by the will with a view to relief. It is generally easy to discriminate the two classes, and it is important for understanding our mental structure that they should be discriminated. The volitional movements are such as are maintained solely because they bring a felt alleviation. If any specific posture is of this character, it is energetically adhered to; and if the mere vehemence of the outburst is found to deaden our sensibility to the pain, we are induced thereby to keep up the gesticulations prompted in the first instance by the emotional wave. Even in the lower animals, when we witness the convulsions that follow a shock to the physical system, we may satisfy ourselves as to the existence of true volitional movements, in company with the demonstrations that are the proper embodiment of the pain.

If we wish to measure the volitional urgency of a feeling, we can adopt the same mode of comparison as that suggested for the degree of pleasure or pain. When two feelings prompt in opposite ways, the one that determines the conduct is said to be volitionally the stronger.

There remains now the bearing of the feelings in question on the Intellect. Here, as in the Will, there is a general principle, liable to exceptions and modifications according to the circumstances of each particular case. The principle is, that feelings are discriminated, identified, and remembered according to their degree, whether in intensity or in quantity. This law holds within a moderate range of excitement. A very feeble impression cannot be nicely discriminated, and is little remembered. But the limitation arises when the degree is excessive and overpowering. There is a pitch of physical agony that overpowers the purely intellectual function of discrimination; and although retentiveness is