Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

EMBODIMENT OF MUSCULAR FEELING.

79

in this way often relieved from a morbid excess of blood. The lungs are stimulated to increased action. The elimination of waste matter from the skin is promoted. There is a great increase of animal heat. Provided the waste of nutritive material caused by these various modes of increased

characters of a sensation.' Ludwig thus appeals to our consciousness as presenting the feeling of muscular energy in a characteristic form, and distinct from the feeling of muscular pains. And in this he seems to be right; for if consciousness be a safe guide in the matter, we should say that in the case of a voluntary effort, the feeling is as of power going out of us, and not as of a surface of sense stimulated by an external agent, and transmitting an impression inwards to the nerve centres.

The view that organic muscular pains are stimulated through the sensory fibres is strongly maintained by Ludwig. His reasons are:-First, Sensory fibres are distributed to the muscles along with the motor nerves. Secondly, the involuntary muscles, no less than the voluntary, are the seat of acute pains. Thirdly, the stimulation of the anterior roots does not produce pain. Fourthly, pains arising from long-continued action of the muscles exist for days after the cessation of the excitement of the motor nerves. This last phenomenon is explained by the chemical destruction of the muscular tissue, which has an irritating effect upon the sensory nerves existing in the muscles.

Finally, Wundt expresses himself as follows: 'Whether the sensations, accompanying the contraction of the muscles, arise in the nerve-fibres that transmit the motor impulse from the brain to the muscles, or whether special sensory fibres exist in the muscles, cannot be decisively settled. Certain facts, however, make the first assumption more probable. If special nervefibres existed, they must be connected with special central cells, and thus, in all probability, the central organs for the apprehension of these sensations would be different from those which send out the motor impulse; there would be two independent nerve-systems, the one centripetal, the other centrifugal. But in the one-the medium of the sensation—nothing else could be regarded as the stimulus than the changes taking place in the muscle, the contraction, or perhaps the electrical process in nerve and muscle accompanying the contraction. Now, this process is known to keep equal pace with the energy of the muscular contraction; and we must expect that the muscular sensation would constantly increase and decrease with the amount of internal or external work done by the muscle. But this is not the case, for the strength of the sensation is dependent only on the strength of the motive impulse, passing outwards from the centre, which sets on the innervation of the motive nerves.' This is proved by numerous cases of pathological disturbance of the muscular action in a limb. The patient can make a great muscular exertion, and have the corresponding sensation, although the limb be hardly moved. But, naturally, after long-repeated trial, this small movement becomes associated with the increased exertion.

action is duly supplied, the vital force of the system as a whole is raised by muscular exercise.

So much for the corporeal seat or Origin of the sensibility in question. There is still another physical aspect, namely, the Expression or Embodiment of the Feeling, which is not only the means of making known the state to others, but also an essential concomitant of its own existence.

By the very nature of the case, the feeling arising from great bodily exertion, is liable to be wanting in Expression, properly so called. The organs are so completely employed in the exercise itself, that they are not disposable as instruments of the expression of the feeling. The features of the face and the voice, which are by pre-eminence the organs of expression, are exerted chiefly in sympathy with the muscles engaged in the exercise. Hence, as regards outward embodiment, there is nothing to be remarked in connexion with muscular effort generally. It is only when the feeling happens to be pleasurable or the reverse, that any expression is shown, and such expression is merely the attendant of the pleasure or the pain as such.

12. We pass now to the MENTAL side. In reviewing the characteristics of the mental accompaniment of muscular action, viewed as Feeling, we will advert first to its Quality.

Observation shows that this is pleasurable, indifferent, or painful, according to the condition of the system. The first outburst of muscular vigour in a healthy frame, after rest and nourishment, is highly pleasurable. The intensity of the pleasure gradually subsides into indifference; and, if the exercise is prolonged beyond a certain time, pain ensues. In ordinary manual labour, there may be, at commencing in the morning and after meals, a certain amount of pleasure caused by the exercise, but it is probable that during the greater part of a workman's day, the feeling of exertion is in most cases indifferent. If we confine ourselves to the discharge of surplus energy in muscular exertion, there can be no doubt that this is a considerable source of pleasure in the average of human beings, and doubtless also in the animal

tribes.

PLEASURE OF MUSCULAR EXERCISE.

81

The fact is shown in the love of exercise for its own sake, or apart from the ends of productive industry, and the preservation of health. In the case of active sports and amusements, there are additional sources of pleasurable excitement, but the delight in the mere bodily exertion would still be reckoned one ingredient in the mixture.

A part of the pleasure of exercise must be attributed to the increase of vital power generally; and the question arises, may not the whole be due to the augmented force of the circulation, respiration, &c.? It is certain that the rising to a higher condition as regards these important functions, is a source of pleasurable excitement. We may reasonably suppose, however, that the muscular system, which is the seat of so much unquestioned sensibility, should be capable of affording pleasure under favourable conditions. And I think our consciousness attests the same fact. The agreeable feeling in the exercise of the muscular organs, when the body is strong and fresh, can be localized, or referred to the muscles actually engaged. And it will be seen, as we proceed, that there are various facts connected with movement that are inexplicable, unless we suppose that the muscular tissue is of itself a seat of pleasurable, as it certainly is of painful, sensibility.

As to the Degree of this pleasure, we must of course pronounce it variable according to circumstances. But taking a common case, as that of an average healthy human being, going through each day the amount of bodily exercise that the system can afford, we should have to admit that this is an appreciable constituent of happiness. Doubtless by contriving such a combination of exercises as to bring all the powerful muscles into full play, the pleasure could be increased considerably above the ordinary experience in this respect. The pleasure is not what would be called acute, or of great intensity; its degree arises from the stimulation of a large mass of tissue.

A measure of the degree of our pleasures is found, not merely in comparing one with another in consciousness, but

also in observing the pains that they are respectively able to subdue. In this particular case, however, there is a tendency to subdue pain, not through the evolution of pleasure merely, but through some of the direct physical consequences of muscular movement. The derivation of blood from the brain reduces the cerebral excitement, and with that the mental excitement, and so may operate in quenching painful irritation.

The third point in the description respects any Speciality in the case, serving still further to describe or characterize the feeling in question. Now, as regards muscular exertion, there is a notable speciality, a radical difference in kind, signified by such phrases as 'the sense of power,' 'the feeling of energy put forth,' 'the experience of force or resistance.' This is an ultimate phase of the human consciousness, and the most general and fundamental of all our conscious states. By this experience we body forth to ourselves a notion of resistance, force, or power, together with the great fact denominated an external world. In the sense of energy exerted, we are said to go out of self, or to constitute a something in vital contrast to all the rest of our mental experiences, a notme as opposed to the me of passive sensibility and thought.

With regard to the Volitional peculiarities of the pleasure of muscular exercise there is not much to be remarked. As a pleasure it will work for its own perpetuation, increase, or renewal. According to the doctrine of spontaneous activity, the sense of pleasure would not be necessary for our passing into an active state in the first instance; but would simply operate to maintain the activity, and, by help of intelligent forethought, to keep the system in a high condition of fitness for the periodical effusion of energy.

The distinctively Intellectual properties of the muscular feelings will have to be referred to, as the sources of highly important perceptions. But before considering these, we should notice an intellectual aspect or property belonging to these feelings, in their strict character of feelings, or as pleasures and pains,—namely, the fact of their greater or less

FEELING OF EXPENDED ENERGY.

83

persistence in the memory, so as to constitute ideal pleasures or pains, and, in that capacity, to stimulate the will in pursuit or in avoidance. A pleasure may be very intense in the actual, but feeble in the ideal, or in the memory. Such a pleasure would not, in absence, prompt the will to energetic efforts for realizing it. Now, the pleasures of muscular exercise do not take a high place among persisting, remembered, or ideal pleasures; they are perhaps not at the bottom of the scale in this respect, but they are not much higher than the least intellectual of the sensations, as, for example, those of Digestion. But individuals differ in regard to this point; and in so far as active amusements and sports, and occupations largely involving muscular exercise, are a fixed object of passionate pursuit, for their own sakes, to that extent they must abide in thought, or possess intellectual persistence.

But the truly important intellectual aspect of muscular feeling is something quite different from any ideal pleasures and pains of exercise. It regards the discriminating and identifying of degrees and modes of the characteristic consciousness of expended energy; an experience corresponding with the great facts of the object world, named, resistance, force, power, velocity, space, time, &c. In these perceptious there is a neutrality as regards pleasure or pain.

We have already seen that, between the pleasure of exercise and the pain of fatigue, there is an intermediate state where there is still the characteristic feeling of energy expended. In this state, we usually cease to attend to the feeling, as feeling proper; we are rather occupied with the purely intellectual functions of discrimination and agreement; we think of the present expenditure as greater or less than some other expenditure, or as agreeing with some previously known instances. This is to be intellectually engrossed; and, under such an engrossment in the case of muscular exercise, we assume the object attitude; we are not self-conscious, but are engaged in knowing certain purely object facts called force, extension, &c.

Even if muscular exertion were attended with the

« ForrigeFortsæt »