FEELING OF MUSCULAR EXERTION. 99 inward feeling is, in such a case, an end and a prompter of voluntary action. In these circumstances, we notice that the volitional spur to keep up exertion is very high in the first moments of fresh and unexpended vigour. At the outset of the exercise it is difficult to check or restrain the pursuit. This, however, is not wholly the result of the pleasurable feeling prompting us to go on; we must allow something to that spontaneous discharge of activity, that I have insisted on as a fact of our constitution. The feeling of pleasure doubtless works along with the spontaneous tendency, and so far there is a volitional power in the conscious state induced by exertion. This power is not inconsiderable on the whole, although many pleasures surpass the present in this particular. If we take the cases where the feeling of exertion is at its highestnamely, the concurrence of youth with high muscular energy, or the athletic constitution at its prime, the pleasure will be very great indeed, and the volitional promptings to keep it up equally great. With the generality of men, however, the same strong terms cannot be applied to describe this species. of emotion, which in them sinks down to a second or thirdrate pleasure. It is also to be noted, that exertion is a means of soothing morbid activity of the nervous system, and is to that extent anti-volitional, like the state of healthy repose after muscular fatigue. There is here an effect partly physical and partly mental: physical, because exercise gives a new direction to the organic processes of circulation, respiration, &c.; and mental, because the emotion itself is capable of displacing and dissolving a considerable amount of the other emotions possessing the mind at the time. With regard, finally, to the Intellectual aspect of this state of mind-namely, its existence as a recollection and an idea, we must still pronounce it of a low order. Generally speaking, the feeling does not frequently or readily occupy the thoughts in the entire cessation of the reality, and is not an object of longing, of prospective or retrospective interest. This statement, which appears true in the main, is liable to a number of exceptions and qualifications, which I do not here enter upon. 15. Having thus endeavoured to present a delineation of the first and simplest variety of muscular consciousness under exertion, it remains only to cite a few examples of this form of the feeling. The supporting of a weight on the back, head, or chest, or by the arms, is a common example of dead tension. No other feeling besides the pure sensibility of muscular contraction can enter into this case. The most interesting form of it is the support of the body's own weight, which yields a perpetual feeling of the muscular kind, varying with the attitudes. The feeling is least when we lie at full length in bed, and greatest in the erect posture. Sometimes the weight is oppressive to us, and gives the sensation of fatigue; in a more fresh condition of the muscles it makes one item of our pleasurable consciousness. The fatigue of standing erect for a length of time is, perhaps, one of the commonest cases of muscular exhaustion. The pleasure of standing up after a lengthened repose gives an opposite feeling. When the bodily strength is great, the laying on of a burden is a new pleasure. In This case of great muscular tension, without movement, presents itself in an infinite variety of forms, in the course of mechanical operations, and in many other ways. holding on as a drag, in offering or encountering resistance of any sort, in compressing, squeezing, clenching, wrestling,we have various forms of the situation, and the foregoing description of the emotional state ought, if correct, to be applicable to all of them. A certain amount of movement may be permitted without essentially altering the case of dead tension, as in dragging a vehicle, or a boat, and in efforts of slow traction generally. In such cases a considerable number of muscles are kept tense at nearly one position, while those more especially concerned in locomotion are alternately relaxed and passed through the successive stages of contraction. This last element FEELING OF SLOW MOVEMENTS.. 101 I have expressly reserved, intending to make it a class by itself, the one next entered on. 16. When muscular tension brings about movements, there must be a gradually increasing contraction, and not a mere expenditure of power at one fixed attitude. Each muscle has to pass through a course of shortening, beginning, it may be, at the extreme state of relaxation, and passing on, sometimes slowly, and at other times rapidly, to the most shortened and contracted condition. The sensibility developed during this process, is greater in degree, and even somewhat different in kind, from that now discussed. As a general rule, the feeling is more intense and keen under movement, than under exertion without movement. The successive contraction of the muscle would seem capable of originating a more vivid stimulus than the fixed contraction. We even find, that in different degrees of rapidity, the sensibility changes considerably, which requires us to make a division of movements into several kinds. 17. Let us first advert to what we may term, by comparison, slow movements. By these I understand such as a loitering, sauntering walk, an indolent style of doing things, a solemn gesture, a drawling speech, whatever is set down as leisurely, deliberate, dawdling. The emotion arising from this kind of movement is far greater than an equal effort of dead tension would produce. Indeed we may say, that this is an extremely voluminous and copious state of feeling: being both abundant and strong, although deficient in the element that we recognise as the sense of energy, or of expended force; in fact, approaching more to the class of passive emotions. We may derive the greatest amount of pleasurable sensibility, at the least cost of exertion, through the means of well-concerted slow movements. The emotional state is not overwhelmed by the expenditure of active power, and hence the enjoyment is keen. We are thoroughly alive to the effect that is produced, and thus a feeble stimulus yields a great pleasure. The peculiar quality of the state may be still farther described by specifying the emotions in close relation to it. We find among these the emotions of awe, solemnity, veneration, and others of the class of mingled tenderness and fear, indicating still further the deficiency of active tone already adverted to. The funeral pace, the solemn, slow enunciation of devotional exercises, the drawling tones of organ music, are chosen on account of this relationship. The whole expression of the feeling is in accordance with the nature of the action itself. The other members, chiming in with the principal, affect movements of the like slowness. The action suits the word, and the word the action. There is a striking and instructive similarity of character between this feeling and the state of approaching sleep. In both cases we have a luxurious passive emotion, arising out of the peculiar condition of the muscles; and such is the accordance or sympathy of the two, that the one is well known to bring on the other with its accompanying reality. Slow movements are entirely out of keeping with a fresh and active bodily tone; they are repugnant and intolerable in such a situation. They are nevertheless of great use in soothing down a morbid excitement, or an excessive and mistimed activity, and in preparing the way for absolute repose. After a bustling day, tranquillity is restored by the sympathy of languid movements, or stately music. Hence one of the influences ascribed to acts of devotion and the forms of worship. There is every reason to believe that movements, gradually increasing or gradually diminishing, are more productive of pleasurable emotion than such as are of a uniform character. Indeed a uniform movement is altogether of artificial acquirement. The natural swing of the limbs tends to get quicker and quicker, up to the full stretch, and to die away again gradually. Through that deep-seated bond which connects feeling with action, and generates in our emotions the tendency to perpetuate themselves, if of the pleasurable kind, each emotional state feeds itself, and, in many cases, is satisfied only with an increase. A vast number of our feelings are of this thirsting character, and a bare and even continuance is felt as a privation. But, altogether apart from this view of the great law of volition, there would appear to be a special FEELINGS OF QUICK MOVEMENTS. 103 emotion connected with the acceleration or steady diminution of movement. The gradual dying away of a motion is pleasurable and graceful in every sort of activity, in gesture, in the dance, in speech, in vision. The 'dying fall' in sound is not so obviously a case of muscular effect, but I am satisfied that it is really so. If a common character pervades all such cases, the sensibility can belong only to the muscles, and if so this is the sweetest and most thrilling of all the muscular emotions. It is one of the ends of artistic education to acquire movements to bring out this effect. 18. We pass next to the consideration of quick movements. They differ considerably in feeling both from dead exertion and from a slow rate of action. Although there is still a common muscular sensibility at the bottom, the specific nature of it is very widely varied. The first and obvious effect of quickness is to increase the stimulus or excitement passing to the nerve centres. The feeling must for this reason become more intense, or vehement. But it would be a mistake to suppose that it always possesses the mind more thoroughly than the emotions of slow movement. The activity of the frame prevents the emotion from developing itself fully, and hence with an increased stimulus there may be less of actual feeling. What there is of emotion is more vehement, and more bound up with the sense of action and energy, which is the characteristic ingredient of muscular sensibility. A further peculiarity of quick movements, as distinguished from the mere putting forth of force, is the tendency to excite and inflame the system into a still more intense condition, such as we term elation, animal spirits, with boisterous manifestations: what may be called mechanical intoxication. The effect thus arising from rapid movements furnishes a salient proof of the influence belonging to movement, over and beyond dead tension. It is not the mere pouring in of nervous stimuli, and the development of great contractile force in a muscle, but the actual course of contraction gone through that yields the greatest amount of excitement in the brain, an excitement not satisfied till it impress a similar activity on all the organs of the frame. The power |