of propagation and increase is strikingly seen in the influence of quick movements. In a rapid walk, still more in a run, the consciousness is excited, the gesticulations and speech are rapid, the features betray a high tension. The increase of emotional fervour must be attributed to an exalted condition of the nervous system, of the kind produced by intoxicating stimulants in general. It requires a special education, easier in some temperaments than in others, to perform rapid movements with coolness.

Examples of this class of motions and feelings are sufficiently abundant. They are expressly sought to give hilarity and excitement to human life. The chace, the dance, the vehemence of oratory and gesture, are prized for their stimulating character as well as from their proper sensations. In the ecstatic worship of antiquity, in the rites of Bacchus and Demeter, a peculiar phrenzy overtook the worshippers, yielding an enjoyment of the most intense and violent character, and in its expression mad and furious. This state is often brought on among the Orientals of the present day, and always in a similar manner, that is, by intense and rapid dancing and music under the infection of a multitude.

Movements, when too quick, frequently excite the nerves to the state of dizziness and fainting, showing the extreme effect of the peculiarity we are describing.

19. We may advert next to some of the minor incidents connected with movement, and exerting notable influences on the consciousness. The sudden interruption of any movement causes a feeling of a very painful and unsettling kind. When one has drawn a blow and meets a sudden arrest half way, there is a revulsion of feeling that is very hard to bear. Doubtless there has been some adaptation of the impetus to the distant end, which is perverted when some nearer thing is put in the way. A shock or encounter that we are prepared for is not unpleasant, but one coming by surprise gives a most painful and confusing jerk to mind and body. Hardly anything rouses a burst of anger more readily than a sudden and unexpected check: being of the nature of an interruption to the whole bent and current of the system, the occurrence of it

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in any form is the occasion of a painful outburst most difficult to be appeased. The tripping of the foot, a sudden obstacle in our way, an arresting hand on the shoulder, cause a shock to the whole frame, often attended with a cold sweat, and taking some time to recover from. The sudden stoppage of any of our movements is the most usual cause of this general and distressing interruption,—an interruption that probably typifies a large class of feelings of the painful kind.

20. An equally remarkable and still more distressing circumstance connected with movements, is that arising from the sudden loss of support, as when the footing, or any prop that we lean upon, suddenly gives way. The contraction of a muscle demands two fixed points of resistance at its extremities; if one of those breaks loose, the force of the contraction has nothing to spend itself upon, and a false position is incurred. The contraction suddenly freed from its resistance does not make a vehement convulsive collapse like a spring; it would appear rather that the contractive force ceases almost immediately; and the sensation resulting is one of a most disagreeable kind. As in the previous case, this sensation seems to result rather from the jar given to the nervous system than from any influence flowing out of the muscle. The whole frame is agitated with a most revulsive shock, the cold perspiration is felt all over, and a sickening feeling seizes the brain. The breaking down of any prop that we are resting on, the snapping of a rope, or the sinking of a foundation, exemplify the most intense form of the effect. But we may probably look upon the peculiar influence whose repetition induces seasickness, to be of the same nature. The sinking of the ship has exactly the same unhinging action in a milder degree, although when continued for a length of time, this produces a far worse disturbance than any single break-down, however sudden. The precise physiological action in this situation does not seem agreed upon; the feeling is known to be one of the most distressing that human nature is subject to, being an intense and exaggerated form of stomachic sickness, with sensations in the head more aggravated than those occurring under any ordinary emetic.

Vertigo and swimming of the head are states that may be induced by movements of various kinds. Whirling is a comToo great rapidity of any movement may have

mon cause.

the same effect.

The state of feeling arising when a prop or support gives way may be experienced through mental causes, as when some great loss or disappointment overtakes a person. There is the same breach of confidence and the same nervous shock in both instances, although in the one the pure physical action is necessarily stronger.

21. We must advert next to the passive movements. Under these we include the case of being driven, or carried along, by some power without us. Riding in a vehicle is the commonest instance. One of the pleasures of human life is to be driven along at a moderate speed, in an easy carriage. Now it may be supposed at first sight, that there ought to be no feeling of muscular exertion whatsoever in this case, seeing that the individual is moved by other force than his or her own: and under certain circumstances this would be strictly true. We have no feeling of our being moved round with the earth's rotation, or through space by the movement about the sun. So in a ship we often lose all sense of being driven or carried along, and feel pretty much as if there were no forward movement at all. The sensibility arising in a carriage movement, is in part imbibed through the eye, which is regaled by the shifting scene, and partly through the irregularities of the movement,. which demand a very gentle action of the muscles of the body in order to adapt it to those irregularities. By springs and cushions all violence of shock is done away, while the easy exercise caused by the commencement and stoppages of the motion, by the slight risings and fallings of the road, is somewhat of the nature of that influence already described as arising from slow and languid movements. It must not be forgotten, however, that the stimulus of the fresh air, procured at little expense of exertion, and with the eye amused by a shifting scene, is no small part of the agreeableness, as well as wholesomeness of the situation.

In horse exercise there is a larger amount of the ingredient

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of activity. The rider is saved a part of the exhaustion caused in walking, and has yet exercise enough for the stimulus of the bodily functions, and for exciting muscular pleasure.

With children, the relish for passive movements seems remarkably keen. In them, however, such movements are rarely passive. When swung, or jumped, or driven, the child generally puts forth vigorous exertions of its own, and converts the passive into an active exercise, while children are particularly apt in their relish for the pleasure given to the eye by the shifting scene.

The rocking chair, introduced by the Americans, who seem specially attentive to the luxuries of muscular sensibility, is calculated for passive movements. Anciently furniture was adapted for the pleasures of repose solely, but now the boy's rocking horse has its representative among the appurtenances of grown men.

On the whole, it is apparent that a large fraction of physical enjoyment flows out of the moving apparatus and muscular tissue of the body. By ingeniously varying the modes of it, this enjoyment may be increased almost without limit. The pleasure comes incidentally to manual labour, when moderate in amount and alternated with due sustenance and repose, and is a great element of field sports and active diversions of every kind; it is a great part of the pleasures of locomotion; and in gymnastic exercises and athletic displays forms the principal ingredient.

III. Of the Discriminative or Intellectual Sensibility of Muscle.

22. In the two foregoing heads I have aimed at exhausting the emotional sensibility of muscle, or the feelings that have reference to pleasure or pain. Although these feelings may have more or less of an intellectual existence, that is, may remain in the memory and influence the pursuits, they are not on that account intellectual feelings. This designation indicates a quite different class of sensibilities, a class having very little of emotional character, so little that they

are not counted in the sum of human happiness or misery, but having, nevertheless, a very high value as instruments or media in attaining to the one and avoiding the other. They are comprised in the power that we have of discriminating the different degrees of force and range of muscular action. Our inward impressions are different for a small exertion and for a greater, and also for two different situations of a limb caused by a smaller and a larger degree of contraction. The emotional sensibility may not be very much altered by a great additional contraction in a muscle, indicated by a greater flexion of the part moved, but there is, notwithstanding, a discriminative sense that recognises the distinctness of the two positions. Discrimination is a very different thing from vivid emotion, and is often greatest when emotion is faintest. There is a contrast pervading the whole region of mind between discriminative and emotional sensibility. Now discrimination is the basis of intelligence. Even the discovery of agreement presupposes difference.

There are three distinct varieties of difference in muscular action. The first is the degree of exertion, or of expenditure of force, which necessarily measures the resistance to be encountered. The second respects the amount of contraction of the muscle, or the stage of shortening which it has reached; this connects itself with the situation or range of the organ moved. The third head is the greater or less rapidity of contraction, corresponding with the swiftness or velocity of the movement. In distinguishing the qualities of external things, and in forming permanent notions of the world, all these discriminations are brought into play.

23. First, with respect to degrees of exertion or of expended force.

Along with every kind of feeling whatsoever we have a sense of degree or intensity. We can discriminate between a more and a less vehement emotion. When experiencing the pain of fatigue, or the pleasure of healthy exercise, we recognise differences in the different stages of the feeling. To be affected more or less in different circumstances is almost a consequence of being affected at all. Accordingly, as an emotion