OF THE VOLUNTARY MOTIONS. 185 



289. The voluntary motions are the distinguishing- 

 characteristics of the animal from the vegetable king- 

 dom. For no plant has been discovered procuring for 

 itself food by means of voluntary motion; nor any 

 animal incapable of locomotion, or at least of pro- 

 curing sustenance by the voluntary motion of individual 

 members. 



290. In ourselves, these motions afford a striking 

 proof of the intimate harmony that subsists between the 

 body and the mind, and is demonstrated in the rapid 

 and various motions of the fingers of a good per- 

 former on the harp, and of the vocal organs whenever 

 we speak.* 



NOTE. 



(A) Those muscles, I conceive, are called voluntary, which 

 we ordinarily have the power of directly contracting : those in- 

 voluntary, which we have not ordinarily the power of directly 

 contracting. These two definitions appear to me unexceptionable. 



The latter does not contradict what is unquestionably true, 

 that we can indirectly affect involuntary muscles, as the heart or 

 stomach, by thinking of certain objects, and thus exciting cer- 

 tain emotions - } nor does the former contradict another truth, 

 that voluntary muscles often contract without or against our 

 will. And this leads me to remark that the respiratory muscles 

 deserve the epithet voluntary as much as any in the body, for we 



* A person playing on the harp, dancing:, and singing, at the same time, 

 exercises about three hundred muscles at once. G. Ent, Animudv. in Thrus- 

 oni diatribam. p. 130. 



