VOLUNTARY MOTION. 449 



of complicated grouping 1 and combinations of many muscles, far beyond 

 any educated capacity which the individual is known to have acquired. 

 This expectation is frequently realized in individuals when under the 

 dominion of exalted emotions, in insane persons, and in persons when 

 in mesmeric, somnambulic, trance, and other abnormal conditions, who 

 often perform feats of agility, dexterity, and wonderful freedom and 

 precision in the combined contractions of a great many muscles of the 

 body, equaling the nimbleness and mobility of the ballet-dancer, the sure- 

 footedness of the rope-walker, and the consummate skill of the trained 

 acrobat, although they had no special training calculated to qualify 

 them for the performance of such feats. In fact, in their normal states, 

 they did not believe themselves capable of performing such feats, be- 

 cause they had not yet learned that the feats, marvelous as they seemed 

 to themselves and others, were already accomplished facts, packed 

 away in their organizations, awaiting the magic word, the real " open 

 sesame" to command them to come forth. The records are loaded 

 with such unused facts, that are simply labeled " abnormal," and then 

 abandoned. It will generally be found, however, that the abnormal, 

 simply from the fact that it is abnormal an outlaw to all that is now 

 considered fixed and established in science is the key to a higher law 

 and a broader generalization. A few illustrations will suffice : 



Dr. Rush relates the case of a young man named Wilkison, in whom 

 the habit of stammering was suspended during his mental derangement, 

 but returned as soon as he began to mend. 1 It is evident that, in stam- 

 mering, the groupings of muscular contractions which produce articu- 

 late sounds are very different from those which produce the sounds 

 without stammering. From some cause, not yet understood, there is in 

 stammering an interference with the correct muscular groupings which, 

 we claim, are organic and inherited, and a series of random, confused, 

 and semi-spasmodic muscular movements become mixed up with the 

 correct groupings. In this instance, the mixture had continued from 

 childhood up to manhood, a period long enough surely to have agglu- 

 tinated them indissolubly together, if practice, habit, or education, ever 

 caused such agglutinations, as some believe. It is evident, therefore, 

 that this man not only had not learned or acquired by education the 

 correct use of his muscles of articulation, but had seemingly acquired 

 an incorrect use of them ; yet, the moment he became insane, the im- 

 pediment was removed, the habits of a lifetime vanished, and his 

 organically inherited command over those muscles asserted itself, and 

 enabled him to do what he had never done before, and what, unless 

 the views which we have presented are correct, must be acquired 

 after birth, and can only be acquired after birth by long-continued 

 practice. 



The following case is related by Dr. Abercrombie : A lady laboring 

 under some disease of the nervous system, not disclosed by an autopsy, 



1 Rush, " Medical Inquiries and Observations on Diseases of the Mind, 1 ' p. 254. 

 VOL. xm. 29 



