DISCUSSION 175 



more efficient in muscular action than a larger, who may be 

 to all intents in equally good physical condition. We 

 designate the smaller as "wiry," but in reality the nerve 

 fibers governing the actions of his muscles are probably more 

 sensitive and efficiently responsive to stimuli. Again, one 

 man may have a reserve of so-called nervous energy which 

 another lacks. In athletic competition the writer has 

 attained results of which he was incapable without the 

 nervous stimulus which such competition induced. Finally, 

 he has personally known a man who was subject to epileptic 

 fits to exhibit during such a seizure a phenomenal amount 

 of strength that must have been close to one hundred 

 per cent greater than that of which he was usually capable; 

 and a man may also perform very unusual feats of strength 

 while hypnotized. 



The above facts indicate that the quaUty of muscular 

 action is directly dependent, to a greater degree than is 

 popularly realized, upon the quality of nervous impulse 

 which the muscles receive, and this may be designated as 

 nervous tone, as contrasted with muscular tone. Its average 

 is fairly constant for a given group — genus or subfamily — 

 but there is no reason for presuming that the nervous tone 

 of a wide variety of mammals must be approximately the 

 same. It is recognized that at least in comparison with 

 carnivores and other primates, man is, in most respects, a 

 relatively puny mammal, in spite of the fact that many men 

 are heavily muscled. Experiments to test the strength of 

 anthropoid apes have not been particularly satisfactory, 

 but it has been ascertained with seeming conclusiveness that 

 a chimpanzee of moderate size can perform certain feats 

 necessitating strength several hundred per cent greater than 

 can a man with muscles of equal or even greater bulk (see 

 Bauman, 1926). The muscles of the ape may well be in 

 better physical condition than could be attained by those of 

 a man, but it is maintained that most of such instances of 



