274 THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 



suggested by association. Thus there is going on an ex- 

 tremely rapid departure from, and return to, that particular 

 mental state which we regard as persistent. Besides the 

 evidence of rhythm in consciousness which direct analysis 

 thus affords, we may gather further evidence from the cor- 

 relation between feeling and movement. Sensations and 

 emotions expend themselves in producing muscular contrac- 

 tions. If a sensation or emotion were strictly continuous, 

 there would be a continuous discharge along those motor 

 nerves acted upon. But so far as experiments with artificial 

 stimuli enable us to judge, a continuous discharge along the 

 nerve leading to a muscle, does not contract it : a broken dis- 

 charge is required — a rapid succession of shocks. Hence 

 muscular contraction pre-supposes that rhythmic state of 

 consciousness which direct observation discloses. A 



much more conspicuous rhythm, having longer waves, is 

 seen during the outflow of emotion into dancing, poetry, 

 and music. The current of mental energy that shows 

 itself in these modes of bodily action, is not continuous, but 

 falls into a succession of pulses. The measure of a dance 

 is produced by the alternation of strong muscular contrac- 

 tions with weaker ones ; and, save in measures of the simplest 

 order such as are found among barbarians and children, 

 this alternation is compounded with longer rises and falls 

 in the degree of muscular excitement. Poetry is a form of 

 speech which results when the emphasis is regularly recur- 

 rent ; that is, when the muscular effort of pronunciation has 

 definite periods of greater and less intensity — periods that 

 are complicated with others of like nature answering to the 

 successive verses. Music, in still more various ways, exem- 

 plifies the law. There are the recurring bars, in each of 

 which there is a primary and a secondary beat. There is the 

 alternate increase and decrease of muscular strain, implied 

 by the ascents and descents to the higher and lower notes — 

 ascents and descents composed of smaller waves, breaking 

 the rises and falls of the larger ones, in a mode peculiar to 



