88 ANIMAL-SENTIENT FORCES. [i. 



numerous errors, — since there are also those which arise 

 from spontaneous conceptions and from external sensations 

 (97, 98, 351). It is, consequently, equally incorrect to say, that 

 the functions of certain muscles, as the heart, intestinal canal, 

 &c., do not depend on the mind, because the mind has no 

 control over them, for the external sensations, imaginations, 

 instincts, and passions equally change, increase, or diminish 

 them, although the mind exercises at the same time no vo- 

 litional influence. 



Note. — Haller seems to be of the opinion, that no movements 

 except the voluntary are produced by the soul, " ^Eterna lege 

 separatur voluntatis imperium ab irritabiiitatis provincia'^ 

 ('Elem. Phys.,^ torn, iv, p. 528). He recognises, nevertheless, 

 the action of the imaginations, sensations, instincts, and emo- 

 tions, and proves somewhat unnecessarily that they are not 

 volitional movements (ibid., p. 525). It necessarily follows 

 that the sensational conceptions, desires, instincts, &c., are not 

 mental, but corporeal, as Haller, in his *^ Physiology,' § 564, 

 and other places in his writings, seems to maintain. But no 

 sound metaphysician can grant such a confusion of ideas, as we 

 shall subsequently show it to be (579, iii). 



163. All muscular actions are animal actions, in so far as 

 they are excited by the nerves; they are only sentient when 

 excited by conceptional impressions in the brain. We may 

 enumerate walking, standing, sitting, flexion and extension 

 of the limbs, respiration and its modifications, as speaking, 

 laughing, singing, wailing, sighing, coughing, sneezing, de- 

 glutition, digestion in the stomach and intestines, the action 

 of the heart, and the circulation in connection with cardiac 

 action, as animal functions, which may be sentient (167). On 

 the other hand every action of a muscle, which takes place in 

 virtue of its physical contraction, or of physical or mechanical 

 moving forces, or by the influence of the vessels, or through 

 its membranes or tendons, or other impressions than the ap- 

 propriate ones, is neither animal nor sentient (162). 



164, i. When a muscular movement, or an action resulting 

 therefrom, is a sentient action, a special impression on the 

 cerebral origin of the nerve that controls the muscle is neces- 

 sary thereto (123, 124), and which is propagated downwards 

 through special fibrils of the nerve to the muscle into \vhich it 



