THE MUSCULAR SENSE 357 



feeling comes into existence with the exertion of the 

 muscles which raise the arm ; and it is the consciousness 

 of that exertion which goes by the name of " the muscular 



sense." . , , , ^^ 



Any one who raises or carries a weight krows well 

 enough that he has this sensation ; but he may be greatly 

 puzzled to say where he has it. Nevertheless, the sense 

 itself is very delicate, and enables us to form tolerably 

 accurate judgments of the relative intensity of resistances. 

 Persons who deal in articles sold by weight are constantly 

 enabled to form very precise estimates of the weight of 

 such articles by balancing them in their hands ; and in 

 this case, they depend in a great measure upon the mus- 

 cular sense. 



But the muscular sense embraces more than the mere 

 consciousness of the resistance to effort involved m lifting 

 a weight Thus it is a matter within everybody s experi- 

 ence that, even when the eyes are closed, we are perfectly 

 well aware of the direction, and extent of any movement 

 of any part of the body. Moreover we are equally con- 

 scious of the podtiov. of any part of the body at any 

 moment, whether the position is the result of our own 

 voluntary movement or the result of the action of some 

 other person who has placed the part in position. In all 

 such cases the muscular sense supplies the basis of our 

 knowledge of the position or of the movements of the 



parts of our body. 



The muscular sense is thus essentially concerned AMth 

 sensations arising from movements whether active or 

 passive Now the parts affected by these movements are 

 chiefly the following three ; the skin, the muscles and the 

 tendons or ligaments. It has been supposed that the 

 impulses which give rise to the sensations may be largely 

 due to the stimulation of cutaneous nerves resultmg from 

 the varying extent to which the skin is put on the stretch 

 by the movements ; but the arguments in favour of this 

 view are not conclusive. On the other hand we know 



