140 Traces of Unity in 



making and breaking the circuit) associated with the 

 current. Indeed, the conclusion to which I have come 

 respecting the natural electricity of muscle is that the 

 current phenomena made known by the galvanometer 

 are, not primary, but secondary, the result merely of 

 bringing together, through the coil of the galvanometer, 

 parts which are electrically dissimilar, and which 

 naturally are kept apart and dissimilar by reason of 

 their comparative want of conductibility, and that the 

 primary electrical condition of the mus.de is that which 

 is brought to light by the electrometer-r-a state of 

 charge during rest, a state of discharge, when rest 

 changes into action. Nor is it altogether unintelligible 

 that it should be so. For what is, the cas.e as set forth 

 in the argument ? It is that the coats and the contents 

 of each muscular fibre and cell are sufficiently hetero- 

 geneous to constitute a voltaic element, and that the 

 oxygen in the blood or air passages or elsewhere serves 

 as the developing medium. It is that this voltaic 

 element, owing to imperfect conductibility somewhere, 

 is, while the muscle is at rest, in the state of open- 

 circuit rather than in that of closed-circuit, and that, for 

 this reason, the state of (Jtarge predominates over that 

 of current a state of charge in which one half of the 

 element is positive and the other half negative. It is 

 that the charged parts, by reason of the mutual repul- 

 sion of their molecules which is set up by the charge, 

 are in a state of expansion, and that the softer parts the 

 contents of the fibre or cell may be more expanded 

 than the harder the coats. It is that the contents of 

 the fibre or cell, as the softer parts, may be the only 

 parts in which expansion may operate perceptibly. It is 

 that this expansion of the contents may cause elonga- 

 tion of the fibre or cell, for the simple reason that the 



