144 Traces of Unity in 



which counteracted the state of contraction in the living 

 muscle is no longer present, that the soft contents of the 

 muscular fibres and cells have become more or less 

 hardened a change, in fact, which, by bringing the 

 contents nearer to the molecular condition of the coats, 

 may annihilate the natural electricity of the muscle 

 by putting an end to that heterogeneity of structure 

 upon which it is dependent. 



The electrical history of nerve is the exact repetition 

 of that of muscle. There is no occasion to think 

 that " nervous influence," whatever that may be, differs 

 in its action from electricity. There is ho occasion to 

 apply to any agent other than electricity in order to 

 explain how it is that nerves act upon muscles in causing 

 contraction, and how muscles in Contracting may react 

 upon nerves and give rise to sensation or motion : for 

 the instantaneous currents of high tension which are 

 developed equally in nerve and muscle, when the state 

 of rest passes into that of action, extend beyond the 

 limits of the nerve and muscle, and, by so doing, may 

 reach froin the nerve to the muscle or from the muscle 

 to the nerve. Indeed, it seems necessary to believe that 

 the electromotive elements in nerve and muscle form one 

 apparatus in which the action of every part is intensified, 

 both during the time of charge and during the time of 

 discharge, by inter-acting with every other part. Nor is it 

 necessary in order to establish this parallelism between 

 the electrical histories of nerve and muscle that nerve 

 fibre should imitate muscular-fibre in elongating during 

 the time of charge and shortening at the time of dis- 

 charge : for the absence of these changes in nerve-fibre 

 may simply mean that the contents of the nerve-fibre 

 differ front those of the muscular fibre in being more 

 elaborated, and in fesembling> for that reason, the 



