CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE WILL 71 



is transmitted to the muscles, resulting in their 

 contraction and the movement of the limb. The 

 sensory stimulus carried by the sensory nerve is 

 certainly quite unlike the motor stimulus culminat- 

 ing in muscle contraction. The " disparateness " 

 of the two occurrences, sensation and contraction, 

 is sufficiently marked. The muscle contraction, fa- 

 miliar as it is, belongs among the obscure phenomena 

 of physiology ; no one knows the real nature of the 

 changes in the muscle fiber that result in shortening. 

 Nevertheless, it has occurred to nobody to set up a 

 doctrine of parallelism like that which is so warmly 

 advocated in the case of consciousness. It is frankly 

 admitted by all that contraction of the muscle is a 

 function of the muscle and that the motor impulse 

 awakens chemical alterations in the muscle fiber 

 which cause the shortening we call contraction. 

 This straightforward rational view is disturbing to 

 nobody. Consequently we do not find eminent men 

 maintaining that contraction and nervous impulse 

 are concomitant phenomena or that contraction pre- 

 cedes nervous impulses. 



It may be objected that it is not fair to liken the 

 function of muscle contraction to the obviously 

 more subtle one of consciousness, and that in doing 

 so we are comparing things wholly unlike. Yet there 

 is a feature of muscular contraction which brings it 

 into the closest relation with consciousness. It is 

 through the agency of the muscle sense that the 

 nervous system is apprised of the position of the body 



